Some Thoughts Re Muumuu House

'nylon': 2009 Nylon article re Muumuu House

[Ed. note: A month or two ago, Jordan Castro wrote me an email containing a review he’d written for Matthew Savoca’s long love poem with descriptive title. The review was less a review and more a personal reflection on Jordan’s part, referring to things about the book pertaining to himself: what he did while reading it, how it made him feel, etc. In fact, the review ended: “I really only thought about myself. Again.” I felt interested, or at least curious, as to why this kind of review, and really, this kind of relating to things by one’s self rather than the thing itself, compelled not only Jordan, but also a kind of group with which Jordan has been grouped, i.e. Tao Lin and Muumuu House, writers of an often readily identifiable, and sometimes ire inducing, style, that pertains often mostly to feelings, incidental observations, and what might could be called “absurdist emo” (I just made that up). Instead of the book review, then, I asked Jordan to write about these associations; what fuels them, why the self-focus, maybe even what is kind of going on? Jordan’s thoughtful, and I think generous, and probably in more than one way controversial, reply follows below. -BB]

INTRODUCTION

Throughout the history of literature – or the history of anything, rather – people have found other people like them and they’ve “stuck with” those people for a period of time, supporting them, “hanging out” with them, etc.

This is what people do.  They communicate.  They form relationships.  They do things to alleviate the monotony of their existences.

Muumuu House (est. 2009) [http://muumuuhouse.com], a publisher of poetry, fiction, Twitter selections and Gmail chats, seems, to me, to “simply” be those patterns of humanity “in action” – a group of socially alienated individuals who chose literature as their means of alleviating monotony and who, as a result of that and other things, inadvertently (invariably?) “united.”

In other words, I feel like Muumuu House – or “the Muumuu House group of writers” – are a group of people who like similar things, like any other group of people.

If this essay exists to “say anything,” it exists, I think, “simply” to explore my own thoughts about Muumuu House and a certain type of writer/person.

NO RHETORIC

One thing that I feel “brought us all together,” to some degree, is a lack of rhetoric in our thoughts, worldviews and the way we interact with other humans.

In “mainstream culture” and in all “subcultures” that I know of, there exists a large degree of rhetoric and external, abstract “purpose” that drives the “core” of [said cultures’] existence.  In “mainstream culture” it is usually something like money, God, family, society, success or [something else].  In other cultures it is usually something like [form of government or lack thereof], anti-[something], pro-[something] or [something else].

This rhetoric and “purpose,” in my view, “stems from” the belief that there is an inherent, universal “right,” “wrong,” “good” and “bad,” and invariably contains paradoxes and contradictions that are not addressed and/or are justified in some way within [said culture].  Things are assumed and rules are applied.

I honestly feel that this is not the case with Muumuu House.  I think that once one decides – or “realizes,” rather, based on certain understandings of perception and concrete reality – that there isn’t an inherent, universal “right,” “wrong,” “good,” “bad” or [anything], and one focuses mainly on cause and effect in concrete reality while simultaneously “destroying” preconceptions s/he “learned” while growing up, s/he will think, speak, write and act in a manner that the majority of people will not understand and, due to the nature of the way that the majority of people think, will want to “strike down” or “lash out against.”  This can be seen in the countless “shit storms” that have “rained down upon us.”  This can be seen, maybe even epitomized, in my view, in Charles Bock’s review of Richard Yates by Tao Lin for The New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/books/review/Bock-t.html].  People – using literary devices, rhetoric, etc. – say we’re “bad,” for reasons usually based on the idea that literature or life “should” be a certain way.  We, however, don’t say things like that, because we don’t believe in an inherent “good,” “bad,” “should” or [anything], I think, just a “different.”

Tao Lin, Megan Boyle, Noah Cicero, Mallory Whitten and Jordan Castro pose for a parent-taken picture after the ‘muumuu house (a dvd)’ reading on Jordan’s 18th birthday”]

DETACHED, DEPRESSED, ALONE, ALIENATED

DETACHMENT – Due to certain worldviews (or lack thereof) and [other things], our “emotional scope,” or range of emotions, while fundamentally similar to that of most people, I think, is significantly less extreme, “for the most part,” due to an almost constant state of detachment from external reality.

While most people, in my experience, seem to think with emotions, we, for the most part, I think, have chosen to think with thoughts, and I think that this is a major cause for our feeling detached from others and others feeling detached (or something else similar) from us.

DEPRESSION – I think my friends and I are depressed.  I think that the way we “deal with” our depression has factored largely into our becoming/being friends.

Everyone does things to alleviate boredom and depression. Some people play sports, some people watch T.V., some people talk to other people, etc.  Depressed people, for the most part, do these things too, or have at some point, but they don’t feel as satisfied doing them as “normal” people do.  So depressed people usually do one of three things:

• 1. Take pills.
  2. “Be depressed.”
  3. Find another way to alleviate depression.

I think – aside from taking drugs, which many of us do – my friends and I have “figured out” that being “mad productive” helps us alleviate our depression.  Tao Lin [http://heheheheheheheeheheheehehe.com/] has written 6 books.  Noah Cicero [http://noah-cicero.blogspot.com] has written 6 books.  Sam Pink [http://www.impersonalelectroniccommunication.com/] has written 4 books.  Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://thoughtcatalog.com/author/brandon-scott-gorrell/] has written >100 Thought Catalog articles.

ALONE – Whether depression is the result of loneliness and one becomes “mad productive” due to that or whether the desire to be “mad productive” is one’s reason for being alone, another common thing is that we all tend to spend a lot of time alone.

This results in a certain manner of acting while around people that, while “extremely strange” to many, seems “very comforting and natural” to me.

Here is an article that Brandon wrote about the way he and Tao talk to one another [http://thoughtcatalog.com/2010/steak-ass-bitches-milking-titties-and-bleak-ass-hos/].

ALIENATED – Everything above has caused us to feel alienated from humanity, to a large degree, I think.

A “STREAM OF CONSCIOUS,” COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF THE PUBLICATIONS ON
THE MUUMUU HOUSE WEBSITE

“extremely high in dark ass room” by Jordan Castro [http://muumuuhouse.com/jc.poetry1.html] – Seems “incredibly funny and sweet,” to me, that Tao chose to publish this e-mail I sent to him.  Seems to “convey” [certain emotions], “my brain on drugs” and a certain moment in my life, in a manner I can understand and remember, which excites me.

“Things I Remember My Great-Grandparents Doing” by Mallory Whitten [http://muumuuhouse.com/mw.fiction1.html]– Seems “incredibly funny, sweet and endearing,” to me.  “Grinned uncontrollably” and repeatedly while reading this, due to certain images and scenarios portrayed.  Enjoyed the manner in which the piece seemed to “deal with” concepts like time, death and “insanity.”

“unpublished tweets” by Megan Boyle [http://muumuuhouse.com/mb.poetry2.html] – Seems “incredibly funny, sweet and endearing,” to me.  Experienced high levels of excitement, interest and intense, complex-seeming emotions while reading this.  Feel a “lingering excitement” for life after reading.

“[excerpt of Person]” by Sam Pink [http://muumuuhouse.com/sp.fiction1.html]– Seems like a sweet ass excerpt from a sweet ass novel.  Seems to portray a degree of “insanity,” awkwardness re social interactions and “bleakness of life,” in a relatable, readable and ultimately life-affirming, in my view, manner.  My face honestly feels “sore” from grinning while reading this piece.

“knife girl” by Mallory Whitten [http://muumuuhouse.com/mw.poetry1.html]– Seems “incredibly funny and exciting,” to me, in the same manner a “well written, plot driven, thrilling movie” would excite me, I think.  This was originally an e-mail, or a series of e-mails, I think, that Mallory sent to me over a period of time, about a girl who attends the same high school as us.  Have read this ~15 times, and enjoyed listening to Mallory read it at this reading [http://smokingonanemptystomach.blogspot.com/2011/01/muumuu-house-dvd.html].

“All Of The Drugs I’ve Taken” [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.fiction6.html] by Brandon Scott Gorrell – Seems “incredibly sweet, well written and interesting,” to me, and to portray certain relatable attitudes, experiences and [other things] re certain drugs.  Initially felt “shocked” upon reading this, I think, due to thinking, for some reason, that Brandon hadn’t done as many drugs as the piece seems to indicate.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“selections from Jordan Castro’s Twitter account” by Mallory Whitten (editor) [http://muumuuhouse.com/jc.twitter1.2009-10.html] – Seemed to feel a “wide range” of emotions while reading this, the most prominent of which being something like “are my Tweets worse now… how are my Tweets now compared to these tweets.”  Mallory did a good job, in my view, of choosing which Tweets to include.  Felt and feel “very happy” thinking about her and Tao “working together” to help me.

“Four Times I’ve Interacted With Justin Taylor In Real Life” by Andrew James Weatherhead [http://muumuuhouse.com/ajw.fiction1.html]– Seems “incredibly funny and sweet,” to me, that Andrew wrote this and that Tao published it.  Felt high levels of interest and excitement throughout.  Remember initially thinking Andrew was “brave” for writing this.  Remember a night in Kent, OH with Noah Cicero, Brittany Wallace and Mallory Whitten, when Andrew talked about how he had arranged an interview with Justin before the piece was published and how Justin declined to do it afterward.  Just felt an “out-of-control” urge to type “GAHHHHHHH!!!!!!” then thought “YAHHHHHHHHHH!” while thinking a little about cigarettes and beer, I think.

“Embarrassing Moments” by Megan Boyle [http://muumuuhouse.com/mb.fiction3.html]– Seems “incredibly funny, exciting and endearing,” to me.  Enjoy the style and format in which it’s written.  Seems like, while most people would view the memories in this piece as “bad times” in their life, or feel sad while thinking about them, Megan detached herself from them to a degree that allowed her to use them for “art,” which I view as the opposite of sad, I think.  “Grinned uncontrollably” while reading the last line of this piece while thinking “Jesus…” then “Jesus Jesus…”

“Three Poems” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.poetry7.html]– Thought something like “these are the best poems ever” while reading these poems.  They seem to portray “complex emotions,” with a degree of detachment, in a style that I feel “adds to” the emotions that are being expressed, to some degree, or something.  Feel “calmly emotional” after reading these, while imagining myself in bed with a bowl of “snacks,” watching South Park on my laptop.  Have read these ~15x.

Probably Going To Die Alone by Ellen Kennedy [http://muumuuhouse.com/ek.fiction3.html]– Seems “calmly emotional.”  Seems written in a style I enjoy and can relate to, and that I’ve enjoyed reading on multiple occasions, usually while feeling depressed, then, after reading, feeling “depressed in a calmer, more accepting manner than before.”  I think I first read this in sometimes my heart pushes my ribs, Ellen Kennedy’s book published by Muumuu House in 2009.

Eight Poems by Audun Mortensen [http://muumuuhouse.com/am.poetry1.html]– These poems seem “incredibly funny,” to me, in a vaguely emotional, sarcastic manner that I’ve enjoyed reading and thinking about on multiple occasions.  Felt “strong affinity” for Audun while reading these poems.  Repeatedly laughed “really hard” while reading these.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

[excerpt of The Insurgent] by Noah Cicero [http://muumuuhouse.com/nc.fiction3.html]– Reading this feels like something is being “released” from my soul in slow motion.  I feel inspired to write “kick ass prose” and to hang out with Noah after reading this.  Seemed to think something like “[Noah] deserves more, like, from literature, or something,” while reading.  The piece seemed to “capture” a manner of thinking and living that, in my experience, seems “nearly impossible” to “capture” or relate clearly, due to the nature of [said manner of thinking and living], in a manner that seemed “natural” and “really sweet,” to me.

“selections from Megan Boyle’s Twitter account” by Tao Lin (editor)[ http://muumuuhouse.com/mb.twitter1.2009.html] – Seems “incredibly funny, sweet and endearing,” to me.  Seems to portray “complex emotions” in a relatable, readable, detached and “really funny” manner, to me.  While re-reading this, I seemed to remember a time when I read this, either before having a Twitter account or recently after making one, and thinking something like “I want my Twitter to be as sweet as this.”

“Gmail Chat” by Tao Lin & Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/tl.bsg.12.29.09.html]– Seems to “cover” a “wide range” of emotions, within the context of “calmly enjoying life, to varying degrees, a certain distance away from one another, each doing things separately, alone.”  Upon re-reading, I seemed to feel “very happy” for periods of time, “focused on [certain sentences]” for periods of time and “amused” for periods of time.  Seemed to feel “nostalgic” for Gmail chats similar to this that I’ve had with people in the past.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“I Woke Up In A Hostel Around 7 AM” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.fiction5.html]– Remember reading this in an e-mail, I think, while Brandon was “overseas,” after asking him if he had written anything recently that I could read.  I remember feeling then as I feel now, after re-reading, which seems to be something like “aware of a vague sense of ‘not having “lived” a lot,’ while knowing that that doesn’t mean anything, but still feeling like “there is a future where ‘living’ will take place,” or something.  The events in the piece seem funny and exciting, to me.

“Bad Smelling Person In Nautica” by Miles Ross [http://muumuuhouse.com/mjr.fiction1.html] – Seems “really interesting,” to me.  Feel increased levels of interest re “how Miles thinks about things” after reading this.  Seems well written and enjoyable.

“[excerpt of Best Behavior] by Noah Cicero” [http://muumuuhouse.com/nc.fiction2.html] – Seems to “capture” a certain emotion that “arises” while attending a “shitty ass” event with people you kind of know and want to be around, but also with a mass amount of people you “hate” at that point and time.  Seems like “anyone who has ever been involved in anything” could emotionally relate to this excerpt, or something, but maybe not… I don’t know.  Felt “very interested” while re-reading this, while also feeling like I hadn’t read it before, I think, despite “knowing” that I’ve read it before.

“Clams” by Megan Boyle [http://muumuuhouse.com/mb.fiction2.html]– Seems “incredibly endearing and emotional,” to me.  Enjoyed the style in which it was written.  Seemed like “exactly what I’d want from a story ‘like this,’” or something.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“scoliosis poem” by Zachary German [http://muumuuhouse.com/zg.poetry5.html] – Seems emotional, to me, in an interesting, “very detached” manner, like a person watching a video of a person watching a video of a person watching a video of a person who seems like they might be crying, but could also not be crying, or something.  I just put the cup of water I am drinking onto my desk and it moved on it’s own.

“from my chair i can see the street and it seems depressing” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.poetry6.html]– Seems “incredibly funny,” to me, in a manner that caused me, upon re-reading, to “think further” about things like [scenario being described in the poem] and existence and “the brain” and [other things] for a period of time, until thinking something like “God damn it…” then stopping.

“Color of Darkness” by James Purdy [http://muumuuhouse.com/jp.fiction1.html]– Seems “innovative, or something,” to me, that Tao published this, or… [something].  I first read this story ~1.6 years ago, I think, while sitting in study hall, and “immediately afterward” began writing a story in a similar style, about a father and a son.  Seems, based on this story and other things I’ve read by James Purdy, that I’d have “liked” James Purdy “as a person” but would “never have actually” pursued a relationship, or something.  Really enjoyed this story.

“Today” by Victoria Trock [http://muumuuhouse.com/vt.fiction2.html]– While reading this, I seemed to imagine Victoria, after ingesting coffee, sitting alone in her bedroom at her parents house, feeling “mildly-very discontent with the prospects for the day,” or “simply” “mildly-very [something],” causing her to feel the desire to “do something besides ‘sit around,’” like she, based on the events portrayed in the piece, had been doing for the first half of the day, then looking at her laptop while feeling mildly “[something like ‘frustrated’]” re “what to write about,” then wrote this.  Seems “really sweet,” to me.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“holding a tiny dixie cup in my hand makes me feel like a giant human being that can crush things” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.poetry5.html]– Seems funny, emotional and mildly sarcastic, to some degree, in a manner that seems sweet and relatable, to me.  Jeffery Brown drew something re this poem that I like [http://www.flickr.com/photos/lydiadavis/4030824623/].  Seems sweet ass, to me.

“i want to drive my car into the ocean really slowly, like a turtle” by Joseph Moore [http://muumuuhouse.com/jm.poetry1.html] – Seems emotional, to me.  Felt interested in the things conveyed and the manner/order in which they were conveyed.  Enjoyed the style in which it was written.  Felt calm and interested throughout.

“A Gorgeous Hotel, In a Grand City” by Michael Earl Craig [http://muumuuhouse.com/mec.fiction1.html]– Seemed “incredibly emotional, relatable, sweet and well written,” to me.  Have read this ~7x.  Seems “well crafted.”  Feel interested in reading more things by Michael Earl Craig after reading this.

“selections from Miles Ross’ Twitter account” by Tao Lin (editor) [http://muumuuhouse.com/mr.twitter1.2009.html]– Seems “incredibly relatable, funny and occasionally emotional,” to me.  I think, before creating a Twitter account, I read these and felt “inspired” to create a Twitter account.  Felt calm, grinning occasionally and laughing quietly, while re-reading these for the ~15^th time, I think.

“Ambien” by Abigail Lloyd [http://muumuuhouse.com/al.fiction2.html]– Seems interesting, to me.  Enjoyed trying to “figure this piece out,” to some degree, via reading it 3x consecutively then trying to think “harder” about [various things].  Seems enjoyable, stylistically and emotionally, to me.  Seems… enjoyable… stylistically and emotionally… to me…

“Three Poems” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.poetry4.html]– Poems seem “incredibly funny, sweet and relatable,” to me.  I like their titles, the style in which they’re written and the emotions they seem to convey.  Felt high levels of interest and affinity the line “seems like cops shouldn’t ride around on bicycles.” and other lines.  Felt inspired to write poetry after reading these.

“Everyone I’ve Had Sex With” by Megan Boyle [http://muumuuhouse.com/mb.fiction1.html]– Seems “incredibly funny, endearing and emotional,” to me.  Enjoy the style in which it’s written.  Seemed to feel “increased [something like “respect” or “admiration”] for Megan while re-reading this, due to her ability to “face” seemingly sad situations with a certain degree of detachment, allowing her to write about them and “reflect,” to some degree, on them, whereas most people, I think, would “completely ignore” or “try to suppress” them.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“elevated self esteem as a result of alcohol consumption” by Megan Boyle [http://muumuuhouse.com/mb.poetry1.html] – Seems “incredibly sweet and endearing,” to me.  Have read this ~15x.  Seems “beautiful,” to me.  Seems like some beautiful ass poetry, to me.

“Gmail Chat” by Tao Lin & Carles [http://muumuuhouse.com/tl.c.4.19.09.html]– Seems “incredibly funny,” to me, imagining Tao ingesting “two eggs, cornbread, nachos, 1 pint blue moon, iced tea and guacomole” in the morning.  Felt interested in Tao’s and Carles’ thoughts re “I Love College” by Asher Roth and [other things].  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“relationship poems” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.poetry3.html] – I like that, in this poem and many of the other poems/pieces on the Muumuu House website, events seem, to me, to be portrayed in a manner that seems “really close to, if not an exact ‘transcript’ of” “real life,” which usually seems “funny” or “sweet” or “endearing” or “exciting,” to me.  Seems like a solid ass poem.  A solid ass poem ass bitch.

“fell asleep while watching ‘election’ last night” by Zachary German [http://muumuuhouse.com/zg.poetry4.html]– Seems “incredibly funny and endearing,” to me, in an interesting, “signature German” manner.  Lines like “(strange thing to say, right? i mean she’s beautiful, but, seems strange)” seemed to cause me to “want to be hanging out with Zachary,” to some degree, I think, for some reason.  Seems like this could have originally been an e-mail sent to Tao.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“selections from Chris Killen’s Twitter account” by Tao Lin (editor) [http://muumuuhouse.com/ck.twitter1.2009.html]– I remember showing this to Mallory Whitten and frequently laughing out loud while reading it with her.  I’ve read this ~20x.  I honestly feel like this might be “one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.”

“Florals” by Rebecca Curtis [http://muumuuhouse.com/rc.fiction1.html]– Felt “mildly aroused,” I think, while reading this for the first time, feeling, to some degree, like something sexual was “about to go down.”  After re-reading, seems “really sweet,” to me, content-wise and stylistically.  Feel inspired to write prose in a similar style.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“seeing a woman cough today made me sense a vague fear of death” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.poetry2.html]– Seems funny, relatable and written in a style I enjoy.  Seems to express a certain manner of thinking and feeling that feels familiar to me, in a style that “helps” the reader “understand” [said manner of thinking and feeling], I think.

“an uneventful story about a person and a dog in an apartment that the majority of the population would react to by saying ‘i don’t understand what the point of this is’” by Ellen Kennedy [http://muumuuhouse.com/ek.poetry1.html]– Seems like a “really sweet” title, to me.  Seems like “the majority of the population” would react to most of the publications on the Muumuu House website, perhaps, “by saying ‘i don’t understand what the point of this is.’”  The piece seems relatable, to me, and makes me feel – in the same manner “talking with someone about ‘how fun [one’s weekend] was’” would make a person feel – excited about life, to a large degree.  Enjoy the style in which it’s written.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“La Pena” by Deb Olin Unferth [http://muumuuhouse.com/dou.fiction1.html]– Seems interesting and written in a unique style that I enjoyed reading and thinking about.  I feel interested in reading more things by Deb Olin Unferth after reading this.  Seems sweet.

“Minimizing and Maximizing Mozilla Firefox Repeatedly” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.fiction4.html]– Seems “incredibly relatable, interesting and funny,” to me.  I enjoy the style in which it’s written and think it “complements” the content of the story.  I think this was the first prose I read where the protagonist’s name wasn’t “simply” “Bill” or “Jane,” or something, and was something else – in this case, Godzilla – which seemed interesting and funny to me the first time I read it and which still seems interesting and funny to me now.  Seems “incredibly relatable,” to me.  Felt inspired to write after reading this, and to communicate something to Brandon like “I really enjoyed reading this piece… Seems like I can remember reading this when it was first posted and feeling like you ‘got me’ when no one else did… [other “gay/sappy-seeming” sentiment].”

“McDonald’s” by Abigail Lloyd [http://muumuuhouse.com/al.fiction1.html]– Seems “incredibly exciting and endearing,” to me.  Seems to “explain,” to some degree, “Jason’s” actions re “Ambien” by Abigail Lloyd, via saying “Jason is retarded.”  Felt increasingly excited about the idea of living, of “getting out and doing fun things,” or something, while reading this.  Feel interested in reading more things by Abigail Lloyd.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“Gmail Chat” by Victoria Trock & Tao Lin [http://muumuuhouse.com/vt.tl.1.13.09.html]– Seems “incredibly funny,” to me.  Seems “crazy,” to me, imagining Victoria “that drunk.”  Seems… “incredibly funny.”  Laughed “really hard” ~6x while reading.

“Synchronized Swimming” by Mazie Louise Montgomery [http://muumuuhouse.com/mlm.fiction1.html]– Felt “incredibly interested” while reading this.  Seems “incredibly well written and sweet,” to me.  Laughed quietly ~3x, calmly trying to “analyze” certain sentences that, upon “further investigation,” seemed “really funny in a complex, intelligent manner,” to me.

“i want to call you a bitch” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.poetry1.html] – Seems sweet.  Seems to articulate something re “productivity” and using it to make oneself feel less depressed, maybe.  Seems sweet ass.  Enjoy reading and thinking about this poem.

“Shoplifting from Urban Outfitters” by Victoria Trock [http://muumuuhouse.com/vt.fiction1.html]– Seems “incredibly exciting, sweet and endearing,” to me.  Stopped reading to think about lines like “She supports being homeless and asking people for money so you can shoot heroin or drink alcohol or something” at various points throughout the story.  Felt excited to “get out and do things” during and after reading this piece.  Laughed out loud ~3x.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“something bad happened today” by Zachary German [http://muumuuhouse.com/zg.poetry3.html]– Seems “incredibly funny,” to me, imagining Zachary in that situation and thinking about the situation “in general.”  Seems like this could have originally been an e-mail sent to Tao.  Felt high levels of interest, excitement and “jesus christ…” throughout.

“Nervous Assface” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.fiction3.html]– Seems “incredibly sweet, funny, emotional and relatable,” to me.  Have clear memories of myself showing this poem, via during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present, Brandon’s poetry book published by Muumuu House in 2009, to a friend at school who “doesn’t read” but likes doing drugs, and him responding by saying “Damn, man,” in a manner I perceived as “like he didn’t want to say he felt weird, even though he felt wierd.”  Seem to often times feel “surprised” every time I read Brandon’s poetry, re “how well I feel able to relate to it,” I think.

“qim drunk” by Victoria Trock [http://muumuuhouse.com/vt.poetry2.html]– Distinctly remember showing this to Mallory at school, and us reading it together, laughing quietly, then both saying we liked it.  Seems “incredibly endearing, funny, relatable and emotional,” to me.  Seems like it could have originally been an e-mail to Tao.  Seems sweet.  Seems sweet ass.

“Gmail Chat” by Tao Lin & Zachary German [http://muumuuhouse.com/tl.zg.9.30.08.html]– Seemed “emotional,” to me, reading this now, due to Zachary and Tao’s “not being friends anymore.”  Seems funny and relatable.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“Gmail Chat” by P.H. Madore & Tao Lin [http://muumuuhouse.com/pm.tl.10.18.06.html]– Seems “incredibly funny,” to me, that this conversation happened and that Tao chose to publish it.  Seems… “incredibly funny,” to me…

“Three Stories” by Matthew Rohrer [http://muumuuhouse.com/mr.fiction1.html]– Seems… interesting.  Feels hard to think anything besides “Seems… interesting.”  Seems sweet.  Enjoyed reading it.  Seems… interesting ass.

“Flatbed, Seabed” by Tara Wray [http://muumuuhouse.com/tw.fiction1.html]– Seems “melancholic, metaphorical and maudlin,” to some degree, in a maybe detached manner, throughout the story, until the end, I think.  Enjoyed the style and content of the story.  Seems “really interesting,” to me.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“Norm Macdonald” by Ellen Kennedy [http://muumuuhouse.com/ek.fiction2.html]– Seems funny and interesting, to me.  Seems… funny and interesting, to me.  Feel unable to think anything besides “Seems funny and interesting, to me.”  Seems sweet.

“lemmings paintball” by Zachary German [http://muumuuhouse.com/zg.poetry2.html]– Seems “really sweet,” to me.  Have read this ~7x.  Really enjoy looking at and thinking about this poem.  Seems funny.  Seems to portray [something] re “focusing on things” vs. “not focusing on things,” or “the nature of focusing on something,” or something.

“A Pale White Hamster Yawns in Bed” by Ellen Kennedy [http://muumuuhouse.com/ek.fiction1.html]– Seems “incredibly endearing, exciting and emotional,” to me.  Seems “cute” and “sweet,” to me.  Felt excited about my relationships with people – one relationship specifically, to a large degree – while reading this.  Felt excited to “get out and do things.”  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“Gmail Chat” by Jamie Sterns & Tao Lin [http://muumuuhouse.com/js.tl.10.03.08.html]– Remember reading this in “study hall” during my sophomore year in high school, I think, and feeling confused.  Seems “really funny” to me now.

