Saturday, January 12, 2008

The Philly Dilemma

OVERVIEW OF A LITERARY CITY

As a cultural city Philadelphia wants to be two things. It wants to be what it is at its heart: a tough working class town with tough peopls who have a clear-eyed no bullshit view of the world, on the order of a Cleveland, a Pittsburgh, or a Detroit. At the same time there's a veneer of glitterati who expect Philadelphia to be New York.

Present is a separation between DIY doers like Frank Walsh or Natalie Felix, as well as indigenous observers like Lawrence Richette, with the wannabe-New York City influence which is so powerfully strong. The independent writer is left trying to find a spot somewhere within the intruding arms of the nation's literary establishment or be shut out.

Established Lit is anchored by three major power centers.
1.) U of Penn.
2.) The Main (Free) Library.
3.) The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Granted, there are cracks in each of these edifices. There are Penn profs who think independently and are open to new ideas and new writers. (I hope there are!) While the main reading series at the Free Library is an extension of the conglomerates of New York, the Monday Poets series has been more democratic, if not populist. Even from the "Inky," for all its stagnation, there have been hints from their book people that they know they have to change-- though any babystep they make toward change, like soliciting reviews from tame lit-bloggers, is accompanied by complacent self-congratulation.

They remain voices of the status quo: landmarks of artistic inertia.

Mixed-in among these are voices trying to catch their favor, usually p.c. cliques of various styles; many representing attempts at change but none who would challenge these powers and their premises. The chief tactic is survival through adaptation; recycling the acceptable and the predictable. At stake are bureaucratic positions, grant money, and occasional publication.

All cues come from the Big City to the north, whose pull is inescapable. This phenomenon turning Philadelphia into a literary satellite is reinforced by writers fleeing New York real estate prices. Many are rabid McSweeneyites, affluent trend-followers who've created a community centered around Big Jar Books.

The healthiest aspect of the lit scene IS the presence of independent bookshops, from the great Germ Books in Fishtown, to Robin's, to Molly's (if that's still going), to Joseph Fox, to Wooden Shoe, among others.

Trust-funders and street poets: the Philly scene is a variegated mix of the awful, the mediocre, the fake, the genuine, and the good.

But what do others think?

2 comments:

FDW said...

Me thinks that on the cultural level and especially if one confines discerment to literary endeavors Philadelphia is as segregated as Baltimore (is on the racial count).
This has been going on for a bit now but especially since the trurn of the century (and yes the nation's economic, class and cultural divides do resemble conditions of the century before) in tadem with real estate interest immanent domain- ance. The "artists" and sub-cultures like punk and new-wave fusions, jazz and hip-hop and in turn especially underground literature and poetry ('cos they bees so especially dangerous as usual to the status quo and its attending belief and ideological systems), the same dynamic, streetwise- socially aware community at the roots of the health and healing of the neighborhood-- the bohemian, avante-garde that always flourish on the post- industrial urban frontier-- that created the tone and possibilty of redevelopement and infiltration by the agendized and monolithic forces of "immanent domain", in the first place, have been coopted and, if there was and, if there is any resistence, "cultural- cleansing" is committed against them in the name of making the neighborhoods "family friendly" and profitable and more PC "abstract" in orientation of expression so as not to offend the financially and liberally endowed preppie invaders.
As their is a preponderance of Israeli based real estate companies overseeing and carrying out the takeover and developement of the neighborhoods around Columbia University in upper Manhattan so goes the University of Penna. with the help of the U.S. State Department and Saudi and other Arab owned companies in WesT Philadelphia.And of course New York City apparatchicks, at least I think that is my point and dots the i and crosses the t ? Well personally I think that that's quite enough of that, hopefully others will take up the torch here at this juncture.
But of all the occurances that could illustrate what you're getting at in this post, one recent one comes to mind that is ann example:
Terri Gross of WHYY has copped the 2007 Literarian [sic] Award for outstanding service to the America Literary Community from the National Book Awards in NYC this past mid- November.
Here's one of the greatest neo liberal philistines in Philadelphia history getting an award for basically pushing the New York publishing industry's most turgid and corrupt literary burghers (Franzen, Moody, Eggers, Dave Sadaris, that Hodkins or whatever guy, Limony Snicket or what ever that goof's name is, time and time again is ok tho)and keeping the local and then again real grassroots populist undergrounder poets and writers on the margins without the public access which we're told is the whole reason for the exisitence and status of PBS in the first place. That's what is so irratating-- no not Terri Gross and the censoring and exclusion she committs and is comitted too, but the use of the word "community" in the award she's recieved. When she has never interviewed an independent underground writer or poet of the "community" here in Philadelphia!
I bumped into her at Home Depot in Sou' Philly a few tears ago as she was as she sd. getting some hardware for her mother who lives on Rittenhouse Sq, After exchaging potables I asked her when she was gonna git some local writers and especially poets, as I am one of those lost souls meself, and she said oh yes, "they" were, "planning on having more wrietrs on her show". And I sd. well I guess that means there will never be any local poets on the show then".
She smirked and turned away from me to face the music of the cash register.

Karl Wenclas said...

Thanks for your remark, Frank.
I'll be asking other Philly writers to weigh in, then will be adding to this blog as regular posts.
(I can add your comment as a post-- but will ask you first to modify or expand it if you like. You'll be on the e-mail I'll be sending out.)
Re your points:
True, sure, but we are going to have to accommodate ourselves in some way with the power centers in this town. They're not going away in the short term-- and I'm not ready yet to fully abandon the city, or even large swatches of it, to our rivals.
Undergrounders should be competing across the board for every inch of the territory-- without compromising our cred or our principles.
That I've been pushed out the door of the ULA by my two fellow triumvirs-- completely disrespected-- will turn into a plus, as it frees me to push into new areas.