The Tone Is the Message Is the Tone

The following is a poem I wrote in 2010.  It resulted from real criticism (quotes in italics) received.  Let it stand as an example of From the Dross, I Create, a chapbook I compiled and published a year ago.  

The Tone Is the Message Is the Tone

I like what you’re saying but

you’ve got the wrong tone,

wrote an editor, then

another and another and another.

Grab a flap of flab from the belly literati,

twist and tug, twist and pull, 

bring forth hesitant, repressed indignation.

If you want to increase your congregation,

replied yet another… tin soldier 

of the vast ocean army of invincibility,

you’ve got to smoothen out 

the wrinkles in your voice.

Speak rude truth, and rage, rage 

through the dying light of the establishment,

and educe ineluctably 

the buried anger of crushed individuality.

I’d like to publish some of your work, 

wrote another tin man, though

disguised in mask of freethinker. 

You make some very interesting points, 

but I don’t think our niche of readers 

would appreciate your peculiar bluntness.

With the ax, fall revenues,

with the sword, tumble advertising dollars,

with the shotgun, shrink subscribers,

with the right tone, wane truth and justice,

with the pen of thin skin, butchery behind charade.

I’d like to see more of you in our publication,

wrote another editor,

but your discourse needs to be more civil.

It even makes me feel a bit uncomfortable,

so I could imagine our audience might also feel that way.

Kill the voice and the word be sameness

Kill the discrepancy and business be usual

Kill the messenger and the message be no longer

I think what you need is to add a little humor,

wrote a friend, 

to get more people on your bandwagon, then

you could turn the blade on your laughing readers.

Ever humorless, though, and angry, raucous and uncivil,

fed with the fodder of consistency on how to build a constituency, 

I still choose the coffin of anonymity… 

Molly Demeulenaere

 

Margaret Pless

The cartoon below was sketched in 2018.  The dialogue de sourds I had with Margaret Pless is a typical example of a reaction from those who hate anyone who dares criticize what they like.  Pless's blog is called "Internet Famous Angry Men."  The particular blog post concerning me, the editor of The American Dissident, is called  "The Misogynist, Poetry-Hating Artwork of G Tod Slone"  (see https://idledillettante.com/2014/08/28/the-misogynist-poetry-hating-artwork-of-g-tod-slone/  and/or below).  Now, how not to laugh at that!  In essence, if ye dare satirize a female, well, then, you are automatically denigrated as a hater of all females.  Insanity rules!  Pless seems sadly incapable of criticizing my "artwork" via reason.   Now, I wonder why she didn't include the cartoon below on her blog site.  Hmm...

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Internet Famous Angry Men

A BLOG BY MARGARET PLESS

The Misogynist, Poetry-Hating Artwork of G Tod Slone.

10

Portrait of Alice Quinn, by G Tod Slone.

G. Tod Sloan seems like the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to ask about his career; lest he landslide you with angry screeds about women who have better jobs than he personally does. An erstwhile college professor with an insanely long list of “publishers who ignore me” posted on his web page, G Tod Sloan’s 1600-word origin story tells of how his own agitating “essentially destroyed my career and livelihood”. I’m guessing this means that this guy would be a plague upon any university which hired him. So let’s have a look, shall we?

I was brought into contact with Slone’s blog because he kept sending the SLC student newspaper political cartoons and angry letters about Marie Howe until the Phoenix published them. Ms. Howe teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, which I attended; although I never took Howe’s classes and don’t recall having any contact with her. So I guess that would make me Slone’s target audience, since if I had taken her class, I would be biased in her favor. Here’s what he submitted to the College’s newspaper, The Phoenix:

Marie Howe, by G. Tod Slone.

Wow. At least he got that luscious curly blond hair right, although he overstated the wrinkles I think. All of the undergraduates at the reading look like total doofuses, especially the one from “Sarah Lawrence U.” on the far left. Seriously, look at him. He has all the individuality of a cardboard standup used at a firing range. At least the NYU and Columbia guy get the credit of some feature; like being a Jew or wearing earring(s). It’s sad that this cartoon could be made much more effective if Slone had any fucking clue what Sarah Lawrence students looked like. Or maybe he was just working towards that corner and got tired, I don’t know. He sent a follow-up comic to the Phoenix which looks like this.

