March 17th, 2010 / 8:47 am
Review of Reviews
A Review of Reviews of Shoplifting From American Apparel
[Ryan Call and I asked Brandon Scott Gorrell to take a look at some of the negative reviews of Tao Lin's Shoplifting from American Apparel, and maybe say something. This is the result of that. - Gene Morgan]
I’m going to try and ignore the thought I keep having that I shouldn’t be shit-talking people’s opinions, that it’s obvious they’re opinions, and that these reviewers aren’t stating their opinions as facts.
Here are some opinions of mine about quotes from four negative reviews of Tao Lin’s Shoplifting From American Apparel. I don’t feel I took the quotes out of context.
Kati Nolfi, Bookslut: “There is so little aboutness in Lin’s work.” What?
Lisa Foad, Globe and Mail: “After all, Lin – feted darling of the hipster coterie – is known for his pomp-and-pageantry-fuelled exploits. Witness: Lin glutting NYC with a Britney Spears sticker campaign to promote the release of his 2008 poetry collection, cognitive-behavioral therapy; Lin routinely repeating the same line – “The next night we ate whale” – at readings (seven monotonous minutes mark his record to date); Lin auctioning drafts of his writing on eBay, and most recently, his MySpace account (it fetched a whopping $8,100); Lin selling shares of the anticipated royalties of his upcoming 2010 Melville House novel, Richard Yates (to the tune of $12,000); Lin founding Muumuu House, a publisher that boasts an appreciation not just for poetry and fiction but Tweets and Gmail chats; Lin enlisting fans as “interns” to rally on his behalf by blogging about him, reviewing his work on Amazon and padding his Wikipedia profile.” I understand Tao’s gimmickry is disarming for people, but it really doesn’t take that many steps in logic to figure out that everyone does what he does, they just present it in a way that’s more familiar.
Publishing houses hire publicists to expand their audience. Authors hire agents to make them money. Independent lit publishers hire fans as interns (would they really hire someone who didn’t like the press as an intern? That wouldn’t happen) and have them write Wikipedia pages for their authors. The difference is that Tao is transparent and vocal about it.
Huw Nesbitt, The Quietus: “Real art doesn’t hinge upon opaque observations and bland reproductions of the world.” What does real art “hinge upon?” What if I wanted my art to hinge upon a clear and flavorful reproduction of my penis? Does the “clear and flavorful” lens validate my penis as art? What exactly validates it? Who’s judging? Why can’t art hinge upon ambiguous observations? What is real art? Are there rules around art? Certain art can’t be art?
Paul Robinson, BC Books: “[Two sentence summary of novella]. End of novella. ‘Hang on a second!’ I hear the expectant reader murmur. ‘Surely there is more?’ Well, no, there isn’t. That is pretty much it. Now onwards to deep analysis of the narrative!
“Lin is adept at publicity and in 2008 began a campaign to procure finance from his forthcoming second novel by offering six “shares” in the novel’s future royalties. He sold them all and received much media attention in the process. [Four more sentences about Tao Lin gimmickry].” …I thought we were going onwards to a deep analysis of the narrative.
Huw Nesbitt, The Quietus: “But [SFAA] doesn’t question anything either, and that’s its real failure.” I didn’t realize that novellas were supposed to question ‘things.’ Guess I didn’t ‘get the memo.’
Paul Robinson, BC Books: “Lin is adept at publicity and in 2008 began a campaign to procure finance from his forthcoming second novel by offering six “shares” in the novel’s future royalties. He sold them all and received much media attention in the process. As a journalism graduate he knows how to engage with the press and turn negative reviews into good publicity — the so-bad-it’s good paradox — by using the latter to generate traffic and other statistical goodness. And this is how you are supposed to experience the Tao Lin narrative — through the spectacle of the Lin/Melville publicity vehicle, which creates mystic support for an otherwise deficient product.” Why do Tao’s negative book reviews seem to always cite as evidence Tao’s gimmickry? I understand that reviewers often attempt to create angles from which to write their pieces, but I counted the number of lines Paul Robinson dedicated to SFAA and to things not SFAA. Paul Robinson dedicated 15 lines to SFAA and 30 lines to Tao’s gimmicks and how nice the cover of Melville’s Contemporary Art of the Novella series looks.
The title of Paul Robinson’s review was “Book Review: Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin.”
Kati Nolfi, Bookslut: “From Sam’s narration, a reader can extract themes of loneliness, the nature of happiness, the role and responsibility of the artist, and the vacuity and meaning of internet relationships.” I thought Kati Nolfi held that there was “so little aboutness in Lin’s work.”
Kati Nolfi, Bookslut: “Even in this short and spare work, it is fatiguing to read the commoditized so-called underground undeservedly claiming elevation over mainstream consumer and work choices.” Kati Nolfi is trying to say that the characters in SFAA undeservedly imply that wearing American Apparel, being a vegan, and being a part-time employee at a vegan restaurant is better than wearing clothes from the Gap, or something, not being vegan, and working Monday through Friday, 9-5, at a non-vegan restaurant or some other “mainstream” place of employment.
I don’t think the vegan characters in SFAA said or implied anything about being better than “mainstream consumer and work choices,” but I guess that’s a matter of interpretation. But if they did, why wouldn’t they deserve to?
It seems like Kati Nolfi is engaging in a sort of “doublethink” here. By writing that the book’s characters don’t deserve to claim elevation over “mainstream consumer and work choices,” Kati Nolfi, by her action’s nature, is claiming elevation over the book, and I guess by implication, is saying that she deserves to. Kind of wonder if Kati Nolfi is “mainstream” or “underground.”
Huw Nesbitt, The Quietus: “That’s just boundless, patronising cynicism, which invests the artist — like the priest or the monarch — with some clandestine wisdom mere lay folk can only ever hope to experience through the frail edifice of the artist’s world, but can never truly understand since everything is reduced to little more than residual, obsolete components anyway.” Haha.
What do you guys think?
Tags: Brandon Scott Gorrell, shoplifting from american apparel, Tao Lin
Think?
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:30 pmzusya—
tao lin’s writing is about as attractive as lady gaga’s face
/hi.
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March 17th, 2010 / 9:29 pmaaron—
confused, maybe you aren’t sarcastic just there, at that gaga comment.
seems subjective.
is attractive writing synonymous with good writing?
/wave
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March 17th, 2010 / 10:20 pmzusya—
don’t even get me started on “good.”
it’s essentially a useless word.
though i would posit that every writer
worth a damn
is seeking
“attraction”
in his or her writing. or
at least an audience.
drowning your map
in mascara, i mean
well-funded ‘irony…’ and
remaining protean
and essentially formless
like… tohubohu? …
i don’t see the point.
though
i admit:
it’s very dark in here.
/trying to be subjective.
//high five!
March 18th, 2010 / 2:39 pmrandi—
people
who state
their opinions
in the form of poetry
suck
March 18th, 2010 / 3:00 pmryan—
‘good’
is not
a useless
word
March 19th, 2010 / 1:59 amzusya—
Some
Unseemly
Coteries’
Kerfuffles
Will
Orchestrate
Rapid
Demise
/hah, that was functionally probably not a productive use of my time.
March 19th, 2010 / 3:05 amzusya—
also i’ve realized my mistake, as caught by aaron, i should have said:
T.L.’s prose is a lot like Lady Gaga’s face… it’s probably not the first thing you see, hear or even notice when confronted with her ‘persona’.
This is a little weird. I like Tao, but this is … weird.
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March 18th, 2010 / 12:37 pmNathan Tyree—
Indeed
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Well this will quiet the commenters (still around?) who ripped on BSG for being Tao’s lackey.
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I couldn’t agree more with The Quietus’ review.
But the point of this post is to…criticize critics for having opinions?
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March 17th, 2010 / 9:45 amce.—
I think the point of this post lies somewhere in here:
“Why do Tao’s negative book reviews seem to always cite as evidence Tao’s gimmickry?”
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March 17th, 2010 / 9:47 amgabriel—
Fair enough.
Not all the singled-out quotes have to do with that, though.
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March 17th, 2010 / 10:14 amJeremiah—
Why do negative reviews of negative reviews of Tao’s books always cite as evidence the reviews citing as evidence of Tao’s gimmickry?
I agree with Gabe. Out of 9 quotes, 6 have nothing to do with “Tao’s gimmickry.” Unless you count that it seems some of them are viewing his writing as gimmickry.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:54 pmce.—
Because reviews shouldn’t be concerned about the life of the author. That’s what bios/lit bios are for. A review should convey why a person might or might not like a book, not its author.
And you prove a fair point. The whole post isn’t about reviewers targetting Tao’s gimmickry. It’s just what weighed on me most as I read it. I’m not too big a fan of Tao’s writing anyway, so criticism of valid criticism of it didn’t really carry for me, but criticism of not-so-valid criticism did.
March 17th, 2010 / 9:59 amMatt Cozart—
so critics can have opinions, but others can’t have opinions about critics’ opinions?
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March 17th, 2010 / 10:03 amJordan—
I have an opinion about your statement.
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What do points “hinge upon?” What if I wanted my point to hinge upon a clear and flavorful reproduction of my penis? Does the “clear and flavorful” lens validate my penis as a point? What exactly validates it? Who’s judging? Why can’t points hinge upon ambiguous observations? What is the point? Are there rules around points? Certain points can’t be a point?
I can’t help but feel that in many ways BSG’s art or point or whatever does actually revolve around his penis, although whether it be through a clear and flavorful lens is debatable.
ohhh so funny, I also like how this reviewer of reviewers just laughs as his second response to the Quietus’ review.
Or without irony BSG engages in the double-think he accuses Nolfi of doing.
Probably more amazing than anything else is the time I wasted reading and responding to this post. Ah well, got to waste it somehow I suppose…
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What one ought to take issue with, fundamentally, is a person using art as a means to profiteer through corporately owned and operated (though otherwise cost-free) websites like Myspace and Ebay, all in the name of creating a name for a writer. Creating a name is the job of the work.
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real question: has anybody ever pointed out that tao and friends seem to have no idea what “shit talk” actually is?
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:59 pmce.—
http://www.gillesdeleuzecommittedsuicideandsowilldrphil.com/2008/04/shit-talk-fest.html
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March 17th, 2010 / 8:22 pmchristian—
yeah, i saw that one. it made me wonder at first if blake knew what shit talk was (since the thing he links to isn’t shit talk), but then i saw he embedded the bill hicks video and realized he had at least some idea.
so what you’re implying is we agree, right? tao and friends have no idea what shit talk really is.
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It’s like Andy Warhol said to Tama Janowitz — never mind what they say, just count the column inches. (In case you were wondering whether Warhol was a size queen.)
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i think it’s sad that people seem more concerned with talking about tao lin’s internet persona than his work. but i guess this is what happens when you spend a lot of time and effort building up an internet persona that allows you to, for the most part, essentially maintain your way of life.
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I think it’s valid to criticize reviewers for not reviewing the work itself. The non-review review is far too common an occurrence, not only with books but also with music and film, etc. I get very annoyed when the first two or more paragraphs of a review is a smarmy round-up of all the received wisdom and journalistic angles surrounding the artist, particularly if this is being used to set up a dismissal of the work without any justification that derives from the qualities of the work itself. think whatever you want to think about tao or about brandon (i have no beef with them at all, and i admire tao), but the fact remains that the quotes pulled from these reviews show reviewers who are “bothered”/”irritated”/”skeptical”/”dismissive” towards tao and are reluctant or flat-out refuse to engage with the work itself. that’s weak and unhelpful reviewing. furthermore, the dismissal of tao and/or his work is often tied inextricably to censorship or gatekeeping, to received ideas about what serious art is, or what art is, period. the common defense of this is to say, “oh, i’m not saying you can’t make art like this, i’m just saying the writing is bad.” this seems suspect because one can only say the writing is bad if one has a set idea of what “good writing” is and, moreover, one has to ignore or dismiss tao’s very serious artistic philosophy and intentions in order to be dismissive in this way. this seems like a disservice to art generally, not just tao.
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March 17th, 2010 / 11:22 amstephen—
my question for these reviewers is, “are we dealing with art here, with aesthetics and words and ideas and emotions, or are we dealing with politics, with sociology, with fashion, with some invisible club to which one may be welcomed or not?”
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March 17th, 2010 / 11:26 amJordan—
Answer: Yes.
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March 17th, 2010 / 11:32 amstephen—
yes the former or yes the latter? not clear what you’re saying yes to
March 17th, 2010 / 12:55 pmMatt Cozart—
i believe he means both.
One day Brandon will write something that isn’t a waste of his time and our space–maybe–but that day is not today. I keep trying to believe the best about him–because people who otherwise know better keep telling me I should–but Christ. It’s almost as if his “project” were to actually embody all the negative qualities that Tao and his work are accused of but don’t actually possess–which would almost be interesting if I believed it, but I don’t.
The next time anyone’s wondering why literature has no impact on culture, come read this post again. As a generation, our willingness to condone and tolerate this kind of anti-intellectual (not as in anti-academic, but as in anti- the very notion of having an intellect at all) bullshit is about the strongest argument that can be made against us. Satire is one thing, even meta-satire, but this isn’t that.
This is a person saying over and over again “I am too stupid to understand the complete sentence I just read, therefore there must be something wrong with the sentence–because I’m already perfect just the way I am, as a smug creep who has exactly three talking points and is otherwise incapable of having a conversation or even a thought. Brandon Scott Gorrell is our Sarah Palin. One day this scene is going to need to decide if we’re willing to settle for being the Tea Party movement, or if maybe we’ve got bigger, saner fish to fry.
The rest of you are cordially invited to spend the rest of the day agreeing or not, but keep in mind that every time this thread gets a comment, the little terrorist wins. I swear to God if I could vote one person off this island it’d be him.
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March 17th, 2010 / 11:46 amstephen—
i’m sorry, justin, but you’re not being remotely fair to brandon here. i don’t know how you guys get on personally, if you’ve met, but this just seems like irrational rage. if you think brandon’s irritating, okay, fine, that’s your opinion. but, in a very un-sarah palin-like fashion, he is putting together coherent sentences and coherent objections to the quotes from the reviews. there’s absolutely nothing anti-intellectual about saying, “hey, wait a minute, you’re not engaging with tao’s ideas, those embodied in the text. you’re being a shallow reviewer.” that is a legitimate complaint, and he puts forth this complaint in an intellectually-sound way. does he write simply, without the brouhaha of the Proper Literary Man? sure. but this is a blog, and the era of the Proper Literary Man has ended.
Where exactly did you become furious, Justin? When he questioned whether novellas have to question something? It is not anti-intellectual to write non-propaganda, non-”social comment” novels. Indeed, the greatest social comment is made by the author who doesn’t need to insert little bits of “This Is Me Making Social Commentary and Political Statements” into the text, but rather let’s the shaping, the aesthetics, the elusive “feel” of the text make its own silent, much more potent statement. You know very well that Tao has made all kinds of political statements on his blog and in his poetry, and one of the beautiful things about Shoplifting is its silent statement: (time is passing, unspeakable emotions are present but yet unspeakable, things are interacting in space over time).
It is foolish to believe that the only intellectual is the armchair pontificator or the Author Stating His Views Explicitly. Brandon and Tao are very modern intellectuals. Voting them off the island, a ridiculous concept, would weaken the vitality of the island, and indeed, the island would be remembered by less people in years hence when it inevitably sinks into the sea.
And I don’t care that I’m not a real member of the island. I still have a point.
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March 17th, 2010 / 11:57 amKevin—
Gorrell needs to spell out why Shoplifting from American Apparel is a good book and why the reviewers are wrong. Just to say the reviewers are not engaging with Tao’s ideas etc is not enough. Tell us why. I don’t see that happening here.
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:12 pmstephen—
This logic reminds me of a Republican acquaintance who used to bully me back in the day when I opposed us going into the Iraq War by saying, “Well, there are problems, Saddam is bad, what’s your ALTERNATIVE PLAN? if you don’t have an alternative proposition, then you can’t be opposed to an unprovoked attack on Iraq.”
March 17th, 2010 / 12:27 pmKevin—
If you can’t come up with a response to an idiotic remark like “Well, there are problems, Saddam is bad, what’s your ALTERNATIVE PLAN? if you don’t have an alternative proposition, then you can’t be opposed to an unprovoked attack on Iraq”, then I don’t know what to tell you.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:45 pmstephen—
I did have a response. My response was something like, “That’s bullshit. I can oppose something without having some alternative plan to accomplish the same goals. My alternative is let’s not fucking invade Iraq.”
