You heard it here first : the literary health of a culture depends on the fierce struggle of the best to get itself born - to disentangle itself from the surrounding Pretense & Bluffery-Puffery : the swamp-fog of the petty, the ephemeral, the mediocre, the ersatz, the cheap.

This struggle in part depends on the kind of literary democracy (secret ballot of time) I've been talking about. Art needs the freedom to be itself, not part of somebody's program, career, stand-up caterwaul, or buddy-system.