NYLON - March 2009 - (Page 166) radar: house rules embattled brooklyn author tao lin strikes back at his detractors with a new literary collective, muumuu house. by mallory rice. photographed by glynis selina arban BRANDON SCOTT GORRELL “I WOULD ALMOST rather kill myself or hit myself a lot or something than ‘fail’ and…create objects of disappointment for people.” That is what Brooklyn-based author Tao Lin wrote on his blog to announce his latest project, MuuMuu House, a print-and-web imprint that’s sort of a latter-day McSweeney’s: more a collective to nurture like-minded talent than a business venture. Often dismissed for his aberrant style of writing and ploys at self-promotion (like selling shares of royalties from his future novel, which recently caught the attention of The New York Times), Tao popped onto the literary scene in 2006 with his alternately quippy and rueful poetry collection, You Are a Little Bit Happier Than I Am. Then he sealed the deal as a provocateur with his wry, ironically named blog, reader-of-depressing-books.blogspot.com. It’s that knack for pushing buttons that he hopes will bolster MuuMuu’s name. “I encourage people to comment on ways I promote my work, so my books can sell more copies,” says Lin. “And so I will have more opportunities.” Today finds three MuuMuu writers—Brandon Scott Gorrell, Noah Cicero, and Zachary German (Ellen Kennedy and Victoria Trott, pictured, couldn’t make it to the interview)—huddled outside in the snow, waiting to enter the downtown Manhattan bookstore Bluestockings. It’s unusual to see the authors, who are based all over the country—Gorrell from Seattle, Cicero from Youngstown, Ohio, Kennedy from Boston—in one location. It’s also an interesting social experiment considering they mostly only know each other from their respective blogs. The group is likewise unified by the frequent themes of boredom, alienation, and humor in their compositions—and this commonality quickly bubbles up in their slacker conversation. When describing the first time he met Cicero and Lin at a reading, German recounts the event, trails off, and quips, “I left immediately.” Later, Gorrell will deadpan how he currently holds a job at a café that sells barbecue, pause for a beat, and then repeat quietly, almost mournfully, “barbecue”—before everyone erupts in laughter. ZACHARY GERMAN Not surprisingly, Kennedy’s Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs, MuuMuu’s first release, will embrace both the absurd and the melancholic: The book, which hits stores in March, will improbably feature poems about nervousness, loneliness, Woody Allen, and Norm MacDonald. “I think I only submitted it to one place, and it got rejected,” says Kennedy, who wrote the verses while still in high school. “I just put it away. Then this year, Tao suggested that I do something with it, and all of a sudden he just decided to start the press.” 166 http://reader-of-depressing-books.blogspot.com
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