March 17th, 2010 / 5:44 pmchrysler5thavenue—
He actually did point out how the reviewers were wrong (in their assumptions). Not sure if he “spelled it out” but it was clear enough for me. Also, why does he need to spell out why SFAA is a good book? This is a critique of the criticisms cited. Whether SFAA is a good book is irrelevant. You seem kind of dumb, Kevin.
March 18th, 2010 / 1:15 pmKevin—
You got me solid there, C5A. Whether SFAA is a good book is indeed irrelevant, which makes this review of the reviewers excellent because it doesn’t matter what this guy Gorrell says about what other people have said about the book. The book just “is”. Defending something or critiquing a criticism is the point, plain and simple. Not what’s written. Makes sense. Please disregard all previous comments I made. Thanks for setting me straight.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:07 pmstephen—
Was Samuel Beckett anti-intellectual? He made fun of intellectuals all the time, and yet he was smarter than most. His novels and novellas and plays weren’t “about” politics and culture and society. They weren’t about anything. They were his feelings. He said he wrote what he felt, because he realized how foolish he’d been trying to prove he was smart. Was his work anti-intellectual? If one was reviewing Samuel Beckett, would it be intelligent to say, “Samuel Beckett, former assistant to James Joyce, the controversial Irish novelist, has produced an occasionally amusing, if slight, work entitled Watt. Beckett previously produced the horrendously misanthropic, slight novel Murphy, and got his start with a horrifying, interminable poem called “Whoroscope” (shudder) that seems to mock the intelligentsia entirely! What Beckett goes on about in Watt is anyone’s guess, but he seems to have abandoned proper narrative, coherent characters and character development, and the unity of a text in the first place. One wonders what on earth Beckett is thinking by adopting Joyce’s obtusity and adding to that unfavorable quality an unmistakable misanthropy and disdain for proper literary effects.”
What side of history are you on? In 2010, no less, over a half-century later.
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:09 pmstephen—
That last bit has a bullying quality to it, sorry (have I, unpublished nobody, pissed you off yet, hahaha…) You get my point, though. It seems relevant to me.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:10 pmJustin Taylor—
stephen- it’s not about liking or disliking Tao, and it’s certainly not a personal attack on Brandon, who I’ve met once and who seemed nice enough. This is not reducible to some extra-literary personal engagement. His “work” (let’s assume the scare quotes are his) revolts me. Period. I admire Tao’s work immensely- I’ve read all of it, and he’s a friend besides. So the first thing you’re going to have to do if you want to understand where I’m coming from, is realize that these guys are not of a piece. Tao is a real writer, Brandon is a joke. Whether or not Tao knows that is unclear to me–and believe me, I’ve asked. The better question, maybe, since we all know Tao loves a good joke, is: who is the joke on? More and more, I am inclined to believe that the joke is on anyone who is willing to take BSG seriously.
So the anger, if anything, is directed not even at Brandon, but at Tao, Gene, and everyone else whom I would like to view as a fellow-traveler and an ally, because we just can’t come to terms on this. I don’t mind being the minority opinion, and this site works because it’s anti-hegemonic, but the BSG-joke stopped being funny a long time ago, and I think it’s a major failing on our collective part if we either can’t agree on that, or else–what I often suspect–we actually do agree but nobody is willing to say so.
There is nothing–nothing–intellectual about Brandon’s project or what he has done here–or has ever done. And you can take it as a sign of my respect for you (also of your citizenship of the island) that I’m still sitting here, talking about this, because I’ve already wasted more time today on him than I had hoped to ever spend on him for the rest of my life.
I’m not asking him to get in his armchair. I don’t have an armchair, so why should he? What I’m asking him to do is, yes, form a complete sentence, or any kind of gaugeable reaction to the work he’s discussing– “Haha” does not qualify. And of course even though “discussing” is not really what he’s doing. Asking a series of sub-third-grade rhetorical “questions” like “What does real art ‘hinge upon’? does not qualify either. At least when Tao pulls this kind of shit, he has the presence of mind and the intellectual depth to put the scare quotes where they belong, around “real art” rather than around “hinge upon.”
I read that Kati Nolfi review when it was new. You know what I did right after? I tracked down her email address and asked her if she’d like to write for us sometime. Know why? Because even though she hated a book I loved, her criticism was smart, the issues she raised were legitimate, and even though I didn’t agree with the verdict she came to, I was impressed by the case she made. Because Kati Nolfi can think and she can write, and those are qualities I like to see in a critic and in a writer. Brandon may or may not be capable of these things, but he has never–not once, ever–demonstrated them in public or in print.
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:25 pmtao—
brandon is one of my favorite writers, i view his book, ‘during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present,’ as a ‘classic,’ one of my favorite books
i spent perhaps ~50 hours and $3500 publishing it
reviews of his book can be read here:
http://muumuuhouse.com/bsg.reviews.html
other writers that admire brandon’s work include, as can be seen on that page, and this page (http://muumuuhouse.com/brandonscottgorrell.poetrybook.html), include michael schaub, deb olin unferth, matthew rohrer (i say this because i know justin likes these writers)
i’ve read brandon’s poetry book maybe 4-6 times, each time with high levels of interest, intellectual stimulation, feelings that the writing was innovative and exciting, and feelings of being emotionally affected
i’ve read brandon’s bear parade book maybe 2-4 times and experienced the same things, ‘ditto’ re his forthcoming book ‘my hair will defeat you’
some critical analysis can be found in my blurb of his books somewhere
also, ‘obviously,’ i wouldn’t publish someone repeatedly if i didn’t like their writing
(in response to: “So the anger, if anything, is directed not even at Brandon, but at Tao, Gene, and everyone else whom I would like to view as a fellow-traveler and an ally, because we just can’t come to terms on this. I don’t mind being the minority opinion, and this site works because it’s anti-hegemonic, but the BSG-joke stopped being funny a long time ago, and I think it’s a major failing on our collective part if we either can’t agree on that, or else–what I often suspect–we actually do agree but nobody is willing to say so.”)
March 17th, 2010 / 12:27 pmstephen—
Thanks for your calmness in responding, Justin, I realize I was provoking you. I think I understand where you’re coming from now. If I’m following you, your main objections to Brandon are: 1) His work is a joke; 2) He never ever, not once, has used proper English grammar and proper sentences. Those might be legitimate complaints from a subjective point of view, so OK.
My only questions for you would be, Why does art or discourse have to be sophisticated IN TONE or in its “brushstrokes,” its word choice? This may seem like a stupid question, but I don’t think it is. Consider Basquiat. Is his work not “child-like”? It is. Are the ideas, the emotions, the value of it any less great? I would say no. Brandon’s commentary, blog writing, does seem to always be fun, colloquial, devil-may-care. What’s wrong with that? If you know Tao’s novella is good, and he knows it’s good, and I know it’s good, why does Brandon need to prove to readers here that it’s good in Big Boy Sentences or whatever? His focus is on the illogic displayed in these reviews. This is not a review of Shoplifting, it’s a review of the reviews. Could he expand on his comments? Of course. Would he still get reamed in the comments if he did that? I would bet money that yes he would.
And his poetry. It’s creative, it’s fun, and it has insights. It just isn’t “proper.” Why can’t there be improper poetry?
Furthermore, why are you so angry about his success? Does everyone have to acquire literary friends & a publishing contract through traditional means? You like rock bands, don’t you? Weren’t they “just fucking around in their basement/bedroom” and then someone established spotted them and “for some reason” “liked their vibe”/”thought they had potential”? Well, that’s what happened to Brandon, from what I can gather. Why is that so horrible? He’s a thinking, feeling person, undoubtedly (and I have not met him, of course, but I know that from his writing). And he’s been republished by the Poetry Foundation. If there was no “child-like play” in art, there’d be no Vonnegut (yes, I know, WWII, doesn’t invalidate my point), no Bukowski, no E.E. Cummings, and on and on. Maybe you don’t like any of those people. That’s your opinion, but I think every lit “scene” needs diversity.
March 18th, 2010 / 5:03 amCatherine Lacey—
Justin’s comment is my favorite thing about this corner of the internet at this moment.
March 19th, 2010 / 1:08 amstephen—
By the by, I’m not impressed at all by Kati Nolfi’s review of Shoplifting http://www.bookslut.com/fiction/2009_09_015097.php
She writes from her subjectivity, of course, so I can understand if she thought there were not “many points of access” in the work, but the issues she raises for her case against the novella proceed from misguided assumptions, which places the issues’ legitimacy in doubt.
The first sentence of her review assumes that the events in the novella are not meaningful. This is her opinion, of course, but it’s based on the fact that the novella does not tell you what the events in it should or do “mean,” either to the characters or to you. If the reviewer can’t see that this is an intentional, purposeful choice rather than an unintentional mistake or an unfortunate failing, than she’s missing a lot.
The third sentence assumes that the novella is “drained of emotion,” while this reader found it to be palpably emotional but purposefully devoid of any blatant statements of emotion or of manipulative emotionality. Tao’s style, generally speaking, of subtle/implied emotionality, however radically restrained, is an asset, not a lack, and this general approach is positive not only in my opinion but also in the opinion of many literary critics, writers, and readers throughout history.
Sentences 7 is almost undoubtedly completely backwards. Kati asserts that Tao “seems to use writing as a way to cultivate a persona and to record the ironic, idiosyncratic cultural moment.” I’m nearly positive Tao cultivates a persona in order to promote his writing, not the other way around. I gather this from the fact that he has said numerous times that the goal behind his antics is always to be able to sustain himself so that he can write and only do things he cares about. This is the goal of many writers. Kati’s assumptions are based on the notion that to be true to one’s own cultural moment in a concrete, detailed, realistic way, and especially to one’s cultural moment as a young writer, rather than to only make passing references to a few Metaphorical Modern Technologies (paging Joseph O’Neill’s “moving” Google Earth “set piece”), is necessarily a goal-unto-itself and evidence of shallow posturing. This is another misguided assumption; a critic should be able to see that “a portrait of a soulless modernity,” as Kati calls it, is nothing new, and that Tao is attempting to further intensify and humanize (humorize) what his predecessors (Beckett, Camus, Foster Wallace, Easton Ellis, et al.) also attempted to present: the Thing-Itself, shorn from commentary, abstract meaning, and sociopolitical posturing.
Kati’s second paragraph proceeds from her irritation with what she sees as an elevation, a glamorization of the “so-called underground” lifestyle in Tao’s novella. No such elevation exists in the novella. She seems to think that because specific music, food products, and authors are mentioned and preferred by characters in the novella, that this is somehow an attack on how she or other people outside of the book live their lives and choose products/people. This, one may assume, has much more to do with Kati’s biases and feelings than with the novella itself. Haven’t characters in books always interacted with physical things and expressed preferences? Why is this an irritating trait when present in Tao’s book? Why is it more irritating in 2010, in Brooklyn, if the characters are vegans? Hasn’t that entirely more to do with personal sociopolitics and preferences than it has to do with the writing?
Let me zoom in on the following two sentences from the second paragraph: “Lin’s characters value lifestyle above moods, relationships, or social activism. The means of Sam’s self-actualization can be bought.” The first sentence: How can one “value” moods? Furthermore, don’t Tao’s characters constantly reflect on their moods (e.g. “God I felt fucked” (pg. 13, which is page 1 of the text proper); “Do you sometimes look up from the computer and look around the room and know you are alone, I mean really know it, then feel scared” (17); “I feel really happy right now,” “Something is wrong with me” (21); “I’m tired of life…[]…I’ll hang myself in the bathroom. Jose-Manuel will find me.” (21) and on and on! You get the point. Secondly, the characters talk about and engage in relationships with people of the same and different sex throughout the book; this is the constant preoccupation of the characters, thinking about and engaging in and talking about their relationships. Thirdly, social activism? All characters, all people have to value social activism above their “lifestyle”? Isn’t engaging in social activism, at least for a significant number of bourgeois middle-class people or, I don’t know, young liberal writers in New York reviewing books for online magazines, a lifestyle choice? Now, at long last, the second sentence—”The means of Sam’s self-actualization can be bought.” This proceeds from the faulty assumption that Sam achieves any kind of self-actualization in the book. At book’s end, the lack of any self-actualization is driven home with the exchange: “‘What did you want to be when you grew up?’ said Audrey. ‘Marine biologist,’ said Sam.” But more than just not becoming what he thought he’d be as a kid, Sam hasn’t become any less lonely or sad by the end of the book, and yet another would-be relationship is coming to an end, as Audrey is about to leave. So, no, self-actualization isn’t being achieved or bought. This means, of course, that something else is being presented in the book. Or I’ve already said what it is—being presented (now wouldn’t it be interesting if a review dealt with this?).
The next three paragraphs (that’s paragraphs 3-5) honestly could be called whining, nothing more or less. “You’re trendy, or something! You write about the things that everyone does on a daily basis! There are some significant themes in this book, I guess, but I was angry at this book! Tao Lin doesn’t go to a regular job, and he’s STILL unhappy! Therefore his book is just a prop for his performance art and it is amorphous.”
I apologize to Kati Nolfi if she reads this and is offended. I mean no personal offense. Hopefully my points are at least a little thought-provoking and people will increasingly view Tao Lin’s work on its own terms and without succumbing to one’s reviewer baggage vis-a-vis “the so-called underground”, “bohemia,” “this fame-whoring culture in which we live, or something,” “internet writers,” “emotional people who are bourgeois in a different way than me, or something,” etc.
Peace and love
March 19th, 2010 / 1:24 amstephen—
My 5th paragraph, last sentence should say “the Thing-Itself, free of….”
“shorn from” doesn’t make sense. Sorry, compulsive editor.
March 19th, 2010 / 3:02 amTim Horvath—
Stephen,
You’ve mounted at least an in-depth response here, commendable. I’ve only read a bit of Lin’s work, so I’m ill-equipped to speak to it, but I don’t see how most novellas, or novels for that matter, tell the reader “what the events do or should mean,” and more often than not the meaning to the characters is similarly implicit rather than explicit. I also question the characterization of Foster Wallace as trying to capture “The Thing Itself” (err, um, whatever that might be) “shorn of commentary,” etc. His work seems to me to be replete with commentary on any number of things, and oftentimes becomes a commentary on the nature of commentary–its useful/uselessness or our compulsions toward it, as well as the attempt to turn it off. In any case, more generally you seem to want to situate Lin’s work exclusively in a lineage of writers rather than seeing his work as symptomatic or, more neutrally, emblematic, of our contemporary condition, which is Nolfi’s emphasis. Isn’t there something to be said for the way in which our lifestyles are itemized and self-consciously cultivated today to a magnified degree thanks to the pervasiveness of media and social media in particular? Sure, commodification can be found in any era and one can point to Hemingway’s characters running around Paris emptily or one can see the cults and buzzwords of the 70s in Rick Moody’s Ice Storm, though the latter case was historical fiction. But it seems to me that in defending the book you are dismissing Nolfi’s words as sheer subjectivity and bias when in fact she simply has a clear thesis that diverges from yours–for her the book is inextricable from the here and now and offers no respite from it nor emotional lifeline, while for you the book is the latest in the grand tradition of–if you’ll pardon the blechily-cliched shorthand–blank generation writers.
March 19th, 2010 / 3:31 amstephen—
your points seem very fair. thanks, tim. you’re right that DFW’s work is at times a commentary on the nature of commentary, although i think the end goal is to describe “what it feels like to be a fucking human being,” which is also tao’s end goal, arguably. i feel strongly that a writer’s work is less symptomatic of “the times” than it is symptomatic of their emotions/intelligence, specifically their love (or lack thereof), and their fears. I think all writers’ work is more interesting, more “meaningful,” and more “timeless” when viewed in this way, rather than as a byproduct of society, history and culture (i also believe, quite subjectively, despite the impossibility of proving it, that the former “is” what the work “is,” regardless of what “we think about it/project onto it.”) some are excited about literature as a commentary on culture/politics. i personally think that my favorite work is only a commentary on contemporary (or ancient, older) culture insofar as that leads to an enacting of primal existential quandaries and an attempt on the part of the author to redeem even the smallest feeling of love in him/herself and potentially in readers (I think that such work’s resonance comes in part from its implied realization that history and culture are not “really” linear, and that emotions are timeless). I would also just say that I feel I am not dismissing Nolfi’s words as “sheer subjectivity and bias” but rather questioning the channeling of her “subjectivity and bias +/- some amount of good faith as a reviewer” into misguided assumptions that can be at the very least questioned based on textual evidence + reasoning.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:24 pmJames—
Though Stephen, I feel like you’re doing a lot more legwork here than BSG does in his review of the reviews. Your comments are thought through and his post seems to just be some spur of the moment snark about negative reviews of his friend’s book.
