July 26th, 2011 / 1:26 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Roxane Gay—
“Whether or not that work is deemed to be of a high quality, the activities Lin and his peers do online—hours of blogging, tweeting, commenting, and emailing—suggest that they are tirelessly working to advance their name and their art.”
At The Morning News, Daniel B. Roberts writes about Tao Lin and Muumuu House in Much Ado About Whatever.
I feel like this might be the perfect place to start a discussion about fantasy football.
I feel like this might be the perfect place to start a discussion about fantasy football.
thanks for linking to this thing which otherwise i would not have noticed despite my own hours of internet nonsense. i cannot decide if i think this writing about “doing a lot of nothing” is immoral (it takes time and resources) or just boring, or really essential for this generation to awaken to whatever.
“Whether or not that work is deemed to be of a high quality, the
activities Lin and his peers do online—hours of blogging, tweeting,
commenting, and emailing—suggest that they are tirelessly working to
advance their name and their art.”
My guys are talking about making it into a keeper league. Any opinions are welcome, work cpu recently stopped letting me comment here, so I can only discuss late tonight.
I play fantasy football every year in multiple leagues and get really obsessed with it and I think I was secretly hoping the season would be cancelled because it is too exhausting.
I try and keep it down to one league for ultimate focus. I know what you mean about hoping the season’d get canceled, but fuck it, I want to see a ring on Sanchez’s retarded finger pronto.
I really liked this article and have never played fantasy football; do you play or “play” fantasy football? It’s all about management, essentially, right? Like, you just want to pick people the way an MBA would pick them, right? For maximum returns?
One thing I liked about this article was this quote:
“To submit to Muumuu House,” it instructed in typical Tao Lin deadpan, “find a person published by or associated with Muumuu House and read their writing. If you like their writing, make comments in their comments sections or message them expressing your feelings in a natural manner. Eventually someone will read your comments or messages and find your internet presence and maybe communicate with you. If that person likes you to a certain degree they will maybe tell other people about you, causing a further amount of people to maybe communicate with you. After an amount of time, if communication is sustained with various people, other things may happen, including maybe being published by Muumuu House.”
And for a site that likes to talk about Lin a lot (which is cool w/ me because I actually like TL and MH style), to share this article is like laying down a meta-gauntlet in the comments section.
So is there a connection between MH and fantasty football?
Yeah, it’s basically management. Point systems vary between leagues, and the real excitement I find comes with the free agency — picking up underrated players before other guys get their hands on them in shit.
There’s no connection between MH and fantasy football. For me, at least. Didn’t read the article, but I figured it’d get a lot of views due to content, so good opportunity to discuss something I actually care about with others.
Back to work, to be continued later.
I’ve recently reached the conclusion that many of us overemphasize Lin and MH’s influence. They are not that influential, and I’m embarrassed to have spent some time as a “hater.”
It’s also easy to get lost in the online lit blogging bubble, to assume that the topics discussed within it somehow indicate larger influence, but honest to God, do people really care about Lin and his cohort outside the niche circle of online lit blogging? Yes, I realize he’s received national coverage, but still–I don’t see this massive or even significant influence that others do.
But, I have to take issue with this quote from Roberts–not necessarily because of what it says about Lin, but because of what it says about fiction:
“German, Gorrell, and Cicero want their books to reflect the feel of their days. Their stories entail people hanging out, chatting, partying, doing a lot of nothing. Many readers seek out fiction for escape, but Muumuu House writers give their audience a direct representation, in fiction, of the lives they already lead.”
______________
Huh? I’m sorry, but this is just ridiculous and shows a pretty shallow understanding of fiction.
So, in other words, stories that don’t aspire toward mimesis are now “escapist”? Are we so myopic now that any fiction that aspires to do more than “directly represent” life is now “escapist”?
And does Roberts think that “direct representation” isn’t often boring as hell, that it actually FAILS to represent “real life” in its unimaginativeness, that the world isn’t exactly bereft of enough “direct representation” as it is, that Lin and his cohort are the first to write “real life” stories about doing drugs and going to parties? Every undergrad workshop I was in had at least ten such stories per semester.
If he wants to champion Lin’s work, fine, but Dear God, don’t damn it with such faint praise.
I did not perceive Roberts as championing Lin’s work. I found his article far more balanced than most of the writing I read about Tao Lin/Muumuu House/etc. I do agree that their sphere of influence is limited. I only heard of them when I started writing here. The only people I know who know who they are, are involved with the online lit community and even then, that knowledge is often limited. I don’t get their project, their writing, any of it really but they don’t inspire anger either. We all write what we write. There’s room.
I do agree that Roberts expresses a narrow characterization (understanding) of fiction and the aims of fiction. Escapism is more about what a reader takes from a story. I find all reading escapist but I wouldn’t say that fiction is escapist simply because a writer is doing more than just recording the quotidian moments and observations from their lives. The threshold has to be higher than that.
Think you may have misunderstood the article.
“And does Roberts think that “direct representation” isn’t often boring
as hell, that it doesn’t often FAIL to represent “real life” because of
its unimaginativeness, that the world isn’t exactly bereft of enough
“direct representation,” that Lin and his cohort are the first to write
“real life” stories about doing drugs and going to parties?”
