Author / Tao Lin

by Tao Lin

POETRY

I am going to blog about poetry and then post a poem. There is some poetry that I like.

I like poetry by Matthew Rohrer, Michael Earl Craig, Ben Lerner, and Ellen Kennedy.

All those people have poetry on BEAR PARADE except Ben Lerner.

Gene Morgan and I solicited Ben Lerner for BEAR PARADE before he was nominated for the National Book Award for ANGLE OF YAW, his second poetry book, but he said he did not have anything for BEAR PARADE.

ORGANIC COLD-PRESSED VIRGIN COCONUT OIL

Coconut oil is the only oil that can be heated and remain non-toxic in its unrefined state.
Coconut oil stimulates the thyroid which promotes an appetite
that is socially responsible and not out of control.
In the 1970’s people started to say to eat less fats
which caused people to eat more carbohydrates

in the form of bread, cake, soda, and other low-fat foods.
There is no such thing as an obese wild animal.
There is also no such thing in the wild habitats as bread, cake, soda, refined sugar,
muffins, or any kind of baked goods. A diet high in fat and protein and raw vegan foods
will make you feel better, look better, and also reduce pain and suffering in the world.
Eating meat or dairy for one year is equivalent to dumping 500 pounds of toxic shit
into the ocean, choosing to inflict severe pain onto hundreds of animals, both human
and non-human, and voting 20 times for the presidential candidate
you talk shit about for over 200 hours each year.

Since we are alive right now and not killing ourselves
our philosophy of life must be that life is worth living.

I know that all meaning is arbitrary. All goals are arbitrary.
But conscious existence is impossible without meaning and goals
however temporary or inconstant those meanings and goals are.
To think beyond what I just said will make a person go insane.
Therefore I think like the answer to a math question
the correct thing for me to do sometimes is to lecture you about eating meat and dairy.

by Tao Lin

Someone invited me to this thing called “Good Reads.”

My profile is here.

I reviewed my own book, EEEEE EEE EEEE.

I reviewed almost every book I like.

They link to places like Amazon to buy books from.

You can go to other places though.

The cash is in your hands.

The choice is yours.

McNally Robinson ships any book anywhere in the world.

I will give you some advice now.

Some practical advice to actualize your liberal politics in concrete reality.

1. To get free books go to your pile of books, in your room, and pick up an Amy Tan book, in your hands, bring it to Barnes and Noble or Border’s, and exchange it for a book by an independent press.

2. If an author you like is reading at Barnes and Noble or Borders and you want to give them your book, that you wrote, go to the bookshelf in the store, take the book, in your hand, write a note in it, then bring it to the author who is reading who you like, and give it to him or her.

Barnes and Nobles in NYC, and probably in other places, don’t have tags in the books, but I think Borders has tags in some books. You can just flip through the book and find it though, and take it out, and put it on somewhere else.

Go to Good Reads and be my friend and read my reviews.

I reviewed Noah Cicero, Lorrie Moore, Joy Williams, Richard Yates, Lydia Davis, Matthew Rohrer, Jean Rhys, Ann Beattie, Todd Hasak-Lowy, Bobbie Ann Mason, Kobo Abe, Celia Farber, Peter Singer, Mary Robison, and some other people.

by Tao Lin

The Confused Manatee and Bear829

The confused manatee wakes at 3 p.m. most days and begins writing at 10 p.m. after drinking a double espresso with soy milk. The confused manatee is unemployed. She has been rejected from Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Cincinnati Review, Other Voices, Ploughshares, A Public Space, Eclectica, Mad Hatter’s Review, Pindeldyboz, Hobart, McSweeney’s, Mid-American Review, NOON, and Fourteen Hills. The confused manatee’s hobbies include finding secluded areas and staring at them, touching the covers of literary magazines, and pushing seaweed into giant floating piles and then swimming away.

Confused

Bear829 lives in Greenwich Village with three humans. He enjoys shopping at Whole Foods, doing push-ups in his room, and petting his own head while saying, “It will be okay. It will be okay.” He emails his mother once a day.

Bear829

by Tao Lin

THE MOOSE AND THE GERBIL

I was going to blog about this Marco Roth, n+1, Benjamin Kunkel thing (which happened after this Marco Roth thing) and type some things about censorship, different kinds of people, and concrete reality vs. the world of abstractions but stared at the computer screen for a long time with a concerned facial expression then bought and ate a salad then came back and typed this post called “THE MOOSE AND THE GERBIL.”

THE MOOSE

The moose is forthcoming in The New Yorker but feels conflicted because its short story was edited a lot, to the point that the moose believes it is a “completely different story.” Sometimes at night the moose goes outside into the woods and headbutts trees while interminably thinking, “What is the function of art?” The moose’s life partner tells the moose it’s okay because “look at the art, not the artist,” but the moose stopped taking its life partner’s advice seriously over half a year ago during an epiphany where he distinctly thought the following sentence, including punctuation, “This moose is not someone I would be with if I were not as lonely and irritable as I am; actually I would talk shit about almost everything this moose says and thinks if I were less lonely and more attractive and less irritable than I am.” The moose lives in a studio apartment in mid-town Manhattan and is a senior editor at Riverhead.

THE GERBIL

The gerbil is an aspiring writer who has just discovered the online writing community called Zoetrope. It has completed three short stories but is unsure which to post for feedback. All three of the stories are very autobiographical and the gerbil has read many disaparaging remarks about autobiographical stories. The gerbil has brown hair and often feels alienated from its peers, despite that it has almost always received only praise for its “kind-hearted nature,” “intelligent-looking, beautiful blue eyes,” and “quirky sense of humor.” Its only friend, who it talks with almost every day through email and gmail chat, lives 4000 miles away, in Norway. The gerbil itself lives in a four-person apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which it found on Craigslist.