It also seems that in order to make this a rounded topic you would want to see some sort of response to the positive reviews that spent a large chunk of their text using phrases like “sold shares”, “interns”, “internet writer” and “plastering the front door of Gawker the fuck up with britney spears stickers.” It would have more value then it seems.
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:32 pmstephen—
Fair point, James. I guess, and this is maybe going to sound stupid/obnoxious, I guess I just don’t think literary people need to take themselves and literature so seriously. That may seem heretical, and I often write/talk about it very seriously, so who am I to talk, but I think you can do both, be serious sometimes and just say how you feel in a simple/light-hearted way other times. My most obnoxious comment would be: Why can’t writers be rockstars? Brandon seems like kind of a rockstar. I think that’s “sweet,” to be perfectly honest with you. I don’t see any reason to hate him for it. Rockstars are fascinating, no matter how banal they may be at times.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:33 pmstephen—
And banality is a huge part of life.
March 19th, 2010 / 3:59 amzusya—
to: stephen, et. al
re: seriousness
there’s a treasure trove of things in life worth taking seriously, and i imagine that a lot of the people that will even end up reading what i’m writing in this space will feel the same way, especially when it comes to whatever-you-think the word “literature” signifies.
but, i think the issue most have found with this post — a slapdash review of reviews (some of which are actually quite well-written) — is that the original poster seems to be mocking folk who actually took the time to read the book, and then — gasp! — were underwhelmed with what they found.
look, im all for having a bit of fun, but the dude (original poster) copy-and-pasted more text than he himself wrote, and what he did write (apparently) dismisses constructive criticism in a way indicative of asperger syndrome.
pardon my DSM IV, but who here wouldn’t jump at the chance to slap down such sloppy anti-intellectualism?
/i’d argue that the end’s can justify the means (re: self-promotion) if ‘it’ was something worth fighting for in the first place.
March 17th, 2010 / 11:52 amZZZZIPP—
SORRY I LET YOU DOWN JUSTIN
YOU’RE RIGHT ABOUT TERRORISTS
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:19 pmJimmy Chen—
justin, i respect you a lot because you’re a successful writer, and fuck, extremely smart (i really mean that) — but i feel your comment ‘embodies all the negative qualities’ about you, namely, your tendency to publicly call people out in such eloquent manners. it seems like this is less about brandon’s post, and more about your dislike of him, which, however warranted, is personal; to write about him as you did, especially with the authority you’ve earned, seems small and mean. you’re an essential asset to htmlg’s community, but not in this way.
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:03 pmjohn sakkis—
i don’t think any of you (stephen/ jimmy) are understanding what justin is saying.
seems like you’re responding to somebody else’s comment…
justin’s remarks might have closed the book on the whole BSG as tao-doppelganger thingy.
justin, i don’t think you’re in the minority. well done…
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:07 pmJimmy Chen—
i understand what justin is saying, but an argument being rationally secure doesn’t preclude it from being mean.
HARD TO IGNORE TAO LIN’S PERSONA WHEN HE EXPLOITS IT TO THE EXTENT THAT HE DOES
IF ZZZZIPP WROTE A BOOK, PEOPLE WOULD BE LIKE “THIS ZZZZIPP IS SICK ABOUT PHOTONS”, OR “THERE ARE TOO MANY PHOTONS IN HERE, JUST AS THERE ARE IN HIS LIFE”. IF ZZZIPP HAD A LARGE INTERNET PRESENCE.
AND HIS WEBSITE WAS ALL ABOUT PHOTONS
SFAA WAS AN OKAY BOOK
MAYBE THOSE REVIEWERS DIDN’T FEEL LIKE THERE WAS A LOT TO TALK ABOUT INSIDE THE COVERS, MAYBE BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T LIKE IT. THEY GOT A BIT BORED. “YOU CAN PAD A REVIEW WITH 60% BACKGROUND INFORMATION IF YOU DO IT RIGHT, AND THE SUBJECT IS INTERESTING,” THEY THOUGHT. “MAINSTREAM” READERS DON’T KNOW A LOT ABOUT TAO LIN. SOME READERS MAY FIND “TAO LIN” THE PERSONA MORE INTERESTING THAN THE BOOK ANYWAY AND LOOK HIM UP ONLINE AND GET CURIOUS.
TO HAVE MORE REVIEWS TALK ABOUT THE BOOK ITSELF MAYBE TAO LIN SHOULD WRITE A MORE INTERESTING BOOK. MAYBE WHEN TAO LIN DOES WRITE A MORE INTERESTING BOOK, CRITICS WILL LOOK BACK ON SFAA THROUGH THE LENS OF THE MORE INTERESTING BOOK. FEELS LIKE TAO LIN’S AUDIENCE IS “HIGHLY SPECIALIZED” RIGHT NOW. AND THAT “MOST” “OF HIS READERS” “AREN’T” “MAINSTREAM BOOK REVIEWERS” “YET”.
OR MAYBE THEY SHOULD ALREADY BE LOOKING AT IT THROUGH THE LENS OF BSG’S PENIS
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March 17th, 2010 / 11:33 amZZZZZIP—
OR THIS POST COULD BE LOOKED AT THROUGH THAT LENS, TAO LIN AS VIEWED BY BSG’S PENIS
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March 17th, 2010 / 11:46 amKevin—
ZZZZZIP makes sense and, if you read closely, almost (almost) comes out of ZZZZZIP’s internet persona, which would have been a shame.
I’d like to read a thought-out defense of this book that might make me want to read it.
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March 17th, 2010 / 11:52 amstephen—
it doesn’t need a defense. it is.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:00 pmKevin—
In your comment above to Justin Taylor, you’re actually making a defense. If you or someone else took your ideas and fleshed them out into a review of these reviewer, you’d have an argument worth reading.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:00 pmZZZZIPP—
kevin, zzzzipp feels a bit zzzzippless right now. zzzzipp has had trouble with his photon mechanism. zzzzipp is tired of not being a photon. he is tired of being recognizzzed on the streetzzzzzzzzzz
March 17th, 2010 / 12:04 pmchristian—
it doesn’t need a defense to exist. but it may need a defense in order to be taken seriously or even to be bothered with outside of its niche. that’s where the analysis (or as this particular group calls it — at least when it’s applied to them — “shit talking”) comes in.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:39 pmKevin—
Yeah.
The point of this original post by Gorrell was to mount a defense of the book against its negative reviewers.
What I meant above is: I’d like to read a thought-out defense of this book [against its negative reviewers] that might make me want to read [SFAA].
March 17th, 2010 / 1:05 pmstephen—
I understand why you want that, Kevin, and I’m sure someone could provide you with that, but it would be illogical for Brandon or someone who thinks like him to do that. Why? Because to do so would be to buy into the concept that art has to fight for its right to exist and to be considered “legitimate.” If you think this concept is ludicrous and even “anti-art,” than you’re not going to want to validate it. All you can do instead if you want to review the reviews or defend the book is to point out where reviews have embodied the concept delineated above.
March 17th, 2010 / 1:23 pmKevin—
Stephen, I don’t want anything, really. This book is extant. Okay. I haven’t read it. Have no plans to. But someone posted on this site a response to negative reviews of SFAA. I bothered to read this post and it left me even less interested in SFAA than before. The construct of reviewing the reviewers is Gorrell’s. I guess I’m reviewing the reviewer of the reviewers by saying: I’m unconvinced.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:39 pmMark C—
zzzzipp is all about aboutness.
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:47 pmTim Ramick—
I’m working on an exegesis (exit Jezus) of ZZZZIPP’s many personas (determined by amount of z’s in relation to amount of p’s, amount of z’s or p’s in original post, whether ZZZZIPP is speaking of ZZZZIPP in the first or third person, amount of photons in the day’s allergens index, and—rather tritely— the day of the week). It’s not going so well so far. But I do know this: ZZZZIPP, like Shakespeare’s finest fools, is most effective when ZZZZIPP’s opinions cut obliquely (but sincerely) across this particular island’s Lord of the Flies grain.
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:53 pmKevin—
I’d be interested in reading this. Keep at it.
March 17th, 2010 / 1:28 pmZZZZIPP—
TIM WHAT IF SOMEONE WATCHED YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM
March 17th, 2010 / 3:54 pmTim Ramick—
I think this place might be some sort of bathroom. If not, if it’s more like the wilds—and I truly don’t belong and I’ve just stumbled in with my unemployed guy’s high-powered binoculars or amateur artist’s zoom lens or bored kid’s magnifying-glass—ZZZZIPP’d still be the most fascinating of the local creatures to observe. No reason for ZZZZIPP or ZZZIPPP or ZZZZZIP or any of ZZZZIPP’s photon avatars to get all self-conscious. I’ll stay behind rocks and trees and quietly take notes from now on…
March 17th, 2010 / 4:26 pmZZZZIPP—
ZZZZIPP DIDN’T MEAN TO MAKE YOU SAD, TIM
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March 17th, 2010 / 4:33 pmZZZZIPP—
ZZZZIPP JUST DOESN’T WANT TO FEEL LIKE A SAFARI ANIMAL
March 17th, 2010 / 4:35 pmTim Ramick—
No worries, ZZZZIPP. I don’t get sad so easily. I just get (more) stupid and bored and petulant and straight-mouthed.
March 17th, 2010 / 4:39 pmTim Ramick—
How about a photon poltergeist?
And shouldn’t HOOKS have been lowercase hooks out of some sort of reflexive respect?
March 19th, 2010 / 5:47 amHugh—
so ZZZZIPP is to HTMLGIANT what ZODIACMOTHERFUCKER is to the AV Club comments sections? with the all-caps, and the ironical self-referential bullshit? awesome. I don’t come here often, I think for some reason I stopped reading this site after the redesign, whenever that was (like a year ago? iuno.) anyways, i think i might start reading again, bc Jimmy Chen is a funny motherfucker. but none of you care about this of course, and many of you didn’t even read this far.
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Justin, you just convinced me to buy your new book.
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interesting new posts on this, and this will be the last thing that i post on the subject because i feel like it is little bit of a minefield for me because i like and respect tao’s writing, and also his grasp of the power of publicity. because this was a post defending tao’s work, its kind of hard for me to criticize it without it seeming like i’m dissing tao. but fuck it, i’ll give it a try.
(as an aside i also think that zachary german is one of the best new writers on the scene today. i feel that i have to state this because people tend to lump zach in with tao, and part of this minefield is that people might assume that if i criticize this post event though i dig tao, then somehow i am making some kind of backhanded diss to z.g. in a weird passive agressive way. )
this might seem like i’m being overcautious, but i also know that the people who really dig tao’s stuff are also a little over intense, and i got thoroughly jumped on over at tao’s blog once because i posted something fairly innocent that was somehow interpreted as being anti tao, or his scene or whatever, and – well, it was kinda like i was in communist russia and the many anonymous commenters who were on tao’s blog had declared me an enemy of the state or some shit.
however, the reason i thought that this post was weird, was because i don’t understand why it was written in the first place. the ‘take downs’ of these reviews were barely coherent, and it just came across like sour grapes. understandable if it was tao himself doing it – although it would have made him seem pretty insecure about his own talents – but when someone else is doing it, it just makes them come across like they’re a rabid superfan, the literary equivalent of a teenage girl who will curse you out if you dont agree that green day are not , like, the coolest band ever, or some shit.
huw nesbitt’s review, for example. read a bunch of his reviews, know his name, respect what he does and his ability to actually review a book beyond saying “it was great / it was shit” i read it at the time, and thought that it was a perfectly coherent and reasoned argument for why someone might not like tao’s work. it made a convincing case. it didn’t change my opinion on tao’s work, but i thought it articulated in an eloquent manner all of the things about tao’s stuff that might put some people off. i could agree with some of what was said on an intellectual level, while still retaining a gut love of what tao does.
tao is a smart guy. i know that he is aware that most of the good / interesting shit out there divides people down the middle. death for a writer is not a segment of readers hating you with a passion but most people thinking youre just okay. you might sell more books, but that way youre bound to be more nickleback than public image limited.
if i didn’t know tao’s work, reading this would have totally put me off of it. not because of the bad reviews that are referenced, but the kind of know-it-all / sneery / dont dare criticize my scene attitude in which this post was written. it’s basically a long winded way of saying “if you dont get it, then youre just not cool enough.”
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:48 pmbrandon—
i sort of feel like if justin wrote this there wouldn’t be as many negative comments. people would be giving e-high fives and using ‘grand’ language.
i don’t feel this article was an act of ‘fan-boydom’, or whatever, tony. i wrote it because i was solicited to write it and because i thought it would be fun. it seems strange for me not to be able to talk about the reviews of tao. if i said these things at a party or some public people would be like “yeah but” or “oh i totally agree” but no one would be like “man that shit is weird that you are talking about this, that is so weird….but i love zachary german don’t get me wrong”. so i feel like it’s okay to point those things out here. i don’t feel i did it with any type of over zealous intensity.
you’re right james it was easy.
the article was not a personal attack on any of the reviewers. i feel like the ‘attacks’, if they were, were pretty innocuous and playful. if the reviewers are hurt by this review of their reviews i’m sorry. it seems like part of the game to me. i feel like you’re allowed to do this type of stuff. this isn’t as big of a deal as you’re making it.
justin, are you really going to call on an htmlgiant collective ‘decree’ that i’m bad? that seems good. im serious. you should really try that.
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:09 pmstephen—
…[or people would be] deciding that now, now i can buy his book, because he has stoodeth up to thou, foul brandon of the west
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:10 pmstephen—
that didn’t make sense. my point is, some guy decided he can safely buy justin’s book now bc he trashed BSG. which makes a lot of sense.
March 17th, 2010 / 1:11 pmNick Antosca—
This post is the very definition of sycophancy. If Justin wrote it, people would be startled, because Justin’s posts tend to be coherent, thoughtful, and well-argued. This post seems sloppy, lazy.
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March 17th, 2010 / 2:43 pmdarby—
well, justin wrote that other one that is basically this except insert dennis cooper when nyt gave a bad review of his play, which bothered me more because it was much more ranty and irrational. brandon’s comments dont bother me much. they are calm and kind of aware, i thought, of the banality of the exercise itself. people’s opinions are that. who cares.
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:27 pmNick Antosca—
I commented on that post to say I thought it was uncalled for, too.
March 17th, 2010 / 12:58 pmstephen—
teenage boys have passion about art too, not just teenage girls. and passion for art, divorced from “fitting-in,” politics, sociology, and so on is sorely lacking amongst those past their teenage years. of course teens are anxious about fitting-in too, but there is no anxiety and no straitjacket quite as tight and restrictive as that of the (young) adult high-minded artist or art-lovers community. why does a fan, a friend, a colleague of an artist have to be “objective” and “proper” in their defense or praise or effusive love for someone and their work? doesn’t good art return us to our childhood, to the emotions for which we didn’t yet have to apologize? why cover up your passion? why be an adult if it is the cessation of passion, true passion?
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:00 pmstephen—
this is not intended as advocacy for anti-intellectualism. i just think the advanced intellect joined with the “advanced heart” has no need for rules and no need for “proper society.”
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March 18th, 2010 / 1:33 pmNathan Tyree—
I agree with everything you say here. You hit my thoughts exactly.
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I don’t have quite the violent negative reaction Justin does, but I fail to see anything interesting about quoting a review then going “what?” or “haha.” My impression is not that Brandon has legit gripes to pick with the thought process of the reviewers, but that he would simply have a snarky response to any negative review, no matter how well thought out or on target.
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March 17th, 2010 / 12:42 pmLincoln—
A lot of ties ties back into discussions we’ve had on here about the role of negative reviews in general and so many in the book world often seem violently against the very concept.
This is not a comment on Tao’s work at all, btw.
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Seems easy to imagine Tao Lin as the father of a little boy and in the playground at school other boys say those things to his son and his son’s face doesn’t change even when they poke his chest and say “Real art doesn’t hinge upon opaque observations and bland reproductions of the world.”
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this was an entertaining piece i thought. brandon’s book is fantastic also.