Seems to me like he doesn’t at all suggest Lin etc. are the first to write about drugs and parties, he merely describes their work as being that way, being a direct representation of their mundane lives, and he even says that it’s indeed almost always boring. In fact I’m also surprised you came away from it saying “If he wants to champion Lin’s work, fine,” because I was surprised by how harsh the article mostly was, and I think at one point he picks out a few examples and says he thinks they are the rare examples of the work being good, and that otherwise it’s mediocre and not special.
I don’t think the work aspires to anything, there’s no counterpoint available, this pisses people off
Hi, Jake. Tell Robert Cohn I said hello.
I guess I need to reread the article more closely–just skimmed it at first.
Either way, the quote I excerpted isn’t very sound, suggesting, for instance, that many readers “seek fiction to escape.” First of all, most readers who would even be in a position to choose whether or not to read Lin would probably be more sophisticated than those who read to “escape” (I use the word in its most pejorative sense, as Roberts seems to do in his article).
Second of all, he hints that Lin might be ahead of his time in the final line, and that the world might need time to catch-up w/ Lin’s vision.
Regardless of one’s stance on Lin’s work, it’s annoying that people–haters and lovers–continue to make a big deal out of his “direct representations.” Who cares? Why do we spend so much time debating this strawman? Fiction is never a direct representation of real life–it’s fiction.
i’m not going to read this article because i have wasted too much of my life reading about muumuu house already, but holy fuck am i tired of some sort of equivalence drawn between “time spent” and “value of product/art/etc”
lol
That’s what I did too.
I was bothered by that too.
There is such a thing as working too fast, or too “tirelessly,” when it comes to art-making. We’re not talking about running a business or company here.
Let’s also make sure we distinguish between “time spent” creating the art and “hours of blogging, tweeting, commenting, and emailing”. Different things entirely. Also Muumuu house is actually a business and company because they sell books. They’re a commercial enterprise.
Really want to do a keeper league. Seems like it would change draft strategy dramatically, but the idea of having “rebuilding years” for my fantasy football team is impossibly bleak.
“honest to God, do people really care about Lin and his cohort outside the niche circle of online lit blogging?”
His last novel was reviewed in the London Review of Books: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n20/david-haglund/a-kind-of-gnawing-offness
Twice oddly employed.
Expect. It’s not already here?
I haven’t read much Lin and don’t pay much attention to obvious stunts. He does seem funny to me though, and might in fact one day write something “important”.
The “Lin Army,” however, seems as sad to me as any army, e.g.
Ape.
Ape.
Ape.
– – – –
As Roxane Gays says above: I think the writer was fair. And not the first time he’s written about him/them.
Das Racist mentions Tao Lin. I will quote them: “I shoplifted Tao Lin’s Shoplifting from American Apparel”
this is why people value long novels so highly.
i prefer short novels. i don’t think the length of a novel necessarily bears any relation to “time spent”– seems like people write 200 page novels in a month for NaNoWriMo that are terrible, and Dennis Cooper spends 2-3 years writing ~125 page novels, etc. i also think it’s possible to create something as great as something that took ten years to create in an hour.
True.
That said, there seems to be an implication that the work itself should be heard/given a chance simply because its creators/patrons push it so hard–otherwise, why point it out in a clause that follows, “Whether or not that work is deemed to be of a high quality…”?
I pointed out in my post that he’s received some national (in this case, international, attention).
But I think there’s more to this influence issue than having a review in the NYT or London Review of Books.
I’m about 90 pages into ‘FACE OF ANOTHER’ and it’s pretty cool and yeah yeah yeah I got it great but holy shit is this book BORING.
I have a tendency to always finish a book I have started, probably because I am immature/a completist/feel like I have already dedicated the time to read half of the book so I might as well finish the whole thing, etc etc.
Should I finish this book???? I heard the movie is better.
I will only accept responses from Tao Lin.
That’s why I hate NaNoWriMo. It fosters this idea that quantity=quality, that writing a novel is about piling up as many pages as quickly as possible. Not to mention, it’s binging…pure and simple…people commit to it for a month, then crash afterward, like going to the gym 7 days a week in January and disappearing once Feb. rolls around.
How about, NaNovelWriYear? Write 200 words a day. That’ll weed some folks out.
hemingway is in a fight
punching djuna in the night
what bloody nose or blackened eye
dare push her face in pork-fat pie
feel like as though seems
moving on moving along
muumuuviana
Gay.
Sorry.
Everyone has well-stated opinions about Lin and MH so it hardly seems worth re-hashing (at least for me). But it’s amazing how much discussion the mere mention of his name generates. This is a blurb from an article on another website and it is spiraling into yet another “I hate Tao Lin” vs. “I have a moderate appreciation for his work/I am open-minded and inclusive” debate (note that despite the frequent derisive references to the “Tao Lin Army,” etc., there really aren’t that many commenters who passionately defend his work).
Seriously, Franzen could guest blog a post on HTMLGiant explaining why he hates minorities and it would generate like 15 comments. But a link to a video of Tao Lin’s friend pretending to rip his dick off is guaranteed 50+ and probably a follow-up post.
