Fiction at Fast Pop

ONE THING we’re trying to do at Fast Pop Lit— a key part of the New Pop Lit project– in addition to using it to be quicker at posting new material, is to inject more color into today’s moribund literary scene. The “POP” in our title means we’re not just a literary site, but have been heavily influenced by other art forms, including music and painting.

WHICH MEANS in part posting work which jumps out at the reader like a painting– such as this piece by Perry Genovesi, “Sketch Rex.” Take a look at it and see what you think!

They want to don their blue newsboy cap, visit the Boulevard to watch the young people sitting on the benches downtown, smoking by the statue of the giant granite head. A cold thought like wet paper towel presses itself against their face and snakes out their eyes.

What’s Authentic?

Poetry

PATHS TOWARD REVIVED LITERATURE

WE LIVE IN A WORLD where increasingly everything is fake. Fake images sounds food faces– chain restaurants with fake Taco Bell Olive Garden artificial cuisine, dupe the masses, sell them robot dates, pump the digital AI-generated fake voices shouting hype to keep the money flowing– fake crypto currency money backed by nothing but the promises of megabillionaire tech hustlers whose only purpose in life is to rob you blind.

WHERE do we find the real, the genuine, the authentic?

Well, maybe in art, for a few last waning days when we can glory in the work and words of actual human beings, before a mass of content generated from the Machine drowns everything.

WHEN reading our new feature, “Two Poems by James Lee,” I thought of a 1998 quote by music critic Dave Marsh, in a book of his essays which recently came out: “That kind of culture, existing in isolation from the Ted Koppel world, exists only at the extreme margins today. A hammer dulcimer picker here, a maker of Cornish pasties there, a quilter in a cabin off in some holler or a rancher singing old corridos in some Southwestern arroyo.”

YET if we’re to become grounded, we need to get back to our roots. Culturally, because only culture will save this mad society. Revived culture. I don’t know exactly where poet– or Odist, as he prefers to call himself– James Lee is from. Tennessee, I think. Perhaps from the kind of isolated place Dave Marsh speaks about, where’s he’s been more in touch with our linguistic roots. His poetry has that sound– the kind of word music which could’ve been heard in England by the Bard himself. No, we’re not going back to some archaic, outdated, or impossible past. But there’s no reason why we can’t draw on elements from the past– examples and techniques from a variety of people, places, sources, as culture traditionally has done (see the roots of rock), like drawing clear water from an underground stream.

THE GOAL: Revived writing. Fiction. Essays. Poetry.

We hope you like James Lee’s poetry!

I Think I’ve Found My Place
Within The Swamps Of Belamour
Liquored Honey From The Gods
Brought There By The Mods
Who Escaped The Plastic Pods
Rising High Above All Odds
We All Go Running In The Streets
Being Chased By Suits And Neats

Art of the Memoir

Feature

AUTHENTICITY AND ART

In the insane new world of Artificial Intelligence and everything fake, we at New Pop Lit believe the proper response to tech insanity is to embrace the natural and real– including real-world experience, and writing based on real-world experience. As exemplified by our new feature,“The Big Time” by Bob Bozic, a chapter from Bob’s memoir, Still On My Feet. Few people have had as varied and tumultuous a life as Bob– including homelessness, hospital stays, world travels, bartending, and as the featured chapter describes, boxing. Tough, atmospheric reality. We know you’ll enjoy reading it.

By 6:45, Bev returned. After ensuring I had all my fight gear—boxing shoes, sweat socks, shorts, jockstrap, protective cup for the groin, and two mouthpieces (in case one got lost)—we made our way to the Garden. At the back entrance on Eighth Avenue, the bookies’ betting line on Chuvalo remained at 3-1, but the line on my fight had tightened slightly to 8-5. This led me to wonder if Bertie had placed a bet on me through a connection, possibly shortening the odds. I mentioned this to Bev while changing into my fight gear, to which he responded typically, furrowing his brow as he admonished, “This has got nothing to do with us.”

(Featured painting: “Dempsey and Firpo” by American “Ashcan” painter George Bellows.)

Canadian-Americans

Essay

NEW POP LIT’S EDITORS grew up in the Detroit area and have lived in and around the city– usually close to the Detroit River– much of our lives. Our current residence-headquarters is in Wyandotte, Michigan, which rests on the river, directly across from Canada. We were and are influenced by Canadian radio and television– we still listen regularly to CBC Radio– in the same way many Canadians are influenced by American culture. And of course, many of those who live and work in Detroit and throughout Michigan are from Canada.

Which is our way of introducing our new feature, creative non-fiction by essayist David Wayne Stewart, “New to Class”— which tells his own story as a kind of vagabond moving back and forth throughout Canada but never completely belonging, before ending up in the United States. California, specifically. A story of adjusting, trying to fit in, as all of us continually are adjusting and fitting in, finding roots, identities– or at least experiences– along the way.

Charlie and I stepped out of an underground parking garage and into the bright urban sunshine. After a five-hour drive from Montreal, we had arrived at the final stop on our father-son tour of Central Canada: the sprawling city of Toronto. As a steel door clanged behind us, I squinted up to read the street sign: Yonge Street. Locals call it “the longest street in the world”. Even now it was pulsing with neon lights, fancy cars, and loud music.

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(ALSO: Check out our new Report at the NPL News blog about latest happenings on the AI front!)

