All Rights Reserved. ii Brad Troemel Comments on the World at Will * Tao Lin and Ariana Reines Correspondence * Status Updates by Amber Steakhouse * Eugene Kotlyarenko Interview * Book Review * Zachary German on Justin Taylors The Gospel of Anarchy Alec Niedenthal on Marie Calloways what purpose did i serve in your life iv Dog Wearing Dog Costume Sculpture, 2009 The Jogging 5 THE INTELLECTUAL SITUATION: BRAD TROEMEL COMMENTS ON THE WORLD AT WILL 6 Brad Troemel Adam Humphreys These days its nearly impossible to tell the dif- ference between us and them, between the under- ground radicals and The Man. I cant tell if you are serious or not. To some degree this was probably always the case everyone is a walking contradiction. There is no lifestyle capable of con- sistently living up to a political ideal that is at odds with capitalism unless you can go entirely off the grid. I disagree that even people off the grid are truly living outside of the market or 7 capitalism I would encourage you to view all human relationships as a form of exchange and trade as bleak as that may sound and busi- ness and the market are natural outgrowths of these things a naturally existing state of af- fairs Crusty freegans are better at conning their non-crusty friends to give them free drinks than they are at absorbing the excess production of corporate America, so that option is out the window. Its not that everyone is too lazy to do good or that people dont recognize there are pressing issues. The real problem is that there are simply too many machines to be able to rage against all of them at the same time. There are so many real problems they all come from us the human condition is struggle for resources, etc. Eventually you need to eat some McDonalds before you go back to Zuccoti Park, acquire some shoes made by child labor to march for Walmart workers rights, or pay rent to a group of 8 religiously-bolstered misogynists so you can con- tinue running your underprivileged childrens daycare center. Lol Some can avoid the evils of global capitalism more than others through their own patient volition and some can afford to pay for a more conscientious lifestyle but no one can entirely absolve themselves of the sins of contrib- uting to the misery of those less fortunate through their buying power. Even the crunchiest drum circle participant may not fully know the origins of his dreadlocks wooden beads. Are they old growth? Possibly. This is not an endorse- ment of nihilism, but simply a way of stating that we each exist on a spectrum of our own complic- ity with the state of unfortunate affairs ranging from politics to the environment to the economy and beyond. Its good to be good, its better to be better, but its impossible to be perfect. We each endorse to some small extent the thing we de- spise. I feel like you are making personal pro- 9 gress here, and I think this is something people can probably relate to (some of them) but eve- rything in this first paragraph, the rhetorical stuff, is stuff that is held evident I think by most mature people The difference between the ruling establish- ment and subversive outsiders has been espe- cially indistinguishable in art history since WWII. A large chunk of galleries and museums share some variation of the goal to locate, pla- cate, and integrate the most contemporarily transgressive work into popular discourse. Aes- thetic radicalism is often different from political radicalism. From the west side of Manhattan these white cubes beckon Give me your tired, your images of poor Cubans susceptible to being tattooed for an exploitative cost, your huddled masses of paintings yearning to shock Baby Boomers with their formal use of elephant dung. I think this kind of work speaks to a very 10 real rage at the machine or whatever but ul- timately what is really successful and beautiful seems to communicate and pacify that feeling at the same time or at least communicate that feeling from a position of knowingness and ac- ceptance the artists catharsis And like the saying goes: if you build a project space, they will cum all over the place! On their canvases, on their installations, in their pants while watch- ing each other perform sexually alluring acts un- der the guise of performance. This is funny but I cant tell if youre being serious you seem sort of crazy. Its hard to pull apart one milky, protein-drenched face from another let alone try to distinguish between the fashionably perme- able political ideologies that separate one party of art producers from another party of art own- ers, publishers, and buyers. You seem really an- gry and trying to laugh at the same time. When the most saleably transgressive works of art are 11 permanently sought after by a market eager to prove its own pluralist acceptance of voices an- tagonizing the status quo it created, the title of being an outsider more accurately describes those who simply arent saleable than those who are in fact transgressive. I dont like your equa- tion of transgression with merit or some- thing like that. So exists cube after cube of art granted permission to stick it to the man by the man himself not unlike rack after rack of Sex Pis- tols t-shirts available in Hot Topic locations the world over. And this art is boring, and normal, and doesnt make us really feel anything Nowhere is the dissolution of the us vs. them dichotomy more clear than among young creative-types on the internet who have whole- heartedly embraced their inevitable endorse- ment of corporately fueled lifestyles in a way that would make the 90s cyber punks and 80s hardcore zine-reading punks and 70s punk 12 punks and 60s hippie-proto-punks and 50s beatnik-bohemian-punks want to throw up. These people probably underwent similar trans- formations in their own lives and thinking or killed themselves or took too many drugs I think youre romanticizing them (but Im still not sure if this whole essay is serious or is some kind of self conscious performance) Vajazzled head to toe in Axe body spray and Under Ar- mour tracksuits while posting images of neon Nike logos to Facebook from their iPhones, this is a group who use their blogs as prosthetic limbs for the adornment of yet even more brand name products. This is like a sermon Im imagining a black preacher in the south talking about how evil homosexuals are. Thank god Tumblr doesnt have posting limits so the bodies of these ironically Greek statues can be fully chis- eled, one slime-drenched athletic company logo at a time. Whats important here is that this 13 hyper-corporate posturing not just the idea of a single person but a trend among the group as a whole. Or a self conscious display of the reality / constraints in which we find ourselves also: you are talking about like 1200 internet artists most people dont think or dress like this most TC readers dont know anything about internet artists. Also are these just trends? Trends are harmless The internet is decent at making indi- viduals famous but its much better at creating the syntax of production I dont know what this means: the memetic formats that can be ver- sioned ad infinitum, the open-ended disposi- tions that inform what is funny, the indistinct no- tions of fashionability that fuel the virility of a type of images popular on Tumblr. These are knowable formulas for communication that are used en masse because they speak to some dispo- sition of the time, ranging from the notion of oc- cupying a given public space all the way to us- 14 ing #YOLO. I think the only way this piece is go- ing to work is if you get dressed in clergy uni- form and deliver it in an open mic stand-up club. The disposition that influences so many to cover their online presences in the image of The Man drop this, the man from your whole think- ing and conception it is cliche dated term and doesnt mean anything.. is not unlike the mo- ment in history when art institutions became supportive of artists whose work was critical of those very institutions. Again TC readers proba- bly not very involved in history of art institu- tions they go to a museum, they look at some- thing they like it or dont like it they are probably with friends or on a date or something and that is probably more important to them than the art... let alone the institution.. By re- couping institutionally critical art, museums and galleries were able to sidestep the more radical aims some artists had as well as provide a more 15 controlled framework for a dialogue about visibil- ity, power, and money that wouldve inevitably happened without their endorsement. The key word here is inevitability. One relationship we now firmly understand as being inevitable is the way in which subcultures are routinely appropri- ated by mass culture. Yes anytime there is money to be made someone will find a way of making it there are more people concerned with making the money than there are people concerned with making art anytime anything becomes a thing there is a chance to make money Murphys Law dictates that if a subcul- ture exists to the extent that it is named and rec- ognizable it can and will be used by whatever source that stands to gain even the slightest bit of capital by appropriating it. By creating visual associations with athletic sportswear or other corporate entities tumblr kids are anticipating their inevitable cooption by companies that have 16 seemingly nothing to do with the fashion, art, and music worlds they exist in. If or when Nike decides to cash in on the coolness of these fash- ionistas the company can only do so by cannibal- izing a queered or vulgarized vision of itself. Be like Fiji water, they say. Lurking in the background of this fashion- stance-as-cannibal-bait is another relationship now common between people and companies: the unpaid internship, a form of consensual ex- ploitation that takes many shapes and flavors ranging from practically everything included on the New York Foundation of the Arts job list- ings page to the football photo album Dove Men+Care encourages you to upload to their website so you can become part of the social net- work that is the Dove Men+Care website sweep- stake community. The previously mentioned idea of self-identifying with a clothing brand through your tumblr is a form of reverse endorse- 17 ment not unlike the unpaid internships reversed labor process where you go out of your way to do work for a company and in return for your ef- forts they give themselves money. While this rela- tionship primarily remains a one-way street for companies taking advantage of student debt and a poor economy there is some wiggle room emerging for using the unpaid internship as a form of subversion the intern is, after all, a rep- resentative of a company despite not being paid to do so. You are wandering here wtf intern- ships Perhaps the most prolific unpaid intern of all is Youtubes Shoenice22, a Gulf War veteran who has amassed 50,000,000 views for his abil- ity to consume seemingly inedible products in as- tonishingly short spans of time. YES but I wouldnt call him an intern, or do you now equate all unpaid producers of content with in- terns? Shoenice is like a mentally ill attention 18 seeking spectacle TC might like an article called Greatest hits of Shoenice where you de- scribe his videos and what makes each one great Shoenices on camera demeanor is a dam- aged form of machismo, a Joker-esque delivery of self-invented catchphrases and bold promises to feed the starving children in Africa. Nearly all of his videos feature a brand name product of some kind being held up to the camera for a cou- ple minutes of banter before being consumed with an aggression and disregard for health that is capable of eliciting the gag reflex even from the safe viewing distance of a laptop. Though charmingly witty Shoenice is ultimately a tragic and self-sacrificial figure: a court jester perform- ing for the appeasement of his own idealized con- ception of fame, a person who is willing to com- mit not only his time in the present moment but his future body and health to the pursuit of atten- tion. He is fully dedicated to living the life of a so- 19 cial media avatar and over the counter products are the self-imposed weapons of his martyrdom. I like this part above and would be interested in exploring more of shoenice Despite all of the free promotion he provides for the companies who manufacture the products he chokes down one gets the sense that this is not the type of un- paid labor companies would like to encourage. Shoenices violent consumption stands as a hy- perbolic vision of what we each do to our own bodies (albeit much more slowly) as we spend our lives munching Doritos and sipping Absolut mixed drinks. I dont eat or drink these things I drink coffee and eat non organic cereal We empathize with Shoenice because we understand the grotesque nature of the products he con- sumes as an extension of our own gluttony. Idk I dont feel glutonous and I dont empathize with him much; if anything I empathize with him wanting to be seen and heard more than any- 20 thing, and am alternatively horrified by what he is willing to do. In becoming the alpha consumer Shoenice brings shame to the act of consump- tion and the products consumed, vulgarizing the names of those products in a spectacular, if unin- tentional, act of present day subversion. This is academic, you are reading too much into it. If the underground and the man were formerly set up in trenches pitted against each other both now exist on the same menu the question now is who can eat the other alive first. Hmmmmffff 21 22 TAO LIN AND ARIANA REINES A FUNNY LITTLE THING 23 After Shitty Youth... posted to hatecrime.tumblr.com Nov 9, 2012 25 Shoenice
