Or that light wouldn't fill the world if it were let out: Guggenheim letter

Tuesday 10/13/26

I received a note the other day from someone I put down as a reference with my Guggenheim application, which has hardly changed over the past few years. As we've definitively proven time and time again here, the Guggenheim is as rigged as anything gets. I should say that's impossible to argue based on the evidence put forward in these pages.

There's no way they'd give it to me unless they had to; and the only way that could happen is if this situation was the opposite of what it is now. In other words, because they were made to look so bad. In order for that to happen, people need to know. If people don't know, the people doing the evil can just keep on doing it, no matter how evil it is.

The writing has nothing to do with this. How do you think Uncle Willard--as in, Willard Spiegelman--got his Guggenheim? Remember him? Creepy ass condescending fuck.

These people, right?

What is deserved and merited is a farcical conceit here, merit being one of the very worst ideas in the world to these people. If it was about merit, they'd could never get any of the things they're gifted. The Guggenheim people, in their "official" stance, do their classist bit to up that farcical quotient, as in, "We here at the Guggenheim seek to award/back writers who are doing important works for the benefit of the world and who have financial need and have proven they will put their time and energy to good and faithful use with $40,000 to allow them a better opportunity to focus on that work for the next year."

This is so large and obvious a lie that I don't think we need to say more about it right now.

Of course they give the grants to people who have money, come from money, and possess no ability, never mind will create work, or would ever think to seriously try, that could make this world at all a better place. You think that's what Laura Van Den Berg does? Paul Yoon? You know, the wife and husband who both just happened to deserve, on the exact same day, while writing separately, Guggenheims.

Sure. Totally legit.

I mean, honestly, how dumb would you need to be to believe that, especially if you looked at any of their writing? How willfully stupid? Like you threw your entire being behind your stupidity. The full weight of everything you are in this world. Credulity would have to be your god.

You're required to provide three references with your application. (They make sure to feature the logrolling.) I barely know three people. I write. I create the best art ever. Then I stop and run stairs so I can keep creating as long as possible. That's what I do. That's all I do. I don't jerk off frauds and bigots. I couldn't if I wanted to, because these people all know me to be completely unlike them in every last way. That makes things a giant "no go" in this incestuous subculture.

I'm as legit as anything could be. You think these fakers, with their crippling cases of imposter syndrome, which necessitated the formulation of said incestuous subculture in which they all lie to each other, are gonna be cool with that? It was never about the writing. Obviously. Which means the writing--my writing--never had a chance to make a difference. It was never about anything I did to anyone, while these people do horrible things. If anything, my genuine kindness, my morality, my professionalism, even the friendliness I forced myself to display again and again and again--millions; as in, millions--of times over, for decades, while knowing full well I was being lied to, demeaned, shat on, discriminated against--made it worse. Because I was as far from what they are, and what they're really about, as is possible. And I couldn't hide that. It's in every word and work. It's in the knowledge, the expertise, the range. And much more.

Anyway, this person I know, who is a professor in Maine, and a good person, and a "normal" person--that is, not one of these people--who also knows the deal, both in terms of what I am and what's happening and how this system works, said to me in their note that they were going to speak to the nature of genius and also that of recognition and popularity.

It's common for people to think genius is this thing that is understood/recognized after you're gone. I'm speaking generally now, not about this person I know. I think they just want me to get this thing I deserve more than anyone. But a lot of the time, that's because it's bullshit. Or it's not necessarily genius.

Look, I love Van Gogh--especially his letters, which is his most meaningful art--but his paintings...I mean, they need this push to be talked up as genius. There's luck involved. Marketing. More luck. Novelty. Do you really think those are paintings of genius? There's a lot of reasonable doubt.

Go back to that prose off, though, of the famous excerpt from James Joyce's "The Dead" versus a passage from my own "Dead Thomas." There isn't doubt. I wouldn't call the "Dead Thomas" excerpt genius, because it's clearly much more than that. There it is. What do you want me to do? Lie? Pretend it's something else?

