Galleycat and the ULA

While contemplating the booktrade.info page yesterday -- something that I do daily, and recommend -- I noticed that, in the essential links box, the GOB is still listed in the number 2 spot, just below Everyone Who's Anyone and above a few amateurish web sites such as Publishers Weekly and Amazon. Which is as it should be. But then I noticed that Galleycat is still at number 3, and since I hadn't read Galleycat recently, I went to take a look.

It turns out, as far as I can deduce, that Galleycat is in the middle of some sort of flame war with an outfit called ULA. I emphasise that all is conjecture here, because this is a foreign language to me, but Galleycat seems to have linked to a site called Hot From My Pockets, which is, if I've got this straight, a parody of ULA output. And someone objects to her doing that.

Now I was somewhat handicapped here, see, on account of I don't know who or what ULA are. I know, I know, it's pathetic really. I am so out of date it is barely credible, but that's the way it is when you get old. You struggle to remember what day of the week it is. Anyway, to find out more about ULA I went to Google.

Let's see now. Universidad de Los Andes? No, that doesn't seem very likely. Ultralight Adventure Equipment? Hardly. Utah Library Association? Ah, now that's a bit warmer. And, at last, Underground Literary Alliance. I guess that's it.

You will have to read this stuff yourself to verify my best guesses, but it looks as if ULA dates back to at least 2000. It describes itself as 'the most controversial writers group in America. We stand up for writers, expose corruption in the publishing world, and work to create a fun & exciting alternative to the literary mainstream.'

Well, that sounds all right. In fact their manifesto, at first glance, appears to contain a lot of stuff that I agree with. They argue that literature has become elitist, which I think I accept, depending on definitions; that style has become primary and convoluted; and that the literary establishment is corrupt to the core. As a consequence of these beliefs, the members of ULA renounce, among other things, 'the muddled style of contemporary literature, and bear witness that we will speak in clear voices, unfettered by "cleverness" and intellectual gobbledygook.' All of which sounds good to me.

There is a whole list of members, none of whom I've ever heard of, but that's neither here nor there. And there is a ULA blog which publishes stuff by ULA members. I haven't yet had time to read much of it, but my immediate reaction is that I don't like the typefaces used. I have a theory, which I have mentioned from time to time, that readers are sensitive to fonts, layout, and page design, to a far greater extent than is generally recognised.

Anyway, there it is. Somewhere along the line the ULA has pissed off somebody big-time, and he she or yt (I'm reading Ian McDonald) has decided to set up Hot from my Pockets. And Galleycat, who did no more, it seems, than point to Hot Pocket's existence, gets dung flung at her as a consequence.

It's a hard life being a blogger.

Mind you, Galleycat does end with reference to her 'long-held theory that the ULA is not a literary rebellion, but a very long, intricate piece of Andy Kaufman-inspired /Dadaist /Duchampian performance art, albeit with intentions no more lofty than your kid brother's on a long family car trip -- i.e., to annoy the shit out of you, or anyone else unlucky enough to be in its audience.' So you can see how she might have upset someone. Writers are terribly sensitive flowers, easily bruised.

Anyway, it's clearly all far too subtle for me. I think I will go out and cut the grass, which is about the only thing that Mrs GOB trusts me to do out there.