“tonic has a lot of calories, interestingly” by Zachary German [http://muumuuhouse.com/zg.poetry1.html]– “Actually” seems interesting to me that tonic, according to the title of this poem, has a lot of calories.  Feel a little confused by this poem, in a manner that feels less like confusion and more like I’m “on painkillers,” or something… or… something…  Seems interesting.

“Butt Teen” by R.B. Glaser [http://muumuuhouse.com/rbg.fiction1.html]– Seems “incredibly well written, emotional and interesting,” to me.  Seems written in an interesting, unique style that caused me to feel emotional.  Feel interested in reading more things by R.B. Glaser after reading this.  Anticipate reading this ~10-300x in the next ~1-20 years.  Felt high, intense levels of emotional interest throughout.

“Godzilla” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.fiction2.html]– Seems “incredibly emotional, relatable and funny,” to me.  Really enjoyed re-reading this.  Felt inspired to write prose after reading this.  Enjoyed the style in which it’s written.  Felt high, intense levels of emotional interest throughout.

“Gmail Chat” by Noah Cicero & Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/nc.bsg.8.12.07.html]– Seemed “incredibly funny and interesting,” to me.  Seems possibly “like one of Noah and Brandon’s first Gmail chats.”  Enjoyed the content of the chat.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

“the world would be happier with me dead in it” by Victoria Trock [http://muumuuhouse.com/vt.poetry1.html]– Title seems “really sweet,” to me.  The emotions expressed in the poem seem to be expressed in a manner that I can relate to, understand and enjoy.  Seems like this could have originally been an e-mail sent to Tao.  Seems sweet.

“Cliches Vs. Concrete Words” by Brandon Scott Gorrell [http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.fiction1.html]– Remember reading this in the Solon High School library during my sophomore year in high school, I think, and “not really feeling like I understood it at all.”  Seems like I feel like I “understand it” now, and enjoyed reading it.  Seems to articulate, to some degree, “what the Muumuu House aesthetic” is “all about.”

“A Cold Wind Blows Tonight” by Noah Cicero [http://muumuuhouse.com/nc.fiction1.html]– Seems like maybe an excerpt of an original draft of The Insurgent.  Felt interested and excited while reading this.  Had “vivid images” throughout reading, of Noah “as” Vasily, the protagonist, doing/saying the things being described.  Felt high levels of interest throughout.

CONCLUSION

This essay is not meant to be definitive, nor is it supposed to be “the truth,” to any degree, or [anything].  I think it’s “simply” an assortment of thoughts I had re Muumuu House, and something that I had fun writing.

Thank you for your time.

* * *

[Jordan Castro (b. 1992) is the author of if i really wanted to feel happy, i’d feel happy already (Black Coffee Press, 2013).  He is the author of Supercomputer (Deckfight Press, 2011) and 2 other e-books. He is the co-author of Cute (Thumbscrews Press, 2011) and 2 other chapbooks.  He maintains a blog and a Twitter account.]

440 Comments

1. March 4th, 2011 / 4:38 pm david davidson—

   @BB

   assigning hw? nice. seems appropriate.

2. March 4th, 2011 / 4:38 pm david davidson—

   @BB

   assigning hw? nice. seems appropriate.

3. March 4th, 2011 / 4:49 pm david davidson—

   also, i’ll respond to this messay with a scholarly critique if i’m paypal’d $1. or if someone actually asks.

   /serious.

4. March 4th, 2011 / 4:57 pm Blake Butler—

   dad, will you respond to this messay with a scholarly critique?

5. March 4th, 2011 / 5:09 pm shaun gannon—

   fight the power

6. March 4th, 2011 / 5:16 pm Julian Tully Alexander—

   I really like the idea of MuuMuu house and enjoy a lot of the authors, but I feel like they are building their own cliches and stuck in rut or something. I don’t know.

7. March 4th, 2011 / 5:19 pm goner—

   I think “absurdist emo” is the best descriptor I’ve ever seen for this clique.

8. March 4th, 2011 / 5:24 pm John Sakkis—

   cool story bro.

9. March 4th, 2011 / 5:48 pm chet—

   seems

10. March 4th, 2011 / 5:50 pm phmadore—

    seems bleak

11. March 4th, 2011 / 5:50 pm phmadore—

    sweet

12. March 4th, 2011 / 5:50 pm phmadore—

    lol

13. March 4th, 2011 / 5:52 pm phmadore—

    No but really though (they don’t hear me though): please take this opportunity to explain the copious and unjustified use of quotations, singular or double, which you and your clique are prominently fond of. If it’s not a gimmick, what is the purpose behind it? Or will you just finally lift the veil and tell the truth?

14. March 4th, 2011 / 5:53 pm phmadore—

    Herding them into one moniker will definitely make them less appealing to people who are actually socially alienated etc. and perhaps stop them from spending their parents’ money on supporting these people’s drug habits.

15. March 4th, 2011 / 5:55 pm phmadore—

    Why not just put your critique on eBay with a cool drawing of a retarded squirrel or something?

16. March 4th, 2011 / 5:57 pm phmadore—

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvdS4wTICNg

17. March 4th, 2011 / 6:02 pm phmadore—

    I will sell the entire Gmail conversation between myself and Tao Lin for $10,000, to be paid in ecstasy, Mexicali weed, or PayPal funds.

18. March 4th, 2011 / 6:04 pm phmadore—

    Also, I think it’s hilarious that Jordan Castro or any of his clique have the balls to pretend they are not driven by anything. You are almost certainly driven by money and the pursuit of a widening of your clique for the purpose of gathering more thereof.

19. March 4th, 2011 / 6:16 pm herocious—

    i liked knife girl.

20. March 4th, 2011 / 6:40 pm deadgod—

    I like writing in choppy, chopping sentences and chopping them apart from each other.

    it makes me feel powerful.

    ignoring some rules but following others also makes me feel like writing what I write choppily and choppingly is an appropriate expression of an accumulation of force.

    but there are acknowledged or unacknowledged rhetoric and purpose to these choppity chops:

    writing like this is fun.

    my fun will not be damaged by those rancors these kinds of writing draw.

    writing like this makes writing like this impervious to gatekeeping malice.

    ha ha – go to hell your own damn selves, gatekeepers.

    there; that is a third item on the ‘agenda’.

    see? – writing like this is fun and I will do it when I want to have this kind of fun.

    you know?

21. March 4th, 2011 / 6:42 pm dh—

    Blake, So long as you’re being generous with HTMLGiant posts, can I also write about how my friends are sooo cool??!

    Seriously, what is the value of this post? It doesn’t tell me anything about Muumuu House that I couldn’t guess from a superficial examination of the general population of everyone on Earth. You treat your depressions with drugs and alcohol? So can anyone else, but they usually end up in rehabs and drunk-driving situations rather than poetry chapbooks. They distract themselves from their problems by focusing on work and/or hobbies? So do bankers and retail managers and guys who are really into the Lionel Train scene.

    You aren’t special.

    Items:

    “While most people, in my experience, seem to think with emotions, we, for the most part, I think, have chosen to think with thoughts…”

    “In other words, I feel like Muumuu House – or “the Muumuu House group of writers” – are a group of people who like similar things, like any other group of people.”

    “If this essay exists to “say anything,” it exists, I think, “simply” to explore my own thoughts about Muumuu House and a certain type of writer/person.”

    Granted, when I was 18, I thought every goddamn thing I did was profound too. Are you editing your work? This isn’t profound, or interesting. You are making uninteresting statements with no regard to an audience, if you even care about an audience other than your friends. You are overstating vague and obvious–I want to say ideas, but not really–things.

    As for the “reviews” of work published by Muumuu House, is there anything you don’t like or what’s the point of this self-congratulatory “review?” Why not change the title to “Lol, my friends are soo cool!”

    “I believe in nothing, everything is sacred. I believe in everything, nothing is sacred.”

    This is awful and boring. I just–I can’t even think of anything.

    Why bother even writing this?

22. March 4th, 2011 / 6:48 pm Blake Butler—

    looks to me like you thought of a lot

    idk, dude, who are your friends? maybe i’d like to hear about them

23. March 4th, 2011 / 6:58 pm Sean—

    Jordan has very open eyes. Like an Andy Kaufman look. I can’t believe no one here drinks beer and just clicks on some of these links. That’s value enough for me. Also I read a funny Tao Lin piece about a bear or something once. So I’ll give him that.

24. March 4th, 2011 / 6:58 pm Sean—

    Jordan has very open eyes. Like an Andy Kaufman look. I can’t believe no one here drinks beer and just clicks on some of these links. That’s value enough for me. Also I read a funny Tao Lin piece about a bear or something once. So I’ll give him that.

25. March 4th, 2011 / 6:58 pm Sean—

    Jordan has very open eyes. Like an Andy Kaufman look. I can’t believe no one here drinks beer and just clicks on some of these links. That’s value enough for me. Also I read a funny Tao Lin piece about a bear or something once. So I’ll give him that.

26. March 4th, 2011 / 6:58 pm Sean—

    Jordan has very open eyes. Like an Andy Kaufman look. I can’t believe no one here drinks beer and just clicks on some of these links. That’s value enough for me. Also I read a funny Tao Lin piece about a bear or something once. So I’ll give him that.

27. March 4th, 2011 / 7:03 pm dh—

    Man, I like HTMLGiant a lot. I like you. I like Tao Lin and Noah Cicero and Sam Pink. I was excited to read this. I didn’t know about Jordan Castro. Frankly, I think Muumuu House writers should be insulted by this, that their work is being simplified, almost dismissed, into “seems sweet.” I feel insulted by reading this. I come here for really thoughtful posts about independent and/or experimental literature–only to get self-aggrandizing word scramble.

    Note: I don’t actually want to write about my friends.

28. March 4th, 2011 / 7:04 pm Frank Tas—

    Reading this makes me want to join the army.

29. March 4th, 2011 / 7:13 pm dh—

    why would i get so worked up about this? that was almost as dumb as this post. fuck it.

30. March 4th, 2011 / 7:13 pm dh—

    why would i get so worked up about this? that was almost as dumb as this post. fuck it.

31. March 4th, 2011 / 7:26 pm 2011 POET LAUREATE—

    post more about my friends

    we’re super interesting, i guarantee it

32. March 4th, 2011 / 7:35 pm Sean—

    Sam Pink hangs out with this group?

33. March 4th, 2011 / 8:16 pm effervescence—

    did you guys see my tweet about p. h. madore? do you think he’s commenting a lot because of the gamil chat on muumuu house? just things to think about… i read parts of the article too, but i’m trying to focus this comment more on what p. h. madore is doing…

34. March 4th, 2011 / 8:41 pm Jordan—

    “the value of this” is subjective. for me, i enjoyed writing/editing it and wanted to support/think about/write about my friends and authors who i like, among other things, i think.

    can you please elaborate re “You are not special.”?

    i edited this while writing it and ~4.6x afterward, ‘by hand’ and on the computer

    i did not intend for this to be “profound,” i think.

    “uninteresting” is subjective.

    re “no regard to an audience,” i think i wrote this with the goals of “creating something artistically satisfying, to me,” “having fun,” “supporting my friends,” and “potentially increasing interest in muumuu house, myself or [authors mentioned in the post].” i think if one person can enjoy and feel excited about something, more people can too, and it is this that i felt could “be sweet” for “an audience,” i think.

    “Lol, my friends are soo cool!” seems less artistically satisfying and clear, to me, than “A “STREAM OF CONSCIOUS,” COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF THE PUBLICATIONS ON
    THE MUUMUU HOUSE WEBSITE.”

    re “Why even bother writing this?”: “If this essay exists to “say anything,” it exists, I think, “simply” to explore my own thoughts about Muumuu House and a certain type of writer/person.”

35. March 4th, 2011 / 8:42 pm Daniel Bailey—

    you should’ve ‘detached’ that file instead of attaching it.

36. March 4th, 2011 / 8:44 pm Anonymous—

    idgi

37. March 4th, 2011 / 8:47 pm Jordan—

    bro…

    can you… please… elaborate….

38. March 4th, 2011 / 8:51 pm Jordan—

    sweet

39. March 4th, 2011 / 9:10 pm richard chiem—

    I loved knife girl

40. March 4th, 2011 / 9:11 pm Sean—

    Can we get a copyright on the quote thingy.

41. March 4th, 2011 / 9:17 pm phmadore—

    Ha.

42. March 4th, 2011 / 9:23 pm phmadore—

    He’s saying, in terms far above your head, that you are full of shit; that you do in fact employ rhetoric and are indeed driven by something — if nothing more (though I would postulate money and pseudo-fame as certainly being that something more, not judgmentally, either, just pointing it out), then definitely a binding sense of irony you all share.

    “We’re so above these emotions and thoughts and things, or something.”

    ‘sweet’

    In attempting to detach yourselves from it all, you become a slightly more annoying version of it all, and I’m sorry that you guys have such a circle jerk going that you don’t take that customary time for self-examination which is inherent in all movements.

    Even if you are an anti-movement, you are a movement.

    Even if you are anti-politics, you are political.

    And that whole line of thinking.

    Stay sharp, you silly fuck.

43. March 4th, 2011 / 9:28 pm dh—

    Subjectivity? You aren’t so much supporting/thinking about your friends so much as you’re masturbating with two hands thinking you’ve got a “monster cock.” This essay sucks. I mean this just as an objective reader. It comes off mostly like you’re showing off about who you associate with and then kissing their asses. And to be one to speak of being subjective when your reviews are “seems sweet,” “seems really interesting,” and “seems really funny” without explaining why, or what you found sweet, interesting or funny in any deep way–the word “seems” being a cop-out, as if you are possibly too afraid to share your true opinion for fear of being rejected by friends because of it. There’s your subjectivity.

    You (pl.) are not special because you take drugs and lose yourself in your work as a form of escapism. It doesn’t make Muumuu House different than anyone else who takes drugs to escape or loses themself in work.

    Audience: You wrote a fucking ad. How artistic.

    Learn to edit better. For example, your entire introduction can be reduced to maybe 3 sentences and still contain the same amount of content. It’s mostly a redundant word hole.

    Comprehensive Review: “seems sweet.” Give me a break, kid. See my first paragraph.

    Why bother writing this? You’ve done nothing to explore and add to the Muumuu House canon, or whatever, than you would’ve if you wrote: “Read this story (link)” and then let someone come up with their own ideas.

44. March 4th, 2011 / 9:31 pm Jordan—

    i did not intend to say ” in terms far above your head, that you are full of shit; that you do in fact employ rhetoric and are indeed driven by something — if nothing more (though I would postulate money and pseudo-fame as certainly being that something more, not judgmentally, either, just pointing it out), then definitely a binding sense of irony you all share. ”

    i honestly don’t understand his comment…

    i didn’t say we were an “anti-movement” or a “movement” or “anti-politics” or “political”

    also… i think i feel like ‘circle jerks’ are essentially life-affirming things…

45. March 4th, 2011 / 9:33 pm phmadore—

    We would put quotations around “absurdist emo” because it is new, dubbed, and has not yet been put into wide use.

    Why you would put a stalwart noun such as “emotion” in quotes, except in a case like I just did, is far beyond me, and I would like to have answers while you’re in this little spotlight here.

46. March 4th, 2011 / 9:35 pm Blake Butler—

    i like how in the Nylon photo Noah and Tao look by far the most well adjusted, even kind of joyful

47. March 4th, 2011 / 9:35 pm phmadore—

    I think I feel that sometimes things DO definitively happen and it’s okay to write them as such.

    For instance, you DID just write a weak rebuttal, and you probably will continue this way until it no longer serves whatever purposes you are hiding behind all your hipster mysticism, you silly fuck.

48. March 4th, 2011 / 9:38 pm david davidson—

    give me a day or so, son.

49. March 4th, 2011 / 9:39 pm M. Kitchell—

    i think this is maybe the first time i’m “liking” one of your posts, but god damn did i just lol

50. March 4th, 2011 / 9:41 pm david davidson—

    too easy.

51. March 4th, 2011 / 9:44 pm deadgod—

    . . . oh.

    I was writing with the anticipation that others would be thinking in thoughts and not as though they would be thinking in emotions.

    I was saying directly what I think, which is a mix of thoughts with perhaps some emotion also mixed in.

    I do not preemptively like or dislike muumuu house writing, but I think not only that the intelligible and reproducible style of muumuu house writing is not free of rhetoric and purpose, but that, specifically, your blogicle is rhetorical and purpose-directed.

    to me, rhetoric and purpose are not ‘bad’, because they, as elements of expression and perhaps even cognition, are neither chosen nor escapable.

    (- though any particular strategy and interest or priority can be taken up or declined.)

    do you not find that writing choppy and chopping sentences is a power trip?

52. March 4th, 2011 / 9:50 pm phmadore—

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVe6Tnz8z5E

53. March 4th, 2011 / 9:55 pm M. Kitchell—

    i read eeee eee eeeee after it was on dennis cooper’s best of post and i was like “you know what this book is pretty awesome” and then i read bed and i did not care about basically any of the stories and i think the difference is that there are depressed animals that can talk and you can crawl down into secret tunnels. ‘seems like’ eeee eee eeeee would never be written now, in the context of tao ‘climbing into his own ego,’ or whatever.

    i don’t ‘understand’ why people get so upset about the quotation marks thing. clearly it’s just highlighting the fact that language is slippery and whatever word is being demarcated doesn’t inherently actually capture whatever the author is after. this seems like the least troublesome thing about the vernacular that has developed. the only ‘thing’ that’s annoying to me is the brackets for [being too lazy to actually come up a word], which has turned into an [abstracted concept of the aforementioned usage].

    i occasionally find some of these authors interesting specifically because i don’t relate to them. i have waxed mad-hard before about how using self-identification as a qualification for the value of a work of art is ‘the dumbest thing in the world’ to me. i mean, it is totally cool if you like something solely because it ‘seems familiar’ to you (you here being the reader), but why the fuck are you telling me this, i am not you, and this is kind of the entire problem that i have found around the ’emo absurdist’ scene or whatever. this entirely ‘whatever dude this shit is just so subjective’ strikes me as completely fucking lazy. the world is a heterogeneous place (to some extent), and you can write whatever the fuck you want, but what i don’t understand is how an entire subculture has developed in which the idea that ‘feelin’ it bro’ has more bearing, because it ‘connects’ to the ‘reader’ in such a ‘personal’ manner, than any sort of critical response? like, it seems like a push towards a complete disengagement with any sort of critical capacity.

    i have never read a review of a tao lin book that engages with the work critically, i don’t think (to be fair it’s not like i’ve ‘looked hard’ for tao lin reviews). shit is either just this ‘bro this is so good i’m feelin’ it hard’ or it’s ‘what the fuck is up with all these quotation marks this is fucking dumb.’ everybody, including the inside members of the club, seem to forget that there is actually ‘work’ at the middle of these conversations. it’s like people are terrified. fuck.

54. March 4th, 2011 / 9:59 pm M. Kitchell—

    also, ‘feels like’ sam pink & noah cicero’s writing (based on what i have read of each), the writing itself, is like completely different than what i have read of (current) Tao Lin, BSG, Megan Boyle, Jordan Castro, etc. it is cool that y’all are friends. it doesn’t seem like they are relevant to muumuu house/the muumuu house aesthetic

55. March 4th, 2011 / 10:00 pm zusya—

    bwahaha

56. March 4th, 2011 / 10:20 pm Sean—

    I ‘enjoyed’ the quotes years ago with Tao ‘Lin.” I just didn’t ‘know’ the ‘whole’ group did that ‘thing.’

    Now I ‘do’ I guess.

57. March 4th, 2011 / 10:21 pm zusya—

    friends don’t let friends…. something something.

58. March 4th, 2011 / 10:22 pm Sean—

    I just had the feeling Sam Pink would eat muumuu house and pillow pets and then stomp someone’s ass with boots, like maybe a library or a freeway, just stomp it.

    I am about to eat sushi so excited and over-commenting.

59. March 4th, 2011 / 10:28 pm M. Kitchell—

    sam pink is cool
    i like sam pink
    he’s a fun guy

    i had vegan sushi for lunch today it was goood shit

60. March 4th, 2011 / 10:29 pm "poster"—

    predictably, too many quotes! can’t even get “past” the first “third”

61. March 4th, 2011 / 10:39 pm M. Kitchell—

    having just read knife girl, i agree with this

62. March 4th, 2011 / 10:41 pm Dooder—

    Enjoyed reading the reviews most. Sweet essay

63. March 4th, 2011 / 10:47 pm Malwhit—

    Ph detector wants you to ‘lift the veil’ lol seems gay but maybe not just feelin silly. Serious lit qs. I think you are special jc

64. March 4th, 2011 / 11:36 pm buttercup mcgillicuddy—

    sweet

65. March 4th, 2011 / 11:51 pm Adam—

    I think the quotations are used in a case-by-case sort of way, without any overarching idea of when it’s appropriate and when it’s not. But, clearly to me, I could be wrong, they use them more often than not to cast doubt on the general idea of whatever’s in the quotes. Exactly like “absurdist emo,” I’d say quotations aren’t there because it’s new but because Jordan doesn’t want to commit to that term. In a way it can work like a placeholder that they don’t go back and change, just like that, or like how Jordan keeps saying “Seems sweet.” Half of him probably wanted to say it over and over, since it is consistent with their style, and the other half felt it was stupid. That’s something I do like in this writing: no fear of other people thinking it’s stupid (even though they’re still self-conscious about it?)

66. March 4th, 2011 / 11:51 pm marshall—

    nice

67. March 4th, 2011 / 11:52 pm marshall—

    nice

68. March 4th, 2011 / 11:52 pm marshall—

    nice

69. March 4th, 2011 / 11:56 pm Adam—

    Yes.

    I felt saying “Yes” was stronger than “1 more liked this.”

    P.S. I’ve never thought of the style as a power trip before, but that makes total sense to me. It reminds me of a little essay I read about sadism and masochism in literature – there is definitely an S&M quality here, the writer as the sadist and the reader as the masochist. People will probably think i’m saying it’s difficult to read, but that’s mroe like the opposite of what I’m saying.

70. March 4th, 2011 / 11:56 pm Anonymous—

    At some point advertising, when so sharply aimed at a target market as to alienate people outside that very specific bullseye, will probably start backfiring, right?

71. March 5th, 2011 / 12:00 am megan boyle—

    i’m driven by all of those things

72. March 5th, 2011 / 12:01 am megan boyle—

    me too

73. March 5th, 2011 / 12:04 am Adam—

    Actually I was glad to read it, since I agree precisely, but feel like I can’t hold that ground in the comments board because there’s so much vitriol going around. I think there’s a lot that could be said of value, that’s critical (not in the “criticize” sense) and well-reasoned, but I see nearly none of that from Jordan or from commenters

74. March 5th, 2011 / 12:05 am Adam—

    I think Jordan lumped in some people that wouldn’t have lumped themselves in (Deb Olin Unferth)

75. March 5th, 2011 / 12:09 am brittany wallace—

    MORE LIKE PUUPUU HOUSE

76. March 5th, 2011 / 12:09 am Uyguyg—

    vipstores.net

77. March 5th, 2011 / 12:14 am victoria trott—

    blow this clique wide open

78. March 5th, 2011 / 12:21 am Adam—

    Jordan, do you or anyone else in the crowd read criticism or analysis? What poetry do you read? (Everybody knows Tao Lin likes “k-mart realism” or whatever. Have you ever read Jane Bowles?)

79. March 5th, 2011 / 12:48 am Jimmy Chen—

    i was listening to nirvana when Castro was born. i feel so old.

80. March 5th, 2011 / 12:52 am Jimmy Chen—

    sweet re: beckett t-shirt; seems more hardcore than a rage against the machine or joy division one.

81. March 5th, 2011 / 12:53 am alex crowley—

    without any overarching idea of when it’s appropriate

    yeah, so why do it at all? writers, almost by definition, cast doubt on the usages of words and how they’re employed. what do the quotations add to this conversation, what do they denote, what are the stakes of using the quotes?

82. March 5th, 2011 / 12:53 am alan—

    I think it’s to set apart cliches and received words and phrases. Either that or to annoy people, I forget. Tao explained it somewhere.

    I usually like this practice when Tao uses it. It gives his prose an idiosyncratic rhythm or texture and foregrounds the word choices in a way that can be interesting.

    When other people do the same thing I tend to feel that each quotation mark should itself be put in quotes, but that may just be my problem.

83. March 5th, 2011 / 1:04 am alex crowley—

    the available evidence points to the conclusion that phmadore is questioning the substance of the lettery snake oil being peddled in the essay above

84. March 5th, 2011 / 1:06 am Adam—

    Am I the only one that thinks this writing is definitely, easily even, situated within a hundred years’ context of literature and criticism? Could it even be an inevitable consequence of the critical consensus on the difficulty of ever really communicating anything at all? (see the brief H. White essay The Absurdist Moment in Contemporary Literary Theory, http://aaaaarg.org/text/12873/absurdist-moment-contemporary-literary-theory, and consider how a post-script on muumuu house might read)

    Something else I’m really really interested in is the relation of these writers/this writing to MFA programs and workshops in general. (Isn’t that tension at the core of why so many of us have a problem with this, if we’re honest with ourselves?)

85. March 5th, 2011 / 1:08 am alex crowley—

    looks like muumuu house has something in common with car ads. maybe they can be besties and, like, feel on each others’ thinky thoughts.

86. March 5th, 2011 / 1:09 am alex crowley—

    hell yeah, being old is cool. i’m gonna go watch beavis & butthead clips now.

    /absolutely serious

87. March 5th, 2011 / 1:20 am Adam—

    I don’t know, I have problems with questions like this. Jordan put them there, so they are there, and it would be different if they weren’t there. What does it add? A sense of self-consciousness, mostly. Doubt. Humor sometimes. Maybe more than it adds it takes away, like a sense of author-ity. And, yeah, these threads do run through every work of literature and maybe every piece of language, but the quotation marks put it right out there on the surface in a way that makes it the polar opposite of more convinced, assertive, “meaning-full” authorial speaking voices. And definitely “the surface” is something art of all forms has been obsessed with for generations now, even if it’s least apparent in literature. I don’t know, I think it’s a little silly when people argue “it doesn’t do anything;” it’s there, it changes the reading experience in some way. If you don’t like what it does, that’s fine (and I don’t half the time), but it still does something

88. March 5th, 2011 / 1:50 am marshall—

    please don’t joke about joining the army (jk)

89. March 5th, 2011 / 1:51 am Sean—

    And what did Beavis and Butthead eat?

    Nachos

90. March 5th, 2011 / 1:51 am marshall—

    please say more things about ph madore

91. March 5th, 2011 / 1:53 am marshall—

    anyone who “talks shit” in this thread doesn’t “get it”

    please don’t “like” this comment

    i’m just sayinnnnnnnnnn…….