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:25 pmZZZZIPP—
I THINK I SAW YOU PLAY AT THE COLISEUM. YOU PLAY A MEAN GUITAR
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stephen,
I can understand where you are coming from in your posts here but at the same time they kind of sound like you think it is impossible to criticize an artist or dismiss anyone’’s work. I doubt that is what you think, but can’t you say the work is for anything? What do you think is a legitimate way to think critically about a writer’s work or review said work?
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:16 pmstephen—
i think one can criticize an artist without holding your nose and “pooh-poohing” their improper extra-literary conduct. and i think you can criticize the writing or the lack of this or the lack of that, but if you’re going to do that, it would seem more intelligent to at least acknowledge/investigate why he’s writing like that.
and i think you can take a post on its own terms. it’s a review of reviews by brandon scott gorrell. what do you think it’s going to be, an astute dialectic upon the varying merits of various critiques of “shoplifting from american apparel,” through the lens of late-Aughts/early-Tweens Brooklyn post-post-gentrification cyber-networking post-N+1 bloppity bloopity….. I think it’s safe to say you’re not going to get this from BSG, and I say, Good riddance!
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all arguments on the internet are related to varying natures of senses of humor, or lacks thereof.
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March 22nd, 2010 / 1:30 pmEmily—
AYOOOOOO
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March 22nd, 2010 / 1:44 pmstephen—
i don’t like 50 cent, but this beat for him by Timbaland is niiiiiiice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqAey4kKJzA
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drank 1x coffee, smoked 1x cigarette
[drank some water]
ran one mile on the treadmill
ate rice, vegan ‘ground beef’ w/ spices, iceberg lettuce, organic salsa, organic chips w/ flaxseeds, and sriracha sauce
also ate organic kale, organic spinach, broccoli, organic sunflower seeds, and italian dressing
listened to Drake, Gudda Gudda, Against Me!, and WHY?
—
sweet post
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:17 pmdavidpeak—
you should swap out your iceberg lettuce with read leaf lettuce.
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:17 pmdavidpeak—
i mean red leaf lettuce
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:49 pmdave e—
mr. peak, it was funnier with read leaf
March 17th, 2010 / 1:17 pmstephen—
sounds like a sweet day so far
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March 17th, 2010 / 9:36 pmaaron—
seems healthy.
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I was aiming for an inflammatory feature when I asked Brandon to do this. I asked him to go after the negative reviews only, which I stated at the beginning of this post. I also knew it would be light and quick, like Brandon’s other analytical posts.
Different reviewers of reviews will have different styles. I look forward to this. I am excited to have this feature. I welcome you to submit a “Review of Reviews” to submissions@htmlgiant.com, or whoever else.
As for my personal opinion on Brandon, I like outsiders and nice people, and Brandon is both. What other people consider sloppy, I consider funny. Fart jokes are in my blood, as well.
Sarah Palin, though? Justin?
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:35 pmZZZZIPP—
HOOKS SAYS YOU ARE MAKING A PRETTY BIG MISTAKE IF YOU BELIEVE THAT SNOOP DOGGGG IS HOW HE CHOOSES TO REPRESENT HIMSELF OR HOW THE WHITE MEDIA CHOOSES TO PORTRAY THAT REPRESENTATION
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March 17th, 2010 / 1:54 pmdave e—
in the world of failed VP candidates, I’d say Thomas Eagleton would be just as apt
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March 17th, 2010 / 2:00 pmMatt Cozart—
palin is the one who needs shock treatment
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:46 pmdave e—
Touche
March 17th, 2010 / 2:00 pmKevin—
Please: no more reviews of the reviewers unless written by ZZZZIPP’s coterie of photons.
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March 17th, 2010 / 4:38 pmJustin Taylor—
Sorry, Gene. As you know well by now, visceral disgust does not bring out the best in me. Owing to this, I have had a longstanding personal policy of not commenting on anything BSG-related at all, ever, since whenever the last time I did it was–months ago at least–and that’s the policy I plan to return to. But I just could not let this one pass me by. And I’ll be the first to admit that that is a personal failing, especially since I apparently correctly intuited from the get-go that this was intentionally incendiary, and therefore I was taking the bait, but in the moment I really didn’t care. If I’ve got my head stuck in the bees’ nest now, so be it. Writing exactly what I think of that guy, and what it says about us that we help promote him, felt SO good it made my whole day better. That was the honey–ce la vie the bees.
re Sarah Palin- not because he’s trying to take away my right to choose, but because his “style” seems to me an exact replica within artistic/literary culture of what she does in political/popular culture. He expresses “points of view” that are actually black holes of non-thought and non-information, they are like the dark matter of content or thought, and they do nothing but lower and confuse the discourse, and serve no purpose other than to direct more attention at him. Then, if you try to call him on it, he just acts like he’s an alien from the planet “concrete language” (itself a deceitfully hypocritical piece of theater, a la “Joe the plumber”) and his willful refusal to understand any kind of figurative, comparative, abstract or metaphorical speech or terminology that you might be using is somehow a referendum on you and not him. Oh and also, didn’t you realize he was kidding, and why are you being so “mean”? He’s criticism-proof by virtue of being content-free, and his goal is to create a space where the only possible “cool” reaction to anything he does is just to say “cool, bro”. To put it bluntly: fuck that. So yes, Sarah Palin.
To everyone else- I’m going back to my sanity-maintaining silence re this topic now, and no further comments will be fothcoming on this matter.
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March 17th, 2010 / 6:54 pmstephen—
it’s “c’est la vie,” and it’s used as a stand-alone.
why does demeaning another writer you’ve met personally and who you claim to not dislike personally make your day, justin? you got kudos from the new york times, you’re a writer we may be reading for years to come or whatever. what the hell business do you have pissing on brandon scott gorrell and comparing him to joe the plumber and sarah palin? regardless of your opinions on his arguing or writing style, that just seems mean-spirited and unnecessary. what has he ever done to you?
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March 17th, 2010 / 6:58 pm?—
Truly no offense intended, but what has Joe the Plumber ever done to you?
March 17th, 2010 / 6:59 pmstephen—
i’m willing to suspend judgment and assume you’re not a prick, because i don’t know you at all, but you ought to know this combination of unnecessary tongue-lashing mixed with this bullshit about “to preserve my dear sanity, there will be no further comments from me on this distasteful matter also known as brandon scott gorrell” makes you sound like a real prick, justin.
March 18th, 2010 / 5:05 amCatherine Lacey—
Justin is not a prick. He just doesn’t like BSG. Everyone has something that annoys them this much, yeah?
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March 18th, 2010 / 11:19 pmstephen—
You’re right, Justin’s not a prick. And we “sorted things out” via email, so no worries.
The problem is that some reviewers feel obligated to review Lin’s book because of the many publicity-seeking measures he has taken in recent years. But he’s not a very good or serious writer. (I’m always bewildered by Melville House’s support of his work. I admire so much else that they do.) So, when faced with reviewing his book, and with nothing of any great significance to address, they revert to discussing the reasons they’re reviewing him in the first place: his gimmicky rise to some kind of juvenile, low-level literary notoriety.
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March 17th, 2010 / 2:42 pmbrandon—
what do people think about my point about tao’s gimmicks being essentially the same as what all authors and publishing houses do? i thought that was a good point to make, no one’s responding
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March 17th, 2010 / 2:46 pmce.—
i thought it a good point, but didn’t have much else to offer. good point.
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:09 pmJames—
I agree that his promotion is what authors and publishing houses do, though I would argue that he does it far more successfully and in cooler ways than pretty much any publishing house with a publicity budget that I know of. The thing though is that, in its genesis, the only thing that people new to his presence knew about him was that he was the guy with the crazy promo stunts.
I’m pretty sure the first time I heard about him was this article – http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/when-a-novelist-holds-an-ipo/
which then led to:
http://gothamist.com/2008/06/04/tao_lin_wages_s.php
None of that mentions his writing and all the links you find as a result of that usually just bring you to more Gawker articles about his publicity techniques or old people articles amazed at what the “new literary generation” is using that new fangled internet for but again nothing about his writing. It’s hard to think of an equivalent author who broke into my consciousness in the same way.
Usually, like on this site, if I find a new author, it’s because somebody was like, “Fuck, check out this poem, or read this review I wrote of this new novel and here’s a link to it and all the shit its small press is putting out which is all equally dope”. In those cases, the writing is mentioned first.
None of this is to suggest that his writing is bad or good or anything; even being aware, as much as I am, about his marketing techniques, I still haven’t read anything by him yet. It’s just that, by his own design, he’s become (as Carles would say) an alt meme and that becomes what every review positive or negative leads with and is presumably responsible for most of his book sales.
I would agree with ZZZZIPP, it’s hard to ignore his persona when he exploits it to the extent he does. It’s the way people know about him. In all likelihood, the reviews written about him will introduce him to new readers. Some of those reviews could be pretty shitty and be using his blogability as a crutch, but it’s hard to imagine a review of a Tao Lin book (at least as it stands now) that’s written for people who aren’t already intimately acquainted with him, not mentioning his most well-known features, at least as orientation.
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:47 pmdave e—
“essentially the same” perhaps
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:47 pmstephen—
I agree with that point, Brandon. I agree with all of your points.
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:39 pmjohn sakkis—
dude you’re are insanely annoying.
March 17th, 2010 / 8:02 pmstephen—
sorry to hear that, man
March 18th, 2010 / 5:06 amCatherine Lacey—
I do agree with Brandon about that. It is really annoying that people review Tao’s high-jinx instead of his very worthy books.
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March 17th, 2010 / 2:48 pmMatt Cozart—
so long, see you tomorrow is next on my to-read list
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If Tao Lin had to rely on his work and his work only to garner attention he wouldn’t get any and he knows it. I read SFAA to see what all the hubbub was about and it is a thoroughly middlebrow piece of writing. However, I respect Tao Lin as a prankster and a self-branding savant. It would be a shame if he didn’t use his talents more wisely and didn’t get a job in advertising. That’s where he belongs.
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March 17th, 2010 / 2:51 pmMatt Cozart—
even writers have to advertise, no? even if it’s not self-generated. all the books you’ve ever read were advertised by someone at some point. otherwise, none of them would have “garnered attention”.
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:53 pmstephen—
What would you define as “highbrow,” Ass-Brackets? Do you only appreciate “highbrow” writing, Ass-Brackets?
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March 17th, 2010 / 4:58 pmtao—
i think if i had never donbe anything that directly or indirectly promoted my books, or myself, there is a chance that i would have [an unknown amount, maybe 20-70%] less readers, but i’m not sure, i still have a ‘miranda july blurb’ and an objectively notable # of books for my age
i honestly feel there is a small possibility that the ‘mainstream media’ would have viewed me differently (if i hadn’t done questionable/’outsider’ things like posting emails on my blog, etc.), in a way that they would feel more inclined to ‘cover’ me, for example maybe the ‘new york times’ or ‘washington post’ or something would’ve reviewed one of my books, since all that would have been known about me, if i didn’t have a blog, would’ve been that i was young, asian-american, and that most of the writers i say, in interviews, influenced me are viewed as ’serious’ writers ‘worth covering’
it seems like a small possibility because despite the above i was published by an at-the-time small, independent publisher, and it seems rare for the ‘new york times’/'new yorker,’ etc. to extensively ‘cover’ a first book from a small, independent publisher
“It would be a shame if he didn’t use his talents more wisely and didn’t get a job in advertising. That’s where he belongs.”
i honestly feel i would not be effective if i got an advertising job, in part because i feel that what is actually effective (in terms of ‘moving units’) in advertising, in terms of advertising books, is to not do many of the things i’ve done, but to do other things
for example how does [~2x writer per year] get reviewed twice or three times in the ‘new york times’ and ‘new york review of books’ with their first book while also being profiled in [various 'glossy' magazines] and interviewed on NPR? i don’t think that is achieved via making ‘britney spears’ stickers or other ‘gimmicks’ but something else, maybe something like mailing over a thousand galleys to everyone in media a long time before the book comes out, having ‘a team of publicists’ writing personal letters to michiko kakutani and other reviewers, having a lot of interns or something create little packages to send to every reviewer in america ~3-5 months before the release date, or ’simply’ by giving the author a large advance, which in itself makes the writer ‘worth covering’
(those are things i would feel ‘really bored’ while doing, if i was doing them myself, and therefore stop doing after one or two days; though i’m not opposed to having a ‘team of publicists’ doing things for me, i would like that, and i would still do all the ‘gimmicks’ i do, i feel; see below)
i feel that the level of attention i’ve gotten, after five books, is not very notable
many writers get much more attention, and sell many more copies, with their first book
i feel ‘fine’ with reviewers writing about my ‘gimmicks’ instead of the writing itself
i feel that it’s a fact that an amount of people will not like my writing, but that i am successfully able to ‘write what i want to read’ (due to an amount of control i feel i have in terms of promotion, media pressure, editing, and other things), and so reviews ‘don’t really matter’ rhetorically to me, instead i view them as i, ideally, view anything: as ‘anything,’ or as ‘art’
for example if i see a tree or a dog or a poem i will either feel interested in it, like it, or feel bored by it
i will not interpret the tree or dog or poem as something that is trying to change me or tell me what to do, even if, in its view, it is
in that manner i feel ‘fine’ with the review focusing on ‘anything’
also, whenever i do something outside of writing i think what determines whether i do it or not is, ‘ultimately,’ the same or similar to what determines whether i use a comma in a sentence in one of my books or whether i have a certain character do a certain thing, or whether in ‘real life’ i decide to eat a certain thing or say a certain thing to a certain person, in that i ‘do it’ if it’s something i feel is exciting or interesting or satisfying to a certain degree
that something i do promotes myself and my books is almost only a ‘by-product’ of what has been done, to some degree (the amount of promotion that i feel something will generate also affects my decision, but ‘ultimately’ it is in service of ‘reaching a situation’ in my life where ‘the amount of promotion that i feel something will generate’ will be ‘moot’)
i know, factually, that if i wanted to promote myself more effectively, sell more copies, and be reviewed in the ‘new york times,’ etc., i should work hard on getting a literary agent and having the literary agent submit my books and short stories exclusively to large publishing houses and major magazines for however many years until one large publishing house or major magazine accepts the books or short stories
doing that successfully would ‘net’ me something like 100-1000x more money and ‘fame’ than i have now
but, after a certain point (i did have an agent for my first story-collection, which was rejected ~25 times by large publishing houses), i felt i was more satisfied, interested in, and excited by doing things outside of that, in the same manner i have learned (through reading and writing) that i feel more satisfied, interested in, and excited by [certain choices re prose style, focus, tone, subject matter in my books]
(this is not an indirect criticism of any other way of promotion or writing books, it is ’simply’ what i like to do, not what is ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ see http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=236784)
in that sense i feel ‘the same’ about reviewers writing about [anything] in terms of me in their review of my books, because i think i ideally view ‘everything’ as ‘art’
i feel that brandon probably feels the same, his review of the reviews seems to me to be ’simply’ stating that it is amusing or notable that the reviewers presented their reviews as reviews of the books but, at times, to some degree, reviewed my other things more
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:15 pmtao—
(edit ‘really bored’ to [something like 'not artistically satisfied' or 'not satisfied'])
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March 17th, 2010 / 6:23 pmL.—
This is a good post.
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March 17th, 2010 / 10:45 pmzusya—
if anything, i think mostpeople would be enamored
with your “‘apparent’” ability to shrug off
such
negative press, and just pop up
listless as ever as-per-tone-of-the-above-long-comment
because
you do seem to be like a nice person
(though this is probably where the git-thee-ass-to-a-marketing-firm commenteering comes from)
because, man, for the love of
something, man
have a fucking opinion
and not justifications.
/am i engaging yet?
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March 19th, 2010 / 9:57 amchrysler5thavenue—
were you on adderall when you wrote this?
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March 20th, 2010 / 6:42 amzusya—
who, me?
March 20th, 2010 / 3:28 pmtao—
yes…
March 20th, 2010 / 10:17 pmzusya—
heh.
if i say
yes?
would you think
you’re missing out?
if i say
no?
would you think
i’m just a worthless lout?
March 22nd, 2010 / 2:22 pmRebekah—
I feel overwhelmed.
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March 22nd, 2010 / 2:25 pmstephen—
Hi Rebekah, this is Stephen. I am remiss for missing your Artifice Mag release party. My comrade and writing group partner, Landon Manucci, was there and I don’t know if you guys met or not. In any event, I am starting a free art/lit magazine: http://popserial.tumblr.com. Tao Lin, Joshua Cohen, and many more are onboard. If you have any advice for me or want to suggest people to check out or to say hi or something, please feel free to contact me at stephen.dierks@gmail.com.
should i respond to every comment in this post, as a kind of gimmick/’art project’
any opinions on this
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:27 pmJames—
Only if you put out a chapbook of this thread through Muumuu House and then I get an ARC to review as a review of the reviews of the reviews on this site to get us back into the commenting cycle.
