August 2nd, 2010 / 5:23 pm
Contests
Blake Butler
Contests
Richard Yates Contest
Tao Lin’s Richard Yates contest, encouraging entries of video or chats about his forthcoming novel, ends tomorrow. Alongside this, Tao has offered to give away copies of Richard Yates to the first 5 people who comment here with 200+ words about one of the people appearing in one of the video entries so far (below). Comment with your email included so prizes can be received. Also, entries to Tao’s contest, with cash prizes and such, remains open until 10 PM Eastern Tuesday.
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Tags: richard yates, Tao Lin
I can’t really tell what the fuck the people in Video 2 are talking about. I sure would like to have a free book. I love books, especially ones that are free. The guy in bold dorky glasses just said “Speaking of whales. . .” and then failed to say anything more for several seconds, a move I highly approve. I say this as someone who also wears dorky glasses. My glasses are six years old and, despite starting out as black as the guy with the somewhat impressively toned arms in Video 2, they are now a weird shade of Delivery Van-grey, like someone had rigoriously nipped away at my frames with a nickel. It depresses me, for when I go outside I feel like a dork with worn-out frames—And what if they notice my dandruff? Off-screen woman: “I want to know what you feel, if indeed you feel anything.” Possibly an inaccurate transcription. “I felt, while reading the book. . . it felt very close to me.” I prefer to read from a distance of 20ft. OHSHIT, I accidentally hit refresh. Starting video over at beginning. Fuck, I want to refresh again. These two are adept coffee holders. Look at the way the guy careeses that mug. Part of me wonders if they drink coffee nearly as well as they hold it. The cover for the book in question disturbs me. “Speaking of whales. . . [finger flourish].'” Some pretty poor form there on that sip. Clearly aware that he’s on camera. Also, fuck harold bloom.
i think it is pretty curious that the man in the first video w/ the goatee has an upside down crucifix made of polaroids (?) behind him on the green wall. also i think it is curious that he is wearing a white undershirt underneath a white shirt. i think his facial hair is quite similar to my own, when i have facial hair. also his eyebrows are thick like mine. i wonder how much time he dedicates to preventing a unibrow from happening. i like his hair though, i think it is a good look. i wonder if he knows the person who cuts his hair as a friend or if he just goes to whatever place he feels like on a whim. he just said ‘it made me feel pretty emotional’ & that is exciting because i too like to feel emotional. lately i’ve been saying, ‘i’m just a drunk dude trying to connect w/ other drunk dudes’, & i wonder if this man gets drunk & tries to connect w/ people. he is talking about ‘relating to gmail chat’ which is something i have no problem w/ altho i utilize facebook chat (or fbc) much more frequently. i wonder if this man is too good for facebook chat & if he looks down on people who utilize that chat client. i can understand why/if he does, because facebook chat is a poorly designed chat client. it is messing up for me at this exact moment. the man just said ‘i think that it doesn’t matter’ which is a good thing to say in response to most things.
dirtybastard@gmail.com
OK couple 1 sort of awesome, a genre to themselves. The woman is looking too often to the man for approval after she speaks, a few too many follow-up affirmative hamster head-shakes after he drools, uh, mutters, uh , speaks, but maybe they are relatively “new couple,” or just ‘fucked up,’ and “grasping” and aren’t we all? Beer dull, stumble-speech, Glow eyes, picking at themselves, repetitive, lost/found/lost, wondering what book they are even reading (much less the protagonist). They are drinking beer out of nontraditional beer containers and I am basically in that club. I also like wine out of coffee mugs or inverted shuttlecocks. “Ummmm” being their best quote. And there’s nothing wrong with that quote. It’s like Do-No-“Harm,” a decent life philosophy. UMMMMM. The interior is a little forced on the arty minimalism/photos. At least one of them smokes, so could hang a painting. They both already have face-mileage and are probably 20? I like it. The lines and looong nights. I like mileage. And self-awkwardness. Big votes.
Video two low-talkers. Had to crank up my volume. They honestly seem to be drinking water. Pass before they order milk/sugar/green something, with coffee. Water?
Vid 3 dynamic, dancing parrot, at odd angle, room, dark, atmosphere, women and man, VERY cute in a lizard brain way (first impulse–no thinking–would I sleep with them?), there are several unique cigarette-holding angles (one French, one sort of new, an upside-down grip like a Gecko), Apple minus points, minus points, BUT plastic organizing shelves I enjoy. We’ve all had them. I glow the décor and the postures, mostly very bad. I like bad postures.
