As many of you are no doubt aware, there's been some spicy drama in indie-litville. Tao Lin's new chapbook, today the sky is blue and white with bright blue spots and a small pale moon and i will destroy our relationship today, was slated to be published by Future Tense Press sometime this fall. But just weeks ago, Future Tense editor and HNC Kevin Sampsell announced that he was dropping Lin's book, explaining only that there'd been "editorial differences." To clear up any confusion, Lin decided to post excerpts from his email correspondence with Sampsell on his blog, Reader Of Depressing Books. He explained his actions thusly:
here is what will happen if i post kevin sampsell's emails: kevin will be more aware of what he types in emails from now on, more people will be encouraged to post other people's emails; gradually more people will be more conscious of other human beings and feel more aware of what they type in emails and by extension what they do or say in real life; in time, less lies will be told, more information will be available, there will be less secrecy, people will be more tolerant and nicer (if only because they are afraid of what will happen if they are not nice), because actions will be easier linked to identities (if you punch someone in the face you will suffer consequences).
Some might question whether Lin was justified in reprinting personal emails, especially without getting Sampsell's permission. Some might even call it unethical, an affront to everything good and decent, or, if you have a taste for the dramatic, "burning a bridge and then peeing on it for good measure." While this is all true, as a fellow Future Tense author and somebody who has worked with Mr. Sampsell during the past year, I can sympathize with Lin's anger.
KEEP ON READIN'
For too long, Sampsell has been allowed to operate under what many of his contributors refer to only as "The Tyranny of Fear." When I learned that he would be my editor for Fast Forward, I was slightly apprehensive. And sadly, he more than lived up to his terrible reputation. Granted, we eventually reached a compromise and Fast Forward was published as planned, but not before a long and painful struggle that left at least one of us (hint: he looks like me) forever scarred.
So, with this in mind, I would like to follow Lin's lead and post MY email exchanges with Mr. Sampsell. I have absolutely no good reason for doing this, other than proving that editors can be stubborn jackasses, refusing to let their writers follow every last damn whim that crosses their drug-addled brains. Maybe Sampsell will read this and think, "Y'know, maybe I have been too hard on my authors. I should really try to appreciate their point of view, even when it makes as much sense as the hallucinations of a fever dream."
As Lin said so poignantly, "i only blame everything." Amen, my brother. Amen.
* * *
From: Kevin Sampsell
To: Eric Spitznagel
Date: Jan 16, 2006 12:17 PM
Subject: Fast Forward edits
Hello, Eric.
I finally had a chance to read your manuscript, and I absolutely loved it. Very entertaining stuff. But that said, I do have a few small editing suggestions.
The first 200 pages are solid, but at least for me, it starts to get a little confusing towards the end. I'm just not sure why the plot veers away from porn and starts dealing with human rights violations in Chechnya. Important stuff, I'm sure, but I just don't see what it has to do with your "Butt Crazy" script. Am I missing something? And do you really think that the final chapter needs to be entirely in haiku?
As for the title, are you absolutely certain that you want it to be:
My Porn Scripts Are the Color Of Melancholy Which May Or May Not Be a Pale Shade of Blue But Today I Will Fast Forward Through My Heartache?? That seems, well, a little long and convoluted. Maybe we could cut it down to something shorter and snappier, like say FAST FORWARD. Remember, we want people to be able to remember it.
KS
* * *
From: Eric Spitznagel
To: Kevin Sampsell
Date: Jan 23, 2006 10:50 PM
Subject: Re: Fast Forward
hi, kevin.
i am sure about the title. i do not want to change the title. it is honest and true and speaks to the heart of my story. i will not bend on this.
ok, I will change the title. i am very sad today. why must you be such a bully?
if the title must be altered, would you at least reconsider my idea for a cover image? i know that you had some reservations about it, but a hairless albino in assless chaps really points to the larger thematic message of my memoir.
i am so very, very afraid.
eric
* * *
From: Kevin Sampsell
To: Eric Spitznagel
Date: Feb 03, 2006 12:17 PM
Subject: Fast Forward edits
Eric,
Okay, I think we're finally getting somewhere. Your latest draft is a vast improvement. I'm glad you finally came around and decided to cut that chapter of vegan recipes. It just wasn't as strong as some of your other, more porn-relevant stories. And, as we discussed, it isn't really a story at all, and thus might interrupt the narrative unnecessarily.
