// Tao Lin's new poetry collection Cognitive-Behavorial Therapy
Maybe it has everything to do with his youth—but poet, novelist, blogger and short story writer Tao Lin is not one of those kooky reclusive writers typing on a vintage typewriter in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. In fact, he’s as down to earth as the ground—excuse that wack attempt at a simile. Lin took time from working on his latest collection of poetry Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy to speak with Art Nouveau Magazine about everything from why most authors hate technology to being labeled a minimalist writer.
"Why do some authors hate technology? I think maybe for the same reasons they might be against gay sex or movies starring Keanu Reeves or "memoirs" or something. That reason is that they don't base their beliefs on concrete reality but on whether or not something feels good."
Art Nouveau Magazine: You mentioned work, where do you work?
Tao Lin: I work part-time at Angelica Kitchen, an organic vegan restaurant. The owner buys from local, organic farmers. The restaurant supports something like 24 local, organic farms. At Domino's Pizza and other places I did the least amount of work possible, using as little energy as possible, while exploiting the corporation or institution as much as possible, so that I could have more energy focusing on other things in life after work. For example I would never consider drinking coffee before going to work. At Angelica Kitchen I focus on doing a good job and making the restaurant better, because there's nothing really that I could do, in my own time, I think, that would be more "moral" than what I could do at work, which is to support local, organic farms by supporting an organic, vegan, independent restaurant with an owner whose views I know.
ANM: I first want to talk about your new poetry collection Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Can you tell me a bit about that?
TL: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy will be published in Spring, 2008 by Melville House Publishing. I wrote most of it in Pennsylvania when I was in a relationship with someone there. I edited most of it while in Florida at my parent's house. The book has many lines about masturbation. Or some lines. Just some lines. I tried to make it a book and not like a collection of everything I had, like I didn't just put in every poem that I liked. I put in maybe 30% of the poems I had. Sea World is like a book, it is about sea things. EPCOT is like a collection, they just put in everything they thought was good. EPCOT has dinosaur things, a thing about the future, an aquarium, and also it has rides and like a technology area.
ANM: Can you tell me about Ass Hi Books?
TL: Ass Hi books is by Ellen Kennedy and I. When we talked we would get ideas and later would make them into books. I would write a chapter and she would write a chapter. She drew most of the things on there. Gene Morgan helped us with making a website. The books are mostly rated R or higher. They contain existential themes, sexual content, profanity, and I think drug abuse and inter-species sex. I'm not sure if words can be rated higher than R, maybe not, but these are all children's books.
ANM: You are very into technology? You've published two chapbooks online at bearparade.com, own an online literary press and a blog. Why do you feel some authors are so against the Internet and technology and its many advantages?
TL: Yes, I like computers. I'm not afraid of them, they can't speak, they don't have thoughts, they don't move. Without the internet I would be much more alienated or maybe I would be calmer and live somewhere alone and be really good at martial arts or meditation or something. I can't predict alternate paths of existence for myself so maybe the internet has ruined my life or it has saved me from killing myself, the question seems irrelevant. But yes, I like the internet. Why do some authors hate technology? I think maybe for the same reasons they might be against gay sex or movies starring Keanu Reeves or "memoirs" or something. That reason is that they don't base their beliefs on concrete reality but on whether or not something "feels" "good." I don't know if "hating technology" can be considered a "belief."
ANM: Why has Gawker referred to you as "Maybe perhaps the single most irritating person we've ever had to deal with."
TL: Because I emailed them many times to get them to link to me or talk about me. I like Gawker. They are independent, they created a giant thing that millions of people read, and sometimes they talk about literary things. They have higher quality and kinder shit-talking than most shit-talkers I think. When Jessica Coen edited Gawker the tone was, to me, existential, meaning it did not say what was "good" or what was "bad," which made it, almost, to me, like the fiction and poetry that I enjoy reading. Existential in these sentences means "acknowledges the arbitrary nature of the universe and that good and bad exist only if contexts and goals are defined which makes shit-talking automatically a sarcastic thing." I enjoy an existential tone, I'm not sure if Gawker's tone is still like that, I don't think it is, because I read something where Emily Gould talked shit earnestly about something, I forget what.