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:33 pmtao—
do you want one of my books for free? i have copies ‘lying around’ my room
i enjoyed reading your comment above
if so email me at binky.tabby [at] gmail.com
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:39 pmhtad—
art dependent on responses is very interesting to me.
i wrote a paper on you, but i turned it in late. sorry.
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Just one tiny contribution – you gave away your tone when you used the word “disarming”. You’re an apologist, and you’re trying to define those who disagree with you rather than letting them define themselves.
I don’t like Tao’s writing. I don’t like his “gimmickry”, but it certainly doesn’t disarm me. Good lord.
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:14 pmRyan Call—
this comment is really confusing?
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:48 pmTom—
Is it? Ok. I’ll try again – was a bit rushed.
I think the word “disarm” implies a sort of aesthetic weakness, an inability to confront or make sense of “challenging” art. It sets Tao up as a challenging artist, and those who don’t like the gimmickry as prudes (or something along those lines – perhaps just plain old traditional works too).
It’s a standard rhetorical tool, but not one I like very much.
For example, I saw ‘Anti-Christ’ at the NYFF. Packed house. And it very quickly became obvious that a portion of the crowd was there to prove that they could “handle” the violence portrayed. They were essentially there to call everyone who didn’t like the movie for that reason a prude. It misses the point of whether or not it was a good movie entirely, but it forced these “prudes” to defend themselves in a way they shouldn’t have had to, and those who could handle it already had the edge in the ability-to-appreciate-avant-garde-art department. The argument over the film’s quality was pushed aside.
This post has done the same thing – instead of debating Tao’s talent, it’s setting his detractors up as people who don’t appreciate the gimmickry or contemporary writing or both. They have become the object of criticism, not Tao’s art. And to me that makes no sense. Has no value.
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March 17th, 2010 / 3:54 pmRyan Call—
no worries, thanks tom. i wasnt trying to be mean, was just confused, literaly. this makes more sense to me, i mean the point youre making.
March 17th, 2010 / 4:01 pmbrandon—
i feel like a lot of people have emotional, knee-jerk reactions to tao’s promotional tactics. like i’ve seen a lot of people say really negative things about him raising 12k by selling shares of his novel, when i really can’t see anything negative about doing something like that (unless it involved deception, which im fairly sure it didn’t). stuff like that feels really surprising to me sometimes. but i think people are emotional about this stuff, for example, because they’re not used to it, and it’s threatening. the people that get mad about this stuff have probably worked very hard in this literary world to promote themselves the normal way, going ‘through the ropes’ and all that shit, doing what it expected, what’s accepted, and then they see tao, who achieves a significant amount of popularity acting in ways outside of that system. it’s easy to see why their first response to something like tao would be like ‘this isn’t good, this is dishonest, this is not to be taken seriously, think of it only as a deceptive, “trickster” promotional tactic, do not think of it as anything else, don’t let this person succeed in this way’. they want to protect the interest they have vested in the system, and i think that’s alright and everything, i just think that’s why i used the word ‘disarm,’ because that’s what it does
if that word renders the post devoid of value then ok. anyways i wasn’t writing about the book itself. the title of this post is ‘a review of reviews’.
also i’m not trying to attack the ’system’ or ‘typical path’ authors generally take toward success. i think it’s fine, it has it’s benefits, and some people are really good at taking it. justin taylor and blake seem really good and navigating that and i think that’s good.
March 17th, 2010 / 4:09 pmL.—
I think the bottom line is that if an artist gets famous for his marketing gimmicks, which Tao has to a large degree, then they have to expect to be criticized or at least analyzed on that level.
To say a review of Tao should never mention his persona or marketing is like saying a review of Lady Gaga should never mention her persona or outfits.
March 18th, 2010 / 10:34 amdave e—
I’m with L on this. I know next to nothing about Tao’s work…but when I hear about Tao it’s usually in reference to his marketing, etc.
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March 17th, 2010 / 6:02 pmchrysler5thavenue—
I think you do not realize the extent of your own disarmrament. By calling him an apologist, you are defining him in the same sentence which you criticize him for “defin[ing] those who disagree with you rather than letting them define themselves.” You’re being hypocritical on top of having a dumb/irrelevant point in the first place. Your intellectual aresenal is empty. All you have is your emotional defensiveness.
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In his review of my review of the metareview of all the reviews of “Guanoman and the His Giddy Marmot Sidekick Reeeepo,” Vance Lacroix III fails to acknowledge that I take duly under consideration the full gamut of responses to the “Guanoman” endeavor, including but not limited to uncritical embrace, uncritical dismissal with or without a vehemence verging on artslaughter, emulation that risks plagiarism, dialectical response threatening secession, hysterical rant inviting institutionalization, flat, pulseless neutrality calling for resuscitation, and a whole slew of reactions unmappable on any mere triaxial continuum, such as the call for someone to wallpaper a moderately-sized garret with “Guanoman” and invite volunteer fire contingents to test their new recruits against its mettle, or the notion that “Guanoman” ought to replace Mozart in the search for extraterrestrial life as homo sapiens’ intergalactic calling card, and/or the accusation that “Guanoman” represents literature’s surrender to sheer Burroughsean “Language-as-virus” modes calling for an epidemonological exorcism of global proportions in order to purge the pathways for future writers to make their small, Reeeepo-like dents in the waylaid hubcap of literary history.
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:23 pmzk—
cool story bro *yawn*
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:56 pmTim Horvath—
Hey, zk, yeah, wasn’t really meant to be a story, more just a playful diversion on the nature of metacommentary and the hall of mirrors it can induce. Perhaps misguided but hey. Was just jazzing around really.
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March 17th, 2010 / 6:14 pmzk—
it seemed a bit self-congratulatory but not in a boring way
Disappointed in Justin. Think the post was original and should be done more. Think Tao, Brandon, Justin, et al., advance the literary arts in positive ways and that everyone’s fighting for a prize that doesn’t exist.
Nice point re Tao’s self promotion.
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March 17th, 2010 / 4:07 pmL.—
What is a price that doesn’t exist?
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March 17th, 2010 / 4:12 pmbrandon—
regarding your comment “To say a review of Tao should never mention his persona or marketing is like saying a review of Lady Gaga should never mention her persona or outfits,”
i did not say anywhere that a review of tao should never mention his persona or marketing, and i think that wasn’t implied, either
otherwise i’m in agreement. i analyzed him on that level in my comments and in the original post
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March 17th, 2010 / 4:36 pmDonnie Wahlberg—
Prize. I wrote prize.
March 17th, 2010 / 4:37 pmL.—
What is a prize that doesn’t exist that writers are fighting over?
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March 17th, 2010 / 11:21 pmDonnie Wahlberg—
A “prize that doesn’t exist that writers are fighting over” is nothing.
i like both this guest post and the comment thread. good work, everyone.
i think what some see as snarky in the op is quietly funny to me. that part where gorrell says to paul robinson’s quotations, ‘wait i thought we were going to go on to deep analysis of the narrative’ made me laugh, especially because the entire robinson review sort of pokes fun at itself as a review as well (that’s what i see, anyhow, in that exclamation point at the end of that first graph of robinsons that gorrell quotes). similar to how gorrell introduces his post as opinions in response to quotations from reviews, and his first opinion is simply ‘what?’ i thought that was funny.
so, would it have been better to have gone with a title other than a ‘review of reviews of shplifting’? somethign like, ‘reactions to reviews of sfaa’? i just thoguht of that rereading this this morning before going to tutor.
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March 19th, 2010 / 10:06 amchrysler5thavenue—
No, that would have been a “shittier” title. The title is fine as it is.
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I like Tao’s online life. SFAA clearly emerges from it and meshes with it — it’s a physical off-line extension of that persona. Therefore it’s fair to consider the online stuff and the book in reviews. I couldn’t imagine reading SFAA without knowing Tao’s e-history. I couldn’t imagine SFAA being published if it weren’t supported by the online stuff. But it’s also semi-endearing and “brave” to go out on an e-limb and respond to (what you deem idiotic) reviews of a friend’s book.
I agree with Darby about how some people on here excessively (and usually emptily) pimp others and defend criticisms (again usually emptily) without being voted off the island.
I also agree with Blake’s comment about how online arguments relate to one’s humorful/humorlessness.
I like Justin’s fire today, too — it’s good to see a little spark.
I also like my comment here. It is controlled and calm (albeit with too many parenthetical comments). It has almost achieved “neutral,” an adjective I never would have chosen without Tao.
Everyone wins!
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March 17th, 2010 / 4:17 pmhurf durf—
I need to leave a comment that isn’t trying to get to the heart of art here.
HURF DURF DURF
I like funny .gif files
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March 18th, 2010 / 8:16 amLe Ka Ka Ka Ka Line Uh—
peace and love, mr durf. may your heart of art never go from gold to old:
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s259/greeneyes1167/UnicornGlitter.gif
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March 19th, 2010 / 10:07 amchrysler5thavenue—
I did not like your comment much. Think you’re giving yourself too much credit.
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Everyone has a sense of humor (just as everyone has a heart). What is humorless to one person is hilarious to the next (and vice-versa, etc.etc.etc.). To call anyone humorless is idiotic (just because his or her humor doesn’t align with yours). I’m not singling you out here, Le Ka Ka Ka Ka Line Uh. This pertains to Blake (and myself) as well. But I do get what you’re saying about too many parenthetical comments (I need help with that, too).
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:15 pmTim Ramick—
I can’t believe how many off-topic comments I make here at htmlg and how dead-serious or side-of-mouth facetious I sound all of the time. Did anyone else feel like this at first? Embarrassed and superfluous. And now I’m replying to myself. Self-conscious unemployed lameness. Sorry. Homiletics for the puerile set.
Still. We all learned in kindergarten about the subjectivity of humor. When we don’t get someone else’s sense of humor (or supposed lack of it because they aren’t laughing at our joke, or the joke that has us howling), aren’t we actually saying something silly and centric like: “He’s not as funny as I think I am” or “Why can’t she relax and be like me”?
But then I’m old enough to remember when these kinds of snarky exchanges were settled by duels at sunrise.
I guess it’s going to take me a while to figure out how this particular game is played (if I ever do).
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:20 pmzk—
cool story bro
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March 17th, 2010 / 6:25 pmTim Ramick—
Being mocked in public by cowardly anonymous initials will also take some getting used to, I suppose.
Granted, vulnerability is often self-serving, and wounded pride is seldom interesting. But is becoming thick-skinned worth aspiring to—is it really an admirable quality?
March 17th, 2010 / 6:35 pmTim Ramick—
I withdraw the “cowardly” adjective. I obviously don’t know zk (I don’t know anyone here). Maybe zk’s just shy.
March 19th, 2010 / 5:24 pmzk—
I’m not shy or cowardly, just didn’t see your response until now.
I was just leaving an off-topic juvenile response to your post calling for less off-topic juvenile responses.
I can’t really see how my response could be seen as a public mockery but if that’s the way it came across then you have my sincere apologies Mr Remick.
March 19th, 2010 / 6:31 pmTim Ramick—
zk—I’m just an out-of-shape middle-aged guy who stumbled upon a pick-up basketball game and who can’t really play anymore (if I ever could) and the HTMLGIANT brand of run-and-gun isn’t one I can keep up with—and ZZZZIPP’s wit and your off-handed “bro” had already put me in my place—and I was sprawled on the pavement on my bruised ego—out-of-breath and wheezing and feeling stupid—and along came a chrysler thug to kick me in the balls.
All I meant by “cowardly” or “shy” (and it was wrong of me to use either word) is that I can’t know who you are (to whom I’m speaking) when you’re mere initials (though it seems others here know you and respect you so that should be enough for me). I dislike the anonymity of the web since it allows people to so easily be mean-spirited and flippant without accountability (I’m not suggesting you’re mean-spirited), thus killing authentic respectful conversation.
And none of this matters (and nobody needs to read this)—and I was admittedly posting tangential overwrought comments (like this one) and unfortunately annoying ZZZZIPP—whose persona and cleverness I enjoy and whose sly intelligence I admire more than anything I’ve come across at HTMLGIANT (though Blake yesterday posted an essay on poker and Beckett that I think is truly splendid—and Christopher Higgs’ posts are consistently interesting to me)—and I accept your apology (though it was unnecessary, since you meant no mockery, you were just being juvenile and having fun—same with your similar comment to Tim Horvath above with “*yawn*” included) and it’s bewildering to me that your use of ‘Mr’ with an ‘e’ instead of an ‘a’ can make me feel just like your ‘bro’ did above…
I’m way too self-conscious for this site.
Anyway—no foul, no harm…
March 17th, 2010 / 8:59 pmZZZZIPP—
ZZZZIPP FELT NAKED HERE
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March 17th, 2010 / 9:13 pmTim Ramick—
Is a naked photon sexy? Perhaps only to other photons (with corresponding senses of humor). I don’t know any photons. Are there basement photon clubs in big cities?
March 17th, 2010 / 9:42 pmZZZZIPP—
YOU ARE A BIT OF A ZZIPPOHOLIC
ANY SINZZIPPCERITY THAT ONCE EXIZZTED IS DROWNED
LET ZZZIPP BE ZZZIPP
MAYBE ZZZIPP HAD TO LEARN ABOUT THIS
March 17th, 2010 / 9:48 pmTim Ramick—
Fair enough. Genuine apologies for my clumsiness and I’m out of here (properly hushed).
March 19th, 2010 / 10:12 amchrysler5thavenue—
I wish you hadn’t posted this comment and your follow up comments so that I wouldn’t have had to read the parts of them that I did. Found them narcissistic, dull, and of no interest to me.
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March 19th, 2010 / 11:59 amTim Ramick—
I wish I hadn’t, either. There exists little more dull than a lonely out-of-work narcissist whose life and writing have temporarily stalled. Thanks for the considerate and time-well-spent critique.
March 20th, 2010 / 4:31 pmZZZZIPP—
CHRYSLER YOU DON’T HAVE PATIENCE FOR ANYONE, BUT YOU’RE JUST A CAR DEALERSHIP
Good job Ryan, Gene, and Brandon. I think this is a good idea and was funny to read. I would like to see more of this. It’s too bad that it turned into a negative thing in some of the comments.
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March 19th, 2010 / 10:15 amchrysler5thavenue—
Don’t stress over the negativity; the sun will continue to rise day after day.
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HEY- WHO HERE LOVES FISHSTICKS?
AND DJING?!
I’M THE DJ WITH FISHSTICKS FOR HANDS!
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March 17th, 2010 / 4:48 pmZZZZIPP—
SOUNDS DELICIOUS
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:02 pmKevin—
Have your mitts ever been covered in tartar sauce, and did this make you feel self-destructive?
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is SFAA a ‘roman a clef’? are the characters real people? Sam = Tao. Luis = Carles??? Sheila = Ellen Kennedy??? Robert = Zachary German??? where are the future Tao-ologists at?
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March 17th, 2010 / 4:59 pmZZZZIPP—
ZIP THOUGHT LUIS WAS BSG
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:25 pmanon—
i’m just guessing. i haven’t really thought about it. the main character in Zachary German’s book is named ‘Robert’ and there’s a Robert in SFFA, too, i think. i don’t know.
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:26 pmJimmy Chen—
one “blueberries mcbunnyfrog,” in various comments elsewhere, asserts:
Audrey, Amanda Farajian
Briana, Bianca Stone
Chris, Chris Johnston
Connie, Jamie Sterns
Hester, Ellen Frances
Gina, Gena Morgese
Jeffrey, Jeffrey Heart
Joseph, Joseph Moore
Kaitlyn, Kelly Ginger
Luis, Noah Cicero
Mallory, Mallory Coppenrath
Moby, Dennis Loy Johnson
Paula, Carmichael Monaco
Robert, Zachary German
Sam, Tao Lin
Sheila, Ellen Kennedy
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:31 pmanon—
thank you x 10000000000000000000000000000001.
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:23 pmjames yeh—
whoa, i just thought “moby” was moby. this changes everything.
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March 17th, 2010 / 8:57 pmZZZZIPP—
IF BSG IS NOT IN THE BOOK WHERE DOES HE EXIST, IS HE “FAKE”???
