Morning 1: I Benjamin Buttoned my way through this take over, first by reading Tao Lin’s 2028-word response to ‘shit talking’ he posted on his blog. I followed by working my way backwards through the ‘timeline’ he provided, my last stop being Marie Calloway’s ‘Adrien Brody’, published on Muumuu House.  Unlike ‘shit talkers,’ I found the story to be intriguing, engulfing, relatable and fascinating. Hence the developing obsession.

Throughout the day that followed ‘Morning 1,’ I found myself reflecting back on ‘Adrien Brody’ and Calloway’s writing in general. I found myself frustrated with the ‘shit talkers’ and those vomiting out terms like ‘anti-feminist,’ or ‘feminist’ for that matter, after scrolling through responses on the NY Observer and Gawker article. Further clicks and searches lead me to various literary sites and I wondered why fellow bloggers, of higher stature, felt compelled to dissect something so simple and direct and honest. It continued to haunt me, especially the line “It’s like, how much can you really care about and respect other people when you’re cheating on your girlfriend with me?” and the fact that their connection truly only lasted one day, despite the culmination of emotion. This feeling, the fear of losing something that is always lost, always terrifies me, no matter how hard you try to hold on to it. I recall the recent regret of breaking the marathon of time spent together, and knowing deep down inside that it would never be the same as this very moment.

Morning 2: Stephen Elliott sent out another Daily Rumpus email re: Marie Calloway, reminding me of the prior day’s fixation. He stated in the email “The real ‘Adrien Brody’ is apparently easily recognizable to people who know him.” I clicked back to Muumuu House and began to reread ‘Adrien Brody,’ aggressively, cutting and pasting keywords and anecdotes in order to reveal the identity of the awkward, bald, cheating blogger, referred to here as, ‘Adrien Brody.’ I had a few immediate ideas, based on writers I know or have met, considering the words  ‘pornography,’ ‘Queens,’ and ’40yrold,’ but other components of the story would cancel out my immediate suspects. This was only a job for Google.

The following leads to my discovery, from start to finish:

Google: writer blog pornography postautonomia marxism

Google: writer blog pornography marxism

Google: brooklyn writer marxist

Browse n+1 contributors

Click male n+1 contributors with initials A.B.

Google: blog ‘richard yates review’ marxist

Browse vol1brooklyn.com

Click through vol1brooklyn.com contributors

Google: malcolm harris

Browse http://nplusonemag.com/category/harris-malcolm/

Google: blog “malcolm harris”

Click http://open.salon.com/blog/malh

Back Button, Click http://shareable.net/users/mpharris

Browse shareable.net contributors

Back Button, Click http://bigjournalism.com/tag/malcolm-harris/

Back Button, Click http://gawker.com/malcolm-harris/

Click http://thenewinquiry.com/

Browse contributors of The New Inquiry. Found an awkward bald man. Click http://thenewinquiry.com/tagged/R._Horning

Try to verify:

Google: rob horning university of maryland

Google: rob horning blog

Click http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/68

Google: rob horning richard yates review

Click www.popmatters.com/pm/post/134640 — Semi-verified

Google: rob horning spinoza

Find ultimate verification: http://postautonomia.wordpress.com :: “postautonomia | “What is Post/Autonomia Today?” Conference: Amsterdam May 19 – 22, 2011 Rob Horning, ‘Marginal Utility’, ‘The New Inquiry’, New York <Social Media as Social Factory: The personal brand as the neoliberal self”

ADRIEN BRODY = ROB HORNING

Horning seems fitting. I now am satisfied.

-Photos from Seattle taken with my Rebel SLR, Flood Zone Polaroids, etc.

-My One-Sentence Story published over at MonkeyBicycle

“Untitled”
The wind settled, she fixed her hair, smoothing down the wiry strays, and Leanie waved her first goodbye for the last time.

-My Huffington Post Interview with Ryan Phillippe and other cast members from The Bang Bang Club

-An interview with Jon Raymond (Meek’s Cutoff, Wendy & Lucy) over at The Rumpus

-Vote for my video pitch for next year’s Tribeca Film Festival!
<a href="“Life Is An Obituary”

Broom of the System vs. Freedom

David Foster Wallace once said, “Fiction’s about what it is to be a human being,” a notion he followed so meticulously while accurately portraying the human condition, through endless dialogue and tangent stories, within the pages of Broom of the System. Twenty years later Jonathan Franzen did the very same within the pages of Freedom, but this time in using lyrical sentences and flushed out character depictions, sharing the journey of a modern family, with all their quirks, scars, and demons far and in between.