ANM: Who are some writers you look up to and are inspired by?
TL: I enjoy reading Lorrie Moore, Joy Williams, and Matthew Rohrer and others. Anything on bearparade.com, Lydia Davis, Mary Robison, Ann Beattie, Frederick Barthelme, and other people. I like comics by Jeffrey Brown, Adrian Tomine, Joe Matt.
ANM: Do you listen to music?
TL: Yes.
ANM: Andrew, the main character in Eeeee Eee Eee is eerily similar to you am I correct? Do you put alot of yourself in your characters?
TL: Yes, in most things I publish I am the main character. If the main character is a girl I still am the main character. I don't try to take the perspective of other people in writing that I publish, unless I can it so the tone lets the reader know that I know I am "screwing around," that I know I am "trying" another perspective, or else I feel like I am "tricking" the reader.
In real life I take other people's perspectives a lot supposedly, I think. Some of the reason I might buy something from an organic, vegan, independent restaurant for a higher price than at some other place is that I have taken the perspective of other people, and of animals. But also some of the reason is because I want to feel good, or because I want to feel meaningful, because I define myself, my meaning in life, on some kind of philosophy, at all times, I think, and it changes over time. Or because based on experience I know that I enjoy generally being around a certain kind of person more than another certain kind of person, so I try to be that certain kind of person, so I will be around them more.
But in fiction if I take another person's perspective I will not publish it until the story or poem itself makes it known that I know I am taking another person's perspective. Because it may cause other people to be treated in ways not based on true things from concrete reality, if I publish a story pretending I grew up in the slums of Taiwan or that I have cancer or something. I might get facts wrong and also take away the power of real people who grew up in slums, which is a power based on concrete reality, that can equalize things, because rich people might feel guilty and want to buy their book, so that they will get money. I don't know if that is real, if when for example someone who grew up in America but has parents who were born elsewhere write about their parents, if that takes away the power of people like their parents, and what the effects of this are.
ANM: Eeeee Eee Eeee is short on plot and makes abrupt shifts in setting and point of view, why is that?
TL: I don't know. When I first wrote Eeeee Eee Eeee it was linear and I had in my head what the entire novel would be and I thought I was really smart and it would be really emotional if I could write it like that but it started feeling dramatic. Then I'm not sure what happened, I wrote sections that happened before the first parts that I wrote, and I thought it would be better if I put them later in the book. Then for a while I thought that I should just write something that would feel exciting to me or something.
ANM: Would you be opposed to being labeled a minimalist writer?
TL: I don't think so. I'm not sure. It feels abstract to me what I am labeled as. I'm sitting at a computer right now, if people somewhere are labeling me something I feel detached from that, I don't know how it affects me. I would like to be labeled a K-mart realist, I think that would be funny, and I think it would make people who like K-mart realists read me, and I like the writers that were labeled K-mart realists, so maybe those people will like my writing if they read I was a K-mart realist and then read my writing.
ANM: Would you be opposed to calling your novel Eeeee Eee Eeee nihilistic?
TL: I don't know what nihilism means, I don't think I do. I think it means living like everything is arbitrary, there is no good or bad. Eeeee Eee Eeee acknowledges that maybe but also acknowledges that it is impossible for a human being to live like that. If a human being wants to kill someone because everything is arbitrary and murder isn't bad and they are a nihilist. Then everything for that human being is not arbitrary, because they are motivated for some reason to want to kill someone, even if it is just to relieve boredom, therefore they are making choices based on something, therefore everything to them is not arbitrary. Buddhism maybe acknowledges it even more, that everything is arbitrary, because when you meditate you are becoming like a rock I think. A rock has acknowledged that everything is arbitrary, and it has made itself be apart of that, instead of trying to make choices and label things and create hierarchies.
ANM: Is there anything else you'd like to mention?
TL: Thanks for interviewing me.
To find out more about Tao Lin please visit his blog at www.reader-of-depressing-books.blogspot.com/
