A note in case anyone ever actually comes across this post again: I later learned about Tao Lin’s acknowledged, arguably abusive relationship with a much younger person. I've left up posts about him on this blog because I don't want to erase my support of him in the past, but I've removed links to his work so as not to provide continued support now.
"A few days later he and Sheila were on a train to New York City. They drank from a large plastic bottle containing organic soymilk, energy drink, and green tea extract and wrote sex stories to sell to nerve.com for $500. Sheila's sex story had chainsaws and Sam's had Ha Jin doing things in a bathroom at Emory University."
-Tao Lin, Shoplifting from American Apparel
"Matt stares at Rachel's rib cage with a neutral facial expression. He has an urge to scream in despair because the rib cage is very sexy, but is able to control himself completely, without it affecting his neutral facial expression."
-Tao Lin's sex story on nerve.com (warning: Tao Lin's sex story is actually full of sex)
"Ha Jin brought his burrito supreme in front of his face to block his eyeballs so his wife wouldn't see him staring at the teenager, who was caucasian. Ha Jin said, 'I'm going to the restroom.' 'Me too,' said Ha Jin's son. Ha Jin said, 'I'm going to the bathroom alone.' 'Are you going to work on poetry a little?' said Ha Jin's son. 'Yes,' said Ha Jin."
-Tao Lin, "Ha Jin's Big Day," posted in the "reader feedback" section
Tao Lin's sex story is aggressively unerotic, seething with barely suppressed self-loathing and sexual hang-ups, and is easily the funniest thing in the world since Thursday's Daily Show. There are a few lessons here: 1) Shoplifting from American Apparel is pretty much straight memoir; 2) once you've got a few books out, you can get nerve.com to pay you $500 to basically make fun of the whole idea of sex; and 3) Tao Lin is very forthright, but probably has some issues.