# 3 wins.
Dammit. Video one will not load because it’s so long.. I clicked on video one because I wanted to know what Jordan Castro had to say about Richard Yates but now I have to sit here and wait so I’m just going to read Ryan’s comment regarding video two. I agree, Ryan. Fuck Harold Bloom, indeed. Though that “Anxiety of Influence” stuff has legs, it doesn’t make up for the fact that Bloom’s a fucking maniac/incredibly sexist. Though, last I heard, he started taking into account what females think (in regard to literary criticism). . . I think he included a few females in some lit crit anthology he recently edited. I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m not a Bloom fanatic, but I really liked what he said about spoken word poetry. He reminds me of that guy that wrote American Psycho. That guy is a maniac too.
So I’ve only been able to watch 5 minutes of Jordan’s video so far. He is talking about a hat. He has an album called ‘anti american’—I really liked the album. He also contributed to Radioactive Moat.
Well, I listened to Blake read a selection from Richard Yates last week and I really liked what Blake read. I think Blake qualified the book as “pretty fucked up” but in a good way. I hope I didn’t misquote Blake Butler.
Can I have a free book please?
The guy in the Justice League shirt, in the second video, makes me feel really uncomfortable. I dislike the way he treats the woman who is most interested in the book — who, it seems like, is possibly his girlfriend. He seems supremely unfriendly and unkind and at times I felt bad for the woman who seems most interested in the book, who I think is his girlfriend. I felt I wished I had a telephone that could go back in time to the moment when they were filming this and also I would need to know who these people are so I could call one of them, and then I would ask to be put on the phone with the woman in the bandana aka the woman is who is most excited about Richard Yates, and then when she said “Hello?” I would tell her that I think she could do a whole lot better than that guy in the Justice League shirt, that he seems mean and that he puts her down and thinks it’s funny and I would say, you shouldn’t be in a relationship with someone who is mean to you, even if he tries to play it off as though he’s “joking” because it didn’t seem like he was joking when he said mean things to you, like there was this point where he says something like “you sound pretentious” which, in my experience, translates to: “you are making me uncomfortable because you are smarter than I am.” Also, there was this point where he says to her “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard” — which is rude and mean! It seems to me that the guy in the Justice League shirt is very insecure. I think his name is Kevin. He gets really worried at some point that his name will be revealed because the video will be on the internet. I think I would also be worried, if I was cold like that guy is cold. I wonder what the other people at the table look like, and why they find themselves in the company of the guy in the Justice League shirt, which I believe is named Kevin, maybe? He discloses at one point that one of the people off camera is his sister, and I instantly begin to feel really bad for her, since she is his sister and he seems like such an unlikable person. I begin to wonder what their home life is like. I begin to wonder what their upbringing was like. I begin to wonder what their parents are like. I begin to wonder what kind of books the guy in the Justice League shirt likes to read. I begin to wonder where they are, are they in Canada? At one point one of them sounds Canadian, or Minnesotan? I could certainly be wrong. I begin to wonder why the guy in the Justice League shirt agreed to be filmed when he so obviously feels uncomfortable being filmed. At the beginning of the video he is negative, he makes some kind of sophomoric comment about Tao Lin’s whale poem ( a poem I personally think is genius) and then he goes on to say something negative about Tao Lin’s novel eeeeee. His negativity radiates from the screen. If you are reading this, girl in the bandana who seems really pumped about Richard Yates, consider finding someone who won’t belittle you, who will treat you kindly, who will be interested in or at least show interest in the things you are interested in. I know I shouldn’t be giving unsolicited relationship advice to complete strangers. Why do I feel compelled to do this? I’m not sure. I haven’t read Richard Yates yet.
Honestly I think Anxiety of Influence is a great book, just in the sense that it’s a beautiful read. I don’t know if anyone will ever give a damn about his theories in 30 years, but the writing there was fun.
There are a few feminist critics who he’s always been fairly amiable toward.
I’m pissed at Bloom because he by all accounts is an incredibly talented person who has contented himself with producing mediocre work for about 20 years now. Anyone who wrote AoI at, what, fourty-something? could have written something truly incredible in his later years. . . argh.
