Monday, February 25, 2013

Miranda vs. Tao Shoplifting Contest

 

How to enliven a moribund establishment literary scene? Have two of America's trendiest untalented hipster writers engage in what they've pronounced as one of their favorite activities: Shoplifting!

Yes, upcoming, sponsored by The New Yorker magazine, is a Championship Shoplifting Bout between American lit's two most revered shoplifters, Tao Lin and Miranda July. Both, according to their own words, are well practiced at the famed upper class sport. Best of all is that neither needs the items they take. They're both well bred, from fairly affluent backgrounds, and as cherished Insider scribes lead comfortable lives. Which means they steal not from need, but from pure joy! This proves their well-applauded depravity.

The championship bout will consist of three five minute rounds. The setting is to be New York's Macys.

"Rules?" said one of the bout's organizers to Literary Circus. "We discussed whether to forbid kicking, biting, and gouging. But forbidding anything from these two would miss the point. As both contestants are completely unprincipled, we decided, 'Nah, why spoil the fun?'"

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Professor Down to Last Bagel!


POWW! member and Tulane University writing professor Thomas Beller is rumored to be so impoverished-- by literary establishment standards-- that he's down to his last bagel. It's not easy maintaining a small family and residences in both New Orleans and Manhattan, with regular vacations to places like Rome, Zurich, and Cambodia, on a professor's salary and what is rumored to be one of the smaller trust fund stipends among POWW! (Protect Our Wealthy Writers!) members.

It's not as if his books are selling. Beller joined POWW! because the actions of no-longer-active protest group Underground Literary Alliance-- at least the hint of actions by them-- have pushed privileged Insider writers like Professor Beller to the point of extinction.

"It's not easy being a POWW! member," Professor Thomas Beller tells his disbelieving students. "Keeping up appearances is tough. I have a privileged lifestyle to maintain. Toughest of all is pretending to be a good writer."

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

New York Review of Books Joins P.O.W.W.!


(Pictured: NYRB staffers at work.)

Yes, the New York Review of Books has thrown off its flimsy progressive clothing and come out on the side of the snobs. In the camp of the privileged, the elites, the wealthy-- where they've been all along. According to reports, they've officially joined a new writers organization designed to defend their kind: Protect Our Wealthy Writers! The delicate and sheltered New York Review of Books folks realize that with the sudden rise of indy ebooks, status quo writers have become an endangered species.

The trigger? Someone sent them a dissenting opinion by tweet. A mild criticism. But still.

"We haven't been criticized in ten years!" a snooty NYRB member insisted. "The nerve!"

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

An Actual Jay McInerney Tweet


@JayMcInerney
"They took Westminster Winner Dog Show winner Banana Joe to Sardi's and fed him lunch. Sounds like animal cruelty to me."

Uh, just forget the homeless people, Jay.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

n+1 Ponders Baby Bust


Jonathan Franzen isn't the only intellectual worried about the sudden surprising news of a baby dearth in this country. So also are the important intellectuals at n+1 magazine.

"The timing is bad," they admit. "Just after we commit to selling our special n+1 "Abortions Are Groovy!" tote bags.

"Yes, very bad," another significant intellectual agrees, shaking his head. "What happens if abortions become no longer, you know, chic or cool?"

"It'd be terrible. Terrible! Can we afford to be wrong again?"

The prestigious intellectuals at the intellectually prestigiously prodigiously pretentiously named n+1 have a track record of being wrong. Like the time five years ago when they announced to the world "The End of Oil"-- it had to be the end, because they proclaimed it-- right before vast new pools of oil reserves were discovered around the world.

"Bad timing," they agree. "We're always victims of bad timing."

Monday, February 11, 2013

Eggers Wants Pope Job



Head of the McSweeneys Gang gangleader Dave Eggers is reportedly angling for the vacant Pope position in the Vatican. "It's the logical next step for me," Eggers reportedly told reporters from his Vatican-like Valencia Street San Fran headquarters. "Yeah, I can handle it."

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Franzen Ponders Baby Bust


World famous "Great" (per Time magazine) American novelist Jonathan Franzen puzzles over sudden news of a "Baby Bust" (per Daily Beast, previously Newsweek).

"How will that affect my sales?" Franzen wonders while searching, in three-piece suit, for birds in dilapidated sections of New York.