STATUS UPDATES BY AMBER STEAKHOUSE 32
what kind of people are into nude beaches this morning i got my teeth x-rayed and bought a 30 pack of beer wait should i buy a computer off craigslist and trade it for these shoes that are too small for me i wish i could sit on every bench in the world i don't own any memoirs of addiction on tape just said 'i think she looks good' re present day didion. meg said 'yeah but what about this?' and pointed to crazy part of present day didion's face 33 It's hard to know how much stuff you really own bc there's also your parents house i told my mom that i wanted to curb stomp her and she didn't hear me right or know what i meant but i still feel bad even though she didn't get hurt by it is that reasonable i hate it when people seem to change their opinion of you based on how you treat them now that frank ocean came out of the closet is it like how we used to be like 'i wonder if there will ever be a black president' and then there was one how that thing about will there ever be a openly gay popular rapper? any answer is help- ful thanks it is for a thing for my poly psi class 34 is if i don't get to have a mercedes no one gets to have a mercedes really what they are going to change oklahoma's state motto to sometimes in places that are named after for- eign languages it says kill in the title like the schyulkill river in pennsylvania does that mean that kill means something different in the for- eign langauge than it does here what's the best place to start in reading john updike and also is it true that his mother is a nov- elist as well do any of you know why hemingway men- tioned that the character was jewish in the sun also rises why do men enjoy the way women's breasts look and is it possible for them to be too large 35 does anyone know why it was so hard for obama to appoint supreme court justice sonja so- tamayor (sp) i saw at a museum there was a bug in a lolli- pop is that healthy to eat did cowboys really use rope that they made into lassos to ensnare cows? what's the world's tallest tree and has it been climbed or climbed up before what's a combustible engine are pandas really cute does false praise promote stasis 36 can any girl learn how to squirt and what are the benefits of squirting (besides obviously a turn-on for the guy) are people whose last names are the names of a nationality more often than not actually of that nationality? i need to know for a school project i'm straight ur gay is commercialism bad is the exorcist film based on true events is dj kay slay or dj red alert better is broad channel something to do with a bridge or is it when you turn on the tv and it is a channel about women like lifetime or oxygen 37 did they not make convertables for a while in the 1980's if i had enough money in my chcecking ac- count could i acctually buy an island nation like guinea or equitorieal guinea what part of the earth has the fewest variation in temperature is organized religion helpful or hurtful to a so- ciety is it good to be docile what's the smallest room you have ever been in are even very small breasts attractive to some men 38 is it better to be smart or kind is ice cream and / or milk healthy for you do you know if Acorn did any good things be- fore andrew brightbart put an end to their opera- tions is christ church part of the christian church is llewellyn a real name what's the most expensive scarf how big does it have to be before it is a lake is cum 98 degreez i am going gay 39 if i don't get a sandwich soon i'm gonna fuck- ing snap The movie my life has most closely resembled is hotel Rwanda vince carter was on the raptors for 6 years or whatever, the nets for 5 years or whatever, and then 3 teams for 1 year each. Okay i like skanks i'm a cat regina spektor sucks someone on the phone said it was snowing in nyc 40 last night at work a bus-boy told me that bynum is out for the season he said 'you hear about bynum' i said 'no' he said 'out for the season' i made a sound that was inappropriate for the situation i think, but the bus-boy didn't seem to mind all i want for christmas is a weirdly magnetic thing you can stick on beer cans to make them look like arizona cans. can you guys google if this technology has been invented yet and if it hasn't been can you guys invent it? an 'elephant's gerald' would be insane 41 stuff that is by no means birth control seems like it's what birth control is, to me one time my cousin knew what the different circuits of the court appeals were all like i have no idea what a 'hostile takeover' is a bad drink would be 'butter scotch:' two parts scotch, one part melted butter. such a bad drink.. has anyone said they were in a orange juice colored ferrari but also that their orange juice was made by ferrari, for some reason? do you guys get what 'hack-a-howard' is.. 42 i really want someone to tell me like, 'that's not how gentrification works.' that or 'that's how gentrification works.' 'if you're climbin up a ladder and you hear something splatter: cocaine' would be a weird way for that children's song to go is there anyone w/ a thug life tattoo who can name a The Sea and Cake song other than their cover of 'sound and vision?' what i don't know about how check cashing places work could fill a book, and that book is called The Old Man and The Sea sometimes you can yell 'i have a knife' even though you really only have one at your apart- ment, not with you at the time, and that helps you. ***not often though*** 43 in high school this kid Bill his screen name was Werd Thats Wack. that was a bad screen name am i right wes craven is a crazy name i hate england 44 45 Lake George Triathlon Photos by Jonathan Owen Black Model: Laura Selfridge The Deranged Mind behind MoCAtvs hit web series Feast of Burden. 53 EUGENE KOTLYARENKO In front of Eugene's apartment near Echo Park in LA, sitting in a white Rav 4, he texts me a POV shot of his pants around his ankles saying he is 'finishing up with some business.' I am to take him out for dinner. He has texted me previously to make sure I have enough cash to pay for the food, as the restaurant we are going to does not accept cards. He walks out of his apartment wearing acid washed jeans and a long green trench coat. He is four years younger than me but balding slightly. -Interview by Adam Humphreys 54 E: Its not the first time Ive ever been inter- viewed and regretted it. A: Whens the first time youve been interviewed and regretted it? E: Uh since the first time I was interviewed A: When was that? E: Like three years ago. A: For your first film? E: Yeah yeah yeah, for Zeroes and Ones. But, also, like you know you go to any interview, like I just remember I was uh interviewing to get into uh Harvard University, a prestigious college in the United States. A: And then you went to Columbia? E: Yeah, I did, and I remember that one was really like good. A really good interview, but I 55 immediately regretted it - I thought it went very long. Even though the guy humored me, I felt like it had gone very long, and I felt like I had ges- ticulated a lot. I actually stood up and panto- mimed an entire scene from a movie cause I was trying to explain to him the power of movies. And I was like You dont understand, if you dont see it from the right angle, then youre not gonna feel the power and hes like I cant just tell you I gotta show you and then so like umm I was talking to him about this movie Z, you ever seen that? Z? Its a Costa-Gavras movie- its about like uh the political its about the coup in Greece. A:Ive heard of that E:Its a really good movie. And theres a scene where the guys being chased by a car, you know, and its done in this tracking shot, but then there is also the shot they cut to thats kinda like with the telephoto lens, and it makes it look like the 56 car behind him is really close cause it flattens it, and I was just trying to explain to him how like he can show that wide shot, but then if you show him in the car behind him it like [slaps hand] cre- ates that tension much more. A: So you were lecturing him on montage? E: Uh yeah, but also camera choices you know like A: Lenses? E: Lenses and shit, and yeah maybe I got too spe- cific. I dont know. I that was a confusing time. I really didnt want to go to college. I wanted to go move to L.A. when I was 18. A: To be an actor? E: No, no, to be a filmmaker. I never wanted to be an actor. Any acting I do is really out of neces- sity you know? I never my main problem... [Adam and Eugene are interrupted by some- one else] 57
