i typed answers

to this interview 7-8 months ago, i just read it and it seems acceptable i think

they also published two poems from cognitive-behavioral therapy which blake butler reviewed

norman mailer's organic watermelon

1. east coast matthew rohrer and his son on the cover of next month's 'poets and writers,' 'national geographic,' and 'vanity fair' 2. someone broke into my room and vandalized my poetry book while i was facing the other direction thinking about whether or not i was 'ruining my career' 3. a photo i took when i saw norman mailer in nyu's library five years ago and he left the computer without closing his internet 4. i created a physical manifestation of what i want my next novel to be like

i want my next novel to be like a 10-piece chicken nugget meal

mcdonald's 10-piece chicken nugget meals look really clean and refined, like something has been taken from nature and worked on a lot, making it seem very unnatural and exciting and without bacteria or sand on it

the opposite of a 10-piece chicken nugget might be the 1/2 dragon bowl from angelica kitchen if purchased for take out

the 1/2 dragon bowl gets 'compacted' into a tiny container, when you open the container a moment of confusion is experienced, you see something that has no primary colors and is really wet and mushy and gives off images that do not make you think of specific foods, and then a thought process must occur where you think about what it factually is before you can eat it and feel healthy, it looks like a livejournal entry by a 13-year-old girl who has a degenerate disease that makes her look like an 65-year-old woman which you can see from her profile picture

a 10-piece chicken nugget appears just really good, it has bright colors, the container is colorful and looks expensive and does not contain any colors that make you think about being 65-years-old like gray or brown and no colors that make you feel like life is really shitty like dull purple or dull green, it is never mushy or wet, and when you look at it it is difficult to not eat it with barbeque sauce unless you first apply logic to your brain and make yourself think about certain things, hopefully my next novel can be like that a little

some aspects of a 10-piece chicken nugget are maybe not things i want my next novel to be like

i just want my next novel to feel very clean and not make anyone feel dirty, if someone is reading my next novel and eating organic grapes they should feel severely detached in a high-quality way that is really enjoyable

i have a short story called 'new york university'

in the forthcoming first issue of no colony edited by blake butler and ken baumann

the guardian has a lorrie moore profile that says 'she is about to deliver her third novel'

i watched this and thought 'this person has been defeated' and felt intense feelings of victory and domination then felt detached from those feelings then felt a strong 'neutral facial expression' on my face then felt defeated

i have put things on ebay

*update* the things have sold for $85 *update*

i have new ideas and 25-30 new poems

i have new ideas about what i want to say in interviews from now on, if anyone wants to interview me about cognitive-behavioral therapy email me, if anyone wants to review cognitive-behavioral therapy for real email me and i can ask melville house to send you one with 'press materials' inside

i have 25-30 poems that show 'the real tao lin' in issue three of zachary german's magazine that you can get by paypal'ing zachary german $5, if you are an enterprising journalist that wants to profile me at some point revealing secrets about me and ruining my career in the future when i have a career that can be ruined it would be helpful to you if you ordered this chapbook i think

jaguar uprising press and other things 'have arrived'

jaguar uprising press is associated with bore parade which has published 'satires' of 'you are a little bit happier than i am,' 'eeeee eee eeee,' and 'eat when you feel sad' and also kendra grant malone's journal entries, it is created by mike bushnell

there is a new issue of lamination colony

will hubbard reviewed bed

edward champion reviewed my life (second item)

i am in this anthology by wave books

there is an article about me by johannes thumfart in germany's most widely-read weekly newspaper, the google translation is in the comments section (46th comment), the title translated to 'write like a depressive dolphin!'

*update* a german said 'emo' in the comments section of the article *update*

i read jillian clark's poetry book

and liked it, you can buy it here and read her poems here and here

werner herzog's sexual orgy

 

i should read that at every reading i have until it makes me kill myself

i feel really alone when i am standing there reading the same line

i like the reviews it got here

I interviewed Noah Cicero for his new novel Treatise

Treatise by Noah Cicero was published June 2nd. It was reviewed by Hipster Book Club (2006 interview). Noah had a book release party. There is a blurb on the back of Treatise by me that says, "In 2350 Noah will be dead and Treatise will be taught in colleges and published as a commemorative hardback edition with a red ribbon for a bookmark."

