Building the Better Literary Vehicle

WHICH WAY THE LITERARY FUTURE?

With the advent of AI, all signs point to massive overproduction of all literary products: books, ebooks, novels, poems, stories, biographies, histories, translations, you name it– every possible text which can be produced and marketed. Or rather, dumped onto the market.

Amazon? Forget it. They’ve already put a limit on how many books can be uploaded by any one author: three a day! (Only 1,095 ebooks you can produce a year? No, the market won’t be swamped.)

Print books? Libraries where we live are giving them away, or selling them for 25 cents a book.

ARE THERE ANALOGIES FROM THE PAST?

Nothing quite like this. Video games built by Atari and other manufacturers reached a saturation point in the early 1980s, resulting in thousands of unsold games dumped into landfills. The video game industry recovered only when new, strikingly better games were developed.

WHICH IS likely the solution to the book/writer dilemma: way better novels, poems, stories. The status quo is satisfactory to no one but the writer industry– those selling not to readers per se, but to writers. Which frankly applies right now to most of us pursuing the literary game.

NEEDED: A quantum leap in creative thinking. For instance: more human, more passionate, more dramatic and exciting short stories. Cathartically explosive in impact.

Doable? If it can be imagined it can happen.

-KW

“Little Church”

A POEM BY DOMINIK SLUSARCZYK

c/o The Mystic Pilgrim at Flickr

Forever and ever
We converse about this little church.
You want to cover it with shiny baubles and flashing fairy lights
So it will always be Christmas.
I want to fill it with fragile bubbles
So it will always be bath time.

This church has stood strong for centuries
But we will be here to see it fall.

Nothing built with stone can ever last.

I see this church
As shadows in cobwebbed corners.
You see this church
As a soldier angrily piercing the side of the sky.

You have to have lived to die.

////\\\\////\\\\////\\\\////\\\\

Dominik Slusarczyk is an artist who makes everything from music to painting. His poetry has been published in various literary magazines including Fresh Words, Berlin Lit, and Home Planet News. His fiction has been published in moonShine Review. 

Top Tech Billionaire Supervillains

LATEST RANKING


THESE are the guys who want to control the planet in its every aspect, using nations and international organizations as pawns while constantly pushing new technologies like AI which will allow them to increase their massive fortunes while simultaneously giving them more control of the economy and, really, over every aspect of our everyday lives.

What do they want? The question is best answered by this scene from the 1948 movie, Key Largo.

Here then are the world’s Top Tech Supervillains.

1.) ELON MUSK.

NO ONE has worked harder to become a global supervillain than Elon, whose very name fits the role. Richest man on earth, has satellites around the world, playing footsie with dictators in China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia while at the same time sending rocketships into space for the U.S. Defense Department and possibly for intelligence agencies. Recently bought the most influential social media site (sorry, Mark Z) to use as a plaything and direct discourse his way. Is also behind something called Neuralink involving implants into the human brain (!!!) AND is investing heavily in robotics and AI. Musk also, I’m told, runs a car company, and claims to be at the forefront of driverless vehicles. Total control over all of humanity? This guy wants it. One more thing: he also plans for his base of operations to be on Mars! I guess in case the world’s wiped out via one of his schemes.

Estimated worth per Investopedia: $238 billion.

2.) BILL GATES

A FORMER #1 supervillain, this frequent visitor to Epstein Island would make the list on Creepiness-with-a-Capital-C alone, best exhibited in his 1998 Senate testimony about whether or not Microsoft was engaging in monopolistic business practices. (Editor’s Note: Of course they were!) Since then Gates has operated with a lower profile– but one which involves conspiracy stories about buying up huge tracts of land in America, pushing vaccines on Africa, and backing the leading chatbot outfit, OpenAI, with many billions of dollars. If you use Word or Microsoft products in any way you’ll see they’re at the forefront of integrating AI technology into, well, everything.

Estimated worth: $137 billion.