SHAKESPEARE, DAMMIT! IT’S ALL ABOUT SHAKESPEARE! #$@%
Video 1: One time, I got caught jerking off stark naked, so I put one hand discreetly over my face and the other over my cunt; I should not, however, have gone on to thumb my nose at my mother with the first and jerk myself off with the second. My boyfriend told me that I should not pee into the radiator; but use the toilet. I tend to hang my dildo at the foot of the bed. Not cool. Such instruments are better put under the pillow. I did this video for Blake’s new book where I am spitting on passersby from the balcony of my friend’s lower Haight apartment–I probably shouldn’t have done that with cum in my mouth. I think it would be cool to pee from the top of a staircase to make a waterfall. When using a banana, be it for my own amusement or to make my best friend cum, I highly recommend not putting said banana back into fruit bowl without first drying it off. I like to jerk all my boyfriends off into a pitcher of lemonade because I happen to prefer lemonade with fresh cum in it. I want to do number two into a thing of chocolate pudding. One time, I was asked what I wished to drink with my dinner and I said: “I only drink cum.”
Uh…janey is the leader in the house
All that one handed typing almost made me forget: janey.smith.is.baby.robot@gmail.com
I chose to write about the third video because it was stated to have the shortest duration. Right now I am slowly listening to the video because it is lagging. I’m not actually seeing it. I am typing words on an open word doc. The music has ended and a question has been asked about a picture. She has replied something about three seats. On the preview clip of the third video I saw Jordan Castro’s face. I know of Jordan Castro because of David Fishkind. When St. Dad, my punk band, was still existing we were looking for someone to join us on the road. I chatted with Fishkind via Facebook and he told me he couldn’t and told (she just said “Richard Gates”) me to ask Jordan Castro. I don’t know him at all. At the time had only seen his name online. I looked him up. He’s an attractive young man. He is skinny and looks like an American-born young Cuban. I could be wrong about this. His ethnicity could be that of a South American country. I never asked Jordan Castro to join St. Dad on tour. I thought about it. I saw his blog and imagined him hanging out with St. Dad and writing about it and posting it on his blog and lots of attractive girl that I’m into but who would never act like they like me in public would find out about all the stupid and rude things I did while on tour because I was either really drunk or really horny. I never spoke to Jordan Castro and St. Dad broke up. I have passed the 200-word mark and the video is at 2:30, and I have written for a bit longer than two minutes and thirty seconds. They are either reading from the book, or speaking nonsense. She’s asking about weed. When I get out of work today at 9:30 I will go to Mother’s and eat ten wings for $3.50 and drink some beer. Then I will go home and smoke some weed and watch a movie. I will sleep and wake up early tomorrow and donate plasma. This morning on my way to donate plasma I biked into a driving mini-van. It had rained the night before so my brakes did not respond. I am lucky I ran into the van and not the other way around. This morning I could have died. I have been trying to get this book, “Richard Yates,” to no success. I don’t believe I am of the five first people to comment with more than 200 words regarding someone of the video. But I’ve done it. I spoke of Jordan Castro who should stop writing and be a supermodel. My phone has just vibrated. People looking for my ex-girlfriend trying to get me to pay for her student loans have been calling me daily for almost a year now. I should get a copy of the book because I almost died this morning. They are talking about Lin’s upbringing. I would be bored if I sat in the space this people are sharing, hanging out with them.
gariverasantiago@gmail.com
the upside down cross is made of stickers of the cover of ‘richard yates’.
oh!
thx for the fyi :-D
p.edward.cunningham@gmail.com
look at that blue light on that girls face in vid three.
this is exhausting.
indie lit boy
dear tao lin
how about instead of “getting hits” by having people comment on people commenting in some way on you, how about you send me a free book and i promise i will write a 500+ word review on goodreads of it. I have 67 goodreads “friends” and I feel like somewhere between 33 and 50% would at least “skim” the review
I can’t really tell what the fuck the people in Video 2 are talking about. I sure would like to have a free book. I love books, especially ones that are free. The guy in bold dorky glasses just said “Speaking of whales. . .” and then failed to say anything more for several seconds, a move I highly approve. I say this as someone who also wears dorky glasses. My glasses are six years old and, despite starting out as black as the guy with the somewhat impressively toned arms in Video 2, they are now a weird shade of Delivery Van-grey, like someone had rigoriously nipped away at my frames with a nickel. It depresses me, for when I go outside I feel like a dork with worn-out frames—And what if they notice my dandruff? Off-screen woman: “I want to know what you feel, if indeed you feel anything.” Possibly an inaccurate transcription. “I felt, while reading the book. . . it felt very close to me.” I prefer to read from a distance of 20ft. OHSHIT, I accidentally hit refresh. Starting video over at beginning. Fuck, I want to refresh again. These two are adept coffee holders. Look at the way the guy careeses that mug. Part of me wonders if they drink coffee nearly as well as they hold it. The cover for the book in question disturbs me. “Speaking of whales. . . [finger flourish].'” Some pretty poor form there on that sip. Clearly aware that he’s on camera. Also, fuck harold bloom.
