“Dominant” is a term I stole from the Russian Formalists; it essentially means a feature or aspect of a text that most people feel that the text, to be valid, should demonstrate or otherwise include. (e.g., rhyme was often a dominant in English poetry until the 20th century and the advent of free verse; now the situation is mostly the opposite.) (See also this.) Below, I’ll list “my twelve” dominants, but please see the full article for a more thorough explanation…

So here are The Twelve (slightly revised). As a bonus, I’m also including their “opposites,” which is something I’ve been thinking about since (and thanks to Anne Shaw for her help in thinking through those):

1. Ironic vs. Sincere
2. Brief vs. Long (essentially a Minimalist/Maximalist distinction)
3. Twee (Precious) vs. Ephemeral/Disposable
4. Clean vs. Messy/Careless
5. Nostalgic vs. A-historic/Present
6. “Languagey” (Ornate) vs. Prosaic/Plainspoken
7. Conceptual vs. Organic
8. Parataxical vs. Hypotactic/Syllogistic
9. Collage vs. Homogeneous
10. A-narrative vs. Narrative/Anti-narrative
11. Vulgar (Profane) vs. Classical/Mystical
12. Confessional vs. Mediated

And a few explanations/caveats:

1. The qualities on the left are the ones that I find to be (currently) more valued, but that’s not to say that everyone then accepts them as dominants in their own work. But I do think that these qualities exert a real pressure on all of us. (I know I feel them.)
2. In other words, the easiest way “to get by” right now is write work that features some or all of the qualities on the left. (Note that it may not be possible to include all of them; I am surveying a pretty large scene which is itself comprised of lots of different scenes. Part of what I found challenging about writing the article was that it was asking me to summarize a lot of disparate writers, when I tend to favor a more thoroughly analytical approach.)
3. Obviously—but I feel this bears repeating—this list is subjective and contingent. (I’d be happy to hear about what elements you feel as dominants.)
4. Also obviously there are alternatives other than the simple binaries I’ve presented here—but, again, I think that these binaries do exist “out there,” and are strongly felt.
5. See the original article for a more thorough explanation of all of these. (Although not that thorough: I was told I had to stay under 2000 words, preferably closer to 1500—there’s that pressure toward brevity!)

And because I want to better explain/test all of this, let’s try applying these concepts to Tao Lin’s Shoplifting from American Apparel (2009). Now, I have no idea what Lin was thinking/feeling when he set down to write that novella. But it now exists, and is part of the literary landscape, and as such it in some ways helps configure that literary landscape. And a lot of indy writers are influenced by Lin. So what are Shoplifting‘s qualities as per the above list? That work is, I’d argue:

1. Sincere (although people may disagree with me there—but I feel as though Shoplifting marked a big move away from irony in Lin’s writing; compare, for but one example, its ending with the ending of Eeeee Eee Eeee)
2. Brief (it’s a novella and favors short episodes)
3. Twee (Precious)
4. Clean
5. A-historic/Present (the disappearance of nostalgia is one of the reasons why this novella reads differently from Eeeee Eee Eeee)
6. “Languagey” (Ornate) (some may dispute this, but I think the prose is very wrought)
   
7. Conceptual (this one less so than the others, whereas Richard Yates is very conceptual) (and I may be wrong about this one; this is a place where the binary, when applied, breaks down)
   
8. Parataxical (it’s extremely parataxical)
9. Collage (the style is homogeneous, but the style includes radical elisions)
10. Narrative/Anti-narrative
11. Vulgar (Profane) (i.e., it’s realist)
    
12. Mediated (of course, other work by Lin is extremely confessional—but in Shoplifting, despite its autobiographical elements, the narrative distance between Sam and Lin’s third-person narrator is crucial) (I think that the novella’s sincere + mediated + present qualities may be mistaken for irony)

…Although, again, a caveat: this is more an illustration of the concept than anything; I didn’t create the list suggesting that it could be applied willy-nilly to texts or writers. Rather, it’s meant to point out pressures that exist in the current indy lit landscape—qualities we’re drawn to by other works, our peers, commercial pressures, the infrastructure of publishing, more.

And this is a work in progress; I welcome your thoughts! And I plan to write more about all of these (and/or other) dominants…in the future!

Update: There’s a story by Roxane Gay in the same issue. Which was guest-curated by Jarred McGinnis. And which was edited by Melissa Mann.