To me, this shows that attempts to downplay his popularity/influence (“online lit blogging bubble”) are sort of specious. Yeah, he’s not singing the intro on Monday Night Football but what literary novelist is? If you are a literary novelist frequently discussed in online literary journals, blogs, periodicals, etc., you are more popular and influential than 99.9% of your peers. If you are all of the foregoing + you have a passionate group of non-traditional lit fans (i.e. young people who would otherwise not be too interested in literary fiction), you are a bonafide phenomenon. Right?
Hah-hah.
(This is not a ‘response’.)
Well… that was a really poorly written and even more poorly thought out article. Why did it even get posted?
“In his view, “We are a generation living in a world where McDonald’s, Nike, and cell phones are considered beautiful things.””
He lives in the 1980s?
“In his view, “We are a generation living in a world where McDonald’s, Nike, and cell phones are considered beautiful things.””
He lives in the 1980s?
The overwhelming majority of the 33 comments above seem to be jokes or otherwise (subtextually) bored reponses or genuine asides (eg fantasy sports) to the topic at hand: Mister Roberts’s article in The Morning News – whatever that is.
The overwhelming majority of the 33 comments above seem to be jokes or otherwise (subtextually) bored reponses or genuine asides (eg fantasy sports) to the topic at hand: Mister Roberts’s article in The Morning News – whatever that is.
“We are a generation living in a world where McDonald’s, Nike, and [brick-sized] cell[ular] phones are considered beautiful things.” – D. Coupland
Muumuu House strives to avoid business-like relationships:
“Muumuu House does not accept submissions
for acceptance/rejection. All work published on the site was first read
on people’s blogs or in emails or on Twitter or other websites for
purposes of personal enjoyment or simply as work being shared among
friends or strangers. Those interested in Muumuu House are encouraged
to communicate with people involved with Muumuu House (commenting on
blogs or messaging people or being involved in some other manner) for
purposes of friendship or relieving boredom or having fun. Muumuu House
strives to avoid engaging in business-like relationships.”
http://muumuuhouse.com/about.html
Aw, I was with you til the NaNoWriMo dis. I agree with M. Kitchell, I almost always like short novels better (sometimes I like a big novel the way I like having a million episodes of a TV series to watch, but the bigger something is the more room there is for it to have shitty sections/episodes), and think there’s no direct correlation between time spent and quality, or word count and quality.
But N. gets misunderstood and over-dismissed by people who take it too literally. The 50,000 word thing is there to get people who are otherwise not writing at all (because they won’t set aside time for it, or think they can’t, or–most of all–think every word needs to be perfect) to turn off their self-editor for awhile and commit to the act of creation.
People act as if N. says the next step in December is, “Now send it to publishers!” and not, “You’ll probably have to completely rewrite this thing, other than maybe a passage or two you stumbled upon in the midst of all that crap.”
It’s very much an Annie Lamott “shitty first draft” type thing. By concentrating on quantity instead of quality, there’s a chance that the writing will exist at all, in other words. Instead of thinking, “I have to get this first sentence absolutely perfect before writing a second,” you think, “I have to get this many words” and “trick” yourself to get past your block and self-doubt. THEN you revise, once you have amassed a lot of raw text to play with. (And if you need a program to do that, there’s http://www.nanoedmo.net .)
If you already have the dedication to write 200 words every day of the same piece AND the ability to not, when you’re writing in such small quantities, keep rewriting the same 200 words over and over and over and over without ever progressing, then you’re already set, and N.’s not for you anyway.
He has his own indie bluegrass song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uZQNZ3Sp58
i read all of ‘face of another,’ i think it can be boring at times, but i finished it and felt satisfied
i usually don’t finish books if i feel it’s boring
if you’re talking about kobo abe’s ‘face of another’
I don’t see writing 200 words a day as “dedication,” sorry. This sort of thinking is precisely the problem–this way of thinking of writing time as “sacred.” I write my 200 words a day just like I brush my teeth every day, or eat dinner every night.
NNWM makes writing an event, no matter how you cut it.
Oh I see. I didn’t realize they gave their stuff away for free. That’s cool then.
To Me
(a poem dedicated to the “whale”)
to me,
the muumuuvian business-plan and marketing activity is funny and interesting and alerting of the passions
to me,
there is poetry in money and celebrity and pranks and in hustling generally
to me,
there is poetry in a “sense of wonder”
sadly for many ambitious poets,
to me,
there is also poetry in poetry
Yeah dude. I just spent all day at work in an email thread discussing nuances. I think it’s especially tough for us because we’re already auction-based, and we’re a 12 man league, so we have to figure out a punishment for keepers. Some guys are thinking a percentage price increase (100%), others are talking a flat fee… the conversation alone has been worth trying to implement it, so highly recommended.
How many leagues are you in?
Also am interested in discussing the new BTMI! record, if anyone’s into that stuff.
unnamed “editor” of a “major New York culture blog”
“sweet”
I did have on Tao Lin joke I’ve been meaning to make, so I’m just gonna drop it here so I can finally be finished with it:
Hey, where did you pick up that style? Hot Taopic?