A: Yeah, I dont know if... I dont know how long this is gonna run for because I might have lim- ited space on my hard drive E: I dont care. I mean, were just talking right? A:Yes, exactly. No no no, yeah, this is good. Umm what else am I curious about you? Umm ...so then you went to Columbia? And then E: Yeah A: you studied literature at Columbia? E: I studied everything, I studied umm, like yeah, English, Russian, French literature and phi- losophy and a bunch of classes in art history. I just took film courses, like film studies courses, and then Im like umm, after my sophomore year I had this job where I was approving or de- nying student loans for people all across the country. And it was an insane job, because I would get an application from like Tammy Lin, who was applying for a thirty-thousand dollar 58 loan to go to like, Alabama Institute of Makeup and Hair, or whatever for that year. And I was like There is no fucking way Tammy Lin will be able to pay this money back, but like we have sort of convinced every young person in the coun- try that not only is college necessary, but they are entitled to it, and these loan companies are gonna facilitate that so shes, you know, doing it. A: But now you are avowedly anti-college? E: Well no, what I am saying is that umm, after that experience, I decided that college was I was in debt a shit-ton. By that point, going into the third year I had seventy-five thousand dol- lars in debt, and then I was like I need to leave here immediately, and luckily I actually went in a weird way; I love the confines of learning and that environment, so I was taking six or seven courses every semester, just cause I liked it and was like Why am I here if not to do that?, and 59 umm, I almost had enough credits to graduate but I didnt have a thesis, you know? So I went to a few department heads and asked them if I could just write a thesis for them and graduate, cause I didnt have the requirements to graduate in any department because I had been taking all these classes everywhere, and the head of the film department umm met me. And she was very nice, and I had taken a class with her be- fore, and she was very like, flexible about it. And umm, then she let me, and so it was cool. And I enjoyed writing that thesis. A: So you graduated in two years or something? E: Three years. A:Three years? E:Correct. A: On facebook chat you said you think you are one of the two-hundred smartest people in the world. 60 E: Uh huh. A: Do you earnestly believe that? [Adam and Eugene speak to the waitress] E: No, no. [coughs] Oh, god. Thats, you know, the sort of hyperbolic thing a deranged person says on the internet, you know? A: Are you deranged? E: Yeah, definitely. Especially on the computer, holy shit. Im so deranged. Unbelievably de- ranged. On the computer anything goes, baby. But, I mean I do think that, on a level of like thinking for yourself and intellect and stuff, like ninety-five percent of people in any environment are like, just like cowards and like, you know, dumb. A:I dont believe people have the faculty to think I just think its an IQ thing. I think people 61 dont think independently. [The waitress returns with soup] E: People are really scared, you know, and ninety-five percent of any environment, I mean in any environment, eighty-five percent of peo- ple are going to be really not worth it, you know what I mean? But, thats not to say that they arent like, that people inherently arent like of value, or interesting, or whatever. They obvi- ously are. But, theyre not gonna like, you know... A:stick their neck out. E: Innovate! Or, or be loud, and free, unless its sanctioned, by like umm culture like Halloween or something like that. You know, thats why I hate Halloween, because thats a day that sanc- tions everybody to think A: Halloween is ugly. 62 E: dress up and be yourselves and be weird. And that to me is such a joke and a farce and like, a certain way to like umm, you know, subli- mate like, problems. A: I can see what you mean. E: Try these black eggs guys, wow. Go black eggs. A: Are you a big food person? E: No. A: Is Feast of Burden inspired by eating black eggs and being weird? E: No, its definitely inspired by, you know, the foodist part of all of our lives. Theres definitely this weird fetish for food culture that exists now. The show doesnt directly deal with that, but I definitely wanted to touch on food as like ... this thing that people do, you know? Foods. A: Yeah. Have you ever watched eating videos on the internet? Where people will upload a video of them eating something into the camera? 63 E: Ive done that. A: There are a lot of smart people I know who do this... and Im just like What is happening here. Like, theres something to that. E: Ive only done it because of this girl I know that did this Facebook event called B.Y.O.F.- bring your own food, the artist is always hungry. And so everyone posted videos of themselves eat- ing, and it was funny. So, I just did it for that. But its definitely like, you know, interesting the way anybody does anything differently, or whatever. But no, I just thought that A: Do you think that maybe its just the internet for the first gave us like maybe there was no representation, or not as much representation of food... E: Exactly. A: And the internet gave us this possibility and now were gonna show it food. E: Totally. I remember seeing this one of my fa- 64 vorite movies, it was umm, Jonas Mekas diaries. Diaries, sketches, journals. A: When hes old? E: No, its, its actually from like the fifties to the seventies. In his prime. And, in it, he takes a sixty millimeter camera and just flips it on the ta- ble and just films himself eating breakfast. And it was so powerful to see that. And then later, I had luckily I ended up somehow working with Agnes Varda, you know, this like French film- maker. And we were eating breakfast, and I was like We should film ourselves eating breakfast and shes like No thats stupid and Im like No its cool. Like, this is real, its realer than us go- ing to places and doing weird shit. You know, cause she had ideas in mind. Shes a great thinker, and she like thinks of all sorts of cool shit, but, the footage of us eating actually ended up in the movie, you know? So it was like, I think that is something that is underrepresented, be- 65 cause when people do it in movies, real movies, its very formal usually, its like Thief His Wife And Her Lover, or A: 35 Shots of Rum? E: Yeah, I remember that movie. A: The main character does all these rum shots at the end, and its kind of... sensual E: Boozy? A: Yeah. E: Well yeah, you know, you make your formal decisions that mirror the like, psychological whatever, state of the characters. Thats not that A: How did you work with Agnes Varda? E: Umm because when I first moved out here, I was asking everyone for jobs, cause I didnt know anybody. I moved out here and didnt know anybody really. Like, all my friends from here, that I visit [inaudible] but I actually lived in New York, so I would be visiting when they 66 were visiting. And I got out here, and I was like Wait, my friends are in New York. So I would just go to random parties and bars and places and A:Thats smart. E: And umm. Well, its actually pathetic in a way, but you gotta do what you gotta do to surivive, you know? And, and somebody came back to me and they were Oh my god, Eugene I got you a job! and I was like Great! and they were like It doesnt pay any money and I was like Fuck you, I dont wanna do it but they were like Its working with like Agnes Varda and then I was like Okay. Ill like, do that for free you know, cause I really like her movies. A: Shes famous. E: No, I really like her movies. Shes not just fa- mous, shes a living legend. A: Shes strong. E: Shes someone who had done interesting 67 things, like, in her own voice, and like is real. Its real, its real shit, you know, thats a real film- maker. Thats not like, working for like, I dont know, Ratner. A: Making a commercial. E: So we worked together, and umm, you know I was just a P.A. right, so I was digging ditches and sand. It was for this movie called Beaches of Agnes where she like A: I havent watched it, but I know its critically reviewed very well. Its a personal documentary film. E: Umm yes. It is a good movie. I dont think its her best movie, but its definitely A: What do you like best? Vagabond? E: Uh, Cleo From 5 to 7 and then umm The Gleaners and I A: Cleo From 5 to 7 is about the wife who uh E: Its about the singer woman who like, just goes its basically just a day in her life, and she 68 walks around and things happen in real-time and its cool. And then I really like also Le Bon- heur. A: Yeah I saw that one too - I have the new Crite- rion ones. E: Oh cool. They came out with her stuff? Shes great, she has so many different things, you know. Shes very all over the place. I mean she definitely has a form, a style, but its pretty fluid. Anyway, so Im P.A.ing on her shoot, Im digging ditches, Im moving heavy statues, like, whatever. Then after a few days, theres a wrap party, and, you know, were at the bar and shes just sitting there by herself drinkin, and every- body else is talking to eachother, and Im like Im here to like, hang out with Agnes Varda, I dont wanna like So I went up to her and we just started drinkin together and talking about the movies and movies we liked and, just you know, just hangin out and gettin drunk to- 69 gether sort of thing. And then, at that time, Id just moved here like I said, so I had my DVDs in my car of shorts that I had made. So I was like Hey, you know, I make movies too, like, do you want to see it? You know, maybe if I wasnt so drunk, I wouldnt have said that, but she was like Sure, sure. So I ran out to my car and I got it, and the next day she called me and she was like [imitates Vardas accent] Eugene, maybe we can go shoot together? and I was like Yeah! What? Yeah! Sure. So then, you know A: She was looking for somebody to light her fire too, right? E: Well, you know, because if you had seen Gleaners and I, it was very much just her road- tripping around A: By herself? E: and you could tell it was very much just her and the camera and like, you know. And this movie, Beaches, theres a lot of setups. Its per- 70 sonal, but theres a lot of like, almost like concep- tual art in it. And so I think she wanted to add just a little bit more of that one diary style. A: She wanted to collaborate. E: So yeah, she just wanted my help, you know. Because I was just this person who was excited and enthusiastic, and had some modicum of like A: Beyond just a professional person. E: Yeah. She didnt want a big crew. She just wanted someone else to film with her. So then we just drove around for three days, and it was incredible, I mean shes so energetic, so many ideas, so willing to do anything, so willing to like, talk to random people, fuck around, and it was great. And a lot of the stuff that we shot ended up in the movie, and that was really awesome for me, it was really empowering. Im sure we lost touch with her a little bit, but A: Shes old, right? 71 E: Yeah, but shes still doing stuff. Still doing lots of stuff. [Adam and Eugene discuss the food] E: And, anyway. But its funny about acting, like how that all turned out is that at some point we were hanging out and she was like Eugene umm, how do you make money? and I was like I dont know, like, I dont and then she was like Oh, I can get you a job and I was like Cool and she was like Yeah, just with my friend Zal- man. And then I was like Zalman? A: Salman Rushdie? E: No, no, no, its Zalman. Okay, whatever. And then she wrote me an email and I saw his name written out, and it was like Zalman, like Z-A-L- M-A-N, and I was like Zalman, what is that? A: Yeah, yeah. E: And then he I got an email from him and it 72 said Zalman King. And I dont know, were all the same age and were guys, does that even ring a bell for you guys? Zalman King? A: No. E: Remember when like you were kids, on Showtime there was this Skinemax type show called Zalman Kings Red Shoe Diaries? A: Yes! David Duchovny made his breakthrough there. E: Exactly. So this was that this is Zalman. And I was like Fuck, its gonna be like porn. Im gonna be working in porn. A: Soft porn. E: Yeah. And her and Agnes and Zalman were friends from film festival circuits in the sixties, cause he was in a bunch of B-movies, and he pro- duced a bunch of stuff through the seventies. Umm, and I got there, and I thought it was gonna be porn, and he said You know, Id really love you to edit this documentary on Roy Orbi- 73 son and I was like Great! I would love to do that. So, thats what I did, and then he said [****inaudible****] And he was like This is great Eugene. Now uh, I got this other stuff for you to edit and I was like What is it? and it was porn, obviously. So I did that for a few months and it wasnt the worst porn, it was actu- ally very cool porn, it was like A: Tasteful. E: No, what it was, is it was just the sort of porn where like, it was interviews with women about their sex lives. A: Ooh, thats pretty good. E: You know, and some of the women were actu- ally real women, and not just porn women. So, you know it was like What is your sexual fan- tasy?, like What was the first time for you like, like Where is the weirdest place?, and then like, and there would come the porn part where they actually acted out their fantasy on scene. 74 But it was really cool and I learned a lot of things about women which I am not going to disclose in an interview. And umm, I dont know. But I, obvi- ously [inaudible] I didnt move to L.A. to make porn. And umm, blah blah blah blah blah.