Shoplifting from American Apparel is being made into a movie.  Here is a link to the kickstarter page. All of the information is there.  It’s being done by the same people who did Noah’s The Human War and I think it looks pretty exciting.  I’m going to donate.  I suggest you do the same if you want to.  Don’t donate if you don’t want to.  Smoke weed if that’s your thing.  I’m disabling comments because I don’t care.

In one of the reviews of Tao Lin’s Shoplifting from American Apparel Huw Nesbitt makes the statement, “Real art seeks to examine the truth as it is; not through relativism, atomism, or universalism, but by seeking that which once was or irrevocably, true.” If you have read analytic philosophy your first thought after reading those lines will probably be, “Those sentences don’t make any sense.” The proposition, “the truth as it is,” is actually relativism and universal in its meaning. How can something be true but not universal is a contradiction. To not believe in cultural relativism is to not believe in sociology which was a theory proposed by Leo Strauss. In his book Natural Right and History which described how sociology was evil because it leads to liberal nihilism. Leo Strauss is also the philosopher that neocons hold up as a their primary inspiration. Nesbitt then states, “but by seeking that which once was or irrevocably, true.” This statement is strange, I had to look up the word irrevocably to get an exact definition. Irrevocably means, “A decision impossible to retract or revoke.”

You can use the word irrevocably when talking about having a baby or going to war, basically starting something you have to continue to its end. I’m assuming that Nesbitt means when he states, “but by seeking that which once was or irrevocably, true” that truth is like war or having a baby and that one must continue to the end with their truth. Which is also of the conservative mindset. That one must pick a truth at an early age and never let it go no matter what information may come into play.

I sat and thought, “What makes writing? Why does a writer write?” Here are some personal ideas. These are not maxims, just some ideas from a random person who likes to read and write.

Anxiety: A writer is full of anxiety and writes to try to come to terms with their reality or choices. To try to give language to what they are feeling.

Feelings: They have feelings without words, feelings surging up in them and they are trying to give the feelings words, sentences, images, to try to understand them.

Love: They love something, can’t stop thinking about it and want to write about it because they can’t get it out of their mind.

Thought of something: They noticed something, thought of something, they assume other people might want to hear.

Forgiveness: This is a strange one, but can be seen in many writings. Jean Rhys always seems to be asking forgiveness for her strange behavior. Richard Wright seems to be asking for the behavior of black people reduced to poverty and white people being misled by their culture about black people. Richard Yates seems to be asking for forgiveness about suburban people.

Not having anyone to talk to, so they write: Some people have a hard time with impromptu conversation, but they still want to express themselves so they retreat to their computers and write.

I don’t think this ‘makes literature’ anything. But I believe these are some things literature is about for some people.

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?

A couple days ago, I sent out an email asking a fairly large group of writer, editor and publishing friends to send me their nominations for “top 3 books published this year.” I told them to interpret “top” any way they chose to, and to feel no pressure to expound on their choices in any particular way. The plan is to publish a large list of all the Top 3 lists next week (so far I’ve received 20 contributions, and they’re still coming in) but yesterday I kicked off the festivities early by posting one response by Zak Smith in advance of the full list. Today I’m offering up my own selections, prefaced by a short explanation of the way I chose to interpret my own injunction to choose the “top” books of the year.

I spent large swaths of 2009 struggling with fiction, especially novels, while also struggling to write one. (Anyone see a relationship between those two facts? … Didn’t think so.) Here are three novels that challenged and expanded my notion of what a novel could, should, or ought to be, but more important than that: they provided me with enormous entertainment and edification. The three are vastly different, but each is, I think, a work of startling interiority, and this seems to be what I needed in ’09. Each book in its own way offered me succor and deliverance from the confines of myself, by offering up for a getaway space the extraordinary confines of some other self, and I returned from each readerly excursion in better shape than when I left.

Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin.

The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell.

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker.

ALSO: A special shout-out to My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer, which has a 2008 © in it but didn’t really surface until early ’09. A massively important book and instantly among the most important and treasured Collecteds I own.

My good friend, Soffi Stiassni, formerly of the Tao Lin Internship Program, and also an alumna of this site, has reviewed her ex-boss’s new novella. Now, I know a lot of people feel like we’ve been linking to Tao-related and SFAA-related stuff too much. Well, go fuck yourselves. Seriously.

