The Prisoners of Dwight MacDonald

A RANT

(photo of chateau d’if prison c/o travelfrance)

We’re imprisoned by our own attitudes.

We’re held back by the preconceptions, prejudices, and stereotypes with which we address the world. They become invisible jail bars around our minds. We construct a fortress around our accepted ideas– stone walls that an army couldn’t break through.

One sees this in every aspect of life– including in the literary realm. Writers and critics cling to rules laid down sixty-four years ago by a handful of intellectual pundits, most notably Dwight MacDonald in his 1960 Partisan Review essay, “Masscult and Midcult.”(An earlier essay by Clement Greenberg in the same publication, edited by Dwight MacDonald, set the tone.)

UNBREAKABLE RULES:

No Kitsch! Whatever kitsch is. Anything which might entertain the public.

Beware the Public! No masscult, midcult, on the edges or in-between.

Allowed: Completely inscrutable, alienating, pretentious and goofy examples of upper-class overeducated posturing known as the avant-garde.

Whither the fate of the prisoners of Dwight MacDonald?

They sit cautiously in their antiseptic modernist-designed offices and rooms. No art adorns the walls– only a single beige baize stripe (the walls themselves are gray) in the style of Barnett Newman, and a distorted portrait of a sparrow, meant to symbolize one of their captured-behind-glass idols, Proust.

The prisoners wait for: something. Not commutation of their sentences. They love their sentences– both kinds. They sit carefully at cold metal tables writing sentences on laptops, well-written one-direction sentences– always very well written, carefully screened: they rigidly police this– more and more sentences, always more of them, long ones, jammed impressively together in ever-longer paragraphs on more and more pages– Infinite Graphomania– and the sentences are acceptable if they’re intellectual, not passionate or emotional; not too much plot or excitement; no outbursts or melodrama– that would be kitsch– the sentences are permissible, approved, allowable, laudable just as long as they don’t engage the stray incautious reader in any way.

-Karl Wenclas

(These thoughts to appear someday in a planned book on the technocracy.)

Gamblers In Life and Art

THE ELON MUSK SYSTEM

CASINO CAPITALISM

I’ve followed Elon Musk‘s career for more than six years, have read at least five books about him and his companies. I’ve also known a few big-time gamblers and investors, have done some gambling and investing myself, some time ago. The mindset– the strategy– behind Musk’s success is easy to spot: an extreme example of the tech bros mantra, “Move fast and break things.” The idea being to jump ahead of the crowd by thinking farther out, whether hyping rocket ships to Mars, electric vehicles, or cars that drive themselves.

An example of this is Elon’s approach to competition in the AI realm: move faster, build bigger, as outlined in this article.

Elon Musk is the consummate gambler, engaging in huge bet after huge bet– and to date, getting away with it, because of the hype and risk involved; his companies valued in the markets far higher than they’re actually worth, based solely on their future prospects. He has millions of true believers, and keeps adding more of them.

(Donald Trump, by contrast is following a different strategy: Chaos Theory, as exemplified in the January 6th, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Encourage or spark a chaotic situation then sit back and hope to profit by it.)

For Elon Musk, his approach is a reflection of his personality and whatever substances he’s using or abusing. Others throughout history have had similar personalities. For instance, George Armstrong Custer, who built a reputation during the Civil War due to his fearless cavalry charges; his eagerness to attack. It was the only way he knew how to fight: ride fast and hard and watch your opponents fall before you. He used the same tactic at the Little Big Horn in Montana in 1876. On this occasion the “Move fast and break things” plan didn’t work.

There’ve been others. Napoleon, for the most part, who eventually met his, er, Waterloo. Or that particular German dictator over a hundred years later, who like Custer took on more opponents than he could possibly handle.

Will the same thing happen to Musk?

It seems to me that even the luckiest, loudest gambler, winning gamble after gamble, bet after bet, accumulating an enormous pile of poker chips– in Elon’s case, becoming the richest man on the planet– eventually runs out of luck.

VISIONS

INITIATING CHANGE is what we’re attempting to do with the New Pop Lit project, with new ideas of multidimensional thinking and writing. Or: like the tech guys, we have a vision, but it encompasses more than Mars colonies or electronic brain implants.

Our vision consists of a more grounded world, smaller scale and less stressful, less sinister, more humane, led by an explosion of better literature and art– of new human creativity.

-Karl Wenclas

An Excerpt from “What Does It Cost to Be Civil?” by Tom Ray

NEW FICTION

As they started out of the driveway for their regular morning walk Albert said, “That looks like the car that followed us yesterday.” It was parked up the street in the direction they headed. Elaine slowed her pace.

“Come on, keep going,” he said, taking his phone from his pocket.

As they got closer Albert could make out a man behind the wheel, although the tinted windshield kept him from getting a good look. When he raised his phone to take a picture the car drove off. 

