The Importance of History

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“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
-William Faulkner

Meaning: Life consists of ongoing narrative threads, like musical motifs in a vast symphony.

ONE of our themes as a literary project is the relationship of American writing to American history. That nothing exists in a vacuum. That art is an expression of time and place, that it springs from the roots of a culture and represents the authentic voice of a people. Culture is not simply a dry artifact preserved in a jar and imposed by snobby profs in high-brow universities. It belongs to all of us.

As our new feature, we present a slice of American history ably written by J.B. Stevens: “The Marshal.” History come alive, in front of our eyes.

The War for Independence was a test of will, and he had passed. Unfortunately, there was a price, the foul dreams never relented. Musket balls passed nightly, and he woke in a sweat. He paid it no mind—his impacted British flesh, and the redcoats always missed, and the morning always came.

Art of the Memoir

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AUTHENTICITY AND ART

In the insane new world of Artificial Intelligence and everything fake, we at New Pop Lit believe the proper response to tech insanity is to embrace the natural and real– including real-world experience, and writing based on real-world experience. As exemplified by our new feature,“The Big Time” by Bob Bozic, a chapter from Bob’s memoir, Still On My Feet. Few people have had as varied and tumultuous a life as Bob– including homelessness, hospital stays, world travels, bartending, and as the featured chapter describes, boxing. Tough, atmospheric reality. We know you’ll enjoy reading it.

By 6:45, Bev returned. After ensuring I had all my fight gear—boxing shoes, sweat socks, shorts, jockstrap, protective cup for the groin, and two mouthpieces (in case one got lost)—we made our way to the Garden. At the back entrance on Eighth Avenue, the bookies’ betting line on Chuvalo remained at 3-1, but the line on my fight had tightened slightly to 8-5. This led me to wonder if Bertie had placed a bet on me through a connection, possibly shortening the odds. I mentioned this to Bev while changing into my fight gear, to which he responded typically, furrowing his brow as he admonished, “This has got nothing to do with us.”

(Featured painting: “Dempsey and Firpo” by American “Ashcan” painter George Bellows.)

Stalking a Writer

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WHERE ARE THE WRITER CELEBRITIES?

THERE HAVE BEEN a few of them over the years, even recently, as we find with our atmospheric new feature set in Manhattan, “That Time I Stalked Nick Tosches” by Brooklyn-based author Scott Laudati.

We wish we could’ve met Nick Tosches ourselves!

The Next Best Thing: To discover or create a few new literary celebrities. Which may be part of what this hyper-ambitious project is about. Until then, enjoy the essay.

“He’s a writer,” I said. “These guys don’t get the face time. They don’t hate their fans like actors do.”

It was a gamble, though. Would he dig a young fan interrupting his drink? There was a war in every line on his face. I hadn’t seen anyone else recognize him, but maybe that’s why he drank there. There was no way to know if he’d shake my hand or put his cigar out on my eye.

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(Painting: “Portrait of Victor Chocquet” by Paul Cezanne.)

Pop Culture: Games, Movies, and Popcorn

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WITH SUMMER upon us we thought it was time for a bout of light reading– in this case via Two Short Pop Pieces by Andrew Sacks.

Both pieces connect to pop culture experiences in the real world. The first essay is about the similarities between poker and chess– which were once the chief games for people in America to play (not video games!), and provided great brain training for future endeavors. Both games involve a high degree of skill and psychology, as Andrew discusses in his essay.

His second piece is about cult movies. Do teenagers still flock to midnight movies on weekends? Nothing better embodies the cinema experience– screaming or laughing with a crowd of fellow moviegoers. Andrew gives us a few of his favorites. One can watch them at home of course– as virtually everyone has done during the pandemic– but is it really the same?

Anyway, pop culture reading not to miss!

At first glance, it seems that chess is a contest of pure skill and iron logic, and that any gambling card game must, inherently, incorporate so much luck that skill must play a small part and compare unfavorably with the Royal Game. But, in the final analysis, this turns out to be an oversimplified and naïve point of view.

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(Art: “Chess Players” by Henri Hayden; “Checkmate” by Moritz Retzsch.)

Tornadoes and Other Fronts

Feature, Poetry

A POP LIT POTPOURRI

We’re out to create literary tornadoes. Toward that end we point the reader to three new-or-recent posts at this project.

FIRST we have a new feature, “Tornado Country” by poet John Grey. Two very good poems for your reading pleasure.

and cars, long and proud and American made

explode like firecrackers in the heat of day,

and some small town like Millville is razed like it’s Babylon,

SECOND, we did a short “Pop Quiz” Q & A with the author of our previous feature, Transhumanist Presidential candidate Rachel Haywire.

THIRD, a return of our NPL News blog with a quick look at Lana DelRey and a possible? connection to future literary stars, “Reverse Jekyll and Hyde.”

Must reading to stay current with the Pop Lit literary scene.
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(Art: “Tornado Over Kansas” by John Steuart Curry.)

Celebrity Nation

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AMERICA as a culture and civilization has centered itself around celebrities, for good and ill. Electronic gods coming to us through our televisions and computer screens. Who are these facsimiles of people? What are these personalities– these manufactured(?) personas– actually like?