Essentially, the reader of “Shoplifting from American Apparel” is a voyeur, preying upon characters who are voyeurs. Beneath a patina of isolation and ennui the innocence of these characters remains. They are intact, untouched, half members of the world at large.

Getting a head in life

In writing about Shoplifting from American Apparel, I will try very hard not to say if it’s good or bad. I will also not align myself as a fan or dissenter of Tao Lin, or participate in the murky controversies over what people think about him — controversies which both propel his fame while compromising it. That kind of discourse is inflated and not interesting to me. I will admit I’m ambivalent about writing a review of this book, as it already has had its ample share of attention — I just wanted to write about some formal things I thought about while reading the book. (I am writing this review without the book in hand, and cannot check facts, and I read the book briskly, so this may be a compromised account.)

1. Shoplifting

The political allusions or implications of shoplifting from a “progressive” corporation are provocative, but will not be examined here. For me, the shoplifting scene reminded me of The Stranger where the guy shoots the Arab on the beach, for both Lin and Camus describe their protagonist’s actions without any judgment. Lin does not judge or glorify Sam, so it becomes the reader’s vague burden. This is Crime and Punishment Lite: no guilt, and the only consequence is a brief visit to jail. Of course, such aesthetic stoicism may in itself be an author’s commentary on “moral relativity,” and if so, fine. It just really struck me how coldly Lin described the scene.

2. Dialog

Lin culled actual Gchats with his friends, incorporating them in the book. It is notable how he imposed the traditional dialog onto these Gchats, as if by masquerading them with double quotes would either veil or exploit this conceit. If the measure of a good writer is the ever difficult “realistic dialog,” what if such realism is really, well, real? Luis and Sam often interrupt one another, or ignore the other’s questions, or answer them a line too late — incongruencies which mirror real speech. Gaddis, in JR, without the aid of instant messaging, transcribed what he overheard at the office to capture true vernacular; and Director Robert Altman mics up all his off-camera actors for ad libbed material, so the territory is not shockingly new — it’s just that Lin is perhaps more cunning and self-reflexive about it.

3. Artifice

An earlier “draft,” in published form, of the conversation between Luis and Sam can be found at Mississippi review. (It may be instructive to compare the two.) One notices that Tao often toggles between names of characters, either subtracting real names to protect the innocent, or adding culturally notable names to fit whatever postmodern or metafictional conceit. He no doubt uses Microsoft Word’s “find and replace” function, an application which even makes an appearance in the book. At one point, Sam asks Luis if there’s a MS Word function to change a manuscript into present tense. Philip Roth has been the subject of Tao’s sarcasm probably because, as a writer so keen on realism, the former’s protagonists are often writers, and there is a slight tinge of self-deprecation with Sam’s vocation.

4. Race

In the jail scene, Lin designates everyone as either “Asian,” “Caucasian,” “Hispanic,” or “African American”– the catchwords of a sound liberal education; yet such journalistic objectivity smells of  faint sarcasm, as if the author’s social obedience while describing such a politically symbolic scene had fingers pointed at those who would have been horrified had he used white, black, or the all-encompassing yet never accurate Mexican. We tend describe what is relevant to us. In line at a roller coaster it’s how tall you are. In a hot tub it’s if you have open sores. And in jail it’s what race you are, because deep down inside that’s what matters to us. One’s race is either currency or liability. Lin’s commentary is not race, or even racism, but our denial of the latter.

5. Hedonism

Hedonism, for me, is “visceral existentialism,” where the body encounters a meaningless world. I felt that the characters were always reaching for something: food, drinks, phones, laptops, etc., all the while doing so lethargically. If the minimalism of Lin’s writing is a shortcut to zen, then what about all the consumerist clutter? (One character laments that she does not even have Gmail.) Is all this simply texture within “realism,” or do these objects act as surrogate somethings? Sam employs just as much volition towards iced-coffee as he does his friends, as everything is equal and not subject to judgment. Is this mild misanthropy or zen epiphany? And yet, the most consistent and assertive thing in Lin’s writing is veganism — so in a way, the reader, who cannot judge Sam can in turn be judged by Lin. Or am I just paranoid?

