unsarcastic shit-talking of people's art
- books
- richard yates (2010)
-
- shoplifting from american apparel (2009)
- cognitive-behavioral therapy (2008)
- eeeee eee eeee (2007)
- bed (2007)
- you are a little bit happier than i am (2006)
- 'e-books'
- hikikomori with ellen kennedy (2007)
- today the sky is blue and white with bright blue spots and a small pale moon and i will destroy our relationship today (2006)
- this emotion was a little e-book (2006)
- selected 'pieces'
- 'relationship story'
- essay re 'future of the novel'
- essay re mushrooms
- essay re koko
- essay re 'almost transparent blue'
- top 10 worst fruits re blowjobs
- top 10 animals w/o asses
- profile re 'tao lin'
- essay re 'sfaa'
- essay re [various things]
- essay re trespassing
- essay re 'blogging platforms'
- essay re 'three movies i liked
- essay re 'marina abramovic'
- essay re 'honored guest'
- essay re 'sfaa'/music
- essay re seattle
- essay re 'reading in seattle'
- essay re 'levels of greatness'
- essay re 'good and bad in art'
- essay re poems/relationships
- essay re [the word 'nice']
- essay re germany
- essay re 'k-mart realism'
- essay re 'thomas bernhard'
- essay re 'short stories'
- 'we will drink our coffee...'
- the 'can't concentrate' manatee
- the nearly-severely depressed bird
- the existentially-fucked megamouth shark
- the professional sasquatch
- the gay stepdad
- the disappointed ant
- the vegan muffin
- sex story
- exactly what i want
- love is a thing on sale
- leftover crack in red hook
- sasquatch
- we will drink our coffee
- should
- bear poem
- february
- october
- friday
- whale poem
- opposite of song of myself
- interviews
- jeff rosenstock
- stza crack
- ben lerner
- malcolm gladwell
- tony o'neill
- chelsey minnis
- michael earl craig
- richard grayson
- deb olin unferth (2)
- matthew rohrer
- rebecca curtis
- clancy martin
- joy williams
- stephen elliott
- stephen dixon
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50 Comments:
i liked this post a lot.
"kind hearted shit" is good.
i laughed at a lot of the comments on that post
someone 'dissed' me by saying i probably don't even know who cormac mccarthy is
you got 'hella dissed'.
i decided i dont like you anymore. im glad i read that post, it changed my life.
Tao, McCarthy was an anti-communist
Let me start off by saying it wasn't my intention to hurt your feelings. It probably was my intention to hurt German's, and my tongue was loose when speaking about Cicero. For you and Cicero, I apologize.
I could try and explain why people critique art, but I wouldn't get anywhere because it's something I wrestle with myself. I started that post just on the kernel of an idea or emotion, mostly the outrage and envy, that was sparked at seeing the rumor or truth that German's novel was to be published by FSG. After seeing your writing, and his, and Cicero's, I wanted to address that style in a broad way, and talk about the whole phenomenon surrounding it as I saw it. If I'd known it would get this big, I would have probably put more thought into it. I would have made it an actual critique.
You can label it unsarcastic shit-talking about art, which it was, although I'm pretty sarcastic all the time. But that's what my blog is about, I talk trash about what I don't like, I praise what I do. I've actually posted on here before saying that of all people who write in your vein, I liked your writing. It's all opinion. If you want your idea of a pretty tree to be safe and sound, don't spread it. Putting it out for other people to see guarantees people will praise or trash it. It's not a value judgment on your character. It's a judgment based upon one person's taste of the art in question.
My feelings for certain authors have nothing to do with the fame they've garnered. The only thing it has done is given me access to them. If you want to link or otherwise direct me to some lesser read folks, I'd be happy to take a look at them.
i understand eric
but your language, and mostly the commenters, is the kind of language people use not to express personal likes and dislikes but universal 'goodness' or 'badness'
i'm glad we're being nice now
buy my books
also i don't think my feelings are hurt when i read someone shit-talking my writing or other people's writings
i more feel like frustrated or 'bothered' that people think that way, can think that way
That blog is my high horse. If you like, I can give an honest and professional treatment to the writings I discussed. I know it's not a favor to you, but if these are the feelings raised, I'd like to try and make it "right."
That was a "joke." I really wouldn't say we were discussing universal goodness or badness, but I do believe that most of the readers stated unequivocal dismissal. Which, perhaps, can be just as bad.
I don't think I'll buy your books. But I will read some more of your stories. I'm glad we're being nice now too.
You know all those people will buy or have bought your books. Drawing heat from the crowd is good. When there is no good and bad, bad isn't that bad.
yes, mike
this post is possibly 'bad' in terms of short-term sales
for long-term sales it might be 'good' though
not sure
you seem savvy in marketing mike, i should hire you if i had a lot of money
'bad' as opposed to a post that would shit-talk back the shit-talkers using unsarcastic shit-talking and name-calling
'i'm glad we're being nice now
buy my books'
haha.
that reminded me of the end of missy elliot's 'gossip folks'
don't try to act like you know who cormac mccarthy is tao. i know you don't watch oprah.
Hey Tao Lin, it's the Golden Bear.
Some guy flew down from a cloud and gave me a link to a youtube video. He told me to give it to you. I tried to ask him to tell me more but he started crying and then fell asleep. Then his cloud lifted him away.
So yeah, here it is. He sounds pissed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoQOj5sSy-c
You can't wrestle.
You can't wrestle.
You can't wrestle.
I laughed. I liked Blake's comment on the other blog the most.