Say what you ant about the tenants of NY culture bloggism, but at least it’s an ethos.
(for real: calling these imitative hipster writers nihilists is giving them waaaaay too much credit.)
This is probably as good a place as any on HTMLGiant to post a public 92% apology to Blake and eh maybe like a 50% apology* to Roxane With One N re: my stupid reaction to the stupid Jordan Castro thing.
Before that post, I didn’t pay look at any MuuMuu Twitter accounts. I thought that Dave Fishkind posting the video was an exclusive HTMLGiant thing, and never realized that it was essentially just HTMLG re-blogging what was already on Twitter and happening anyway.
If I had known like I do now that Jordan actually solicited retweets for his idiocy, I wouldn’t have reacted nearly as strongly; even though there’s still an element of, “Why are you promoting this crap?” it’d be like getting mad at a news outlet for posting a terrorist video. I mean, there’s always that debate when you run a site covering some field when people within that field, of how to talk about something without glorifying it. Fishkind’s post was glorifying, but HTMLG as an outlet is not responsible for what Jordan solicits on Twitter and is hell-bent on doing without HTMLG anyway. So that was my bad.
Anyway, I fell into the trap and sympathized with Jordan when I should have distrusted/disliked him as much as I distrust/dislike Tao. (This is separate from the writing, by the way; more and more, I’m finding writing I don’t mind from MuuMuu people [well, not Jordan, but some shit in Vice and on Thought Catalog, and Zachary German but hopefully he no longer counts as MuuMuu], which is why I liked the ambivalence of the guy’s article above.) Since I’m also depressed and have fallen under the sway of douchebags and done ridiculous things thinking I will impress them, I related to Jordan and thought, “Here’s this severely depressed kid who feels like no one notices him unless he does extreme shit, and he just wants his misplaced idol-adoration returned, and he might ruin his reputation and seriously damage his genitals in the process.” (Anatomy lesson, Tao: it’s not like pulling an arm or a head; arms have bones in them; dicks do not and can break without healing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penile_fracture .)
Now, having seen the tweets and reevaluated, I know that the story is more like, “Here’s this severely depressed attention-starved kid who found a marketing example to idolize and is recklessly pursuing it himself,” and so while I have some sympathy for anyone with depression, purposefully going down the MuuMuu path is not the answer. I can tell Jordan, on [mostly, though I still fuck up] the other side now of a lot of drunken internet attention-craving, that the answer is not on the internet. (Especially not when you combine it with trying to sell a product, something I don’t relate to at all even if I can relate to the rest of it.)
Young people squandering their parents’ money on drugs and being stupid on the internet is nothing new, but now that we all have added this element of praise and attention, maybe it has mutated into something new, and maybe it won’t turn out great.
I still think that encouraging people to film themselves on drugs/pulling Jackass stunts (without MTV’s lawyers and medics a yard away) could have a tragic outcome–probably not for Tao, who wouldn’t dare to do anything to hurt his brand (at least on purpose, but the more “hard” drugs he uses, who knows… probably debt will undo him first), but maybe for the wannabes like Jordan who try to follow in his wake and can’t one-up Tao’s words so they have to one-up his antics instead. And whenever the first MuuMuu snuff or self-snuff idea is re-tweeted into existence, maybe Tao will take a step back and consider what he’s doing, but probably not. He will probably just write an obituary for Vice and hold an audition contest for the dead MuuMuuer’s replacement.
Anyway, to be on topic, I think Roberts fell into the same trap I did and missed the point and is over-romanticizing the whole group (but I can’t blame him, because like I said, I did it, too). It’s not really about depression, or reality, or drugs, it’s just this insatiable need for someone to “look at me look at me look at me.”
I’ll let Tao, fretting over his thwarted Harry Potter live-blogging being ignored, sum up MuuMuu House:
“is anyone there, has anyone come here to look at our livetweets…
anyone…”
——————————
*Apology 42% less for irritation re: the voice inside me screaming pointlessly, “Unless your name is pronounced Rocks-AIN (rhymes with Cock’s Pain), then get over it unless your name is appearing in print/on a contract/whatever, and don’t pretend you can take a moral high-ground over the community you’re a part of while also enjoyiing the fruits (and page-views and website referrals) of being a part of that company.”
You are dedicated to brushing your teeth, then. Don’t really get your problem with the word dedicated there. Or your problem with writing being an event…?
Anything that gets people reading and writing is good, to me.
I’m entitled to prefer my name spelled correctly. You’re entitled to be irritated by that.
nice
I was afraid I wasn’t, so I appreciate you letting me know!
I didn’t need to participate in a special toothbrushing campaign to form my dedication.
I also used “hate” rather loosely–you know, people use this “I hate x” construction all the time conversationally–it doesn’t mean that they seethe over x.
Jesus Christ, dude. You seem to have a problem with reading others’ posts too deeply. Chill out.
a bonafide phenomenon, within online literary journals, blogs, periodicals.
Not a bonafide phenomenon in the Oprah/cover-of-Time way (couldn’t resist since you brought him up),
much much much much less a bonafide phenomenon in the “your name is an adjective” Stephen King way, or even a “required school reading” way.