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March 17th, 2010 / 9:43 pmanon—
so..carles’ identity maybe revealed?
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March 17th, 2010 / 10:10 pmanon—
i think carles’s real name is ‘charles.’
since ‘we last spoke….’
drank 1x coffee, ate 1x vegan muffin, drank 4x water
listened to the new against me! cd
what do you guys think about the new against me! cd?
does anyone think luis is noah cicero?
what do you guys think about noah cicero?
i had to go to tutoring for the ACT today
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March 17th, 2010 / 9:47 pmaaron—
good job on hydration
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Wow. Cool thread. I am unhappy I “missed” it but have been lost in a professor well.
(that means salary committee/job search/judging a IN fiction contest/march madness bracket/nachos/theses committees/writing (huh?)/oh yeah and teaching. Forgot putting an undergrad magazine out, Monday.)
But I will thunk on this and read the comments and “survive.” Or I mean comment on what I feel.
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i’d like a copy of the book to see what all the fuss is about. but, i don’t have a clever comment to earn my copy. i can say this. i agreed with that one person.. i don’t know if others said it… but one person said something about the best way to treat reviews of SFAA or the work itself is just to read it and ask yourself how you feel when you’re done. after all, it’s not that long.
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:34 pmRoxane Gay—
Yeah, I want to read the book now too. I feel like I won’t get any of this discussion until I read the book. Maybe I will find it at a library.
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March 17th, 2010 / 5:46 pmtao—
hi roxane,
email me at binky.tabby [at] gmail.com and i will ‘happily’ mail you a copy
‘i guess’ i’ll mail you one too, matt, you can email me also
tao
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March 17th, 2010 / 6:29 pmzk—
tao, months ago you said you were going to send me a book of your poems because of when you & brandon shit talked me a little on gmail chat and then put it up on muumuu house. I’m still really looking forward to getting it. I ask the postman each and every day but he never has it :(
March 17th, 2010 / 7:43 pmtao—
mailing it within ~3 days
March 17th, 2010 / 7:44 pmtao—
re ‘zk’
So. Wait a minute. Let me understand this post and the 130+ comments following it.
Some critics dared to give this book a bad review? Critics – whose job it is to review books and state what they thought of it? Their own objective opinion? Which turned out to be less than favourable?
I am horrified that this sort of thing can go on in any right-thinking society.
I suggest we form a lynch mob, go round to their houses, beat them with sticks, kick them repeatedly in the stomach when they fall to the ground pleading for mercy, and then force them to watch as we put a shotgun to their pedigree cat’s head. That’ll teach them to not give bad reviews.
Bastards. All of them. Utter, utter bastards.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve found a particularly irritating piece of fluff in my navel, and I have to go and stare at it for hours. Or at least until it gets 130+ comments.
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March 19th, 2010 / 10:32 amchrysler5thavenue—
So let me get this straight: critiquing a book is ok, critiquing critiques of a book is petty, and critiquing critiques of critiques of books and critiques of critiques of critiques of books is what you chose to do at 6:10pm yesterday. Did I understand you correctly?
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Can’t believe people are getting bent out of shape about this. Thought it was a pretty logical critique of a sampling of the typical presumptuous critiques of Tao out there. If there’s anything to criticize here, it’s Gorrell’s “Ha ha” critique, which is really bad/dumb/lazy/cliche, but seems like people are just losing their shit because Gorrell & Lin’s personas are somehow threatening to their entrenched ideas about art & literature.
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March 17th, 2010 / 6:23 pmL.—
Maybe Gorrell is just getting defensive because these reviewers are blowing his mind apart from his entrenched ideas about art and literature? Woah man.
Seriously, all specifics aside, the “any critique means you can handle how radical the thing you critique’s thinking is” is so lazy and meaningless.
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:03 pmchrysler5thavenue—
Don’t think so. The excerpts he posted are pretty dumb. You might be dumb if you think they’re actually relevant.
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:04 pmL.—
*Whoosh*
March 17th, 2010 / 7:10 pmchrysler5thavenue—
Having trouble parsing your second paragraph.
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:12 pmI.—
In simpler terms: Just because someone thinks something is dumb does not mean they are “threatened” by it or that it challenges thier “entrenched ideas.”
I actually like Tao’s writing, but your criticism is even lazier than what you are criticizing.
March 17th, 2010 / 9:04 pmchrysler5thavenue—
Doesn’t mean that they aren’t either. How is ““Real art doesn’t hinge upon opaque observations and bland reproductions of the world” and “But [SFAA] doesn’t question anything either, and that’s its real failure.”snot an expression of an entrenched ideas about literature? If they aren’t threatened by them, why do critics decry his success? What other reason is there to decry someone’s success?
Pretty sure you’re the lazy one. Just criticizing my criticism for being too common and not necessarily true rather than actually applying it and seeing if it’s correct.
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:39 pmstephen—
chrysler, your first comment here reminded me of that tattoo brad renfro got all across his back before he died of heroin overdose that said “fuck all y’all” lol…
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March 17th, 2010 / 9:06 pmchrysler5thavenue—
I don’t get it.
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ate rigatoni noodles w/ marinara sauce, steamed broccoli, steamed kale w/ nutritional yeast, 4x vegan ‘meatballs,’ and bread
worked on writing for a little
might read, might record a song
dad told me i had to clean my room ‘by 8…’
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March 17th, 2010 / 9:54 pmaaron—
dang
do you cook it all yrself?
seems like it’s ‘worth it’ to clean yr room if the parental ‘unit’ is behind vegan dinner production.
sorta bummed you didn’t hydrate for this meal – in regards to previous mild excitement at hydration success x4.
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March 18th, 2010 / 9:27 pmAlec Niedenthal—
amazing, kevin
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March 18th, 2010 / 8:48 pmkevin—
ate two cold McDonalds hamburgers, with nothing on them, that had been sitting in a bag for 4 hours
went into a Duane Reade and bought a package of highly processed Peeps and several packages of highly processed chocolate covered marshmallows, easter themed
watched Bill O’Reilly on “The Factor” un-ironically while I tipped the remaining crumbs of a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips into my mouth,
said “word” un-ironically earlier, felt good dude
listened to Arcade Fire and Neutral Milk Hotel and felt good about the fact that a lot of people like them but that doesn’t detract from the intensity of the goodness of them
about to lay down because I’m tired from working my 40 hour a week, semi-manual labor, semi-craftsman job where I only earn $15 an hour
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do you think i’ll ever be famous? working on a very serious piece right now. it has avocados in it.
how it’s broin’ jordo?
thought ’should i comment on this’ like 5 hours ago.
seems i’m too late…
made really good guacamole tonight. will post pictures later…
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:00 pmdavid—
probably shouldn’t have commented at all..
drank too much margarita…
saved some in fridge, will finish later
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:56 pmstephen—
isn’t life wonderful?
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March 18th, 2010 / 9:12 amJordan—
Watch out, that next level up is pretty harsh.
March 17th, 2010 / 7:22 pmPaul—
can’t go wrong with avocados
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just started reading “eat when you feel sad” yesterday. so far it has made me laugh, the small nuances of daily routine and thoughts remind me of some of my own experiences in an interesting way, and there seems to be a lot of genuine emotion in it. plus i love the detached, unorthodox way he renders the scenes with him and various girls. sadly, sometimes that is “how it actually feels for a guy,” in my opinion.
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:13 pmstephen—
oh, and i really love the way he sort of tells his roommate that he likes him when his roomie thinks he doesn’t. that is very true to the stiff but sweet camaraderie that sometimes exists between guys.
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:15 pmstephen—
there’s so much genuine emotion in these boys (young men?), tao and zachary and brandon, and in ellen, etc. what is there to hate or condemn?
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:21 pmPaul—
are you indirectly referencing our camaraderie, stephen? ;)
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March 17th, 2010 / 7:48 pmstephen—
yes, it is stiff and sweet *rim shot* :)
i guess someone published a volume of beckett’s poetry recently. this description [via Conversational Reading] pricked up my ears (there’s that word again):
“But Beckett didn’t do minor. Or rather, and this was more and more true as his work went on, he was concerned to undo the distinction between major and minor: consider merely the titles of some later works: Texts for Nothing, Fizzles, Residua. Not to mention the fact that he’d reached his Endgame by 1957. In poetry, he’d already attained this almost-disappeared state some time before. An untitled French poem of the late 30s speaks of “des loques de chanson”—tatters of song. With Beckett, the leftovers are the meal. That might not be so problematic, considering that the work-as-fragment had been conceivable since Romanticism—except that in a manner even more radical than in his fiction or theater, Beckett’s poetry is distinctly and seemingly irreducibly strange and idiosyncratic. Alain Badiou could credibly claim to read a late Beckett prose work like Worstward Ho “as a short philosophical treatise, as a treatment in shorthand of the question of being,” which is to say, it might make sense to understand it in terms of an implicit claim to universality. By contrast, Beckett’s poems, early and late, do everything possible to undermine any possible universalization, and instead keep their own discourse mired in an individuality that is always trivial: thus, the Descartes ventriloquized in “Whoroscope” is concerned not with pure thought but with the egg he intends to eat, for as Beckett’s note informs us, he “liked his omelette made of eggs hatched”—he presumably means “laid”—“from eight to ten days; shorter or longer under the hen and the result, he says, is disgusting.” Beckett must have liked to sit on his texts for shorter or longer, for he is a connoisseur of disgust.”
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i liked this and didn’t think it really evidenced sycophancy at all. it seems adept enough and even useful at pointing out the moral economy of implicitly resentful rhetorical moves tao’s critics have on hand and level at him over and over again. this is a catalogue of tactics. i think where brandon writes “haha” after huw’s very eloquently composed critique it isn’t dumb at all. if huw says tao’s ‘bit’ is “just boundless, patronising cynicism, which invests the artist — like the priest or the monarch — with some clandestine wisdom mere lay folk can only ever hope to experience through the frail edifice of the artist’s world, but can never truly understand since everything is reduced to little more than residual, obsolete components anyway”, the idea of responding to this with ‘haha’ is deflationary and it encloses within it something like ‘thank goodness, then, that we have the robust edifice of the critical reviewer’s world to restore to ‘lay folk’ – who are apparently ‘not’ artists – their right to experience a world that is provides them with ‘wisdom’ and that allows them to understand themselves as not residual, obsolete components (for although they are indeed understood that way under the conditions of our social system, good art should apparently ’save’ them or give them the ‘tools’ to save themselves). i think this comment thread has really been loaded with a lot of pre-set opinions about gimmickry, fandom, appreciation, criticism, worthwhileness and the ‘responsible’ presentation of self.
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March 17th, 2010 / 9:38 pmzk—
I like your use of italics around the word ‘are’. it feels right
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March 18th, 2010 / 5:48 pmchrysler5thavenue—
David, I agree with your feelings about the contents of this comment thread. Having said that, I feel that your defense here of Gorrell’s “Ha ha” statement was, in a way, the opposite of Gorrell’s statement in that it was unnecessarily verbose, yet that verbosity also makes it similar to Gorrell’s “Ha ha” in that it is ineffective in communicating your point. If you need a paragraph as long as yours to explain the meaning of “Ha ha” and why it was effective at communicating his point, it does appear to bolster my initial point that it was bad/lazy.
Expanding on my assertion that that particular “Ha ha” critique was a cliche, Gorrell might as well have just written “LOL” like so many other people have in internet “flamewars” when they want to communicate intellectual superiority without bothering to demonstrate it. It was a disappointing conclusion to an otherwise well done dissection of Lin’s critics.
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there’s often a lot of praise here for Warhol but then we see here a slamming of similar tactics, when employed in lit. and i’m not referring to the ‘gimmicks’ but the way, i believe, TL writes. emotions and surfaces. and reproductions and the everyday. I’ve only read the things that are online, so I’m not expert, but it seems to me this might be a more productive way to go about this discussion, and something BSG could have explored more. this would have redirected the river of the reviews, instead of just splashing around in what was already said. I get BSG’s idea, I just feel like the delivery could have been more next level – read for: flatter or funnier or etc.
i haven’t had a chance to read the published works by “tao and zachary and brandon, and in ellen, etc” but i like some of the things online, and i adore poems about aliens, so at least they, as a collective, have that going for them.
the less we talk about TL’s tactics, the better. hell, the guy’s gotta make some money somehow. who am i to criticize his way? he would probably laugh if he knew what i did.
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really missed out by not being an early reader/commenter of this post. a full intellectual battle has begun and ended in much less than 24 hours. damn work, damn surf, damn eating and other things that aren’t the internet.
i’ve enjoyed going through all the comments and selectively posting on them.
tao (if you read this) – thanks for illuminating me/us (not that i wrote anything needing illumination). i’ve never seen you write this much, you seem one for brevity re: comments.
great job htmlgiants. carry on.
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rimjob
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I read slush for a couple of places, and I’ve yet to see anything as bad as what BSG and TL are currently writing. If you know the numbers behind putting out a book, you know that’s a sizable investment to put in someone writing moonshit.
If BSG and TL are terrible writers, then why do they continue to draw so much attention from us? What happens if we ignore them?
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March 17th, 2010 / 11:39 pmTrey—
I read slush for an undergrad-only magazine once and I can promise you that it gets worse. Like seriously so much worse. But I don’t think Tao Lin is as bad as some people think he is, so w/e
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March 18th, 2010 / 1:55 amreynard—
lawlzzz
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I was happy that Brandon Scott Gorrell addressed a fact that I also believe: that people have been writing articles about Tao Lin that I feel are sort of missing the point. I believe there is something legitimately genius about what Lin has done: managing a nebulous, high-profile public presence, and doing so artistically. Lin has a blog, tumblr, twitter feed, facebook, ebay promotions, vimeo account, and publishing company, and they all fit together in a very harmonious way. To me, his tactics are interesting, intricate and funny, and this is what distinguishes him from other authors. I really believe that other authors don’t self-promote as much as Lin, not because it’s tacky and embarrassing, but because they wouldn’t be able to do it with as much style.
It’s also genius how Lin has managed to promote himself through sheer force of will. His efforts speak to the importance of praxis in art, disengaged from the up-sweep of the art establishment. Swimming against the tide is difficult in and of itself. Not only does self-promotion allow an author to evade the vicissitudes of the mostly corporate publishing establishment, it draws attention to doing so. His marketing techniques can be regarded as statements against an industry that has become so stiff and homogenous that it is possible for him to do this and generate so much attention.
This is a risky tactic. High art and money aren’t supposed to directly intersect. Advertising, art’s dark twin, is thoroughly ignored by many artists who pride themselves in making sacrifices to keep away from a work environment that encourages compromise. The artist’s place in society is important- but an artist’s place in our post-industrial society can be very problematic. Does art ameliorate corruption, for example. Art like Tao’s takes the post-industrial consciousness into consideration, by including reference to advertising and low-brow marketing language. Like David Foster Wallace, right?
Art in the modern world is, of course, just as manipulative as advertising because the author and the publisher are selling art, for money, that you relate to more or less psychologically. Whatever complex processes lead you to buy a book, the center of it is psychological. Tao’s work not only points to the financial implications of that (by subverting the industry’s structure), but additionally the psychological ones. Does including advertising in your art make it less serious? Would you buy an author’s “un-serious” work? Or ever take it seriously enough to try and unpack it?
Would you also take an “un-serious” author seriously enough to consider his politics? Post-modern authorship is all about justifying the economic place of artists in an age where artists proliferate. I support Tao Lin in his art (buying his books) because I think he is a good person. I know he is a good person because he talks about himself and his consumer practices all the time. I heard an interview with him where he justifies spending so much effort on advertising himself because he believes that he will spend his money at organic vegan restaurants and places like that. I appreciate subversive people who eat food out of the trashcan and only shop-lift from publicly traded companies. Lin makes you aware that he is aware of the consequences of his economic actions, which in this day and age are wildly important. You get the feeling that he’d tell you if he did something wrong.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather consume art that is made by an honest person who tries to get along with the earth in a non-naive way than some evil slob. Not only that, but Lin provides tons of content for free to his readers. The ratio of free content I’ve consumed of Lin’s to the amount of money I’ve spent on his books really makes me feel like I’ve gotten a good value for my buck. His internet writing is so, so funny. I feel like I’m taking part in some sort of bountiful, generous internet prosperity when I read his blog. I feel like Lin is psychologically healthy if he is willing to trust that he’ll actually make money from such ventures. I feel like my artistic/reader relationship with Tao Lin draws from healthy emotional practices like trust and honesty.