I'm still a little concerned about your insistence on using the Wingdings font. It's certainly a creative choice, but as Wingdings is technically just a random series of indiscpherable symbols, I'm pretty sure that most people will be annoyed by it. From my experience, the best novels are usually written in a language. The whole point, after all, is to actually communicate something to your readers. I'm not sure if printing a few hundred pages of pointless gibberish will really accomplish that. You see my point?
KS
* * *
From: Eric Spitznagel
To: Kevin Sampsell
Date: Feb 12, 2006 12:17 PM
Subject: RE: Fast Forward edits
ah, I see. it all begins to make sense now. you call yourself an editor, but what you really are is a rapist. you want to rape my art and then leave it, breathless and bruised, to die alone in some dirty alley. do you have so little respect for me that you think i will stand by and watch you do such horrible, mean-spirited things to my precious, precious words? my words are defenseless. my words mean you no harm. why do you want to hurt them so? can you not hear the crying of my children?
fine. we do not have to use the Wingdings font. Zapf Dingbats will work just as well.
howling into the void,
eric
* * *
From: Kevin Sampsell
To: Eric Spitznagel
Date: Feb 18, 2006 12:17 PM
Subject: Apologies
Eric,
Sadly, I'm not really sure what's gone wrong with us. I feel like your writing and attitude has changed over the last few months. You have resisted my edits at every turn, and despite my recommendations, have changed and revised your book beyond all recognition. What started out as a hilarious, behind-the-scenes tale of a porn screenwriter is now, for reasons that I still can't quite comprehend, a photo book of dogs performing classic scenes from German opera. I'm sorry, maybe you're going over my head, but I just don't get it.
I thought about publishing your book exactly as you wanted it, with all the inexplicable references to your favorite Frasier episodes and everything printed entirely in braille. I considered including a short introduction by me, apologizing to readers who might have been (reasonably, I think) expecting a book about porn to include at least some mention of the adult film industry. (Despite what you've said, I don't think this is "lateral thinking.") But then I thought better of it. I'm sorry, I just can't do it.
If you continue to be so stubborn and immature in this matter, I will have no choice but to cancel publication of Fast Forward. Sorry, I mean Fast Forward, the Eagle Cried, His Eyes Filled With the Sadness of a Thousand Forlorn Souls. (I still think that title is ridiculous, but that's just me.)
Sincerely,
Kevin Sampsell
* * *
From: Eric Spitznagel
To: Kevin Sampsell
Date: March 03, 2006 12:17 PM
Subject: RE: Apologies
how do you sleep at night? have you no conscious? do you not have blood coursing through your veins? do you not have a HEART? or is your chest cavity filled, as i have every reason to suspect, with the jagged sword of your editing pen?
it seems i have no choice but to accept your maddening edits. fine, we can put all the "stuff about porn" back in. fine, we can cut the whole subtext about raindrops being messages from heaven. fine, we can publish the book on paper and not (as i think i made a pretty convincing case for) have it read aloud on street corners by handicapped, slightly derangered homeless people. i still think you're wrong, and you're editing all of the life out of my book. but you seem to believe that you know what's best. and as a lowly writer, i suppose i have no power to stop you.
hey, any chance we could put a penis on the cover? that might be kinda funny.