92. March 5th, 2011 / 1:54 am Sean—

    Good point: Deb Olin Unferth stood out, big time.

93. March 5th, 2011 / 1:55 am Sean—

    I don’t ‘like’ this comment. I am ‘drunk’

94. March 5th, 2011 / 2:07 am Susie Anderson—

    I am glad that muumuu house is a real thing. It is weird/impressive that Jordan Castro (hi) is 18 or whatever.

95. March 5th, 2011 / 2:22 am Charles Dodd White—

    Also, there’s no such thing as no rhetoric.

96. March 5th, 2011 / 2:25 am Charles Dodd White—

    I love the semi-colon after “there”. There’s something sprightly about that.

97. March 5th, 2011 / 2:29 am Frank Tas—

    You were jk about k me about k about the army? What if I was nk in the first place? Are you still jk then? a/s/l?

98. March 5th, 2011 / 2:32 am Charles Dodd White—

    if you even think about an audience, you are writing rhetorically by definition. I feel like this is some kind of semantic game you’re playing that isn’t really doing you any favors.

99. March 5th, 2011 / 2:43 am Postercollector—

    hey did you guys see the poster on madore?

100. March 5th, 2011 / 2:44 am Shittydoorkid—

     god damnit my dad punched a hole in madore

101. March 5th, 2011 / 2:45 am WTFolderbrother—

     my little brother jacked off on madore!! WTF im so pissed you guys

102. March 5th, 2011 / 2:47 am Annoyed—

     no one will leave me alone even though i closed madore

103. March 5th, 2011 / 2:48 am Dirtydoor—

     ok now that my little brother jacked off on madore, there is semen dripping down madore.. so upset. who will clean up madore?

104. March 5th, 2011 / 2:50 am Cantsleepinmyroom—

     my dog pissed all over madore. now madore smells like piss.

105. March 5th, 2011 / 2:51 am Madore—

     i am so stinky a dog peed on me

106. March 5th, 2011 / 2:54 am Trappedinmyroom—

     the knob on madore wont work

107. March 5th, 2011 / 2:57 am INFORMATIONDUDE—

     “MADORE” = MY DOOR BTW OK YA

108. March 5th, 2011 / 3:15 am M. Kitchell—

     what exactly is there to get? seems like these ‘bros’ spend an inordinate amount of time ‘spelling it out’ for people. i don’t think people ‘don’t get it’ i think they ‘get it and don’t like it.’ fuck.

109. March 5th, 2011 / 3:19 am victoria trott—

     accidentally liked that… don’t know what to do

110. March 5th, 2011 / 3:20 am M. Kitchell—

     i am also curious as to the amount of words that y’all read outside of the ‘crew’

     is this sort of hyperconsciousness the result of an inward momentum where you read in such a tiny stylistic niche that it’s gotten so fucking meta that it’s literally going to turn into i don’t know like a 2 page ‘book’ that consists of single word phrases that resemble the thought catalog comment threads?

     is tao really fucking with everybody? is he trying to be some sort of ‘depressed andy warhol’? andy warhol kinda sucked y’all

     i like reading shit
     i am also into the idea of hanging with my buds
     i like the idea of collectives
     but if you confuse everything and hegemonize all that shit into a single thread
     everything becomes boring

     i got bored reading the ‘reviews’ at the end of this post
     i started reading them, even read some of the ‘stories/poems’ that they link to when they sounded interesting
     but then i realize that every single review was exactly the same
     so why bother with the reviews at all
     why not just provide the links

     this is coming from someone who likes repetition
     this is coming from someone who likes repetition
     this is coming from someone who likes repetition a lot

     but life is short

     why do you want to keep writing things that are simulacrum of your own life
     if you are ‘just trying to keep busy to not be depressed’
     why don’t you write fan fiction about your own life
     when i write using the ‘i’ i generally make the character have more sex than i do and generally they can also fly

     being able to fly and having a lot of sex ‘seems more sweet’ than
     i don’t know
     being a textual entity that is literally no different than reality

111. March 5th, 2011 / 3:22 am M. Kitchell—

     why not just film your life 24/7
     if this is for validation start a youtube account
     get people to ‘subscribe’

     my question is why are you writing instead of doing something else
     why do you want to see your own lives as fiction when you don’t change anything

     ‘the world is the end of the world’

112. March 5th, 2011 / 3:23 am M. Kitchell—

     do your mom and dad like the fact that you are part of a ‘scene’ that has recently started experimenting heavily with drugs, possibly ‘ironically’

     are you still in high school

     do you write using a pseudonym so your mom doesn’t know you’re doing drugs
     is this a ‘fuck you mom and dad’
     did you all grow up reading vice

     i don’t get the recent obsession with drugs

113. March 5th, 2011 / 3:25 am M. Kitchell—

     will somebody explain to me why they like the muumuu house stuff without referencing themselves at all? is this possible? ‘seems like’ all the ‘followers’ exclusively like this work because it “reminds them of their own life & they can relate to it & it makes them not feel alone.” does anybody like this work for any other reason?

     i’m curious. there doesn’t have to be more of a reason (there does for me), but i don’t want to dictate anyone’s appreciation of anything. like i honestly want to know.

114. March 5th, 2011 / 3:29 am tao—

     hehe…

115. March 5th, 2011 / 3:30 am tao—

     i like some of the things on the site because they remind me things i read by ann beattie, lorrie moore, joy williams, and other people, who i liked and read before i read any of the things by the people published on the site

116. March 5th, 2011 / 3:30 am tao—

     that was meant to be a reply to the comment below this comment

117. March 5th, 2011 / 3:33 am tao—

     i feel like zachary german has read more books at his age than anyone i know

     i feel the same about ellen kennedy, i think

     noah seems to have read a lot of books, maybe as many as the average MFA student, i feel

     i think the other people have read an average to above average amount of books

     i feel like i’ve read an average amount of books for my age

     i think i stopped reading that much the past ~2 years

     my ‘reading diary’: http://bobstlibrary.com

118. March 5th, 2011 / 3:39 am tao—

     i enjoyed jordan’s essay, i’m excited about it

     i feel like ‘seems sweet’ or simply ‘liking’ something probably simplifies something the least, out of any way to talk about something, like having someone eat something to explain what it tastes like instead of describing the taste or trying to reproduce the taste, or something

119. March 5th, 2011 / 3:40 am tao—

     i feel like i mention money in almost every interview….

120. March 5th, 2011 / 3:41 am Splinterydick—

     cant fuck madore. i keep getting splinters.

121. March 5th, 2011 / 3:43 am tao—

     i feel attracted to filming my life 24/7

     http://mdmafilms.org

     i feel attracted to doing things that aren’t writing

     ‘why do you want to see your own lives as fiction when you don’t change anything’

     can you elaborate, i feel like everyone is constantly changing

122. March 5th, 2011 / 3:46 am M. Kitchell—

     hi tao
     i knew you & zach had reading diaries so this question was mostly addressed towords the idea of the internet presence of jordan castro / bsg / mallory whitten / ellen kennedy i guess.

     according to my reading ‘diaries’ i read more than zachary german at the same age based on his reading diaries. i guess you do not know me though.

     but my question was not really “quantity” it was more towards “verisimilitude” or whatever. that’s a weird word to type out i don’t think i’ve done it before seems weird if i spelled it right. i mean it seems like the muumuu crew “mostly” reads american authors from the late-70s to the present. and within that it seems fairly towards ‘(maybe realist) literary fiction’

123. March 5th, 2011 / 3:48 am M. Kitchell—

     i am curious if you are interested at all in reading things that don’t remind you of anything you’ve ever encountered before, whether in ‘real life’ as ‘events’ or in something you’ve read and liked before. are you interested in the experience of reading at all (let’s say “affect” because that is my word of the decade). when i read eee eeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee the part i liked best made me feel totally new things in a totally new manner.

     seems like only liking things because they remind you of other things you liked is a pretty ‘small’ and ‘exhaustible’ world

124. March 5th, 2011 / 3:49 am tao—

     yes, i am interested in reading things that don’t remind me of anything i’ve encountered

125. March 5th, 2011 / 3:54 am misskimball—

     mine too :: http://twitpic.com/466ls3

126. March 5th, 2011 / 3:58 am M. Kitchell—

     well i mean the filming thing makes sense that was mostly a question to jordan i guess

     you (tao) also do other things than write with ‘high visibility’

     but regarding ‘why do you want to see your own lives as fiction when you don’t change anything’: seems like, from what i ‘know’ and what has been ‘said’ is that a lot of stuff that ends up in these books, in terms of ‘events’ or ‘narratives’ or even ‘conversation’ are things that have ‘already happened’ in real life. part of why writing is awesome to me is because words are not real life. even writing ‘non-fiction’ it is always a a level away from an actual event (this is not a pipe) (we could segue here into how that’s not true due to theories & works establish by the tel quel group et. al. but that is not relevant to the post and i don’t want to derail) so since words are already not real life, and because real life has already happened, why is everything so ‘literal’ ? i hate non-fiction because i hate the idea of reality. this is why when i hear events in a book actually happened to someone i will probably not be interested.

     i am not interested in the ‘real world’
     i want to fucking be able to hover in the air and breath underwater
     i want to touch god and never stop having orgasms

127. March 5th, 2011 / 3:58 am deadgod—

     yes, the sheen of muumuu ‘transparency’ is oddly flypapery for the reader – at least, for this slow-learning reader.

     but the brute feeling of feeling brute while employing the technique(s) is unmistakable.

     let me add that every “style” is a power trip.

     “power” is an Everything Word; the question its circular reference raises is: what are the effects of this accumulation and expression of force?

     or: what does “power” mean and what do the “power”ful do here?

     but claims of ‘objective style’ or ‘interest neutrality’ (“or” “‘something'”) cruelly mock one’s personal johnny cash.

128. March 5th, 2011 / 3:59 am M. Kitchell—

     me too. ‘seems like’ the muumuu house ‘collective’ priviliges things that remind you of pre-existing things tho. why?

129. March 5th, 2011 / 4:01 am Roxane—

     Seriously. Let me just get my walker.

130. March 5th, 2011 / 12:08 am Muumuu House « Lazy Fascist Press—

     […] Jordan Castro wrote a blog about Muumuu House at HTML Giant. In a review of everything published on the Muumuu House website, he said this about an excerpt from Sam Pink’s Person: “Seems like a sweet ass excerpt from a sweet ass novel.  Seems to portray a degree of “insa… […]

131. March 5th, 2011 / 4:09 am M. Kitchell—

     also, can i get a review copy of ‘bebe zeva’
     i am interested in this
     i will review it somewhere

132. March 5th, 2011 / 4:09 am tao—

     seems difficult to answer comprehensively

     i think i’m the same as most, or all, people, in that if i like something i will seek out more of it, but i’ll want ‘more intense’ or ‘different, to some degree’ versions of it or i’ll begin to feel bored

     everyone has different tolerances to ‘boredom’ or feeling like they need more of something or ‘more intense’ versions of something

     i honestly feel that i have a low tolerance, because i feel averse to publishing the same thing (to a certain degree) twice, for my own writing, to a degree that i don’t consider allowing myself to, in terms of my books

     in terms of publishing other people, i’m not sure, i feel like i usually think or say that i like something without comparing it something else, for example i feel like a percentage of people respond to work by saying or thinking ‘this reminds of me _____’ but i feel that i usually say or think ‘i like this’ without thinking of prior things

133. March 5th, 2011 / 4:10 am tao—

     yes, email mdmafilms@gmail.com

134. March 5th, 2011 / 4:12 am deadgod—

     you must read this t-shirt, I can’t wear this t-shirt, I’ll wear this t-shirt.

135. March 5th, 2011 / 4:32 am deadgod—

     twilike zone

136. March 5th, 2011 / 4:54 am Chris—

     being mad productive is good, i think most people do that anyway though, i think most people do other things besides write books, what am i saying

137. March 5th, 2011 / 4:56 am Johnjohnson—

     will you do it without pay please come on david dave davidson

138. March 5th, 2011 / 5:02 am Jennyandthejets—

     my opinion of this clique has been changing a lot in the last few months. at first i thought they were all amazing and i felt really jealous and when i would talk to my friends on facebook i would use parentheses a lot and say things like “sweet”, “damn” “[anything]”, “severely depressed”, etc… now i find them kind of annoying, but i don’t know…

139. March 5th, 2011 / 5:02 am Jordan—

     i didn’t write “i’m not driven by anything” or “i’m not driven by money” in the essay…

     seems… it would be impossible to be “driven by nothing” and do things…

     i want money…

     can someone please give me money… (????)

     jordancastroisthepresident@gmail.com

     thank you

140. March 5th, 2011 / 5:12 am Jordan—

     i think, if i understand you, i agree re things happening and it being ok to write them as such

     i don’t view my response as a “rebuttal” because i honestly don’t view this as “an argument” or “me trying to prove you wrong,” but as me trying to communicate, in an honest manner, my thoughts and feelings

     “…and you probably will continue this way until it no longer serves whatever purposes you are hiding behind all your hipster mysticism, you silly fuck.”

     can you please elaborate re why you think i’m “hiding” a purpose, what “hipster mysticism” means and “silly fuck”

141. March 5th, 2011 / 5:14 am M. Kitchell—

     this answer makes perfect sense to me, and feels like more of an honest answer than some sort of postured theory of aesthetics, i think.

142. March 5th, 2011 / 5:15 am Tummler—

     All that I knew about Jordan Castro before reading this essay was that Tao Lin once tried to film himself skateboarding at Jordan’s house but ultimately failed. So I read all of these sometimes provocative, sometimes funny, sometimes enraged comments from everyone and Googled “Jordan Castro” and read the first two or so pages of Supercomputer, and now I’d have to say that my first impression is…I dig this dude. As a young writer/writing student who is trying to be as productive as possible despite my age and “naiveté,” I admire Castro for succeeding at what’s basically that which I hope to achieve myself. And his age aside, I liked what little of his work I’ve read (except this essay, maybe). Perhaps one day I will come across my own Tao Lin to take me under his wings and guide me in my pursuit to fuck shit up.

143. March 5th, 2011 / 5:15 am Jordan—

     i reviewed the Deb Olin Unferth piece because it was published on the muumuu house website and i wanted to review everything on the website

144. March 5th, 2011 / 5:18 am Jordan—

     thanks buttercup

145. March 5th, 2011 / 5:19 am Jordan—

     thanks dooder

146. March 5th, 2011 / 5:21 am Jordan—

     thank you john

147. March 5th, 2011 / 5:30 am M. Kitchell—

     i have emailed you

148. March 5th, 2011 / 5:48 am muumuu house—

     *htmlgiant sale*

     if you read this comment you can buy both ellen’s book http://muumuuhouse.com/ellenkennedy.poetrybook.html

     and brandon’s book
     http://muumuuhouse.com/brandonscottgorrell.poetrybook.html

     for $9 domestic, $14 international (free shipping for both)

     simply paypal muumuuhouse@gmail.com the amount

     *htmlgiant sale*

149. March 5th, 2011 / 6:35 am tia—

     I agree with you. I try to follow muumuu house because I like what they are doing. But this article about “what fuels” this group feels really insulting to read………”that there isn’t an inherent, universal “right,” “wrong,” “good,” “bad” or [anything]” made me cringe so hard because these are the thoughts of most children when they think too hard before they learn how the world works and develop a worldview to help them survive.

     The real explanation is probably that ppl born 1965-1985 mimicked mainstream cultures to create irony while artists born 1985+ mimic irony to create nothing. You are so ironic you are actually saying and believing nothing. But you aren’t as “nothing” as you think, you are just a more watered down version of watered down mainstream culture. I like this, why can’t you actually admit that this is what you are doing instead of pretending you don’t believe in right or wrong? It makes you sound psychopathic instead of as fascinating as you actually are.

     Watch Gonzo where someone comments on H.S. Thompson becoming a caricature of himself so that his identity paints him in a corner and he loses everything. I think this is a danger for muumuu house.

150. March 5th, 2011 / 7:33 am phmadore—

     Yes, but it is stupid, and that’s exactly my problem.

151. March 5th, 2011 / 7:34 am phmadore—

     They’re fucking gimmicks. End of story. I was just hoping that the motherfucker would admit it.

152. March 5th, 2011 / 7:37 am phmadore—

     Elaborate, you lazy, silly fuck.

153. March 5th, 2011 / 7:38 am phmadore—

     Blake, you’re really not funny.

154. March 5th, 2011 / 7:40 am phmadore—

     I might, except you’ve made no effort to clarify or elaborate or be honest on your end, so I see no reason. You’ve also apparently employed the Anonymous crew against me, and for that I’m going to kick your ass one day. But anyway.

155. March 5th, 2011 / 7:42 am nliu—

     “I do not preemptively like or dislike muumuu house writing, but I think not only that the intelligible and reproducible style of muumuu house writing is not free of rhetoric and purpose, but that, specifically, your blogicle is rhetorical and purpose-directed.”

     I actively like [some / a lot of / a few examples of] Muumuu House writing and I think this is a great comment–though I feel kind of sad that it needs to be pointed out. Speech is rhetorical. Poetry is rhetorical. If you read my writing and come away feeling that you can make of it whatever you want, and I want you the reader to make of it what I want, then I’ve been a good rhetorician. And in fact there’s nothing more rhetorical than the pose of disowning rhetoric.

     This should not be tough for someone who thinks with thoughts all the time.

156. March 5th, 2011 / 7:43 am nliu—

     Sorry, typo (maybe a revealing one, who knows): “and I want you the reader to make of it what I want” should be “and I want you the reader to make of it what you want”.

157. March 5th, 2011 / 7:43 am phmadore—

     We’re downsizing.

158. March 5th, 2011 / 7:47 am phmadore—

     I met Sam in Chicago. He’s much realer than “this group” would know what to do with. He’ll hang out with anyone. I mean, he hung out with me. So I wouldn’t lump him into this group.

159. March 5th, 2011 / 7:54 am phmadore—

     Meanwhile, I am labeled a troll.

160. March 5th, 2011 / 8:33 am Gene Morgan—

     Jesus

161. March 5th, 2011 / 9:00 am Guy—

     dh, your comments are very critical (in a way i like a lot) and intriguing.

     can HTMLGIANT have a big ass post from dh or mkitchel that is like their comments but extended and in depth about these subjects?

162. March 5th, 2011 / 9:02 am Gene Morgan—

     It allows me project an unusually large amount of my own feelings into the writing, and I feel more comfortable reading it.

     The ‘muumuu house style’ is like reading a magazine article and also thinking about death and the mistakes I’ve made in my own life. It communicates individual self-reflection well, allowing for me, as a reader, to self-reflect as well.

     So yes, basically, it reminds me of my own life and I can relate to it. Fuck.

     I also like writing that feels meditative, but playful. It helps me relax, and I’m able to ignore the things in my life that cause stress, while also engaging another person’s thoughts.

     I feel drunk enough to comment tonight. Sup.

163. March 5th, 2011 / 9:11 am Chrissangel—

     “that there isn’t an inherent, universal “right,” “wrong,” “good,” “bad” or [anything]” made me cringe so hard because these are the thoughts of most children when they think too hard”

     i felt the same way, a lot of this essay was naive.. i mean i like jordan but… he’s like 16.. what does age have to do with this… well.. experience in life has a lot to do with good writing right?

164. March 5th, 2011 / 9:14 am D.—

     In “all honesty,” I glanced at this and “saw” tons of affected pointless quotation marks and completely empty, vapid commentary (“Seems interesting and written in a unique style that I enjoyed reading and thinking about. I feel interested in reading more things by Deb Olin Unferth after reading this. Seems sweet.”) and thought this was a clever parody of the a certain empty-headed Tao Lin follower prose….

165. March 5th, 2011 / 9:16 am D.—

     The word “seems” appears over 100 times in this essay.

166. March 5th, 2011 / 9:18 am nliu—

     You can both be trolls.

     (I enjoyed both your posts, though.)

167. March 5th, 2011 / 9:22 am tao—

     4x ‘knife girl’ appreciation

168. March 5th, 2011 / 9:35 am phmadore—

     I’m just saying that I would like some recognition as not being a troll. I clearly denote where people can go to harass me (and they do, occasionally).

     Anyway, folks, this is far more interesting and costs less than anything Muumuu House sells: http://frsh.in/hpc

     We worked extremely hard on it and I think the word “seems” might appear once or twice.

169. March 5th, 2011 / 9:41 am phmadore—

     Whether he knows it or not, Blake Butler just pointed out a serious contradiction in the post.

170. March 5th, 2011 / 9:42 am tao—

     can you elaborate

171. March 5th, 2011 / 9:43 am phmadore—

     I don’t think I was getting upset so much as I was asking a question of those who do it. I find it awesome that they have failed to answer for this bullshit, but you and a few others have taken it upon themselves to step in and do so.

     Chances are they don’t know why they do it, so what more does the customer need to know?

172. March 5th, 2011 / 9:43 am phmadore—

     BSG is also breaking away from this bullshit. He’s developing. But don’t tell him I said so. I like that he’s growing up.

173. March 5th, 2011 / 9:45 am phmadore—

     Yeah but if you get it then you might make a few bucks.

174. March 5th, 2011 / 9:49 am phmadore—

     You referenced yourself in the first sentence, bro. Fail.

     I like the question a lot.

     I remember Bed. Do you guys remember Bed? It was good writing. It wasn’t overly gimmicky. It was a contribution to the literary world.

     Then Tao Lin discovered gimmicks, and it’s been a shit storm ever since.

175. March 5th, 2011 / 9:51 am phmadore—

     Yeah, it wears off quick if you’re an individual.

176. March 5th, 2011 / 9:55 am tao—

     you gave ‘eeeee eee eeee’ 5-stars on goodreads saying ‘i loved this book’

     http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39413349

     you emailed me in june 2010 saying you liked ‘eeeee eee eeee’

177. March 5th, 2011 / 10:06 am phmadore—

     I did, do. I remember scenes from it. I also think Charles Manson was much more interesting than Sadie Atkins.

178. March 5th, 2011 / 10:35 am david davidson—

     @bb will email it you when i finish. u still use that one on yr blog?

179. March 5th, 2011 / 1:18 pm Jordan—

     i am planning on responding

     i haven’t had what i feel would have been an adequate amount of time to respond or think about my response, i think

180. March 5th, 2011 / 1:26 pm richard chiem—

     I second ‘jesus’

     This feels like the third act or the money shot.

181. March 5th, 2011 / 1:30 pm Gene Morgan—

     I removed “myself” from the comment. Sorry.

     You mention yourself in the third and fourth sentences.

182. March 5th, 2011 / 1:31 pm richard chiem—

     re quotations

     I think about The Descent of Alette

     http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/notley-review.html

183. March 5th, 2011 / 1:32 pm Jordan—

     “absurdist emo” seems funny/sweet, in my view

184. March 5th, 2011 / 1:33 pm Jordan—

     lol

185. March 5th, 2011 / 1:36 pm Jordan—

     lol

     thank you

186. March 5th, 2011 / 1:40 pm Jordan—

     in the essay, i say there is “a lack of rhetoric,” not “no rhetoric” – except for the title of the section in reference, which, i think, i wrote while organizing the essay, and probably would have ideally thought to change to “A LACK OF RHETORIC” or “SOME THOUGHTS RE ‘RHETORIC'” or “RHETORIC”

187. March 5th, 2011 / 1:43 pm Jordan—

     just considered sending everyone who participated in this nice comment thread balloons, or something, in support of their support for mallory

     imagined everyone who commented in this thread standing in a line, “shoulder to shoulder,” saying “we like knife girl,” in unison, for a “shitty car tv commercial-esque” “knife girl commercial”

188. March 5th, 2011 / 2:06 pm Jordan—

     re: that there isn’t an inherent, universal “right,” “wrong,” “good,” “bad” or [anything]”, i didn’t say that i don’t ever view anything as “good” or “bad,” just that i don’t view anything as inherently such. i think i’m able to view things as “good” or “bad” if there is a context and a goal, which is what most people do, but most people also, in my experience, “expand” that view to “this is good,” or “this is bad,” as opposed to “this is good in terms of [specific context/goal]” or “i like this.”

     there is a difference between thinking in terms of “right” and “wrong” in terms of a specific context/goal and thinking in terms of inherent “right” and “wrong,” i think

     i am honestly not trying to “pretend” anything… i was typing things that i thought, not “trying to argue with people” or “claim to be right, wrong, good, bad, flawless, etc.”

     i have seen gonzo

189. March 5th, 2011 / 2:09 pm Jordan—

     thank you for caring about muumuu house (re “i think this is a danger for muumuu house”)

     i’m going to watch gonzo again and try to understand what you mean, i don’t remember much from the movie

     thank you

190. March 5th, 2011 / 2:45 pm phmadore—

     I know. Being 18 is hard.