Yeah probably, but 1) it’s a little hypocritical of you of all people saying that and 2) how was I reading too deeply to your post? You said you don’t like nanowrimo, I said I do. If you’re inferring deepness just because the crazy length of my reply, I can assure you that’s just a result of my tendency towards verboseness being exacerbated by my ridiculous prescription for Strattera. I’m not un-chill at all right now… just bored and feeling like typing. And I usually like most of your comments, as I think I’ve indicated lots in the past, so I don’t really get the hostility, but whatever.
Yeah, Tao put the full-text of Richard Yates online for all of us.
Oh, wait…
The MuuMuu house stuff that’s free is just promotion for the stuff that’s not, same as any other business, I think.
Has anyone read Tao Lin’s essay on Koko the Gorilla? I really like this piece and I think it might be an interesting read for people who aren’t that crazy about his fiction. I found it fascinating and I also think it is a little bit clearer window into what Tao is getting at with his ethos/aesthetic.
A lot of people refer to Tao and MH as “lazy” and I think the analysis in this Koko essay isn’t lazy. I can see how if you only read Richard Yates or Shoplifting you might view Tao’s writing as too consciously posed and maybe even vapid. And I think these criticisms may be true of other MH writers but Tao is a thinker and there really is more to his work than may be apparent on the surface (or if one is only familiar with the internet sideshow aspect).
http://bit.ly/dRv6FD
No, actually, it’s not a little hypocritical–I know how to read for context. I don’t cherry-pick or play semantics.
I also wasn’t hostile.
One could argue that your passive-aggressiveness is a form of “hostility” though.
Stop it. Don’t write a 5,000 word reply to this post either.
You’re welcome.
I am definitely surprised how certain people in a few small specific circles totally overestimate the influence, book sales, and reputation of Tao and company.
I think it is quite clear that Tao is pretty well known for an indie writer, maybe one of the better known ones who has never had work appear in a major magazine or a major press. However, that doesn’t make him one of the most widely read young writers out there. Just in terms of factual book sales.
More to the point, the drop-off from Tao to the rest of the gang is like falling down the grand canyon. None of his imitators is read at all or even recognizable by name in the wider literary circles (to say nothing of the wider culture.)
I’m not making any judgements on quality here. Only stating the gap between the perception of a some people and the facts (number of people who buy these books, etc.) is pretty huge. It reminds me of being in college and hearing people who were really into some scene or lifestyle (metal music, veganism, skateboarding, whatever) make hilarious overestimation about how many people total did those things… merely because everyone they knew did.
clicked link, searched for “earnestly,” found that it’s twice on the first page, closed link
I think you were going for some kind of “Picasso could also paint flowers and portraits the regular way?! what?! i take it all back”-type reaction.
i’m more interested in imagining you as being born on the WB back lot. Aaron WB. And everyone drives by on their golf-carts and they wave to you and Jennifer Aniston’s like “who’s that kid, is he on some sitcom?” and her driver’s all, “nah, that’s just Aaron WB, he lives here.” and you sleep in Star’s Hollow’s gazebo, and are amazed when one day you get a field trip to leave the lot and realize there are stores with actual working interiors instead of only facades
*cries*
I know how to read for context. I don’t cherry-pick
“I don’t see writing 200 words a day as “dedication,” ”
or play semantics
“I also used “hate” rather loosely–you know, people use this “I hate x” construction all the time conversationally–it doesn’t mean that they seethe over x.”
I also wasn’t hostile.
“Jesus Christ, dude. You seem to have a problem with reading others’ posts too deeply. Chill out. . . . Stop it.”
passive aggressive
“One could argue…”
Someone else want to give this anon poster the attention he or she so desperately covets?
Nope.
I wonder if there is such a thing. By which I mean nihilism that is not idiotic.
ope
nope, nihilism is the full-on serious destroy program, these writers are not dopers nor alcoholics nor criminals, or at least they don’t celebrate it in their work, they are more romantics than anything else, and major New York culture blogs can eat the corn out of my shit
Tao, fretting over his thwarted Harry Potter live-blogging being ignored, sums up MuuMuu House:
“is anyone there, has anyone come here to look at our livetweets…
anyone…”
http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2011/07/01/andrew-a-dialogue-of-texts-in-the-year-of-drugs-and-kindness/
All I could think was somebody from Gawker, what other New York culture blogs are there? I’m sure there’s lots.
don’t know if “awaken” is the word. but, related, and highly recommended ~ http://hypocritereader.com/5/slow-mood-movement
Just googled them, they sound a little like Against Me! from the one song I listened to on youtube, which song/album do you recommend?
I got Bright Eyes tickets. I’m excited; I’ve never been to an actual show before. (not counting some very sad 4th of the july beach boys reunions with the rents)
All of them in my opinion are good, but their older albums are kind of abrasive, very fast with electric drums instead of real ones, but that’s part of their appeal I think.
Go to http://www.quoteunquoterecords.com/. You can check em out before hand. And they are all free!
