fridays

fridays never change
never when you're older

you'll always feel 9-years-old-in-a-classroom
with the most beautiful weather wafting outside

a street ever more lovely, lacking air pollution,
a temporality invented by someone pugnacious

to define an era of the act of brittle
once, i wanted to live like living outside all the time:

putting my elbows on the table

or in the side dish

eating junk foods before dinner

walking around with some imaginary friend
folding the corners on books with vehemence

drinking the last of the milk and
not returning the carton

sleeping through my afternoon classes
partying on a tuesday night

look at me coloring on the internet
i tell you it's the same as coloring in the margins

the only thing that changes
is what you wish you could be doing

Brandon Scott Gorrell, the Electrowars and the New Sincerity (Part III of III)

I.

You might wonder what any of this has to with Brandon Scott Gorrell. Some who have followed Tao Lin's postulations on the book reviewing process will also question why I am even writing this review. After all, Tao's take on book reviews as of 2006 basically says that he considers a lot of the process to be bullshit. In 2006, Tao blogged, "'when a book is reviewed the universe is almost always reduced to 'earth,' 'the blogosphere,' or something like, 'the americas,' or 'the human race,' or else 'the human race plus all animals' or 'the human race plus all animals that look cute.'"

As you can see, Tao is aware that there is an element of the review process that is self-serving. Writing is not unshaped by politicking; pro- or anti-house blogs exist for a reason. However, Tao later contradicts himself in this post and hypothesizes that book reviewing, as with all occupations, is one way of justifying one's existence.

He goes on to say:


I must hasten to add that Tao also says, "when a book is reviewed the reviewer shows that the reviewer is delusional, has delusions, thinks in contexts that exclude a lot of information, and has many preconceptions." Certainly, I am not beyond projecting my understanding of reality upon this extended metaphor of a body of literature. I feel it necessary to attempt to address these considerations before talking about Brandon's book in an effort to give as honest a review as possible. So please keep in mind that I am aware that I am:

A) a finite being existing within space and time that does have to cope with the eventual end of this linear phase (yes, book reviewing is one activity to keep you from thinking about existential despair, but I am aware it is there)

B) a person constricted by my own belief system, including the fact that while I am typing this and attempting to portray this perspective as somehow neutral, this voice is but an internalization of the critical theories I have ingested in an academy

and

C) aware that house style does not speak for the collective entity or personal opinions of all its members. Nonetheless, it is possible to refer to common styles between the writers, the impact of mentoring (as in the case of, say, Jordan Castro and Tao Lin) and how the constraints of a physical medium impact the production of said house distribution. For the sake of simplicity, I am going to refer to a collective house style, even though I know there are vastly different influences and techniques employed by all of a house's contributors.

Reviewers should pay attention to questions that engage in an evaluation of the meaning of the text, not merely the stylistic trappings that get hits or sell product. It is too easy to get caught up in the meanings of style than to ask, as they would say in news speak, 'hard-hitting' questions. Questions such as, if this group rejects fiction in favor of fictive realism, can you please talk about what you think that signifies? If this style attracts such a sea of imitation and disdain, why do you think this happens? Why is this popular in this specific milieu? In other words, as Tao Lin would posit, what makes this text relevant?

Not asking these questions and instead writing about your dislike of scare quotes obscures the potential of a work to be discussed in terms other than style. Recognize that you are perpetuating a cyclical shallowness on the internet. If, after that, you turn around and moan, why aren't people reading books anymore? It's the internet's fault. The death of print was inevitable. We didn't stand a chance... remember it has nothing to do with the internet. It has more to do with the fact that since you are selling a product or a service, you sell the content. When this happens, you lack a consideration of depth and if people read books to feel, then they are going to reject your copy and not buy your books. The reason why I try to include a personal narrative in a review is because I am attempt to reflect what it made me feel in defiance of the traditional reviewing process.

II.

With that aside I want to examine the relevance of During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present (2009) starting with its presentation. The jacket has the words 'anxiety,' 'low self-confidence' and 'alienation' juxtaposed over happy, lime green starbursts. The back jacket is also accompanied by a photo of Gorrell from Nylon in the bottom left-hand corner. He's looking haggardly stylish and, like most hipsters, he looks like someone who's homeless in a dapper way. There are quotes from Matthew Rohrer, Chris Killen and Noah Cicero on the jacket. You can tell just by glancing at the book that it's probably the perfect thing to read when you decide to stay in and end up just feeling lonely.