191. March 5th, 2011 / 3:22 pm marshall—

     i was just trolling when i wrote this, maybe

     i don’t know why i wrote this

     sorry, everyone

192. March 5th, 2011 / 3:28 pm tao—

     you’ve emailed me or attempted to gmail chat with me, in a manner like you aren’t annoyed with me, except for some periods (but not in a linear manner), something like 40 times in the past 6 years wanting to ‘hang out’ with me…

193. March 5th, 2011 / 3:28 pm tao—

     you’ve emailed me or attempted to gmail chat with me, in a manner like you aren’t annoyed with me, except for some periods (but not in a linear manner), something like 40 times in the past 6 years wanting to ‘hang out’ with me…

194. March 5th, 2011 / 3:35 pm marshall—

     Unique words: 1026
     Total words: 5271

     Freq. Word

     209 TO
     158 AND
     120 OF
     114 SEEMS
     112 THE
     109 A
     103 I
     99 IN
     82 THIS
     82 ME
     77 BY
     72 COM
     72 HTTP
     65 HTML
     64 MUUMUUHOUSE
     63 THAT
     63 READING
     58 LIKE
     45 OR
     44 FELT
     42 THINK
     42 SOMETHING
     40 WHILE
     38 FUNNY
     37 IT
     35 INCREDIBLY
     34 FEEL
     33 SWEET
     32 FICTION
     31 THINGS
     28 MY
     28 HIGH
     27 FOR
     26 PEOPLE
     26 POETRY
     26 S
     26 MANNER
     26 THROUGHOUT
     26 ABOUT
     25 TAO
     25 WITH
     24 LEVELS
     24 INTEREST
     24 BRANDON
     23 WRITTEN
     22 AN
     22 RE
     21 INTERESTING
     21 ON
     20 READ
     20 IS
     20 EMOTIONAL
     20 REALLY
     19 FROM
     19 DEGREE
     19 WHICH
     18 AFTER
     18 HAVE
     18 BE
     18 SOME
     17 SCOTT
     17 GORRELL
     17 THINKING
     17 STYLE
     17 SEEMED
     16 T
     16 AS
     16 ENJOYED
     16 CERTAIN
     15 HOUSE
     15 BSG
     15 ASS
     15 OTHER
     15 TIME
     15 FEELING
     15 RELATABLE
     14 MUUMUU
     14 ONE
     13 PIECE
     13 ENDEARING
     13 TWITTER
     12 REMEMBER
     12 OUT
     12 THESE
     12 LIN
     12 NOAH
     12 POEM
     11 VE
     11 WAS
     11 BEING
     11 NOT
     11 EMOTIONS
     10 GMAIL
     10 LIFE
     10 AT
     10 ANYTHING
     10 MALLORY
     10 DO
     10 THEY
     10 PERSON
     10 POEMS
     10 X
     10 ARE
     10 INTERESTED
     10 STORY
     10 THEM
     9 HER
     9 THEN
     9 ENJOY
     9 HAS
     9 MEGAN
     9 DUE
     9 WANT
     9 MOST
     9 SEEM
     9 CAN
     9 ZACHARY
     8 HAD
     8 E
     8 WELL
     8 WOULD
     8 WRITE
     8 CICERO
     8 FIRST
     8 US
     8 CHAT
     8 BUT
     8 WE
     8 HE
     8 DEPRESSED
     7 DETACHED
     7 EXCITING
     7 WAY
     7 MAIL
     7 ALONE
     7 UNDERSTAND
     7 MORE
     7 VERY
     7 BAD
     7 WHO
     7 COULD
     7 DOING
     7 ACCOUNT
     7 NOW
     7 BOYLE
     7 GERMAN
     7 VICTORIA
     6 USUALLY
     6 SIMILAR
     6 SCHOOL
     6 VIEW
     6 OUR
     6 ALL
     6 MB
     6 INSPIRED
     6 WHITTEN
     6 TL
     6 DRUGS
     6 YOU
     6 BEEN
     6 EXCERPT
     6 HOW
     6 WHAT
     6 DON
     6 BEFORE
     6 ZG
     6 DEPRESSION
     6 SAYING
     6 EXCITED
     5 KENNEDY
     5 RELATE
     5 TWEETS
     5 SIMPLY
     5 SELECTIONS
     5 SAY
     5 UPON
     5 PORTRAY
     5 MAYBE
     5 FEELS
     5 PUBLISHED
     5 SENT
     5 RHETORIC
     5 AROUND
     5 ELSE
     5 ORIGINALLY
     5 THOUGHTS
     5 WATCHING
     5 TROCK
     5 VT
     5 MILDLY
     5 TIMES
     5 ELLEN
     4 JESUS
     4 ALIENATED
     4 CALMLY
     4 IMAGINING
     4 LITERATURE
     4 ALLEVIATE
     4 FRIENDS
     4 THEIR
     4 EK
     4 GROUP
     4 JORDAN
     4 WILL
     4 LAUGHED
     4 POINT
     4 NC
     4 THERE
     4 PROSE
     4 LIVING
     4 BOOKS
     4 THREE
     4 ANOTHER
     4 GOOD
     4 EDITOR
     4 MAJORITY
     4 MANY
     4 DETACHMENT
     4 ANDREW
     4 JAMES
     4 LARGE
     4 WHEN
     4 EXCITEMENT
     4 SAID
     4 COMPLEX
     4 ABIGAIL
     4 LLOYD
     4 CONTENT
     4 BASED
     4 LOT
     4 DURING
     3 HIM
     3 IF
     3 EXISTS
     3 REPEATEDLY
     3 SAD
     3 PORTRAYED
     3 LACK
     3 EVER
     3 EXPRESSED
     3 JUST
     3 PERIOD
     3 ETC
     3 INHERENT
     3 RIGHT
     3 CHOSE
     3 NATURE
     3 INTENSE
     3 CULTURE
     3 CASTRO
     3 AM
     3 DOWN
     3 MAD
     3 HARD
     3 PRODUCTIVE
     3 KNOW
     3 SAME
     3 CAPTURE
     3 R
     3 HONESTLY
     3 THING
     3 PERIODS
     3 THOUGHT
     3 EVENTS
     3 MILES
     3 ENJOYABLE
     3 REASON
     3 ALSO
     3 REVIEW
     3 EMOTIONALLY
     3 CHATS
     3 STRANGE
     3 CONCRETE
     3 WROTE
     3 RANGE
     3 CAUSED
     3 VIDEO
     3 PURDY
     3 RELATIONSHIP
     3 TODAY
     3 WEBSITE
     3 REALITY
     3 RESULT
     3 JUSTIN
     3 BESIDES
     3 SHE
     3 LAUGHING
     3 QUIETLY
     3 LESS
     3 PART
     3 TRYING
     3 VIA
     3 STYLISTICALLY
     3 LINES
     3 BEAUTIFUL
     3 SHOWING
     3 WWW
     3 WRITING
     3 TITLE
     3 FUN
     3 CAUSE
     3 TOGETHER
     3 FOCUSING
     2 DESIRE
     2 TAKEN
     2 RELATIONSHIPS
     2 DVD
     2 NIGHT
     2 EXTREMELY
     2 MONEY
     2 TH
     2 AFTERWARD
     2 NATURAL
     2 LITTLE
     2 GOD
     2 ESSAY
     2 MEMORIES
     2 THEREOF
     2 LAST
     2 LINE
     2 PUBLICATIONS
     2 RATHER
     2 BEST
     2 HANGING
     2 JC
     2 HISTORY
     2 SEEN
     2 MYSELF
     2 BED
     2 MONOTONY
     2 LAPTOP
     2 PUBLISH
     2 UNIVERSAL
     2 EVEN
     2 BOCK
     2 EXPERIENCE
     2 MULTIPLE
     2 OCCASIONS
     2 CONVEY
     2 BRAIN
     2 BOOK
     2 AUDUN
     2 INVARIABLY
     2 SARCASTIC
     2 AFFINITY
     2 MW
     2 WRONG
     2 GRINNED
     2 INSURGENT
     2 UNCONTROLLABLY
     2 OTHERS
     2 IMAGES
     2 OWN
     2 WORLDVIEWS
     2 HAVING
     2 RECENTLY
     2 DEAL
     2 WORDS
     2 DEATH
     2 SENTENCES
     2 ASKING
     2 INSANITY
     2 VAGUE
     2 SENSE
     2 KNOWING
     2 DOESN
     2 MEAN
     2 STILL
     2 WHERE
     2 INTO
     2 WITHIN
     2 ROSS
     2 INCREASED
     2 EVERYONE
     2 TALK
     2 HUMANITY
     2 CASE
     2 USING
     2 SEEMING
     2 D
     2 MAINSTREAM
     2 IDEA
     2 SO
     2 READABLE
     2 FACE
     2 THOSE
     2 MIGHT
     2 CRYING
     2 CUP
     2 FURTHER
     2 DESCRIBED
     2 UNTIL
     2 DAMN
     2 GRINNING
     2 YEARS
     2 SITTING
     2 STUDY
     2 HALL
     2 LIKED
     2 ACTUALLY
     2 GIRL
     2 TAKE
     2 SHOULD
     2 TYPE
     2 COMMUNICATE
     2 INGESTING
     2 NO
     2 DAY
     2 EXTERNAL
     2 PURPOSE
     2 LOOKING
     2 MAKES
     2 CONVEYED
     2 CALM
     2 MICHAEL
     2 EARL
     2 CRAIG
     2 MR
     2 OCCASIONALLY
     2 HELPS
     2 FORM
     2 AMBIEN
     2 BLOGSPOT
     2 INITIALLY
     2 AL
     2 SAM
     2 PINK
     2 VARIOUS
     2 HADN
     2 CULTURES
     2 ALCOHOL
     2 UP
     2 CARLES
     2 SOLID
     2 BITCH
     2 WIDE
     2 LOUD
     2 EXISTENCE
     2 POPULATION
     2 REACT
     2 THOUGHTCATALOG
     2 DID
     2 HAPPY
     2 MAKE
     2 ANY
     2 DEB
     2 OLIN
     2 UNFERTH
     2 UNIQUE
     2 PROTAGONIST
     2 GODZILLA
     2 JASON
     2 DRUNK
     2 ARTICULATE
     2 GET
     2 WHETHER
     2 HAPPENED
     2 SITUATION
     2 NERVOUS
     2 REAL
     2 VS
     2 SOPHOMORE
     2 YEAR
     2 CONFUSED
     2 TONIC
     2 CALORIES
     2 B
     2 GLASER
     1 DOES
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     1 PLAY
     1 COMPARED
     1 SPORTS
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     1 CHOOSING
     1 INCLUDE
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     1 V
     1 WORKING
     1 HELP
     1 FOUR
     1 INTERACTED
     1 STRIKE
     1 TAYLOR
     1 STUCK
     1 TOO
     1 LASH
     1 WEATHERHEAD
     1 AJW
     1 AGAINST
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     1 STEMS
     1 SATISFIED
     1 KENT
     1 OH
     1 BRITTANY
     1 WALLACE
     1 UNITED
     1 TALKED
     1 NORMAL
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     1 INTERVIEW
     1 COUNTLESS
     1 DECLINED
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     1 CONTROL
     1 URGE
     1 GAHHHHHHH
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     1 YAHHHHHHHHHH
     1 PILLS
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     1 MOMENTS
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     1 RAINED
     1 FORMAT
     1 ASIDE
     1 TAKING
     1 HERSELF
     1 ALLOWED
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     1 ART
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     1 ACTION
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     1 HUMANS
     1 HEHEHEHEHEHEHEEHEHEHEEHEHE
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     1 YATES
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     1 SNACKS
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     1 YORK
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     1 LONELINESS
     1 EIGHT
     1 BECOMES
     1 MORTENSEN
     1 NYTIMES
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     1 CONTRADICTIONS
     1 STRONG
     1 COMMON
     1 TEND
     1 SPEND
     1 WRITERS
     1 RESULTS
     1 ACTING
     1 RELEASED
     1 SOUL
     1 SLOW
     1 MOTION
     1 ADDRESSED
     1 KICK
     1 LITERARY
     1 HANG
     1 DESERVES
     1 DEVICES
     1 JUSTIFIED
     1 NEARLY
     1 IMPOSSIBLE
     1 CLEARLY
     1 EITHER
     1 COMFORTING
     1 REASONS
     1 MAKING
     1 HERE
     1 ARTICLE
     1 COVER
     1 CONTEXT
     1 ENJOYING
     1 VARYING
     1 DEGREES
     1 DISTANCE
     1 AWAY
     1 EACH
     1 SEPARATELY
     1 PUBLISHER
     1 FOCUSED
     1 STEAK
     1 AMUSED
     1 NOSTALGIC
     1 PAST
     1 WOKE
     1 HOSTEL
     1 OVERSEAS
     1 ASSUMED
     1 BITCHES
     1 AWARE
     1 MILKING
     1 TITTIES
     1 LIVED
     1 BLEAK
     1 HOS
     1 EVERYTHING
     1 ABOVE
     1 FUTURE
     1 RULES
     1 PLACE
     1 STREAM
     1 SMELLING
     1 NAUTICA
     1 CONSCIOUS
     1 COMPREHENSIVE
     1 MJR
     1 HOWEVER
     1 THINKS
     1 APPLIED
     1 BEHAVIOR
     1 EMOTION
     1 ARISES
     1 ATTENDING
     1 SHITTY
     1 EVENT
     1 BECAUSE
     1 KIND
     1 DARK
     1 MASS
     1 AMOUNT
     1 HATE
     1 ANYONE
     1 ROOM
     1 INVOLVED
     1 BELIEVE
     1 INDIVIDUALS
     1 DESPITE
     1 CLAMS
     1 EXACTLY
     1 DIFFERENT
     1 ABSTRACT
     1 SCOLIOSIS
     1 ONCE
     1 DECIDES
     1 REALIZES
     1 SUPPORTING
     1 DRIVES
     1 UNDERSTANDINGS
     1 PERCEPTION
     1 PUT
     1 MOMENT
     1 WATER
     1 DRINKING
     1 ONTO
     1 DESK
     1 MOVED
     1 CHAIR
     1 SEE
     1 STREET
     1 DEPRESSING
     1 POSE
     1 SCENARIO
     1 EXCITES
     1 GREAT
     1 GRANDPARENTS
     1 STOPPING
     1 COLOR
     1 DARKNESS
     1 PARENT
     1 JP
     1 INNOVATIVE
     1 CORE
     1 AGO
     1 PICTURE
     1 INTRODUCTION
     1 ISN
     1 IMMEDIATELY
     1 BEGAN
     1 FATHER
     1 SON
     1 BROUGHT
     1 NEVER
     1 SCENARIOS
     1 PURSUED
     1 FOCUSES
     1 BIRTHDAY
     1 MUUMUUREADING
     1 L
     1 CONCEPTS
     1 IMAGINE
     1 MAINLY
     1 COFFEE
     1 BEDROOM
     1 PARENTS
     1 EST
     1 DISCONTENT
     1 PROSPECTS
     1 UNPUBLISHED
     1 CAUSING
     1 EFFECT
     1 SIT
     1 MEANS
     1 HALF
     1 EXPERIENCED
     1 FRUSTRATED
     1 HOLDING
     1 TINY
     1 DIXIE
     1 HAND
     1 SIMULTANEOUSLY
     1 GIANT
     1 HUMAN
     1 CRUSH
     1 JEFFERY
     1 BROWN
     1 DREW
     1 FLICKR
     1 PHOTOS
     1 LYDIADAVIS
     1 DRIVE
     1 CAR
     1 OCEAN
     1 SLOWLY
     1 TURTLE
     1 JOSEPH
     1 MOORE
     1 JM
     1 DESTROYING
     1 ORDER
     1 WERE
     1 SCOPE
     1 GORGEOUS
     1 HOTEL
     1 GRAND
     1 CITY
     1 PRECONCEPTIONS
     1 ALLEVIATING
     1 FUNDAMENTALLY
     1 MEC
     1 CRAFTED
     1 LINGERING
     1 PATTERNS
     1 CREATING
     1 CREATE
     1 SP
     1 NOVEL
     1 SIGNIFICANTLY
     1 AWKWARDNESS
     1 SOCIAL
     1 INTERACTIONS
     1 BLEAKNESS
     1 FIGURE
     1 LEARNED
     1 CONSECUTIVELY
     1 HARDER
     1 EXTREME
     1 ULTIMATELY
     1 TITLES
     1 COPS
     1 SHOULDN
     1 RIDE
     1 BICYCLES
     1 AFFIRMING
     1 SEX
     1 RESPECT
     1 ADMIRATION
     1 ABILITY
     1 SEEMINGLY
     1 SITUATIONS
     1 ALLOWING
     1 REFLECT
     1 WHEREAS
     1 COMPLETELY
     1 IGNORE
     1 TRY
     1 SUPPRESS
     1 ELEVATED
     1 SELF
     1 ESTEEM
     1 GROWING
     1 CONSUMPTION
     1 ALMOST
     1 SORE
     1 C
     1 TWO
     1 EGGS
     1 CORNBREAD
     1 NACHOS
     1 PINT
     1 BLUE
     1 MOON
     1 ICED
     1 TEA
     1 GUACOMOLE
     1 MORNING
     1 LOVE
     1 COLLEGE
     1 ASHER
     1 ROTH
     1 PIECES
     1 CLOSE
     1 EXACT
     1 TRANSCRIPT
     1 CONSTANT
     1 KNIFE
     1 FELL
     1 ASLEEP
     1 ELECTION
     1 SIGNATURE
     1 CHRIS
     1 KILLEN
     1 CK
     1 STATE
     1 FREQUENTLY
     1 FOUND
     1 FUNNIEST
     1 FLORALS
     1 REBECCA
     1 CURTIS
     1 RC
     1 AROUSED
     1 SEXUAL
     1 GO
     1 FAMILY
     1 WISE
     1 SEEING
     1 WOMAN
     1 COUGH
     1 MADE
     1 FEAR
     1 EXPRESS
     1 FAMILIAR
     1 READER
     1 UNEVENTFUL
     1 DOG
     1 APARTMENT
     1 CHOSEN
     1 PLOT
     1 DRIVEN
     1 THRILLING
     1 PERHAPS
     1 TALKING
     1 SOMEONE
     1 MOVIE
     1 WEEKEND
     1 MAJOR
     1 EXCITE
     1 LA
     1 PENA
     1 SPEAK
     1 SOCIETY
     1 SERIES
     1 DOU
     1 MAILS
     1 MINIMIZING
     1 MAXIMIZING
     1 MOZILLA
     1 FIREFOX
     1 COMPLEMENTS
     1 OVER
     1 NAME
     1 WASN
     1 BILL
     1 JANE
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     1 POSTED
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     1 SAPPY
     1 SENTIMENT
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     1 EXPLAIN
     1 ACT
     1 ACTIONS
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     1 INCREASINGLY
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     1 CRAZY
     1 SUCCESS
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     1 HEROIN
     1 DRINK
     1 POINTS
     1 SMOKINGONANEMPTYSTOMACH
     1 EXPLORE
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     1 GENERAL
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     1 EXPERIENCES
     1 ASSFACE
     1 CLEAR
     1 BREAKDOWN
     1 BIOGRAPHER
     1 PRESENT
     1 FRIEND
     1 LIKES
     1 RESPONDING
     1 MAN
     1 PERCEIVED
     1 DIDN
     1 WEIRD
     1 THOUGH
     1 WIERD
     1 OFTEN
     1 SURPRISED
     1 EVERY
     1 ABLE
     1 QIM
     1 DISTINCTLY
     1 BOTH
     1 ANYMORE
     1 P
     1 H
     1 MADORE
     1 PM
     1 CONVERSATION
     1 STORIES
     1 MATTHEW
     1 ROHRER
     1 FLATBED
     1 SEABED
     1 TARA
     1 WRAY
     1 TW
     1 MELANCHOLIC
     1 METAPHORICAL
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     1 END
     1 NORM
     1 MACDONALD
     1 UNABLE
     1 LEMMINGS
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     1 FACTORED
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     1 PALE
     1 WHITE
     1 HAMSTER
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     1 CUTE
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     1 STERNS
     1 JS
     1 SHOCKED
     1 INADVERTENTLY
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     1 ACCORDING
     1 CONFUSION
     1 M
     1 PAINKILLERS
     1 BUTT
     1 TEEN
     1 ANTI
     1 PRO
     1 RBG
     1 ANTICIPATE
     1 NEXT
     1 POSSIBLY
     1 WORLD
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     1 DEAD
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     1 SOLON
     1 LIBRARY
     1 UNDERSTOOD
     1 AESTHETIC
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     1 TONIGHT
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     1 DRAFT
     1 VIVID
     1 VASILY
     1 CONCLUSION
     1 MEANT
     1 DEFINITIVE
     1 NOR
     1 SUPPOSED
     1 TRUTH
     1 ASSORTMENT
     1 THANK
     1 YOUR

195. March 5th, 2011 / 3:58 pm M. Kitchell—

     sup gene
     drunk comment more often
     seems sweet

196. March 5th, 2011 / 4:02 pm phmadore—

     I failed too, yeah.

197. March 5th, 2011 / 4:07 pm phmadore—

     So what are you saying, Tao? In order to like you or your writing I have to like the writing and personalities (or certainly lack thereof) of those who mimic you?

198. March 5th, 2011 / 4:07 pm phmadore—

     Blake Butler, you make me dislike white people.

199. March 5th, 2011 / 4:07 pm phmadore—

     Blake Butler, you make me dislike white people.

200. March 5th, 2011 / 4:34 pm tao—

     i posted this on my blog last year

     An “account” of a party two nights ago

     Thomas and I got to Zachary and Jamie’s party. Rion was waiting outside. We went upstairs. It was maybe fifteen people, maybe three females. More people came but it was still almost all males. All the females were Asians who were the girlfriends of white males, it seemed. After some time there were more females. I had had maybe two beers and at one point Miles gave me maybe 35% of a tequila shot. I was talking to Thomas. Jamie walked to us, or was near us, and said that Thomas had a nose ring. Thomas said he did. I think Jamie implied vaguely, though not meanly, but maybe a bit confrontationally, in a way that might cause certain people, but not Thomas, I feel, to feel uncomfortable, that he shouldn’t have a nose ring, or was wondering why he would have a nose ring. Jamie asked where Thomas was from. Thomas said San Francisco. Jamie said something like that that made sense then re “nose ring.” Thomas asked why it made sense. They talked about that. The tone seemed vaguely not discernable. I knew that Jamie had once, it seemed, gotten angry, or felt aversion, and become antagonistic at someone “in earnest” when the person said her cat was fat, combined with probably other knowledge of the person, I’m not sure. Jamie had also once told David Fishkind he was “bad” “in earnest,” “to his face,” as he sat there not antagonizing anyone, I knew, as I was there also for that, so I felt that her tone might be confrontational or antagonistic, or rather “direct”/”unrestrained” maybe toward Thomas at this point.

     I said that Thomas looked like Hugh Jackman. Jamie said he looked like Richard Tuttle. Thomas said he didn’t know who that was. Jamie said something like that it was a famous artist. The word “sculptor” was used at one point. They talked about that. I said some sarcastic things loudly, like that Jamie was too mainstream for Thomas (sarcastic because “obviously” if anything the opposite “might” be true). Thomas said something about how as a child his father only brought him to galleries and museums when they went somewhere, that his father wouldn’t bring him anywhere except galleries or museums, implying to some degree a knowledge of art that was opposed to what some things Jamie was possibly saying about his knowledge of art. I wasn’t “taking in information” very well at this point. At one point Ben Gocker said that Thomas got the nose ring to distinguish himself from Hugh Jackman. Then Ben Gocker and I made some jokes about that, saying that actually Hugh Jackman had a new play called “piercing” or “nose ring.” Jamie at various points seemed to be talking about how Richard Tuttle was famous. She had also at some point named another artist and Thomas said he didn’t know that person either. I said a few times that Jamie was too mainstream for us. She didn’t respond to me or acknowledge me. I said it probably four times. She didn’t respond to it. After some time she walked away.

     About ten minutes later Zachary walked to Thomas and I and said something like “leave” to Thomas calmly. He said it some more times. Jamie had said earlier that Zachary hadn’t drank alcohol for two weeks or something. Zachary had confirmed he hadn’t and also hadn’t tonight. Thomas asked if Zachary was serious. Thomas asked why. Zachary said because it was his apartment or party and that he wanted him to leave. He said things like “leave” and things that expressed, in different words, I think, to me, at least, that it was within his rights, to ask someone to leave, since it was his apartment and party, when Thomas repeatedly asked why. At some point I realized something and said that Jamie must have told Zachary to tell Thomas to leave. I expressed this a few times sort of “openly.” I wasn’t aware of anyone except Thomas, me, and Zachary at this point, but there “must have” been more people standing nearby. Zachary didn’t acknowledge me as he continued telling Thomas to leave. I said “what the fuck” at one point a few times and asked why Thomas had to leave. I seemed to “become serious” as I said things at some point, saying things like “but you’re being mean” and “why” in what seemed like a serious tone. Zachary didn’t really acknowledge me as he continued saying things like “leave the party.” Thomas asked Zachary why he had to be a dick about this. Thomas said he was going to finish his drink. I said Zachary was being mean. After a while Thomas said he would leave but was going to finish his drink first. Zachary said that was fine and walked away. I probably said “damn” or “jesus” at this point a few times.

     I said I would go with Thomas to the other party. Thomas had already planned to go to the other party at some point “anyway.” I said, sort of joking, to a small degree joking, maybe, that we should get a lot of people to go to the other people. It seemed impossible not to ignore that possibility, and it was funny to say. After saying it it seemed like an “artistically satisfying” thing to do, to relieve boredom in life, in part. I asked someone if they wanted to go. They seemed receptive. At one point Rion gave me a tequila shot and I drank it. At another point he offered another tequila shot and I denied it multiple times. I asked James and Lauren and Nina if they wanted to go to the other party and they all seemed receptive. I asked a group of people including Antonia and Sascha and they seemed vaguely receptive. Everyone I asked replied initially by asking where the other party was at. I said “a few blocks from here” and if they asked again I said I didn’t know and then stressed that it was “just a few blocks away” and that it would at least be “interesting.” I may have implied that it would be a new environment, and interesting just by being a different place.

     At one point I went into a small room with Jamie, Andrew, and David Fishkind in it and asked openly and loudly if “they,” or maybe just David and Andrew, wanted to go to the other party. I was aware of Jamie there, but didn’t look at her and also somehow was not affected at all by her presence, as I asked David and maybe Andrew if they wanted to leave the party to go to another party. David Fishkind seemed receptive. Andrew didn’t say anything I think. I don’t remember exactly. I left that room and at one point went back to Thomas. He was in the same place and seemed highly amused. He was encouraging me, ironically, or with self-awareness, of the situation, to get more people, to get every single person. I was trying to express to him in a humorous manner that he should calm down and “not want too much in life” but I forgot the cliché that expressed “don’t want too much in life” or “don’t risk too much” and sort of just told him to calm down and that I was getting a few more people then we could leave. Rion was standing nearby, I sensed, and seemed amused. I think he offered me the tequila shot again and I denied it.

     I passed Nina and told her we were leaving. She was getting her jacket. We left the apartment. I saw Nina and said “nice jacket” and she said “thanks, it’s reversible.” We stood on the sidewalk outside the apartment. There were about eight people. I unexpectedly, sort of, saw Ben Blum and his girlfriend, and felt highly amused. Sometimes I was laughing uncontrollably or grinning uncontrollably, so was Thomas, and other people I think. I said “sweet” a lot of times. Thomas said we should leave. Some people sort of implied that it wasn’t good to stand in front of the party we had just “abandoned,” I think. I’m not sure. It may have just been a sentiment that could be sensed, since it was a possibility. I said we should wait one minute for more people. I said James had said he was coming and wasn’t here yet. We waited a minute. A few more people came. David Fishkind expressed concern that Jamie was going to hate him, or feel aversion towards him, or something, for leaving. He said that Jamie was a gallery director. I said it was more beneficial for him to have me on his side instead of Jamie since I had more power than Jamie and also because his “scene” was the “lit scene” which was what I was in.

     We started walking. Thomas was walking alone ahead of everyone, for a time, maybe on the phone. There were about ten people with about three more people in another group trailing behind with maybe another small group of two to five. Ben Blum was laughing and saying things. People seemed to be continuously expressing the situation as it was happening, that a large portion of the party had abandoned the party to go to another party. I felt many times that the situation was “sweet” and I said so many times, because I felt that Thomas had been completely reasonable in his conversation with Jamie, and that it was also “acceptable” that he be asked to leave, but that the natural consequence of asking him to leave, with me having come with him, and being his friend, seemed to be for me to want to leave the party, and get other people to come also, since I was enjoying the company of many people at Zachary and Jamie’s party, and wanted to keep doing that. Sometimes I thought that Thomas had been completely passive, and stood in the same place, and had not made anyone feel aversion towards him except possibly Jamie, as he stood in one place talking “normally” to whoever was near him, it seemed. It seemed impossible for me to stay, in that situation, when Thomas had been asked to leave. Overall I felt highly amused and expressed this almost continuously. I had had maybe four drinks.

