Rauan Klassnik fondles Seth Abramson
Before Rauan Klassnik joined the team here at HTML Giant, he did a little blogging in the realm of parody with a stream of posts that involved, in a semi-veiled way, the recently hotly discussed character of Seth Abramson.
Rauan provides the adventures of Sex Ableton.
They are pretty graphic, and obscenity laden, and freely riff of Sex’s wife and cock and etc, but also delve further, in the way much of Rauan’s work does, to larger ideas of identity, fucking, and, yes, love.
Here’s an excerpt:
She drops to her knees. Unzips him. There in the moonlight. In the corn.
And two hairless testicles pop out at her.
O, how cute, she exclaims, you wax!
But where’s the cock? she ponders.
And then it hits her: a house mouse cock!
O, My God she exclaims so loudly that the breath from the elongated twangy syllable she made of the word “God” swept over Sex’s balls and on to his tiny hidden cock. And it all tingles. Tingles like all the stars. All the stars crushed into a dot. A scorched waiting primordial dot.
It was as though the hand of God or some other great power or creature had touched them. He was petrified. Primary. Excited beyond the capacity of anything that measures. Mass or girth. Demons or Colin Firth.
Here’s more of Rauan discussing Seth directly, including naming his obsession with the persona and the riffing: here. Many other posts continue the obsession.
So, looking at all of this, and considering that clearly Ron knows he is fucking with Seth, and Seth does not like it, and going further in that I am posting this as a friend of Ron’s, and he blogs here, I wonder what people think of the way Ron is approaching this online entity? I wonder if people would say Ron has gone too far? Is there some level of respect being passed over, involving Seth’s wife and their sexual habits being played out publicly? Is this all fair game?
Consider as well the art here featuring Seth, culled from Ron’s blog, which are portraits he has made of Seth and posted alongside these diatribes. Are they in bad taste? What is taste? What is too much? Anything? Certainly Seth sets himself up, but to what end? What do these pieces mean?
Also worth considering is Ron’s previous habit of publishing fantasy pieces about Ron Silliman again and again, some of which I published. Is it wrong of me to ask this, with such close ties? I don’t think it is. Ron is clearly a doter, and an antagonist, with a horny pen. Am I allowed to talk about and/or question my clear friends, even when clearly it is something I find funny?
I have to say that I believe all ideas and images are fair game, but it seems an interesting question to fondle in public light, and if not a question, then just an interesting practice at all, and I am curious as to how people feel about the ramifications of it, and what this kind of practiced speech might invoke.
Tags: rauan klassnik, Seth Abramson
Is there a term more extreme than ‘inside baseball’?
Is there a term more extreme than ‘inside baseball’?
‘pardon the interruption’
‘pardon the interruption’
I think it’s okay to do this to Seth Abramson because that guy begs for it. On the other hand, if Ron hit me up like this, I might feel differently about the whole thing (but, actually, probably not).
I think it’s okay to do this to Seth Abramson because that guy begs for it. On the other hand, if Ron hit me up like this, I might feel differently about the whole thing (but, actually, probably not).
I agree with Adam. You make yourself a public figure when you publish anything (or do anything that invites criticism). The only defense you got would be to argue that it’s defamation, and in order to argue that, you’d have to demonstrate that whoever defames you says the truth publicly. I don’t think Seth Abramson would want to say that what Ron’s writing is “truth”, in that legal sense. When people in the lit community get mad at each other there’s a sad lack of “I’ll meet you at the bike rack outside the hotel after the pedagogy seminar” at things like AWP.
I agree with Adam. You make yourself a public figure when you publish anything (or do anything that invites criticism). The only defense you got would be to argue that it’s defamation, and in order to argue that, you’d have to demonstrate that whoever defames you says the truth publicly. I don’t think Seth Abramson would want to say that what Ron’s writing is “truth”, in that legal sense. When people in the lit community get mad at each other there’s a sad lack of “I’ll meet you at the bike rack outside the hotel after the pedagogy seminar” at things like AWP.
that’s it, Iredell, i’ve had it with ya— meet me at the back of this flimsy shack !!!
that’s it, Iredell, i’ve had it with ya— meet me at the back of this flimsy shack !!!
Jimmy Behrle is readying a schtick-infringement suit as we speak.
Jimmy Behrle is readying a schtick-infringement suit as we speak.
LOL… defamation (libel, slander) is all about *false* statements, not true ones. At any rate I think Ron’s stuff counts as artistic expression. No worries. Only a lawyer would think of actually suing in this case. Oh wait…..
LOL… defamation (libel, slander) is all about *false* statements, not true ones. At any rate I think Ron’s stuff counts as artistic expression. No worries. Only a lawyer would think of actually suing in this case. Oh wait…..
boring.
boring.
[…] made by individuals I have not met” isn’t quite right. Some people, including Blake Butler here on HTMLGIANT and Seth himself, made a connection between “Sex Ableton” and “Seth […]