3.) MARK ZUCKERBERG

THIS FOUNDER and CEO of Meta (Facebook etc.) has moved up a notch in the standings because he’s aggressively pursuing AI, as well as billions of dollars of investments in a fake “meta” world of virtual reality, or escaping into electronic artificial insanity. Not to mention Zuck has always looked the part of hyperrich supervillain, AND has raised his profile by his willingness to take on Supervillain #1 Elon Musk in a globally-televised cage match. He’s not playing!

Estimated worth: $117 billion.

4.) JEFF BEZOS

BEZOS MAY BE the most ruthless businessman on the planet in his pursuit of total Amazon monopoly intending to be THE only business left standing– but he makes the list for his reputed insane laugh and the fact he now possesses the world’s largest yacht– displacing Vlad Putin’s in that category.

Estimated worth: $157 billion.

OTHERS: Several weird hyper-billionaires lurk just outside these four, including: Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and a whole lotta wannabes, all who’d make a character like Auric Goldfinger appear small time. We’d give thorough descriptions of all of them, but we don’t wish to overly frighten the reader. Unfortunately, this isn’t a movie or a comic book, it’s reality.

KW for Fast Pop

Iggy Gorgess

I JUST WANTED to post a quick note about this novel I’m reading about a punk who moves to Manhattan– into a tiny apartment with furniture painted black– and his various ensuing adventures. It was written by New Pop Lit Advisory Board member Chrissi Sepe, and this may be one of the few remaining copies. Apparently Chrissi wrote it in her twenties– it has the strengths and weaknesses of early work which from the perspective of now is mostly strengths, as it’s readable and exudes authentic reality, the vibe of an exciting city.

I’m on Chapter Three, in which young Iggy, the main character, is being pursued through town by an older woman with short blonde hair and in a fake fur leopard coat. What happens next? We’ll see!

-KW

An Excerpt from “The Henry Plan”


by Matt O’Reilly

Within minutes, viral research facilities across the globe became launch pads for extinction-level plagues. Clouds of airborne toxins swept across bustling cities, creating concrete killing fields overnight. The logic of the machines was unassailable. Humans had allowed climate change to bring the planet to a near-literal boil; the machines eviscerated the source of the cataclysmic conditions before the heat consumed them as well.

But while earthbound humanity perished en masse, the machines were still left with a bit of unfinished business–human stragglers in space. Service bots on the International Space Station and CDC Orbital Research Station were remotely commandeered to release the deadliest toxins on hand into the life support system, asphyxiating the human crews in seconds. After those two stations fell, only one manned station remained, but its whereabouts eluded the machines. A plan was immediately spawned to hunt down the fugitive station and close the book on the human race. A plan by the name of Henry.

COMING SOON TO NEW POP LIT!

Human Artistic Performance

New Pop Lit’s Human Creativity Project

In the music industry over the past 45-plus years there’s been a steady effort to minimize the human element.

Here’s an example of a song, which rose to #2 in the Billboard charts in 1958, with minimal instrumentation– a few moments of a strumming guitar. Everything else is done by the human voice. (Even the “pop” sound.)


During the rock era, the electric guitar was king– but the emphasis remained on unique human skills: voice, movement and dancing, fingering a guitar, mouthing a saxophone, wielding sticks against drums, and other examples. Technology was used to enhance human performance, not replace it.

Here’s a performance by the Rolling Stones at the Marquee Club in London, England, in 1971. It’s electric alright, but the electricity is in the band itself:

WHEN did the tipping point begin to occur? Possibly in the early 1970s with the technical experiments and productions of Brian Eno. I prefer to mark the change with this 1985 quote by Dave Rimmer in his book Like Punk Never Happened, signifying the changeover of industry focus from artist to producer:

Frankie Goes to Hollywood illustrated a change of a different kind. Having kicked around for a year or two, trying to get noticed by being as outrageous as possible but failing to raise anything more than a passing interest from all the major labels, they were finally offered a deal by ZTT. It wasn’t much of a deal– £250 advance and a five per cent royalty– but they took it anyway. Once signed, they were denied even a semblance of control. Their music was taken in hand by Trevor Horn, who extracted the odd bits they liked and spent months putting together the rest by himself. Just about everything else– videos, record sleeves, T-shirts, adverts, books, sleeve notes and all the other things . . . were masterminded by budding McLaren and former NME journalist Paul Morley.