6. Characters

The head count of characters per number of pages is many. Most of them felt interchangeable, like they are all casual friends with varying degrees of closeness to Sam. Pynchon and Gaddis use excessive numbers of characters as a formal device to confuse the reader, and I’m not sure if Lin is doing something similar—to convey the transience of sentiment—or if it’s simply a technical shortcoming in the book. I found myself skipping over the names because they felt like place holders for either “friend” and “girl Sam likes.” Lin may be the “hardest working lazy writer,” whose work is so bare one wonders if he even tried. Of course I’m just saying that; I know he worked furiously on this book and edited it way down.

7. Generation

I don’t think Lin is the voice of this (I’m 33 and have difficultly using “our”) generation. The book reminded me a lot of Hemingway, where people just hang out and go from one thing to another. In a reading last night, during the Q&A, a middle-aged man asked Tao why his characters were so “vapid,” to which Tao mumbled “[very long pause] Um, the main guy is me.” I don’t think his characters are vapid. The last scene in the park is so subtle you’ll almost miss it. Audrey wants to move to NYC and Sam plays with his cell phone. Lin honors the reading experience, faithful enough in the reader to feel the terror of opening one’s cell phone then closing it, for no reason other than to stall for time, to make a moment last. The only thing Lin does is describe a world, not impose feelings. The reader, in turn, becomes the god of the book. Inside, people play acoustic guitar, perfect timing on Tao’s part for a scratchy amateur soundtrack. Love doesn’t always work out, but life, it seems, eventually will. I guess that’s what “ultimately life-affirming” means.

vegan literature

I read and greatly enjoyed this novella a couple weeks ago. It makes some interesting use of what people who want to put tags on things could call verbal minimalism inherting cinéma vérité, as well as a mash of Andys (Warhol and Kaufman), new uses of internet language in print, and a linear-alinear timeline modeling that more correctly models everyday life than most textual attempts at representing everyday life. That’s if you want to put tags on things.

I’d prefer to just say that I laughed more at parts of this book than I’ve laughed in a long time, and I think those who see this book as ‘incomplete’ might be missing part of the point here, which is not to exploit the expectations of Tao Lin’s previous work while also not exploit some kind of forced shifting of an artist’s tone. Like many artists who are ahead of the curve, this book is ahead of a curve that you might not yet see curving, particularly because it most succeeds on the level of entertaining the reader while being ahead of the curve, which then most easily becomes mistaken as unfocused, when in fact it is the extreme opposite: focused beyond focus.

I really enjoyed this book.

You can buy it here.

*click on covers to purchase original, and much better versions

Blake and Tao are two very talented writers, both in their own right spearheading the world of indie publishing in two very different ways. Just poking a little fun guys, good job both of you. I’m excited to read your books.

Drew Toal and I were having such a great time talking about Tao Lin’s new novella, Shoplifting from American Apparel, that we figured we owed it to the world to go public. So we forced ourselves to not discuss the book anymore until we were both finished, then we scheduled a time to meet up online and gchat about it. We ended up talking about a lot of extra-literary stuff (maybe too much?) but given that it’s Tao, and that we know him, that was pretty much unavoidable squared, but I think we did a pretty kickass job with the book when we got around to it. Drew was at his office, in mid-town, and I was at my office, in my bedroom. After the jump, we get down to it.

11:14 AM
Andrew: When do you want to do TaoChat?
11:15 AM
me: any old time

what are you doing now?
11:16 AM
Andrew: Finishing up a review, but I should have time in a bit

me: ok, so want to set a time?

Andrew: Let’s say tentatively noon
11:17 AM
me: ok, but if we can start sooner, then let’s

Andrew: Okay no prob
11:18 AM
I’m moving along nicely, unlike the Trevor story I’m writing about

Zing!
11:19 AM
me: bam

ok go to work. im getting breakfast. i’ll be here

23 minutes
11:42 AM
Andrew: Okay let’s do this thing
11:43 AM
me: okay

Andrew: Tao Lin. Genius or fraud?

me: Child psychologist or post-master general?

Andrew: Mormon or circus clown?
11:44 AM
Okay okay. Well, first of all, I’d like to remind you that, when we all first started living together, and had a group meeting, that Tao stood behind the door and peeked around it occasionally. That was his contribution.

That is the type of person we’re talking about here.
11:45 AM
me: Right. And let’s just throw that out there for all the people in internet land who will read this- we are two of Tao’s ex-roommates.

Tao and I lived together twice, in different places, and you and I still live together now.
11:46 AM
Andrew: Yes, and we’ve both just finished Tao’s novella, Shoplifting From American Apparel

And are familiar with his oeuvre, such that it is.

me: Right.

