Urban Outfitters has decided to sell "Shoplifting from American Apparel" in their stores
Shoplifting from American Apparel is now available at Urban Outfitters locations throughout America (Village Voice coverage/video documentation). Based on what I know about life I feel that this is the apex of my career (see graph).
Seems risky, in my view, that they are doing this. I feel unsure if I would allow this if I were a high-level Urban Outfitters executive. Seems expected that Burger King or Wendy's "shit-talk" McDonald's as part of their identity but for a clothing retail company to do something that "even vaguely" references another clothing retail company seems provocative, stressful, and "mildly confusing," in my view (yet ultimately "really sweet," I think, however).
I fantasized in bed about writing Shoplifting Shoplifting from American Apparel from Urban Outfitters (cover), a novella about Shoplifting from American Apparel written with an extreme focus on "being meta." Almost every sentence would employ an "em-dash parenthetical with a semi-colon within itself to self-reference or further parenthesize without using parenthesis, due to parenthesis already being used elsewhere in the sentence" in order to be "2x+ meta" "even on the sentence level." Seems like I wanted, in my fantasy, to construct such a powerful, sustained, layered, intuitive, "artificial intelligence"-like, self-aware to the point of transcending the concept of self, "pure" experience of meta that [I'm not sure, I think at this point I stopped thinking about it or probably focused more on thinking about photoshopping SFAA's cover to SSFAAFUO for this blog post and "feeling worried" a little that SSFAAFUO might not fit if I retained SFAA's cover's font size].
Shoplifting Shoplifting from American Apparel from Urban Outfitters (2012) could be marketed as a modern Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) or a meta Shoplifting from American Apparel (2009). Seems lucrative.
Seems risky, in my view, that they are doing this. I feel unsure if I would allow this if I were a high-level Urban Outfitters executive. Seems expected that Burger King or Wendy's "shit-talk" McDonald's as part of their identity but for a clothing retail company to do something that "even vaguely" references another clothing retail company seems provocative, stressful, and "mildly confusing," in my view (yet ultimately "really sweet," I think, however).
I fantasized in bed about writing Shoplifting Shoplifting from American Apparel from Urban Outfitters (cover), a novella about Shoplifting from American Apparel written with an extreme focus on "being meta." Almost every sentence would employ an "em-dash parenthetical with a semi-colon within itself to self-reference or further parenthesize without using parenthesis, due to parenthesis already being used elsewhere in the sentence" in order to be "2x+ meta" "even on the sentence level." Seems like I wanted, in my fantasy, to construct such a powerful, sustained, layered, intuitive, "artificial intelligence"-like, self-aware to the point of transcending the concept of self, "pure" experience of meta that [I'm not sure, I think at this point I stopped thinking about it or probably focused more on thinking about photoshopping SFAA's cover to SSFAAFUO for this blog post and "feeling worried" a little that SSFAAFUO might not fit if I retained SFAA's cover's font size].
Shoplifting Shoplifting from American Apparel from Urban Outfitters (2012) could be marketed as a modern Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) or a meta Shoplifting from American Apparel (2009). Seems lucrative.
49 Comments:
damn
i agree w/ erik.
+ i think it is definitely 'meta,' also possibly 'smart fiction.'
from here you might want to write a book called 'urban outfitters is a bad store' and market it to american apparel. then possibly both stores will keep paying you to write bad stories about the other place. sweet
i feel so tired
Enjoyed the linking of (and thus upping the 'meta'-ness) "Shoplifting Shoplifting From American Apparel from Urban Outfitters" to Google search of previously mentioned. Also, looks like you've come a long way since 2004. Congrats.
nice
do you still have the '20 word cat story'
♥
i feel violent
Feels like some kind of justice was served.
Good job.
good job
bro, seems sweet so bro
dude, i'm not even sure what to think anymore. damn
how would a 'normal black person' respond to this
i will probably try to steal "shoplifting from american apparel" from urban outfitters. we'll see how it goes.
when you move into the woods alone will you stop blogging?
SSFAAFUO seems funny
@ Victoria
Seconded. Then to walk the 11.83 feet to Amerpear and acquire some "Aqua mint" Stretch Twill Slim Slacks. Delicious.
hahah SSFAAFUO that's pretty funny. There's an urban outfitters near where i live that's pretty easy to steal from.
SFAA @ UO was inevitable
"move alone to the forest" seems not that bad/inevitable @ some point.
where can i shoplift ~20 word cat story
wow
Don't forget, though, that Urban Outfitters isn't strictly a clothing retailer, so there's not quite so much of a conflict with American Apparel. Now, if American Apparel were to enter the "hipster conversation piece" business as well...
In the past I have sometimes worried about Tao Lin abstractly, like "oh no, he's not makin' enough monay" or things along those lines.
But now, I hope that you had 'mad cash flow' and only that you don't get a penchant for super expensive strawberry mango hybrids, thus blowing your $$
sweet
/damn
you can buy more Popeye's fried chicken sandwiches now, congratulations
brittany wallace
i read this post yesterday and had a dream tao was named king of the internet
end of the beginning or beginning of the end?
i applied for a job at urban outfitters and the girl said "if you were 18, i would 'totally' hire you"
so i think i'll go back on my birthday
i will let you know if they are selling sfaa
this is awesome Tao! I think out of all people you can handle this sort of paradox with creativity and intelligence. Hope it puts some pennies in your bank - it's nice to eat and pay rent from time to time. Also - please don't 'commit suicide'. I'm looking forward to seeing your work unfold over time.
UO also sells The Bell Jar and Catcher in the Rye
(!)
tao, is this 'the most important blog post of your career?' I am looking forward to 'the most important blog post.'
ryan manning?
Tao, thats huge.
...but there are def bigger things on the horizon for you. You just cant see it bc what you are doing has never been done before.
today i drove ~30 minutes to see my friends bands play but i got scared and turned around and went to whole foods and bought a vegan muffin and a large cup of coffee and i ate it alone
felt like i was crying, don't think i cried
on the way home i vaguely contemplated 'jenny lewis', 'am i even a writer, can i even write', and 'hibernation'
fragile, elusive post
This is the funniest thing you've ever posted and/or I've ever read on your blog. Well done.
Hi Tao,
Just wanted to say 'thanks' to you for being you and doing what you do - you are beating 'them' (I think you know who I mean) at their own game.
To quote a movie that I recently saw, "they ain't smart enough, tough enough or fast enough".
urban outfitters just wants you to write a book about shoplifting from them. jealousy. it what it is.
damn re jordan castro's second comment
you are the coolest, tao
Seems like 'URBN' tries to hard to be 'ironic.' They're selling the Twilight Saga as well now...
asked a lady behind a bookstore counter if she had any tao lin.
'is he an eastern philosopher,' she said.
'no,' i said. 'he's a contemporary fiction author.'
she apologized.
'i used to be so up-to-date with all the most recent releases when i worked in the fiction section.'
(i was standing in the non-fiction section)
'it's okay,' i said. 'he's not that famous.'
I'm eating dried apricots
I have shoplifted shoplifting from american apparel from urban outfitters. I feel the need to apologize but, I think this is as far as I will take that.
so do people buy your book at the store, or what?
That is absolutely hilarious
I 'lifted' 'shoplifting ...' from urban outfitters for $4.99, that's $8 off the MSRP. What a bargain!
I love this book
although I bought it at the wrong timing [i bought it during the finals thinking it as a light studybreak reading... lets just say I spent far more time reading and discussing it with a friend than studying comparative political systems]
just wanna say I loved it!
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