During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present (2009) arrived in the mail last week, as I mentioned, on the day that I decided I was having a crappy St. Patrick's day. These circumstances are going to, in fact, influence my read of the text. When I opened the package, the chapbook was wrapped in an envelope that had been used previously. Gorrell had taken an envelope that came addressed to someone at his address, folded it inside out and sent it my way. The original envelope was from Washington State University. It was addressed to someone else who also lived at the same apartment, a girl, a girl who had presumably attended WSU. I think, there must be a story there.

Part of what interests me about Gorrell, and to be honest, Muumuu House in general, is the willingness of these writers to put their personal life online. I read a reply to a comment by Bebe Zeva that someone posted on Hipster Runoff, a site that I feel like I've outgrown as a twenty-two year-old. I still RSS to it and click when a headline in Google Reader interests me, but I've realize there is only so much you need from the internet.

Anyway, she (and here we're saying for the sake of argument that this commenter is the 'real' Bebe Zeva) asked why the person who got their first 'first' on Hipster Runoff didn't take a print screen of the shot.

The tradition of 'firsting' on Hipster Runoff is a practice of fanboy-ism that is supposed to indicate one's dedication to a blog. By 'firsting,' the participant is basically tagging the text, as with how graffitos tag walls or buildings. They are entwining their personal brand with a time stamp and this practice is supposed to indicate their loyalty. As in this person is so dedicated to said blog that they will go to elaborate lengths with the 'refresh' function of a website or even implement codes that track a site and inform them of the updates.

But, while this person happened to chance upon the blog being updated, thus demonstrating a certain level of technological awareness, they failed to use the common technique of 'print screening.' If the internet is the new printing press, then chancing upon your favorite site being updated is the same as walking by your favorite bookstore, seeing a copy of something you like and purchasing it immediately. You 'need' to 'own' a 'physical' 'copy.'

So, this person reading and tagging his first is like if someone likes the book so much that they're buying it from the store (upping the page views) and telling their friends (abstractly, through social media). It's the digital version of going into a book store, buying the book, running into a friend on the street and telling them about the book.


The reference to Bebe Zeva, who I presume to be the 'Dakota Fanning' character in Tao Lin's Richard Yates, reveals a considerable amount of the ambivalence this generation has about these changes. We grew up learning, don't talk to strangers, yet I don't know anyone who didn't hit up a chat room out of curiosity as a teen and start a/s/ling. As people living through the era of when communication is being translated to the digital realm, we are learning what this migration means, even if no one yet knows how to describe it.

Thus, Bebe Zeva, or a sort of modern vision of the female muse, is both reviled and worshiped for consenting to having her image displayed in this fashion. As you can see in the ensuing commentary, the power dynamics behind this representation have the potential to be inherently problematic in the sense that it's only one person's perspective. But, that kind of thing is for the critical theory police. The idea, Your entire life is linked is more relevant than whatever subjective interpretations of a text can be made depending on one's own perspective. Sounds kind of ominous, no?

But, at the same time, none of these individuals would be known if they hadn't, to some degree, 'papped' out their lives or disseminated their online identities to the masses regardless of whatever consequences this observation will entail. They are the first people to be famous for being famous people online.

III.

During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present (2009) picks up on the theme of the collocation of self (the authentic self) and the perceived self (artist, persona, representation of self) that is present in Lin's work. The first thing I noticed about Gorrell's work was, yes, that he had an affinity to Muumuu House style. Namely, Gorrell treats the same conditions (modernity, metaphysical constraint, the internet) and engages with them in a developed, methodical fashion. Some of the ideas may seem recycled after reading Lin, but Gorrell's chapbook is worth parting with some PayPal pennies if these concerns at all intrigue you.

Gorrell's language is lackadaisical in a way that is eloquent and enhances the reading of the text, particularly the passages about computational materialism that would otherwise seem 'cold.' For instance in, "giant destructive moth," Gorrell infuses the theme of an LDR and electronica together in an unparalleled grasp of contemporaneous times. He writes,

"i said i want to move into the internet/ you said let's do that/ i said where do you go in/ i said does it have sun chips"

"giant destructive moth" is fascinating because instead of seeing how technology is a cold entity that is somehow responsible for the social alienation of modern society, we start to see how it is instrumental in maintaining human relations, particularly in times when one feels socially alienated. One can see a similar thread in the poem, "you are a goldfish and i am alienated," a title that will undoubtedly earn Gorrell a bit of rancor among critics.

