3 Things I Learned From Mastermind Tao Lin
Whenever Choking Victim hits the algorithm in my Spotify feed, I immediately think of Tao Lin and the Alt-Lit underground. There are also three life lessons that come to mind with that cognitive association, too.
It’s a strange connection, I’m aware, but it dates back to my understanding of what it means to consider oneself an artist. So let me start from the beginning…
In 2008, Tao came to speak at my college around the time of his book releases for Eeeee Eee Eeee and Bed from Melville House. If my memory serves correctly, his press MuuMuu House was born around then, too.
He sat before my creative writing class at Rider University, talking about his writing process and his new books, where he gets his inspiration, and what he did for a living. Mickey Hess, my professor and creative mentor at the time, invited him to speak about the changing tides within the literary realm. Traditional literary fiction was evolving due the internet and genre fiction was (as usual) never discussed in academia. Blogging had only just begun to influence the sphere, though things like LiveJournal and Myspace were about 4–5 years into the peak of their lifespans.
I can vividly remember him sitting at the front of that room with the biggest smile on his face, tearing out pages from his books and giving them to the…