Marie Howe and “Brooklyn” aka Tina Chang, by G. Tod Slone

NB: There is way too much text in this panel.

Here, Marie Howe looks like Whoopi Goldberg in whiteface and Slone’s self-insert is rendered about as transparently as a spirit. Not that getting a ghostly visitation in a public place wouldn’t be great material for a poem, but I’m 90% it’s a slobbery in the art; so I forgive Slone’s lazy depiction of SLC students as hat-wearing signboards for the College. Tina Chang is depicted as a sneering viceroy to Howe’s Queen Bey. It’s interesting to compare the actual faces of these women with the faces Slone gives them; like watching a straw feminist filter occlude this guy’s reality. (Am I getting too poetic? Sry.)

Howe and Chang are trying to engage people in an act of creativity by writing poems with strangers in Grand Central station. That’s the idea of what Slone’s trying to depict, anyway. Except now that’s he’s telling this story, Sloan can insert himself into the situation and share his thoughts while controlling every aspect of how it happens. He finishes off his polemic against all things “PC” with the sexist command “Bang that out on your typer, Brooklyn!” Slone claims to be fair&balanced but the service to his own ego is obvious.

Seriously, if you hate poetry and think it’s a waste of time don’t harass the poets, just move on. It’s not like they’re aggressively demanding you read their work, the way G. Tod Slone does constantly on his web site and blog, ruminating on all of the people who’ve ignored him over the years.

