Eeeee Eee Eeee

So for starters I’m just going to post this really long excerpt from Tao Lin’s novel Eeeee Eee Eeee, because I think it’s really great. Eventually I’ll write some kind of a response to the whole thing, or I won’t. Probably before I have to bring it back to the library. But here’s what he wrote:

“…He’d catch himself thinking, ‘I don’t know how to feel happy,’ or ‘I am fucked,’ or, more recently, ‘I [blank] [blank],’ like a Mad Libs, which was kind of hopeful, he guessed; not completely a bad sign. What frightened him (though sometimes calmed him) was the first of those thoughts, about not knowing how to be happy; there was something irreversible about it, except possibly by potion or true love, like in every movie by Disney, as it was like a fairy tale in that sketched-out, theoretical way. But it was a fairy tale gone wrong, without any domestic whimsy or fast-moving plot, and in real time, without any pleasant summations of long periods of despair, loneliness, and ennui. It just didn’t seem good, or allowed. It felt off-limits, or something. Was this for real? Andrew had forgotten how to be happy! He suspected that it involved unwarranted feelings of fondness for other people, too much self-esteem, a sort of long-term delusion that manifested as charisma, and a blocking out of certain things, like lonely people, depressed people, desperate people, homeless people, people you’ve hurt, people you like who don’t like you, politics, the nature of being and existence, the continent of Africa, the meat industry, McDonald’s, MTV, Hollywood, and most or all of human history, especially anything having to do with the Western Hemisphere between 1400 and 1900, plus or minus 200 years- but he wasn’t sure.”

Tao Lin. v2

Thank you Tao Lin for writing about that ‘bitch ass ho’ at MoMA. It’s definitely working for you, and I bet it could work for me. I have to work pretty damn hard to not stare at people (ok, ok ‘bitches’, swearing is hip) stare at bitches all day. I can’t imagine the kind of batshit crazy you’d have to be to sit in front of a bland forty-something ‘performance artist’ for a few minutes and just lose your shit. Vomit? Tears? I want to imagine either one livening things up but you know that in the artificial ‘art space’ the line of bitches created, the tears only added a bullshit false solemnity and the vomit just crinkled some noses and forced some poor bastard from the janitorial staff to fetch a wet mop.

You’re telling me not one person sat there and just stared her down until closing time? Not even just to fuck with her/the line of bitches? I’m losing my faith in the indomitable will and spirit of humanity. I guess I could see how she could make a dude freak out. Just look at her. I can’t even imagine her breathing.

You get that look from someone on the bus and you figure they’re ignoring you/comatose/sleeping/retarded and it’s just another day in the life. Most of the time, staring at bitches gets you at least a ‘what’ or a ‘what the fuck?’ or they’re daydreaming or oblivious or what have you, and you see them sitting there doing their thing and maybe you think to yourself: damn, I wonder what crazy mental hoops they’re quietly jumping through right now just to be – which of course reminds you once again how isolated/unknowable we all are from one another which reminds you of how much of same you are, hence reinforcing your feelings of mental/emotional primacy and uniqueness in the world. That shit is life affirming.

Thought Catalog’s staring woman looks like a cadaver. Sit across from that for a few minutes and you start to wonder if you’re dealing with a ‘bitch ass ho’ or just a cleverly disguised sack of meat. And then you remember that we are all just cleverly disguised sacks of meat that occasionally think and feel but more often than not lie prone and senseless and gurgle and slosh around a little bit because the meat has a lot of water in it. And there is a lot of sweat on your skin because the bitches forming a line are staring at you and the sack of meat is staring at you and you can feel the weight of your arms, feel the weight of the meat attached to them; there is sweat behind your eyes because they are dry and scratchy and you spend too many late nights prone and senseless and masturbating because you can’t find another sack of meat that finds the shape of you appealing.

The amount of time it will take you to cry in this scenario is roughly equivalent to

([the number of times you've masturbated today]x[the number of minutes you spent pondering feelings of mental/emotional primacy])÷[the number of [romantically appealing] bitches forming the line that you perceive to be silently judging you]

Don’t forget that in this sacred ‘artistic space’ you will probably realize they are coming to much the same conclusions about yourself that you are which is to say that they are [disappointed].

This is the part where I self-consciously and sincerely prostrate myself before my distant benefactor because Tao Lin I want you to know that I cherish and admire you in much the same way as your [loved one] does even though I don’t know you very well and also don’t know your writing very well and this is a thinly an unveiled attempt to get some free stuff from you so I can maybe get to know your writing persona better because I think I like it but I am not in like with it.

Please understand that whenever I try to conjure a mental image of you I end up imagining you staring at people. Your shtick is kind of a staring contest and I think maybe you want to make people uncomfortable because you’re curious how long it will take, and probably also kind of enjoying how ridiculous and absurd the whole exchange is especially when anyone tries to take it seriously.

Sometimes when you are a mental image in my head it makes me a little uncomfortable so I give you a bear hug and you explode into a shower of chunks and then there are bits of banana and peanut butter and cucumber everywhere but it doesn’t matter because the crowd of people enjoys that sort of thing almost as much as poetry.

My favorite part of your essay was when that guy was disappointed in you because you maybe take adderall and/or cocaine and have friends who masturbate or at least you think it’s funny/clever/useful to write stuff that makes people think those things about you are true. Also you seem to enjoy referring to an earnest pale forty-something performance artist as a ‘bitch ass ho’.

Well you are a weak-ass role model Mr. Lin but you are the kind of dude you are, and that is the kind of dude who all of us bitches expect and probably need to see publish a ridiculous ‘true’ drug-laced fragmented profanity-strewn article about the kind of absurd shit that passes for vomit-inducing art in New York City.