February Fiction

Pop Lit Fiction

CREATIVITY: What is it? Sometimes it’s presenting a new way of looking at things, a new angle, new viewpoints. Merging genres or mixing styles. Or contrasting, as with our new feature story– “Molasses” by Bud Sturguess— comedy and tragedy. A look at the Titan submersible disaster of 2023 and reactions to it. The story is really about: us. Humanity, with all our flaws, quirks, ambitions and foolhardiness which make us the unique– or uniquely foolish– creatures we are.

Creativity is the goal of this project. Which means offering entertainment to readers, but at the same time, varied vantage points on art, life, writing. Anyway, we hope you enjoy the story!

Whenever I heard of the Great Molasses Flood, I used to grin and think, “how do you not outrun molasses?” It must have looked like a scene from Ghostbusters II, the evil slime oozing down streets and tunnels. I mean, molasses is used as a metaphor for slowness; how could anybody fail to escape a “flood” of it? Or did big fat globs of syrup rain down from the sky and trap whoever they landed on, like a mosquito in an amber fossil?

XXX

ON OTHER FRONTS, we hope to soon revive our Open Mic blog, with new ideas planned for it. In the meantime, we’re offering a short, energetic piece of music there by Ben Macnair: “Fat Chaffinch.” A signal of the energy which will be coming to this site.

About Style

Announcement

A state of mind. An agenda. A program. A manifesto. An expression of self. An expression, perhaps, of a potential new literary movement.

WHEN’S the last time the literary world had real style?

painting by Thomas Phillips

Byron had style. Lord Byron. Sounds like the name of a WWE wrestling star.

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and their Lost Generation friend Ernest Hemingway had style, in their persons and prose. They influenced entire generations of American writers.

Jack Kerouac and the Beats had style. Their look, swagger, words, ideas created a cool subculture and gave business to burgeoning coffee shops, nascent venues for poetic musical talents like Bob Dylan and Patti Smith.

WHO among writers today has real style? Not affected pretentious overwrought “style” in their workshopped too-literary words. Style instead in their person, swag, attitude– a vibe projected in their look and their writing and in every part of their being.

We’re looking for style, because we know those who have it will revolutionize today’s literary scene.

ALSO: KEEP UP on what’s happening at Fast Pop Lit. Coming soon: Part IV of our “What’s Wrong with American Literature?” series.

AND– If you haven’t already, please sign the “Save the Writer!” petition to protect writers and readers. Thanks!

2024: A New Start?

Announcement

EVERY NEW YEAR is a chance for a fresh start. A do-over. An opportunity to this time get things right. Which is the attitude we’re bringing into 2024. Our goal: to punch a hole through the curtain of today’s culture and jump through it.

Only one strategy will work: totally revamped literary art. This will include a sea change in how people view fiction and poetry. New standards. New canons. The only path forward. Let’s make 2024 a year to remember.

Goodbye 2023!

Announcement

NO DOUBT 2023 was a tough year for everyone except a handful of tech billionaires who gathered enormous wealth–

— but we got through it, which is what counts. In so doing, at New Pop Lit we published a variety of sterling work, fiction and poetry both. In our admittedly biased opinion, some of the best writing to be found anywhere. Doubt this? Then click onto our “TOP OF THE POP” page and browse around. READ some of the stories and poems. They fit our goal of being readable and striking.

WHAT ELSE were we up to in 2023? For one, our “Save the Writer!” petition, which has us standing at the forefront among literary people in questioning the dubious benefits of Artificial Intelligence. If you have not yet signed the petition– you should.

WE ALSO began a new page at our site, Fast Pop Lit— a site within a site, really– for posting shorter work much faster than we can put up our longer features. Also, as a way to promote those writers we do feature at our main site. Plus, it’s as striking looking as any literary site out there– a reflection of our intention to be not just one more literary mag. Previews, interviews, commentary, satires– with much more to come. Check it out!

Then stay tuned for a lot more to come in 2024.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Announcement

ANOTHER Christmas? They have a way of sneaking up on us with all that comes with them– songs, gifts, joy, cards; how many days off from unliked jobs? Unforeseen mailings of chocolate the best part. Maybe, in this year of wars and turmoil, reflection on what this holiday is supposed to be about: Peace On Earth, not running about in shopping malls or making hurried orders care of Amazon or Walmart. The Wise Men carried gifts, but when all is said and done– guided by a star, in tune with the universe– they were likely far wiser than us.

We wish Happy Holidays to one and all!

-Karl and Kathleen

The Search for New Writers

Pop Lit Fiction

WE MAKE NO SECRET of the fact that as a literary project we look for writing talent. Talent not of the approved predictable “literary” variety– we’re not out to be the next The New Yorker or Paris Review. Instead, talent with an edge to it– and which shows hints of openings toward new viewpoints or new directions.

For our final feature of 2023 we present one such story, “Straight and Narrow” by Joshua Vigil. Click on, plunge in and see what you think.

She lived in a gated community with low hanging fronds that draped every door in fit boxes of shade. The bell clanged an unlovely sound. But she was graceful in how she opened it. Taking a step back. Scrutinizing me for a split second before deciding that yes, I would do. I felt my worth, and I strolled in with some misplaced confidence, leaving the perfect fronds and the perfect shade for the giddy unknown.