Tao Lin is interviewed about during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present

Tao Lin maintains heheheheheheheeheheheehehe; lives in Brooklyn, NY; founded and edits Muumuu House; and is the author of you are a little bit happier than i am (Action Books, 2006), Bed (Melville House, 2007), Eeeee Eee Eeee (Melville House, 2007), cognitive-behavioral therapy (Melville House, 2008), Shoplifting from American Apparel (Melville House, 2009), and Richard Yates (Melville House, 2010).

':Could you type a paragraph-length, 'academic-style' analysis of one of your favorite poems in my poetry book?

In the poem "some inconceivable crisis thing" Brandon Scott Gorrell writes "is it normal to think ‘i hate myself,’ but not take yourself seriously, but really be serious about hating yourself" because, one deducts, he has not satisfactorily read about this phenomenon in other works of literature or been satisfactorily related this phenomenon in real life, only "observed" its occurrence in himself. Elsewhere in the poem Gorrell writes "has anyone else ever felt incredibly sarcastic about feeling incredibly depressed but at the same time felt incredibly depressed / is that something anyone has done" and the majority of the population, one muses, can only truthfully answer: "I don’t know," as this topic has not been examined, explored, or "even alluded to," based on the knowledge of one literary critic, in any work in "the canon" (excluding perhaps Kafka), with only vague and rare exceptions existing even "outside" of "the canon" in the somewhat obscure works of Fernando Pessoa, Matthew Rohrer, and a few others, none of which, though, explore as "accurately," knowledgeably, personally, existentially, and comprehensively as Brandon Scott Gorrell does in his debut poetry-collection DURING MY NERVOUS BREAKDOWN I WANT TO HAVE A BIOGRAPHER PRESENT the "themeless" theme of paradoxes that cannot be "simply" labeled as paradoxes, as they have something else also within their actualizations that take them "outside" of labelization, "outside" of "everything but itself," it seems. One may crudely, and, on many levels, uneffectively - as the following words, having existed mostly only secondarily and condescendingly inside "the canon," have acquired un"artistic," un"profound," and un"deep" connotations - define what is being explored as sarcasm, meaninglessness, irony-sincerity, tone, feeling "bad," and "being conscious" layered in a context of [at least one combination of what was just listed]. Gorrell’s concerns, though motivated into existence by emotions, are, at their core, not emotional, and also not scientific, though scientific terms are used - but, in their comprehensiveness, in their applied knowledge of levels of awareness, levels of detachment, and logic, [insert a word that doesn’t exist, that perhaps, in its unlanguageable essence, "can’t" exist]. In the end, surveying Gorrell’s book, and each poem’s role within the book, one can observe that Brandon Scott Gorrell has no questions, no answers, and, even, perhaps, no "information," but is like an object, a tree or planet, with "everything," including itself, "causing" itself to "effect" - but with some added thing conventionally defined as "consciousness" (something that could more concretely be defined, or given example to, one might say, with "the whole of Gorrell’s poetry book") that causes further things, beyond the physical laws of the universe, to exist, perhaps beyond what even one can understand in metaphysical terms, perhaps simply something like "the effect of effect," a thing defining itself by continually existing outside of definition.

What are a few of your favorite lines from my poetry book? Why are they your favorite?

"i wish my face was a giant floating emoticon"

Seems funny.

"i want to turn into wild grass and get eaten by a soft moose"

Seems funny and cute.

"i want to sleep on a zebra while it gets eaten by a lion"

Seems funny and weird in an exciting manner.

"j-curve populations experience a vertical drop after exponential growth"

Seems funny, especially in the context of the book.

"popcorn butter is toxic"

Seems funny, especially in the context of the book.

" 'Are you doing something tomorrow,' John says to the Marv from Sin City."

Seems funny and complex both in and out of the context of the book.

"The Easter Island says ‘Party’ and moves his arms and torso around."

Seems funny and creates weird, funny images in my head.

"[any line]"

Seems funny, weird, original, creates funny and interesting images in my head, and other things, especially in the context of the book. Honestly I feel like I could pick almost any line and it could, in some way, be "a favorite."


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