Friday, April 18, 2008

Rereading a text by Tao Lin

I have spent time reading things written by Tao Lin. His persona (its blog avatar) can be so abrasive, and can make the transition into his often personal poems/stories arduous. But today I read this: 

Garret began to say things like, "Without coffee I am nothing," and "Terrorism Schmerrorism Berrorism Schlerorrism," which he said mostly for the torpidity of it, the easy mindlessness of it. He felt that the bones of his jaw and skull were growing, felt the fatty pout of his lips, the discomfort of bigger bones behind his mouth and face. He stopped going to classes, and applied for jobs in China Town. He tried not to think. He tried just to love. Anything there was, he tried just to love. It didn't work that way, though. It just didn't. Love, after all, was not sold in bundles, by the pound. Love was not ill-lit, enervated, China Town asparagus.
Tao Lin, from LOVE IS A THING ON SALE FOR MORE MONEY THAN THERE EXISTS
 
The situation/ sentiment is beautiful, sad & strong. Throughout the larger context of the story, the narrative plot passes by almost aimlessly, as if to get from one end of the day to the other, but the language, the narrative of the language, is not aimless. It is curious & hopeful, if only enough to keep searching, to keep trying "just to love," to keep mouthing reamendments of "TERRORISM," thereby obliterating or at least dislodging its lingual existence.

Why does he want to stack so many words around his meaning(s)? Is it an intentionally obfuscating act? Does he find living to be so obfuscated? Or is it methodical, working up to thought by way of "typing" action?  

 

2 comments:

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i like the way you think about things.

Jeremy James Foxtrot Thompson said...

Thank you, Blake Butler.
I would like to know what specifically you like about the way I think about things.

 

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