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Tod Slone

Aug

28

10 THOUGHTS ON “THE MISOGYNIST, POETRY-HATING ARTWORK OF G TOD SLONE.”

• 
• G. Tod Slone
  AUGUST 28, 2014 AT 6:31 PM
  
  To Margaret Caroline Pless,
  First, thank you sincerely for taking the time to write a blog entry on me and The American Dissident. Vigorous debate is after all one of the prime cornerstones of democracy. I am quite happy that Marie Howe’s creativity elicited my creativity, which then elicited your creativity.
  Now, allow me to criticize your post entry. First, as a blossoming writer of criticism, you should strive for accuracy. Spell the target’s name correctly, as in SLONE, not SLOAN.
  Because I, as a critic, have criticized women does not make me a misogynist, since I’ve certainly criticized far more men, than women. Criticism, no matter how undesired by its targets is fundamental to a thriving democracy. Call me a misanthropist, if you must “ad hominize”! Sadly, I suppose you’ll be pushing the war-on-women mantra, if Hillary runs. Yes, criticize Hillary, and they’ll call you a misogynist. Has it really gotten that stupid in America? Yep!
  The vacuity of such reasoning is akin to the person who called me a racist because I had the audacity to criticize a black poet trustee at Bennett College (Maya Angelou), where I was teaching. Yet I’ve criticized far more whites than blacks. In fact, if I avoided criticizing blacks, then indeed I’d be a racist. PC blinds! Are you aware of that? The shoot-the-messenger-and-avoid-his/her message tactic that you seem to favor is a puerile one, yet sadly quite in vogue in academe and politics.
  The key should not be dismissing, via ad hominem or trite epithet, what someone writes (e.g., “angry screeds”), but rather pointing to precise inaccuracies, lies, and “illogicismes” (fr.). Rare has anybody taken the time to do that regarding my criticisms, for how easy it is to simply respond via epithet, though, silence tends to be golden when my targets are academics and poets. Howe did respond to one of my emails but, like you, NOT to the message. In the watercolor of Alice Quinn, which you posted (why you do not mention), for example, depicts Quinn as a prostitute because she runs a members-only club, the Poetry Society of America, and receives plenty of public monies for turning a blind eye, especially regarding the inherent corruption (censoring, banning, and ostracizing), modus operandi, of the poetry establishment—its elite icons and organizations.. In fact, I depict Quinn once again, this time on the front cover of the next issue of The American Dissident, crowning another elitist poet, as head of PEN’s literary awards. Well, you’ll have to wait for the issue to come out before you can examine it. Sorry!
  And how sad that you mock my vain attempt to get your college librarian to subscribe to The American Dissident ($20), a journal that publishes what perhaps no other journal dares publish. How sad that you apparently do not agree with the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, in particular, “libraries should provide materials and information presenting ALL points of view.” Your professors have failed you certainly with that regard. The inherent problem with socialists and many librarians tends to be their rejection of that principle tenet of democracy. Sadly, destroying alternative student newspapers and heckling or disinviting speakers with unpopular viewpoints have become activities proliferating across the nation’s college campuses (see thefire.org). I suspect you favor such activities. Again and sadly so, your professors have evidently been instilling not the fundaments of democracy, but rather the fundaments of multiculti-PC, into the student head. (Yes, that’s a purposeful joke!) Just the same, the editor-in- chief of The Phoenix does believe in the ALA’s statement. Bravo to him!
  Now, it is misleading to state that I “kept sending the SLC student newspaper political cartoons and angry letters about Marie Howe until the Phoenix published them.” It almost sounds like I forced the newspaper to do so. Yet how could I possibly do that? Were the items published because of threats I made? That seems to be your aberrant implication. Besides, I sent TWO cartoons and perhaps FOUR emails. KEPT implies many, many. Two or four do NOT. Also, what is so ANGRY in my missives and cartoons? Look at the damn message instead of knee-jerk reflecting against anything that upsets your ideology and favorite ideologues. I was NOT criticizing Howe’s poetry classes at SLC, not in the least! Can you NOT read? Are you in grad school? That cartoon depicts a place called Poets House, NOT Sarah Lawrence! Those are NOT grad students standing before Howe! They are simply poets wearing shirts depicting institutions employing Howe.
  You seem incapable of understanding that simple cartoon, focusing instead on what is immaterial and criticizing the appearance of the cartoon characters as in “he has all the individuality of a cardboard standup used at a firing range.” Again, puerile ad hominem!!! And then how did you get “Jew” out of another guy depicted in it? So, all Jews wear earrings? Doesn’t that make you a stereotyper? Wow. You completely skirt the message in that cartoon! How is that possible? As for the other cartoon, my “bang that out” comment comes directly from the New York Times article that inspired the cartoon and featured HOWE. And how the hell did you get SEXIST out of that comment? You better write a letter to the NYT to complain about it! I just borrowed it. They created it! “Fair and balanced” is not my term. It is yours! There is no “fair and balanced” in the literary established-order milieu. Again, you FAIL to comprehend the simple message in that cartoon too! Wow. I’m amazed you have a degree from SLC!
  So, if one criticizes established order poets and poetry, then you conclude one is a hater. Bravo! So, journalists who criticize politicians are also haters. Did you know that PC blinds? Ah, oh yeah, I already asked you that one… Now, surprise me and respond to each point made here. Hell, I did that with your little write-up. Here’s a PC smiley-face for you: :). Will you censor this comment? If not, there is hope. If you do, there is no hope…
  Sincerely,
  G. Tod Slone, PhD (universite de Nantes, FR) aka P. Maudit,
  Founding Editor (1998)
  The American Dissident, a 501c3 Nonprofit Journal of Literature, Democracy, and Dissidence
  http://www.theamericandissident.org
  wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com
  todslone@hotmail.com
  217 Commerce Rd.
  Barnstable, MA 02630
  
  Reply
  
• 
• G. Tod Slone
  AUGUST 28, 2014 AT 6:37 PM
  
  PS: In a democracy, POETRY like everything else, including ISLAM, the LGBTQ community, and illegal immigration, should be wide open to criticism. Criticizing poetry’s elitist proponents does not/should not automatically render me a “poetry hating” artist and writer. That is an absurd and sad conclusion! Hopefully, now, Ms. Pless will understand that.
  