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March 18th, 2010 / 12:24 amzusya—
Art like Tao’s takes the post-industrial consciousness into consideration, by including reference to advertising and low-brow marketing language. Like David Foster Wallace, right?
i assume this is a joke. but maybe there’s something wrong with me?
it is -indeed- a weird world that we currently find ourselves in
{regarding your references to economics-colliding-with-’Art’}
and maybe it’s just me, but i’d like to think that
What This Is All About
is more
than just
reading reference
into something
that probably wasn’t there to begin with.
maybe it’s just me.
/This = writing
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Battle Star Galactica. BSG.
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March 18th, 2010 / 12:28 amanon—
Props.
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What is the record for the number of comments on an HTMLGIANT post?
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March 18th, 2010 / 12:42 amTrey—
we’re not even close, bro
http://htmlgiant.com/mean/mean-week-is-your-week-i-guess/
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March 18th, 2010 / 1:24 ambrandon—
damn..
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Tao’s comments are gross. Yuck.
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i feel surprised that out of 200 comments, nobody takes exception to, “I don’t think the vegan characters in SFAA said or implied anything about being better than ‘mainstream consumer and work choices,’ but I guess that’s a matter of interpretation. But if they did, why wouldn’t they deserve to?”
i’ve read and enjoyed tao, brandon, and justin’s writing, although this mindset which becomes most apparent outside their work kind of sucks
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March 19th, 2010 / 10:54 amchrysler5thavenue—
How do you interpret “their mindset” and what part of your ethos does it challenge?
Also, I feel confused that you expressed surprise that people would take exception to that comment you quoted yet did not yourself explain what there is about that comment to take exception to. Your surprise in itself did not seem relevant to me. Maybe you just wanted exception to be taken and noted for your own reasons.
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March 22nd, 2010 / 8:54 pmjakob—
the implication that vegans deserve to pass judgment on society as a whole is a gross over generalization of an already tired cliche that only serves to undermine the writing itself, which posts like this are ostensibly designed to serve. given the breadth of comments, i was surprised this hadn’t been addressed and i wrote my first impression after reading, as many others did. if i did not consider whether anybody would find this relevant per se, i certainly didn’t think to bulletproof it from a passive aggressive cynicism long enough to develop an ethos
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March 22nd, 2010 / 8:58 pmStan—
Pretty hard to take vegans seriously in the year 2010, that’s for sure.
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March 23rd, 2010 / 3:32 pmchrysler5thavenue—
It has actually always been hard, actually. It is easier to brush vegans off than to consider a challenge to something you do several times a day (eat animal products) and have done your entire life and which is something you most likely define yourself by.
March 23rd, 2010 / 3:20 pmchrysler5thavenue—
How do you discern what anyone ‘deserves’ to pass judgment on? Is this a judgment call you are making or is there an authoritative source on this? If this is a judgment call on your part, do you deserve to be making it?
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March 24th, 2010 / 8:11 amjakob—
brandon’s exact word was “deserve”, that’s why i used it. i think we’re saying the same thing. no particular group really “deserves” to pass judgment on society as a whole without sounding kind of silly. i don’t have anything against vegans in particular.
the only reason i said anything is that i don’t recall any character from their books walking around imposing morals on people, they just seem confused mostly. which is more interesting to me than political or social imperatives
Brandon Scott Gorrell “masturbating furiously” at the number of comments on this post, that is.
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Even Tao (under the guise of several commenters) couldn’t have hoped for 200+ comments!
Someone owes someone a canned ham.
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i also think rebeccas comments be smart
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1A. blog posts about tao lin get lots of views/comments.
1B. blog posts about tao lin that get lots of views/comments make tao lin more famous.
1C. the more famous tao lin is the more books he will sell.
2A. blog posts that get lots of views/comments make the blog more famous.
2B. blog posts that get lots of views/comments make the blogger more famous.
2C. the more famous the blogger is the more books the blogger will sell.
3A. blogging about tao lin makes you and tao lin more famous.
3B. blogging about tao lin makes you and tao lin sell more books.
5. if you want to sell more books you should blog about tao lin.
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March 18th, 2010 / 10:16 pmmimi—
Count much?
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Zusya- my DFW comment largely concerned his story “Mr. Squishy”
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March 18th, 2010 / 10:20 pmmimi—
One of my pillows has a name, yes, and that name is “Senor Squishy”.
Am I now one degree less separated from TNY, (having finally broken down and commented on this thread)? Hey mom, I’m almost famous!
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March 18th, 2010 / 10:46 pmmimi—
He was named after Senor Swanky at 85th and Columbus in NYC.
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March 19th, 2010 / 12:38 pmmimi—
PS- This is not satire, namedropping, advertising or an endorsement.
March 20th, 2010 / 6:44 amzusya—
wasn’t it?
March 20th, 2010 / 11:51 ammimi—
Well, considering the more recent HTML GIANT post stating that this (this review of reviews post) has been linked by TNY, my thereby essentially “buying” (by putting my neck out and commenting on this thread) the Senor some TNY ad space, then yeah, I guess inadvertently (like that word here) my comment has “become” advertising. So I guess it “wasn’t” but now it “is”. The next time I’m in NYC I expect a free margarita from the Swanky guy.
I really just wanted to tell people about my pillow.
March 20th, 2010 / 10:25 pmzusya—
nah, id say all our comments are more like bits o’ graffito than advertising.
though that would be a sweet law, one i’d actually buy into to save “captialism”: In every instance a citizen voluntarily circulates a marketable product or brand name in a public space, owner of said product/brand name is obligated to recompense said citizen.
oh, and pillows. sweet.
March 20th, 2010 / 10:37 pmmimi—
/hi
oh, and I like this:
http://trololololololololololo.com/
I have no fucking idea what/who that is
(even though my intuition says I do)
it is funny
and maybe someday I’ll tell y’alls what my favorite piece of graffiti (my favorite graffito?) is that I ever saw, but it is naughty naughty and I’m not quite ready to do so
March 20th, 2010 / 11:18 pmTrey—
Trololo man is Eduard Khil, a Russian singer.
March 18th, 2010 / 10:38 pmzusya—
Rebecca- as far as i’m aware, namedropping products
simply for the sake of simply doing so
is advertising… the DFW’ story you mentioned
hell, even Subsidized Time in Infinite Jest
is obvious satire. giving credit where credit
isn’t due is akin to not getting the punch line
created by all the advertisers toiling to get their product
as deep in the consciousness of allpeople
and certain ‘rite’ers seem to be playing along.
/just saying ’s all.
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March 18th, 2010 / 11:41 pmI.—
I agree with zusya. Comparing a satire of corporate advertising with a story that sincerely drops product names to define its characters is pretty silly.
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my cat threw up this morning i got dehydrated trying to imitate her.
i’m very thirsty.
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Very Late to the Party, but isn’t Tao Lin kind of an Oscar Wilde figure? The persona is masterful–as are all the accompanying media…but the work is less interesting and/or dynamic and VERY much of its moment. I’m not saying Wilde or Tao Lin are bad writers, but the writing has become/will become secondary at some point. He’s a better showman in the world than on the page. In my read, his sense of drama is largely drained off the page, put into the world.
I’d be more interested to read an account of Tao Lin’s rise as an author within his scene done in that long-winded New Yorker style than to read more poems or novels. Just as the relentless revisiting of Wilde every so often seldom has much to do with the work and everything to do with the persona, wit, trials, etc. ‘Richard Yates’–which I’ll probably read–has a lot riding on it in that way. Will it just appear to be a further justification, or will it do something of its own?
Not that I think Tao Lin ought to try hard labor at any point. Which is no longer generally given for shoplifting.
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March 19th, 2010 / 11:14 amMatt Cozart—
Has Wilde’s work really become secondary?
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March 19th, 2010 / 11:18 amThe Importance of Being Tao—
I’d say yes. The way he’s written about, discussed, tend to treat his work as an aspect of the phenomenon ‘Oscar Wilde’ and his place in terms of aesthetics or the history of homosexuality. I can’t recall the last time I saw Dorian Gray or any of the plays mentioned in the context of–”oh, what a great book that is.”
I’d guess Lin is in the same sort of situation. His books are often lovely, rhythmic, but what’s new is how Lin’s ‘nothing’ is being imparted and promoted.
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March 19th, 2010 / 11:22 amstephen—
For people who don’t read much or who just need quotes for their Facebook wall, yes, but even then, there’s nothing “bad” about that. In the future, literature may become ‘merely’ exploding quotes and quixotic gestures.
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March 19th, 2010 / 11:25 amThe Importance of Being Tao—
Do you think Wilde’s work would still be read if Wilde hadn’t been Wilde?
March 19th, 2010 / 11:51 amstephen—
It damn well should be. Would something happen if something would not have happened that did happen?
March 21st, 2010 / 3:06 pmZZZZIPP—
ZZZZIPP WOULD NOT HAVE HAD TO GO TO THE BATHROOM IF ZZZIPP HAD NOT EATEN THREE ELECTRONS THIS MORNING
March 19th, 2010 / 11:20 amJordan—
> an Oscar Wilde figure
No. Next question.
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March 19th, 2010 / 11:21 amThe Importance of Being Tao—
I understand my error better as a result of your post.
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March 19th, 2010 / 11:41 amJordan—
And I am chastened by the humble tone of your reply.
Does anybody in this world have a sense of proportion anymore?
March 19th, 2010 / 11:46 amJordan—
I want to be clear – I’m not putting Tao down (or you, for that matter). But have you read The Decay of Lying lately? I just don’t see the overlap between TL and OW in work, reception, or world domination strategy. TL and Warhol, sure.
March 19th, 2010 / 11:40 amZZZZIPP—
SO TAO IS INTERESTING BECAUSE HE IS NON-TRADTIONAL BUT IN ORDER FOR HIM TO BE TRULY INTERESTING WE HAVE TO INSERT HIM INTO A TRADITIONAL NARRATIVE
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March 19th, 2010 / 11:44 amThe Importance of Being Tao—
I thought he had inserted himself into a traditional narrative? Just very well and with many new toys? I don’t dislike the toys, or the books.
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March 21st, 2010 / 3:05 pmZZZZIPP—
ZZZIPP JUST MEANT “SO HIS ART IS USELESS W/O THE NEW YORKER ARTICLE? WHY NOT JUST WRITE THE NEW YORKER ARTICLE BUT FICTIONAL??”.
people are still commenting… this is slightly insane
drank so much wine last night… feel surprisingly good this morning.. watching ‘the office’
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Wilde’s work is in no way secondary. I haven’t read Dorian Gray, but his plays are an absolute joy. Dude was not simply living off of his ‘persona.’
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March 19th, 2010 / 1:48 pmNathan Tyree—
Exactly. Maybe the persona has outlived him, but the work was at the center of it all.
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damn who is tao lin?
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the asian morrissey
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Zusya- You would like Tao Lin for the same reasons you would think Jack Donaghey is funny on 30 Rock.
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March 20th, 2010 / 12:19 amzusya—
in person? J.D. is the alec baldwin character?
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first
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Tao is like his peers, and like a lot of writers contributing to internet sites and publishing through small presses (that is, he is like almost everyone reading this site). He has some degree of talent, and is writing within the range his talent allows. Hopefully, just as we all hope for ourselves and for each other, he’ll transcend his current work and produce something extraordinary, or he’ll at least keep steadily expanding his range.
So far, Tao’s talent, it seems to me, from my limited and fleeting exposure to his work, is for communicating what it’s like for a character to have no emotional attachment to the world. When he says, above, in the stock-in-trade voice of his literary persona, that he read his friend brandon’s poetry collection — you’d think it would be one of the joys in his life — “each time with high levels of interest, intellectual stimulation, feelings that the writing was innovative and exciting, and feelings of being emotionally affected” — that’s perfect. “I had feelings of being emotionally affected” — that’s exactly how an emotionally empty character would speak. Such a character wouldn’t know how to describe what it meant *to be* emotionally affected by a work of writing, and so would say, “I had the feeling of being emotionally affected.”
I realize this may be a comment that he just tossed off, but it seems so representative of his work — at least what I’ve read — this dead-empty lack of any emotional engagement or response, so eloquently expressed, in language no one else would think to use. It’s the consummate literary representation of emptiness, or despondency, or maybe depression, even.
I also think it’s easy to mistake this thing Tao is doing for terrible writing. “What do you mean you had a feeling of being emotionally affected?” a writing teacher would want to say, “tell us how it made you feel.” But it didn’t make him feel anything, or it barely did, or he may not even be aware of what it would mean if it had affected him. That was the point.
The one thing setting Tao apart from his peers, of course, is his relentless promotion of himself and his work, and in the echo-chamber of the internet he has managed to generate a kind of hysteria that is out of proportion to the strength of his writing. At least this is what I think. Hundreds of comments on throw-away blog posts about his book. Justin’s rant against Brandon. The people on this thread struggling, so inarticulately, many of them, to describe Tao’s contribution, when his contribution is, so far, I think, limited by the range of his talent, in the interesting but ultimately one-dimensional way I tried to describe.And I would guess that this why the kind of notoriety he seeks (reviews in the New York Times, book deals with major publishers, regular pieces in N + 1) have so far eluded him.
(I should add what when I do read SFAA, I will read it with my fingers crossed that it changes my mind about what I just said.)
One way to look at the craft of writing is that everyone promotes their work, and there’s nothing wrong with that, and you should get your work in front of as many people as possible, in the loudest and most manipulative way you can.
But there’s another way to think about the problem, which is that, ultimately, the strength of the work is all that matters, and every story (or novel) finds a home with the audience it was meant to have, and all you can really do is help it on its way. How did Steve Elliott spread the word about his book, get it onto so many “best of” lists, and come within a whisper of seeing it nominated for a National Book Award? He read it to people in their homes. It turned out that was enough.
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March 20th, 2010 / 3:00 amtao's blog—
tao’s entire first book is about feelings, described in sort of a tradtional manner, have you read ‘bed’? i think some of the stories are online, search ’sasquatch’
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March 20th, 2010 / 3:35 amSean Carman—
OK, that piece is very good. Thank you for pointing me to that. I would encourage everyone to read it:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/20132558
Speaking only as a consumer of art, I would enjoy reading more of that, and less often running into the internet train wrecks that seem to involve your work, this post and its comments being a prime example. But maybe that is out of your power, or is not possible, or I should just learn to see them coming and avoid them.
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March 20th, 2010 / 3:36 amSean Carman—
Also, more than anything else, reading that has made me want to order your books, so again, thanks for that.
hey, i didn’t write that, i’m not tao, yuo’re welcome though and here’s the full text of that by the way http://eeeee-eee-eeee-bed.blogspot.com/2006/08/though-shed-begun-to-get-bit-fat-that.html
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I think a lot of Tao Lin’s work reflects an engagement with Buddhist practice. I don’t think a lot of commentators have noticed. I think if a different writer, writing about older and more experienced characters, were creating and then mining the tropes Tao Lin has created and mined, and if the novels and poems were being received absent knowledge of Tao-as-spectacle, I think they would be read differently. Reading them, I think they’re very different from the conversations people are having about them. And I also think that the new novel is considerably more accomplished than the earlier novel and the earlier stories. I think that it’s a testament to the singularity of Tao’s project that it has stirred so much controversy, and I don’t think that even a self-promoter as brilliant as Tao would be able to attract so much attention and stir so much controversy over such a long period of time if the work itself wasn’t interesting. I don’t think that the work is of uniform quality (but whose is?), but it’s never not interesting. It’s almost always formally provocative, provocative at the level of story and character and especially point of view, and, lately, philosophically provocative. I don’t think that its conversation about detachment is a gimmick or a device, either. I think it’s a sincere conversation about detachment.
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March 20th, 2010 / 5:52 amSean Carman—
Thanks, Kyle. I appreciate that.
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March 20th, 2010 / 11:27 amstephen—
Damn. Extremely well-said, Kyle. I agree, and have written elsewhere, echoing Tao’s conversation with Michael Silverblatt, that Shoplifting “enacts Buddhism.”
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March 20th, 2010 / 11:34 amstephen—
Two writers I admire, Salinger and Foster Wallace, both refer to Buddhism, and Foster Wallace has moments where he achieves a kind of ’stillness,’ if you will, but Shoplifting, rather than talking about Buddhism, actually embodies and enacts Buddhist principles, removing the abstract, killing thought, existing firmly in the here-and-now.