Elaine said, “What does he want?”

“I don’t know. Don’t worry about it. If we need to, we can run him down from his license plate number.”

A few days later as they lunched on the patio of a restaurant, Albert saw the blue Malibu circling the parking lot. 

“There’s that son of a bitch who’s been following us.”

COMING SOON TO NEW POP LIT!

An Excerpt from “An Overcoat” by Tony Covatta

NEW FICTION ALERT

The dinner went well enough. The jokes were good. The wines delicious. Gino sprang for the check, to the gracious thanks of Bentley and Wayne. They had outstayed the rest of the clientele. Most of the waitstaff had disappeared. The party rose unsteadily from their table and searched for the alcove where their overcoats were hung hours earlier. Gino quickly counted five dark-grey and black coats but saw nothing butterscotch brown. Bentley’s coat was missing. The sole remaining waiter, young and inexperienced, offered only feeble excuses. Bentley’s satisfied air disappeared, his brow darkened. Gino, doing his best to lighten the mood and save the situation, told him he would look into the matter. “I’ll take care of it.”

Next morning, his car parked in the firm’s lot, seated at his shiny wood and steel firm desk, drinking firm coffee, munching a firm bagel, Gino’s calls to the Firehouse’s floor captain, manager and owner yielded no trace of camelhair or overcoat. Determined Gino was discouraged but not defeated, when Trey Headley stuck his bald pate in his office door: “Gino, we’ve got an angry architect on our hands. He says you and your friends encouraged him to leave his overcoat in an unlocked closet at that ginmill you went to, and it was stolen. He’s not happy.”

COMING SOON to New Pop Lit!

“There Where the Weather” by Christopher Landrum

NEW POETRY

(photo c/o ancientpages.com)

The pages of sages

Down through the ages

Are plucked ripe with luck and Logos by mages

Who then hand unfair fistfuls of gifts to readers most unusually unsquare,

Containing uncanny answers for listening listeners who dare:

Answers dressed in pinstriped ribbons and gild-paper wrapping

That (once ripped open) tap into a kind of magical (but muddled) time travel

Full of hap, riddles, and knots to unravel

By those lost in the love of farming

Fresh vines grown from wild languages

Amid all uncertainties, tangles, and anguishes,

Farmed there where the weather marks the least of all changes.

Christopher Landrum’s story “The Age of Insomnia” was featured at our main site. He lives in Austin, Texas and writes about what he reads at Bookbread.com.

An Excerpt from “Where the Rivers Meet” by Becky Tuch

NEW FICTION ALERT

Somewhere in the supermarket her daughter has gone to fetch toilet paper. They are supposed to be stocking up on supplies, items Erika has never had before in her life—canned milk, dehydrated meats, freeze-dried vegetables. Astronaut food, as if the whole country were about to shoot off into space.

And perhaps it is. The speaker overhead is playing Dido’s “White Flag”— “I will go down with this ship”—and the glistening floor is lined with social-distance markers. Arrows in each aisle direct customers one way or the other to avoid passing face-to-face. Every customer wears a mask; some of the cashiers wear plexiglas face guards.

Erika might not have come to the supermarket at all, were it not for the city-wide panic, a sudden rush for provisions. The stores were so overwhelmed she’d been unable to get an appointment for food delivery. At any rate, she felt funny about ordering food from home, sending others off to risk themselves on her behalf. Were some lives more expendable than others?

COMING SOON to New Pop Lit!

The Aesthetics of Technocracy

TWO MOVIE VERSIONS OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY’S “THE KILLERS”

PREMISE: During and after World War II a technocracy was created in the United States, instituted via a collaboration between large corporations and government agencies which included the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. A 1948 novel which examines the beginnings of this process, set on an Army Air Corps base with glimpses of Washington D.C., is Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens. The novel shows how the growing military juggernaut enlisted outside talent of all kinds. “The Best and Brightest,” to use a term originally applied to John F. Kennedy’s advisors and cabinet when he took office in 1961.

TWO film versions of Hemingway’s classic 1927 short story– the story considered a forerunner of hard-boiled fiction and film noir– illustrate the changing social and cultural landscape. A famed bigger budget version was produced by Mark Hellinger and directed by Robert Siodmak in 1946. The low-budget remake– originally meant as a television movie but rejected by NBC for its violence and released to movie theaters instead– was produced and directed by Don Siegel.

WHAT are the differences between the two films?

THE HIT MEN

In the 1946 version they’re sloppy and inefficient. At the climax, almost inept.

In the 1964 version they’re corporate; in appearance– their walk and expressions– robotic. In action, coldly efficient. The Lee Marvin character, “Charlie,” is as inexorable in carrying out his goal as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in The Terminator. His sarcastic sidekick, “Lee,” played by Clu Gulager, is even more sociopathic.