Our new feature, “Jerry and Me” — by long-time Hollywood writer, director, and producer Alan Swyer— looks at one of the leading Hollywood-and-Vegas celebrities of the 20th century, comedian Jerry Lewis– best remembered today as forever host of the Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy telethons. A comic genius, but at the same time an extremely complicated, many-faceted individual. A contradictory personality which Swyer well captures in his up-close-and-personal memoir of the man.

His agents did nothing but, as he put it, “blow smoke up my ass,” telling him incessantly what he wanted to hear, which was how wonderful he was. Even worse were the staffers at his office in Century City, whose primary functions, other than fawning relentlessly, were doing his bidding and, when he felt the need to vent over something real or imagined, bearing the brunt of his wrath.
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WHICH raises the question of celebrity in the literary scene. Is there a place for it? Does the art lose by not creating larger-than-life figures who can stand as blazing symbols attracting new readers to a marginalized cultural form? Is this possible? Desirable?

Those are questions we at New Pop Lit are determined to answer.
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(Art: “Animal Clown” by James Pollock; “Marilyn Monroe” by Andy Warhol.)

Art and the Artist

Essay, Feature, profile

NEW POP LIT GOES LOCAL

Our previous feature was by an esteemed international author. For this one we looked closer to home– presenting a unique work here by young Detroit-area writer Ambrose Black which is part profile of accomplished artist Leon Dickey and his work, and part imagination, as Ambrose enters the head of his subject to relate his background and complete his story.

The result becomes itself something like a modernist painting, with two different but complementary vantage points. Ambrose Black writes in an original style, reminiscent perhaps of Sherwood Anderson, but not really. He hasn’t been machine-stamped as from a press, and so views the world– and in this case, the artist– through fresh eyes.

The essay is in line with our stated objective for 2019: To search for the literary NEW.

He has to expose his truth to the world, for he is a creator. His truth is that one is in control of the self– the only judgment and choices one is responsible for is the self. His art is ironic to his truth, but purposefully and honestly. The trash he uses signifies his and our failures. But like a phoenix from the ashes, he uses the deconstruction to create something of beauty.

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(Art: “Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers” by Marc Chagall; “Self-Portrait” by Paul Gaugin.)

The Art of Literary Performance

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WE SOMETIMES FORGET that literature began as a spoken art. Stories, epic poems, mythic tales– passed down in taverns or around campfires for millennia. Even Shakespeare, greatest writer of them all, was as much a spoken word actor as scribbling writer. Historians who’ve examined documents signed by the actual man have wondered how literate English literature’s biggest name actually was.

He was a performer! Reciting verse from a stage. Reveling in the joys of sounds, of language.

ALL of which means we plan to give increased attention to the spoken aspect of the literary art in the coming year. As preview we offer an amazing story told by high school student Fran-Claire Kinney at our Open Mic feature, “A Series of Sharp Cracks in Succession.” Amazing in that the short piece is powerful yet at the same time, concise. Reveling in its brevity, if you will. It’s worth a listen.

AS you do that, we’ll lay plans for other projects involving the human voice. Perhaps a Challenge of some sort– though we’re so practiced at public performance, even the recorded variety, no one may pick up the gauntlet when thrown. Stay tuned.

(Painting: “The Duel After the Masquerade” by Jean-Leon Gerome.)

New York City Avant-Garde Invasion!

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AS A POP LIT website we’re out to redefine the mainstream– but aren’t beyond occasional forays outside our familiar lines if the work deserves it. (Our roots are in the literary underground.) Even if the source of the unfamiliar material is that dreaded monster-metropolis of New York.

(Accompanying NYC music.)

It’s in places of highest power and station– among wavering skyscrapers– that one finds an underside. The literary obverse.

We start then with one of Brooklyn’s best young poets, Rus Khomutoff. He calls his work surpoems. We have four of them here.

Fading away
in a sea of dotted infinity
the rhythm of life
against monumentality

(Painting: “New York from Brooklyn” by Colin Campbell Cooper.)
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NEXT we have an Appreciation from New York avant-garde icon Richard Kostelanetz, of New York poet Frank Kuenstler, part of the ongoing ALL-TIME AMERICAN WRITERS TOURNAMENT.

Has New Pop Lit been taken over by, gasp!, New Yorkers? Not quite.
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NEW POP LIT ATTACKS NEW YORK!

FINALLY, we have a review of the January 29 issue of The New Yorker— flagship of the literary establishment and woefully decrepit. Or: The future is US.

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(Feature painting: “Tower of Babel” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.)

Poetry Run Amok!

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Poetry in outer space,
poetry is every place!
Poetry is hip and cool
(Apologies to Dr. Seuss.)

WE MISSED National Poetry Day– likely one of those Hallmark-created holidays anyway. We’re making up for it by turning our site temporarily over to poets and poetry.

FIRST is this week’s feature, “Black Water and Other Poems” by renowned Ohio poet Robert Beveridge.

The departure began
at a Dave Smith reading
as I poured alcohol
and peroxide down
the podium to kill
the beer worms.

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NEXT are the latest selections for the All-Time American Writers Tournament. ALL POETS!! Find out who they are here.

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We ALSO recently posted a missive from a mysterious activist character at the Tournament named “Cherry Bomb”– which just happens to be in the form of a poem.

(If we’re not having occasional fun– then what’s the point?)
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Pop it, punch it, make it snap
Poetry is where it’s at! 🙂