Musings on my vision for Cavalier

I want the brand to reflect a precocious, child-like sensibility. There should be an aspect of fantasy to it, wish-fulfillment: "Yes, we really are going to do that. We really are going to go there." When you talk to children, they often make outrageous plans, extend logic too far, and proliferate out of sheer momentum (ask a child to describe his/her vision of the perfect ski resort, vacation destination, amusement park, and you'll get something that doesn't quite make sense in places). I want Cavalier to be a grown up version of this exuberant envisioning. It should almost not make sense. A little stretched and strained in places (so that it's as if we're begging the question, "how far can a literary mag go? can it be a whole world?") and yet, polished in every respect. Child-like in ambition but adult in execution.

So please write to me. Tell me what you've always dreamed a lit mag might accomplish (oh I know, you're wondering why I chose to start a lit mag as opposed to some other business like a cafe or a boutique; what better venue for fantasy and adventure than creative writing, which for me is synonymous with those words; there is simply nothing more inherently FUN; certain writers manage to articulate the world in such truthful terms it feels inappropriate and illegitimate to be so deadly accurate; it becomes emotionally erotic to read, a real adventure, whether or not the work at hand actually concerns the subject of adventure).

Or write to me and just tell me something you wish existed in the world. A product, a service, a place, a community. At the very least, I will write back.

A word about our editorial tastes: yes, we love stories and poems that fit the aesthetic of our site snugly but we're looking for pieces that don't, as well. That jaggedness is important to us. So yes, stories and poems about hunting and fishing told in spare minimalist prose could definitely win us over.

What we can learn from hedge funds

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm moved by the rhetoric on the websites of Bridgewater and D.E Shaw, two hedge funds which are known for their all-around excellence and meritocracy. Bridgewater has a culture which encourages openness, fierce quantitative talent, constant improvement, criticism of superiors, and lack of hierarchy. D.E Shaw actively seeks top performers across fields: artists, scientists, scholars, etc. People you wouldn't typically associate with a financial institution. There is an openness in the hiring procedures, a belief that ability transcends category, that true creativity is not at odds with capitalism. Also, there is supposedly not the sort of bias against young people you find at most corporate places ("let the kids do the bitchwork and move up one inch at a time until they're so bitter at the top, it makes them happy to abuse their inferiors"). They probably hire more MFA graduates than publishing houses do (well maybe). I don't want to be anecdotal, but I just don't see that sort of organizational intelligence and flexibility at publishing houses. They seem in contrast hierarchical, old-fashioned, and rigid. I'm surprised they haven't learned to anticipate most of the major stumbling blocks and trends the industry has faced lately. They should have seen it all coming a decade ago. Blogs, self-publishing, Amazon, longtail, e-reader, etc. It must be someone's job to anticipate. I've been thinking a lot about brands--image and brand loyalty lately. Even though I don't work at the funds mentioned above and have little or nothing to do with them, I somehow feel loyal to their visions.

I don't know how possible this is , but I want to run CAVALIER with a little of that spirit. We already have some great unpaid interns from Dartmouth working for us, but my big dream is to employ some college kids and actually pay them decent money. So that there are no compromises, no sacrifices involved in working for my organization. Great paycheck, great company, great product, great values. A place where everything is perfectly aligned. No matter how big we ever get (and believe me, it will grow by the time I'm through), we're never going to have a slush pile we don't read. And we'll never just resort to publishing famous people because we don't have the energy to go through submissions (I will make it a point to discover emerging writers). There simply won't be any laziness. And when I hire these paid interns, it will be very meritocratic. No nepotism. Connections won't sway me. I will actually go through every single resume and pick the smartest, most passionate and hardworking person. And like the above-mentioned firms, I will aggressively seek out the best people to join my team.

And prizes/contests. Need to do something about that. Definitely need to reinvent how that is handled. Just think it's a wasteful enterprise. I hate the winner-take-all mentality (and this is not sour grapes; even when I do win something, it strikes me as arbitrary). So one person gets $2000 and everyone else, nothing. Because some judge decided he liked it (and probably for some very subjective reason). What does this accomplish?