THE PLOT

In the 1946 version, the backstory to the murder is looked into by an insurance investigator earnestly played by Edmond O’ Brien.

In the 1964 version the investigation, and resulting plot conflict, is handled by the professional killers themselves, within the all-encompassing top-down technocratic system. As if they’re the de facto police department.

STRUCTURE

The 1946 movie has sloppier construction, with eleven flashbacks, which for a 103-minute film might be too many.

The 1964 flick, as with all Don Siegel films, is tighter, at 93 minutes and three flashbacks.

THE BOSS

In the first movie the heist mastermind/boss is played by Albert Dekker. In the remake, by future California governor and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, in his last movie part before entering politics. The role as the story’s villain reflects, perhaps, the real person behind the politicking. Too close of a parallel? Or not.

THE VICTIM

In 1946, Burt Lancaster plays the man gunned down, a former boxer. In 1964 the character– played by John Cassavetes– is a mechanic and race car driver. The difference between a viscerally physical sport with no mediation between contestants, no gadgets, and a sport built on the construction and manipulation of machines. Technology.

THE FEMME FATALE

Ava Gardner in the 1946 version is striking-looking and glamorous– but is she also more vulnerable than the scheming, hard-edged character played by Angie Dickinson in the remake? This might be a draw. Both are dangerous.

SETTINGS

The 1946 film is set in a pre-war world, like the Hemingway short story itself. Dirty, crude, inhabited by seedy diners and older, dilapidated buildings and interiors.

In color, with cleaner post-war sets– as clean as Hemingway’s prose– and better fitting, more precisely-designed clothes, the remake is as modernist as the burgeoning technocracy itself.

A BETTER EXAMPLE of mid-century modern design and thought in film– in every aspect of the work– is the 1967 John Boorman movie “Point Blank,” which also stars Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson. This narrative takes the madness a step further. In a hellish, dystopian world, the corporation rules all.

CONCLUSION

TO TRULY UNDERSTAND neo-noir offerings like 1964’s “The Killers” and 1967’s “Point Blank,” one needs to put them into context as part of larger forces: societal, cultural, economic. The two movies reflect changes taking place in America which were intentionally transforming the country into something scarcely recognizable from the populist version which had existed before the war. Top-down institutional changes greatly affected American literature itself, including what kind of writing would become accepted and acceptable– a huge subject to be further explored. Possibly in an e-book?

-Karl Wenclas

Nobel Irrelevance

A RANT

(photo c/o worldmagzine)

ANOTHER YEAR almost gone, another Nobel literature prize winner nobody’s heard of, who by all accounts writes “poetic prose,” a phrase which seems a nod by commentators toward the literary, to affirm among themselves (they speak for no one else) “she’s one of us.” She’s previously won the Booker Prize and probably other awards within today’s tiny literary world.

Yes, it’s a laudable event, plucking a dedicated writer from general obscurity and giving that person attention– good for the person; the writer– but for what after all is a glorified PR campaign it’s a failure. Part of consistent failure. PR without purpose. Is Han Kang a more compelling winner than last year’s winner? No doubt. That’s not enough.

Literature’s footprint in the culture is not increased a centimeter. Instead it continues to shrink. Relative to all else it shrinks, because the rest of the world’s noise– from politics, podcasts and polemics to Twitter and Tik-Tok, music and sports– speeds ahead like an expanding universe while the literary art stands still. Stuck. Trapped. An art of the imagination, allegedly, yet no one in credentialed levels of the literary realm has imagined a new idea– aesthetically or commercially– in decades. The same-old obsolete layers of overstaffed institutions and hierarchies. Ivy League academies and Big Five-sustained publicists and agents, akin to 19th century Central European bureaucrats receiving chests full of medals for moving stacks of jargon-filled paper around. Awards as tokens of appreciation for existing, while accomplishing nothing.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but it’s not this.

-Karl Wenclas

“unprocessed thoughts” by Bach Le

NEW POETRY

photo c/o dogsaddict

why is that dog biting its owner is it the chains and ropes that pull the shepherd to a suicidal thought or is it the man that harasses his friend to test if he can manipulate the docility of an animal but look the blood is pouring out like droplets of watercolor paints that used to impregnate my xs-sized tee and now it’s there but only darker and sadder i would laugh my stomach out when red pours out because it’s a dumb mistake but now why is the dog so unhesitant and merciless towards its owner the old man that walks it everyday cares for it baths it in the pouring rain despite his asthma and gives it a little bow in its chest is it tamed is it a disguised wolf why is it now lying on the floor growling rolling screaming and the man is running with crimson traces in his route and something in his hand like a folded story he wants no one to know about?

Bach Le is currently living and studying in Hanoi, Vietnam. His poems have previously been in Synchronized Chaos, Haikuniverse, and more. Through poetry, Bach hopes to give voice to different issues in society, as well as showing his attitudes towards life with its various dimensions.