David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen have been friends since the early onset of their careers. Pen palls for the duration, their letters have been published and studied by fans and literary aficionados. Post Broom of the System, Wallace wrote to Franzen from a halfway house in the early 90′s describing what a toll his depression has taken on his writing, rendering him useless. He shares his pain honestly, “Right now, I am a pathetic and very confused young man, a failed writer at 28 who is so jealous, so sickly searingly envious of you … and any young man who is right now producing pages with which he can live, and even approving them off some base clause of conviction about the enterprise’s meaning and end.”

Both Franzen and Wallace used up buckets of ink and callused their fingertips describing the pain and anguish that came hand in hand with being a writer, trying to distinguish some underlying significance. “Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular. But the realism is merely a mask for depression’s actual essence, which is an overwhelming estrangement from humanity. The more persuaded you are of your unique access to the rottenness, the more afraid you become of engaging with the world; and the less you engage with the world, the more perfidiously happy-faced the rest of humanity seems for continuing to engage with it.” Franzen wrote in his essay collection How to Be Alone

One aspect the two prided themselves on was truly being able to lock out the nagging world that surrounded them when they wrote, diving deep in to the diverse lyricism of their words — they urge there is simply no other way to write. Whether they knew it or not, through this process, in turn their feelings and philosophical outlooks pour through their main characters within their fictionalized novels, namely Freedom and Broom of the System.

Reading both novels (Freedom first, followed by Broom of the System), which are similar in length, for the first time this year, I was able to form an indistinguishable bond with their main characters, Lenore and Patty. I noticed how these two women were both so heart wrenchingly lonely that they had the ability within themselves to do anything they could to feel alive. While tearing through Broom‘s pages, and going back for a reread of Freedom, I recognized immense similarities between, not only the main characters, but their counterparts as well. I soon thereafter realized that while reading Broom I pictured Patty for Lenore, Walter for Rick, and Katz for Lang, the three main characters were interchangeable.

Lenore vs. Patty

Although disparate, stylistically, I couldn’t help but visualize the same characteristics, mannerisms, and looks for Franzen’s Patty while reading Wallace’s Lenore. Lenore Beadsmen and Patty Berglund are both lost within themselves, living amongst mere idiots in their Midwestern hometowns. There’s a pain that sits so far down inside them that not even their own arm is long enough to reach in to pull it out. They know it’s there, but are clueless as to just what this feeling is and how they should go about diminishing it. Lenore and Patty have a terrible time making sense of reality when fantasy has so much more of a meaning to them. Wallace claimed the idea for Broom sprung from something an ex-girfriend said to him, “…she said that she would rather be a character in a piece of fiction than a real person. I got to wondering just what the difference was.” Now isn’t that just how Lenore and Patty feel?

Both are stuck with “the safe bet,” their significant others, Rick and Walter. They ignite when they are introduced to passion, someone they can fall wrongfully fall in love with, Lang and Katz.

Rick vs. Walter

As accurately depicted by Ryan Gosling’s character in Blue Valentine, “…girls get to a place where they just kind of pick the best option… ‘Oh he’s got a good job.’ I mean they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who’s got a good job and is going to stick around.” Rick Vigurous and Walter Berglund are the guys with good jobs who are going to stick around. We watch both characters go through a midlife crisis, they cheat on their significant other, the women that they are desperately in love with, and in result this turns them in to enraged lunatics. They loose their minds; Rick handcuffs Lenore in the middle of a large body of water, Walter isolates himself in his Minnesota cabin.

In Freedom Walter says, “You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life whatever way you want to.”

Wang Dang Lang vs. Katz

Prince Charming. The escape. The passion. The carefree bad guy you love and the one you shouldn’t be with. These are the men that both make women intensely, drastically, and unusually happy yet drive them completely batshit crazy.

A line within Broom of the System reads “Words and a book and a belief that the world is words…” Wallace was on his way to discovering something even more profound than those thoughts he had already shared with us. If it isn’t evident enough through the aforementioned comparisons, I can’t help but think Franzen may pick up where Wallace left off, guiding us writers, and the rest of the world, towards a deeper, more philosophical meaning of life by way of characters we can’t help but relate to.