Anyone who looks at that--and you're only getting one small part of a work that is even more, much more, in the unique power of its totality--knows that's not just great writing, it's not just "genius," that it's something the likes of which doesn't otherwise exist. It never has, and there's no reason to think it ever could again. These people have minions carrying their water, lying constantly about their shitty work like it's any good. You think I'm not going to say what is inarguable about my own work? Why would I do that?

To date, my ability has made my life exponentially harder. As I wrote the other day, the literal last thing in the world you want to be is me. Certainly as of October 13, 2026. You will be hated, envied, feared, shunned, in the extreme, for being what I am and being able to do not only what I do, but what I do constantly. And I keep getting better. I'm the same person who will go up and down a giant Monument sixty times in five days and tell you he didn't do that good of a job. I deal in truth. Right down the middle. And I'm never not going to say it, especially when that would serve the purpose of these people, in this evil industry, who'd rather no one ever knew, and no one ever even knew to look.

So in my response to this fellow, I stepped aside from the business at hand--for we correspond and speak--to say a few words about that idea of genius and recognition and popularity.

I appreciate that. I was going to say I was surprised they asked you, but I'm also not. Given that I basically tell them to go fuck themselves in my application, and call them classists, liars, frauds, and bigots, they either go through these motions out of some weird spite or they don't look at any of it. Which is what I lean towards. Either way, it's all in the bag going in. They know who they're giving this to. They have a schedule. "These lords and ladies this year, these lords and ladies next year." 

As for you and me and a separate conversation...I think one has to be careful with the idea of "genius means no money," as in "not commercial." I'm not saying that's what you're saying. I see this a lot, though. I know that there isn't a popular song, however melodic, accessible, unforgettable, that has more within it to make it popular than something like "Best Present Ever" does or "Friendship Bracelet" or these versions of "Fitty," "Dead Thomas," and "What the Mouse Knew" I am working on now--and have been for so long--which you will hopefully see before the year is out.

I daresay that, with the age factor, "What the Mouse Knew" is organically the most popular thing in history. That sounds weird, given that no one may ever know it exists. Or that's how I feel these days with the full cognitive weight of my mind behind it. I'm talking about what it is, though. In terms of what it holds. You could have a prison in the ground filled with more light than the sun contains. It doesn't mean that light isn't there because of the circumstance of the imprisonment or that light wouldn't fill the world if it were let out. 

"Mouse" is more accessible than one's next breath. It can be reread more than any song can be listened to. And it should be. It would repay that. Come home and "play" this story. Play it for others. By age factor, I mean one could be eight-years-old or 800-years-old and it can be everything to that person to the fullest degree. To a child or the greatest genius whoever lived. You wouldn't believe how often I think about this story. I've given it quite the build up over the past year but I don't think anyone I've done that with will see this work in its final form--even after seeing that earlier version from years ago--and be like, "Wait, that's it?" I think they'll go, "Holy shit...he wasn't kidding..." 

With the Guggenheim, that was only about money that I need (and also what it would allow me to do as another tool in exposing these people for what they are and their revolting system for how it works). So whatever you think is best to be said, say it, by all means. That's how that began, anyway. Now I just apply so that I can say I did when I do these prose offs (you know, "...story by Guggenheim winner Little Lord SucksBalls v. Fleming story"). I'll be doing some soon with MacArthur genius grant people. Look up Bryan Washington. I've had him in my sights for a while and just hadn't gotten to it yet. So bad. So predictable that he'd get one. If you could bet on this shit, we could make a fortune. These people aren't playing against anyone. There's no other team at the field. Was like Tommy Orange. You knew it was coming if you knew him and his deal at all. 

Thanks again for doing this and letting me know that they reached out to you. Please don't spend too much time on it. They're not even reading any of this. It isn't like it's some competition with anything actually being judged, vetted. It's just a bunch of classist liars hooking up bad, untalented people they think they understand to be the right kind of people. 

Hope you're feeling okay and all is well with you.