i think it is pretty curious that the man in the first video w/ the goatee has an upside down crucifix made of polaroids (?) behind him on the green wall. also i think it is curious that he is wearing a white undershirt underneath a white shirt. i think his facial hair is quite similar to my own, when i have facial hair. also his eyebrows are thick like mine. i wonder how much time he dedicates to preventing a unibrow from happening. i like his hair though, i think it is a good look. i wonder if he knows the person who cuts his hair as a friend or if he just goes to whatever place he feels like on a whim. he just said ‘it made me feel pretty emotional’ & that is exciting because i too like to feel emotional. lately i’ve been saying, ‘i’m just a drunk dude trying to connect w/ other drunk dudes’, & i wonder if this man gets drunk & tries to connect w/ people. he is talking about ‘relating to gmail chat’ which is something i have no problem w/ altho i utilize facebook chat (or fbc) much more frequently. i wonder if this man is too good for facebook chat & if he looks down on people who utilize that chat client. i can understand why/if he does, because facebook chat is a poorly designed chat client. it is messing up for me at this exact moment. the man just said ‘i think that it doesn’t matter’ which is a good thing to say in response to most things.
dirtybastard@gmail.com
OK couple 1 sort of awesome, a genre to themselves. The woman is looking too often to the man for approval after she speaks, a few too many follow-up affirmative hamster head-shakes after he drools, uh, mutters, uh , speaks, but maybe they are relatively “new couple,” or just ‘fucked up,’ and “grasping” and aren’t we all? Beer dull, stumble-speech, Glow eyes, picking at themselves, repetitive, lost/found/lost, wondering what book they are even reading (much less the protagonist). They are drinking beer out of nontraditional beer containers and I am basically in that club. I also like wine out of coffee mugs or inverted shuttlecocks. “Ummmm” being their best quote. And there’s nothing wrong with that quote. It’s like Do-No-“Harm,” a decent life philosophy. UMMMMM. The interior is a little forced on the arty minimalism/photos. At least one of them smokes, so could hang a painting. They both already have face-mileage and are probably 20? I like it. The lines and looong nights. I like mileage. And self-awkwardness. Big votes.
Video two low-talkers. Had to crank up my volume. They honestly seem to be drinking water. Pass before they order milk/sugar/green something, with coffee. Water?
Vid 3 dynamic, dancing parrot, at odd angle, room, dark, atmosphere, women and man, VERY cute in a lizard brain way (first impulse–no thinking–would I sleep with them?), there are several unique cigarette-holding angles (one French, one sort of new, an upside-down grip like a Gecko), Apple minus points, minus points, BUT plastic organizing shelves I enjoy. We’ve all had them. I glow the décor and the postures, mostly very bad. I like bad postures.
# 3 wins.
Dammit. Video one will not load because it’s so long.. I clicked on video one because I wanted to know what Jordan Castro had to say about Richard Yates but now I have to sit here and wait so I’m just going to read Ryan’s comment regarding video two. I agree, Ryan. Fuck Harold Bloom, indeed. Though that “Anxiety of Influence” stuff has legs, it doesn’t make up for the fact that Bloom’s a fucking maniac/incredibly sexist. Though, last I heard, he started taking into account what females think (in regard to literary criticism). . . I think he included a few females in some lit crit anthology he recently edited. I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m not a Bloom fanatic, but I really liked what he said about spoken word poetry. He reminds me of that guy that wrote American Psycho. That guy is a maniac too.
So I’ve only been able to watch 5 minutes of Jordan’s video so far. He is talking about a hat. He has an album called ‘anti american’—I really liked the album. He also contributed to Radioactive Moat.
Well, I listened to Blake read a selection from Richard Yates last week and I really liked what Blake read. I think Blake qualified the book as “pretty fucked up” but in a good way. I hope I didn’t misquote Blake Butler.
Can I have a free book please?