A: Zeroes and Ones? E: Yeah. I moved there to, yeah to make Zeroes and Ones. A: I remember reading press about that. E: Yeah, what press did you read about it though? A: I forget, but it was something about you work- ing for two years on the post-production to like... in order to like achieve E: Yeah. Very long time. A: I, I felt that wasnt true when I read that. I felt that you were trying to play that off E: Even longer! Well heres the thing. A: I felt like I would never do that, or something, 75 like I would never have the patience for it. But I would tell people I did that if I thought it would make them more interested in my film. E: It ruined my life. It made my whole life miser- able in a way. I basically havent enjoyed living here until this last year, because I have been mired in in Zeroes and Ones stuff forever. It ba- sically ruined my life. But, but the ironic thing about it is that I made a short movie in college called Zeroes and Ones also. It wasnt plot-wise really different, but similar concept which is Okay, were gonna make this screen, this mov- ing image looks like a computer operating sys- tem, the home movie, so its like, one scene is like yeah its basically like uh, a browser, and youre like, you know, in a web page, or like a video game, or like uh Google search, or a game of solitaire, or whatever. So the thing is, is like, Im working on porn, but like, fuck man, like Ze- roes and Ones is such an obvious idea, like, some- 76 ones gonna do it. I need to do it first. A: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. E: So I pumped out the script as fast as I could, and I went to go raise money. I got my, my pro- ducer was on the system. I just like stole him ba- sically and we just went to go work together. We both quit our jobs and we went to go raise money and we went and saw these people, and got the minimum amount of money together and went Yeah yeah yeah yeah, we gotta do this fast and get this out there, you know? And post pro- duction was just an afterthought in our minds. Well just get some art school grads to like, ani- mate, like design programs and just animate shit really easy A: Thats beautiful though. E: And, and so then we shot it really fast, and we were ready to go, basically August 2008, ready to go. And I had a rough cut by umm December 2008 and I was like Cool, we just need people 77 to animate it and well be like sending this to South by Southwest or something. And that just kinda turned into its own long nightmare. Cause its hard. Graphic designing stuff from scratch is hard. A: Did you do it all yourself? E: No, no. We were lucky enough to find A: You didnt feel like at some point that like Im going to have to do this all myself. Thats the only way this is gonna get done? E: Well, I definitely did end up doing a lot of the stuff, cause I had to teach myself After Effects and Photoshop, and it was annoying and stuff. But [inaudible 18:00] cause I did a lot of the animation, original rough animation in Final Cut. You know, and I would be writing text
[Adam and Eugene are interrupted and discuss the food] 78 Stills from 0s and 1s (2010) > 79 A: And what did you think when you made that? What did you think was gonna happen af- ter you made it? E: Oh you know, I thought it was like gonna change the world. People were gonna see this movie and theyre gonna be like Holy shit, theres never been a movie like this. A: Which is true. E: Yeah, well, heres how I feel. Honestly, my big- gest disappointment was that festival program- mers and like, you know, just the film nerd world didnt embrace it. A: But it got some people E: That all starts with the festival programmers. It got rejected from 40 festivals. The only festival it went to was a Maryland film festival. A: So you spent like, ten grand sending it around? E: No A: Or like four? 80 E: Aww, no. Like, Michael handled most of that, but I think we spent definitely less than a thou- sand dollars, I would say. I dont know. Maybe we didnt, maybe we spent more. But yeah, peo- ple just didnt get the movie. It was very like did you watch it Adam? A: I havent watched it yet. E: It has a very nihilistic, negative energy. A: I remember, I remember reading the press about it and thinking like Im immediately in your corner, just from the press. E: The press that came out was good, I thought. A: It was. E: Like the [inaudible 19:52] review really nailed it, I remember I read that, and the [inaudible] re- view was mixed-positive, more or less. But umm oh yeah, it was really negative and nihilistic and it really undercut narrative expectations of indie film, which is something I was very specifi- cally doing, and I dont think people got that. 81 People didnt get it. But it was like I dont know, just like it made me angry, cause I was like If you know movies, you know like [inaudi- ble 20:24] , you know like certain strategies were are used to like, undercut what exciting and nar- ratives Hollywood story is. And like, the movie did those things in its own way, you know? A: But what people actually want at film festivals is E: Boring shit? A: Sundance comedy and South by Southwest Twee. E: They just want something they can digest, you know? And, and this, this is the opposite. This what will overwhelm you and make you uncom- fortable. A: Its something you have to deal with. But then Frownland, you remember Frownland? It is simi- larly negative and undercutting and was em- braced I think by festival people. 82 E: You see, the difference between and I love Frownland, Frownland for me was a major refer- ence point for Zeroes and Ones and I even A: Really? E: Yeah. Cause I thought it was a great movie and I love the energy of it, and I love that it was so hateful and stuff. And I told Mike Michael actually contacted the producer of that movie. Michaels the guy who produced Zeroes and Ones. And umm I dont know umm. What was I going to say? You know, Frownland had some champions, you know? And the other thing I think that fucked me up, fucked the movie up is that I dont live in New York, I live in L.A. And theres no cool film world out here. Barely any, especially when you are A: Dude, theres no cool film world in New York. E: There is, you know, theres the silent movie theater and there is other repertory movie thea- ters that I go to that, you know the silent movie 83 theater, like people who think they are cool go there, but they wouldnt be caught dead in some lame repertory theater where you actually have to care about movies to go there. But anyways, my point is that A: Thats here? Thats in New York or here? E: Here. Silent movie theater. A: Silent? E: Its called the Cinefamily. Its like uh, they pro- gram a bunch of like uh they do good program- ming, its a repertory of weird things and new re- leases. Theyre showing Holy Motors this week, which actually I saw and thought was terrible. A: I have it on my computer. E: Your computer is showing it. Umm I was going to say theres no cool independent film- makers, and theres no critical establishment here doing interesting things and theres no A: But do you feel like there is that in New York? 84 I feel like theres very little interesting things be- ing done in independent film anywhere. E: Theres definitely that in New York, theres at least a community of people who are making movies that are not normal and trying to be weird in their way. I wouldnt call them the most successful movies, but at least theyre trying, you know? A: Yeah I guess there is a community, but you know the reRun Theater, they premiered your movie there, You know that closed, right? E: I know, different guy. Different people man. A: Theres like the Spectator Spectacle theater in Williamsburg or something. E: Whats that? People go to that right? A: Ive never been. I would be the guy who proba- bly should go. E: Yeah, well look. Heres how I feel: the grass is always greener, right? Maybe if I was living in New York I wouldnt be friends with any of those 85 people because Im always very skeptical about the community, I always really hate the idea of a scene. I always hate groupthink and stuff like that so I might not even be friends with those people. But, just the idea that there is an infra- structure and certain foundational community lets a critical establishment or programming es- tablishment sort of group you into that commu- nity and says that like Okay, theres a bigger pic- ture here. Were not just gambling on a person, were gambling on an energy okay? And people might just feel much more comfortable gambling on things when theres like some more behind it, you know, rather than just one person. A: One guy going crazy and E: One guy just going crazy and just saying some- thing doesnt make sense in the context of other things, which is [inaudible 23:50] A: ] E: Maybe, maybe. You know, I dont know. You 86 see it and you tell me, because its not A: I will. But Im sympathetic because I think that you have like this spirit or something that Im sympathetic with, and I think it stands be- yond just filmmaking. E: Kindred spirits eating Thai food. A: Its that spirit of rebellion and self determina- tion. To be willing to do what youve done, sort of, seems to require a lot of courage... youve probably faced a lot of doubt, and umm theres a lot of people who would try to work their way up the social ladder of the indie community or whatever and make their thing... E: I just wouldnt even be able to do that. I appre- ciate the comment, but I literally would not be able, I would not have.
