Tao Lin

THE NEW BLURRY PHOTOGRAPH

It may have started, as many internet-lit things seem to do, with Tao Lin. His drawings of weird animals rendered from Microsoft Paint are endearing and comical. That the Adobe platform (illustrator/photoshop/indesign) is not employed is what I call ‘guerrilla pixel-dom’—crude, design-unfriendly, kitschy in a Bill Gates kinda way. Such aesthetic seems to be propagating. Enter Mike Bushnell and our own Sam Pink.

Mr. Pink, sans Reservoir Dogs, is, um, an interesting character. He brings us an adolescent violence that, constrained in its virtual medium, is benign and somehow charming. Looking at this blog, I don’t know whether to become aroused or duct tape my penis to my perineum for safety.

Mr. Bushnell, of face warpaint fame, is, um, an interesting character. His drawings of anthropomorphic creatures, while not necessarily violent, are of vehement temperament. Yes, Jean-Michel Basquiat tread such ground in the 80’s, but in oils.

Just what are these guys saying? Tao Lin, a master of quick-witted sayings that evoke complex existential quandaries, brings us ‘sad pterodactyl living a life of fear and anxiety’ and ‘elderly obese frost bitten squirrel’, among many others.

Pink and Bushnell’s drawings seem reactionary, void of the deep—yet somehow self-effacing—sadness that is Tao Lin. Maybe they are on to something different, and the comparison is unfair. I’m humored by all three gentlemen, all whom make me want to duct tape my penis to my perineum for safety. (For Tao, I’d use organic hemp tape.)

When one saw a blurry black-and-white photograph, one knew poetry was coming. Every journal had some BW photo of some chick’s shoulder up close, or some tree’s shadow. Blurry photo meant poetry.

Now, for some, a fucked up MS paint drawing means poetry. Are we cruder? younger? of binary soul? or just bored?

While supplies last.

Author Spotlight / 26 Comments
October 3rd, 2008 / 1:37 pm

Tao Lin Rates a 9.4-9.8 on the Push-Down Worthiness Scale

In a suprising announcement today, casual blog commenter and fan of Tao Lin ‘when.parents.flee.the.country’ awarded Tao Lin a 9.4-9.8 on the Push-Down Worthiness Scale at 5:44am this morning after two hours of steady deliberation in front of a blank computer screen. In his/her comment, which can be read attached to Tao Lin’s post ‘victory in japan,’ he/she congratulates Tao on eee‘s recently being published in Japan, calls Tao Lin’s second novel Richard Yates, which has not yet been released, a “masterpiece,” and then types the word “really” a lot. I mean, really, probably more than necessary. When.parents.flee.the.country then announces Tao Lin’s Push-Down Worthiness rating, saying:

“and for the mother of all coincidences, i saw you on the l-train monday night. you’re very short, probably 5’6″ or so; i would describe your gait as existentially slackerish; and, given how you carry yourself, on a scale of 1-10 i would rate your push-down worthiness a 9.4-9.8.”

No word yet as to how useful such a scale will be, nor has when.parents.flee.the.country revealed what factors affect his/her calculations when he/she manipulates the scale (this blogger, however, believes height to have some importance).

Oh, also, uh, congrats to Tao on his book thing, I guess. That’s cool and stuff.

Author News / 11 Comments
October 2nd, 2008 / 6:52 pm

will 2009 be the year of the post-confessional prose-poem? … ask again later

On Saturday 9/27 at Tao Lin & Nicole Spector’s reading at Solas (part of LitCrawl NYC) I sat next to Soffi Stiassni and tried to get her to write a poem with me. Soffi’s work appears in regular typeface; my contributions are in italics)

“Poem”

I hate all the noises in here… And most of the people making the noises into their fancy hats.

+

See? You see how it’s a prose-poem?

Web Hype / 2 Comments
October 2nd, 2008 / 12:14 pm

Tao Lin’s 2nd Novel will be a Historical Memoir

Ok, yeah, not really, but at least the title will get some people to think so, as Tao Lin announced a couple days ago on his blog that his second novel will be titled RICHARD YATES, author of REVOLUTIONARY ROAD and THE EASTER PARADE, among other things. The novel, scheduled out from Melville House in the Fall of ’09, features as two of its main characters, Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning.

Tao also answered some more questions about his writing process and the future of, um, stuff, in a nice interview with NYU Local.

If you’re just itching to get a read on the novel, a section that is supposedly included in the novel was published in the 2008 edition of NOON.

Author News / 4 Comments
September 29th, 2008 / 12:35 pm

On Ryan Manning

Anyone who has surfed blog comment trails throughout the ‘literary online community’ will most likely have encountered Ryan Manning’s eerily omnipresent comments: ‘the asian [insert semi well known cultural figure].’ For some, this is infuriating; for others, it’s brilliant Avant-garde. I personally fall near the former category, though I will admit I grew a soft spot for him after seeing his beautiful photos on his flickr.

Another odd trait about Mr. Manning is that he changes his blogger profile almost daily, obsessively creating then deleting blogs (hence no links, as I can’t find them). His blogs are either cryptic one-post references to Tao Lin (from whom he got his ‘the asian blank’ shtick), strange videos, or stranger whatevers. One thing is clear: for Ryan Manning, the age of blogging is conceptual terrain for ‘rhetorical obscurity’ as a form of narcissistic celebrity.

Think of Paris Hilton, Ryan Seacrest, the latter phases of Britney Spears, who are seen everywhere and held in the imaginations of everyone, yet who don’t really do anything. Britney goes to Jamba Juice and the world goes wild. Manning goes ‘units are moving’ and he’s got 4000+ profile views. (As of late, he’s appropriated another Tao Lin phrase ‘units are moving,’ which he’s successfully beating to death.) I’m not suggesting that our dear Ryan Manning is futile or obsolete, only that the content of his ‘celebrity’ is empty, wherein most likely lies self-aware rhetoric.

He lives in Virginia, per his blogger profile. I let myself believe there’s some truth to him. His polaroids of the sky as seen from a pedestrian demise are indeed lovely. He chooses the palest days, such that the ‘image’ is mere light. In short, he edits the spectrum of useless days. I highly doubt the absence of content in his images is merely existential. He’s probably making some other clever point, I bet.

Author Spotlight / 7 Comments
September 28th, 2008 / 12:50 pm