Thanks for the link, I will check them out. (also appreciated what you wrote in the dick pulling post but “quit” before i replied to say that to you)
Have you ever heard Brad Sucks? He’s also got his stuff for free http://www.bradsucks.net/music/ (there’s buy links but you can just click save as) He was the first artist I saw online that just gave away their music, this was back in 2008 I think.
Nice, I will check it out for sure.
Yeah, that dick pulling thing bothered me a lot, especially with the age disparity between Tao and that kid, it concerned me that a friend would ever be encouraging of that kind of shit, or at least wouldn’t counsel the kid before approving of it.
Anyway, BTMI! has been doing it since 2004. Free albums, I mean. Instead of selling tee shirts you bring one to the show and they stencil their logo on it, if you bring an instrument to a show lots of times they’ll let you go up and play with them. Basically they’re the band that helped me stop caring what people think about me. Really really liberating.
I have that HP portrait set as my Zune background. Makes me grin every single time.
It’s not bad at all. I like most of the Vice pieces at least a little (except the terrible chat transcript one).
If Tao presented himself as a collection of writing instead of as the figurehead atop a collective of self-promoters… if he didn’t have such an obnoxious and irresponsible online persona to accompany and promote his words…. if he kept a distance from his media attention instead of commenting ceaselessly on it like a douche…. if he encouraged his fans to do their own thing instead of drawing them into his web of self-promotion (ultimately I don’t think Tao has any interest in any of them aside from “what can you do for me?” and muumuu house is basically just free promotion for Tao, like companies that write a small check to charity)…
In other words, if Tao were just a writer and mostly transparent aside from his work or at least not a self-obsessed prick, then I’d think, “You know, I like some of this guy’s pieces and not others, but I’ll keep following his work” instead of “I hate this asshole and everything he represents.”
That’s awesome, I especially love the image of them stenciling their logo on a shirt the fans bring.
If you feel like it (it’s cool if not) could you say more about “stop caring what people think about me,” because I don’t know how, at all. Pretty constantly concerned by it, in fact.
I love the sensation of driving with my windows down and the music super loud, but while I do it I’m a bit of a nervous wreck since I keep having to change the song/station when others are around, because I imagine these strangers judging me for my taste. etc etc in every area of my life and it’s intensified so much more when it comes to people I respect or love.
Yeah, I’m talking about Abe. I read ‘Woman In The Dunes’ about a year or two ago and I think I remember thinking the same thing, and that I liked the movie better.
Still have not decided//will probably finish it.
I could try.
I’m a very neurotic person, and I find that helps when you’re a writer, too. Being neurotic means I’m constantly reading between the lines of people’s actions, or my own actions, to try and figure out their actual intent in what they say or do. Actually, being interested in music/involved in scenes played a really important in this process, because most musicians are pretty big bullshitters/idiots, so I just learned to observe them and archive in my head all their contradictions, and all the reasons why they were pieces of shit.
And one day I just sort of realized no one seemed to be paying as much attention as I was, so who the fuck were they to tell me to do anything.
Idunno. I have friends I care about, friends I can say anything to, I can tell them about the time I was blacked out drunk and threw a beer threw a window because I was in a bad mood and I know they’d still love me because they know who I am. I’m pretty regularly apologetic and understanding of people’s faults because I always try to understand where they’re coming from rather than just hate them. For me, hate is a reason to ask yourself “why” until the hate goes away because you achieve some sort of empathy with another person. And if you understand someone, you’re not afraid of them, and you certainly don’t feel the need to prove anything to them. You just want to be their friend and maybe tease them about their faults and hope they’ll do the same to you.
Basically, just remember that no one knows what the fuck they’re doing, everyone’s a fucking vain idiot, there are people you might want as friends but you should never feel the need to impress them. Actually, if you sort of look at people and just tweek the word “impress” to “make them happy” you’ll get a lot more out of life, because no one should fucking bring you if you just want to make them happy, and if they do, fuck them they are not worth your time.
I don’t know, man. It’s complicated. Likes on a comment are cool, but it’s good to remember that the people liking you are just as fucked up/miserable/retarded as you are.
love bomb the music industry. just DL’d the new one. fave album is ‘goodbye cool world’
Dude, the new one is so good. It’s different, but I don’t know, I guess a lot prettier? Also the songs transition incredibly, Jeff clearly put a lot of attention into that this time around.
Have you seen em live yet? It’s like a religious experience, kind of creepy, but fucking amazing, catharsis to a fucking “t.”
WE GOT A BOTTLE OF JIM BEAM AND STARTED DRINKING
I DRANK A LITER
TO DISTRACT ME FROM MY CONSTANT OVERTHINKING
I NEED A BREATHER
That was really beautiful, thanks for taking the time to write & post it.
I loved your description of neuroticism as “trying to find someone’s actual intent,” I really related to doing that. Don’t know how to get past it, but it’s at least hopeful that if you managed to maybe other people can, too.