     After maybe five blocks people started asking where it was. David Fishkind said I had said four blocks. I jokingly said I had said fourteen blocks not four. We walked maybe eight more blocks. We stopped walking. Thomas was on the phone, he said we had gone the wrong way. The situation seemed “even sweeter” to me. Ten to fifteen people were standing around, not everyone knew what was happening, it seemed. The group seemed large enough that information seemed not able to be known to everyone at one time. I said that someone needed to make an announcement. I felt amused about this. Rion said “hey, everyone, I have an announcement, we walked the wrong way” in a manner that seemed highly amusing to me. Nina’s friend Joe who was holding a Red Bull soda said “what’s the address” a few times with a vaguely angry facial expression, I think. Joe and Nina started walking away. As they walked away I touched Nina’s shoulder a little. She turned halfway then continued walking away. It seemed that we had “lost them.” Everyone else, it seemed, either remained standing or began walking very slowly back toward Zachary’s apartment. It was around 2:00 a.m., I think.

     We began walking back in the direction we came from, back toward Zachary and Jamie’s apartment. Sometimes someone asked where the party was, usually they seemed to be asking me. Sometimes I pointed at Thomas and said Thomas knew. Thomas was on the phone. Sometimes Thomas and Rion talked about how there was a Meserole Avenue and a Meserole Street and that one was in Greenpoint and one was in Bushwick. They talked in a tone that expressed amusement more than anything else. At times the situation seemed, to me, “joyous,” even, honestly, due to the accumulation of everything weird that had happened. At one point I said that they had been mispronouncing Meserole badly and maybe wrongly and that if they hadn’t done that I would’ve sort of known where it was. Rion saw on his iPhone where it was exactly. It seemed to be nine blocks away. There was debate about whether to just go to a bar instead of the party. Someone loudly said “there’s the party” and we went there, but it was a bar not a party, people realized. For some reason Lauren was trying to convince me, us us, to go to Daddy’s instead of the party. I said the party had free alcohol. For some reason Lauren said she would buy me three coronas if we went to Daddy’s. I honestly felt on a subconscious level that it was funny she said “three,” but only on a subconscious level, if there’s such a thing. We talked about it in a manner that seemed to ignore the humor of it and I somehow convinced her to go to the party not the bar.

     We walked more and were back near Zachary’s apartment. I think Laura went back in the apartment to pee. I think Ben Blum and Tara went back in the apartment to pee also. Some people left. James said he was going home. James and his roommate and I think Laura went home, or somewhere. I’m not sure at what point Lauren, Lawrence, and Mike left. I’m not sure at what point David Fishkind left. Other people had left also. I’m not sure who else had left. It was only Rion and I standing with Thomas across the street on the phone. Thomas seemed to have been on the phone for something like six blocks. Thomas and Rion and I walked for maybe nine blocks passing Grand Modelo and a Domino’s and a place with chicken wings. We got to the intersection of Graham and Meserole. Thomas called someone and asked if someone could come outside to bring us into the party. A girl came outside and brought us into the party.

     It was very loud. There were maybe thirty people in not much space. Rion and I sat on a sofa at one point. Other things happened at this party. The next day, or today, I don’t honestly remember at this moment, I sort of idly noticed that Zachary had defriended me on Facebook, after having seen pictures of the party in my news feed, on Facebook, I think. I felt “pretty surprised.” I’ve viewed Zachary as “a close friend” for mayb 65-95% of the last two to four years, I think. I felt that he probably unfollowed me on Twitter also and looked and he had. I felt, at some points, that he and Jamie had probably felt some kind of aversion toward me, as it was sort of public knowledge that they felt some kind of aversion toward Brandon Scott Gorrell, who I publish via Muumuu House, and it would seem logical, or something, that that aversion extended to me, to some degree. There were high levels of “idle ‘conjecture'” today as I did other things. I felt I was “obsessed” to some degree with this event, as I did other things. I felt highly detached, almost surprisingly detached, as I thought about this event, feeling high levels of “interest” or maybe “amusement,” and felt that if I saw Zachary “IRL” now that I would be “even more comfortable” around him, after this, for some reason, due to its factors having combined to seem more to me like something that is “art” rather than “real life,” something one could be reckless with, and not have consequences in concrete reality, it seemed. At some point I sent someone an earlier version of this “account” and the idea sort of occurred that I post it on my blog. It seemed that it would be satisfying to post, in a manner like it might be satisfying to name a novel “Richard Yates” or to do something probably that might cause discomfort, but due to a release of information rather than a distortion of information or a release of false information, which is in part why it seems preferable and satisfying, to me, to post it, I think. Will probably delete this post soon though due, in part, among other reasons, to it not being consistent with other things on this site and not being edited to a degree that seems satisfying, to me, to have be viewable indefinitely.

201. March 5th, 2011 / 4:38 pm tao—

     if i’m a part of ‘this clique’ then you were talking about me also re ‘find them kind of annoying’ ‘quick[ly],’ but i feel that you haven’t found me annoying ‘quick[ly]’

202. March 5th, 2011 / 4:41 pm NLY—

     I wonder, if I listed all the different groups or individuals throughout the ages to have claimed to be free of, or freeing of, the kinds of things these people claim to be free of or freeing of, would it fill enough paper to change a rat’s cage with.

203. March 5th, 2011 / 4:50 pm 'echo' chamber—

     then allow me:

     tao 8 minutes ago in reply to Justin Taylor

     i posted this on my blog last year

     An “account” of a party two nights ago

     Thomas and I got to Zachary and Jamie’s party. Rion was waiting outside. We went upstairs. It was maybe fifteen people, maybe three females. More people came but it was still almost all males. All the females were Asians who were the girlfriends of white males, it seemed. After some time there were more females. I had had maybe two beers and at one point Miles gave me maybe 35% of a tequila shot. I was talking to Thomas. Jamie walked to us, or was near us, and said that Thomas had a nose ring. Thomas said he did. I think Jamie implied vaguely, though not meanly, but maybe a bit confrontationally, in a way that might cause certain people, but not Thomas, I feel, to feel uncomfortable, that he shouldn’t have a nose ring, or was wondering why he would have a nose ring. Jamie asked where Thomas was from. Thomas said San Francisco. Jamie said something like that that made sense then re “nose ring.” Thomas asked why it made sense. They talked about that. The tone seemed vaguely not discernable. I knew that Jamie had once, it seemed, gotten angry, or felt aversion, and become antagonistic at someone “in earnest” when the person said her cat was fat, combined with probably other knowledge of the person, I’m not sure. Jamie had also once told David Fishkind he was “bad” “in earnest,” “to his face,” as he sat there not antagonizing anyone, I knew, as I was there also for that, so I felt that her tone might be confrontational or antagonistic, or rather “direct”/”unrestrained” maybe toward Thomas at this point.

     I said that Thomas looked like Hugh Jackman. Jamie said he looked like Richard Tuttle. Thomas said he didn’t know who that was. Jamie said something like that it was a famous artist. The word “sculptor” was used at one point. They talked about that. I said some sarcastic things loudly, like that Jamie was too mainstream for Thomas (sarcastic because “obviously” if anything the opposite “might” be true). Thomas said something about how as a child his father only brought him to galleries and museums when they went somewhere, that his father wouldn’t bring him anywhere except galleries or museums, implying to some degree a knowledge of art that was opposed to what some things Jamie was possibly saying about his knowledge of art. I wasn’t “taking in information” very well at this point. At one point Ben Gocker said that Thomas got the nose ring to distinguish himself from Hugh Jackman. Then Ben Gocker and I made some jokes about that, saying that actually Hugh Jackman had a new play called “piercing” or “nose ring.” Jamie at various points seemed to be talking about how Richard Tuttle was famous. She had also at some point named another artist and Thomas said he didn’t know that person either. I said a few times that Jamie was too mainstream for us. She didn’t respond to me or acknowledge me. I said it probably four times. She didn’t respond to it. After some time she walked away.

     About ten minutes later Zachary walked to Thomas and I and said something like “leave” to Thomas calmly. He said it some more times. Jamie had said earlier that Zachary hadn’t drank alcohol for two weeks or something. Zachary had confirmed he hadn’t and also hadn’t tonight. Thomas asked if Zachary was serious. Thomas asked why. Zachary said because it was his apartment or party and that he wanted him to leave. He said things like “leave” and things that expressed, in different words, I think, to me, at least, that it was within his rights, to ask someone to leave, since it was his apartment and party, when Thomas repeatedly asked why. At some point I realized something and said that Jamie must have told Zachary to tell Thomas to leave. I expressed this a few times sort of “openly.” I wasn’t aware of anyone except Thomas, me, and Zachary at this point, but there “must have” been more people standing nearby. Zachary didn’t acknowledge me as he continued telling Thomas to leave. I said “what the fuck” at one point a few times and asked why Thomas had to leave. I seemed to “become serious” as I said things at some point, saying things like “but you’re being mean” and “why” in what seemed like a serious tone. Zachary didn’t really acknowledge me as he continued saying things like “leave the party.” Thomas asked Zachary why he had to be a dick about this. Thomas said he was going to finish his drink. I said Zachary was being mean. After a while Thomas said he would leave but was going to finish his drink first. Zachary said that was fine and walked away. I probably said “damn” or “jesus” at this point a few times.

     I said I would go with Thomas to the other party. Thomas had already planned to go to the other party at some point “anyway.” I said, sort of joking, to a small degree joking, maybe, that we should get a lot of people to go to the other people. It seemed impossible not to ignore that possibility, and it was funny to say. After saying it it seemed like an “artistically satisfying” thing to do, to relieve boredom in life, in part. I asked someone if they wanted to go. They seemed receptive. At one point Rion gave me a tequila shot and I drank it. At another point he offered another tequila shot and I denied it multiple times. I asked James and Lauren and Nina if they wanted to go to the other party and they all seemed receptive. I asked a group of people including Antonia and Sascha and they seemed vaguely receptive. Everyone I asked replied initially by asking where the other party was at. I said “a few blocks from here” and if they asked again I said I didn’t know and then stressed that it was “just a few blocks away” and that it would at least be “interesting.” I may have implied that it would be a new environment, and interesting just by being a different place.

     At one point I went into a small room with Jamie, Andrew, and David Fishkind in it and asked openly and loudly if “they,” or maybe just David and Andrew, wanted to go to the other party. I was aware of Jamie there, but didn’t look at her and also somehow was not affected at all by her presence, as I asked David and maybe Andrew if they wanted to leave the party to go to another party. David Fishkind seemed receptive. Andrew didn’t say anything I think. I don’t remember exactly. I left that room and at one point went back to Thomas. He was in the same place and seemed highly amused. He was encouraging me, ironically, or with self-awareness, of the situation, to get more people, to get every single person. I was trying to express to him in a humorous manner that he should calm down and “not want too much in life” but I forgot the cliché that expressed “don’t want too much in life” or “don’t risk too much” and sort of just told him to calm down and that I was getting a few more people then we could leave. Rion was standing nearby, I sensed, and seemed amused. I think he offered me the tequila shot again and I denied it.

     I passed Nina and told her we were leaving. She was getting her jacket. We left the apartment. I saw Nina and said “nice jacket” and she said “thanks, it’s reversible.” We stood on the sidewalk outside the apartment. There were about eight people. I unexpectedly, sort of, saw Ben Blum and his girlfriend, and felt highly amused. Sometimes I was laughing uncontrollably or grinning uncontrollably, so was Thomas, and other people I think. I said “sweet” a lot of times. Thomas said we should leave. Some people sort of implied that it wasn’t good to stand in front of the party we had just “abandoned,” I think. I’m not sure. It may have just been a sentiment that could be sensed, since it was a possibility. I said we should wait one minute for more people. I said James had said he was coming and wasn’t here yet. We waited a minute. A few more people came. David Fishkind expressed concern that Jamie was going to hate him, or feel aversion towards him, or something, for leaving. He said that Jamie was a gallery director. I said it was more beneficial for him to have me on his side instead of Jamie since I had more power than Jamie and also because his “scene” was the “lit scene” which was what I was in.

     We started walking. Thomas was walking alone ahead of everyone, for a time, maybe on the phone. There were about ten people with about three more people in another group trailing behind with maybe another small group of two to five. Ben Blum was laughing and saying things. People seemed to be continuously expressing the situation as it was happening, that a large portion of the party had abandoned the party to go to another party. I felt many times that the situation was “sweet” and I said so many times, because I felt that Thomas had been completely reasonable in his conversation with Jamie, and that it was also “acceptable” that he be asked to leave, but that the natural consequence of asking him to leave, with me having come with him, and being his friend, seemed to be for me to want to leave the party, and get other people to come also, since I was enjoying the company of many people at Zachary and Jamie’s party, and wanted to keep doing that. Sometimes I thought that Thomas had been completely passive, and stood in the same place, and had not made anyone feel aversion towards him except possibly Jamie, as he stood in one place talking “normally” to whoever was near him, it seemed. It seemed impossible for me to stay, in that situation, when Thomas had been asked to leave. Overall I felt highly amused and expressed this almost continuously. I had had maybe four drinks.

     After maybe five blocks people started asking where it was. David Fishkind said I had said four blocks. I jokingly said I had said fourteen blocks not four. We walked maybe eight more blocks. We stopped walking. Thomas was on the phone, he said we had gone the wrong way. The situation seemed “even sweeter” to me. Ten to fifteen people were standing around, not everyone knew what was happening, it seemed. The group seemed large enough that information seemed not able to be known to everyone at one time. I said that someone needed to make an announcement. I felt amused about this. Rion said “hey, everyone, I have an announcement, we walked the wrong way” in a manner that seemed highly amusing to me. Nina’s friend Joe who was holding a Red Bull soda said “what’s the address” a few times with a vaguely angry facial expression, I think. Joe and Nina started walking away. As they walked away I touched Nina’s shoulder a little. She turned halfway then continued walking away. It seemed that we had “lost them.” Everyone else, it seemed, either remained standing or began walking very slowly back toward Zachary’s apartment. It was around 2:00 a.m., I think.

     We began walking back in the direction we came from, back toward Zachary and Jamie’s apartment. Sometimes someone asked where the party was, usually they seemed to be asking me. Sometimes I pointed at Thomas and said Thomas knew. Thomas was on the phone. Sometimes Thomas and Rion talked about how there was a Meserole Avenue and a Meserole Street and that one was in Greenpoint and one was in Bushwick. They talked in a tone that expressed amusement more than anything else. At times the situation seemed, to me, “joyous,” even, honestly, due to the accumulation of everything weird that had happened. At one point I said that they had been mispronouncing Meserole badly and maybe wrongly and that if they hadn’t done that I would’ve sort of known where it was. Rion saw on his iPhone where it was exactly. It seemed to be nine blocks away. There was debate about whether to just go to a bar instead of the party. Someone loudly said “there’s the party” and we went there, but it was a bar not a party, people realized. For some reason Lauren was trying to convince me, us us, to go to Daddy’s instead of the party. I said the party had free alcohol. For some reason Lauren said she would buy me three coronas if we went to Daddy’s. I honestly felt on a subconscious level that it was funny she said “three,” but only on a subconscious level, if there’s such a thing. We talked about it in a manner that seemed to ignore the humor of it and I somehow convinced her to go to the party not the bar.

     We walked more and were back near Zachary’s apartment. I think Laura went back in the apartment to pee. I think Ben Blum and Tara went back in the apartment to pee also. Some people left. James said he was going home. James and his roommate and I think Laura went home, or somewhere. I’m not sure at what point Lauren, Lawrence, and Mike left. I’m not sure at what point David Fishkind left. Other people had left also. I’m not sure who else had left. It was only Rion and I standing with Thomas across the street on the phone. Thomas seemed to have been on the phone for something like six blocks. Thomas and Rion and I walked for maybe nine blocks passing Grand Modelo and a Domino’s and a place with chicken wings. We got to the intersection of Graham and Meserole. Thomas called someone and asked if someone could come outside to bring us into the party. A girl came outside and brought us into the party.

     It was very loud. There were maybe thirty people in not much space. Rion and I sat on a sofa at one point. Other things happened at this party. The next day, or today, I don’t honestly remember at this moment, I sort of idly noticed that Zachary had defriended me on Facebook, after having seen pictures of the party in my news feed, on Facebook, I think. I felt “pretty surprised.” I’ve viewed Zachary as “a close friend” for mayb 65-95% of the last two to four years, I think. I felt that he probably unfollowed me on Twitter also and looked and he had. I felt, at some points, that he and Jamie had probably felt some kind of aversion toward me, as it was sort of public knowledge that they felt some kind of aversion toward Brandon Scott Gorrell, who I publish via Muumuu House, and it would seem logical, or something, that that aversion extended to me, to some degree. There were high levels of “idle ‘conjecture'” today as I did other things. I felt I was “obsessed” to some degree with this event, as I did other things. I felt highly detached, almost surprisingly detached, as I thought about this event, feeling high levels of “interest” or maybe “amusement,” and felt that if I saw Zachary “IRL” now that I would be “even more comfortable” around him, after this, for some reason, due to its factors having combined to seem more to me like something that is “art” rather than “real life,” something one could be reckless with, and not have consequences in concrete reality, it seemed. At some point I sent someone an earlier version of this “account” and the idea sort of occurred that I post it on my blog. It seemed that it would be satisfying to post, in a manner like it might be satisfying to name a novel “Richard Yates” or to do something probably that might cause discomfort, but due to a release of information rather than a distortion of information or a release of false information, which is in part why it seems preferable and satisfying, to me, to post it, I think. Will probably delete this post soon though due, in part, among other reasons, to it not being consistent with other things on this site and not being edited to a degree that seems satisfying, to me, to have be viewable indefinitely.

204. March 5th, 2011 / 4:54 pm phmadore—

     If a bunch of mosquitos crowd around my arm, I don’t chop my arm off; I swat the mosquitos.

205. March 5th, 2011 / 5:01 pm Jordan—

     hehe

206. March 5th, 2011 / 5:05 pm Jordan—

     i don’t think i read criticism or analysis, usually

     most recently, besides the poems i reviewed above, i’ve enjoyed poetry by raymond carver, matthew rohrer, some poems in ‘pear noir! #5,’ richard wehrenberg jr, dennis cooper, matthew savoca and kendra grant malone

     i haven’t read jane bowles, i will google her/read something by her today

207. March 5th, 2011 / 5:06 pm Jordan—

     lol

208. March 5th, 2011 / 5:07 pm Jordan—

     when i was in 6th grade the first band i was in “covered” songs by rage against the machine and nirvana

     we started our first show (“battle of the bands” at a local, “shitty ass” concert venue) with “killing in the name of” by rage against the machine. i sang and jumped around and kept saying “come wit it now” in a manner i thought sounded like zach de la rocha.

     my old AIM screename was JordanDeLaRocha…

209. March 5th, 2011 / 5:09 pm Jordan—

     thank you, susie

210. March 5th, 2011 / 5:12 pm tao—

     if you want to read more of my books email me your address and i’ll mail you them and both muumuu house books for free, i feel a strong urge to mail you a lot of things for free…

211. March 5th, 2011 / 5:19 pm phmadore—

     I bought all your books, Tao, and Ellen Kennedy and BSG, in 2009. I have them all. I don’t have Richard Yates, but I will buy it when the mood strikes me.

     Free is good.

     If I put that copy of Book of Disquiet you gave me on eBay, will you promote the auction?

212. March 5th, 2011 / 5:23 pm tao—

     i will, send me the link when it’s up

     i feel like i would probably bid on it…have thought about it sometimes, i made a lot of notes in that

213. March 5th, 2011 / 5:24 pm Ryan Call—

     its double points weekend for call of duty: black ops. fyi.

214. March 5th, 2011 / 5:29 pm phmadore—

     I have to find it first. I’m not sure if I have it here in Texas or if I kept it in Maine or what. It has real Iraqi dust on it.

     We should do some drugs together when I get out of the army in a few weeks. I can get the best green bud you’ve ever smoked from Maine.

215. March 5th, 2011 / 5:31 pm phmadore—

     Found it. Will list it later tonight. This could be fun. All proceeds will go into the disproductions general fund.

     Speaking of, http://frsh.in/hpc

     It’s a good fucking book people.

216. March 5th, 2011 / 5:37 pm D.—

     Seems like this “guy” spent barely “any time” writing the piece. “Seems like” he didn’t spend any time at all editing it. Seems kind of “sad” that there are “this many” comments on something so empty of content.

217. March 5th, 2011 / 5:37 pm D.—

     Seems like this “guy” spent barely “any time” writing the piece. “Seems like” he didn’t spend any time at all editing it. Seems kind of “sad” that there are “this many” comments on something so empty of content.

218. March 5th, 2011 / 5:39 pm Justin Taylor—

     Thanks, Tao. Point for you/y’all. We’ll continue this argument another time, when I’ve got a working example.

219. March 5th, 2011 / 6:03 pm marshall—

     damn

     seems like there are better reasons to dislike white ppl

220. March 5th, 2011 / 6:04 pm Jordan—

     in grades 9-11 i finished ~1 book every ~3 days, i think

     the authors/books that “stick out” in my head, as books i read frequently, or books i remember reading for some reason are Charles Bukowski, Kurt Vonnegut, Albert Camus, ‘[anarchist literature],’ “Walden” by Thoreau, [book title I can’t remember.. a thin poetry book] by e.e. cummings, and others

     recently i’ve been reading things on the internet, and less frequently reading books

     most recently i’ve read and enjoyed “The Book of Disquiet” by Fernando Pessoa, “Good Morning, Midnight” by Jean Rhys, “Person” by Sam Pink and “The Collected Stories of Raymond Carver” by Raymond Carver

     i read and re-read things by writers that I know with a higher frequency than any other type of writer, i think

221. March 5th, 2011 / 6:14 pm Jordan—

     i have frequently thought about filming my life, or a day, 24/7, but don’t think i have the funds to fairly, in my view, monetarily compensate a person for filming it

     if someone is interested in “hanging out” with me, to some degree, while filming me the entire time, or “simply” filming me doing things i’d normally do, for any amount of time, for little to no pay, please e-mail jordancastroisthepresident@gmail.com

     i like reading and writing fiction, for various reasons that i’m not really sure of – possibly because i “got into it” “early on,” possibly because i like thinking about myself and my surroundings, and “doing things,” and literature seems to provide a platform for both thought and action – typing what one is thinking, has been thinking about, is going on, etc., or possibly [other reasons]

     i think, “technically,” i like reading and writing because of everything that’s ever happened in the history of the universe until now, or something…

     re “why do you want to see your own lives as fiction when you don’t change anything,” i think, due to the nature of deciding what to write and what to focus on while writing, things are changed in terms of my life and the fiction i write that is based on it. i also, ~89% of the time, i think, change dialogue or [other things], to some degree, to create something more artistically satisfying to me, when i’m writing something based on my life.

222. March 5th, 2011 / 6:16 pm marshall—

     like, many better reasons than blake butler

223. March 5th, 2011 / 6:17 pm marshall—

     seems like when ppl “make fun” of the “scare quotes” thing they always do it “wrong”

     makes me feel disappointed

224. March 5th, 2011 / 6:20 pm Jordan—

     i’m not sure how my parents feel re me being “part of a ‘scene’ that has recently started experimenting heavily with drugs.” my mom has read things by tao lin and megan boyle that mention drugs, i think, and both of my parents are aware of the existence of “mdma films.”

     i think my parents like my friends that they’ve met. my dad sent steaks to tao for christmas and recently asked me how tao and megan are, and said something like “they’re so good for each other,” lol. they also seem to enjoy having them over.

     my dad also “treated” noah cicero’s “tooth abcess” for free and talked with him for a long time about taxes, or something, and afterward said he liked noah a lot.

     i am still in high school

     i don’t write with a psuedonym

     this is not “a ‘fuck you mom and dad,'” i think my parents are very nice and generous (among other things) and i feel “fortunate to have them”

     i have never read “vice”

225. March 5th, 2011 / 6:20 pm Mindfreak—

     …

226. March 5th, 2011 / 6:21 pm Adam—

     Wait, that was supposed to say “Mindreak”

227. March 5th, 2011 / 6:21 pm Adam—

     Oh my god! “Mindfreak” !! can someone just delete these posts? Jesus

228. March 5th, 2011 / 6:23 pm Jordan—

     “i am not interested in the ‘real world’
     i want to fucking be able to hover in the air and breath underwater
     i want to touch god and never stop having orgasms”

     sweet

     aside from writing, i also play music [http://jordancastro.bandcamp.com/], act [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/322702815/shoplifting-from-american-apparel-movie], “rap” (no link, hehe) and paint/draw with mallory sometimes

229. March 5th, 2011 / 6:23 pm D.—

     “Seems” like “the point” is that these clowns do th”e scare quote”s thing wrong. Seems that they “don’t get” how to use them. Seems they don’t “get” a lot of things”.”

230. March 5th, 2011 / 6:26 pm marshall—

     good job guys

     good job everyone

     i think we are making some “progress” here

     i think we are getting to the “root” of things

     this is good

     we are good

     we are asking questions and saying things

     we are saying things like “i think…” and “i feel…”

     i remember learning about this in elementary school

     something about “‘i’ statements” being good

     e.g. “it makes me feel like this when you say that”

     this is good

     we are becoming better ppl

     we are becoming more “mature” and “tolerant”

     this is like a business meeting

     we are in a think tank

     we are discussing things and drinking lots of water and ordering pizza

     seems like we are making “progress”

     we’ll meet again next week

     we’ll go over the minutes from the previous meeting

     we’ll draw some flow charts on the white board

     we’ll all have our notepads and we’ll write notes to ourselves

     we’ll reference our notes from earlier discussions

     (this is why we wrote them down: so we could remember)

     we are like a curve on a graph

     we are stretching out and getting closer and closer to something

     i feel like we’re almost there

     we are so close

     i feel like we are becoming a family

     i feel like we are becoming closer together

     once this is all over maybe we’ll get matching tattoos to show our feelings of “brotherhood”/”sisterhood”/”brohood”

     maybe we’ll just get matching t-shirts

     we will split the costs of buying them equally

     everyone will pay their share willingly without feeling “coerced” or “wasteful”

     we will silk screen them together in a backyard somewhere

     we will barbecue vegan hotdogs

     i can’t wait guys

     i feel like it will be really special

231. March 5th, 2011 / 6:29 pm Jordan—

     lol…

     i am “snickering” in the library

232. March 5th, 2011 / 6:31 pm Adam—

     I thought I had a copy of my favorite story by her, but i don’t. I found it on google books with only 2/9 pages missing – you won’t miss much from those 2 pages, not much happens in the story and all the important pieces seem to be there. http://bit.ly/g2pioN

     What music do you listen to?