The lines,

"you/ were living inside of a spherical/ semi-permeable membrane that you wanted to escape completely/ i continued avoiding eye contact/ because when i looked at your eyes, i couldn't resist smiling/ i would have rather flown into outer space with you/ stared into a telescope with you next to me/ or committed suicide together/ or something"

are even more compelling for their simplicity.

V.

Gorrell's other prowess as a poet is demonstrated in the poem "face annihilation," which addresses the theme of monotony. Now, you might wonder, why would someone trying to sell books write about being bored? I would say that instead of mocking this element of fictive realism, this is pivotal to recording the experiences of twenty-somethings in The Great Recession, a term first coined by the writers of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." From what I've noticed, the recession doesn't seem to be documented in the artistic experience in materials produced for commercial copy.

When political events are documented in mainstream media, it is disguised through symbolism for the sake of avoiding the hostility of the working public consumer, i.e. the masses. For example, the highest grossing movie of 2008, when the housing bubble crashed, was The Dark Knight. Allegory for the criminal embezzlement of mortgages (predatory lending) by an unidentifiable control freak loose in Manhattan (the unregulated banking industry), anyone?

The culture industry knows that to sell a product or ideology, the terror, depression and hostility of the public can only be represented symbolically. 'Heaven forbid' the public victimized by the propaganda of American materialism be educated about how and why this is happening. But, for people actually concerned with this phenomena (re: 'a certain kind of person'), producing art that conveys meaning while being marketable has always been a challenge. One of the strengths of Gorrell's writing is his ability to convey malaise in a humanizing and humorous manner.

Where Lin excels in what people would call the 'absurdist' style of the group with his reference to, for instance, dolphins and hamsters with personality, Gorrell places emphasis more upon the 'absurdist emo' element of the human condition. Gorrell is able to take that nagging, careening sense of anxiety/ concern for one's times and personal dilemmas and, much like a Larry David, manages to neutralize perilous emotion into humorous, if not anecdotal, observations.

I think the best example of this is in "face annihilation," where Gorrell writes,

"today i will go to work/ i'll hardly ever move my body.../ sometime tonight i'll try not to get drunk/ sometime tonight i'll walk to the store, buy alcohol, and/ think 'what about the homeless people'/ sometime tonight i'll get drunk/ in the middle east, people are getting blown apart by bombs"

Gorrell articulates the stunning disconnect that is happening to people who are politically aware of current times but lack an ability to change them. The passage continues with Gorrell listing the kind of problems any politically aware individual who plugs into a podcast or independently produced newscast would follow:

"monsanto patents organisms/ the military-industrial complex/ every high-level american politician is a rich, corrupt/ piece of shit... a very small number of white men control what billions of/ people see and hear, which indirectly means that they/ control what billions of people think and feel... protesting, writing letters to representatives, signing/ petitions, grassroots movements, and general public/ outcry are built-in to the overall plan; they are not/ effective means of change"

In essence, like anyone who has had contact with these resources through exposure, you still must maintain their sanity, despite knowing about all these shitty problems beyond your control. That's why my favorite part of "face annihilation" is when it closes with "popcorn butter is toxic/ i can feel the economy crashing."

VI.

The challenge of modern movements in art and culture, like the New Sincerity or even 'emo absurdism' is the conflict of how to document an economic depression without depressing the hell out of everyone. For all the criticism Muumuu House generates for being comprised of something like 'spoiled brats eating away trust funds,' I would say that Gorrell's writing is a compelling counterexample.

If Lin attracts an audience and social capital with his 'gimmickry,' then it Gorrell who extends the theories and postulations about these issues that Lin first articulated. Gorrell's Thought Catalog post, "A Guide To Dealing With Japanese Earthquake Guilt," for instance, is an amazing example of his astounding ability to document the alienation of modern times in the style of biting sarcasm that made Gawker so popular.

Something about Muumuu House hits a nerve and resonates with the modern audience; otherwise, these writers would not have become a phenomenon within their own lifetime. People want to believe that a group of young internet jockeys can harness this new media to something beneficial rather than us having to face, as singer/songwriter Dan Bejar says on Kaputt in the song "Suicide Demo For Kara Walker," "four hundred more years of this shit (fuck it)."