The making people happy thing I struggle with, when I switch gears from “impress” to “praise and try to go above and beyond with helpfulness” I’ve just gotten feedback like “that’s overboard, that’s too clingy” etc etc. (This applies more offline than on-, I’m particularly thinking of friends/boyfriends I’ve attempted to keep.) Terrible at finding balance in anything… I either hate people (and lose sight of the empathy/understanding you were talking about) or idolize them and become totally sycophantic (which I guess is another way to not be understanding). I’m in 1000% or 0%, never just the right amount. It’s like Goldilocks syndrome or something haha.
Have a good night, thanks again for posting that…
Old news for some, perhaps, but WOW! What a strange program: http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw091203tao_lin
I remember reading that when it went down. I appreciated your humanitarian intervention because I thought “this goober might just pull his penis off!” It seemed possible to me too. If you can rip a filet mignon, you can certainly rip a penis. I think JC said that. Maybe his vegan-weak arms saved him, or maybe he just never planned on pulling his penis off at all. It’s a peachy outcome on any account.
my tantrum on here was hardly a humanitarian intervention, but the email i sent jordan (before reading his tweets) was my best effort at one. couldn’t exactly (as blake pointed out humorously) call the cops and say “some guy on the internet somewhere is ripping off his penis!”
it’s most definitely possible to seriously damage a penis from way less: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/penis-fracture/AN01217
“During an erection, the penis is engorged with blood. If the penis is bent suddenly or forcefully while it’s engorged, the trauma may rupture the lining of one of the two cylinders in the penis (corpus cavernosum) responsible for erections — resulting in a penis fracture. The trauma is usually related to aggressive or acrobatic sexual intercourse or, in some cases, aggressive masturbation.
“A penis fracture is a painful injury that’s often accompanied by an audible cracking sound, followed immediately by dark bruising of the penis due to blood escaping the cylinder. In some cases the tube that drains urine from the body (urethra) may be damaged as well, and blood may be visible at the urinary opening of the penis.
“A penis fracture requires urgent medical attention. “
my tantrum on here was hardly a humanitarian intervention, but the email i sent jordan (before reading his tweets) was my best effort at one. couldn’t exactly (as blake pointed out humorously) call the cops and say “some guy on the internet somewhere is ripping off his penis!”
it’s most definitely possible to seriously damage a penis from way less: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/penis-fracture/AN01217
“During an erection, the penis is engorged with blood. If the penis is bent suddenly or forcefully while it’s engorged, the trauma may rupture the lining of one of the two cylinders in the penis (corpus cavernosum) responsible for erections — resulting in a penis fracture. The trauma is usually related to aggressive or acrobatic sexual intercourse or, in some cases, aggressive masturbation.
“A penis fracture is a painful injury that’s often accompanied by an audible cracking sound, followed immediately by dark bruising of the penis due to blood escaping the cylinder. In some cases the tube that drains urine from the body (urethra) may be damaged as well, and blood may be visible at the urinary opening of the penis.
“A penis fracture requires urgent medical attention. “
that guy has the best guests but he’s so hard to listen to, i couldn’t even make it through the DFW one, but in a minute when i’m drunker definitely gonna listen to this tao one, thanks for posting.
my tantrum on here was hardly a humanitarian intervention, but the email i sent jordan (before reading his tweets) was my best effort at one. couldn’t exactly (as blake pointed out humorously) call the cops and say “some guy on the internet somewhere is ripping off his penis!”
it’s most definitely possible to seriously damage a penis from way less: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/penis-fracture/AN01217
“During an erection, the penis is engorged with blood. If the penis is bent suddenly or forcefully while it’s engorged, the trauma may rupture the lining of one of the two cylinders in the penis (corpus cavernosum) responsible for erections — resulting in a penis fracture. The trauma is usually related to aggressive or acrobatic sexual intercourse or, in some cases, aggressive masturbation.
“A penis fracture is a painful injury that’s often accompanied by an audible cracking sound, followed immediately by dark bruising of the penis due to blood escaping the cylinder. In some cases the tube that drains urine from the body (urethra) may be damaged as well, and blood may be visible at the urinary opening of the penis.
“A penis fracture requires urgent medical attention. “
my tantrum on here was hardly a humanitarian intervention, but the email i sent jordan (before reading his tweets) was my best effort at one. couldn’t exactly (as blake pointed out humorously) call the cops and say “some guy on the internet somewhere is ripping off his penis!”
it’s most definitely possible to seriously damage a penis from way less: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/penis-fracture/AN01217
“During an erection, the penis is engorged with blood. If the penis is bent suddenly or forcefully while it’s engorged, the trauma may rupture the lining of one of the two cylinders in the penis (corpus cavernosum) responsible for erections — resulting in a penis fracture. The trauma is usually related to aggressive or acrobatic sexual intercourse or, in some cases, aggressive masturbation.
“A penis fracture is a painful injury that’s often accompanied by an audible cracking sound, followed immediately by dark bruising of the penis due to blood escaping the cylinder. In some cases the tube that drains urine from the body (urethra) may be damaged as well, and blood may be visible at the urinary opening of the penis.”A penis fracture requires urgent medical attention. “
my tantrum on here was hardly a humanitarian intervention, but the email i sent jordan (before reading his tweets) was my best effort at one. couldn’t exactly (as blake pointed out humorously) call the cops and say “some guy on the internet somewhere is ripping off his penis!”
it’s most definitely possible to seriously damage a penis from way less: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/penis-fracture/AN01217
“During an erection, the penis is engorged with blood. If the penis is bent suddenly or forcefully while it’s engorged, the trauma may rupture the lining of one of the two cylinders in the penis (corpus cavernosum) responsible for erections — resulting in a penis fracture. The trauma is usually related to aggressive or acrobatic sexual intercourse or, in some cases, aggressive masturbation.
