Tao Lin has written a bunch of things. He is a hard worker. He wrote a novel called: Eeeee Eee Eeee. He wrote a book of short stories called: Bed. He has a book of poetry called: you are a little bit happier than i am. He has a new book coming out called: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. He is my age and has a lot more books out than me. I am jealous.

EDY Let’s do an interview. mmmmmmmmmmmmkay?

TAO LIN sounds good. interview me.

EDY Wait, did we already start this thing? Cause I had this really good question to ask you first that would have started this interview off really well, but it looks like I already used up the first question which means I'll have to use one of my secondary questions like 'what does it feel like to have a first and last name with the same number of letters?' or 'if you were hiding under my bed what would you say to me as I was drifting into sleep?'
The problem is I don't like those two questions either. So, I'm going to ask you a question from the third tier:
If you were held captive as a Ferris wheel in a land of two suns where there was never nighttime and the world was full of these cute little innocent things called murbles that were always running around how would you escape without crushing any of the murbles?

Tao Lin never responded to this question…

EDY Well, I guess that was an awful question. Let's move on to the next one. So, you're a vegetarian. Do you have any suggestions on how to serve tofu? I make it with curry a lot, but my girlfriend is sick of it and won't eat it anymore.

TAO LIN can you ask another one? i'm a 'vegan.'

EDY Who wins in a land battle, Tao Lin's Intern Army or Brandon Scott Gorrell's shit head army?
Also, congrats on the tenth anniversary of your summer writing conference. It's amazing you had a writing course named after you when you were 14.

TAO LIN Tao Lin's Intern Army probably. Brandon's Shit Head Army is something like 20 people. Maybe his army would win. I think my army is around 13 people. Probably Brandon's Shit Head Army.

EDY So, you were recently in Kansas. How many Wal Marts did you see? Who cooked the best dinner? If you didn't know anyone in Kansas where would you have slept?

TAO LIN I didn't see any Wal-Marts. I think I only walked outside on Massachusetts street which didn't have many chain stores. I liked that street. We ate at an Indian place, it was the only dinner I ate while there, I liked that also. If I didn't know anyone in Kansas I would have slept on the plane and then looked at things online in the airport until my plane was leaving.

EDY Hello, I should ask you another question now.
Okay, I will do that.
If you had to dress up as one of your poems for Halloween which would one would it be? You do not know me, but which one would I go as?

Tao Lin never responded to this question…

EDY I just read your poem about you catching a whale when you went fishing with your family. I once found a whale on the beach. I took a picture. This is the picture.

I am only showing you the picture because I told you the story and then thought maybe you would like to know that this really happened. I do not know what else to say. It wasn't a good day. It wasn't a bad day. It just happened. Maybe you would like to talk about the whale or your whale poem? Or maybe you would like to just look at the picture and not say anything. Maybe you could just answer 'yes' if the latter is your choice.

TAO LIN This will be the only time I have said anything about the whale poem about how I came to write it. I have not talked about this to anyone. I think people were afraid to ask or thought they would sound stupid. I wrote the whale poem in my room in Jersey City. I had no internet in my room. It was in a house. I lived on one floor of the house. It was "desolate," that area of Jersey City. I was alone.

I was feeling very bad. I think I was in a situation of unrequited feelings. Mostly in my head, I think. I was bored probably and depressed, I think it was a weeknight. I was probably working on a story from my story-collection, BED, each day and just doing that and having no friends and not doing anything with anyone. Getting like two emails a day from one acquaintance in NYC who I hung out with maybe once every month, and one from my mom.

That was the situation. I was on my bed, I wanted to write a poem about how "bad" I felt. I was thinking things like, "I am so sad, but I need to express this in a way that isn't stupid or obvious but interesting and exciting and maybe funny, it would be good if it was funny, if I can be very detached or something." I was writing on a small notepad. Then I wrote the whale poem. I think I was being "nostalgic" or something and thinking about when I was very young and went fishing with my family. I wrote the poem. I don't remember how I "came up" with the "joke" in the poem. It was a possibility that my brain processed and then used. I felt excited after I wrote it and didn't feel as sad anymore for maybe 20-30 minutes.

EDY It's good to hear from you. It’s been a couple of weeks. I like that place in Jersey City. I like to read about solitary places without the internet. I'll be honest. I haven't been idle while I waited for your answer. I wrote the following:

Tao Lin doesn't respond to my emails anymore

I guess it started when I didn't realize he was vegan and kind of called him a vegetarian. I can't really remember what happened next. I think I apologized and then asked if he had a couch I could sleep on the following weekend. Time passed and he never responded which I guess I expected. It's understandable. We've never met in person. I have no problem with him not wanting me sleeping on his couch. I sent him a message explaining that I had no hard feelings about it all and mentioned the idea of maybe getting a cup of coffee. I was even willing to let him pick the place. I'm not much of a coffee drinker. I ended the message by saying, "I finally finished reading your book, Eeee Eeee Eeee. I liked it." It wasn't until later that I realized I had spelt the title wrong. It's called, Eeeee Eee Eeee. It's probably safe to say I don't expect to hear back from him at this point.