To get a copy of Treatise to review or to interview Noah email Noah at noah.cicero [at] gmail.com. One of Noah's secretaries will read the email and send you a copy of Treatise. Add Treatise on goodreads. I interviewed Noah below.

1. What would Barack Obama say about Treatise?

Barack Obama would go up to the podium with that strange smile on his face. Like he just farted and tell everyone, "Last night I read a book by a person named Noah Cicero. A fine American. A good American. An American. (Applause) He says some very discourging things about Americans. He is typical of those who have lost hope. But with my health care program that will provide health care to like five people thoughts like his will end. (applause) (Barack Obama smiles) America will regain its once superpower status and Jesus loves you. (applause) (Barack Obama gets a drink of water.) Noah Cicero's problem is that he doesn't believe in change one can believe in because he knows that is a tautology and doesn't mean anything. Now I went to Harvard and I know what a tautology is. And I know it doesn't make any sense. But you don't. I'm tricking you. You're stupid. (applause.) Often I have thought about leaving everything and becoming blue collar, doing some work with my hands, being a normal person. (Barack Obama smiles at the union delegates in the audience.) But I have decided to go higher, to become president so I can help all these little sad people get things like, and because I've never actually worked a day in my life just like Hillary and McCain. Hmm, I don't know. I love America and Noah Cicero sucks and should be shot, and I don't understand why freedom of speech allows for this. (applause.)

2. If everyone in the world could have a magic tupperware container that materializes one piece of food each day would you want the piece of food to be a tomato, an apple, or a McDonald's apple pie and why?

It is early in the morning now. Birds are singing outside. The sun is out, shining, life is good. Many are up this morning worrying. About something like their future, or their relationship, or bills, or impressing someone or certain people. I am up this morning listening to the birds responding to this question only. Later I will mow the grass, hook up a garbage can to the gutter system on my roof to gather water for plants, and then go to eat. I have not gotten to those events yet, I am at this event. This event of typing with the door open, listening to the birds is a fine event, and I'm doing it, right now. I'm not going to worry, I was perplexed for a long time if I thought the tomato or apple was better. Both can be preserved as sauces, tomato as a soup. Apples can be caramelized into sugar and fermented which is plus. They would save me in a time of need. At night I listen to the frogs sing.

3. If Fernando Pessoa emailed you saying he's really lonely what would you type in your reply email?

Today at work the boss was standing there talking to us cooks. It was hot in the kitchen and we were sweating. The boss said, "What would you like to drink?" One cook said, "Jack and Coke on the rocks." Another said, "A cold bud weiser." Another said, "Hennesy and coke." Everyone listed their alcoholic drink of choice. All I could think was, "A cold starbucks coffee mocha." I didn't say it outloud. I knew only humiliation could result from that.

All the cooks were talking about how women were stupid and only good for sex, and that they drove them to drinking. I said, "Maybe if you talk to them without the intention of sex, you'll find out they are just like men." They looked at me like I was an asshole.

At Giant Eagle there a lot of bags of chips, a lot of bottles of 2 liter soda, that makes me feel really lonely.

4. What is Treatise's place in your oeuvre?

The Human War is my war book. My book about war, it doesn't take place in Iraq, it takes place nowhere near the war. It is better than The Naked and The Dead. If The Human War turned into an animal it would be a wolverine and The Naked and The Dead would be a small baby mouse. The wolverine would eat the baby mouse and shit it out without even digesting it because there is nothing The Human War finds nutritious about The Naked and The Dead.

The Condemned is my mother/sex/hell poem story. I made a mistake in The Condemned. I say a man found out about agriculture. That is wrong. They believe it was women. I am very sorry about that. It would have been better, it would have went with the woman being in The Warrior. A woman impowerment story. Impowered to do what I don't know. I wanted to say things about sex. I don't even have sex now. My penis is alone and is untouched and no naked woman sits on my lap and pumps. My view of sex does not sell books. Tom Wolfe's does though. I am better than Tom Wolfe also. He has long plots, but I have child beating.

Burning Babies is my poem to all that Youngstown and America. Sometimes I do not write well. That is true. But sometimes to show something for what it is, you can't write well. Hemingway wrote well in For Whom the Bell Tolls. No one reads that book anymore. The Trial and Good Morning, Midnight are not written well, we read them still. Revolutionary Road is written well, we love that. The Trial and Good Morning, Midnight are about convoluted horrible situations. Revolutionary Road is about a situation is that is very streamlined and perfect and well rounded.