233. March 5th, 2011 / 6:31 pm Jordan—

     thank you

     if you email jordancastroisthepresident@gmail.com, i would be happy to send you chapbooks and other things for free

234. March 5th, 2011 / 6:33 pm Jordan—

     *htmlgiant sale*

     if you read this comment you can buy ‘muumuu house (a dvd)’ [http://smokingonanemptystomach.blogspot.com/2011/01/muumuu-house-dvd.html] for $8 (free shipping)

     simply paypal jordancastroisthepresident@gmail.com the amount

     *htmlgiant sale*

235. March 5th, 2011 / 6:35 pm Jordan—

     sweet

     i feel interested in reading something like this re novels i like and other things

     seems sweet

236. March 5th, 2011 / 6:35 pm Adam—

     “andy warhol kinda sucked ya’ll”
     I’m so happy to hear you say that

237. March 5th, 2011 / 6:42 pm Jordan—

     i think i spent a total of ~3 hours editing this after writing it

238. March 5th, 2011 / 6:45 pm Jordan—

     i like zachary a lot

     i think it’s only him and tao who aren’t friends anymore

239. March 5th, 2011 / 6:46 pm Jordan—

     i am grinning

240. March 5th, 2011 / 7:02 pm Jordan—

     i will give what i feel is my best effort at explaining why i use quotation marks if you will honestly try to understand it, and if you don’t understand it and want to discuss it further, you will ask questions with the intention of honestly trying to interpret my answers, etc.

     i would like to explain myself, but feel like it’s “useless” due to your already having decided that you view them as “copious and unjustified” and having commented below that “They’re fucking gimmicks. End of story.”

241. March 5th, 2011 / 7:16 pm Adam—

     I’ve thought about this vaguely a lot, but never written it, so I reserve the right to disagree with myself in a few hours if I feel like it.

     I love more than half of bear parade, quite liked Shoplifting From AA, really really like more than half of Noah’s poems and almost every Tao poem I’ve read (And I LOVE Michael Earl Craig and Deb Olin Unferth, but they stand out so much; I think there are still similarities, though).

     I think there’s a lot of variation in that list, but probably, if there is a common thread, I really react to the stripped-down style, whether Tao is using it to talk about his real life in Shoplifting or Noah is writing about zombies invading Youngstown (my hometown too, so that might make me sympathetic). It just leaves so much of the job up to the reader, that’s what I really like.

     I like the way, reading Shoplifting, I kept thinking about Crime & Punishment, and I think the similarities & contrasts there might say everything about Shoplifting: Tao’s character (Sam? It’s almost impossible not to imagine it as Tao himself) doesn’t let us in the way Raskolnikov does and the stakes of the crime are reduced almost completely, changes which speak mostly probably to 21st c. America, but it’s the same superiority, detachment, and lack of self-awareness that drives them. I could go on. Did Tao mean for me to think about that? Don’t know, don’t care, and that’s sort of my point. It’s open. I think a lot of people take that openness and do relate it to their own lives, but for me it’s entirely different. The bare starkness of the story really requires me to work hard at analysis, and think mostly about style, form, gaps, how it “works” while I do (which is already my inclination when I read anything). There’s really a super super strong unity in Tao’s work between form and content that most people don’t give him credit for.

     I remember, as an undergrad, my professor talking a lot about the loss of a “high style” in poetry, but, then, most contemporary poets we discussed or I found on my own wrote in such ornate, serious, learn-ed verse – like Walcott, Zagajewski, even Ashberry, anything that’s ever been in The New Yorker, even Diagram – bear parade was fresh air to me when I found it.

     I told him that, btw, I said I thought instead of “a new high style” Tao was developing a new low one, and he was very dismissive. That probably made bear parade seem “dangerous” to me

242. March 5th, 2011 / 7:18 pm D.—

     That was your “best effort” (note proper use of quotes)? Seems lame.

     Does it really take a lot of effort or understanding to say, “I was copying Tao”?

243. March 5th, 2011 / 7:19 pm Adam—

     OK. You can send them to me then, Tao

244. March 5th, 2011 / 7:28 pm lorian—

     if you scroll thru that list it looks like the words are having seizures.

245. March 5th, 2011 / 7:50 pm deadgod—

     Mike, if you go to the NYT/Bock review linked to in the blogicle, you’ll see a review that engages with Richard Yates “critically”, albeit without much explication (due to the article’s length). For example, Bock claims that “during important scenes, Lin slows time and piles sentences into longer paragraphs, replicating complex thought processes and shifting, nuanced moods”. This ‘replication’ isn’t explicated and no example is given, but the perception itself (of the novel’s ambition and achievement, which sound similar – as characterized by the reviewer – to Henry James) is surely of the “‘work'”.

     Let me add that the review is not a hit piece; Jordan’s suspicion that it might “epitomiz[e]” “countless ‘shit storms'” is, whether through inexperience, inattentiveness, or incompetence, inaccurate.

246. March 5th, 2011 / 8:13 pm antagoniste.de—

     I am speaking to you in a calm, rational tone, madore. This is the consciousness of the world speaking to you, madore. Relax in your chair. Take a deep breath. Think of something violent and gruesome that makes you happy, like a bear ripping a child’s head off in a Denny’s (is that what makes you happy (i am mocking you as an exercise)). Yes, madore, the consciousness of the world is arrogant and sarcastic, as an exercise. I dont even know anymore, madore

     Now, on to my comment:

     Calling it a tic you don’t like would make more sense to me, madore. A gimmick is a “clever (deceptive) maneuver,” according to the dictionary i just checked. How are the use of scare quotes “clever” in any pejorative sense? They are clever within the context of “witty,” if used carefully, and by “witty” I mean “indicating self-consciousness of the limitations of language as well as the possibilities for humor via the use of stilted verbal mannerisms, including the use of scare quotes,” and I would agree with anyone that they’re used with varying degrees of precision w/r/t what can be perceived as their intended purpose in those cases. But even if the scare quotes are not used carefully, they are what, sloppily used language mannerisms that indicate belonging to a clique or a fondness for Tao? Even if they were gimmicks, madore, so what? You’ve proven what. That means what? End of story means what? Why is Jordan a motherfucker? I don’t understand the premise for most of the things you say. You remind me of a rabid pitbull. Maybe like a blind rabid pitbull that is missing a leg and keeps running at strangers with foam in his mouth and then fall because hes missing a leg and he’s blind.

     Why not just say “I FUCKING HATE EVERYONE FUCKING FUCK FUCK BE NEGATIVE LIKE ME FUCKY SHIT ASS BECKY BUNK THE FUCK SHIT ASS FUCK AHHHHH FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUKFUKFUKFUKFUFKF” in all your comments instead, madore. it would be more honest and authentic, dont you think?

     What really might piss you off is I dont care about you and Im not mad and Im not offended by any of your comments, lol…. this was just to pass the time, lol… feel free to threaten me and be angry. i am very serious when i say i so dont care about anything related to you, and in fact i feel nothing for this post, i am just chilling like a villian. how i feel towards you is like if an 80 yr old man in a retirement home saw a 5 yr old push another kid to the ground for no good reason

     LOL!!!!!!!

247. March 5th, 2011 / 8:18 pm phmadore—

     So how can you be sure that your emotional scope will always be as “significantly less extreme, “for the most part,” due to an almost constant state of detachment from external reality.”

     What’s to say you won’t graduate, go to college, fall in love, and become attached to reality all the time and/or emotionally driven?

248. March 5th, 2011 / 8:21 pm stephen—

     kinda wish i could delete. feels boring and bleak to respond to madore. um, but yea, i get one of your points actually, madore, which is that you want, for some reason, jordan and others to ADMIT that the scare quotes thing is a stilted verbal mannerism in some cases, which to you is A TERRIBLE OFFENSE something to be ashamed of. whereas, to me, even if admitted, thered be no shame involved. it really was an exercise, madore. idk what to say to you, like if i thought you were a normal human id say something nice, but idk what the hell would like pacify you

249. March 5th, 2011 / 8:28 pm shellfish—

     oh madoreling oh madoreling oh madoreling clementine, u were lost n gone 4evr draedful sorry clementiiiinnnnne

250. March 5th, 2011 / 4:31 pm Justin Taylor—

     Is anyone ever going to make a public statement on what happened to get Zachary German (1988-????, Nylon spread, far lower left) kicked out of this club–or what caused him to defect, or whatever happened? For a group so committed to refusing to make “value judgments” and to writing your autobiographies in public and in real time, the complete radio silence on this particular issue is striking. Which isn’t to say more ought to be said–at a guess, I’d say it probably shouldn’t–but to the extent that any of you have considered this question and made any kind of decision “re” it, you’ve identified the weakness of your own party line. Apologies if this “shit storms” on your relativism, but redaction smacks of judgment, and moreover, of moral choice, “bro.” But don’t sweat your hypocrisy too hard–to some of us, the ability to make informed value judgments based on “rhetorical” ideas such as compassion, dignity and restraint, are actually a good thing. There’s a compliment here, but you can only have it if you’re willing to concede the terms on which it’s offered.

251. March 5th, 2011 / 4:31 pm Justin Taylor—

     Is anyone ever going to make a public statement on what happened to get Zachary German (1988-????, Nylon spread, far lower left) kicked out of this club–or what caused him to defect, or whatever happened? For a group so committed to refusing to make “value judgments” and to writing your autobiographies in public and in real time, the complete radio silence on this particular issue is striking. Which isn’t to say more ought to be said–at a guess, I’d say it probably shouldn’t–but to the extent that any of you have considered this question and made any kind of decision “re” it, you’ve identified the weakness of your own party line. Apologies if this “shit storms” on your relativism, but redaction smacks of judgment, and moreover, of moral choice, “bro.” But don’t sweat your hypocrisy too hard–to some of us, the ability to make informed value judgments based on “rhetorical” ideas such as compassion, dignity and restraint, are actually a good thing. There’s a compliment here, but you can only have it if you’re willing to concede the terms on which it’s offered.

252. March 5th, 2011 / 8:31 pm stephen—

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yekd2W2SQvc

     lmao…

253. March 5th, 2011 / 8:37 pm Jordan—

     i didn’t say that my emotional scope will “always be” that way, i said “Due to certain worldviews (or lack thereof) and [other things], our “emotional scope,” or range of emotions, while fundamentally similar to that of most people, I think, is significantly less extreme, “for the most part,” due to an almost constant state of detachment from external reality.”

     i think worldviews, “emotional scopes,” and probably the majority of other things that people think/say/do/are change

254. March 5th, 2011 / 8:39 pm Joey Martino—

     I believe in ethical absolution and i quit taking drugs. But i can relate to u and ur friends, thats why i like it here.

255. March 5th, 2011 / 8:40 pm phmadore—

     I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a koala bear crossed with a robotic mouse hardwired to say retarded shit every time someone opened the door. Put an orange t-shirt on it, and that would be you.

256. March 5th, 2011 / 8:42 pm phmadore—

     I hope you are a writer when you grow up.

257. March 5th, 2011 / 8:46 pm phmadore—

     The thing is that you would love me and give me daily rim jobs if I were somehow endeared to the contributors of HTMLGIANT, or anyway the frequent contributors.

     Some follow, some lead, and some do both when appropriate. Some are originals, some are copies, and some just want to make good contributions to the world.

     I’m pretty sure you fall into another category altogether, that of the soul leech.

258. March 5th, 2011 / 8:47 pm phmadore—

     Why the squiggly before the number 3?

259. March 5th, 2011 / 8:51 pm Anonymous—

     I like how surprised you look in that photo of the Muumuu crew posing for the dvd. This essay got really good comments.

260. March 5th, 2011 / 8:59 pm Joe—

     I think this piece fails to identify any features that are actually special to Muumuu House writers. From what I’ve read, I mostly enjoy Muumuu house writing. But I think this post makes a bad case for Muumuu House writing as a recognizable or culturally unique movement.

     I think that writers an artists have been questioning culturally accepted values and purposes for living for a very, very long time. An from what I’ve read, Muumuu House writers utilize rhetoric and literary techniques as much as any other group of writers. In this piece, and in interviews with Tao Lin, I’ve read Muumuu House writers go to great lengths to explain why they have chosen the literary style or content they have. Muumuu House writing is also usually highly stylized. It just happens to usually adopt a deadpan style.

     Most people think of themselves and their friends as more depressed and alienated than the general populace, because people tend not to talk about their depression and alienation with anyone besides their close friends.

     As for detachment, I think it’s pretty common for younger people to feel emotionally detached because they haven’t yet formed careers, families, or communities to have an emotional stake in. Writers and artists have historically usually been outsiders, detached from the things the rest of society considers important at the time.

     Here are a few traits that I find special to Muumuu House writers. More than any other group of writers I’ve read, Muumuu House writers have blended the way we write on the internet (the casual, sarcastic, deadpan tone of chats and blog posts) with the way writers tend to write in literature. I think this is notable because literature has so far ignored the affect that the internet has had on the way we read and write words. I also think that Muumuu House writers have an interesting way of blending a deadpan writing style with almost melodramatic emotional content. Muumuu House writers are also really young on average. I think this reflects how the internet now allows writers to circumvent the traditional process of paying one’s dues through MFA programs and the publishing industry through self promotion and publication.

261. March 5th, 2011 / 9:01 pm phmadore—

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opw8I6UTpGo

262. March 5th, 2011 / 9:04 pm stephen—

     I’m a very soulful person, madore, and have my own opinions. I regularly disagree with HTMLGIANT contributors. I was a pest to Christopher Higgs recently. Wasn’t giving him rim jobs, and I like him a lot as a person. I’ve been antagonistic to Jereme Dean and vice versa, and he’s popular with some HTML people.

     But I also really like when people are supportive of each other. And I don’t believe in a lot of styles of criticism and analysis. A lot of criticism is nonsensical to me because of the subjective agendas involved and lack of context that often comes with it. I’m not a fan of loudly shouting “I’m right and you’re wrong!” and to me that’s mostly what criticism and discussions are in this forum and elsewhere. But I am attempting to find a way to still be thoughtful and analytical and “helpful” anyway, and to not be entirely anti-intellectual, although sometimes I do feel pretty opposed to intellectual pursuits in general

     It seems like you’re dismissive of every person and every comment and every thing unless it relates to snarky negativity. Is that inaccurate? That is my observation. My tone is just logical speaking voice. No malice. Nothing.

263. March 5th, 2011 / 9:07 pm Jordan—

     i’m not exactly sure how much time i spent editing this, but i think it was “around” (~) 3 hours

264. March 5th, 2011 / 9:12 pm phmadore—

     Jordan Castro et al. are Tao Lin’s Mr. Brainwash.

     http://frsh.in/14

265. March 5th, 2011 / 9:12 pm phmadore—

     Jordan Castro et al. are Tao Lin’s Mr. Brainwash.

     http://frsh.in/14

266. March 5th, 2011 / 9:16 pm phmadore—

     Why the parenthetical squiggly before the number 3?

267. March 5th, 2011 / 9:20 pm Jordan—

     ~ means around or approximately

268. March 5th, 2011 / 9:24 pm D.—

     “i’m not exactly sure how much time i spent editing this, but i think it was “around” (~) 3 hours”

     Why on earth is the word “around” in quotes?

269. March 5th, 2011 / 9:27 pm phmadore—

     Stating what your tone is or is not is most certainly a defensive mechanism.

     Yes, that is inaccurate. Your introduction to HTMLGIANT was surely not the same as mine. The first thing they ever wrote about me was a 2,000 word article about how pathetic I am; this was before I even knew who the majority of the people were.

     I’ve never been a fan of unearned praise. I’ve never been a fan of in-crowds. I’ve never liked anyone who just reduces their thoughts to something like “great job” or “I loved this” or whatever other sort of “supportive” things you’re such a fan of. I think those things would be more productive as e-mails to the contributor, because the only product they can possibly add up to is a better friendship between the two parties involved. Yes, I am guilty of occasionally saying something bland and supportive. But there are people — specifically you and the rest of your unit — who participate in the literary community almost exclusively in this way. You’re not adding anything to the world. You’re not creating anything new. You’re not even deconstructing anything old and petulant. What you are doing is ingratiating yourselves with each other. On a non-stop basis. In public. Which should be embarrassing, but you have all these excuses to prevent you from ever feeling such embarrassment, it would seem.

     I’m 100% sure I never started with you, Stephen. I’m 100% sure that you struck the first blow. 100%. And I’m 100% sure it was because of something I was saying to someone else, someone you considered an internet friend or someone who you thought you might gain by going to bat for or whatever your motivation was.

     Ask anyone who knows me. I’m not nearly as hateful as you and others would love the world to believe. Without me, more than one recent phenomenon wouldn’t have happened. And it’s not like I do these things unintentionally.

     I was here long before certain people and I’ll be here long after them. I survived a war, for fuck’s sake, so I’ll certainly survive this weird period of rejection I’m experiencing as a result of the ire I’ve drawn from one Roxane Gay and a few of her cronies.

     It’s a wicked world that we live in. I like to beautify it with letters. What do you do like to do?

270. March 5th, 2011 / 9:31 pm phmadore—

     Do you believe you would do that if Tao Lin had not been doing that for years?

271. March 5th, 2011 / 9:31 pm phmadore—

     Do you believe you would do that if Tao Lin had not been doing that for years?

272. March 5th, 2011 / 9:34 pm mario—

     who is ph madore, seems terrifying, seems like he is a serial killer

     how is ‘ph’ pronounced, is it ‘p.h.’ or does it make an ‘f’ sound

     i feel afraid

273. March 5th, 2011 / 9:34 pm mario—

     who is ph madore, seems terrifying, seems like he is a serial killer

     how is ‘ph’ pronounced, is it ‘p.h.’ or does it make an ‘f’ sound

     i feel afraid

274. March 5th, 2011 / 9:56 pm Jordan—

     i think you misunderstood my comment…

     idk re “Does it really take a lot of effort or understanding to say, “I was copying Tao”?”

275. March 5th, 2011 / 10:01 pm Jordan—

     i will read that story at some point before monday, thank you

     re music, http://www.last.fm/user/jordan_castro

276. March 5th, 2011 / 10:05 pm Jordan—

     i don’t know

277. March 5th, 2011 / 10:06 pm Jordan—

     hehe, sweet

278. March 5th, 2011 / 10:07 pm Jordan—

     i didn’t mean to add a ” after the word “around”

     i meant for it to read “around (~) 3 hours”, trying to indicate that ~ meant around/approximately

279. March 5th, 2011 / 10:07 pm Jordan—

     lol

280. March 5th, 2011 / 10:15 pm phmadore—

     Within just an hour of Alberto’s direct strike on the core, in an uncharacteristic display of generosity, the Concerned Housewives of Asian Descent (CHOAD), coordinated with officials to form a shitstorm relief fund and distribution network, and within 2 weeks had successfully distributed over 400 pounds of non-perishable food items and 700 gallons of drinking water to the survivors of Alberto, although there were reports of isolated rioting in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Austin.

     –http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.fiction7.html

281. March 5th, 2011 / 10:33 pm deadgod—

     mindreek? mindwreak? minedreek, minedwreak? MyNdreak? mi-‘n’-dreak?

     above the of all?

282. March 5th, 2011 / 10:34 pm Roxane—

     Paul, the way you warp reality is bizarre. There is no secret cabal rejecting you. If you are meeting with rejection your writing is not what given editors are looking for. I have rarely discussed you publicly one way or the other so to suggest you have drawn my ire is absurd. I think you are a troubled person who has created a hatred for me because you incorrectly assume a great many things about me. I don’t really care anymore. I will say this though. You recently submitted to PANK and I rejected your work with a rewrite request and specifically noted we would be interested in the revised version. You never responded. That is fine but don’t accuse me of any sort of bullshit. I wish I had that kind of time. If even I will consider and publish your work at PANK you have a fair chance anywhere.

283. March 5th, 2011 / 10:41 pm Damn—

     i have a major issue. i wish it was called “some thoughts on mummuu house”. using ON instead of RE, i would have felt less annoyed immediately, feeling annoyed immediately is a bad way to begin reading something.

     BSG and tao have their own styles. they are the best. the prince and king (jk kind of) but seriously. the rest are very weak, by the rest i mean jordan and megan, sorry, i have an opinion and it… i don’t know… sorry

284. March 5th, 2011 / 10:49 pm D.—

     or at least “RE:”

285. March 5th, 2011 / 10:52 pm phmadore—

     That was like six months ago, I think.

     And I wasn’t talking about my writing being rejected. I had three acceptances this week under two names.

     I was talking about the wholesale rejection of me as a person.

286. March 5th, 2011 / 10:54 pm phmadore—

     I’m going to say you probably wouldn’t. Maybe you should consider how many things in your life you would do differently if you’d never fallen under the spell of Tao, and consider doing them that way instead. I think it would make you more digestible.

287. March 5th, 2011 / 11:02 pm phmadore—

     Also, if I were to say exactly the same thing about as regards you being a troubled person, would that not be an assumption?

     You consistently use words like “bizarre,” “troubled,” “strange,” “weird,” etc, in referencing me. I believe you do this to further foment an unreality, that I am somehow less than sane. We’re all perfectly aware, I would hope, that in order for me to even get my current shitty position in life, I had to pass a certain number of exams, one of which had to do with my mental stability.

     Is it true that I am being medically discharged for PTSD? Yes, it is, but that doesn’t seem relevant to your case.

     What you and others would like is to continue for myself and anything I am involved with to be marginalized. I’m happy to spend the next decade quietly plodding along.

     I mean, look at the National. They were ignored for a solid 7 years. Now they’re huge. Like, wicked huge.

     This is what we did this week alone: http://frsh.in/hpc

     http://frsh.in/2p

     And more.

     The reason we don’t make your radar is not that we don’t make your radar but rather that you, and others, intentionally ignore us.

     The idea is that I don’t need my seat at your table because I’m simply going to buy your house.

     Be well.

288. March 5th, 2011 / 11:12 pm deadgod—

     “Trolling”, as I understand it, is ‘commenting exclusively to agitate emotional distress’. I don’t think that’s what phmadore is doing on this thread; he has points of view that he’s arguing for in addition to making hostile personal remarks.

     You might think he’s splenetically diffusing the gist of his argument (by making it as pugnaciously as he is), that his rhetoric is self-defeating, in the sense of not gaining, not agreement, but, less belligerently, even a careful hearing.

     But there are genuine arguments in (most of) his posts on this thread, and I think it’s important – okay: ‘important’ – to distinguish a rejection of means from a rejection of perspective under the cover of rejecting its guise. In the latter case, the rejector often uses her or his “dislike” of someone as an excuse for eluding, what, intimidating conversation (?). – which is fine, but call that an accurate “it”.

     For example, the madoreonymous creature: nothing in any of its posts is to do with muumuu, or scare quotes, or etc. – it’s all and only (I did laugh) name-calling.

     Reasonable distinction?

289. March 5th, 2011 / 11:17 pm deadgod—

     I have driven by a widening clique, but it was 2-for-1 at Gag in the Bag – no con test!

290. March 5th, 2011 / 11:33 pm stephen—

     i’m not embarrassed. i’m not afraid, madore. i have too much love in my heart. it will inevitably show

291. March 5th, 2011 / 11:33 pm Anonymous—

     it won’t let me switch back to “stephen.” what’s up with that?

292. March 5th, 2011 / 11:39 pm Anonymous—

     can you elaborate? i’d be interested in hearing more.

293. March 5th, 2011 / 11:42 pm Anonymous—

     i had an acquaintance post on facebook “tao lin is not a writer.” i am unhappy with this sentiment of if you write such a way you’re not a writer. it’s preposterously pretentious whether applied to tao or to jordan. in the case of tao, it’s an easy defense, his fucking 6-book oeuvre was reviewed by the goddamn LRB. but even with jordan, he’s been widely published and has two print books coming out by the time he’s like 20 or something. he is a fucking writer. if you dont like how he writes, terrific, but hes a fucking writer

294. March 5th, 2011 / 11:44 pm Anonymous—

     lol re quoting that and then ‘sweet’ lol…

295. March 5th, 2011 / 11:45 pm misskimball—

     lol @ ‘big word faggotry’

296. March 5th, 2011 / 11:54 pm Anonymous—

     you weren’t asking me, mike, but i was thinking about how “realist” writing and autobiographical writing comes in many flavors. joyce was a realist and an autobiographical writer to a large degree, in my opinion, and almost objectively, i am confident there is actual concrete evidence of it. and yet he would never be called a straight-ahead realist writer. i would also say that for me what is compelling to me about realist or autobio writing or any kind of writing is when there seems to be something at stake for the writer, whether it be emotions or the attempt to convey a moment in time or the attempt to “commune with a certain aesthetic ‘god'” or whatever (that last one i throw in for you stridently non-“realist” writers). i think any one of these things or all of them can move me greatly. it’s the writing where the writer seems to have no stake in it, where it’s not reflective of emotions or of any kind of poignant striving whether within the world of the text or in the space between text and writer or in the style, that i am not moved and i don’t care. intellectually stimulating or technically impressive wordage alone will not move me, and when i am moved i am alive

297. March 5th, 2011 / 11:55 pm phmadore—

     The whole thing is definitely the funniest thing I have read in weeks.

298. March 5th, 2011 / 11:56 pm Anonymous—

     i have trouble sometimes feeling connected to or interested in writing that is just kind of a finely wrought puzzle. i can admire the technique but i’m not looking to art for math or science or engineering, i’m looking to it for what i call art, which is vaguely defined, but is definitely human and emotional. note: to me a color can be emotional, a word can be emotional

299. March 5th, 2011 / 11:58 pm Anonymous—

     and to someone who would say words/literature are not human, i’d say if they are not strictly speaking human in nature, they are *of* humans, and to me that is the same thing

300. March 5th, 2011 / 11:59 pm phmadore—

     Christ. It was just a quip.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmy7PZuk4E0

301. March 6th, 2011 / 12:01 am Anonymous—

     this whole tangent wasn’t really explained. i guess my point is, there are different paths. different isn’t wrong or less than

302. March 6th, 2011 / 12:09 am Ryan Call—

     here’s the article, written by justin taylor, to which madore refers:

     http://htmlgiant.com/author-spotlight/this-morning-in-breathless-endless-pointless-tao-lin-coverage/

     read the comments section as well to see that other readers, including some htmlgiant contributors, were uncomfortable with the tone taylor took against madore.

303. March 6th, 2011 / 12:12 am phmadore—

     HTMLGIANT Librarian.

304. March 6th, 2011 / 12:16 am phmadore—

     “if we really are a voice of ‘indie’ lit, then let’s welcome all voices, however aesthetically unpleasing.”

     –Jimmy Chen

305. March 6th, 2011 / 12:20 am phmadore—

     You know, reading over those comments, I think that I want to take back a lot of the mean stuff I’ve said about Jimmy Chen.

     Jimmy, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry.

     You were totally right when you said “that’s why Zachary German called us a bunch of fags the other day.”

306. March 6th, 2011 / 12:42 am Sean—

     I just want to say one of the first things I thought reading this post, and knowing of the Tao Lin/Z Germany rift, was: no value judgments, my ass. So, yeh.

307. March 6th, 2011 / 12:46 am phmadore—

     Last 19 comments deleted. This is probably 20.

308. March 6th, 2011 / 12:46 am Sean—

     Now we have drugs. Excellent.