I hope everyone here thinks about literature critically for six hours every day.
i'm not going to comment here.
the shit-talking is becoming intense on that post, i feel like someone's going to break in my room when i'm holding my pillow in severe depression and loneliness and beat me with a baseball bat
I would afraid too, but I think everyone is too busy being reading the new york book review, earning money at a job they hate but responsibly show up to everyday to pay their mortgage, going to marriage counseling or going to night school while fighting in hand to hand combat in the middle east or teaching english at an impoverished gang dominated urban high school to hurt you in new york. they are all very serious and doing serious things. nothing serious will happen to your livelihood or threaten your ability to type more.
this reminds me of a blog i found a long time ago where lawyer critically analyzed MFA programs and made a whole scale on how to tell what was the "best" and so on. he then got into the iowa mfa program and i haven't read his blog since then but i bet he hasn't made a single scale since he got in. everyone is doing busy work in order to passive aggressively gain control over something which they feel they have no control over. i think you are a proactive honest writer who does not have dollar signs in your eyes. you are more honest than people who pretend that publishing is a magical industry where "great" literature eventually rises above all the "smut" and is exulted in the sunday new york times. maybe some of the angry people on that blog only like things if they are called great, not because they are great.
poor tao
(safari: i think seth abramson still does 'scales')
he also links here
also,
technical rankings shouldn't be confused with abstract generalizations about 'good' and 'bad'. for his ranking of mfa programs, for example, he gives a 'goal' and a 'context' by which to decide which is 'better'. they are not 'arbitrary' or 'absolute'.
i agree with you.
and you are making a different point than this.
just clarifying.
wow on both parts. i was uninformed lumping him in where he did not belong. i think some of the comments reminded me of just the idea of the scales and quantifying what seems to not be quantifiable as similar.
maybe a new scale will be created to include tao's efforts.
hah
tao will attempt to defeat all scales
probably
i really felt towards this post. I realize this has caused a lot of "dissing" through the comments but you worded perfectly what was a constant thought in my mind.
Thanks :)
In my experience, self-projection is all I see when I diss anyone.
people are saying a lot things. i looked at all the comments and instantly felt extremely exhausted. i don't understand how people can think like that.
hah, 'tao lin army'
tao, your long term sales are increasing
hi tao. i haven't said hi--to you--in some time, i think, yes. hi. i will go to kgb when you have your reading there. i would like to be there. i keep clicking on 'comments' because i want to leave comments, but i feel like i am out of comments lately. i have felt like that for over one month. this is a comment. a fucked comment. i am fucked.
hey tao. i liked this post and the post on the other blog because i'm at work and i use internet arguments as a way to escape things. i also think that this is good for sales.
good job commenting everyone, things are being said
my next novel will be called 'the shit-talker,' it will be the new 'the stranger'
a depressed, confused person in their bedroom will be lying on their bed and someone will come in the room and the light from the computer screen will go in his eye and he'll start shit-talking the depressed, confused person
i want to talk shit for 5 hours nonstop
i can control myself i think
hehe if "the shit talker" is anything like 'the stranger,' then it should be good.
you sure you can last for 5 hours?
your minions "unsarcastically" "shit-talked" that guy's opinion of your work and work like your work, and passive aggressively "shit-talked" his work, implying belief in absolute tables of good and bad. You should chastise them, or take away their small pants wearing privileges. You and Noah Cicero's respective blogs handled the "shit-talk" maturely, but your offspring need discipline.
fun is fun.
olalekan:
I'm confused about this "small pants" stuff. Tao doesn't wear small pants. None of Tao's friends that I have met wear small pants... so what is the deal with small pants? Is there something I'm not getting?
When someone says his pants are too tight isn't that an expression used to imply one has an erection?
I'm still confused.
yeah, ellen, i didn't understand his comment either.
i didn't mean to imply anything sexual, tao lin makes a lot of references to hipsters, and his acolytes seem to enjoy indie music so i assumed they also like wearing really small pants. apparently i was wrong, so tao lin's minions should be forced to wear small pants.
olalekan = cliche stereotypes + average assumptions - profanity for a grand total of boring.
only good-looking people are allowed to shit-talk
shittalk
talk shit
shittalky mushroom
ellen francis, nice picture
ny all the way
good job ellen, you've defeated a joke, the banality of which inspired you to comment.
i also like your picture.
small pants.
get those people to come shit-talk here instead of there, the shit-talking is being wasted on a site that sells no products
tao lin I shit-talked one of your books on goodreads once and then I felt bad because it wasn't especially constructive. I'm pretty sure you don't give a shit. which is fine. why am I typing this? I feel like getting involved in the conversation
http://www.amazon.com/Artful-Sentences-Syntax-as-Style/dp/0961392185/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208123004&sr=8-1
this might help; we could all use longer sentences.
read my books, i have sentences that are half a page
i can only read library books and review copies, for i am but a bookish pauper, though i promise eloquent and honest portrayals of the free books i read, which are all the more enjoyable with their financial featherweight.
get a library near you to order 'bed' and read it, there are long sentences
Maybe a blog post is his art, you seem to think some of yours are. If he thinks it's art, and as you say who's to judge what is and isn't art, you just made yourself look like a hypocrite. Even the most sarcastic, tongue-through-cheek, authors hate being called hypocrites. I'd type this for real to you, but then I'd make myself a hypocrite too. If there's one thing I hate, it's being a hypocrite. I hope nobody walks up behind me and hits publish your comment or ENTER by accident. That'd suck.
cormac mccarthy is that guy rowdy roddy piper won the intercontinental belt from at wrestlemania 2
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