I'm blessed to be working with my current group. I deliberately assembled a board composed of people with diverse interests (but a unifying commitment to literary art) because I knew the jaggedness and fresh insight would be productive. My only criteria was the following: 1) excellence in some chosen field 2) interest in literary fiction or poetry.

Recession

The recession is a blessing in some ways. It has collapsed boundaries, encouraged risk-taking and entrepreneurship, and toughened us so that we will operate with superb efficiency once this is over. Bootstrapping is great because it ensures a nice return on investment. Running a business is so "artistic" in a sense; so much of it is about execution, "craftsmanship," the small things. Everyone has great ideas; very few have the drive to follow through on them. I've run a number of small operations in the past, and I use the same mentality I use for creative writing, whether I'm checking for glitches on the site, organizing documents, preparing correspondences, running around the city with countless errands: "This is it. This is what it means to run a business. If you don't enjoy this, you're a fake. One of those people who talks a lot and never gets anything done." So intense is my fear of becoming one of those people I'm incapable of procrastination (to my detriment at times). And this is what I think when the going gets tough with writing: "This is it. This is what it means to be a writer. If you can't handle it, you're one of those people who only loves the idea of things and not the work itself. And above all, you believe in work."

Work. Muscle. Density. There is nothing I love more than a sense of productivity. That a day has passed and left behind a lasting product of some sort.

I am grateful for everyone who resonates with me on this note. People who are swift, polite, and hardworking. This project has given me a new found appreciation for technicians, plumbers, fixers, and factotums of every variety. There is just something to be said for people who do their job well. Impossible to function without their efforts.

Some will argue with this, too, but art is usually a compressed version of life. I won't try to define it here, but I think I can come close by saying it involves a concentration, a process of taking out, whittling away. All the old paradoxes are at work: limitations strengthen the creativity muscle, discipline brings freedom. The less cash I have, the more I am forced to make each dollar mean something.

In some ways, I am glad certain opportunities did not work out for me and that I am thrown off the old track.

Decisions

This goes for books as well as for movies: there seems to be a real lack of scientific basis behind the decisions that go into which books are published (and which movies are produced). I read an article in the New York Times (maybe it was a year ago) describing all the major flops in the book publishing industry. Books with advances of 600k or 700k that for some reason didn't sell. I get the sense that people in charge are so focused on replicating successes of the past ("The Horse Whisperer did well? Oh, let's publish 10 more books about horses!") they don't realize that sometimes the products which perform well are successful in their strangeness and idiosyncrasy, something very particular about the execution itself. People in charge make conservative, sloppy (short-sighted and fear-driven) decisions that don't reflect good business acumen OR a commitment to art and quality. I doubt extensive polls or comprehensive data are used and who knows if the conversation producing these decisions is primarily anecdotal and intuition/emotion driven--or if there is really a substantial discussion concerning the style and form of the work at hand. Capitalistic greed I can understand. Purity and idealism I can understand, too. But something vague, lukewarm, and murky in the middle I can't.