I feel like Meghan O’Rourke right now.

Do you?

Andrew: I kind of feel like Reggie Miller
11:47 AM
me: Well okay, so just to start us off, it seems like I liked the book more than you did.

Do you want to offer a complaint?
11:48 AM
Andrew: Well, I’d just like to say first that I didn’t “dislike” it. I’m just suspicious of Tao’s autismy prose, and suspect it has its limits.

The prison scenes were great.

I picture Michael Clarke Duncan playing Tao in the movie version.
11:49 AM
me: Nice.

I’m picturing Michael Cera, but that’s pretty obvious.

I actually thought this was his strongest prose to date.

Andrew: He did exercise quite a bit (I think) when he lived with us.

I believe he mentions his Pilates mat in the book.

me: When the Vice article (of the same name) came out, I was unimpressed. I think that was just one of the prison scenes. I had high doubts about this book. But I feel won over.
11:50 AM
Andrew: Which, I guess, was a result of the hard time he did.

me: Yeah, he learned a thing or two in the clink.

Went in a listless NYU alum, came out a PILATES MONSTER

Andrew: Do you think he owns an organic shank?
11:51 AM
me: You mean a carrot?

Andrew: Haha. “Yes.”

me: But come on, let’s be serious. “Literary criticism,” as Tao would scarequote it.

Though to be fair, this book doesn’t have any of that scarequoting in it, or really much of his other trademark internet bullshit.
11:52 AM
Andrew: Yeah, true enough.

The dialogue is better.

Than in the past.

me: Yeah. And getting back to what you said earlier about his autism-y style, I really thought this book was a breakthrough for him.

Andrew: You were right about that, although I disbelieved you when you told me.
11:53 AM
Breakthrough?

me: I felt like he was very effectively writing the other characters, describing them as real people, while also conveying the flat sort of bonkers way in which he perceives them.

Like, earlier books, his consciousness sort of generates the rules of the world. But in this book, you really get the feeling of a guy moving through a world that has rules different than his.
11:54 AM
It’s a deeply personal book.

Andrew: That’s always been his thing, though, right? How he’s “existentially fucked” because he’s out of step with everything.

I mean
11:55 AM
me: Yeah, that’s been the theory, but here it is in praxis. Which I don’t think he’s really accomplished before. I mean the world in EEE has talking animals and aliens. It’s the world he wants. A world for a hyper-intellectual punk-aligned Daniel Johnston. Or something.

Andrew: Hahaha
11:56 AM
And this is the world as it is, through his eyes. Do you think our opinion is colored because we know his characters?

me: In Shoplifting, there’s no sense of the world yielding at all. Sex doesn’t always work, and stealing is a bust. He travels around the country but the scene-changes barely register.

Andrew: Also: Are you pissed he didn’t put you in the book?
11:57 AM
me: That’s another thing we should talk about. It’s a totally autobiographical book– everything in it is “true”

near as I can tell

but the fiction comes in what’s left out.

Like me and you, for example. Or Soffi.

Or all the times he’s being a more or less normal person, having fun and drinking and running around New York. Attacking Gawker, etc.

Andrew: Well, our interactions were always late at night/early in the morning with him eating kale or something.
11:58 AM
Maybe not the stuff of novels.

me: You couldn’t write a believable character who was as emo as Tao’s “Sam” and also as bombastic and savvy as Tao’s “Tao”

Andrew: Yeah that’s the crux.
11:59 AM
me: It’s kind of amazing, actually, what’s pared away. I don’t know how much I’m reading this differently because I know all the backstories and the real names.

Andrew: Tao might be the greatest self-promoter out there since Bret “The Hitman” Hart.
12:00 PM
me: Hah.

People used to make me nuts with the Warhol analogy, but increasingly I wonder….

Andrew: I’m serious. Even when he appears to be sabotaging himself, he seems to come out okay.

Does he want to sabotage himself?

I can’t tell what his real goal is with all the marketing ploys.

me: I think he went through a phrase where he wanted to see if it was even possible to sabotage himself. Hence the “fuck america” tattoo.
12:01 PM
Andrew: Right.

me: And publishing the “Brandon Book Crisis” book.

I think he’s really interested to see how much of his shit people will take.

