Autobiography of Blue

excerpt from The Disappointed Ant by Tao Lin

For a few months the disappointed ant was able (with only a little despair which was more distracting, really, than uncomfortable) to enjoy small, private, and ultimately pointless things like walking around pretending to be a machine; lying in bed listening to lyrically excruciating emo music but focusing only on the drums; and turning off all the lights at 3 p.m., drinking iced coffee, putting down the curtains, and lying in bed thinking about good feelings it had felt in the past.

often it is the only / thing / between you and impossibility / no drink / no woman’s love / no wealth/ can / match it / nothing can save you/ except writing.

-Charles Bukowski

part of an interview with Tao Lin & Vernacular Lit.

VL: Why do certain people (mainly on the Internet) appear to enjoy bashing Tao Lin? Do you get the feeling that many of them haven’t actually read your work?

TL: Based on my experiences “bashing” people (I think I have “bashed” people a few times, in middle school probably, in message boards or online role-playing games) I think people enjoy doing it for the same reasons people enjoy vandalizing people’s things or houses (which I’ve also done, in high school) or talking shit about a “rival” sports team or political party; or, to a lesser degree, “annoying” their siblings, or something. Because to a certain person it probably “feels” fun, distracts immediately from “existential despair,” and connects one immediately and sort of intimately with others who are doing it to the same target.

[…]For people who are earnestly talking shit about me because they really think I’m a horrible person whose entire existence is some kind of “persona” or “gimmick” I recommend they read my story-collection, BED, if they have any feeling like they don’t want to feel like they “have to” talk shit about me.

http://v.tgdn.net/2009/11/shoplifting-from-american-apparel-an-interview-with-tao-lin.html

“Do you want to re-watch the end of the last episode of Battlestar Galactica, ‘cause you were falling asleep?”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Did you see what was happening?”

“They were killing robots. Robots were getting killed.”

if I don’t already know you on twitter, I’d like to!

so, who are you on twitter?