The guy in the Justice League shirt, in the second video, makes me feel really uncomfortable. I dislike the way he treats the woman who is most interested in the book — who, it seems like, is possibly his girlfriend. He seems supremely unfriendly and unkind and at times I felt bad for the woman who seems most interested in the book, who I think is his girlfriend. I felt I wished I had a telephone that could go back in time to the moment when they were filming this and also I would need to know who these people are so I could call one of them, and then I would ask to be put on the phone with the woman in the bandana aka the woman is who is most excited about Richard Yates, and then when she said “Hello?” I would tell her that I think she could do a whole lot better than that guy in the Justice League shirt, that he seems mean and that he puts her down and thinks it’s funny and I would say, you shouldn’t be in a relationship with someone who is mean to you, even if he tries to play it off as though he’s “joking” because it didn’t seem like he was joking when he said mean things to you, like there was this point where he says something like “you sound pretentious” which, in my experience, translates to: “you are making me uncomfortable because you are smarter than I am.” Also, there was this point where he says to her “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard” — which is rude and mean! It seems to me that the guy in the Justice League shirt is very insecure. I think his name is Kevin. He gets really worried at some point that his name will be revealed because the video will be on the internet. I think I would also be worried, if I was cold like that guy is cold. I wonder what the other people at the table look like, and why they find themselves in the company of the guy in the Justice League shirt, which I believe is named Kevin, maybe? He discloses at one point that one of the people off camera is his sister, and I instantly begin to feel really bad for her, since she is his sister and he seems like such an unlikable person. I begin to wonder what their home life is like. I begin to wonder what their upbringing was like. I begin to wonder what their parents are like. I begin to wonder what kind of books the guy in the Justice League shirt likes to read. I begin to wonder where they are, are they in Canada? At one point one of them sounds Canadian, or Minnesotan? I could certainly be wrong. I begin to wonder why the guy in the Justice League shirt agreed to be filmed when he so obviously feels uncomfortable being filmed. At the beginning of the video he is negative, he makes some kind of sophomoric comment about Tao Lin’s whale poem ( a poem I personally think is genius) and then he goes on to say something negative about Tao Lin’s novel eeeeee. His negativity radiates from the screen. If you are reading this, girl in the bandana who seems really pumped about Richard Yates, consider finding someone who won’t belittle you, who will treat you kindly, who will be interested in or at least show interest in the things you are interested in. I know I shouldn’t be giving unsolicited relationship advice to complete strangers. Why do I feel compelled to do this? I’m not sure. I haven’t read Richard Yates yet.
Honestly I think Anxiety of Influence is a great book, just in the sense that it’s a beautiful read. I don’t know if anyone will ever give a damn about his theories in 30 years, but the writing there was fun.
There are a few feminist critics who he’s always been fairly amiable toward.
I’m pissed at Bloom because he by all accounts is an incredibly talented person who has contented himself with producing mediocre work for about 20 years now. Anyone who wrote AoI at, what, fourty-something? could have written something truly incredible in his later years. . . argh.
got an email today telling me jordan castro made a comment on vimeo. the comment is not there.
Christopher, have you considered writing a short story in which the protagonist takes care of his sister’s dog while his sister is in Hawaii for three days and while watching youtube videos on his sister’s overlarge computer discovers that the rotary phone on her desk will actually connect him with the people in the youtube videos? I’m imagining something like this:
“Quit looking at that guy.”
Onscreen the pixels of her face turned toward the guy in the glasses. She said, “He says to quit looking at you.”
SHAKESPEARE, DAMMIT! IT’S ALL ABOUT SHAKESPEARE! #$@%
Video 1: One time, I got caught jerking off stark naked, so I put one hand discreetly over my face and the other over my cunt; I should not, however, have gone on to thumb my nose at my mother with the first and jerk myself off with the second. My boyfriend told me that I should not pee into the radiator; but use the toilet. I tend to hang my dildo at the foot of the bed. Not cool. Such instruments are better put under the pillow. I did this video for Blake’s new book where I am spitting on passersby from the balcony of my friend’s lower Haight apartment–I probably shouldn’t have done that with cum in my mouth. I think it would be cool to pee from the top of a staircase to make a waterfall. When using a banana, be it for my own amusement or to make my best friend cum, I highly recommend not putting said banana back into fruit bowl without first drying it off. I like to jerk all my boyfriends off into a pitcher of lemonade because I happen to prefer lemonade with fresh cum in it. I want to do number two into a thing of chocolate pudding. One time, I was asked what I wished to drink with my dinner and I said: “I only drink cum.”