  Reply
  
• 
• G. Tod Slone
  OCTOBER 4, 2014 AT 1:07 AM
  
  Trumping Reason with Double Standards
  —A Dialogue de Sourds—
  By G. Tod Slone
  I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
  —MLK
  The stage is set at Sarah Lawrence College, but not at Common Ground, a student space that serves “students of color and students of color identity groups.” P. Maudit has just had two cartoons and a letter to the editor published in the student newspaper, The Phoenix. Besides outsider cartoonist P. Maudit, the actors include student Margaret Caroline Pless and student editor-in-chief Wade Wallerstein.
  MCP: Wow. These cartoons are worse than unfunny… I have to read them three of four times and I’m still not sure what P. Maudit’s deal is.
  PM: Well, the cartoons clearly argue poets should shun, not embrace “safe” havens for poets. And that poets should be truth tellers, not academic ladder climbers and scribbling beavers of fluff.
  MCP: Is it Marie Howe’s poetry? Women named Brooklyn? That poetry doesn’t matter?
  PM: I’ve never read Howe’s stuff. It’s the event she staged as poet laureate of New York at the train terminal, having poets scribble out poems from suggestions made by passersby. One of the beavers was the poet laureate of Brooklyn. Such inane events really help make poetry insignificant, rather than significant. Can’t you read?
  MCP: The fact that SLC exists and has spaces like Dark Phrases for authors of color?
  PM: Ah, yes, Dark Phrases for authors of color. Imagine if SLC had a space like White Phrases for white authors. There’d be an uproar of KKK accusations! So, why isn’t there an uproar of Black Panther accusations? Double standards, that’s why! It’s all right to be non-inclusive if you’re “of color,” but not all right if you’re white. Bravo!
  MCP: I know for a fact white students can submit to Dark Phrases.
  PM: Well, perhaps so, but they’re surely not encouraged to do so. Besides, I am criticizing the written statement that clearly specifies “students, staff, and faculty OF COLOR.” It needs to be changed for the sake of equality and inclusion. In fact, I’ve done another cartoon on that featuring Dark Phrases editor Kamden Hilliard and Chief Diversity Officer Allen Green. Hopefully, the student editor will publish it.
  WW: I’m not going to publish it because your accusations are unfounded. White students can in fact be published in Dark Phrases! So basically you’re getting super worked up about nothing.
  PM: Actually, I’m not “getting super worked up” at all. Just because I point out something that needs to be criticized does not mean I’m getting angry. Now, can a white student become editor of Dark Phrases? In fact, why not a simple statistical analysis of just how many white students, staff, and faculty have been published in Dark Phrases? Ah, the deafening silence with that regard! Yet I thought diversity proponents loved statistical analyses.
  MCP: Ugh, someone sound the hetero-normative white guy klaxon. Batton down the hatches and sit tight until he no longer needs to explain to all us non-guys and non-whites why we’re wrong.
  PM: Nothing like diverting attention from the argument via ad hominem! So, how does it feel to be a hateful, PC-anti-white, heterophobic racist, Caroline? Touche tootsie! Again, double standards trump reason.
  MCP: White students can even go into Common Ground…
  PM: Yes, but are there scowling Black Panther guards at the gates of Common Ground?
  MCP: The question is whether or not whites have anything to contribute to said spaces; some do and some won’t. You don’t, so go back to your blog (and it is a blog; it’s hosted on “blogspot”) before I lampoon your terrible site (including it’s lulzy list of publishers who ignore you) on mine.
  PM: Oh, oh, now you’ve got me shaking in my boots! Don’t make threats, act! Yeah, when it doesn’t agree with you, just kill vigorous debate, democracy’s cornerstone! Bravo, Caroline! Now, why am I the one questioning and challenging the double-standard hypocrisy entrenched at your college? Why aren’t students and faculty doing that? Clearly, the response lies in either indifference or indoctrination.
  WW: I’ve given you your 5 minutes on my site, now it’s someone else’s turn.
  —The End—
  
  Reply
  
• 
• idledillettante
  OCTOBER 12, 2014 AT 1:12 PM
  
  God you will just suck the air out of the room to get the last word, won’t you?
  Remind me never to get stuck on an elevator with you.
  