How successful these artists will be in instituting change (and here's hoping that change is something they are indeed going for rather than fame, influence or critical approval [this is me projecting]) is going to depend upon how easily influenced they are by the hype-machine and readily available internet praise/disdain. If the cycle of consumption is indeed accelerated, as thinkers like Rob Horning over on Pop Matters suggests, then the critical evaluation will all occur at an alarmingly accelerated rate, hence, the snowball affect seen with shitstorm alberto. But, I hope that they stick with it.

I mean, four hundred more years of this? Eff it.

Brandon Scott Gorrell, the Electrowars and the New Sincerity (Part II of III)

I made up my mind to have the worst St. Patrick's Day of all time last week. I walked home from work and decided that everyone who passed me was a Norm/ future junk bond lord/ a Greek life kid/ [stereotypical idea here]. I scowled at their appropriately green outerwear while secretly admiring their ability to believe in these types of traditions without rancor.

Some of this, I think, was in preparation for the near future when I plan to move away from the University town where I've lived for the past five years. But, I'm also twenty-two and I know that these plans might only be suppositions or daydreams. The thing is that I'm at the age where you just don't know. I'd also had a bad night. My jeep, aka 'The Beast,' broke down in the express lane of I-96 the day before St. Patrick's day.

The evening had started out innocuously, even hopefully, enough. The weather was the first balmy, spring day of the year. When I was little, it would have been one of those days I savored in fourth grade. I would have worn a mesh-y green jacket and cranked out my bike with the banana seat. When you're an adult you sort of think that having joy for warm days is beyond you, but it's merely translated into other experiences of time.

Eric and I were sitting on the porch. I was actually wearing far too little clothing for the weather. It could have been some sort of nod to times past and notions of freedom based upon the degree of my neckline. Eric was wearing a tweed jacket. We were sitting, bored, on the porch. We decided to head to Mexicantown in Detroit, somewhere close, but far enough to feel far away.

Eric was driving because I'm afraid of the noises The Beast makes. The Beast makes this chronic little rattling noise whenever you happen to accelerate while traveling at thrilling speeds over thirty-five. In the middle of downtown Detroit, the temp gauge began to spiral out of control. Yellow condensation started hitting the windshield and I'm freaking out. Meanwhile, Eric adopted this manner of nonchalance in direct opposition to my increasing panic. He just said something like, "Don't worry. The temperature's in the middle of the red zone, not the edge-edge of it so it can't be that bad." Conversely, I replied something akin to, "We're going to die. Fuck, this is how I'm going to die."

"If it gets to the edge-edge of the red, I'll pull over."

Plumes of smoke started billowing out of the hood. I don't say anything, but we pull over. I call AAA and wait for our ride to take us back to Ann Arbor.

Every car that passes on the freeway shakes The Beast like a matchbox car. I think we both felt like we were going to die or something, but didn't want to admit it to each other. I told Eric to go sit in the backseat on the right side. Eric declines and says that we should actually get out of the car because if we get hit, we're going to be smashed into the concrete like bugs on the windshield. We decide to get out of The Beast, stand behind it and sort of shiver in the cold without our jackets for a few minutes. At one point, another car careens off the highway.

It's a barracuda. It's loud, even on the interstate with hundreds of other cars. They go in reverse along the shoulder for about a 1/2 mile. A guy gets out of the car and we sort of wonder what's he doing. I stiffen. Eric mentions getting robbed. He ends up just offering to give us a ride somewhere. Eric suggests that he might have offered us a ride with the intent of robbing us. I don't want to believe this about people. Eventually, the tow truck gets there. I climb in and the driver's listening to MJ's "You Are Not Alone." Adiós flan. Adiós tacos. Adiós Mexican coke.

After the jeep went into the shop with mysterious engine problems, I decided that it might be St. Patrick's Day, the holiday of merriment and expected carousing with one's peer group, but I was not fucking participating. I was going to sit quietly somewhere and wait to hear the status of said fucked-upness of The Beast. The problem was, that I didn't know what to do with myself. I never know what to do with my physical presence when I feel alone.

I crack open a Fin du Monde.

I start doing my laundry with vehemence.

I go to sit on the porch.

I see people on the porch.

I know it's not time for me to be around people. I say something maladaptive like, "People. God. Fuck. Fuck can't socialize. Fuck fuck fuck."

I turn to head inside, but not before first noticing a small package in the mailbox. This package is addressed to me and the return address is from Seattle. I smile a little before I forget how I'm 'supposed' to be in a bad mood; I forget about a certain pettiness that had characterized my mood. I know exactly how I'm going to spend an evening toute seule. Brandon Scott Gorrell's During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present (2009) could not have been a book more aptly suited to staying in.