Uh…janey is the leader in the house
All that one handed typing almost made me forget: janey.smith.is.baby.robot@gmail.com
I chose to write about the third video because it was stated to have the shortest duration. Right now I am slowly listening to the video because it is lagging. I’m not actually seeing it. I am typing words on an open word doc. The music has ended and a question has been asked about a picture. She has replied something about three seats. On the preview clip of the third video I saw Jordan Castro’s face. I know of Jordan Castro because of David Fishkind. When St. Dad, my punk band, was still existing we were looking for someone to join us on the road. I chatted with Fishkind via Facebook and he told me he couldn’t and told (she just said “Richard Gates”) me to ask Jordan Castro. I don’t know him at all. At the time had only seen his name online. I looked him up. He’s an attractive young man. He is skinny and looks like an American-born young Cuban. I could be wrong about this. His ethnicity could be that of a South American country. I never asked Jordan Castro to join St. Dad on tour. I thought about it. I saw his blog and imagined him hanging out with St. Dad and writing about it and posting it on his blog and lots of attractive girl that I’m into but who would never act like they like me in public would find out about all the stupid and rude things I did while on tour because I was either really drunk or really horny. I never spoke to Jordan Castro and St. Dad broke up. I have passed the 200-word mark and the video is at 2:30, and I have written for a bit longer than two minutes and thirty seconds. They are either reading from the book, or speaking nonsense. She’s asking about weed. When I get out of work today at 9:30 I will go to Mother’s and eat ten wings for $3.50 and drink some beer. Then I will go home and smoke some weed and watch a movie. I will sleep and wake up early tomorrow and donate plasma. This morning on my way to donate plasma I biked into a driving mini-van. It had rained the night before so my brakes did not respond. I am lucky I ran into the van and not the other way around. This morning I could have died. I have been trying to get this book, “Richard Yates,” to no success. I don’t believe I am of the five first people to comment with more than 200 words regarding someone of the video. But I’ve done it. I spoke of Jordan Castro who should stop writing and be a supermodel. My phone has just vibrated. People looking for my ex-girlfriend trying to get me to pay for her student loans have been calling me daily for almost a year now. I should get a copy of the book because I almost died this morning. They are talking about Lin’s upbringing. I would be bored if I sat in the space this people are sharing, hanging out with them.
gariverasantiago@gmail.com
What I thought more interesting about video two is the fact that the girl says, “It’s easier on the internet to talk.”
the upside down cross is made of stickers of the cover of ‘richard yates’.
the girl in the first video could have finished the book in the amount of time she spent in front of the camera, but instead elected to tell us about how great the book was, the book she didn’t finish, the book she could have finished, had only she not felt the need to sit in front of the camera.
a huge spike.
something.
is that 200?
oh!
thx for the fyi :-D
ryan, phc, sean, paul, christopher, email binky.tabby [at] gmail.com your addresses
good job
p.edward.cunningham@gmail.com
@phc, i shave in between my eyebrows to prevent a unibrow ~once a week. my friend mallory, the person in the video with me, cuts my hair. i don’t have fb. i think i get drunk and try to relate to other people. i enjoyed reading your comment.
@mario, yes
@sean, we are not a “new couple,” were not “fucked up,” or “grasping,” to my knowledge. neither of us smoke. we are both seventeen years old. sweet re ‘big votes.’
@paul, sup
@bac, sup
Seventeen. Damn. “Kids is mad young.”
look at that blue light on that girls face in vid three.
this is exhausting.
jordan, hello
who would have thought my being poor (resulting in slow internet connection) ((resulting in boredom-induced Bloom bashing)) would lead to me winning a copy of RY ?
how goes it?
indie lit boy
dear tao lin
how about instead of “getting hits” by having people comment on people commenting in some way on you, how about you send me a free book and i promise i will write a 500+ word review on goodreads of it. I have 67 goodreads “friends” and I feel like somewhere between 33 and 50% would at least “skim” the review
I thought you pronounced it “Dow Lin”, like in “The Tao of Steve”. All these years. Have people been laughing behind my back?
:-/
hi andy, i will mail you a copy also, can you email me what your address will be in mid-august
got an email today telling me jordan castro made a comment on vimeo. the comment is not there.
Christopher, have you considered writing a short story in which the protagonist takes care of his sister’s dog while his sister is in Hawaii for three days and while watching youtube videos on his sister’s overlarge computer discovers that the rotary phone on her desk will actually connect him with the people in the youtube videos? I’m imagining something like this:
“Quit looking at that guy.”