A: So talk about Feast of Burden. How did you get the opportunity to do that? E: Uh because umm, umm this girl who runs an 87 art gallery, Mika. She saw Zeroes and Ones, cause it played here in L.A. on like a one-off screening. And then she saw this other movie I made for this thing called Just Chillin which was called A: Skydiver. E: Skydiver, right. You saw that, right? Yeah, and umm, she really liked that, even more than Zeroes and Ones actually. A: I really liked that. E: And she was like This person can connect, so she came up to me and shes like Okay, like I really want to do whatever your next project is and I was like Great. A: Cause shes got a new curatorial job at MoCA? E: No no no, she is uh, runs this umm umm gal- lery in L.A. called Night Gallery, unrelated to Just Chillin. Its called Night Gallery, with this 88 other curator called Davida. And Mika just wanted to make a movie, she wanted to do some- thing like this with a movie. Cause she like, she didnt like Hollywood, for some weird reason. Shes interested in like movies, or something. In a weird way, not in the way of a cinephile, but in the way of like Hollywood. But its weird, be- cause shes very smart and shes very savvy and shes very business oriented, but it wasnt very good judgment... like the artists that they pick for their gallery are good up and coming artists. A: So she understands glamor and she under- stands intellectual E: Yeah, she understands whats going to work, you know. She really respects ambition, and vi- sion, and like, not necessarily like shes like, you know these movies you made arent exe- cuted on this like high level [inaudible 26:15] But I said Im willing... how much money do you have?, you know, that was my question. She 89 told me an amount of money and Im like Thats not a lot of money, you cant make a movie for that and shes like What can we do? and Im like I dunno, nothing and shes like Why dont we make a web series. We were gonna do some things that were was much closer to Skydiver, where maybe I would take an undercover hidden camera to a psychiatrists office or something and play in character and fuck with the psych. We were doing that, and then I was going to all these dinner parties, and I was like Why dont we do a dinner party thing? and she was like Cool, that sounds good and [Adam interrupts for technical reasons]
E: Anyways, she got behind it, yeah. I was like Cool, lets do it. A: And you just began basically with this context in mind, like Im gonna have something at the 90 MoCAs youtube page? E: No, no, no, no, no, that had nothing to do with it. We had no idea. We were talking about Okay how do people see this, I guess well have to set up a website and well just like release it through our website and I was like Okay, or maybe we could contact My Damn Channel or something, because I had seen that David Wain had his web series on it. You ever see Wainy Days? A: No. E: I thought that it was really good, Wainy Days. And so we didnt really know, we had like no idea in terms of release. We were just like Lets do it. She wanted to do it, she had the money, I had, I had been working on this script for nine months for these producer guys who, it wasnt go- ing well, it was going really bad, they were giving me notes and like A: Such an L.A scenario. 91 E: I know. And they didnt pay me anything at all. It was just a bummer. It sapped my soul in a weird way. So I was really excited for a change of pace. [Eugene stops to discuss the soup] E: I have to be sensitive, man, you know. So theres people when we were doing Zeroes and Ones you know, everyone was working for free for two years. We basically had twenty artists, probably like six artists who were with me the whole time, whenever they had free time, you have to be sensitive A: Did you go home and tear your hair out and cry and stuff? E: That is what made me go bald. Yeah. I defi- nitely tore a lot of my hair out during the post- production. A: I wasnt making reference to that. 92 E: No, no, no... literally, I did tear my hair out. I remember, because it was a very frustrating expe- rience, but, but, what I was saying is you need to be really frustrating because people are working for free and they believe in the movie and they believe in you, but they also want to get some- thing out of it. Not just a credit, but they want to have some sense of validation, like their work is creating A: Value in the world. E: Well yeah, but they are also making a serious creative contribution to the vision, you know? And its a very tricky line to walk, and you have to respect people, and you have to make them be- lieve that its true, even though ultimately you do want to fulfill your vision, and hopefully your vi- sion aligns with what they believe is their own creative work, and sometimes it doesnt, and sometimes it does. But you have to be sensitive to all that and like, and give back rubs. Cause 93 people are working for free and you have to give lots of back rubs and get people food. A: You know, its a managerial marvel of you to do that. E: Its hard. A: Im serious. That is real managerial talent. Thats business talent. E: [inaudible 30:00] okay, its all for making a movie right? If you just think about it, thats the thing that motivates you. It wont get done if I dont make people believe theyre doing it for themselves or something like that.
[Eugene stops to offer Adam food] A: Did you always want to be a filmmaker? E: Yeah, for a long time. At first when I was really young, when I was really young, I wanted to be a lawyer. I thought law was so cool when I was seven through ten. I was like Its so cool. I 94 did this biography on like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine and all these, you know like John Marshall, and I was like Laws so cool, and I can see myself doing case or whatever. I dont know. I mean the other thing that all you guys are guys, you know like when you were a kid, didnt you ever think to yourself like Hey, I would be a really good sniper. A: No. E: Never? Did you ever think that? Id be a really good sniper. A: I thought that I would be good at orating in a courtroom though. [inaudible 31:00] the Prac- tice. Did you ever see that show? E: No. Ally McBeal, maybe. A: The Practice. I remember watching The Prac- tice and thinking Man, I would love to get up there and try a case like that E: You guys never thought Hey, Id be a good sniper? You never thought I really like being 95 by myself, and I have a lot of patience, and like, I have probably really good aim. And then also Id love to just fulfill a mission. Lets just sit there quietly for four hours and then just take some- one out. Never? A: Do you play video games? I think you can do that in video games now. E: Hmm Yeah I dont play video games now, but I have in the past. Yeah, you can definitely be a sniper in video games. Or even, you know, GoldenEye, James Bond. A: When you played GoldenEye, did you lurk in the background? E: No, I went full force, straight ahead. You know. Thats just a game dude. Were talking about real imagine sniping. A: Yeah I know, but I mean maybe like the game the games existence testifies to more people wanting to do that. E: Definitely. Its a very popular game because it 96 taps into the deep-seated A: boyhood desire to be a sniper, which is, which is a guys E: Or even being a truck driver. You guys ever think Oh man, Id be a really good truck driver. Id love to do that? A: Yeah, I think a couple times. E: Yeah. A: I dont think I ever wanted to really do it thoughwhen you think about it. E: Yeah, you start thinking about the speed pills, sleeping in your car A: The truck stops. E: Uh huh, the truck stops. Yeah. A: Its not perfect. E: What were we talking about [inaudible 32:35] Yeah, so then I wrote the script really fast. And I really liked it because it was probably, I think, in terms of entertainment, the best script Ive writ- ten. 97 A: Its so nonsensical. Its so E: Its just like bam. Theres a lot of punch lines all over and every scene kind of has just this [imitates punching sounds] and then moves on. I definitely did a lot of that in editing, but a lot of its in the script too. And umm, Im excited to write more things like that. Hopefully after this I can go home tonight and write something really fast, cause Im excited. I just had a slightly traumatizing experience before all this, and I feel like trauma offsets good writing.
A: Are you worried that its harder and harder to make work like the kind of work you want to make? E: What do you mean? A: Challenging or whatever. I mean, maybe this is just a bummer question. What do you want to do next? E: I want to write a movie. 98 A: Okay. Do you want to make a whole big movie again? E. Mmhmm. Yeah. A: Rounding everybody up and... E: Rounding everybody up, paying them all money, umm, doing it hopefully with a big stu- dio or producer or someone whos that back- end, where theyve already sold it before weve made it. [Adam orders another beer] E: Umm. But I mean its really easy to do this People usually look on this and romanti- cize all their times and say like Well, they like really appreciated like challenging work, or like, all the movies back then were like so weird and different and cool. But its always been the same, there have always been a thousand movies or something made every years. Nine hundred of 99 them suck. One hundred of them are interesting slash good slash really weird. Those are the ones that get remembered, and so you look back in time and think, Oh, yeah wow. Movies used to be so good and now they suck. A: I dont think that. I just think more so, inde- pendent filmmakers are in crisis. E: Definitely. A: Theres the death of the art house. Larry Clark released a film on his website. E: Theres definitely that distribution crisis A: I feel like he probably got a hundred down- loads and earned ~800$ from that. For a film he probably made for 80 grand. I feel like hes like Im very interested in how many people down- loaded his E: Four thousand? A: I dont think he got four thousand. Id be very, very surprised if he got four thousand. I think a lot of people who watch movies or consume cul- 100 ture feel an aversion to the internet... they need other people to give them their cultural vegeta- bles. They need to be fed art and culture. They need to be told what is good, what is good for them. And they distrust the internet. E: Well theres at least four thousand people who like Larry Clarks work. Its all about creating a swell of like, desire, you know? If someone thinks thats the only way were going to see this thing that I want to see, then they might do it. I mean, I dont know, everybody just [inaudible 35:25 stands?] with movies. A: But theres another thing that makes me inter- ested in you as a filmmaker, because you have post-internet kind of sensibilities. Your first film is about living with devices, but it was definitely made for a movie theater. E: Yeah. A: But your second thing, Skydiver, is E: For a computer. 101 A: For a computer, and with a computer. E: Yeah. A: And your third thing is a web series. E: Yeah. A: Do you feel like a social media artist? E: No. I definitely feel like a filmmaker. I do feel like it is silly and delusional for any film maker working nowadays, whether it be Mr. Im in my basement shooting videotape or Paul Thomas Anderson, to ignore computers, technology, cell phones, and things that are around us all the time. That is insane, and I think a lot of filmmak- ers do ignore it. Tarantino, Spielberg, Paul Tho- mas Anderson, Wes Anderson, look at all their movies. Theres no acknowledgement of the ac- tual world around us. Like, Martin Scorsese has done it in like in The Departed A: Text messages. E: Brian de Palmas new movie Passion has really good stuff, like Skype and cell phones and 102 103 digital cameras. But a lot of filmmakers are ig- noring it, and, and so to acknowledge it, and I know it plays even a bigger role in my life than in the lives of people who are that age. But to not in- tegrate that into your storyline, and into your work, and into your presentation of the work is insane. All that being said, you know, I love film and film is the most important thing in the world to me, and thats how I want to tell a story. I want to tell a story in the way that film can tell it. Not the way that a website can tell a story, you know? Im not a conceptual artist, even though concepts are important to my work, you know? So I dont know, does that answer your ques- tion? A: .... E: I mean, its different sitting in your bed, lay- ing in your bed A: Do you think that if Larry Clark releases his film on the internet, he becomes a social media 104 artist? E: Um. A: Do you think theres any validity to the term social media artist? E: Social media , well, I dont know what a social media artist is. I think anybody who uses Face- book or something actively is a social media art- ist, right? Thats the silly aspect of social network- ing right? It actually privileges creativity in a way that dilutes the pool of creativity. And also deludes people into thinking that their voices matter, even though they havent cultivated their voice, or dont even try, you know? Im not part of the school of like anything is art, a dog shits in a pail and thats art. I dont subscribe to that. So I dont know, the question you are asking is weird because in a certain way, yeah everyones a social media artist if you actually use social me- dia, and then in another way, only people who are completely umm subverting the framework 105 of uh like the operating, you know, the operating systems or the websites that anyone whos working within the formal framework of the things that are used to communicate in social me- dia is a social media artist, cause their whole job is to make you question the functionality of those things. Thats not what Im doing, because Im not really using the tools of a website, or of Facebook or something to create things that make a viewer or an experiencer question that. There definitely are great umm internet artists, people who deal explicitly through the code of the internet, and with the sites of the internet. Have I touch on those things in my movie? Defi- nitely, but I think Ive touched on them in a way where Im not trying to make people question their relationship to the internet, Im trying to make them question their relationship of the internet to their daily lives. Do you know what I mean? 106 A: Yes, but I dont see I see the internet as shift- ing things, and I think this is crucial for filmmak- ers. And I think for the most part indie filmmak- ers, the ones who are slightly older than you and I, they dont get it. I see the internet as, as being one gigantic pool of identity projections, the col- lection of millions and millions of identity projec- tions. I have come to view everything as identity projection. When I watch a film I am watching the filmmakers projection of him or herself. What I find myself interested in is not here I am please look at my film... but more... here is a person doing compelling things with their life. E: It all seems way too strategic for me. A: But it shouldnt be strategic. Im talking about new points of departure... E: Wellthe fact is to do that you have to be wealthy, or not strategic, which I think a lot of people are, who have a brand identity. You have to be completely neurotic, or have Aspergers or 107 whatever, you know? You have to be kind of in- sensitive to social cues and other people, and kind of just push your own ego all the time... and I think its really difficult for I mean of course a lot of filmmakers are egomaniacs. But to be to kind of just push a really consistent image that doesnt ever sway or doesnt ever emotionally re- act to life is I dont know, it just seems like ...you have to be crazy. Or something. A real art- ist I think is an observer a lot of the time. Some of the best, you know, theyre just observers. They are able to interpret and are sensitive to the voices around them, and they sort of, they take that, they reinterpret and aestheticize what they observe umm for whatever purposes, whether its to make a painting or whether to pre- sent an entertaining story, you know? Storytell- ers are the biggest egomaniacs somehow, unless theyre truly interesting, and a lot of people arent interesting. Im not interesting, I wouldnt 108 pretend to be interesting. A: That would fall on somebody else to deter- mine. E: Im not trying to attack you or anything. A: I dont consider myself a social media artist. I just think that theres this new space opening up, which is eating a lot of eyeballs, and eating basi- cally the entirety of whatever we would declare as independent film.