309. March 6th, 2011 / 12:47 am phmadore—

     E-mail me if you like to know why I wrote the article about Tao Lin. It seems clear to me that the moderators do not want me posting any sort of link to such information.

310. March 6th, 2011 / 1:00 am Ryan Ridge—

     This thread has all the ‘hallmarks’ of a post about Tao Lin, namely 300 comments and a shitload of divisiveness. Say what you will about the guy, he’s our Andy Warhol. Keep a loose tongue and a can of mace, Tao.

311. March 6th, 2011 / 1:03 am Anonymous—

     you are in the army…

312. March 6th, 2011 / 1:04 am Ryan Call—

     i found the original linked comment you made in spam along with the rest of the ones that had a link in the text. im sorry i didnt get to it sooner. i unspammed it. it should be in the thread now.

313. March 6th, 2011 / 1:04 am Anonymous—

     notably, ph madore

314. March 6th, 2011 / 1:04 am phmadore—

     sweet

315. March 6th, 2011 / 1:05 am phmadore—

     my b yo

316. March 6th, 2011 / 1:08 am phmadore—

     Probably because of the link, I would guess. Sorry I posted it twenty times.

317. March 6th, 2011 / 2:00 am shaun gannon—

     mike is better at being mean than madore

318. March 6th, 2011 / 2:19 am shaun gannon—

     i gotta pee

319. March 6th, 2011 / 2:20 am shaun gannon—

     sorry – seems like i gotta pee

320. March 6th, 2011 / 2:56 am shaun gannon—

     just fyi, i have never intentionally ignored anyone’s work, including yours; i simply hadn’t heard of your site until a few days ago when dj berndt had something published there. after seeing that, i checked out more stuff on the site. and i’m a nobody but i’m sure this (this being simply being unaware of what you’ve done) can apply to other people who have a Real Online Presence, no matter how much they may read. don’t assume that everyone is maliciously unaware of things you are doing, that is very unhealthy and makes you look bad when you state it as such.

321. March 6th, 2011 / 3:07 am marshall—

     i think the all-caps “re” with a colon (“RE:”) originates in email client software

     it seems unclear if it is derived from the latin preposition “re” or if it’s an abbreviation for “reply”

     if you are using “re” to mean the latin preposition, it seems unnecessary to use a colon or to put it in all caps (as it is a proper word and not an acronym or an abbreviation)

     it doesn’t seem appropriate to use the email client “RE:” in formal writing

322. March 6th, 2011 / 3:18 am tao—

     ok, email me your address

323. March 6th, 2011 / 3:33 am phmadore—

     So you’re saying that the reason we don’t make their radar is, in fact, that we don’t make their radar.

     I wouldn’t be WHOLLY surprised if this were legitimately the case, although I’d still very much doubt it.

     It is interesting that they haven’t bothered to say anything about broadcastr.com, which is a project of Electric Literature, and that might bolster your point.

     But I’m pretty sure they don’t post links to anything we do because they don’t support anything we do, and I’m pretty sure they don’t support anything we do because they don’t like us, and that is fine and frustratingly dandy, as I said in the above comment: happy to keep at my own pace for the next decade or two.

     It’s just funny that with each new thing we do, we really think we’re doing so much better than the last thing, you know? And we are. I mean, in a given area of development, be it web development, audio, editing, writing, etc, I am better than the average jerk; there are people focused on specific areas who are better than me, and I am quick to note that, but anyway, it’s like, over time, having very little support from the outside, I have gotten better and better at doing the entire process, scratch to finish, and have gotten “accustomed to rejection.”

     Not of my work, of my person. Every project I touch suffers because it has my name on it. This year. Last year. The previous one.

     I don’t know if this will always be the case.

     I don’t know why I’m still writing this comment.

     Let’s just boil it down to highly unlikely, what you postulate.

324. March 6th, 2011 / 3:44 am phmadore—

     Also, just so we’re clear, I tried to sponsor this website and was denied; my money is no good here. If I can’t buy promotion on this website, then obviously the chances of them promoting something I am doing at no charge are greatly reduced, aren’t they?

     And I’m betting this will engender at least one long-winded response detailing my many transgressions against the clique. And so I’ll just post my response right now: get over it, which goes for me too.

325. March 6th, 2011 / 3:46 am phmadore—

     who is stephen tully dierks, wtf kind of name is that, seems terrifying, seems like he is a serial killer

     how is ‘stephen’ pronounced, is it like ‘steven’ or is it like ‘steph-an’

     i feel afraid

326. March 6th, 2011 / 3:50 am Andrewworthington—

     whats in a name?

327. March 6th, 2011 / 3:52 am phmadore—

     I’m just implementing a new policy for dealing with the Stephen Tully Dierks menace.

328. March 6th, 2011 / 3:52 am Andrewworthington87—

     dreading retribution, verbal violence, name-dropping, name-calling, misunderstandings, truces, breaking of truces, death, etc.

329. March 6th, 2011 / 3:53 am phmadore—

     All worthy of said dread, I would say.

330. March 6th, 2011 / 3:57 am Andrewworthington87—

     you have a twitter.

     dierks has the right idea. he decided to stop drooling over comments sections and start a magazine.

331. March 6th, 2011 / 3:58 am Andrewworthington87—

     not to say dierks ever “drooled” but he himself has said i think that he himself has said something along the lines i used…

332. March 6th, 2011 / 4:02 am Andrewworthington—

     you have a twitter. not sure if this has this been said/typed/written/linked already.

     dierks had a good plan. he decided to start a magazine rather than drool over comments sections indefinitely…i think he actually has said something along this lines somewhere at some point…

333. March 6th, 2011 / 4:03 am Andrewworthington—

     oh man i have to wait for this stuff to load that sucks i cant do this i cant wait for it to load over and over again

334. March 6th, 2011 / 4:04 am Andrewworthington—

     thought it was just not working.

     i agree that commenting drunk is a bad idea, or doesnt really matter but is maybe bad, or something, or other.

335. March 6th, 2011 / 4:26 am phmadore—

     girlswithinsurance.com

     frsh.in

     litareview.com

     notapunkrockpress.com

     discusswords.com

     trickwithaknife.com

     If we had a third of the audience/support that htmlgiant does, there are a dozen other projects I would have implemented by now.

336. March 6th, 2011 / 5:04 am RON ARTEST—

     Nobody wants to play in the mean kid’s sandbox.

337. March 6th, 2011 / 5:08 am Andrewworthington—

     damn , ok, i think

338. March 6th, 2011 / 5:09 am Andrewworthington—

     gonna read up and whatnot

339. March 6th, 2011 / 5:11 am phmadore—

     “Kiss ass. Kiss everybody’s ass.” — Unattributed AWP Advice via Mel Bosworth

     I never took that advice back when it was first given. I prefer individuals, is all, and it seems every year a few more come along.

340. March 6th, 2011 / 5:12 am rawbbie—

     I don’t think this clique is “absurdist” or “emo”. There’s nothing absurd about realist fiction or anything emotional about solipsistic poetry.

341. March 6th, 2011 / 5:12 am rawbbie—

     I don’t think this clique is “absurdist” or “emo”. There’s nothing absurd about realist fiction or anything emotional about solipsistic poetry.

342. March 6th, 2011 / 7:11 am nliu—

     Anonymous is purely a troll, but I think it quite possible for a single poster (or even a single comment) to combine trolling and non-trolling comments, as phmadore’s done here and pretty much everywhere else he’s posted. The “Herding them into one moniker” comment fits the definition IMO. Probably my comment above does too.

343. March 6th, 2011 / 7:45 am phmadore—

     http://frsh.in/41 for anyone who wants to bid. Thanks.

344. March 6th, 2011 / 7:46 am Joseph Ernest Harper—

     Some of it is really funny. Some is really sad. It’s like expressionist realism. Which is kind of interesting. Reads to me like a good auto-biographical comic. Where the straight facts and deflationary truth are supplemented by the pictures which serve as a more abstract and artistic truth.

345. March 6th, 2011 / 7:48 am Joseph Ernest Harper—

     Generous Tao.

346. March 6th, 2011 / 8:26 am Adam—

     I don’t know if I’m up to it alone, or if people are done with this post yet, but I could try a little. But I’m not that wedded to my words here, I was hoping really to spur discussion. About the first paragraph or the second?

     First paragraph, in the essay I linked, written in the 80s and mostly explaining while bemoaning Deconstructivist ideas, White talks about the 20th c. progression of critical literary theory. To him it starts basically with the sort of analysis we do in high school, discussing meaning and what-not, then moves into ideological critiques (marxist, fascist), then ideas like New Criticism that move away from meaning and concern themselves primarily with “how” a piece of art “works” and distinguishing between works that achieve their objectives and ones that don’t, then marxist theory makes a comeback by spurring on “Absurdist” theory, and under “Absurdist” theory he lumps Sartre, Brecht, Beckett, Camus, Giles-Deleuze, Derrida, and others. To White, these theoriticians and writers have given up — they no longer believe in “literature,” they prefer to think of everything, even language, as a text, made up of symbols that can be analysed. In the Absurdist world is a sense of futility as well as play, strange dichotomies like the way elevating everything to the level where it can be analysed deflates the importance of literature as it used to be known. To White, Absurdist ideas fail due to, if not inherent contradictions, then self-defeating self-perpetuating arguments.

     Anyway, what comes next after we’ve dethroned meaning, thoroughly explored the inherent power of language, and dissolved the canon? Muumuu house? I don’t know, it seems reasonable. Publishing gmail chats is a patently Absurdist idea, but writing about the crushingly mundane details of life is probably not so much. I think irony, at a certain point, proceeds into earnestness.

     As for the second paragraph, as I said somewhere else, this writing can be fresh air after days or weeks of reading Ashberry, Robert Lowell, Walcott, Barthelme, Diagram, things that I love but that are so ornate and taxing sometimes. Those are all writers that struggle with the difficulty of communicating anything at all, and Tao and co. at their best address that theme a lot, in form and content. But the incredibly talented rock star writers I mentioned above (and The Diagram and most poetry journals I enjoy, I mostly read poetry btw) explore that theme in a more MFA workshop-friendly way: they labor, labor, labor over their work, cramming as much language, imagery, technicality and sparkling talent as they can into a piece. That’s the way all of us who go through workshops learn to write. Like the New Criticism, we find what “works” and we fret constantly whether we’re good enough, talented enough, or work hard enough. I think there’s a sense of abandon in the work of Tao and co., even if they do work and fret constantly, that can agitate, irritate, frighten, or exhilarate us. It’s not because they haven’t gone through workshops (and I thought many have, at least undergrad) or because they “haven’t paid their dues” that they tend to grate on the nerves of those in a more conventional MFA-to-assistant-professorship track, it’s because they’re addressing the same problems in an almost directly-opposed way, problems like “Why write at all?” MFAs and workshops help us alleviate that fear by training us in the clandestine, monkish practice of “how” a piece of writing “works” and when it doesn’t. To me, it’s a descendant of New Criticism, while even Tao doesn’t seem willing to discuss “how” his style “works” or what precisely it “does.” When he doesn’t engage critically, it further aggravates that little workshop voice that lives inside of us. Writing isn’t supposed to seem easy; we want to think writing is work, hard work. It makes us feel like we deserve success. It makes us feel like it’s OK to do something as frivolous as write.

347. March 6th, 2011 / 9:45 am nliu—

     Why do you feel so entitled to their promotion?

     Why do you feel entitled to advertise here at HTMLG’s basically token prices?

     Why do you want this clique to like you so much?

     I am probably as outside “the clique” as you are (due to low engagement and just not having done a whole lot, though, not due to getting into endless pissing matches). I am fine with that; it’s just a blog I read. If I wasn’t fine with that, I would probably try harder to do things that would make “the clique” like me. Or I might decide to just give them a big middle finger and move on to other things. I don’t understand your strategy, which seems to be “stick around and insult people until they like me”.

348. March 6th, 2011 / 10:11 am shaun gannon—

     the spurned lover

349. March 6th, 2011 / 10:12 am phmadore—

     I think, over time, my entire personality, and my insistence on continuing to live and breathe, has become an insult to HTMLGIANT.

     “if we really are a voice of ‘indie’ lit, then let’s welcome all voices, however aesthetically unpleasing.”

     –Jimmy Chen

     &

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPw-3e_pzqU

350. March 6th, 2011 / 10:16 am phmadore—

     Would you or someone else be interested in cataloging, guest-post or otherwise, the supposed numerous insults I have flung in the past three years? Just a factual thing wherein you hang me by my own words. Just a copy & paste hack job. I’d even be interested to know, in the words of Ryan Call, how often and how much I have “continue[d] to behave offensively towards many of [their] contributors and [their] projects.”

     Basically, I’m saying prove it.

351. March 6th, 2011 / 10:24 am shaun gannon—

     i am not interested because caring about a person being disagreeable on the internet is not something i want to start doing anytime soon

352. March 6th, 2011 / 10:26 am phmadore—

     Even if you don’t care, which I’m not saying you do, you clearly have accepted one side or the other of the myth of Madore as Angry Giant Hater, and since I happen to BE Madore, I find that unacceptable, lazy, and other words that used to be dirty.

353. March 6th, 2011 / 10:32 am phmadore—

     In fact, @blakebutler, make you deal: if you can find more than 75 such (of probably a thousand or more comments before and after Disqus) “offensively behaving” comments in your archives, I’ll hang it up and never read HTMLGIANT again, never tweet about HTMLGIANT again, pretend HTMLGIANT doesn’t exist altogether. I’m half-decent at compartmentalizing. And anyway, Thought Catalog seems to like my bullshit a lot more, mostly because they’re grown-ups and so forth, but anyway, let’s do this, yeah? I’ll purposely censure myself from HTMLGIANT commenting if you can find more than 75 which would objectively be considered “offensive” to a reasonable person (we’ll let one of your more neutral contributors, like Catherine Lacey or someone, be the judge), etc.

     That’s likely less than 0.0075% of my comments.

     Dare you.

354. March 6th, 2011 / 10:40 am shaun gannon—

     i don’t think it shows me as totally buying into the myth, i mean you can’t deny that you have ruffled feathers here, which is where the disagreeable part came from, and, unlike what (i believe) most others think, i think that you are not a troll, so you are not being disagreeable solely to ruffle the feathers.

     i have only been coming here since mean week 09 and didnt comment until pretty recently, so i don’t have nearly enough information/backstory to know the dealio. so you know what maybe there is a bit of the myth in there, because i don’t have all the knowledge available, and i have to make some sense of what i have at hand; it’s how we do. but, as i said, i can enjoy juicy gossip and internet drama as much as the next bitch, but when it comes to legitimate care or requiring work, nope

355. March 6th, 2011 / 10:53 am nliu—

     I’m not really interested, since to me it makes little difference just how nice a guy you’ve really been here. Maybe you are right and your bad press is unjustified. Maybe your detractors have just misunderstood you, or there really is a conspiracy of grudge-bearers, or whatever. Regardless, you feel disliked, and it seems you actually are disliked (by some/many though not all). What do you understand your options to be as far as reacting to this goes? What is the option you believe you are choosing, and why do you choose this option?

     Basically, if you’re right on everything, this clique pretty much sucks. Why you want to be part of it is the mystery. If I think there are a bunch of assholes out to get me, I’m not going to waste my time explaining to them what assholes they’re being and how they’ve screwed me over. That’s what they meant to do, right? Either that or I must be mistaken about them. It’s a “losing” strategy. The only way to “win” is to change their minds or change my behaviour. I mean yours.

356. March 6th, 2011 / 10:53 am phmadore—

     The cop says, “Hey, go inside your house.”

     The citizen, sitting on his stoop, says, “Why, what’s up?”

     The cop says, “It’s past 11PM and you live on a corner. Right now I can arrest you for reasonable suspicion and disobeying a lawful order.”

     The citizen says, “Woah, really?”

     The cop arrests the citizen.

     Two points of view are born. The cop’s viewpoint is that he must maintain control of his sector. So when he tells a citizen to go inside and they do not go inside, he is losing control, despite the fact that there was no rational reason for him to tell the citizen to go inside (or start the conversation in the first place, other than the fact that he felt like it; “this morning in breathless, endless tao lin coverage”),

     The citizen believes he has been incorrectly ordered around. The citizen takes the whole thing to Jury trial.

     The Jury finds out that the citizen lives in a drug-infested neighborhood with unsightly characters. The Jury finds out that the citizen has previously been arrested on numerous offenses. The Jury finds out that the citizen did not graduate high school. The Jury finds out that the citizen’s ex-girlfriend hates him a lot. The Jury finds out a lot of things about the citizen, few of which have to do with the case at hand.

     The Jury rules that the citizen was in violation of the law on both counts. The Judge hands down the maximum sentence of 90 days or whatever. The citizen gets a little older, moves on, and eventually moves out of the neighborhood.

     However, the citizen doesn’t forget this episode with the cop. Later, he sees the cop is running for mayor. He launches a campaign against this candidate. He details his own and other accounts of the potential mayor’s abuses of power. In the end, he decides to run against this guy, if only to siphon off some votes.

     In the smear campaign which the candidate launches against the citizen, the same things from the trial, and other things which have happened since, are repeated until they are accepted as fact (you know how these things go). Although the candidate does not win and although the citizen does not win — someone much, much safer than either of them takes the office — these two are now pitched as enemies, and a few years later still, they end up living in the same neighborhood.

     They meet at a community group as regards police presence and other things which are taking place in the community. They exchange terse words but do not openly engage each other as they are both interested in what is best for their community.

     Someone else, let’s just call HER a person looking to curry favor with the former cop and now former mayoral candidate, recognizes both parties, being a close follower of politics and having vague political aspirations of her own. She brings this up when she has the floor, and the whole thing devolves into a smattering of insults.

     In the ruckus, whatever issues were before the community and whatever potential they had to be a united entity which could deal with its issues effectively are lost and are replaced with a number of distinct, warring camps of philosophy.

     And then it was 4:52AM on March 6th, 2011, and the citizen realized he had a fuck-ton of work to do, like the kind that pays his exorbitant legal fines, and so he got back to that.

357. March 6th, 2011 / 10:54 am nliu—

     Or to not play.

358. March 6th, 2011 / 11:02 am phmadore—

     I haven’t been an RSS feed subscriber for over a year. I’m not sure exactly how my attention was brought here for the JC thing, but as you can see, when it’s here, it’s all here.

     I won’t argue with you, but what I will do is make an excuse for myself: the record, left uncorrected, negatively effects a number of things which I care deeply about. These things are listed above, and HTMLGIANT is not exactly on the list.

     And I’m not going to say that I’m “right on everything,” although that is what my chief detractors do in lieu of actually making their points. Anyone who does anything different for too long around this place is deemed a “troll,” you may have noticed.

     Mostly, at the heart of it, I want everyone to be honest about what they’re doing. It’s always scared the shit out of me the way when someone stops being my friend they just stop talking to me. It’s much better to tell me where I went wrong, because if you were ever my friend, then so telling me helps me in my future friendships. I fully understand that I burned your fucking bridge, ____, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn from it.

     Not to ramble.

     I want to thank you for your calm and rational advice, whoever you are.

359. March 6th, 2011 / 11:06 am phmadore—

     Fair enough, but at the same time you can’t expect me not to attempt to correct you.

     Sometimes, when this kind of thing happens, I feel like a “9/11 Truth Movement” cat.

360. March 6th, 2011 / 11:13 am nliu—

     The record can’t be corrected, not by the person whose record it is. It never can be. All you can do is wait for people to stop finding that record interesting because the things you’ve done more recently seem different and more interesting. That is not going to happen as long as you keep [raking up the past / taking the bait from other people raking up the past].

     Okay, you’re not a troll, and I guess I’m sorry for calling you one, kinda. But you are a provocateur, and you know how provocation works.

     I like your posts where you press Jordan to explain his waffling a lot more than your posts justifying your conduct in events any reader probably 1) wasn’t around for and doesn’t care about 2) was around for and is against you or 3) was around for and is on your side. I don’t know what to do with that except give unasked for advice that I’m lucky wasn’t unwanted.

361. March 6th, 2011 / 11:34 am phmadore—

     The closest I’ve come to them actually referencing me in terms that aren’t specifically meant to defame me was the recent post by Roxane in which she referenced me as “an editor” who had decided he wasn’t going to publish another issue (or was only actually thinking about not publishing another issue) until he had something from a non-white, possibly non-male contributor. Rather than name me in the post, and even link to the magazine (http://litareview.com), she just left it vague, which doesn’t exactly strengthen her argument but then she doesn’t need any strengthening when there’s an army of people who just “like” every word she writes, yeah?

     But you’re totally right. And for once I feel completely cool just signing off with this:

     http://frsh.in/dw

     The sandbox everyone can play in. If a less mean kid would like to “own” this sandbox, I’ll gladly hand over the reigns. Like, fully hand them over, to include taking the disproductions moniker off of the site altogether.

     Or, if someone wants to found an equally accessible, open platform for literary discussion, I’ll gladly turn discusswords.com into a forward for that.

     Again, whoever you are, your words bring me great comfort. I think you’re at least 90% right. Probably 100% right but, as history shows, I’m not into “absolute” agreement because it’s inherently false.

     Thanks and take care.

     Not sure if my e-mail is public or not anymore, but it definitely is moonpunter@gmail.com, which comes form a stoned poem I wrote at like age 13 about a dust bunny, so if anyone wants to get in touch about anything at all, etc.

362. March 6th, 2011 / 4:12 pm Aaron—

     The Muumuu House scene reminds me of the Beats. It’s a full-blown literary movement originating in NYC. It appeals to young people and has captured a certain millennial zeitgeist. The old guard doesn’t really understand it or like it. It seems connected to music (indie/emo/punk) just like jazz was for the Beats and drugs play a role (cf., the Beats). And most importantly, all the writing is really good. If they have less of a broad commercial impact than the Beats, I would say that just reflects pop culture’s declining interest in literature.

     I especially like Tao’s poetry. Modern poetry has been stuck in a boring, self-referential rut and no one has really offered anything exciting since James Tate. I think Tao shows a way forward that is genuinely pathbreaking. It seems like he has moved away from poetry and I think this is too bad.

     Tao’s essays are great as well. He’s clearly the thinker of the group and the fact that he has developed an overall aesthetic that comes across so readily in essays, fiction, poetry and even visual art is astonishing. To me, it suggests that he is legit important figure in literature, possibly even in a historical sense. I mean, people compare him to Warhol because they both offered a fully-formed aesthetic approach or philosophy although I think the comparison is often intended to be derogatory (suggesting some kind of hucksterism). I would compare him to James Joyce for the Modernists (insofar as he is the most cerebral and indispensable practitioner) except that Tao is the progenitor and Joyce was more of a later adept taking the philosophy to its logical conclusions.

     I also like Megan Boyle’s essays and poetry. Reminds me of Dianne diPrima (someone needs to give her a copy of “Dinners and Nightmares”). “Guide to Vague Relationships” deserves more recognition– it is so intensely personal and yet universal. In a lit circle that prides itself on detachment and cold analysis, Megan injects some much needed warmth and humor. Man cannot live on existential angst alone. I view Megan as the most exciting in terms of where her work is headed.

     BSG seems like a smart guy and a good writer (although he is also the most defensive about the whole Tao indebtedness thing). I think lately he is developing his own style and his raw output is remarkable. That TC piece “How to Figure Out if You’re Happy” was phenomenal and an important step (“The Definition of Love” is also quite good). Ellen Kennedy has a certain distinct weirdness that sets her apart, although her style remains indebted to Tao. Jordan may one day be a good writer but for the moment he seems sort of like Tao’s understudy who is trying to perfect the master’s technique before he can break free and develop his own voice.

     And this is the main problem– Tao casts such a long shadow over the group. I’ve read members of the group reject this criticism with an argument that, I think, boils down to “If you like the style and you like the writing, why does it matter if anyone is ‘copying’ anyone else? Seems like an illogical criticism.” But this argument is willfully blind to the fact that people don’t like overly derivative art. I mean, Ole Miss has an annual “Faux Faulkner” competition and even though many of the entrants do a damn good Faulkner, no one pretends the writing is as meaningful as Faulkner. Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs were all part of a unified literary movement that shared many important ideals, but they didn’t try to write exactly like one another.

     This bunch is young. If a successful writer/publisher like Tao had taken me under his wing when I was 18, I probably would have been a slavish devotee to his style as well. Who knows where a guy like Jordan will take his art and his association with Tao is obviously a very good thing for his career. Let’s not forget that it was only after Kerouac had spent himself trying to imitate Thomas Wolfe (see, e.g., The Town and The City) that he broke through to On The Road.

     How cool that Muumuu is offering a path separate from traditional NYC publishing or the sewing circle MFA route. I’m excited to see where they take it from here. I know I threw around a lot of lofty comparisons and people reading this will groan. I’m not necessarily saying that the Muumuu folks are the contemporary Beats or Modernists. But if they aren’t, then who is?

363. March 6th, 2011 / 5:11 pm david davidson—

     i’m like halfway done. i’m not entirely sure this place will publish it when i finish.

364. March 6th, 2011 / 5:49 pm stephen—

     Interesting thoughts. Which Adam are you, by the way? I’m Tully Dierks.

     I do think the workshop and its mentality has infected a lot of writers and critics

     I am critical of the notion that a piece “works.” When that term is used, my assumption, unfair and presumptuous doubtless (see how I’m using exaggerated, imprecise language; are you happy, Tao haters? do you love it?!?), is that the work will work, but that’s all. I will glance at it and see its working and kind of be like OK, well there’s a story/novel/poem… Yup… Ok… Not sure why I should be excited about this

365. March 6th, 2011 / 5:58 pm effervescence—

     i’m so sad you guys… so sad

366. March 6th, 2011 / 7:44 pm Ryan Call—

     ‘The closest I’ve come to them actually referencing me in terms that aren’t specifically meant to defame me was the recent post by Roxane…’

     here are a few past posts that referred to madore in terms that were not specifically meant to defame him and/or his projects:

     http://htmlgiant.com/web-hype/friends-in-which-people-dont-know-eachother-try-to-get-along/

     http://htmlgiant.com/contests/eshame-contest-winners/

     http://htmlgiant.com/web-hype/underground-library-needs-your-help/

     http://htmlgiant.com/web-hype/introducing-the-underground-library-writers-project/

     http://htmlgiant.com/snippet/13929/

367. March 6th, 2011 / 7:46 pm Ursula Robbins—

     he’s driven by his parents to the mall

368. March 6th, 2011 / 7:52 pm Jordan—

     sweet

     i feel interested in reading it

     if nowhere chooses to publish it, could you please send it to jordancastroisthepresident@gmail.com?

     thank you

369. March 6th, 2011 / 8:12 pm Jordan—

     re “You aren’t so much supporting/thinking about your friends so much as you’re masturbating with two hands thinking you’ve got a “monster cock.””, i feel i was supporting/thinking about my friends while writing this, via linking their things and writing about why i like them, to some degree. it seems “obvious” to me that i was thinking about them.

     i do not view my cock, based on what i know re “average penis size” and other things, as “monster”

     the difference between “seems sweet” and “this is sweet” is that “this is sweet” implies that the object being reffered to “is” sweet, which it isn’t, as (let’s say we’re talking about a chair) a chair is a chair, or a thing made out of wood, or something, not “sweet” or [any other subjective abstraction], except for in the mind of the person perceiving it. “sweet” does not exist in concrete reality, a chair does. “seems sweet,” however, does not imply that anything “is” anything, but rather that something seems a certain way to the person perceiving it.

