Saturday 9/14/24
Every day people come here to read about J.W. McCormack of The Baffler and the terrible fiction he publishes in his job as fiction editor of The Baffler, and so I thought, Who am I not to give people what they want?
And knowing what I know about The Baffler, J.W. McCormack, and, frankly, all of these people, and all they publish, I knew that this morning all I'd need to do is click on the first story I saw in The Baffler and we could have ourselves a nice prose off, because who doesn't love a nice prose off? Oh--that's right. My bad. But I certainly do. I would though, wouldn't I?
You're only allowed to click on two Baffler pieces before you get paywalled, so there isn't an opportunity to look around even if I wanted to, which I don't, because who would want to see any more of this stuff than they had to, and for which there's no need anyway, because anything you click on is guaranteed to suck. Not a lot in life is guaranteed. But this is.
So let's get to it then, shall we? This is the beginning of Chantal Clarke's "Persistent Antagonism."
Selene’s decision to have a baby, made while scattering her mother’s ashes at home in Mispu, was only a question of conception. After all, the Coop made it easy to enjoy motherhood and the rights that came with it, even for someone in Selene’s position: thirty-nine, unemployed, and partnerless. CARE workers could be summoned at any hour to massage swollen ankles, perform housework, or help with heavy lifting. A fetus began receiving the monthly salary as soon as the pregnancy was registered, and, once parents were ready, their children moved to Youth Centers to be raised. But the remote village in which Selene lived contained an unstimulating supply of prime sperm-bearing-age men.
Fortunately, her sister Ursula had been posted to the capital tenancy, Nova Alexandria, in a house with a comfortable, spacious guest room. A period of heated entreaties and flimsy excuses led to sororal compromise: Selene could visit for several months to find her spermulant.
Despite its size, Nova Alexandria felt lonelier than Selene had expected. The house was often empty, with Ursula at her job or out with friends; her sister’s two older children lived full-time at their Youth Center, and the baby stayed weekdays. Ursula’s husband, at least, worked nearby, and Selene began hanging around Tomas’s carpentry studio in hopes that one of his friends would drop in. She was willing to pay the right man handsomely (the Coop covered the expense): a third on signing the contract, a third on pregnancy, and a third on delivery.
While Tomas sawed and sanded, Selene would sit in a corner reading the personal ads in back of the Nova Alexandrian Ledger. Tomas mistook this for an interest in current events and would jabber on about things like womb implants for men and anti-arsinoek legislation.
“On the surface,” he said to Selene one morning in May, while lacquering a set of drawers, “it sounds like a no-brainer. It’s barbaric to have a man-killing poison be part of our official governance.”
“Uh-huh,” Selene said. A red-streaked strand had broken free from Tomas’s ponytail and was dangling over his brow like a fishing line.
“On the other hand,” Tomas went on, “do you know how sick some of those men in the War Zone are? I vomited when I heard about that guy from Gaul last year—the one with the kids.”
Selene wanted to tell him that she felt something like sympathy for aggros and perverts, whom she viewed as addicts. It was honestly a bit thrilling that there were men—or wooms even, she supposed—who thirsted for extinguishing life rather than creating it. When you thought about it, both were acts of immense power over the right to exist.
“Sometimes I’ll be talking to a male friend, and he’ll say something weird, and I’m like, What the futata?” Tomas went on. “Then I’m like, well, maybe the fear of getting arsinoeked is the only thing keeping him in line. What do you think?”
“I’m pro-life, I guess. Men shouldn’t be cut down like trees. They’re too useful.”
Tomas picked up a piece of sandpaper and began to rub the bottom of the cabinet with great vigor.
“I’m registered as a conscientious objector, you know,” Selene went on. “I just can’t imagine myself arsinoeking any man, especially now, with my sperm search.”
“But isn’t that just a way of sidestepping your responsibility?”
Selene wasn’t listening. “Three kids,” she said, slowly. “You must have really strong sperm.
Any diseases in your family tree?”
Tomas turned back to his workbench. “I have to finish this cabinet.”
There's no attempt to interest the reader. It's like, "Hey, fuck you, reader. Isn't this awful? Yeah, it's awful. Fuck you for trying to read."
We get to the second and third sentences and they imply this degree of familiarity, like we have prior knowledge of any of this. You can certainly start in the middle of things, but you can't be an entitled asshole about it, like it's just your God-given right to begin wherever the fuck you please. Again, fuck you, reader. Left behind right from the start.
It's akin to locking the door of a car and not letting someone in for the ride. Which is also a good thing, I guess, as you watch the person drive away drunkenly, going up on the curb, knocking the side mirror off on some tree. Because that's how this is written.
You know how these morons think by now. And the morons like J.W. McCormack who publish this shit precisely because it sucks so much and it was done by someone like them in their little inbred community of pretentious nothings. You know the drill. "Spermulant" is meant to be edgy. And creative. That's "literary" writing to them. Ditto "arsinoeked." Wow. That's amazing. What brilliance.