The entire premise of Jonathan Franzen's recent best-selling best-hyped book Freedom is that America is in fact dangerously overpopulated, which might drastically affect the nation's bird population. (Estimated conservatively at over five billion.)

"Manhattan, anyway, seems to me to still be kind of overpopulated," Jonathan Franzen affirms to himself intelligently. "At least with human beings. Not really maybe so much with birds, I don't think. At least, there doesn't seem to be quite as many here as in Missouri."

Jonathan Franzen's editors, meanwhile, argue among themselves over whether Franzen's novel Freedom could be suddenly rewritten, for, um, accuracy. After all, it's supposed to be a great novel.

"How could we have known?" they say defensively. "If we tweak a few chapters, could we completely change the theme? That America's becoming UNDERpopulated?"

"Would anyone notice?" they ask one another. "No, I don't think anyone will notice."

At the same time, under the framed Time magazine cover of Jonathan Franzen gloriously placed on the wall in his publisher's office, the words "Great American Novelist" beneath the frame have been crossed out and replaced with two others: "Bird Brain."

Friday, February 8, 2013

"The McSweeneys Gang" Fails to Make Best Seller List!



SHOCKING NEWS! Premature word is that fantastic new ebook novel The McSweeneys Gang has failed to make this weekend's New York Times best seller list. Literary Circus finds this surprising. Shouldn't there be a flurry of positive reviews for the fun pop novel by now? Sure, the premise, plot, and theme of The McSweeneys Gang are rigorously anti-lit establishment. But why would the good people at all the many esteemed and open-minded lit-establishment publications mind? A little criticism. A modicum of joking. They can take it.

Literary Circus finds it curious.

Why Is This Man Singing?




It's hyperrich author Daniel Handler himself! Holding forth caterwaul style with a self-penned and frankly awful song to celebrate the formation of the new privileged writers advocacy group and defense committee: POWW!

Protect
Our
Wealthy
Writers
!

POWW!

Much discussion took place as to whether they should add an extra "W" to the title. For Wonderful, of course. This was Mr. Beller's suggestion. "After all, everything about us is so wonderful'" Mr. Beller says with a large and friendly Mr. Beller's Neighborhood grin. Then suddenly he begins to sniff.

"What's the matter?" someone asks.

"I found this scrap piece of paper in my pocket just now. It says 'POWW!' on it. From one of our early discussions. It's so wonderful."

The moody giant begins to sob.

Meanwhile, the celebration among others at the cozy bistro continues. While Daniel Handler plays the accordion, Jay McInerney dances a jig.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

The Thomas Beller Grovel Watch

Tracking the number of times Thomas Beller publicly praises David Foster Wallace.

Latest update:

@thomasbeller 2/4
"Someone should do a list of droll writers covering finance. I'd include . . . the late Barton Biggs Sr. Maybe DFW, too."

@thomasbeller 2/4
"Reading of DFW's correspondence with Don Delillo . . . A meta Dear Abby."

@thomasbeller 1/21
"Reading the college scenes in enthralling David Foster Wallace bio. . . ."

@thomasbeller 1/21
"Right now my feelings for DFW and BO are similar: incredulity at their humanness."

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

New Aristocrat Writers Club


This is alleged to be a photograph, taken under difficult conditions by a Literary Circus infiltrator, supposedly, of an alleged new pro-establishment writers group allegedly forming now. Allegedly depicted is an organizational meeting, at which were later presented cocktails and hors d'ouevres. According to the Literary Circus, the location of the alleged meeting was the hipster ghetto of Brooklyn. The new group's intention: to stomp out all last remaining residue of the notorious Underground Literary Alliance and its frightening ideas once and for all.

Note the lit-hipster poses.

Does the alleged new aristocrat literary club have a name?

The editors of Literary Circus have heard a murmured name. Don't tell anybody. You can whisper the word to your cat. The name: "POWW!"

Shocking, I know. What does it stand for? More will be revealed as soon as we find out ourselves. You'll be the first to know.

(For background on the war between the literary establishment and the ULA, consult the new "fictional" tale, The McSweeneys Gang by King Wenclas, available, for the moment, as an ebook at Nook or Kindle. Read it while it's still allowed!) 