E: Larry Clarks gonna be played at a film festi- val, right? Played on a big screen at a film festi- val. His film won the Rome film festival. And then he announced that he was releasing the film through his website. And he has a built-in audience. He has people who know him, hes made movies like Kids, always, you know, about skaters and kids, thats his work. He makes movies about kids. You know Heres another Larry Clark movie about kids and, you know, I 109 like him. Im not his biggest fan or anything, so Im not going to buy his movie, but A: I dont think he will be able to afford to make more films with this model. Festivals or no festi- vals. Are you still, are you still hoping for a home run film? E: Yeah. Well, Im not hoping for it cause like I think Im like a different type of filmmaker than Larry Clark, so I dont think Im in his situation. I think Larry Clark has his obsessions, and is not going to concede his obsessions for anything. Larry Clarks not gonna write a fucking straight thriller. I would love to write a really good straight thriller that was about the things I care about that was weird and fucking crazy and over the top, and was like, Id love write Basic In- stinct, Id love to make Raising Cain. Those are the movies I like, and I want to make a movie like that. So, I dont think Im in the same place as him. Im obviously younger and have less 110 clout, and I dont have a fucking agent, and havent done something super on a huge scale. Man who thought this was gonna turn into a whole big interview? I didnt. You had this planned A: No, I didnt have this planned out. E: Dont make me regret this. A: For the record, I want to say that like the likeli- hood of this E: ever seeing the light of day A: is low. E: Well then maybe I should shut the fuck up. A: No, its good though. I can post it on my Tumblr. Or on Facebook or something. Do you want to end the interview? E: No, no, no, no, no. I dont care. A: Im just asking you questions Im actually in- terested in. Cause I interact with you as a person on the internet. E: Yeah. 111 A: And as a filmmaker, through the internet. E: Well tell me, umm your impression now that weve met. What was your impression of me on the internet, and whats your impression of me now? Do they not concord? A: Okay, the first time I learned about you was when uh, I had just been trolling somebody and ended up on the Just Chillin gallery. E: Who were you trolling? A: Probably the blog Art Fag City did something that linked to it. And so I ended up there E: Why do you call that trolling and not just re- search? Trolling has a certain real negative con- notation to it, right? A: I would like to reclaim that. E: Yeah? A: Yeah. Ive done two nonfiction films, and both of them are from internet research... that you know, frequently feels like youre looking into things that are like, not fully public and not fully 112 private... E: Okay, so why dont you call it stalking, be- cause really, troll I feel trolling, the whole thing with trolling is that you are actively negging, right? You are actively putting out nega- tive energy thats hateful in this space where eve- rybody A: I thought it was just I thought it was just alright, I continue to think of it as just like, like youre interested in other people E: ...In a way that was borderline creepy twenty years ago A: Exactly! Borderline creepy twenty years ago. Exactly. So then I learned about that and I watched the thing, and I didnt watch the whole thing, but I was just like This is like I dont know if hes serious, I dont know if this is real, and I thought Okay, this is interesting, this is new, I am not certain what I am supposed to be feeling. You know, like, this is really good. And I 113 felt like... watching it, I felt like I was overseeing something that was sort of private feeling. I felt like a voyeur I guess. It was exciting. E: But you didnt finish it? A: I didnt finish it, no. It didnt seem like I had to. It didnt seem like a thing I had to watch in a linear way like that. And I was like This is maybe pointing towards umm, what we would consider cinema, or whatever the cinema will what will happen to the cinema in uh, in this next generation. And so I was excited a little bit about it, and yeah, then I watched Feast of Bur- den. And then I had Facebook friends that were Facebook friends with you. Brad Troemel. E: I dont know the guy, Ive never met him. A: Hes crazy too. E: Never met the guy. A: Hes good. I like him. E: He seems smart A: Hes smart. 114 E: from the internet. A: Hes smart for sure. E: Im a fan of that. A: And then I knew you were on there, and I re- membered you from the other thing. I remember watching the first couple episodes of Skydiver, and in one there was a cute Asian girl. In the be- ginning of the episode, youre like gesticulating to her on video chat and then in VO at the end of the episode you said she gave you an awesome blowjob. And I was like, Is this real or not real. It was provocative and felt real. And then I watched another episode, nearer to the end, and it was longer. And I think it was with Kate Lynn Sheil, who I recognized from promo for a Joe Swanberg movie. And I thought that was really good, really really good. It was emotional. I dont think I bought you yet, until I watched that. But that made me feel something. E: See, cause Im perfectly okay with you not fin- 115 ishing it, because I viewed I viewed Skydiver as having lots of narrative problems. But that is a failure of the show, that you didnt finish it. You know? I never make a work and intend it not to... you know A: People could download your film and scrub it E: Whenever, yeah. Totally. Same thing with, with A: Netflix. And thats what people do. E: People scrub through actual feature films, you think? A: Yeah. E: I just cant get behind that. A: I think maybe you have more of a purist atti- tude. E: I just love movies. Yeah, I know a lot about movies, cause Ive seen a lot of movies, but like, you know, if I didnt like a movie, I will never scrub through it. I just turn it off, say This is 116 shit. Whats the point of scrubbing through fur- ther if its boring in the middle? A: Maybe you get to a part you like? E: How could I like it if the middle sucks? A: So you have a complete like the movie is not data, its something like sacred for you? E: Well its yeah, Im just a narrative film- maker. I like narrative films, and I like films that tell a story, and so if something seems really su- perfluous in the story, I either trust that its there for some reason, or if a films boring, then Ill just tell myself Okay, the middle sucked, the rest was good, or Ill just be like Actually, this whole thing sucked. The middle just put me over the edge, and Im going to sleep so I can jack-off. A:Okay. Do you like Ryan Trecartin videos - it seems like that was a little bit of a I see them in your thing, Feast of Burden. E: I dont think its an influence. I have this the- ory though. I have a theory about Feast of Bur- 117 den that basically like people who know a little bit about culture will be like Oh my god, this is like so Wes Anderson or something. Cause that was the first YouTube that came out when you posted the trailer was like Is this the new Wes Anderson movie... A: So your theory is that Im bringing up Ryan Trecatin to demonstrate how much stuff I know about culture? E: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. A: Come on E: Yes, because cause chill, because the next step is like, people who semi-know about culture will be like Woah, this is a total David Lynch rip-off, or whatever. And then people who have some semblance of art world knowledge will be like Oh my god, this is like so Ryan Trecartin, or whatever. You know, and then people who dont know anything will be like Woah, this is fucking gay. Im not watching this. And then people 118 who maybe know a lot about movies will be like Oh my god, this is like, such like a Kuchar Broth- ers rip-off or something. This is like early John Waters or something. You know, people always want to find some reference point to fall back on in in a way A: Listen, I have not seen that high level of pac- ing and non-sequitur in the narrative of any- thing other than your film, your web series, aside from in Ryans videos. They are similarly over- whelming. E: You said that before, but I still dont under- stand what you mean by non-sequitur. A: Does not follow. It does not seem to me, upon one viewing, that one thing leads to an- other in a manner I find immediately E: I think A: You cut from the guy shaking his boobs and doing that thing to another scene, and come back to it and hes doing that, and back to this, 119 and back, and its just its just different, it has this different pacing. E: Well okay, lets just tackle Ryan first. I think Ryan actually is a really interesting artist. A: ... E: I dont consider him a filmmaker, I dont think hes concerned with the things that film is concerned with. I think his main concern, and hes brilliant, is language. You know, he really de- constructs language, and destroys it, and invents it. Out of nowhere. And hes amazing at that. I think his movies are insane, in the best possi- ble way, and I also find them extremely difficult to get through A: Thats what Im saying. E: Ryan, for instance, because I dont consider his work film, I might consider actually scrub- bing through that. A: Thats what I was gonna get to. E: But I dont think Ryan is concerned with the 120 sort of experience of linear and narrative storytel- ling I dont think hes concerned with storytel- ling. I think hes concerned with performance, and breaking down language, whether it be vis- ual literacy or actually like talking in dialougue language. He is brilliant at deconstructing and subverting that. And cool, Im glad his work ex- ists, and I think its, in the realm of what its do- ing, excellent. But I dont consider him a film- maker, and I dont think well Ill consider him an experiemental filmmaker, you know, in a way thats very different from the project that narra- tive filmmakers undertake. Now thats not to say that I dont think Ryan can make a narrative film. Probably. He can make a good one, maybe, if thats what he wanted to do. A: This is back to scrubbing, and I guess the internet context or something. I think the inter- net to me I dont think theres a difference be- tween watching well, in terms of like you 121 could say that This is a filmmakers film, and this is a video artists video art, but no - theyre both YouTubes. E: And also a kid crying in the back of a car or something is YouTube? A: Yes. E: And also like, I dont know, someone taking a dump is YouTube? A: Yeah. E: And also you can find pretty much any movie if you look for that movie title plus the word Full on YouTube, so I was watching Repulsion the other day, full and thats YouTube too I guess? I mean certainly, theres a democratizing, a sort of like everything is just moving images, right? A: Right. E: Everything is just images and sound, moving together through the same player, and its all very democratized. And then its just up to the re- 122 ceiver, the viewer to decide how they want to handle