Via Josh Maday, bless his heart, I read an article about independent publishing that asked, like, how come e'rbody loves indie movies and indie bands but ain't nobody love small presses? It's a good point and the hypothesis is that it's cuzza "vanity publishing" which makes it so there's too much negligible li'l lit out there that don't get edited.
Which, okay, sure. That's peripheral to the real problem I think, which is that don't nobody know nothin' about if something is good or bad, and reading is harder than watching TV or listening to the Shins, and what if you read a book and it isn't very good but you're reading it? What if I read a whole book and it's weird? I will just assume that the writer is too smart for me and so weird and I won't know anything and next time instead of reading VAAST BIN I won't read it. And shit, they can give the stuff away as PDFs but I'm not gonna read it I'm gonna read Updike, he's awesome, everyone knows he's good, no worries there, and I'm gonna play CROOKED RAIN CROOKED RAIN and make that suck.
Anyhoo. What we really need is to start calling bad shit bad shit so that my genius brother fo real don't feel like he's risking something by reading something ain't nobody heard of. So people don't think the joke's on them. Which is what everybody thinks, all the time.
I want indie publishing or small literature to be something that the guys talk about at lunch. Instead of TV I want the conversation to be like, "Did you read that Josh Maday motherfucker?"
"Did you buy the Anne Boyer from Mitzvah Chaps?"
"OMG I love Lame House they have the best paper."
"Either Tao Lin or Zachary German is racist or a bad typer."
"No Colony when does that come out?"
"Hey brody did you see Publishing Genius redesigned their index page?"
Anyway -- to this end I'm going to start giving away TShirt Iron Ons that say, "Fuck you, I'm retired." I think that'll help build critical mass. Get yours today.
great post, adam. not just because you said my name in it. though, thank you.
ReplyDeleteyour point about the real/percieved additional effort and thought required for reading as compared to listening or watching is a great one. i think you're right: so you listen to a three minute song that sucked (and you didn't quite catch all the lyrics), so what? so you watched a 90 minute film that blew -- no big deal, you got some cleaning done while it was on. but you read a strange book that you aren't quite sure you liked or understood, which required total attention, and it took how many hours? no way. i would seriously be interested to find out the ratio of indie/emo bands to lit mags or even small/independent press writers. just for giggles. good post, adam.
Thanks Josh. I want to see that statistic too. It'd make a good dissertation. I bet there are a lot more people in indie bands than there are small press affiliations. In fact, I bet there aren't that many more small press things than there are indie filmmaking companies. I mean, only like twice as many or something, which is saying a lot.
ReplyDeleteI would be very interested in seeing all of those statistics compared.
ReplyDeleteHey, I'll take one of those cool t-shirt iron ons. Those are going to be a hit.
i think the opposite may be true, adam. we are willing to take chances on indie bands because our critical facility is set lower, not higher, for them than for lit. we can enjoy an indie band on it's own terms much easier than a novel or poem.
ReplyDeletethere is a personal/cultural experience people get from music, film, they are not getting from lit. i don't think it's because that experience isn't there but rather that it isn't being transferred, not crossing the barrier from brain to blood. i may write a thing on this today.
what you say is interesting, joseph. lots to think about.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, interesting. I'm not sure I follow the reasoning in the first paragraph, but your thing will bear it out I hope. I guess I think that we take chances on indie bands more than indie lit because it is a medium that is more attuned to our ability to understand and vocalize our personal experience with it.
ReplyDeleteI think the obstacle to the transfer of the visceral experience is fear.
Josh, comin' right up.
ReplyDeletei liked reading that, joe
ReplyDeleteI liked reading it too, even though it bummed me out a little. I don't feel like I feel inferior. Anyway I'm doing something proactive by making Iron Ons.
ReplyDeleteiron on away your bummed!
ReplyDeletethanks, ryan.
Great stuff, Joseph!
ReplyDeleteyes, this is excellent, joseph.
ReplyDeleteI love this conversation
ReplyDelete