“A penis fracture is a painful injury that’s often accompanied by an audible cracking sound, followed immediately by dark bruising of the penis due to blood escaping the cylinder. In some cases the tube that drains urine from the body (urethra) may be damaged as well, and blood may be visible at the urinary opening of the penis.
“A penis fracture requires urgent medical attention. “
Thanks dude. I mean don’t sweat it. Just try and be yourself as much as you possibly can. With that clingy business, you can also remember that whomever you get clingy with should be communicating their concern instead of acting like a prick. No one’s perfect. Communication tends to fix a lot. Someone saying “This bothers me” is better than being ignored. As I’ve said here in the past, bullshit is inevitable, it’s everywhere, you’re not gonna avoid it or break through it, so why not try and be nice.
dope! a naive and ill considered comment on my part apparently, it’s nice to see some things never change, sort of. I’ve also been whapped upside the head for this missive about NY culture blogs, so apologies at any and all offended and/or mischaracterized
i like your sn, no idea what that last comment meant though (maybe it wasn’t actually in reply to me/the vice piece)
funny to answer a drunk person writing re a drugs thing with “dope!”
Well yeah, the article definitely makes that case. It doesn’t mean we have to take it too seriously though. That Jon-Jon Goulian book was pushed really hard, doesn’t justify it as an art-piece.
Or I guess, more directly to your statement, it doesn’t mean it’s worth our time.
I’m generally in two leagues every year. One for money and one for fun. I was in a third league last year that was sort of supplemental to my regular money league because we wanted to try out an auction draft. I think we’re sticking with snake draft, though.
I can’t imagine how complicated auction + keeper would be. The ‘standard’ keeper punishment in a snake draft is that you lose the pick where you got the guy the previous year, and then every subsequent year you keep the guy the pick you give up increases by one round.
That description is way more exciting than my actual life– I’ll take it.
Face of Another movie is awesome.
I liked the Koko essay and the Murakami Ryu piece.
Also like the Murakami piece. Had forgotten about that one.
Michael Silverblatt is probably my favorite living interviewer and reader. And he’s so nice!
Murakami piece: http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/almost-transparent-blue-ryu-murakami/
i just wanna say that seeing valuing ‘earnesty’ as a bad thing is inherently harmful to yourself and the people around you and to devalue it is pretty dumb
how did my post glorify it?
For sure, he is one of the most articulate and respectful radio hosts I’ve ever listened to. I should check out some of the recent episodes of Bookworm…
Yes.
This interview really helped me get my head around what Lin is doing.
He and Silverblatt were mutually respectful and, both, very thoughtful.
it was a joke about how muumuu writers way overuse the word “earnestly” itself, not a dig at the sentiment of earnestness. it’s become another tic for them, like the scare quotes/brackets.
I went back to check the post just now and realized you even linked to the tweet, so it’s doubly my fault for not knowing this started with twitter. Guess I just clicked on the video not paying much attention (really thought the NSFW angle was a joke/parody thing and it’d just be a regular poetry reading or book trailer).
Anyway, I think the exclamation points and including the “act now it’s only available for 24 hours!!!” crossed over from “simply reporting” to “glorifying” but maybe “glorify” was not the best word choice on my part. I guess the sense I got was that it was promoting the video with excitement more than it was simply reporting on the video’s existence. Maybe I read it wrong–what was your intent in posting it? What would have been the best possible response?
I am a bad writer. I always wanted to write, you know. Like the big boys. But the talent wasn’t there. I wasn’t born with it. Or maybe the life experience wasn’t there. Not sure if it is free will or determinism. Either way talent never appeared. A lack of style and cultural awareness never took place leading to endless years of sad pathetic sentences and annoying typos.
i don’t think exclamation points imply glory. they imply urgency and attention, and because this was a time sensitive issue, i wanted to imply urgency and attention to the tweet/video/thread.
[anon head shot] c2k and [x] more liked this Like Reply
Tao Lin is running a company. And he’s doing a pretty damn good job too.
The style itself isn’t so bad. I quite enjoyed Zachary German’s “Eat When You Feel Sad.” It posits a mood without pushing one on you, and the scant inner-monologues of the narrator seemed, to me, to have real moments of epiphany.
Same for “Shoplifting from American Apparel,” by Tao Lin. It doesn’t contain the traditional dramatic form of “problem-conflict-climax-denouement,” but that doesn’t make it devoid of thematic quality. After you read it you start to take a closer look at the details of your own life. It offers perspective.
how did i get this far
[…] of “prominent”) writers in his literary cadre. (The post engendered quite a comment chain on this very site.) Mere weeks later, Lin landed a $50,000 book deal with Vintage for his next novel. And that was […]