Brandon Scott Gorrell, the Electrowars and the New Sincerity (Part I of III)

I.

During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present (2009) by Brandon Scott Gorrell (or BSG as he is also called in abbreviated internet slang) came in the mail last week. The chapbook is a sleek little number that manages to showcase Gorrell's strengths as a writer, particularly in relation to evoking mood and the subtleties of tonality. He articulates the tiny, trivial and not-so-trivial elements of modern life in a 'refreshing,' 'humorous' and 'unique' perspective.*

Though Brandon Scott Gorrell's writing merits distinction on its own, recent events first necessitate a discussion of his publisher, Tao Lin's Muumuu House. As with many of Lin's projects, Muumuu House releases have earned a respectable amount of equal parts ire and accolade. Muumuu House exercises considerable influence on the ephemeral internet publishing circuit. Most recently, Muumuu House elicited a swelling shitstorm of unprecedented velocity over on HTMLGIANT, eclipsing other notable battles such as Tao Lin vs. Gawker (re: Tao Lin vs. the internet [the Internet]) and 4Chan vs. Ark Music Factory.

The most 'current' feud happened when Jordan Castro posted "Some Thoughts Re Muumuu House," an article profiling a few writers who had been published by Muumuu House. Rather than charge you with the task of sorting through the 400+ comments on the post, I'd like to point out the buzz highlights. Namely, shit first started going down when commenters applied the term 'emo absurdist' to the style of writing popularized by Muumuu House. The 'absurdist emo style' 'seems' to encompass writers who have a penchant for the drama of recounting ordinary elapses in time, savoring occasionally noncommittal wordplay and demonstrating an interest in social computing.

Shit really hit the fan when a user named P.H. Madore typed, "Herding them into one moniker will definitely make them less appealing to people who are actually socially alienated" and will "perhaps stop them from spending their parents' money on supporting these people's drug habits." #crispyburn

Not surprisingly, this comment unleashed a maelstrom of shit in a whoosh of a few hundred comments. Some of the discussion could be classified as typical shitty-shit, but other onslaughts provoked the thought 'hmm... shit...' in a benign kind of way. The thread that followed P.H. Madore's comment proved intriguing in the later way. Eventually, the hive mind arrived at conclusions not unlike those the Frankfurt School would have reached had they had wireless. The mention of Muumuu House and money ending up spawning a larger debate about the myth of art, or how art is supposed to be a 'pure expression' of human condition but its existence (production) depends upon the values of capitalism. Nowhere is this tangled relationship more present than within the realm of avant-garde art.

Other avant-garde artists, such as performance artist Laurie Anderson, have long since been critical of the reification of art and often use the guise of pop to address such concerns. As discussed in Philip Nel's "Pop Goes the Avant-Garde: Laurie Anderson's and Leonard Cohen's Music for the Masses," Anderson is one artist who protests the very circumstances that allow her to attract a following.

Nel suggests that by acknowledging that she is implicated in the structures she critiques ("if you were in the art world, the big money wouldn't be too far away"), Anderson is able to turn popularity to her advantage. As Jonathan Arac writes, 'Mass culture is our element, neither a sudden and welcome liberation from a worn-out high culture, nor the threat to corrupt all that we most treasure' (314). Anderson, too, realizes that we are all involved in mass culture, so -- her work asks -- why not use it to our benefit?

In other words, if by participating in art you are by extension participating in the culture industry, then there will always be some artists who acknowledge, accept and attempt to use this aspect of the art world to their advantage. Before you cringe or cry, consider what the Muumuu House writers who most actively engaged in this debate suggest in their work. They posit the idea that the relation of art to money is inextricable so you might as well not be a purist. It's a message that's comes across as both grim and casual, like someone putting their hands in their pockets and walking away.

Tao Lin, Megan Boyle and Jordan Castro were the most visible in their treatment of the culture industry, as seen in this exchange:


P.H. Madore and what will be referred to as 'the opposition' then took a typical anti-house stance of anti-gimmickry. I don't necessarily see them as 'opposition.' They play a sort of devil's advocate role within this debate and help spur the discussion. They engage in various degrees of trolling and are plagued by their own delusions of grandeur, but they ask the questions that start the conversations. The most popular argument that comes up with mention of Muumuu House is always one about style. The logic goes as follows, if said house has a style of formal innovation, then said house is lacking in content. People who adopt this rationale often criticize the hallmarks of Muumuu House style: subjective relevance, scare quotes, noncommittal language, aversion to declarative statements and choppy, clipped poetry. People feel like they need to 'know' something from this group, something that has to do with questions that ask about 'meaning.'