In my free time I've been watching a lot of movies and eating chips. Sometimes I do this at home and other times I do it at the movie theatre. Just last week I was watching a movie at the theatre and eating some chips. This irritated the person sitting in front of me. "Why do you have to crinkle the bag so much?" they asked.

I didn't know. I didn't know why I had to crinkle the bag and I didn't know that it was such a problem.

I have to admit I haven't been completely innocent while I wait for Tao Lin to respond to my emails. It's a little childish and embarrassing, but I've been completing little feats of sabotage to his Wikipedia page. It began with putting up a link that advertised a conversation between me and him, with the link bringing you to the unregistered url of: www.taolindoesntrespondtomyemailsanymore.net. Then I added A Million Little Pieces to his bibliography. That wasn't as good of a prank I admit, but the first one was so much fun that I wanted to try something else. Unfortunately, I've become addicted and the tragic part is that in the process my creativity has suffered as seen in my last two attempts of false internet propaganda. One, I changed the publication date of all his books to '666' and Two, I changed the title of Eeeee Eee Eeee to Peeee Pee Peee.

I also called his publisher once to see if they could get me in touch with him, but they haven't called back.

...
I made up most of it except the first line, you responded though so I'll have to change the ending.
Anyway, next question:
You're working on a new novel and you have a book of poems coming out in a few months, do you have anything in mind for the next project after these two, or are you just going to call it quits and go into obscurity?

TAO LIN I don't know what I'll do yet. I am pretty sure I will not "go into obscurity." That is boring unless I do it in an extreme way like completely disappear from everyone I know. Maybe I would do that, probably not. I think I want to write more professional 20-page short stories in the style of Lorrie Moore and Joy Williams after I finish my next novel. Oh, wait, I just remembered some things. I am going to write a novella for Melville House's new series of contemporary novellas, I might write some kind of non-fiction book about shoplifting or "the literary world," or focus on a press that I want to start.

EDY feel free to answer this with your own video or just in written words:

Tao Lin never respond to this question…

EDY Okay, this is the last question and then you can say goodbye or you can just say 'goodbye' as your answer to this question and that will be it. This has dragged out long enough. A sense of conclusion would be nice. So here it is, in a more traditional sense:

What's the last book you read and would you consider rewriting it and if you did consider rewriting what would you change?
...Okay, this is going to be a batch of questions. Feel free to say 'goodbye' at any time:
How many shirts do you expect to sell?
What would you do if you saw someone you didn't know wearing one of your shirts on the train?
What was the last date you went on like?
Do you believe in dating?
Who would you date if you could date anyone?
If you wrote a poem called date, but in it you had to date a squirrel do you think it would get accepted if you tried publishing it under the pseudonym "Franklin Dovecharts"
We should both write that poem and submit it to the same place under the same name, do you think this would be a good idea?
Would they get mad?
How many times do you brush your teeth a week?
The end?

TAO LIN “What would you do if you saw someone you didn't know wearing one of your shirts on the train?”

If I am feeling "good" I might try to take a cell phone picture of them without them seeing me. If I am feeling "bad" I will go away from them to avoid social interaction. I will do what I need to do to be alone and get away from them.

“Who would you date if you could date anyone?”

Someone famous who did it independently with self-aware and somewhat sarcastic purposes of wanting to "defeat" corporations "for fun" (but also knowing it's justifiable morally) or something. Famous people are bored of life, that is how they became famous, they are not "satisfied," they don't sit around complaining about boredom while secretly not feeling bored or something. They are bored of people and of "hanging out." They try to do things in concrete reality to relieve boredom, like get really famous. I believe famous people are the most bored people there are, how else did they become so famous? They have low tolerance for nothingness and existential despair. (Or else are not affected by these things, because they have not become aware of these things enough for them to be affected, that is a possibility also.) They can't sit there feeling the arbitrary nature of the universe allowing it to make their existence and consciousness arbitrary also or something. They want to "defeat" everyone else by making themselves more famous and powerful than everyone else, not by making others less powerful and more depressed. These are just some thoughts I'm having right now. Life is really strange and when I think about it it's sad and I feel emotional. It makes me reckless with saying things and thinking things. Earlier today I thought about how maybe I just like being "better" than everyone else for purposes of just walking around alone thinking, "I have defeated everyone else," not for purposes actually of attracting other people, like a person to be in a relationship with me or something. Being alone feeling successful and "good." Feeling these things alone, like I'm another person, or like there's no such thing as another person, it's just a single-player game. I don't know if that is true. By "better" I mean "more moral," "not obese," "healthier," "more 'exciting' and 'original' contributions to the universe," etc. I don't know what actual person fits that description I made about a famous person I would like to date. A version of Jenny Lewis or something. Actually I think I was just describing myself, I'm not sure if I want to date myself.