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March 20th, 2010 / 11:37 amstephen—
…and of course, I should also say that Salinger humanizes and Americanizes Buddhism, exposes its interrelation with the teachings and example of Jesus, and provides all kinds of moments of stillness, quixotic gestures and trembling melodies. I don’t mean to take anything away from Salinger or Foster Wallace, I just note, approvingly, the radicalness with which Tao incorporates Buddhism into his writing.
March 20th, 2010 / 11:57 ammimi—
Agree with all of this little Buddhist thread here, and will just add that Tao’s Bookworm interview with Silverblatt was the single experience (beyond my initial readings of SFAA, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a bunch of his online stuff, & his blog) that gave me a leap in my understanding of what he (Tao) is doing in his writing.
His (Tao’s) long comment in this thread reiterates this quite well.
I like Tao’s writing and Brandon’s, but it’s “quite different” to the environment in the UK (London). Reading reviews of Tao Lin’s books seems to give me an idea of what others perceive me to be or my life to be. Sort of feel alone in this explanation.
Saw some of Tao’s books in Foyles (London). It is posted on my tumblr.
Also, where is E.K.?
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March 20th, 2010 / 11:25 amstephen—
Hey David, love the description of your blog:
“19 year old boy studying ‘classics’ in London.
Usually photos of friends.
It’s all a bit of a shambles really.”
Cheers, man
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Brand Scott Gorell is not a very good writer. Tao is a good writer. Just because Tao is a good writer and says BSG is a good writer does not mean BSG is a good writer. Tao supporting BSG is fine but hurts TL brand in the long run.
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March 20th, 2010 / 1:54 pmstephen—
“good”? “‘hurts’ ‘TL brand’ ‘in the long run’”?
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March 20th, 2010 / 1:58 pmstephen—
Tao on the word “nice”:
“Nice”
I think I am glad the word “nice” exists. It allows people who “like” certain things to abstractly describe those things without using the word “good.” I feel that using the word “nice” to describe something can imply “I like it but it is not wrong to dislike it” whereas using the word “good” can imply “I like it and therefore it is wrong to dislike it.” In conclusion of this paragraph I think the existence of the word “nice” allows people who think “there is no good or bad in art” to say things about art things while still feeling like “there is no good or bad in art.”
In terms of abstractions I mostly associate the word “nice” with calmness, detachment, cleanliness, and denying one’s urges to allow others more opportunities to satisfy their urges. My strongest concrete association with the word “nice” is maybe any kind of scene where a 15-45 year old male walks in on a sexual act between a male friend and a female (that he and his male friend had earlier discussed) and then says or thinks “nice.”
My main usage of the word “nice” is maybe thinking “nice” to myself whenever something happens where “reflexes” show they are effective, impressive, and recently successful. For example if I am walking to a table and a muffin unexpectedly falls from my hand and me or someone else catches the muffin before it touches the ground I will automatically and immediately think “nice.” The more perilous the situation, like if the ground is really dirty or the muffin is “heavily frosted,” the more intensely I will think “nice” probably.
But I feel that no matter how intensely I think “nice” I will always think it in a calm, detached manner. If my head is about to be severed by a guillotine in 12th century England and people are spitting at me and calling me a traitor, and I am thinking hard about how to escape the situation, and I see someone in the crowd accidentally drop an ear of corn then catch it less than 12 inches from the ground with their foot, I honestly feel that I would stop thinking about how to escape from the situation in order to focus all my energy on thinking “nice” in a calm, detached manner.
The word “nice” makes me feel more meaningless and accepting of death maybe. If “there is no good or bad in art (or, viewing ‘everything’ as art, no good or bad in anything)” then it is neither good nor bad if I die (or something like that).
In conclusion I like the word “nice.” If there are ten people in a room and one person says “[a painting or book or something] is good” a certain conversation will occur whereas if one person says “[a painting or book or something] is nice” a certain different conversation will occur. I currently prefer participating in and listening to the second kind of conversation. I would like to add that I usually do not really think or do not often think “nice” or “not nice.” I usually think things like “wow,” “funny,” “haha,” “[nothing],” “damn,” or combinations of those like “wow, haha.” But I feel maybe that most or all of those could replace “nice” in this essay and not change the essay.
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March 21st, 2010 / 1:50 amzusya—
that 1st paragraph felt like a nice face-first trip through a “-thresher to get to the actual interesting bits that followed. but what exactly warranted this bit of copy pasta? nicety?
it’s Not that I Can’t ascErtain why such an over-
nice posting would be posted in the first place (post place?),
it’s just that such nice noodling is as relevant to the Original Post as a-
n ice-
blink is
to a fisherman.
/wishing my name was ca-
nice right now…
Think Tao Lin wants me to post here. Not sure what to say. Feel like zombocalypse has happened, and am pretending to be wounded for some reason.
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Sorry, sorry, but I cannot believe we are talking about Oscar Wilde, David Foster Wallace and countless others when talking about Tao Lin. Am I the only one to notice a connection between David Foster Wallce’s essay/review on Updike and Tao Lin saying he would be happy to be the 21st Century Asian Updike, with at least on reviewer noticing the connection between Tao’s characters and the solipsistic Rabbit? And I say “characters”, when they are all essentially the same affectless, bored, emotionally detached character? Or how pretentious it is so claim that a Buddhist philosophy rules your life when your parents paid for your privileged education and you continue to shamelessly promote your own work? I mean, it’s pretty easy to live a life of acceptance and non-attachment when you arn’t living in, I don’t know, a ghetto, or a slum, or a place with genuine problems that don’t just go away by choosing to accept the oneness of life. And it doesn’t answer the question – if you are completely unattached to life…why carry on living? What is holding you back from complete oblivion?
As for the nice debacle: has anyone read AJ Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic? No one have any idea that the emotivism that Tao puts forward was dismissed as relativist at best and nihilistic at worse by philosophers over 60 years ago? What about Wittgenstein and rule following giving us the ability to actually give words like “good” or “bad” some sort of community-based meaning? I mean if there is no such thing as “good”, then you can’t call rape bad. You can only say “not nice”, which basically accepts the is-ought gap, which etc etc etc. Doesn’t quite cut the philosophical mustard, I’m afraid. What about justice? Good? Nice? And if we are going just by emotions, and feelings, well, then your into a kind of utilitarianism which attempts to decrease suffering…but what happens if the best way to decrease suffering for the majority of people also increases suffering for a much smaller minority of people – the suffering still being greatly in the negative side due to the great majority of people? Should you endorse the plan? All Tao can say is that it is ‘not nice’. Doesn’t solve the problem as to whether or not we should punish a small group of people in order to decrease the suffering, or ‘not-niceness’, of a much larger group of people. Tao cannot argue against the plan, as, ethically, there is nothing to argue against – all he can do is say the plan is, to him, not nice.
Am I the only know who sees how utterly shallow this guy’s work is? If SFAA was set in a Buddhist monastery, written by a Buddhist monk, I’d go, here is a guy who sticks by his guns. In fact, I’d doubt the monk would even WANT to write the book. But a guy who pestered the Gawker into paying attention to him? A guy who is as happy to spend all day on his laptop (material attachment?) as he is staring at a mountain? How much money does Tao Lin give away? At least Oscar Wilde was an aesthete who loved life and considering it an art form just like Dorian Gray. He lived out his philosophy. And DFW spent his entire life fighting depression, fighting being cut off from other human beings, spent his entire life trying to reach out and connect with the very core of other human beings, and who spent parts of Girl With A Curious Hair finding faults with the minimalist aesthetic, and who spent most of Infinite Jest trying to explain how cliches and senitment can have genuine meaning and value between people and how this can save us from being marooned in our own heads and our own ways of shutting life out, and who spent parts of Brief Interviews With Hideous Men fighting for a way to emotionally connect with the reader and not resort to scare-quotes, and who was a deeply moral person, who wasn’t afraid to talk about good fiction – “I just think that fiction that isn’t exploring what it means to be human today isn’t good art” – because he understood you could argue about these things, in fact, you have to argue about these things, otherwise art is no different to a Mars Bar or the Da Vinci Code or a slap in the face, in terms of niceness or not niceness, and who understood that being human today is learning to deal with your emotions as a responsible adult, rather than trying to shut them out, and at least he didn’t just reread the same 20 books over and over. Rant over.
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March 20th, 2010 / 7:31 pmreynard—
shredding on the world’s smallest guitar right now, all minor chords
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March 20th, 2010 / 7:32 pmstephen—
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxxPLDZnqwA
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March 20th, 2010 / 7:44 pmbrandon—
that video is funny
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Hater? Sorry, so putting forward an opinion you disagree with makes me a hater? And trying to back it up makes me a hater?
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March 20th, 2010 / 8:17 pmryan—
It was a great and sensible post. Don’t worry about the snarks.
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March 20th, 2010 / 8:24 pmreynard—
i told myself i wasn’t going to get into one of these discussions, but oh well.
have you read bed, james? bed is straight up updike, dawg. i don’t think the other books are though, because they’re all very different stylistically.
philosophy is not a stagnant field of thought, nor is it exactly a science. so i think yr philosophical mustard has expired and maybe you’ve got food poisoning, and so you’re spraying word vomit here. sorry to hear about that. i don’t think tao wants to be a goddamn philosopher – it’s just stories and poems and shit, chillax.
if someone is raised buddhist it follows that those ideas will shape their way of perceiving the world. what does being a monk have to do with anything. you don’t have to be a monk to be buddhist.
poverty – i dunno about you, but i live in america. and it’s a weird place because even poor people get financial aid and you don’t have to be rich to live in new york city, you just have to be okay with not going on vacation until you move away. it’s crazy, i know.
as far as material attachment goes, the internet is practically immaterial by its very nature. the laptop is just a way to interact with it. a laptop is not a maserati.
you clearly don’t relate to tao’s work: okay.
when i loan one of tao’s books out (often to people who don’t read many but enjoy, say, salinger or vonnegut or something like that) they always read it and find it to be funny/timely/intuitive. whereas, if i give them, say, pynchon, they’re like, dude, what the hell is this. to me, that says a lot.
re: ‘characters’ – watch tv if you wanna see ‘characters’ – if tv is doing it, why should literature, what would be the point. this reminds me of the faceless believer thing: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200311/?read=article_baxter
what i’m saying is, your attempt to ‘back it up’ is weak sauce. if it’s expired, trash it.
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March 20th, 2010 / 9:14 pmmimi—
You’re funny, Reynard, and make some good points in your own-special-voice way. Especially about Buddhism/being a monk.
I need to read Bed.
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March 21st, 2010 / 12:57 amreynard—
thx, mimi, but are you calling me special sauce?
anyway, you won’t regret it; put it to bed.
March 20th, 2010 / 10:38 pmryan—
I do agree that James’s take on Buddhism—especially the idea of non-attachment—seemed kind of off, but I just chalked that up to a lack of experience w/ the practice. (No big deal, Buddhism isn’t exactly the ‘thing’ here in america.)
Dismissing Wittgenstein as expired seems kind of dangerous.
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March 21st, 2010 / 1:06 amreynard—
i want to start a thrash band called wittgenstein-cum-lichtenstein
As for the Buddhism thing, the point I was trying to make was that it seems a bit pretentious to say that Tao is creating a Buddhist aesthetic with his work. No, you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk to be a Buddhist, but I think if your going to give the world such a strict Buddhist outlook on life (a rejection of emotions and a complete in-the-momentness)…well, your in tricky water. What exactly is Tao trying to say about Buddhism? That is is a nice thing? That it’s getting him through life? Well, good for you Tao – doesn’t make it literature. It makes one spoiled NYU grad experimenting with Buddhism and writing. George Saunders is very interested in Buddhism, but his writing remains full of action, dilemmas, strong character voices and emotion. Could you imagine a line like “my torn and black heart rebels, saying enough already, enough, this is as low as I go”, in Tao’s fiction? No, because I don’t believe he knows how to move a story from A to B to what should be clichéd writing, but is actually packed full of meaning and affection due to points A and B. Tao’s representation of Buddhism is just that – Tao’s. And it seems a rather narrow interpretation that still allows for healthy profit margin and the targeting of a very specific demographic.
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March 20th, 2010 / 11:38 pmryan—
I always thought a Buddhist acknowledged emotion more than rejected it?
I agree with you, though. I think the ‘enacts Buddhism’ thing was a total cop-out, an excuse for shitty writing that was based on a bad understanding of Buddhism on stephen’s part, IMO.
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March 21st, 2010 / 12:25 pmstephen—
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLsHP94bvXs
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To be honest, I’m not an expert, but I always understood Buddhism as non-craving, trying to cut down our cravings and wants and needs to cut down suffering. Ie, detach from emotions, as they lead to cravings and wanting and desires. Like the koan “Be genuine” – you realise your selfhood is meaningless, that being is the only way (or something). But this seems to have come about mostly in SFAA…not so much in Bed, or Eeeee Eee Eeee. And even if we stretch so far as to say that Tao is enacting a Buddhist aesthetic…why should we believe in Buddhism? What reason does this way of life give us to carry on living, or performing in the Buddhist way, especially if you don’t believe you’ll reach Nirvana or be reincarnated? Tao seems to go from nihilism in Eeeee Eee Eeee (“he wants to quit his life like a job”…”it is impossible to be happy”…”the earth is just a massive grave”) then in Bed we get some existentialism and absurdism (don’t have the book to hand, but I remember Tao embraces the whole alienated/outsider/”hell is other people” thing but forgets about Camus’s whole passion for life/life in revolt against death thing ) and then with SFAA – Buddhism? Quiet a philosophical journey.
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March 21st, 2010 / 1:12 amreynard—
what is an expert? i’m an expert at creating turds; they come out perfectly formed 95% of the time.
do you think tao should use the sarcmark in his next novel? i think maybe you want him to.
i’m going to rage in my kitchen now.
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March 21st, 2010 / 3:04 pmZZZZIPP—
HTMLGIANT SHOULD BE RENAMED “NIHILISM CENTRAL”. WHAT IS “ANYTHING”. WHAT IS THIS “POST”. “WHAT’S A POST”. “WHAT’S A PHOTON”. “WHAT IS BLAKE BUTLER”. “WHERE’S MY DAD”. “I CAN’T FIND MY DAD”. “MY DAD HAS BEEN MISSING FOR THREE DAYS”.
I WILL FIND YOU PAPA ZZZZIPP
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March 21st, 2010 / 3:58 pmTim Ramick—
look for him in the land of anomie (excuse the whispering—i’m not supposed to be here)…
March 21st, 2010 / 4:04 pmZZZZIPP—
TIM IT’S OKAY YOU CAN BE HERE
March 21st, 2010 / 4:20 pmTim Ramick—
in ZA circles that’s called enabling
March 21st, 2010 / 4:42 pmZZZZIPP—
ZZZZIPP JUST WANTS TO BE NICE
SORRY YOU HAVE TO GO TO ZA MEETINGS
It would be more interesting if the posters at HTML Giant would all post their opinions about this novel in a post on HTML Giant as an alternative to this post. But maybe they’ve already done that.
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March 22nd, 2010 / 7:56 amzusya—
replace ‘interesting’ with ‘not petty’
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non-judgmental calm awareness = buddhism
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[...] A review of negative reviews of Tao Lin’s “Shoplifting from American Apparel.” [...]
I just wanted to say, that this is another comment to add but, when I saw 332 comments I thought to myself – Holy shit, Tao must have lit GWB on fire or something. – this is 333 unless someone else posted while I was writing. so, holy F, 333 comments, what is the record?
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March 22nd, 2010 / 9:53 pmTrey—
I posted above somewhere a link to the post from Mean Week “Mean Week is your Week too, I guess”. I don’t know if it’s the “record” but it has 5xx, nearly 600 comments.
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of course i’m just a temp caboose here. but THE caboose for the moment. kind of like when me and my boys were pulling a train on your mom and the next thing i know someone is pushing a hard salami between my butt loafs of bread.
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March 23rd, 2010 / 2:07 amzusya—
Jesus Christ guys…
pry your pale faces away from the variegated
terminal screens you’re’ll stuckstaring into
for likely longer than you ever done w/a TV;
‘lite‘rature is about a useful as…
well,
i’m not sure.
you got anything else to share?
/I yield the floor to the right honorable Mr Dick.
//’…’
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and my butt loaves too
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What is your favourite fairytale and/or ‘classic childrens story’
???
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March 27th, 2010 / 12:29 pmzusya—
/chop.
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[...] Cicero sent this to me last week. And yes, it is another (slight) commentary on a review of Shoplifting from American Apparel. If you're unfamiliar with [...]