Here is one discussion of scare quotes:

As you can see, there's the literary gesticulating that make these kinds of threads fascinating, such a display of language. The comments sections aren't just a pissing contest for the erudite, these discussions will be influential in the way that literature is going to be defined in internet publishing cycles, humanities in the academy with increasing attenuation to the digital and the version of pop culture that is sold to the tweepies.

II.

The next exchange occurs when an HTMLGIANT user by the name of dh goes on to criticize Jordan Castro for his use of scare quotes and implementation of the response 'seems sweet.' This is another stylistic gripe with Muumuu House; people can't stand the indecisiveness of the statements. The position, if you will, of purporting to take a position on not taking a position by neglecting to articulate any position except opposition to normative standards.

dh ponders,


dh may have a point about how the elusiveness that characterizes the writing of the group could come off as a strategy, but Jordan's response is also illuminating.


While much of Muumuu House's press could be seen as preserving/ presenting the group's camaraderie, Jordan makes a valid suggestion that these ideals aren't limited to his immediate peer group. He closes the conversation with the assertion that his subject of inquiry is not relegated to his friends or conceivable environment. This brings to mind some of the work done by digital theorists that suggests that the rise of public space coincides with the merging of public and private spatiality. This occurs in tandem to increasing social technology. Is it any wonder young authors are obsessed with technology as a means of understanding their immediate environment if this is not only how they evaluate themselves but figure out themselves in the absence of public interaction?

III.

Some time after this, a commenter by the handle of kmmitchell penned a review in what was supposed to be a mockery of gimmicky 'book reviews' of Lin et al.


Facetiousness aside, Kmmitchel does make an interesting point when xie notes that the group does not incorporate fantastical language in the text. They prefer to describe their realities in ordinary language. The emphasis that Muumuu House places on a simple, cut style reminds me of something like Burroughs' work with the mutation of language. The cut-up technique is a predecessor to Twitter. When Burroughs chopped up pieces of sentences and glued them back together in random places on tapes, he was conducting a fascinating study of the fragmentation of declarative sentences. The profound, the playful, the pedantic -- all of those human speech patterns and emotional expressions -- intersect like the twines of the Twitter timeline.

V.

Unfortunately, the opposition dismissed the author's attempt to engage in a discussion and elaborated that,


After the commenting section rode the shit-waves for a couple more posts, it started to address the more interesting points made by kmmitchell et al. The direction the comment section took after the shit-slinging is the most interesting because it revealed the larger systems at work within the literary community, namely the divide between old style (MFA track success) and new style (renegade internet publishing). Since both of these schools are producing the content and styles that will shape a commercial audience, it makes sense that you will see this conflict manifest itself on sites that publicize the works of both sects.

The HTMLGIANT user Adam summed up the relevance of Muumuu House the most aptly in the following thread:


Muumuu House does not exist on the internet as an entirely neutral entity that is devoid of the same pressures of context, production and sociocapital concern simply because the medium of publication has changed from print to the internet. The house is not separate from its own need to generate material sustenance, audience, and other areas that concern the business element to writing. Can this community continue to exist as a somewhat independent outlet and welcome relief to traditional publishing routes despite its concerns for sustainability? Who is this 'certain kind of person' that Jordan Castro describes?

* Scare quotes here used to denote disdain for these 'tired' terms rather than disdain or ironic criticism of Gorrell's perspective. Re: Shitstorm Alberto.

* Here I use the term, 'current' loosely given that this event occurred almost 2 weeks ago, which on internet time is approximately 2903912039e339 internet light-years ago. This makes yours truly appear, possibly, to be like some sort of internet-dinosaur-meme-laggard-machine generating controversial stories about the internet for Dateline or something with the purpose of frightening the elderly about the nefarious antics of millenials 'on the loose' 'on the internet.'

commentary

i read something in the internet comments section that was beautiful
it was about two writers (a writer and an editor [the rewritable disk])
someone said that
these (people) are just two lives
each inclined to a life of different granulations, flavors, opining
and then i wondered when it was 2006 and such things were being
decided on the internet
i was in high school drinking boones farm
and trying to get a b in physics
i didn't arrive at that particular electronic space
until five year later

this guy

longest title ever

9 minutes ago