huchu

re.: tao lin

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:07:00 -0800

[you can read a passage of tao lin’s recent-ish book, Shoplifting from American Apparel here.]

Maybe I just don’t “get” Tao Lin, but it’s like this: Lin’s got this total thing for youthful (mid-twenties, youthful, that is, not like teens youthful) irony and malaise (because let’s face it who doesn’t), and maybe Lin’s fans will tell me, like, he approaches these themes with irony in order to subvert/deconstruct the sardonicism that’s eating away at modern youth, or something like that. Which means that he’s being ironic about irony, which means he’s actually being sincere, but he’s sincere in an ironic way, or maybe ironically sincere, or sincerely ironic. So here’s the big question: if you have to hide your sincerity behind cynicism, why even bother?

edit: I’m not putting this very well. I mean to say, irony is an effective rhetorical technique and sometimes wicked funny besides, and I don’t have like this seething hatred of it; it’s just, I read Shoplifting and really what’s the goddamn point? Maybe there’s not any point, which would make sense given this book, but then why does the book make it a point (if you will) to make pointlessness so, well, pointless? It’s like not-meaning-what-he’s-saying is the only thing Lin knows, and he knows how utterly vacuous life becomes when you never mean what you say/say what you mean, and so he decided to say what he means by not meaning what he’s saying. Which is a tried-and-true use of rhetorical humor, but when you really consider what Lin is doing, i.e. ironically saying that irony works but really meaning that irony really doesn’t—it’s awfully self-defeating.

Or maybe I just didn’t get it.

Beirut - Scenic World

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:16:12 -0800

Beirut - Scenic World

Los Campesinos! - A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State;...

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:06:49 -0800

Los Campesinos! - A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State; or, Letters From Me To Charlotte

ΘΘ [photo via]

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:32:00 -0800

ΘΘ

[photo via]

I was thinking of drawing an hourly comic

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:50:50 -0800

I was thinking of drawing an hourly comic:

But I realized half of it would be me reading books in dead silence and the other half me pretending to do homework but actually checking Twitter/Tumblr/Facebook, and even I in all my self-absorbsion could not being myself to read, let alone draw stick figures for, such banality. So. Good story.

Achewood § January 31, 2010

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:35:52 -0800

Achewood § January 31, 2010

Dinosaur Comics - February 1st, 2010 - awesome fun times!

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:25:17 -0800

Dinosaur Comics - February 1st, 2010 - awesome fun times!

i just lost two tumblr followers because of that

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:07:51 -0800

well, i laughed.

(500) Days of Shit.

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:19:00 -0800

i said it, what you wanna fight about it

McSweeney's: A Short History of the Norse Colonization of Greenland for Bostonians

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:55:11 -0800

McSweeney's: A Short History of the Norse Colonization of Greenland for Bostonians:

So I’m tellin’ yah this all stahted way back in 872 when the king of Nahway, who was a real shit prick but a wicked good scrappah, was pickin’ fights all up n’ down the coast like he fuckin’ owned the place till finally he fuckin’ massahcred the othah team at Hafrsfjord n’ was like, “Hey, all yah Nahwegians, I’m gonna impose some hefty fuckin’ taxes on yah without yer reprahsentation ‘cause I don’t give half a lobstah’s ass about what yah all fuckin’ think, yah fuckin’ retahds. Yah fuckin’ lost, go fuck yahselves.”

I don’t know if any of you read/like McSweeney’s (personally, I’m ambivalent), but this one is fantastic.

“The Part About the Crimes” could easily be renamed “The Part Where Roberto Bolaño...

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:46:00 -0800

“The Part About the Crimes” could easily be renamed “The Part Where Roberto Bolaño Repeatedly Kicks You in the Groin.”

"…you’re going to start getting closer and closer - that is, if you want to, and if you look for it..."

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:19:55 -0800

“…you’re going to start getting closer and closer - that is, if you want to, and if you look for it and wait for it - to the kind of information that will be very, very dear to your heart. Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.”

- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (via sometimesagreatnotion)

"Let me see them, I said, and I pulled the notebook out of his hands. His poems weren’t bad...."

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:34:59 -0800

“Let me see them, I said, and I pulled the notebook out of his hands. His poems weren’t bad. His only problem was that he wrote just like the poet. These things can’t have happened to you, I said, you’re too young to have suffered this much. He made a gesture as if to say that he didn’t care whether I believed him or not. What matters is that it’s well written, he said. No, I told him, you know that isn’t what matters. Wrong, wrong, wrong, I said, and finally he had to cede the point. His name was Jordi and today he may be teaching at the university or writing reviews for La Vanguardia or El Periódico.”

- Roberto Bolaño, 2666

Los Campesinos! - In Media Res

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:43:00 -0800

Los Campesinos! - In Media Res

A Celebration of David Foster Wallace

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:50:42 -0800

A Celebration of David Foster Wallace:

peterwknox:

Nine peers pay tribute with a talk or essay. Strong suggestion.

Amy Wallace-Havens is David’s sister. She is a deputy public defender in southern Arizona.
Bonnie Nadell is vice president of Frederick Hill Bonnie Nadell Agency in Los Angeles.
Gerry Howard is an executive editor at large for Doubleday.
Colin Harrison is a novelist, and a vice president and senior editor at Scribner.
Michael Pietsch is executive vice president and publisher of Little, Brown and Company.
Don DeLillo has written fourteen novels, including White Noise and Underworld.
Zadie Smith has written three novels and the essay collection Changing My Mind.
George Saunders is the author of several books, including Pastoralia.
Jonathan Franzen is the author of several books, including The Corrections.

puppies puppies puppies

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:14:39 -0800

puppies puppies puppies

it’s all wrong IT’S ALL WRONG

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:24:11 -0800

it’s all wrong

IT’S ALL WRONG

here is a video game about never leaving your house

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:44:00 -0800

here is a video game about never leaving your house

wa-hey, hello uncanny valley.

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:28:26 -0800

wa-hey, hello uncanny valley.

Voxtrot - The Start of Something

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:45:00 -0800

Voxtrot - The Start of Something