i was not the first to decry the shallowness that had overtaken the culture , from idiotic tv , to bright , shiny , big-spectacle movies as empty as raided graves , to art which only imitated art which had self-consciously imitated art before it but at least for a laugh , right up to and including the now conglomerate-controlled publishing houses , where there were only acquisitions editors , where there was the search for the next bridges of madison county ongoing , but not the next thomas pynchon .