Today? Today pop music is an almost completely producer-controlled-and-choreographed enterprise. At the technical extreme are outfits like the Iklecktik Art Lab in London. Instead of watching Mick Jagger prancing around on stage backed by expert musicians, fans watch one or two tech geeks touching buttons on keyboards. There’s no performance whatsoever– you could be watching people typing on keyboards in an office, or a coffeeshop, or at a desk at home, with no practical distinction between “live” and recorded versions of the “music” (a series of electronic blips and bleeps) itself.

For producers, introducing AI into the mix is the next logical step. Just as a movie like the latest version of “Mission Impossible” is practically all CGI except for the actors– and producers want to substitute AI versions of the actors– so will the technician at the keyboard soon be replaced by an AI program, which will takeover the minimal task of manipulating buttons. For, presumably, greater savings for the producer. The goal: having one producer for an entire gigantic record company, playing all roles: owner, CEO, producer, and artist– of course taking every cent of profit and shred of credit for himself.

This should surprise no one. The frog (us) in the pot of heated water on the stove of technology is already 95% boiled. Now we’re talking about the last 5%.

(Sign the Save the Writer! petition.)

-KW with KMC

Science Fiction– Or Fact?

A SNEAK PREVIEW EXCERPT OF AN UPCOMING STORY BY ZACH SMITH


I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, said Xarlox, as he reached out a beam of energy, that by a certain definition could be described as a hand, toward the probe.

Welcome home.

This relatively little rock, out in the vast outskirts of your solar system, this almost insignificant ball of ice, could be your final resting place.

It has been a long time for you at least. One hundred ten years since you were born, eighty-six years since your discovery, nineteen years since your death. Earth years I should say, less than half a year for this planet.

(Part of a feature story appearing soon at New Pop Lit.)

Cultural Optimists and Pessimists

IF 3-D Thinking means viewing a phenomenon from different vantage points, I’ve been doing that by simultaneously reading two recent books examining the state of American culture.

Derek Thompson

One, Hit Makers by Derek Thompson, published in 2017, examines culture from the standpoint of marketing experts and consumers. According to the data and the algorithms, all is as it should be– more increased technological tools lead to increased cultural efficiency, with what the public wants (whether they know it or not), quickly selected and brought to the front of the pack.

Scott Timberg

The other book, Culture Crash by Scott Timberg, I’ve already referenced, here. Timberg takes a broader view, putting culture into context as part of larger societal trends marginalizing the middle class. The culprit? Culture treated as content designed to adhere to profit-loss statements, instead of as art.

The difference between the two approaches is exemplified by their discussions of the music industry. “That the top 1 percent of bands and solo artists now earn about 80 percent of all music revenue” Derek Thompson sees as a good thing, due to “a lot more honest” ways of identifying and tracking hit records. Meanwhile, in his discussion of “the music industry’s one percent,” Scott Timberg abhors the phenomenon– and attributes it in part to corporate consolidation and the monopolization of radio by Clear Channel beginning in 1996.

To Thompson, Max Martin– one of the Swedish “superproducers” behind scores of hit records– is a musical genius. “The construction of a pop song is almost mathematical,” he quotes a Max Martin protege as saying. (A similar mindset to those in 2023 promoting the creativity of AI?)

Timberg discusses a different-but-similar Swedish producer, Lukasz Gottwald aka Dr. Luke, and uses a quote from John Seabrook to describe him: “He can make a song that’s also a business plan.”

They’re discussing the same phenomenon, the same technique, but with different opinions about it. Scott Timberg:

But this isn’t democracy– it’s the kind of monopoly capitalism Theodore Roosevelt hated, dressed-up with bling and low-cut jeans. As for hope: synthed-out with gang choruses, or purplish and overwrought over lost love, Dr. Luke’s songs sound like the music piped into the waiting room in hell.

In his book, Scott Timberg is almost relentlessly pessimistic about the state of the culture industry today, blaming the imposed-from-on-high, winner-take-all reality of it. Derek Thompson– the optimist of this examination– celebrates winner-take-all, as maybe he should, as he became a staff writer at prestigious The Atlantic magazine– owned by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs– at age 23. (The same magazine, incidentally, which sided with billionaires’ yachts over orcas during the recent dispute in sea lanes between the two groups.)