These people are so simple. What simple people do is try and be complex in something like this, and you just end up with embarrassing slop.
Can you imagine if I wrote this? You can't even conceive of it, right? It is impossible for me to write anything this stupid. You wouldn't believe me if I said I wrote this. You'd be like, "He's as honest as they come, but he's not telling the truth this time."
So what does that say?
I'm sure if I did write this stupid, though, that a bigot like J.W. McCormack would have ran it, despite me not being in that reach-around/inbreeding world.
Right.
Imagine writing something like this and thinking anyone should see it? Why would you think that? Why should they see it? Because you, hubristic tosser that you are, did it? That's the reason? Should we inspect the bowl after you're done because that was your shit? What's the difference? Have you paywalled your toilet?
Let me ask you a question: Do you care about anything happening here in this story? Are you invested? Do you see yourself thinking about what you've read tomorrow? How about in three minutes after you've read it? Ten years from now? At other points in your life? Is there anything you relish? How about an aspect of the language? Is there a phrase that will stick with you? Is there an idea that you'll be turning over repeatedly?
Is there anything here of any value whatsoever? Artistic value? Entertainment value? Anything instructional? Amusing? Funny? Witty? Sobering? Wise? Gutting?
Is there a single damn thing in this work of obvious aridity put forward by this pretentious, envious, fraud-fool J.W. McCormack that is any good in the slightest?
Of course not. We all know it. And by "all," I mean any of us who actually look at what this is. Who actually read any of it. Publishing people don't. Brooklyn MFA literary types don't. It's all about other stuff. But there is no one in the world who can say why this is good, what makes it good, where any appeal comes from.
Can't be done. And we can do this with everything these people write and put forward by other people just like them. By which I mean, everything. Because everything is like this. There is no one reading this who cares whether it's any good or not. There isn't a single person alive who is reading this and who cares one way or the other.
The people who see it aren't actually reading it. They're not looking to experience it as reading. That's irrelevant to them. This isn't meant to be anything they engage for which they have standards. A certain kind of person in this horrible industry that has more than done its part to kill off reading in the world just wants to look at this and see that this shit is there in The Baffler and places like it. That's it. This is there to be there. It's not there to be read or taken seriously or cared about. It's not there to be vetted. It's not there to add anything to anyone's life. It's not even meant to be read. You're just supposed to go, "Oh, there it is," as one of these people, and carry on with your pointless existence which is a matter of going around and saying, "Yes, there that is and there that is and there that is" and making sure it's from the right kind of person.
What is the point of even being alive if that's your life? What is the point of this story beyond what I've just said?
Pretty shocking that Chantal Clarke has published fiction in Conjunctions courtesy of the super-talented and not bigoted-in-the-slightest Bradford Morrow and n+1 where we enjoyed the stunning work of Mark Doten--who Granta, of course, care of billionaire heiress Sigrid Rausing, said was one of the best writers in the world--with "Piss Trump." Who would have ever thought that?
You want to do a little more? Because you're never more than .000000001 degrees of separation from any of this shit to any of the other shit here.
Remember Carolyn Kuebler? You don't remember her work, save perhaps for how bad it was, as well as the work she puts forward, and for writing to me and saying--which I'm sure she really believed--that I just wasn't any good at writing. Oh. It's a bit different ballgame, isn't it, when people might actually find out what you said, what you do, and what you're about?
Anyway, Melville House published her first book earlier this year. The editor of Melville House is a complete nut job named Dennis Johnson. We will get to him in his own stand-alone entry, which will include first-person testimonials from Melville House employees. Wait until you see this guy. He told Mark Krotov--when he was an editor at Melville House--that he, Dennis Johnson, hated me, Colin Fleming--after sending me a note saying what a big fan he was, because, as we know, these people are so unstable--and that he, Mark Krotov, would now, per order, hate me as well, and carry that hate out into the world with him, wherever he went next. Like when he became the editor at n+1. And so Krotov, in effect, said, 'Yes, I will do that."
Imagine being like this? And doing everything you do in life because you are? And publishing all of the garbage that you publish because you're like this? And awarding the garbage? And lying about the garbage? No one who publishes this shit thinks it's any good. When an agent says, "I don't know how I could sell this book" they're just lying to whomever that is, because this shit that we talk about is what they're signing up and no one thinks anyone wants any of this crap.
It's depressing how predictable all of this is, every single damn time, isn't it?
But you know what isn't predictable? Anything I write. Like the start of this story we're about to see here as we get to the trouncing part of the prose off. This is from a story called "We All Scream," which is both non-linear and linear, you could say. The story is a progression, but of composite parts that make for thematic narrative whole. In one sense, it's about the maddening nature of language, how our attempts to communicate can be scream-inducing--metaphorically, certainly--for our failures to communicate as we wish or need to, for a host of reasons. You know the expression "Hell is other people?" The idea in part stems from this idea.