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Who Is Mauve Maud?



P.c. journalist of literature's status quo. Some call her Mauve Maud. Others call her Maud Mauve. The character makes an appearance toward the end of the new ebook novel, The McSweeneys Gang, authored by myself.

Perfect encapsulator of the herd mind. Social diarist of patrician lit. If you want to know which way the literary weather vane is pointing, who's up and who's down, who's in or who's out, who's worshipped on the highest literary altar and who's stomped into the ground, you consult the Mauve blog.

Stimulating ideas? Upsetting opinions? Dissenting positions? None to be found. The operative word is affirmation. Readers told, "We are the good people, in the know, on the approaches to power." New York. Hip. Approved. Chic. Everybody safe. Everyone happy. The herd affirmed.

The operative word is: Mauve.

**************************************************

(Next up: A look at a rumored new elitist writers group.)

Hilarious n+1 Rich Kids



One of the most fun, hilarious, and revealing twitter accounts going is @nplusintern.
https://twitter.com/nplusintern

It seems to belong to the interns at famed "Leftist" hipster literary magazine n+1. A big note tells us that "THESE ARE THE FALL INTERNS-- the summer interns went back to Harvard!"

Harvard!?

I ponder: Could this be satire? It reads like satire. Frivolous but fun Ivy Leaguers. Precocious preppy style. Future literary stars, no doubt. If this twitter site is satire, and not for real, I can't top it, and will have to shut down this blog. Or accept second place in the realm of literary satire.

If it's for real, it says all you need to know about those prep school bow tie-and-mimosa populists at nplusone magazine!

QUESTION: Why doesn't n+1 hire working class/non-Ivy League interns?
ANSWER: Because they'd have to pay them?

******************************
(Next up at Literary Circus: "Who Is Mauve Maud?")

(Buy the new ebook novel The McSweeneys Gang now!)

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Literary Rapture

BREATHING SAME AIR DEPT.

Actual Twitter Reactions Upon Meeting Dave Eggers.



@FictionMFA
"When I ask Dave Eggers to be my best friend today, I hope he says yes!"

@trill_boson
"i've bought all of dave eggers books like 8 times because i loan them to anyone who shows interest"

@TravisJCook
"Absolute pleasure, wonderful man, talked about cancer . . . Best. Day. Ever."

@whatsizzlin
"Met Dave Eggers today and now I am for sure moving to San Francisco."

@AlexandraWhys
"Dave Eggers is an angel."

@ajanders1
"EVERYONE: I just met Dave Eggers."

@drsarahsviews
"Dave Eggers is having real conversations with people."

@kellydull
"he is so wonderful"

@raquelcable
"I met Dave Eggers and I am currently dying"

@so_uder
"I'm currently breathing the same air as Dave Eggers oh my god hELP"

@FictionMFA
"DAVE EGGERS JUST TALKED TO ME!"

@so_uder
"I TALKED TO DAVE EGGERS, I HAD A CONVERSATION WITH HIM AND HE'S SO COOL AND FUNNY AND SMART WOW WOW WOW."

@tweetlyrical
"I JUST MET AND CHATTED WITH DAVE EGGERS. LIFE! I LOVE YOU!"

@juliadobbs
"dave eggers dave eggers DAVE EGGERS"

********************************

anticipation of the audience

the hero arrives

the enthralled worshippers shout,

"Sieg heil! Sieg heil!"



Saturday, February 2, 2013

Fake Dada

Have you seen anything more ridiculous?

http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2013/01/30/cabinet-trial-magazine-no-qualities?iamaselector=/node/29870

"Dada" conducted with the approval of an institution like the New York Public Library, which, uh, misses the point of what Dada was about.

What we have here is a collection of confused New York City hipsters with not a microdot of originality to themselves, so all they can do is try to recycle ideas they learned about in Ivy League class.

Of course, a literary group that was doing something akin to real Dada-- and actually shocking snobby people-- faced only outrage from folks like this effete "Cabinet" bunch.

Will the Cabinet kids throw potato salad on Library administrators and denounce them, I wonder?

(The administrators will be saying, "Oh, how cute. A mock trial. Look at the children.)

Welcome to the Carnival Madhouse!

You've entered the crazy world of literature now. Stay tuned for literary games and satire.