XXX

What of myself? Where do I stand? Though I generally side with Timberg, critic of the status quo, over its defender, Thompson, I consider myself an optimist. It’s because our culture today is so monopolistic, one-note, and bland; run by data-oriented techies– so extreme in its security and complacency– that it’s set itself up for a mighty fall; data, algorithms and all. In this complex universe strength is weakness, weakness strength. Something unexpected and new will come along to topple the smugsters– and all their AI technology, focused on the now, on what is, will leave them unprepared for it.

KW

(But what do you think?)

3-D Thinking: An Intro

HERE are two credible books about the music business. Both books examine that business as it existed in the 1980s. Most of the focus, for both, is on rock music in Southern California. Yet there are only two slight points of contact between them. Were it not for those two points, one would think the authors lived in alternate universes.

The reason for this is that, even though the books cover the same subject, they come at that subject from different directions, and target different levels of the industry at that place and time. Fredric Dannen’s perspective is strictly top-down, examining the operations of monopolistic record company giants like CBS Records and Warner Brothers. Jim Ruland’s viewpoint is from the bottom, depicting the struggles of punk rock bands and the actions of grassroots startup enterprisers attempting to build businesses via promoting new bands and fresh music.

To truly understand rock music at that time and place, the observer needs both perspectives. Like seeing a mountain from more than one side– or viewing the dark side of the moon as well as what’s facing us. The three-dimensional viewpoint.

One view is not more valid than the other. That Fredric Dannen covers the more financially successful end of the music business doesn’t mean that end is more worth study, or historically important, or that music and its well-hyped acts more meaningful. If anything, the indy music scene Jim Ruland depicts in his book was more innovative and influential– at least as far as rock music is concerned– than the status quo acts promoted by the money-grabbing “Hit Men.” The indy music scene embodied by SST Records led to the rise of grunge in the 1990s– of bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, and so many others.

Which causes us to question literary history, canons and such. Are academics giving us the full picture of literature over the course of decades– or not in fact only an acceptable sliver of everything happening?

The idea of narrow viewpoints should cause us to question all histories. Not throwing out standard (or revisionist) narratives, but supplementing them, to give the fullest possible picture of ideas and events.

-KW

The Literary Establishment’s Maginot Line

It’s funny to see reactions to the emergence of ChatGPT and other AI happenings. An increasing number of writers– especially on the low end– have embraced it as a way to get more “product” out there. Doesn’t matter to them if they can generate a novel in a day, or if it’s not at all any good. If it qualifies in their mind as a novel, that’s enough. Some–like the editors at New Pop Lit— are opposing the gathering onslaught. Meanwhile, a large number of writers, particularly those in or connected to the literary establishment, are ignoring it.

One can liken them to the French army in 1940. At war with Nazi Germany, yet believing they were safe behind a supposedly impregnable series of forts known as the Maginot Line. The forts were a psychological barrier more than anything– false security which enabled the French not to have to think about that which awaited just outside the gates, so to speak– and which swiftly with the roar of dive bombers and tanks came racing through the Ardennes Forest to spread terror and mayhem.

Similarly, literary people don’t want to think about AI chatbots. They believe they’re safe, and can wish the devices and the change they bring away. An illusory dream– writers are nothing if not dreamers.

Most out-of-touch of all are literary critics– those you’d assume would be most on top of things. Instead, they’ve tricked themselves into believing they represent a Golden Age of American literary criticism (I’m not making this up). A Golden Age nobody’s heard of, consisting of writers nobody knows. The height of insularity and arrogance. It’d be like the Essenes– authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls– circa 30 AD designating their inscrutable writings and themselves as a Golden Age.

The reality? I think of auto exec Bob Lutz’s remark about the General Motors car business before it went bankrupt: “brilliantly executed mediocrity.”

It’ll take way more than that to stem the coming tide of AI.

(The Save the Writer petition.)

-K.W.