that, you know? But, I mean, again, you dont call the guy who has a baby crying in the back a filmmaker, or maybe you do. I dont know. Im just, Im just were talking about movies so, I dont know, a lot of people have said Ryan is a filmmaker... A: Im just wondering how you situate yourself. E: Ive just had that thought before, you know? Umm, its all about context and its all about like I hate, for instance, I hate context, I fucking hate it. A: .... E: I hate reading reviews, I hate being told whats going to happen in a movie and watching the trailer, unless its really cool and kind of teaser-y. I dont like knowing what to expect when I go into something, I just want it to be clear and have umm, a certain way to break it down, right? And so, when a piece of art is really 123 good, the hermeneutics within that piece of art, that is the language to interpret it is there, its built into it. You know what I mean? And like, I think the hermeneutics of Ryans movies are very clearly like Im not interested in narrative here, Im interested in deconstructing language, visual and aural, and the hermeneutics of a Hitchcock movie are really clear, Im interested in like fucking with your perception of who to trust and whats happening and Im telling a really funny story. Like the hermeneutics of a fucking, I dont know, Picasso painting are all there, all you need is a painting to interpret it. You dont need to know all the stuff they teach you in school, you know? Thats what makes a good artist, you know? A: Or does a good artist just, just sort of control that? E: They control it and, I mean, you put the lan- guage in the book. Faulkner teaches you how to 124 read Faulkner. You either get what hes doing, or Dostoeyevsky, you either get what theyre doing because its all there, or you dont get it and you just come up with whatever way of I dont know. I think the best artwork allows people to access it on its own terms. Like Christopher No- lan, not that hes my favorite filmmaker, but hes a really good example of that. His movies have these concepts in them, and they allow you to ac- cess the concepts in a way thats really clear to you as a viewer, you know? And the themes are built around these concepts and, you know the reason his films are very successful are because he chooses these subjects that are cool and excit- ing and fun and crazy and dark, or whatever, and its all built into it, you know? As opposed to just watching some fucking lame person who doesnt know how to create the language for access make like an action movie, or something like that. And Christopher Nolan is actually a really great exam- 125 ple of someone, thats what I said before, of someone who has a crazy story structure, and that like, if you look at movies like The Prestige, or the previous Batman movie, Batman what- ever, the Dark Knight, and Inception too, they have these parallel storylines going at the same time, and they cut between them, not at the points that make sense formally, the points that make sense emotionally and juxtapositionally, and that actually to me is powerful, and I think Feast of Burden is doing something similar to that in its cuts, even though to you they seemed non-sequitur. A: [inaudible 56:00] E: Yeah. Or Russ Meyer, you ever seen a Russ Meyer movie? A: No. E: Russ Meyers most famous movie is Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, but hes an exploitation, a sexploitation filmmaker. Hes really obsessed 126 with breasts and stuff. And he was an editor, and he was a photographer and stuff, and he has the funniest fucking cuts. The funniest stuff. It would be like A: I love funny cuts E: Hes the funniest cutter. You should see his movies. Cause there would be like, you know like a woman drinking from a jug of water, okay, and then it would cut to some guy like spitting out oil or something, cause he had been like just sucking gasoline from the back of a car. A: Siphoning. E: Yeah, and therell be a sort of dialectic be- tween the cuts thats always funny, its always a joke. A: So you get to engage with it on a meta level? E: Well yeah. Yeah. A: I remember one scene from Feast of Burden firstly, non-sequitur because you have a girl whos entering the, the feast, and shes late or 127 something like that. And shes trying to get there, and shes stopped by a transvestite who is shaking beads at her? E: Yeah, yeah. A: An old man. And then he pulls open his coat, and he has breasts, and he stands there shaking his beads at this girl, and shes crying Ahhhhh, and so theres like, theres like a good three min- utes of the episode is just like her going Ahhhhh, and then you go to another scene, and you come back, and shes still going Ahhhhh. So youve extended this one E: Its extended over the course of three epi- sodes, I believe. A: Its so nuts. E: Yeah, but, I think theres a part you were talk- ing about theres one part where Im like talk- ing to my friend Spider, and my character, Jimmy, is talking to Spider, and hes like The key is inside that house, and hes like So 128 what? and then it cuts to her being like this and then it cuts back to them, you know.
[Adam and Eugene talk to the waitress]
A: Anyways, maybe we should end our interview now. E: Yeah. Sure. Great dinner guys. Sorry, I, fuck, I fucking rambled A: No, no, this is good. This is good to hear. Cause you gave me a lot of good content. E: Yeah, content. A: Ill have to get the [inaudible 58:12] E: Yeah, just get your interns to transcribe it, right? A: Yeah. 129 130 BOOK REVIEWS Zachary German on Justin Taylor Alec Neidenthal on Marie Calloway 131 reviewed by Zachary German Its harder with your own voice, with my own my own voice here. I did something for Lucy where I wrote in first person but it was easier with that. Is all writing first person? Anyway, be- cause Im so invested with it, how I need to at least not demonstrate that Im um. I cant uh. I dont want to seem like Im saying things that I dont know about, is my biggest fear. Book re- viewing seems you know, lofty. Here: This is a 132 The Gospel of Anarchy by Justin Taylor novel. It is The Gospel of Anarchy and it came out in 2011 I think from um Harper Perennial. The Wikipedia entry for Justin TaylorI know all the five people that will read this thingpro- nounce the word thing as the word think, when you read this out loudalready know thisis about um a character from the Showtime or whatever it is series called Queer as Folk. Justin had another book, a um story collection from 2010 called Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever, same publisher, and I think also for that publisher he edited a book where they show pictures of peoples tattoos that have to do with literature. And for a smaller press (does X-Ing Books sound right) he has a book of poems, and he edited something for McSweeneys about Don- ald Barthelme, and also he edited something called The Apocalypse Reader for, I believe, Running Press. 133 This novel The Gospel of Anarchy takes place in Florida in 1999. It follows a college stu- dent who falls into ayou know, he falls right into them?a group of people that are like punk people. They take food from the garbage pail be- hind fast food restaurants, and so on like that. They uh like anarchy or, you know, um. Um. The main thing I wanted to say isno I will say this too. Oh did the font get smaller? Hold on. Oh now thats too big, hold on. I think thats still big- ger than it was originally but thats, no wait. Oh no now its too small. Hold on. There we go I guess. So also he mentions check cashing stores a few times. Ive you know, as a writ- eras a personIve tended away from narrat- ing what one would call that thing, that uh check cashing place, that thing. (Though I think Id say check cashing place.) Well, Taylor calls it check cashing store. No I mean I think hes bet- ter for it. 134 But the Old Grand-Dad whiskey. I am so hungover right now. I um. I am sick. Sick sick sick. These people in the book are able to put things right into their bodies, the um scrounged, you know, food, from the uh pita place, what have you. And um this uh Old Grand-Dad whis- key. I think that Old Grand-Dad is expensive compared to some whiskies. Thinking about it makes me sick. I have been up since seven thirty and now its quarter after twelve, vomiting throughout: I am sick. I dont want to write about this. Ill um, take you back in time a little bit. Im just going to edit this part I already wrote so I dont have to think as much. He does uhJustin doesheoh my god the size thing, the font size thing again. Well I re- member Travis was walking when I called him. I lived in Brooklyn then and I would buy things like beer or um Stolichnaya vodka which I would mix with grapefruit juice. Imagine lets say if 135 tuna fish meant something you know a lot differ- ent than tuna. Like were it a different kind of fish. A um freshwater fish. Thats basically what you get with grapefruit. Yeah Im everyone whos ever gone onon to? Yahoo Answers. I guess I didnt drink very much except for beer then and um Stolichnaya vodka with grapefruit juice. This is 2009. Well Travis was walking when I called him, back from the liquor store with something called Old Grand-Dad. And I said something really more about the name than what the name might you know, represent - as in what the prod- uct might be. (I thought that, yesterday, I guess, when I wrote that. Now I dont see why it would make so much sense for me to say something about the name. So I dont know what I said but I know what he said he had with him, from the liquor store. Um.) And he told me that it was only for on reserve or - thats not correct, thats not what he said. Um. Wheres my phone. Were 136 going to walk to the bank now. Travis said it was only for you know, like extra, because um he had Makers Mark at his apartment. Or house, he had a house then. (That was yesterday I wrote that stuff then I edited it a little tiny bit. We walked to the bank and then different places. I left french fries in Petes car. A funny story is what happened yesterday when Travis saw Pete in front of his house and Travis walked over to the driver side door and I walked over to the uh, passenger side, and Pete didnt see Travis and um I got into Petes car, and Pete and I we dont know each other. Pete was upset! You know, he was really displaying how upset he was. But I had a cheesesteak with me even, and fri- eswhich I got by the way because Travis always wants fries, but then he didnt want them, so he should have known. Then Travis said some- thing and Pete was okay. They went to a movie but I just walked home from the theater. I 137 stopped at Wonder Years bar and watched some of the Sixers game I watched the rest at home.) Another time I was at a um fundraiser or something for Art in General. I think I saw Sic Alps and Magik Markers with Adam there later, at this venue I mean. A fire house downtown. The bathroom was hard to get to but worth it, I would say. You could look at these plaques about um like independent film-making while you waited. There were pretty girls there that wouldnt have liked me, at the thing with Adam. College girls. At the Art In General thing every- one