TAO LIN TUMBLR PRESENCE

For a few months the disappointed ant was able (with only a little despair which was more distracting, really, than uncomfortable) to enjoy small, private, and ultimately pointless things like walking around pretending to be a machine; lying in bed listening to lyrically excruciating emo music but focusing only on the drums; and turning off all the lights at 3 p.m., drinking iced coffee, putting down the curtains, and lying in bed thinking about good feelings it had felt in the past.

- from The Disappointed Ant by Tao Lin

VL: In your opinion, what would happen if a large segment of the population stole from corporations, sold the goods on eBay, and spent the money on organic vegan restaurants?

TL: Organic vegan restaurants would have more money, which they could use to expand, possibly buying out adjacent Radio Shacks that are “out of business,” gaining more customers and increasing the amount of organic local produce that they buy. Causing organic local farmers to have more money, which they could use to expand their farms or hire more workers. Causing factory farms and conventional farms to have a little less money (due to the increased power of organic vegan restaurants to advertise themselves and have larger locations, allowing them the power to gain more business from people who would normally have eaten at KFC or Taco Bell) and possibly close one of their slaughterhouses or pesticide-run (or otherwise not-sustainably-run, soil-wise) farms. Less pesticides from non-organic farms, less factory farm “concentrated fecal runoff,” and less transportative pollution would be released into the environment. Pesticide companies and companies that produce the machines, antibiotics, and growth hormones needed for factory farms would have less money, due to factory farms and farmers buying less of their goods, and would possibly close some of their locations and lay off some of their workers, decreasing their power, decreasing the availability of pesticides, to some degree, and decreasing their power to advertise their goods to farmers. Organic local farms would have more money would want to hire more workers, and would hire the people that were laid-off at better wages, with better benefits, due to organic local farms not being a part of publicly-traded companies, and therefore having the choice to use profits to better worker conditions or worker compensation or [anything not “increasing profits” to benefit “investors,” or “stock-holders,” who own the company]. eBay, a publicly-traded company, would have more money, but would gain a very small percentage of money when compared to the amount of money other publicly-traded companies (that people steal from, and that organic local farms divert the business of) lose. (In addition a majority of the people who steal batteries from corporations would develop and nurture relationships with customers, so that they can eventually sell stolen goods directly to customers, bypassing eBay and PayPal and maybe even the postal service). Corporations might hire more security guards and eventually develop ways to completely counter shoplifting, but by that time organic vegan restaurants will already have gained some amount of resources and power and money, with which to leverage themselves better against non-organic restaurants, fast food restaurants, and non-organic delis, among other establishments. With less pesticides, less factory farms, less growth hormones, less antibiotics, less money in control of publicly-owned companies, people and animals throughout the world would be in better health, there would be less despair over untraceable pain and suffering (for example factory farms whose “fecal runoff” goes into rivers, causing someone 100 miles away to get cancer), global warming would be alleviated to a greater degree, more workers would be compensated better and have better benefits, there would be more jobs (a publicly-owned company existentially will not, because it “can not,” keep a worker if laying off the worker is more beneficial to the company’s profits, and so will always have the least number of works possible; while independently-owned companies have the choice to “keep on” as many workers as they want), and there would be less of a divide between the rich and the poor. Among other things. I feel I would probably need to research for months or years to feel satisfactorily knowledgeable to answer this question comprehensively. This paragraph is typed objectively, in that it doesn’t say what is good and what is bad. It “simply” states what I view as the cause and effects of certain actions.

- from an interview w/ Tao Lin re Shoplifting from American Apparel

today is tuesday; email me on saturday

the secret of life is decisiveness

and to describe something

i see the distance and move immediately into it

now i am really alone

from here i know these things: that a hamster is a lonely fist

that my poems exist to dispel irrational angers, that i want to hold your face

with my face

like a hand

the secret of life is that i miss you, and this describes life

tonight my heart feels shiny and calm as a soft wet star

i describe it from a distance, then move quickly away

- from cognitive-behavioral therapy by Tao Lin