Onscreen the pixels of her face turned toward the guy in the glasses. She said, “He says to quit looking at you.”
What I thought more interesting about video two is the fact that the girl says, “It’s easier on the internet to talk.”
the girl in the first video could have finished the book in the amount of time she spent in front of the camera, but instead elected to tell us about how great the book was, the book she didn’t finish, the book she could have finished, had only she not felt the need to sit in front of the camera.
a huge spike.
something.
is that 200?
ryan, phc, sean, paul, christopher, email binky.tabby [at] gmail.com your addresses
good job
@phc, i shave in between my eyebrows to prevent a unibrow ~once a week. my friend mallory, the person in the video with me, cuts my hair. i don’t have fb. i think i get drunk and try to relate to other people. i enjoyed reading your comment.
@mario, yes
@sean, we are not a “new couple,” were not “fucked up,” or “grasping,” to my knowledge. neither of us smoke. we are both seventeen years old. sweet re ‘big votes.’
@paul, sup
@bac, sup
Seventeen. Damn. “Kids is mad young.”
jordan, hello
who would have thought my being poor (resulting in slow internet connection) ((resulting in boredom-induced Bloom bashing)) would lead to me winning a copy of RY ?
how goes it?
I thought you pronounced it “Dow Lin”, like in “The Tao of Steve”. All these years. Have people been laughing behind my back?
:-/
hi andy, i will mail you a copy also, can you email me what your address will be in mid-august
in what regard?
Oh my god. I fear for you. “Dao Lin.” Jesus Christ. You’re fucked. You are so fucked. We are so fucked.
Goddamn.
carr.ba@gmail.com
in what regard?
Wait, that’s Noah in the third video, right? What’s up, Noah!
I so wanted to enter / get disqualified from tao’s competition. I talked with my friend on gmail chat for hours, we talked of moustache wars with brandon, whether richard yates was about tao distancing himself from shitty john updike, the enforced shittiness of the hamster app which we didn’t think would ever be released, how much we liked tao’s hair on the coins vid, how strange it was for a grown man to have a coin collection, the irrelevancy of tao’s competition in terms of actual publicity for his book and how that was such a nice thing, whether the writer richard yates was a ‘miserable bastard’, whether there were any dead 20th century writers who weren’t ‘miserable bastards’, the laziness of tao’s critics re: internet pranks, the laziness of tao’s critics re: zen motifs, kafka, the power of veganism as a gimmick, whether tao lies about what goes into his salads / smoothies to make himself seem more exotic, why we never see any pics of the salads when we used to, shitty ska-punk music, whether tao has ever been to walmart, whether brandon’s moustache was ironic and the moustache war was ironic, whether that stupid party snub was made-up shit, why we hate bret easton ellis, why tao seems to like him and all these shitty writers, why tao hasn’t read anna kavan or heard of her, the goatse thing, whether we would eat whale, what it would taste like if we did, how many days it would take to eat, what we could do to preserve the meat, what exactly it is about haley joel osment that makes us hate him, who the fuck dakota fanning is, whether osments dad is bruce willis in the book, whether tao can see dead people, yves klein, whether it would have been funnier to call it ‘martin amis’, whether it would be shelved under ‘y’ by racist booksellers, what happened to our friend peter yates after he was sacked for doing a lot of coke at work, whether tao’s drug stuff is real or made up, how much we hate james joyce and all irish writers, what happened to the jewish guy on twitter we liked who just tweeted about going to burger king, whether the jewish guy was jimmy chen, whether the ‘neutral facial expression’ thing is sustainable, whether it’s a metaphor for something, the pointless use of the tilde in tao’s work as a symbol for something semi-known and semi-quantifiable, why I’m sort of scared of ellen’s twitter, how much we hope jesus christ the indie band don’t do anything else and then wrapped it up right at the crux of the thing with the moustache wars stuff again. I thought I had it sewn up but when I came to paste it into tao’s blog something had happened and it was gone from both our accounts. I think my friend may have sabotaged it though.
I know, tl;dr
@janey: shik shik shik shik shik shik shik shik
Sounds like a good chat.
tao lin is fake revolution yall
i don’t know where i’ll be living in mid-aug. i don’t have your email.
Oh my god. I fear for you. “Dao Lin.” Jesus Christ. You’re fucked. You are so fucked. We are so fucked.