was all talk talk talk talk talk. Because that organization is I dont know, it seemed not so good from the little I was exposed to it. I think it was the night (Wednesday March 19, 2011, that night with Adam) where before that we went to Chinese food and I ate some kind of feet which did not have a lot to like about them. Oh and they had the Old Grand-Dad. Im 138 writing this part later, but I am too with so many parts (so many) so Im kind of being not so much in using of the parenthesis. Oh Joanna Angels Alt Nation torrent is done, thank you. I kept thinking about when we could have gone to that Chinese restaurant. (Its not often that I go out to a Chinese restaurant!) I remembered different times I had seen Salem because it seems like thats the band I saw most, especially around that time, and I kept thinking it was um you know, in conjunction with one of their little shows that Adam and I would have perused said finer fineries. Yet it did not come as any kind ofnot as any kind ofum, epiphany. When I re- membered. Justin Taylor in this book has the punks with no income drink Old Grand-Dad in his novel um The Gospel of Anarchy. Maybe its good because the narrator thinks its so bad be- cause the narrator um wait maybe it character- 139 izes him wellyou know, well-characterizes? him? because he is so unused to things like whiskey or supposedly cheap whiskey? Um I dont know what Old Grand-Dad tastes like but I know it costs more than Heaven Hill and Evan Williams and I think also Jim Beam. Im going to check on a couple websites where they say how much alcohol costs. I couldnt tell on the Fine Wines & Good Spirits website which has to do with the state of Pennsylvania. It is a bad website. I have a cata- log around here somewhere. (Around here somewhere, oh man.) BQE Wine & Liquor also made me mad because it only had one hundred proof Old Grand Dad, which complicates things. Also the book takes place in Florida but I dont think that would affect anything. 140 reviewed by Alec Niedenthal Clearly written in haste after Marie Calloway was plunged into internet literary micro-fame following the explosive "Adrien Brody," her debut reads like the sort of diary one keeps in order to forget events rather than remember them. Separating herself the from the aseptic work of her young peers, what purpose did I serve in your life does not accidentally have this aspect. Her novels mise-en-scene is, rather, an 141 what purpose did i serve in your life by Marie Calloway intended effect that, with the conviction of someone who lost herself under the premises of sex bought, sold and taken, makes this novel compelling precisely because it should be, by all rights, just a diary. Yet, like Marguerite Durass memoir The War and Alain Robbe- Grillets Ghost in the Mirror (for these French new novelists, I would argue, are Calloways great forbears), it stands forth as something more. How? This is a question I intend to pose rather than answer, just as this book presents the problem of twenty-first century womanhood in a new way instead of solving it. Maries odd, provocative--a word that every critic and his or her dog will use to describe this book--twist on feminist writing may turn you on and make you miserable at once. what purpose also has the deep, knowing intelligence of an erotic novel that just dares you 142 to be aroused by its depictions of those miserable men who humiliate--sexually, verbally, intellectually, but never expressively-- its narrator, whom it, furthermore, challenges you to identify with the author, the pseudonymous Marie. In a very peculiar way it treats of the themes and ideologies of early modernism, which was the stage upon which sexuality, considered on its own rather than as a subset of marriage, first emerged in fiction. And by means of such themes, it does the opposite of what it says. Our narrator is not the one placed on stage and shamed, as she claims repeatedly to be (It was a strange feeling, having spent the past two weeks looking forward to nothing but meeting him, but as the minutes drew closer I was overcome with nervous dread. He wouldn't find me attractive, I wouldn't have anything to say, we would sit in a bar in painful silence until he found an excuse to leave and I would feel 143 humiliated and ruminate for months): its rather the men who populate this novel who are truly ruined--who are, in their very desire to humiliate our narrator, only shaming themselves. So goes the symphonic ability of the novel to reverse the irreversible, as Emmanuel Levinas once wrote, its machinic drive to rewrite what has happened. But Calloway changes the past merely by presenting it, without the the visitations of bad fortune or vengeful fate--nor, the tool of lesser artists, with the melodrama of soft and pretty language--upon her male antagonists and cock-brandishing doms.
Her novel renders the narrator's coming-of-age through the intertwining of sex and writing, blossoming artistry and the sadness of sex with bullying men. But by giving this tale a different form--by passing it through the voice of a young white woman while it is happening--she is able 144 to disclose certain other of its contents, insights into the predicament of sexual difference, which eluded the modernists who approached the same topics retrospectively and in the third person. Her book has an immediacy that is not "novelistic" but worthy of performance art: she performs, in fact, a sort of satire of the whole form of novels, their bread and circus, that tight- rope walk between pretending and repression. By giving us "characters" only so that we may hate them--by asking why the more outwardly ordinary and proud a man appears, the more revolting he is in the recesses of his bedroom-- she parodies the very premise of novel-reading. Why, she asks, would you ever want insight into these people? This is just what you demand, dear reader, when you imagine a frothy novel about a young woman, a peripatetic and self-hating bourgeois who hungers for risk and discomfort: the truest form of desire is the abuse of what one 145 wants. And so Calloway gives us, sadists that we are, what we have always longed for: her, the human being cut up until its nothing but a series of sexual encounters and a voice as small as someones dying whistle, a placeholder where feelings--and with them, the desire to identify with something beyond a stray piece of garbage--may have been found, if they had not short-circuited for what looks like ever. But this relentless pressing on of the heroine, this narrowness of her drive, is to the authors credit.
Calloway's book indeed straddles the narrative concerns of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She uses, in combination, both flippant first-personhood and a melancholic look at her inner life to depict and try to understand the worst white men in the world. This is her espionage among them. The result might be called a fiction of witnessing. Her first-person 146 voice never quite settles on a tone or register, and Calloway italicizes some of her prose to evoke a somewhat deeper mental sediment, like so: "Petsheep," a pompous photographer whom Calloway's eponymous narrator seeks out, "lifted my camisole over my head and unhooked my bra. I held my breasts in my hands. He went to his bed. I was standing there unbuttoning my skirt. Then I had to pull down my leggings and underwear, and I knew he could see my pad. I said, Ewww. Im not so self-hating enough that I think my own menstrual blood is that gross, its just embarrassing to show it to somebody. You have to act like its gross as a kind of apology." If her narrator is, as a matter of course, compliant and unapologetic, then the author uses italics to court a real sense of rage at the men by whom she's, willingly or not, dominated. (This persistence of domination makes extra interesting those friendships, 147 apparently Platonic, between Maries narrator and men.) Later in the same section, "The Irish Photographer," Calloway hints at the very aporia of her book, which invests her whole project and acts as its motor force: "It was like I was his dog. He was humiliating me but I felt safe and warm and completely turned on. Nothing could be more enjoyable than this. To be dominated and degraded was what I wanted. Sex is just a way to get those things." She uses sex as a means for other ends. In "Adrien Brody," Calloway's narrator reveals that she cannot feel oral sex, which I assume means that she cannot be clitorally stimulated. So the question remains: why sex? To what end does she put this--in her novel--typically vicious act? Pleasure, as she says, is no quarry: pleasure is everywhere, so it means nothing. She wants the sense of being or having been used. As Bill Callahan writes in what's perhaps his greatest song, "To Be of Use," 148 "Most of my fantasies / are of making someone else come." But with Callahan, these fantasies are sexual in nature. For her work, the endgame of sex is not sexual but servile. what purpose aims for a sort of devastation of the body, an investigation into what remains when the flesh is made unsafe and offered as a sacrifice to white men: what substance does not die when the body is discarded. These are the laws of her novel, and Im encouraged by the fact that the book-- excepting the collages, which I dont think work at all--does, young as she is, move by its own rules and deploy its own logic. As I said above, what purpose doesn't work as a piece of finely crafted piece of literary art, just like so many of the writings from the inhabitants of Muumuu House. But it works quite well as a performance that forces us to believe it is a novel and so, like the spy Calloway's narrator is among the rotten men of the world, infiltrates the space 149 of literature in order to change what is possible and desirable within it, its coordinates and provisions. It acts as if it is a novel; this is its great performance and terrifying effect.
Calloway's debut can be filed among those fictions that partake of a certain perdurant Idea: the Idea of destruction. When a writer shows the world as it is, Marie suggestswhen she lifts the veil from what is "normal" by exposing what violence and awful impulsions it requires of men and women, but mostly menthen, all things equal, that world cannot possibly stay the same. 150 Brad Troemel is an American Artist based in New York. He currently teaches a class called Subverting Digital Strate- gies at PRATT. Tao Lin is an American Poet and Novelist whose 3rd novel, Taipei will be published by Vintage in June 2013. Ariana Reines is a Poet, Playwright and translator from Salem, Mass. Amber Steakhouse is a semi-anonymous online ava- tar. An expanded version of Status Updates, excerpted here, will be published by Lucky Dragon Editions in early 2013. Zachary German is a lil ass hole. Alec Niedenthal is a literary enthusiast and financial blogger living in Alabama. Adam Humphreys is a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and Hall of Fame tree planter. His most recent film, Shitty Youth, can be viewed on vimeo. CONTRIBUTORS 151 All content copyright Lucky Dragon Editions. January, 2013. 152