  Reply
  
• 
• idledillettante
  OCTOBER 12, 2014 AT 1:14 PM
  
  And WTF is that last comment? A “Dialogue de Sourds” ? It looks like a puppet show where you put words in my mouth because I quit paying attention to you for a whole month or however long its been
  
  Reply
  
• 
• G. Tod Slone
  OCTOBER 12, 2014 AT 1:36 PM
  
  It is odd to me that all you can do is respond with ad hominem. Yes, call me a woman hater. Bravo. Yes, call me a racist. Bravo. Yes, call me a failure at climbing up the academic careerist ladder. Bravo. How did you become so incapable of responding with reason? Indoctrination is of course the answer to that question. Indoctrination always trumps reason. Rather than basking in ignorance, why not try learning a foreign language? Or at least try a little online research. Yes, why not try google? Just write the term “dialogue de sourds” in the box, rather than broadcasting your ignorance. Are you per chance taking lessons from Affleck?
  BTW, the words in my little one-act play are direct quotes. Do you need proof? If so, revisit The Phoenix, where you posted those comments.
  
  Reply
  
• 
• G. Tod Slone
  OCTOBER 12, 2014 AT 1:42 PM
  
  PS: I think you need another lesson in Indoctrination 101 because most indoctrinees kneejerk resort to censorship (i.e., moderation) of comments they do not like. Perhaps there is hope for you? In any case, I sincerely thank you for not censoring out my comments. In that sense, you are more a rarity, than an anti-white, anti- heterosexual misanthropic (look the word up!) herd follower.
  
  Reply
  
• 
• G. Tod Slone
  OCTOBER 12, 2014 AT 2:11 PM
  
  PPS: How does my sketching of the three cartoons, posted above, depicting women make me a misogynist? After all, I’ve sketched perhaps 2000 or more cartoons. Have you done a statistical analysis on them to determine if most of them depict females in a negative way? Of course not. Have you even bothered to determine if in fact my criticism of females depicted is entirely un-founded? Of course not. Your implication is a brave-new-world frightening one: criticize a female in power and be deemed a female-hater. It is the same lame reaction of those who would call anyone a racist who dares criticize a black man in power.
  
  Reply
  
• 
• EarthGround
  JANUARY 27, 2017 AT 4:36 AM
  
  Disclaimer: Criticism ahead, beware.
  I know this man. He is a pussycat. He is totally non-violent physically. He is an intellectual wimp. My Wife kicked his ass. I got her ghostwrite to for me, and she torn him an new arsehole arguing grounded topics. I would need days to type it.
  Ass him about his compass. He is a tool himself. He is a dork. Still love Newfoundland G?
  As for the owner of this blog, you, American content creator, there is no need of a semi-colon; in your first sentence. I grew up dirt poor in NFLD, where and how did anyone teach you to abuse these things, ; ; ;? Go to work, labourer! Just kidding.
  You are just wrong. I am using hyperbowl.
  Stop bullying this weakling. Bully me? Not likely missus. Good day to you, labourer? I did not read but half a sentence here George. I am a slow reader.
  You can’t write very tightly and neither can she. You guys went to school for this stuff. Land sakes!
  My Wife is a martial artist. She just cuts. As well with words. Stop the man hate. Stop baiting people George. Write for your country. Grow as a pair, you two.
  You have a great mind. You re just shitty at art!
  Slow down, and apply yourselves to domestic policy. America needs it’s citizens to apply themselves, not waste blog posts on garbage.
  I was searching for your email on Google George, you dink. I needed you to write me a blurb. I got a book deal.
  I apologize, blogkeeper, for my intrusion here. Forgive me. My style. God help America.
  The Athiests are challenged to greet the day in civility.
  For what it is worth, either of you would scruple better as POTUS for me, than Trump, or Obama.
  Dare I ask how you two share common ground?
  Or, is this space soley for bickering?
  I did not even read any this post. I am arrogant.
  Sorry, Mr. Trump. (I would rather any woman, just not Hillary R. Clinton)
  Nameste.
  
  Reply
  
• 
• EarthGround
  JANUARY 27, 2017 AT 4:41 AM
  
  To clarify, G. Tod Slone was already a potential POTUS in my mind. I extend the worthy bloghostess the same grace of state.
  Make it great. Be POTUS in your own mental states.
  
  Reply
  

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