Andrew: Pushing the envelope, in Top Gun parlance.
12:02 PM
me: Right. I think he’s operating on a model where, weirdly, his whole public life is stunts and nonsense, and his “fictional” books are where the real truth lies.

Andrew: Well

me: I mean, you get a sense of what really matters to him, by reading the book.

Which people he bothers to leave in, and which he doesn’t.
12:03 PM
Andrew: Yeah, well, we’ve seen his cadre of admirers come and go.

me: But we’re still not really talking about the book itself. This is all meta-stuff.

Andrew: Yeah true

Back to the book.

I came around as I went on.
12:04 PM
The Brandon book thing really had me skeptical for whatever was coming next.

And I don’t have the book handy, but the beginning, as I recall, was mostly stilted Taospeak.

me: Mmm, I disagree
12:05 PM
it starts with that long IM conversation, yes, but I don’t really think it’s in that scarequote-y style

Sam is talking to Luis over gchat

Andrew: This is fucked, that is fucked, etc

me: Oh yeah, true, stuff is fucked, they say.

But Luis really wants to talk about porn.
12:06 PM
He’s looking at porn while they talk, and sending some to Sam, and Sam you get the feeling is sort of “dealing” with that reality. Of this guy talking to him about this thing.

Andrew: The sex stuff is really interesting.

A lot of Tao’s humor comes forth in those scenes.
12:07 PM
me: then Luis misunderstands what Sam said, and thinks Sam slept with an Indian girl- and he wants to know what it’s like, and Sam has to explain that that didn’t happen.

I just thought it was very funnysad, and that changing the gchat format to standard dialogue format was a genius move.

Andrew: Yes.
12:08 PM
me: You really do get the feeling of that fake presence.

Andrew: Well

Tao talks more “normally” in gchat

I think
12:09 PM
Is that what you just said? This is the most I’ve gchatted in quite some time.

It’s turning my gbrain into knots.

me: I meant more as an aesthetic choice. Though yeah, he’s definitely more human-sounding on the computer than in person.
12:10 PM
But I meant, like, in Dennis Cooper’s books Period and The Sluts he preserves the look and format of online writing. And it makes sense for what Dennis is doing.

But Tao goes out of his way to change it to “normal prose style,” with dialogue tags and everything, even though we know those are all just copy-pasted transcripts of real chats he had with Noah Cicero and whoever else
12:11 PM
so it would have been easier, and more “authentic” to paste them as-is. But that’s the thing. Authenticity is not his ultimate goal.

Art is, even if he won’t ever admit it. And artistically, it works better this way. It’s a smarter, more useful choice for the book he’s writing.
12:13 PM
Andrew: Hey sorry, was just reading some work emails.
12:14 PM
me: That’s okay. I’m touching up an author photo. God the future is ADD.

But anyway
12:15 PM
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t want to come off sounding like a “shit talker” here.

I’m really just a crotchety old man who fears change.

me: Just go for it. Let it out.
12:19 PM
Andrew: There’s nothing really to let out. I love Taoser. Frankly Justin, you’ve convinced me of the merit of Shoplifting. I just don’t want to see him get pigeonholed.

You win, okay? Motherfucker.

Viva Tao!
12:20 PM
me: No zealot like a convert, I guess.

Andrew: Viva Tao!

I’m going to go sign up to be one of his interns, now.

Tao? Are you reading this?

Can I be an intern?
12:21 PM
He still needs to get that piano out of our apartment.

me: Yes, and you know it will never happen.

Andrew: I’ll buy him a smoothie, or a coconut.

You know he can’t resist those things.

me: Yeah, but he may have his own supply-lines set up by this point.
12:22 PM
Andrew: He’s just got it all figured out.

me: I liked the part near the end where he goes to Gainesville to give the reading and it’s obvious that what he’s reading is the gchat that the book opens up with.

Andrew: HAHAHAHA

Yes

Sorry for the caps
12:23 PM
It was merely a regular ‘hahaha’.

me: And I didn’t mean to come off like a True Believer- I think you know how skeptical I was of this book. I thought it sounded like a marketing gimmick when he announced it.

Andrew: I wanted to be a marine biologist too.

me: God, didn’t we all?

What an ending!

Andrew: Yeah, what with the AA sponsorship and all.

me: I laughed out loud so hard I woke up the homeless guy on the train bench next to me.

Andrew: It was probably some dude Tao did time with.
12:24 PM
me: “the inmate with a mop”

Andrew: Hahaha

It does present some amazing imagery.

