politics

Pop Lit: An Anti-Political Movement

Announcement

EVERYONE right now seems to have a cause or political movement, colored red, pink, purple, blue, or green, or is hysterically running around with signs about something. Mad ideologies from antifa to alt-right and all things in-between. There are dozens– maybe hundreds– of flavors of Marxism alone, whether Maoist, Leninist, Stalinist, Shigalovian, Trotskyite, Fabian (not the 50’s rock star); social democrat or democratic socialist; mixed with scores of identities of the academic pomo crowd– and at least as many varieties on the right. Cue the propaganda– the bots and printing presses are working overtime.

Far be it for us to miss a trend– so we’ve started our own movement. We reject ALL political cults and sects and invite those seeking change, dissatisfied with things as-they-are, the status quo, the Establishment, the established order and alternatives to the established order, cable and network news shows all of them as well as BBC propaganda biopics about queens and history dramas about Vikings, to unite together under our banner of POP LIT.

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OUR FOUR-POINT PROGRAM

1.)  We’re not a party but we like to party.

2.)  Ideologues are androids.

3.)  The only revolution that matters is the revolution of art. (The word art used broadly.)

4.)  The way to access the creativity of the universe is by being creative.

The only requirement to join our movement is that you enjoy reading.

(Send your writings and paintings to us. If we like them we’ll use them.)

-Karl and Kathleen
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(Featured art: “Composition with Two Figures” by Heinrich Campendonk.)

 

A New Story

Pop Lit Fiction

We like stories!

We like stories which are unpredictable in plot, point-of-view, and theme– such as our new feature, “Churchgoing in New England” by Richard Greenhorn. We’re on a quest for new kinds of stories– those outside the customary in ideas and viewpoint.

What should any short story accomplish?

The tale should convey knowledge and experience; emotion and meaning. It should carry the reader along then finish with surprise, insight, or impact. Something. See if this story fulfills those requirements.

One-time department stores and groceries had been replaced by specialty winter supply shops, novelty bookstores, a few adult boutiques, and an over-priced Leftist drinking establishment called The People’s Pub. On the town commons across the street were the placards and banners left over from this morning’s protest. . .

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ALSO: Stay up-to-date with the All-Time American Writers Tournament.
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(Painting: “A New England Town” by Middleton Manigault.)

 

Experiments in Pop II

Pop Lit Fiction

The American scene today is saturated in politics. FBI CIA NSA antifa alt-right movements parties investigations spies recordings informants everyplace.

Though it sometimes resembles a comedy routine, this is fertile ground for the writer. An endless series of fictional possibilities present themselves. We’re back in Edgar Wallace days, where all plot scenarios become believable. Maybe likely.

Samuel J. Stevens explores one of those scenarios in a short, dryly humorous piece aptly titled, “The Vast Conspiracy.” Another in our explorations of the artistic fusion of “pop” and “literary.”

Happy reading!

They did not look like the thugs he’d seen in old Bureau files. They looked indistinguishable from the trendy hipster kids that populated the Village and Williamsburg, the only difference being they wore suits. 

Scenes from a Scary Novel

Pop Fiction

Happy Halloween! We find ourselves without a new Halloween story to present to you– so we dug up from a literary crypt fragments of an unfinished slasher novel, like cut-up pieces of a corpse. The original idea was that the intellectual parts of the novel would be scarier than the scary parts. It’s about a city, a mayor, and his wife, and staff, and a series of murders with which they’re confronted. Read the excerpts here.

The resurrected novel notes anyway are an apt prelude to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which kicks off November 1st. We’ll be doing a presentation for NaNoWriMo in the Detroit area– more info to follow .

The finely-sharpened hunting knife filled the killer’s vision. Staring at the edge of the knife intoxicated him. The image carried resonances of barbarism. Violence and blood. To his warped mind, the killings were necessary, but they’d also become fun.

The Caseworker

Pop Lit Fiction

Bureaucrats! Washington bureaucrats! Bureaucrats and more bureaucrats!

Politics has been much in the news of late, with scores of candidates– of every egregious personality type– hustling for public attention. But what’s inside-the Beltway, inside-D.C. really like?

Far be it from NEW POP LIT to miss a trend. We have the scoop in the form of a story, “The Caseworker,” by Tom Ray. Lobbyists; legislative assistants; administrators; American apparatchiks; congressmen and their mistresses– Tom Ray gives you all of it in a tightly-wound little tale. Get educated! Read how the political machine operates.

Madison was a legislative assistant in the office. She’d been having an affair with the Congressman for several months, which Warner hadn’t figured out yet. “So, who will they fire?”