There are so many reasons why we fail to get over what we, again, want or need to get over. And also why someone else's words, which could benefit us in effect miss us, if you will. There is also the impact of words not when they're said but later on in life, and what words can be taken back and what words can't. Where we are left in our relationships after certain things are said even if they weren't meant.
The story is about how we try to see ourselves, too, how we're always jockeying for position, even internally in our our estimation. It's about the motivation of language and the language of motive. How language holds us back. How it might not. Assumed word-based truths that it would be better to get rid. We have all of these assumptions that we never question because that's not how we use language. What if we did? The story shows how we can. In parts of it.
Ready? Here we go.
Nothing says ice cream like a legal teen.
Vote for who you want to vote for. That’s between you and your god and no one else. Always remember that. There isn’t a single other soul who can see what goes on in that ballot booth. You’re not even being filmed. You do you.
A clear conscience is a sign of a stupid person. Or someone with a bad memory. Different? Yes? No?
Earliest thing you’re told: Nobody’s perfect. Or is it one of the earliest things you remember? But why not? If someone said, “I’m not going to do anything wrong,” or, “I’m not going to do anything wrong from this point forward,” having reached a certain evolutionary mark as a person, is it really impossible that they could achieve their goal? Or does perfect also mean perfect height and perfect BMI and there’s a single figure representing the answer for each? No. The saying means morally perfect and in terms of behavior. You don’t think anyone’s ever done it?
All of that spit in all of those bobbing for apples buckets. An unlikely bucket to have on hand when you think of it, considering the size. You have to be able to get your whole head in there, along with room for the apples, too, and yet everyone has bobbed for apples.
Guy says to another guy, “I am really struggling to live my life.” Other guy is about to ask, “Do you think your wife no longer loves you?” because he likes the wife and they could be a little something-something. Not really, but it’s nice to have thoughts that don’t need to come true.
All of the trees you walk past when you’re with your family either then or now or both before you cut down the tree for Christmas at one of those farms that are like a forest. How different would it have been with any of the other trees? You think, “Not different at all,” but afterwards also probably, “Well, different.”
“I think I have a problem” a friend begins a conversation with his friend. The friend who hasn’t said these words tries to determine if he should say something or just wait. It feels like an important moment and not an inconsequential decision. He opts for, “What’s going on?” and can tell as soon as he said it that he did well.
What percentage of people would elect not to be born if they knew they would die and could understand death not as someone who was less than a second old but in a reasonable adult manner? What if they were offered something else instead? You don’t know that it isn’t that way and the people who would have been people in this world are all somewhere else and there’s a lot more of them there than there are here.
No one will ever completely understand anything you say. Your best possible statistical outcome in this regard is a high percentage (call it 87%) of what you just said being fully understood but that’s probably if what you’re saying is simple. Knowing this and then saying something that’s less than simple involves a certain amount of screaming into a void in however indirect a fashion because this knowledge is painful if you care and want all of the meaning to get through, which you likely do, very much so. Try thinking that there are invisible spiders in the invisible cracks between all things and it’s these missed meanings that give them life and purpose which helps the world keep spinning. “Eureka!” those spiders say as all that wasn’t understood makes its way down to them.
Behold my gesture—no, act—of massive kindness. Did you see? Well, did you?
Kid’s about to jump into the pool. “Mom, mom, look. Mom, you’re not watching.” He really thinks this one will be better. Hardly anything is exactly the same as anything else so you can’t even say he’s automatically wrong. It’ll be better or worse, but not the same, so you can see where he’s coming from.
Couple of jock types later on in life. They’re being observed by a non-jock type. Someone with lots of degrees. They aren’t all at one of their houses because these three guys wouldn’t get together like that. The two wouldn’t know or want to know the one and vice versa. So they’re somewhere else. You want to call it a train? Fine. They’re on a train. One of the jock guys is down. He feels overwhelmed and he’s turned to the other jock guy for advice. The advice isn’t directly asked for, but his friend usually has something for him. The first jock guy is saying he has to get his act together, so he’s going to do this, he’s going to do that, he’ll begin here, he’ll go there, he’ll make sure of Y, he’ll get going on Z. And his friend says, “You’re saying you’re going to go long, and you’re going to go short, and you’re going to run a post pattern, and you’re going to run a crosser. That ain’t gonna work. Just pick up a first down. You get to stay out there the whole time you’re making first downs. All you need to do is make a first down and then another first down. Keep the chains moving.” The guy who has overheard this scoffs. Internally. He doesn’t want to be heard and drawn into this discussion or, worse, be snapped at. But then he thinks, yes, that actually does make sense and is good advice, allowing that he knows what a first down is.
Kind of different, huh?
Remember those questions I asked you above with the first story? What could anyone say in answer to any of them? But it's easy to answer all of them with this other story, isn't it?
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