     “In other words, I feel like Muumuu House – or “the Muumuu House group of writers” – are a group of people who like similar things, like any other group of people.”

     “If this essay exists to “say anything,” it exists, I think, “simply” to explore my own thoughts about Muumuu House and a certain type of writer/person.”

370. March 6th, 2011 / 9:01 pm Andrewworthington—

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YxaaGgTQYM

371. March 6th, 2011 / 9:04 pm Anonymous—

     ‘reviewed’

372. March 6th, 2011 / 9:06 pm Blake Butler—

     it doesn’t matter to me whether you read this site or not

     i wish you would chill and work on something in silence maybe

373. March 6th, 2011 / 9:38 pm Wtf kind of name is MADORE—

     oh, i see. so this is what “soldiers” do overseas in between killing people…
     they spam comment sections on articles about people simply trying to help other people understand a genre of literature (just because they are pissed one of them didnt want to meet them in real life and it was mentioned in a published gchat) by commenting ~ 50+ times, often saying rude/threatening things. sweet. thank you so much phmadore, we can all tell you are working so hard in the fight against terrorism, way over there on your computer… hard working soldier.

374. March 6th, 2011 / 10:18 pm phmadore—

     I’ve been home for 15 months.

375. March 6th, 2011 / 10:20 pm phmadore—

     I meant to say “recently,” I guess. Are any of those posts newer than 12 months?

376. March 6th, 2011 / 10:49 pm Trey—

     guys I read all these comments and now I feel like shit, partially because of how angry everyone was and partially because I didn’t even read the post, just the comments. seems weird. seems like when I read a post or something by a muumuu house person I start to talk like them when I comment and even, to some extent, think like them. seems like this happens with other things, like when there were those oddfuture posts and the people commenting seemed to talk differently, in a way that would be considered more “street” or “legit.” guys I have been reading the dungeons & dragons core rulebooks all day. I want to play dungeons & dragons but I don’t know anybody else who wants to play dungeons & dragons and it’s hard to run 5 chars and be DM by yourself, like being DM and a character or characters gives you an unfair advantage like you know about ambushes and monster tactics, seems like you know too much re when to run perception checks or knowledge checks. guys does anyone want to play dungeons & dragons, does anyone live in missouri and want to play dungeons & dragons with me?

377. March 7th, 2011 / 12:11 am Cassandra Troyan—

     TRU DAT. All of this makes me strangely sad.

378. March 7th, 2011 / 2:04 am Huriya—

     “Herding them into one moniker will definitely make them less appealing to people who are actually socially alienated etc. and perhaps stop them from spending their parents’ money on supporting these people’s drug habits”
     is the best/most accurate thing written in this comment section so far; why are we still spending time discussing this, etc. etc.

     sorry; i meant (‘meant’): why are ‘we’ still ‘spending ‘time” ‘discussing’ this.

379. March 7th, 2011 / 2:11 am phmadore—

     You know, Stephen, for someone who claims to be so calm and lacking in hatred, you always manage to take the easiest, cheapest shots at people, and usually not for commenting on anything you’ve done since you don’t do anything, but more for commenting on what other people do. You’re really pretty pathetic, dude, and you should get that checked out.

380. March 7th, 2011 / 2:20 am Jimmy Chen—

     it’s ok phm. i end up being friends with everyone i used to not get along with, like jereme dean, you, various bosses, and family members. perhaps i’m under the influence of jesus christ, jose cuervo, or jordan castro. whoever it is, his initials are the same as mine.

381. March 6th, 2011 / 11:15 pm Tao’s Worthy Reply, and My Reply to His Reply | HTMLGIANT—

     […] Castro posted Some Thoughts Re: Muumuu House. 367 comments […]

382. March 7th, 2011 / 3:31 am Justin—

     It took me too long to read all these comments. I am supposed to be writing a paper for my online religion class but that is not happening right now. I like Tao Lin’s writing. “Richard Yates” is a good book. I have not read much other Muumuu stuff. Does it matter? If you disagree with them, ignore them. If you like them, read them. If it is a “gimmick” then go do something that makes you feel like you are “legitimate” and not a “gimmick.” No one is going to read this because I posted it so late. I didn’t read this actual post but I bet it took a lot of work to write so I am sorry.

383. March 7th, 2011 / 3:32 am Justin—

     Shit, I meant If YOU THINK IT IS A “GIMMICK.” Because I do not think it is a “gimmick.” I feel like I am spelling that wrong.

384. March 7th, 2011 / 3:40 am phmadore—

     Richard Yates was published by Melville House. FYI.

385. March 7th, 2011 / 3:44 am phmadore—
     
     

     I think lately he is developing his own style and his raw output is remarkable.

     Definitely agree.

386. March 7th, 2011 / 3:50 am nliu—

     You are the person who should be writing posts called “Some thoughts on Muumuu House”.

387. March 7th, 2011 / 4:43 am nick—

     ugh re comparing jordan castro to jack kerouac

388. March 7th, 2011 / 4:46 am nick—

     double ugh for referring to the beats as “a unified literary movement”

     they were just a bunch of guys who liked to fuck each other and write a bunch of shit

389. March 7th, 2011 / 4:46 am nick—

     double ugh for referring to the beats as “a unified literary movement”

     they were just a bunch of guys who liked to fuck each other and write a bunch of shit

390. March 7th, 2011 / 4:49 am nliu—

     Sounds pretty unified to me!

391. March 7th, 2011 / 4:49 am kb—

     I thought this post was annoying and I stopped reading it halfway. Not much of an opinion on this other stuff which now has its own main page post… not involved, haven’t read any of their books.

     Also, I guess more than, like, 1,000 people have been killed in Libya so far. With real blood everything. Sorry to puncture the self involved solipsism womb with a “Heil Hitler”.

     Just watched Barton Fink again recently.

392. March 7th, 2011 / 5:00 am Justin—

     I know this. I have two of Tao’s books in my bedroom right now and I am fully aware that they were published by Melville House. That doesn’t make them any less “Muumuu-core” than the work that was actually published by Muumuu House though. A publishing house is an arbitrary way to decide where an aesthetic line is. There are writers imitating Tao that are not writing for Muumuu House. You would still say those writers are writing in some kind of Muumuu House “aesthetic”, wouldn’t you? You ignored the basis of my post, that people should ignore stuff they don’t agree with, by nitpicking at a non-relevant part of my statement. Cool, bro.

393. March 7th, 2011 / 5:00 am Justin—

     I know this. I have two of Tao’s books in my bedroom right now and I am fully aware that they were published by Melville House. That doesn’t make them any less “Muumuu-core” than the work that was actually published by Muumuu House though. A publishing house is an arbitrary way to decide where an aesthetic line is. There are writers imitating Tao that are not writing for Muumuu House. You would still say those writers are writing in some kind of Muumuu House “aesthetic”, wouldn’t you? You ignored the basis of my post, that people should ignore stuff they don’t agree with, by nitpicking at a non-relevant part of my statement. Cool, bro.

394. March 7th, 2011 / 5:29 am rawbbie—

     also, what he says makes sense. jordan certainly is a writer now, though may not continue to be if he grows up.

395. March 7th, 2011 / 5:46 am phmadore—

     Blake Butler sells HTMLGIANT to Tao Lin for $0.75 and a package of organic peanuts; dons hooded sweatshirt and isn’t heard from for several months.

     Full story at http://frsh.in/41

396. March 7th, 2011 / 5:46 am phmadore—

     Blake Butler sells HTMLGIANT to Tao Lin for $0.75 and a package of organic peanuts; dons hooded sweatshirt and isn’t heard from for several months.

     Full story at http://frsh.in/41

397. March 7th, 2011 / 5:49 am phmadore—

     If that upset you, you should leave this website immediately. I was only friendly reminding you. I wouldn’t want someone else less humane to come along and chomp your dick off for that transgression against the Judo Chop Tao Lin Jesus. Nor would I want someone to go trying to buy Richard Yates via MMH and fail.

398. March 7th, 2011 / 5:54 am Justin—

     I did not think of it that way. Curses, some poor soul is probably on the MMH website right now looking for Richard Yates and it is all my fault!

399. March 7th, 2011 / 5:57 am phmadore—

     Yeah, and there’s all this research about conversion rates being lessened by upwards of 35% per screen a user must view prior to making his purchase; hence PayPal’s new layout etc. You should be ashamed.

400. March 7th, 2011 / 6:03 am phmadore—

     Being that I made the majority of the comments, I think, the odds were very much in my favor as to making the best/most accurate statement in this comment section. Thank you for the recognition, though.

401. March 7th, 2011 / 10:04 am Guest—

     talkytalky.

     i have an IDEA
     you have an IDEA
     i’m ok, you’re ok.

     but maybe THAT person over there,
     i dunno, um-um-um,
     they like like mildly annoy me.

     but i’m ok,
     so no talkytalky.

     &yet &yet, THAT_THAT person over there,
     said /Sheeyit,you glarble-blargle-munkmunkmunk/
     (almost ad infinitum) (and angrily!)

402. March 7th, 2011 / 10:31 am MM—

     (LARGE APOLOGIES FOR SEGMENTED COMMENT. BEEN AWAY AWHILE MEDIATING MY MENTAL HEALTH WITH OTHER MANNERS, FORGOT HOW TO USE DISQUS CORRECTLY. HI HI HI. BYE BYE BYE.)

     ((comment-poem now continues according with the last stanza)).

     V V V
     V V V
     V V V

     &yet &yet, THAT_THAT person over there,
     said /Sheeyit,you glarble-blargle-munkmunkmunk/
     (almost ad infinitum) (and angrily!)
     so then I say talkytalkytalky (nicely, inquisitively).
     then they or others say /hiss/, or hivefive,
     and I jog, tongue rhythmic still, talky
     maybe this time succinctly,
     but persistently still, talky.

     Make use of humility.
     It is more majestic when you wave,
     think queens,
     even the divas
     which mushmushamerica is delicious with,
     they do not defend style,
     (insert caveat, using the word “usually”
     please imagine this commentpoem
     peppered with that word distractingly).

     Maybe i’m not ok, but that’s ok,
     okay?
     everyone knows who’s a harpy,
     everyone knows who loves everybody.
     everyone older than eighteen has an inkling.
     everyone writing(++) prose knows of variety.

     The muse adores your emotions
     but profuse haste and self-defense is juvenile
     as is the hate and the mush and i’m-right-i’m-right, i-meant-talktalktalk,
     and the comments and the comments
     yes
     yesyesyes
     sweet like saltine crackers.

     Sublety is sexy. Verbosity is sloppy.

403. March 7th, 2011 / 10:58 am MM—

     it was originally spelt with nonroman characters in a strange funny language (is “pidgin” proper? i’m not a linguist, i’m a microbiologist), dying sadly, as are all nonmajor languages: Yiddish. So don’t sweat about the spelling.

404. March 7th, 2011 / 2:18 pm Ryan Call—

     you wrote this ten months ago…

     http://trickwithaknife.com/?p=573

405. March 7th, 2011 / 6:51 pm stephen—

     madore, that commenter above is not me.

406. March 7th, 2011 / 7:09 pm Malwhit—

     jesus.. seems that you get upset by people doing similar things. you have repeatedly assumed people “mimic” tao or do things the way he does simply because he is doing it. i dont think this is true. if you see someone doing something efficiently or in a way you like, it makes sense to bring a part of that into your style or something.. you view writing in terms of who else does a certain thing.. seems it doesnt matter.

407. March 7th, 2011 / 7:12 pm Mallory Whitten—

     i think you would be more digestible/tolerable if you didnt “search and destroy” HTML giant message boards/keep telling people what to do.

408. March 7th, 2011 / 7:15 pm Malwhit—

     i agree, seems it was assumed everyone in the article doesnt like him or something

409. March 7th, 2011 / 7:17 pm Westboro Baptist Church—

     Ph et al. Madore is the armys cum dumpster

410. March 7th, 2011 / 7:22 pm Idk—

     talking about writing vs writing

411. March 7th, 2011 / 7:27 pm Mallory Whitten—

     telling people to leave a website…
     commanding the masses
     jesus

412. March 8th, 2011 / 4:33 am Jordan—

     A NEW CHAPBOOK OF POEMS AND DRAWINGS BY MUUMUU HOUSE AFFILIATES JORDAN CASTRO & MALLORY WHITTEN, TITLED “CUTE,” IS NOW AVAILABLE FROM “THUMBSCREWS PRESS”: http://smokingonanemptystomach.blogspot.com/2011/03/cute-chapbook.html

     “Cute portrays—in a distinct, consistent tone/style that I liked looking at and thining about—a variety of entities (delightfully drawn by Mallory Whitten) enjoying, experiencing, and enduring situations in a manner that stimulated me intellectually and emotionally.” – Tao Lin”

     “Jordan Castro and Malory Whitten made me feel better for a few moments of my life. I liked looking at the pictures, I liked the one with the two birds. The two birds seemed like they really liked each other.” – Noah Cicero

413. March 8th, 2011 / 3:29 pm a boy who doesn't give a shit—

     Sometimes when I’m bored or lonely or depressed I spin around in circles with Jesus arms until I’m no longer bored or lonely or depressed just nauseous and dizzy in a pool of vomit and bliss.

414. March 8th, 2011 / 7:08 pm M. Kitchell—

     We do not need an Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol already happened

415. March 8th, 2011 / 7:26 pm stephen—

     I interject this only because we are actually friends and discuss or will discuss art, so it seems worthwhile within that context of sharing/spitballing to engage and share my opinion even though it’s unsolicited and just an opinion:

     For me, Mike, the way that artists throughout history echo and adapt/are inspired by/incorporate little bits of old art or old approaches is one of the most exciting parts of art, both as a reader/viewer and as a creator. So, in the case of Tao, you could compare his promotion or MDMAfilms or others of his activities/work/ideas to Andy, but he is not another Andy Warhol, he is Tao Lin. You could compare him to Beckett. You could compare him to Hemingway. You could compare him to David Foster Wallace (some of his essays, the piece for Canteen, and the concept of a striking, comic style aimed at precision or even “over”-precision is what brings to mind the comparison, for me). A grouchy person might object to all of those comparisons, but you could make them, and “fruitfully,” in my opinion.

     What I’m saying is, as a reminder, art need not be and largely has not been a process of avoiding echoes of past art. There are some artists that make people think “original” more than others, and that is fine, and if you like that, sweet, but I’m just pointing out that echoes/influence are not grounds for dismissal, even in the context of “i am the judge of art, here is my important opinion.”

416. March 8th, 2011 / 7:29 pm M. Kitchell—

     comment #400 y’all

417. March 8th, 2011 / 7:37 pm M. Kitchell—

     damn
     took me so long to actually get to this comment

     but hi stephen
     i agree with you about the mutability of style and how influences are picked up and adjusted to the current zeitgeist. however, i’m also more often than not frustrated when an artist is ‘considered critically’ simply by being compared to another artist than on a level of actual engagement with said work (this is the reason i could never get into anything about pitchfork’s reviews) . i also agree with you that tao lin is not our andy warhol, he is tao lin.

     calling tao lin our andy warhol is lazy and wrong.

     this is what i meant by my comment; we don’t need another andy warhol because there already was an andy warhol. i didn’t mean we don’t need tao lin because we already had andy warhol, i literally meant we don’t need to impose the title of “andy warhol part 2” on someone.

     (for the record, I am not a huge fan of the cult status of warhol, but i certainly like some of his films, his drag polaroids, the violence screenprints, and his 80s diaries [because 80s underground pop culture is sweet/hilarious])

418. March 10th, 2011 / 2:07 pm De Selby—

     It’s funny/bizarre that Castro and his ilk are still using redundant phrases like “concrete reality” and the idea of attaining a state of neutrality, a place free of rhetoric, when that is impossible. Read Wallace Stevens. Perception and imagination IS our world. Whenever you write, see, or do anything, that’s filtered through your sensory and interpretive apparatus. What’s more, this piece IS rhetoric – language attempting to persuade. Startling that so little thought goes into such grandiose grandstanding.

419. March 10th, 2011 / 3:41 pm MFBomb—

     Is this Jordan guy an 18 year old kid? Can we really expect him to be well-read enough to make serious statements about art?

     Thank God sites like this weren’t around when I was a little kid.

420. March 10th, 2011 / 3:43 pm MFBomb—

     *Isn’t this Jordan guy an 18 year old kid?

421. March 10th, 2011 / 4:33 pm Ryan Call—

     i think he is 19 now or will soon be 19. i understand the point youre making, but i also read your comment and wondered: what’s the earliest age you expect someone to be well-read enough to make serious statements about art? is there a cutoff? i think you could probably expect an 18yrold to be wellread enough if you were familiar with the kind of reading he has been doing. (im not speaking of jordan here, because i dont know what he’s been reading; sort of thinking of some of my past students, some who i believed were well read, or had read well relative to the kinds of discussion we were having, despite being young, whose opinions i liked hearing).

     what books would you expect a person to have read before you would consider entertaining his/her serious thoughts about art? just curious, not trying to start anything…

422. March 10th, 2011 / 4:36 pm stephen—

     FYI, Jordan turned 18 in November.

423. March 10th, 2011 / 4:41 pm Ryan Call—

     thnks

424. March 10th, 2011 / 5:22 pm MFBomb—

     You’re right that there isn’t an etched-in-stone, officially sanctioned age where one crosses the threshold into the Realm of The Well Read–and right to imply that people are always growing intellectually and artistically, etc.

     There was also an undeniable tinge of snark in my post, since the ideas espoused–the ones under discussion and introduced in the OP–are not that original, interesting, or provocative to anyone who is well-read and has a good understanding of literary history and culture.

     I teach too, and many of my students are bright and well-read, but that doesn’t mean they’re all online speaking from some place or sense of authority on aesthetics.

     In fact, to be fair, I’m wary of ANYONE who gets on his or her soapbox about aesthetics in a public forum–even writers with actual cache. Shouldn’t we all be?

     Shouldn’t we be even more wary when the aesthetic philosophizing is coming from someone who isn’t even old enough to buy beer? While I’m sure there are 19 year olds with smart things to say, the fact is, a 19 year old has a limited perspective. I think the “you’ve-experienced-enough-in-the-first-two-minutes-of-your-life-to-know-all-there-is-to-know-about-everything” stuff is BS, because this aphorism implies that the experience alone is enough and doesn’t account for the maturing perspective on those experiences that can only come with age and YEARS of deep reading.

     But I think we can all agree that teenagers are most likely not in a position to be taken seriously as

425. March 10th, 2011 / 5:22 pm MFBomb—

     You’re right that there isn’t an etched-in-stone, officially sanctioned age where one crosses the threshold into the Realm of The Well Read–and right to imply that people are always growing intellectually and artistically, etc.

     There was also an undeniable tinge of snark in my post, since the ideas espoused–the ones under discussion and introduced in the OP–are not that original, interesting, or provocative to anyone who is well-read and has a good understanding of literary history and culture.

     I teach too, and many of my students are bright and well-read, but that doesn’t mean they’re all online speaking from some place or sense of authority on aesthetics.

     In fact, to be fair, I’m wary of ANYONE who gets on his or her soapbox about aesthetics in a public forum–even writers with actual cache. Shouldn’t we all be?

     Shouldn’t we be even more wary when the aesthetic philosophizing is coming from someone who isn’t even old enough to buy beer? While I’m sure there are 19 year olds with smart things to say, the fact is, a 19 year old has a limited perspective. I think the “you’ve-experienced-enough-in-the-first-two-minutes-of-your-life-to-know-all-there-is-to-know-about-everything” stuff is BS, because this aphorism implies that the experience alone is enough and doesn’t account for the maturing perspective on those experiences that can only come with age and YEARS of deep reading.

     But I think we can all agree that teenagers are most likely not in a position to be taken seriously as

426. March 10th, 2011 / 5:23 pm MFBomb—

     *Please ignore last section of comment.

427. March 10th, 2011 / 5:23 pm MFBomb—

     *Please ignore last section of comment.

428. March 13th, 2011 / 4:25 pm Pluck—

     Jordan took over for Zachary, right?

429. March 20th, 2011 / 10:16 pm Jennifer Sussex—

     i have written a critical review of richard yates

430. March 30th, 2011 / 3:16 pm Ryan Call—

     sorry i didnt reply to this a while ago (saw that u were active on another thread, so figured id at least recognize your comment).i was sort of jabbing back with my own request for a threshold, sure. the thing ive found in my own experience is that no matter how much i read, i feel as though i never have a solid grasp on anything for some reaso, and so i second guess myself, and so i envy those who seem–in general–to have a strong vision and great knowledge/understanding, and who can continue to learn as well. i think this also is a self-confidence issue? anyhowim open to the idea that i can learn something from many speakers, regardless of age, so i try not to let assumptions about age affect how i immediately filter that information. (im not talking about the op now, just sort of thinking in general terms.) the problem ive run into, though, is i have trouble processing that information…i dont really know what im saying now.

     (i understand if the ocnversation is dead…)

431. April 27th, 2011 / 7:27 pm A Kind-of Follow-Up Post Re: Investments « An und für sich—

     […] Thank heavens for Google Reader! (The post in question was in reaction to the comment thread here, which is probably worth clicking if the following paragraph makes no sense to […]

432. May 14th, 2011 / 6:53 pm gustavo.rivera—

     i’ve “realized” that the select group which “found” itself’s manner of interaction, meaning the peeps promoed or referred to or information about is exposed of, could be considered a passive manner of defining x -subject as “good” and all other subjects never mentioned to be defined as “bad.” 

     i think i have also “realized” that to be interacted with by select group x-entity needs to have specific behavioral traits, traits of behavior probably associated with a certain class of human individuals: children of middle-class/upperclass bourgeois individuals already part of the dominant culture of their society, meaning probably the children of entrepreneurs, who are privileged with an existence where certain practices related to specific manners of living are put at their disposition.

     And though i honestly believe that the rhetoric (because the rhetoric’s always there, even if it’s denied) behind these selects are wellfounded and chosen with genuine interest of being “successful” human beings, the scope with which they view the world is limited, and it is this limitation that does not allow them to be truly accepting of other individuals, which i think would be a better way of applying nonattachment to human interactions.

433. May 15th, 2011 / 11:16 pm gustavo.rivera—

     i read your comment. “shoplifting…” is my fave of lin’s. and his older poetry. i’m not pumped about much of what their collective is doing anymore. is it “bad”? is it “good”? lin spends time on his work, so then it has to be good. anything that anyone spends enough time on will result as effective. but is it “cool”? i don’t think so, and that’s only from my subjective position. i’m also subjectively aware that my opinion doesn’t really matter because i do things that might cause other to sense me as “uncool.”

     http://griverasantiago.tumblr.com/post/3482914029/an-action-that-i-am-considering-to-take-due-to-my

434. May 16th, 2011 / 12:39 am gustavo.rivera—

     i don’t think yiddish would be considered a “pidgin.” pidgin are languages of exchange developed when people who speak different languages interact and need some manner of communicating. pidgins are usually related to business/capitalism, and colonialism has caused a lot of them to surface. sometimes pidgins do develop into languages, and when this happens it’s called a creole., and colonialism has caused a lot of them to surface. sometimes pidgins do develop into languages, and when this happens it’s called a creole.

435. May 16th, 2011 / 12:52 am gustavo.rivera—

     Is anybody aware that the person who calls “sam” “the shit” in the gainesville reading scene of sfaa is me? When i said that then i meant it solely based on my enjoyment of his work. i wouldn’t say that now. i’m not sorry there might be a presence of attachment to my words, but they are: my words. of attachment to my words, but they are: my words.

436. July 5th, 2011 / 11:54 am POP: A Polemic on a Contemporary Language-Based “Objectivity” | HTMLGIANT—

     […] What I’m saying is, basically, this sort of internet-culture based movement towards flat, emotionally blatant poetry and fiction really speaks to me more in the favor of self-indulgence and laziness than any sort of wildly revolutationary tact (and I feel like I can lay this claim without using the word “rhetoric” in every other sentence, as it seems like many proponents of the ‘style’ are prone to doing). […]

437. August 6th, 2011 / 5:27 pm Cassy666—

     “The attention garnered by this adolescent posturing will be short lived” gets written on the wall, so to speak.

438. October 18th, 2012 / 12:30 pm Kya Ringland—

     A friend in my senior year of high school introduced me to the section of alt lit that is mainly based around Muumuu House, Thought Catalog and Bear Parade-specifically Tao Lin, Megan Boyle, Marie Calloway, Noah Cicero, Sam Pink, Ellen Kennedy and Jimmy Chen. In reading some of the work displayed on these websites and put out by these writers I began to expand my view of the world, myself-interacting with the world etc. in an interesting way. I began feeling a steady mild stream of happiness in doing things that I had never associated with those feelings before. I had/have never been as genuinely interested/excited in a school of thought/theories/behaviours, displayed as a sort of sub-culture, as I am/have been with this ‘group’ of people. Before I started heavily immersing myself in the work of this ‘school’ I had mostly excercised the basic existentialist belief that all should be ‘judged’ based on personal subjectivity/experience. So in continuing with this belief I not only read the work done by/in favour of this group but also the work of it’s critics. Reading the criticism of this group only made me feel a deepened sense of appreciation/excitement towards them. In all the criticism I found, and some of them were pretty well written/hard to bring to a personal consensus, I have found that it comes down to a feeling of anger/confusion displayed by the critic. I genuinely sympathize with the negative critics of these people because they simply ‘don’t get it’. And what they ‘don’t get’ is the basic principles behind this ‘school’, which has little to do with there writing what so ever. Though it does pull from these things, it is more than simply literature, philosophy and/or culture. It is formed from the meaning/act of being a human, what we all experience as individuals. I understand the urge to criticize this group’s work/theories due to a differing way of being than the general way of these writers- i.e. feeling attachment to one’s surroundings, basing opinions on mass consensus/stigmas etc. but I see/feel that that is the only reason for criticizing there work/beliefs. I am not very skilled at editing/phrasing so I hope my point comes across even with those barriers.

439. January 27th, 2013 / 2:07 am Metamovements: Literary Movements in the Age of the Social Internet | short life spans—

     […] group himself in such a way, I can see benefits to these aesthetic thrusts.  Tao Lin‘s Muumuu House is another example of aspects of the metamovement, but in this case Tao built the movement around […]

440. October 4th, 2013 / 12:59 am Tao Lin’s Account of His Fallout with Zachary German | Electric Cereal—

     […] From the HTMLGIANT comment section: […]