Of him trading stories about what he’s “in for” and also doing pushups.

me: It really does. The only part I didn’t like was the two scenes where he describes people having a fight as “attacking [each other] existentially.”
12:25 PM
It’s a totally idiotic use of that word.

Andrew: Yeah, I think, at this point, we can assume that everything happens “existentially” for Taoser

me: Right, that’s sort of a given.

Andrew: He existentially eats seaweed, while drawing sad hamsters, looking existential.

me: I mean I get what he means, but it’s just such a stupid-sounding way to phrase something that’s really pretty basic.

Andrew: Uh huh.
12:26 PM
He has moderated that whole thing a bit though.

I guess he’s growing as a writer?

Is that safe to say?

me: I feel comfortable hearing you say that.

Andrew: Hahahaha

“Good”

me: “Existentially comfortable.”
12:27 PM
Andrew: I need to buy that guy a congratulatory iced coffee at Think

What’s next for our hero?

me: We will see him tonight at the book party.

We can ask. Next up is the novel in a year.

Andrew: Oh right. Forgot about that. Bookcourt?

me: Yeah, dunno what time

Andrew: Yeah I’m actually sort of interested in reading that.

Really interested

Do we know anything about it?
12:28 PM
me: Mmmm, pieces of it have been in NOON.

it’s the one where the characters are named Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning.

Andrew: Oh Jesus

That old chestnut.

me: Though NOON’s lawyer made him change it–they were worried.

If Melville House knows what’s good for them, they’ll let him keep the names.
12:29 PM
Andrew: That one was in the Mississippi Review or something, right?

Yeah, “Richard Yates”

me: Soundalikes almost always ruin a book. There’s this old Padgett Powell interview where he talks about being forced to use soundalikes in Mrs. Hollingsworth’s Men, and how he thinks it basically killed the book

Andrew: Yeah so lame

me: for Rupert Murdoch and Ted Bundy, no less.

Two serial killers, but the publisher wanted to protect themselves.

Andrew: When I put you in a book, Justin, I’m changing your name to Jason Tubbner.

Traxler?
12:30 PM
me: The ironic part is I spent most of the morning trying to figure out what I’ll call Tao in the novel I want to write about him.

Andrew: Haha

Harvey

me: I drafted a short story once about him, but it was stupid. His life made too little sense to describe accurately.

Andrew: He does keep odd hours.
12:31 PM
me: Yes, and company.

Andrew: Sweet kids.
12:32 PM
me: Yeah, for sure. Remember the first time Zachary German came to visit? This was before he lived in New York.

Andrew: Yes.

me: He came for the Dennis Cooper event I did, and then stayed over. Him and Tao were amazing. They kicked me and Maggie’s asses at poker.

Andrew: Tao has the perfect poker face.

me: I have a picture of them pretending to make out.

It looks really real.

Andrew: They need to take that act on the road.

me: I think Maggie wanted them to do it. We were drinking 40s.
12:33 PM
See, this is the kind of stuff that doesn’t belong in art.

Andrew: Better than that Olde Williamsburg we were drinking the other night.

Or worse

me: Hey, you take that back.

Andrew: I meant worse.

me: Right.

Andrew: Nectar of the gods

Lesser gods, but gods

me: LOL

Bingo.

Nectar of the Lesser Gods: The Tao Lin Story.

Andrew: Hahahaha

me: I love our lives.
12:34 PM
Andrew: I just want some reflected glory.

me: Right.

Andrew: Is that too much to ask?

I guess that’s where the “interns” come in

But yeah

Our lives rule.

me: All thanks to Tao, apparently.
12:35 PM
Andrew: Well, we have that mini shrine to him on the fridge

me: and on Colin’s bedroom door.

The Tao Lin Memorial Bedroom.

And his actual bed in our goddamn hallway. He owns us.

When did that happen?

Andrew: In loving memory: To the kid who sat in our refrigerator during a NY Mag photo shoot

me: And Still Has Keys And Lets Himself In To Get the Mail In the Middle of the Night
12:36 PM
Because He Doesn’t Want to Change his Address, Even After a Year, for Some Reason

Andrew: Yeah, essentially nothing has changed, except that he doesn’t pay rent anymore.

We see him about the same amount.

me: Yeah, pretty much.
12:37 PM
It’s his world, man. We’re just gchatting in it.