Goddamn.
carr.ba@gmail.com
the upside down cross = ‘satan,’ i think. sup jordan, mallory
Wait, that’s Noah in the third video, right? What’s up, Noah!
I so wanted to enter / get disqualified from tao’s competition. I talked with my friend on gmail chat for hours, we talked of moustache wars with brandon, whether richard yates was about tao distancing himself from shitty john updike, the enforced shittiness of the hamster app which we didn’t think would ever be released, how much we liked tao’s hair on the coins vid, how strange it was for a grown man to have a coin collection, the irrelevancy of tao’s competition in terms of actual publicity for his book and how that was such a nice thing, whether the writer richard yates was a ‘miserable bastard’, whether there were any dead 20th century writers who weren’t ‘miserable bastards’, the laziness of tao’s critics re: internet pranks, the laziness of tao’s critics re: zen motifs, kafka, the power of veganism as a gimmick, whether tao lies about what goes into his salads / smoothies to make himself seem more exotic, why we never see any pics of the salads when we used to, shitty ska-punk music, whether tao has ever been to walmart, whether brandon’s moustache was ironic and the moustache war was ironic, whether that stupid party snub was made-up shit, why we hate bret easton ellis, why tao seems to like him and all these shitty writers, why tao hasn’t read anna kavan or heard of her, the goatse thing, whether we would eat whale, what it would taste like if we did, how many days it would take to eat, what we could do to preserve the meat, what exactly it is about haley joel osment that makes us hate him, who the fuck dakota fanning is, whether osments dad is bruce willis in the book, whether tao can see dead people, yves klein, whether it would have been funnier to call it ‘martin amis’, whether it would be shelved under ‘y’ by racist booksellers, what happened to our friend peter yates after he was sacked for doing a lot of coke at work, whether tao’s drug stuff is real or made up, how much we hate james joyce and all irish writers, what happened to the jewish guy on twitter we liked who just tweeted about going to burger king, whether the jewish guy was jimmy chen, whether the ‘neutral facial expression’ thing is sustainable, whether it’s a metaphor for something, the pointless use of the tilde in tao’s work as a symbol for something semi-known and semi-quantifiable, why I’m sort of scared of ellen’s twitter, how much we hope jesus christ the indie band don’t do anything else and then wrapped it up right at the crux of the thing with the moustache wars stuff again. I thought I had it sewn up but when I came to paste it into tao’s blog something had happened and it was gone from both our accounts. I think my friend may have sabotaged it though.
I know, tl;dr
@janey: shik shik shik shik shik shik shik shik
Sounds like a good chat.
tao lin is fake revolution yall
i don’t know where i’ll be living in mid-aug. i don’t have your email.
I like the first best. The guy does a brilliant imitation of Tao Lin.
He is one of the best.
the upside down cross = ‘satan,’ i think. sup jordan, mallory
joseph, i commented saying, i think, “bro…” on the video of you reading a poem by ana c.
david fishkind and i were admiring the length of your penis
He is one of the best.
joseph, i commented saying, i think, “bro…” on the video of you reading a poem by ana c.
david fishkind and i were admiring the length of your penis
It is much easier to talk. On the internet. To write, so to “speak”.
Kevin is a sweet man. We like to banter. I have been in the relationship Christopher describes, the one with the “joking” thinly disguised as insults (nope, scratch that, turn it around) and I assure you. This boy knows his boundaries. But I appreciate your concern.
We are Minnesotan, yes. They are. I am a transplant.
It is much easier to talk. On the internet. To write, so to “speak”.
Kevin is a sweet man. We like to banter. I have been in the relationship Christopher describes, the one with the “joking” thinly disguised as insults (nope, scratch that, turn it around) and I assure you. This boy knows his boundaries. But I appreciate your concern.
We are Minnesotan, yes. They are. I am a transplant.
pope has an upside down cross on his big ole hat. st. peter was hung upside down. it’s a symbol of the papacy. i think people use it as a symbol for the anti-christ now but it is still a pretty important symbol in christian mythologies.
pope has an upside down cross on his big ole hat. st. peter was hung upside down. it’s a symbol of the papacy. i think people use it as a symbol for the anti-christ now but it is still a pretty important symbol in christian mythologies.
whether it would be shelved under ‘y’ by racist booksellers- FUNNYGIRL
whether it would be shelved under ‘y’ by racist booksellers- FUNNYGIRL