cutting my wrists in a bathtub,
eric
Monday, July 10, 2006
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March of 2009 (in which I recount my adventures in New York with an old man doll), February of 2009 (in which I learn that Bigfoot, at least when it comes to gangbang etiquette, is exceedingly polite), January of 2009 (in which I insist that it's really nobody's business whether the Dame's cervical mucus is clear and slippery), November of 2008 (in which I read my grandfather's old love letters and learn that he was a dirty, dirty boy), October of 2008 (in which I discuss food, Burger Chef and moonshine), Summer of 2008 (in which I barely write anything at all, much to the consternation of very few), April of 2008 (in which I confess my creepy attraction to ventriloquism), March of 2008 (in which I say a little too much about the genital grooming of Disney princesses),February of 2008 (in which I fabricate my family history), January of 2008 (in which I learn that baby nudity is okay in moderation), November of 2007 (in which I explain why it's difficult to fit more than a few dozen dead dogs in a '74 Honda Civic),
October of 2007 (in which I opt against digging up my grandfather's ashes),
September of 2007 (in which I discover that I don't have a rickshaw business),
August of 2007 (in which I learn to love, and then hate, and then love, and then hate commas),
July of 2007 (in which I try to make it perfectly clear why you should never ask a girlfriend to dress like a slutty Lisa Simpson),
June of 2007 (in which I discuss how Gene Simmons led to my introduction to female anatomy),
May of 2007 (in which I explain why my life might be more fullfilled than yours because I've driven a car into a swamp),
April of 2007 (in which I somehow convince a lot of authors to draw pictures of their own assholes),
March of 2007 (in which I learn why eating an entire box of Boo-Berry cereal and then streaking may not be the best idea),
February of 2007 (in which I talk about, in no particular order, Ron Jeremy, waterbeds, and Hitler's mustache),
January of 2007 (in which I rant angrily about dolphin gang rape),
the entirety of 2006 (in which I learn how to have fun at my father's funeral, talk about pirates with Will Oldham, and compare wine to hobo balls),
40 comments:
That's fucking hilarious! If only Lin were cutting his wrists in a bathtub...
Deeelightful! Jesus -- if anyone 'needed an editor' it is Tao Lin. His blog is utterly appalling. And in tiny, tiny font as well!
i still love you
eleln
SO FUNNY!
It's all just Egos On Parade to me (mine included, on those rare occasions I'm actually published).
After reading this, I am gradually becoming more conscious of other human beings.
Thank you, Ellen. I love you, too.
Why is everyone posting a message as "anonymous"? With all due respect, you're a bunch of pussies. C'mon, people, you afraid of having a public opinion about Tao Lin? Even using a fake name is better than this shit.
Cheers,
Eric Spitznagel
Apologies, Ms. Hedonistic. I didn't mean you. You have... well, not balls. Ovaries, I guess.
Steel ovaries. Yeah.
all of you need to go write for saturday night live
You work for The Believer.
That explains it.
Working for The Believer is like being a republican.
You know whatever they are going to comes from outer space, is simplistic, and has two basic motives behind it, self-interest, and the maintaining of the capitalist society.
You've got my number. How did you figure out that everybody at The Believer is actually a shallow extraterrestrial devoted to self-promotion, financial gain and maintaining the capitalist status quo? Try as we might, we just can't fool astute cultural critics like you.
What I learned from the Lin/Sampsell email exchange:
1) Lin is a tone-deaf, myopic, short-pantsed crybaby.
2) Sampsell is freakishly fucking patient.
And one suspects that perhaps, *perhaps*, Noah Cicero has submitted to The Believer and been turned down. I'm just sayin'.
i don't know how to respond to these comments
Maybe the best thing you can do to respond is to disappear from the Internet for a while and become gradually more conscious of other human beings.
Having become the laughing-stock of the literary division of the blogosphere, you might want to think about why other human beings -- intelligent ones like Eric and a number of others -- think you are so ripe for parody.
The good thing you have going for you is that people like to see people repent and make a comeback. But, like Martha Stewart, you can't do it right away.
wow. you are some rough mother fuckers! truly!
Satire at its finest!
Of course, I'm only saying that because I want to get published in The Believer. And Forbes.
tao lin is right. everybody else is wrong.
And now Mr. Lin, on his blog, has linked to here, calling it "shit-talking." He's done the same with a lot of the other blogs that ridiculed him.