Treatise was copied from MY LIFE. I always wanted to write a story about a rich kid who falls to blue collar standing and becomes that type of creature. Like Buck in The Call of the Wild. This is my philosophy book. It is not a novel, a philosophy book. Burning Babies is a poetry book. I wanted to write a philosophy book. But I cannot, because I do not have a doctorate of philosophy. And I can only really tell my ideas through the use of stories. I believe in context, in connecting, putting the pieces together, stringing things in order. Paul Fussel wrote a book called CLASS, I read it after I wrote Treatise, pretty much everything in CLASS is in Treatise. But he doesn't show them interacting. I wanted live interaction. I did not show a poor person becoming rich because that would be a different type of story, a different genre. Poor people who become rich disgust me because that shows me they hate their class. I think Bukowski hated his class. I don't hate my class. I don't care if someone enjoys four wheeling or fishin or country music. One day you said to me, "Noah, you eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken." I thought about it for a long time and concluded there was some worthwhile in rich people, they made things like Kentucky Fried Chicken, computers and produced movies like Scarface. I met people like you, Antosca who went to Yale, and some other wealthy people through the use of the internet. I realized it isn't class that matters when it comes to kindness and happiness. What matters is how much one wants power and control. Dick Cheney is rich and wants power and control at any cost. Gene Morgan or you who could have used your money and become a business man and sought power and control. Decided to become writers and help people get their things published based on ability not on class or color. There are poor people who work their way up at Wendy's and Taco Bell only to gain power and control and to torture the people around them. I know that everyone wants to have a sense of power over their life, I'm not fighting that. What I am fighting are those who want to control for the sake of feeling better inside. Courteous people can come from any class. Living a nice little life on planet earth can be done with little money. For me to condemn one or another is saying, "I believe in America and its Protestant German value system." I don't believe in it. There is a difference in money and power. Money buys things which is purchasing power, but you can choose to only buy things instead of controlling humans, which is the flesh trade. Many people have money in America but few have real power. The owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken does not start wars. The elite owners of oil companies, arms companies, and bankers have the real power. They are the makers of this world. I hear people fighting about politics all the time, about what should be done and how it should be done, on the internet there is a lot of this. I say to them, "That is a good idea but you aren't in power." Misail knows he grew up some money and the power of to go to a nice college. But he knows he is not part of the world of power.

5. Have you considered freezing yourself and coming back in 3100 to see what is happening?

I have always thought about freezing myself. I do not like the idea of death. I know it is nothingness. So I do not want to die. I would like to see what is going on. I like history. I like how things change. I would like to see how people handle the energy crisis. If it will return to some dark ages. It would be interesting. I think this whole energy crisis is a wonderful experiment. No one knows how it will turn out. It is unpredictable. It is like us humans are writing our own real life novel. With a million subplots going in different directions, but all connected around the protagonist of oil. People have been so obsessed with controlling their reality for fifty years that we have all become OCD in someway. We don't wash our hands, but we check the news and weather every day trying to gather information, to give one a sense of control over reality. I like watching and I like to watch myself be unable to gather information and how weird it can all get.

gawker is having an art show on their front door

210 elizabeth street, 4th floor, i think it's free and open to the public but email tips [at] gawker.com to confirm

*update* the installation has been taken down *update*

summary of last two blog posts (which i deleted)

i made a tao lin store

we heart four things published me and other people

the third issue of zachary german's 'the name of this band is the talking heads' contains all work by tao lin, 25 poems and 2 drawings not available in other places, paypal zachary.german [at] gmail.com $5 for a copy (20 copies exist)

the two blog posts i deleted were mistakes, i am ruining my career

my blog should appear to the reader as an endless list of news items showing why i am important

not giant blog posts without any news items showing i have a lot of time to type about middle school instead of riding limousines to different media events and getting interviewed in parisian-style cafes

i just quoted myself, i said 'parisian-style cafes' in 'bed' i think

the new york times book review, n+1 magazine, and i think bookforum are laughing at me

this blog was in complete disarray for two blog posts

a number of mistakes were made, those mistakes have been deleted from the internet