A lesson from the parents

Last night I re-read a chapter from one of my favorite writer's bibles, On Becoming A Novelist by John Gardner. Gardner discusses the various day occupations that are suitable for a literary writer. Office work is draining. Journalism "may undermine the writer's prose and sensibility." High-school teaching is "draining" and burdensome, the responsibility too great. Teaching at the college workshop level, he writes, has become very popular but will make the serious writer strive to out-do his students with academic showiness and artiness. The teacher/writer may also ruin his own creativity with the kind of over-analysis and explanation that teaching often entails (and even then there aren't many of these opportunities, considering the hundreds of writers MFA programs pump out every year and the number of teaching slots available). The Guggenheim and the NEA might work, but this is only for writers of a certain level, and the judging process might be unfair. Finally, marriage or long-term commitment to a wealthy significant other is an option, but the writer in this case should be careful to find someone he/she respects and desires (as this sort of prostitution might chip away at his self-respect and affect the quality of his prose)... What I find interesting about all this is that it makes writing (and the urge to write) out to be some fragile thing which one must approach delicately, almost with superstition, as if inspiration will fly away at the slightest hint of... gasp... high school--over-analysis--college workshops!--unfairness--responsibility--office work--sex-with-someone-you-don't-respect (that last part was meant to be funny). Not that I encourage people to prostitute themselves in the name of art, but responsibility and draining work are a reality for most. Most people have never known a perfect cohesion of passion, work, and cash flow. Why should writers have it any better, especially since so many refuse to engage with the economic side of art and shy away from the business of promotion (so let me get this straight: you expect to sit in the wilderness and crank out poems and stories and magically, thousands of people should be interested in this and spend their hard-earned cash on your work when a million other things are vying for their attention?). People will disagree with me, of course, but I think writers need to be tougher about this work business. If it's real, the impulse to write should survive no matter what. And I think this toughness, this engagement with life as it really is is good for a writer's sensibility. I think that working writers (writers who have jobs across industries, not just academia) and writers who have worked (some undoubtedly no longer need to) will naturally infuse their writing with energies that engage other working people. And this should help make the literary world less stale and incestuous.

Directing Process Class

Here are my thoughts in some preliminary, undigested form.

Several years ago, I enrolled in a very intense, upper-level undergraduate directing class. Every class, we were responsible for presenting a one-act play to the other students. Frequently, the "plays" were compressed versions of classics like Our Town, Suddenly Last Summer, Desire Under the Elms, Spring Awakening, etc. Sometimes they were staged versions of poems. I always found these presentations immensely riveting, stripped down and bare and hastily prepared as they were. And I think everyone else did, too. I remember being shocked by the intensity of my own engagement (wondering why I often spent $12 at the movie theater watching stupid blockbuster movies which cost millions to produce when I already had perfectly thrilling FREE entertainment from my own classmates every other afternoon). So my question is this: is there some way to package and distribute those student performances... locally at least, so that anyone might enjoy them on a Friday or Saturday night at a local theater? (We already have YouTube which has made film a very democratic experience.) All you need is a surface on which to project.

I'm sure there is a good reason for why this hasn't happened yet... but let's take a look at the situation. 1) what I hear from most young people is that they hate their jobs, wish they were doing something creative, miss the good old days when they used to act or paint or dance 2) almost everyone I know has had the experience of going to rent a movie or checking in at the RedBox (that DVD renting machine) at Price Chopper or whatever and not finding a single good movie to watch. 3) it is supposedly very hard to "make it" in the arts.

Assessing the situation on an intuitive level, I feel like we have plenty plenty plenty of talent in this country (how many aspiring artists will basically kill themselves for free just to get exposure, just to be read or watched by a few hundred people?), cheap means of distribution (technology has made it so), and an audience which deserves niche offerings designed for very specific tastes. There is so much artistic talent in this country, it seems a waste I should spend an ounce of energy watching Meet the Spartans for the 3rd time just because it's readily available. In short, we should make other things readily available, too.

In MFA programs, we train hundreds and hundreds of artists. But we devote so little energy to training managers of the arts, cultivating entrepreneurial urges within student artists, and thinking critically about the economics of art (whenever I talked about starting this or that initiative in my program, the dominant response I got was "just shut up and write; that's what you're here for"; true, of course, but I found after a certain point that I just didn't want to devote all my energy to a world that didn't regulate itself, run itself independently, that relied so heavily on its ties to academia and the charity of rich people, on private donations). At a point, it became ludicrous to go on in the old way.

People assume they aren't powerful, well-connected, or rich enough to execute their visions. A few decades ago, this might have been true, but technology has changed everything. Bottom line: content is cheap, distribution easy. Tastes can be made, needs created. Today there are no excuses.