He was constantly ridiculing numerous other writers to on his blog -- see his idiotic immature posts of IM conversations with Mr. Cicero -- but like all bullies, he can't take it when the tables are turned.
It's hilarious that Mr. Lin took so much offense when Mr. Sampsell called him immature. When you read over his blog posts, you can see how immature he is.
Granted, he is very young, probably under 25, but he sounds like an arrested adolescent. He has some growing up to do, but his reaction doesn't give one much hope that it will happen for a while.
One can only imagine how embarrassed Mr. Lin will be ten years from now when he reads the material he has posted on his blog.
His work was originally sweet and clever -- Mr. Sampsell was right about that -- but his publishing successes seemed to make him much less likable and much angrier.
I feel sorry for him. And I think everyone should stop piling on. He's just a confused kid.
The real "Tao Lin" is laughing at all of you -- Kevin Sampsell, Eric, and all of the other people who were taken in by his hoax.
Several years ago, a group of young writers in California were pretty sure JT Leroy was a hoax. It enraged them that JT was getting all this press and buzz and they were not.
They tried to investigate JT Leroy and who was behind him, and they came up with some evidence, but nothing was conclusive. And the world apparently wanted to believe in JT Leroy -- as did some well-known writers and performers -- and so this group of young writers grew angrier and angrier.
They hatched a plan out of revenge. Recognizing the growing importance of blogs and web publications, they created "Tao Lin" and gave him various characteristics: a very young Asian-American NYU student, father in prison, grew up near Disney World, etc.
They also gave him a prose style that could easily be utilized by any of them: very simple sentences, lots of repetition, mostly lower-case lettering a la e.e. cummings (they altered this for some fiction), very few adjectives or adverbs.
They started a blog and started sending out stories and poems. People read the blog and editors accepted the stories and poems.
Eventually they had to hire an actor to play Tao Lin at the few readings at which he appeared.
The actor was very good.
And people believed in Tao Lin.
Finally the JT Leroy hoax was exposed, thanks in part to some of the research and legwork done by this same group of writers.
They were happy JT was gone. But the Tao Lin character was getting out of hand.
They needed to kill off Tao Lin, but not too dramatically. So gradually they changed the tone of the blog and the work became more and more churlish and childish.
They did the same in their correspondence with editors like Kevin Sampsell.
You see, they needed Tao Lin to self-destruct. They wanted to get on with their own work.
Slowly "Tao Lin" will disappear. But just before he does, these writers may just not be able to keep their secret.
They will be frustrated no one knew of their hoax. Unlike with JT Leroy, nobody has questioned the reality of Tao Lin as a person.
So maybe, just maybe, in a few months, one of them will blow the cover because he just can't keep quiet about this incredible hoax.
How about his retarded friends? The idiots make this kid more confused...
"Maybe the best thing you can do to respond is to disappear from the Internet for a while and become gradually more conscious of other human beings.
Having become the laughing-stock of the literary division of the blogosphere, you might want to think about why other human beings -- intelligent ones like Eric and a number of others -- think you are so ripe for parody.
The good thing you have going for you is that people like to see people repent and make a comeback. But, like Martha Stewart, you can't do it right away."
there are also a number of intelligent people who think that anyone who claims to speak for the entire "literary division of the blogosphere" is full of shit. and especially when that person posts anonymously.
that's a lot more "immature" than anything tao lin does.
disappear from the internet? grow the fuck up, no one.
post your name, and stand behind what you say.
tao, at his very least, does that.
"Unlike with JT Leroy, nobody has questioned the reality of Tao Lin as a person"
That's not true. There's a blogger who questioned Tao Lin as a person when the blog first started. He himself had impersonated Tao Lin, The Reader of Depressing Books, for a long time until he disappeared, and all the threads about him were deleted later.
So, Anonymous, you've figured out that Tao Lin is just a fictional nom de plume, have you? Well done, old man. But while you're very close to uncovering the truth, I'm afraid that this rabbit hole goes much deeper than you could begin to imagine.
Actually, "Eric Spitznagel" is the work of fiction, created as Tao Lin's arch-nemisis by none other than Tao himself. Of course, Tao (as you guessed) is also fictional, a hoax perpetuated by JT Leroy, who, as we all know by now, is really Laura Albert, a persona adopted by Lucy Thomas, who was in turn created by Crad Kilodney, also known as Binjamin Wilkomirski, who we only recently learned was another Anthony Godby Johnson pseudonym, who originated as a character in the now debunked Hitler Diaries, which was - that's right - written by Eric Spitznagel.
Hope that clears up any confusion.
You wrong big time, Spitznagle. I know Tao Lin. I know Tao Lin right now, looky-looky you know what I mean? C'mon Tao Lin, I give you good love. Oh, yeah, Tao Lin, give me good love, too.
Will you marry me, Eric Spitznagel?
Back off chickee he's MINE!
:wink:
Ha, joke is on everyone! Eric Spiztnagel and Tao Lin have been happily united in civil partnership for years and share a fabulously decorated bungalow in Napa.
I should know!
xoxo,
The Cleaning Lady
Tao Lin is real, if inscrutable. Nice guy, very smart. Good writer. Cooks vegetables and tofu at 2 am every morning. Never watches TV yet always pays his share of the cable.
I can vouch for the fact that at least one Tao Lin is real, but this one doesn't write poems.
Tao Lin must be real. They'd never hire an actor with such a pompous-ass face.
As for his retarded friend: If the pizza's cold next delivery, he won't be getting a tip!
Buy my book together with Philip Roth's Everyman. We're over forty and proud of it!
Tao Lin. You're a fucking pussy. I'm blogging about your stupid crap, too.
And, on the off chance you are the creation of a bunch of scheming writers, they're going to be toast when the publishing world figures out who they are. And, the publishing world WILL figure them out. Writers are only slightly better than actors in the self-involved department.
In today's CNBC laughingstock market report, the Tao closed at a record high.
i am a crate of american missles.
you are all un officials.
all we need is an israel before we can really get together.
word on the street is YOU are tao lin
Who the fuck did this?
http://www.cafepress.com/taolincrap
Oh, the urge to wear the Sampsell shirt is almost too great, though.
Hey Nic...
Give this a read before spouting out your misinformation:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060727/wl_canada_afp/mideastconflictun_060727154220
Here is a quote from the head of Hezbollah:
"If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew."
Do you now understand the seriousness of this enemy? Or are you just pissed that Jews are finally standing up for themselves?
Hey Eric,
You're a revolting little asshole. But I'm sure you know that already. You and all the other hipster-lit creeps were obviously very un-cool your whole lives and therefore in your 30's and 40's have to prove to the world that you're cool.
But what you people need to stop doing is bullying around writers of quality, in other words writers who aren't in the whole hipster-lit clique. One of these days you might mess with a writer who maybe has mafia connections and get yourself killed or at least get both of your hands broken so that you can't write out your little look-at-me-I'm-smarter-than-a-porn-star-like-Ron-Jeremy piles of shit.
I can't wait till the whole vacant hipster-lit thing ends, then maybe you, Sampsell, that girl who wrote 'Grosse Point Girl,' Eggers, and little Zoe Trope can all go fuck each other after school where you'll all be teaching.
Eric and Kevin,
You guys are both people I admire, but you're ruining yourselves. If this is all a publicity stunt, terminate it NOW -- it's gone very wrong.
The previous post mentioned you bullying this Tao Lin guy. It's true. What people are getting from all this is: disagree with Sampsell on a few edits and get your career destroyed. In a way Eric is behaving like the Goebells(?) to Sampsell's Hitler.
Any sensible person can see on Lin's website that he's immature, but we smile and say "aww." We don't think any less of Sampsell, so there's no need to defend.
I agree with 99% of Sampsell's edits actually. But all this carrying on is ridiculous, and it's making you two look really bad. I would suggest deleting this entire blog.
http://tyleryoung99.blogspot.com/2006/09/real-tao-linthe-unauthorized-biography.html
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