In a New York Times article on the memorial service of David Foster Wallace, Franzen shares that the two did indeed come to a conclusion to a meaning they sought after for so long, “Mr. Franzen said he and Mr. Wallace, over years of letters and conversations about the ethical role of the novelist, had come to the joint conclusion that the purpose of writing fiction was “a way out of loneliness.”

http://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/ask-me/id370854822

Things I Googled Today: 11/8

extremists

angus stone

david sedaris hippo ass

los angeles weather

am i naked again

sheri shephard abortions

tobias wolff

moth slam

bahá’í faith

bestiary

This isn’t up for debate. You, my friend, my hero, stole my vote for Governor of New York. The rent IS too damn high Mr. McMillan, and I praise you for realizing that. “Our children, the kids, there’s no place for them to live…anywhere.” This poignant thought you spoke so loudly, so proudly, like an auctioneer, affected me deeply. I now spend the cold evenings like “The Caped Crusader,” scooping up homeless children and placing them in my warm home. To date I have collected forty-five girls and sixty-two boys. Won’t you come and visit us one day Mr. McMillan? You could dress in a Santa costume, or perhaps Hulk Hogan, or Mr. T! I suppose it depending on the temperature outside and the condition of your facial hair.

You have inspired my one-hundred-and-seven children and I to work towards our black belt in Karate. Our house rattles and shakes as we kick and punch, yelling “Hi-Ya!” in unison. We are ready to fight the taxers and landlords of the night, the boys especially – they can be quite violent and are often sent to bed with no bread. We are an army offering our skill to the Rent is Too Damn High Party.

Lastly, I have a comment, a praise, very personal and dear to my heart. My stomach sank, heart leaped, as you said the words, “The Rent is 2 Damn High Party feels if you want to marry a shoe, I’ll marry you.” Glory be to you Mr. McMillan for recognizing me and my life long love!

It is getting late now and my children are getting restless, we now sign off by sending you kisses, hugs, and good lucks! We are on your side and are campaigning for you Jimmy McMillan of the Rent is Too Damn High Party, we will cheer and leap as you move in to the Governor’s Mansion.

Yours truly,

The Old Woman Who Lives In A Shoe

My short lived relaxation jolts frighteningly into desperation upon realizing that I have yet to memorize my presentation, one that is to be delivered at 10:30AM, exactly an hour and a half from this moment. I fan through a stack of index cards taking mental snap shot of each word written in vibrant blue sharpie. This is a pertinent speech to be given over lox, bagels, and cream cheese to the heads of a potential client. This will be our final attempt to prevent our company from capsizing, a battle we have thus proven successful over the past twenty-four months. The lady in front of me is unraveling a fresh pack of Orbit mint gum. She flips open the green package and takes two pieces out, one for herself and one for her friend. I watch her pop it in her mouth, immediately increasing salivation within her wind-chapped mouth. I knew it, I just knew it. She begins to crack and pop her gum, a sound that is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Suddenly my chest begins to tighten with anger, I need these mere minutes for prime concentration and all I can hear is the lady in front of me yapping away and chomping loudly. Her wiry grey hairs are protruding well past the seat cushion, she is shouting to her friend who is sitting across the aisle from her boney frame. This time of the morning the bus is notably filled with the same commuters, familiar faces, all of who respect the code of silence. With the occasional office call the thirty-minute ride is usually spent reading or playing games on your iPod touch, or in my case scanning through a thick stack of phrases and bullet points. I immediately stereotype her, it’s obvious, she and her friend have decided to take the bus in with the working crowd to beat the Broadway bound visitors that pile on the bus in the early afternoon. She does not respect the code of silence the forty-five passengers yearn for each and every morning.

“Oh Becky moved to Citrus County, I heard she doesn’t speak to her brother or sisters anymore, what a shame.”

I cringe at every word that exits her lips. I squirm in my seat and sigh loudly, frightening a tattooed girl sitting beside me. If commuting isn’t bad enough, the quirks and setbacks that human beings posses can really make your morning sour.

No one knows when they are sitting beside a ticking time bomb. A lunatic. She suspects it. The tattooed girl is reading David Foster Wallace and peering over every time I dart my eyes in the wicked witch’s direction. She’s anticipating. She knows my kind. She’s read about us. She’s my audience.

When one is not prominently successful after their twenties have seized, there is an ‘either/or’ decision that has to be made: your career or the city. Which do you love more? The sounds of the bustling below, the abundant culture, the brief walk to the best literary events in the country? Or do you love your career, where you’re going, your savings account. Are you prepared to worry about making enough money to survive in the most expensive city in the Tri State or are you prepared to get stuck in traffic everyday, having strangers fall asleep on your shoulders after leaving a job that you are passionate about. Which will allow you to survive, which will leave you satisfied. I chose my career, I would rather look forward to my eight sometime eleven hour workday than some short trip home that proceeds it. I chose garage sales over street fairs, Barnes and Noble over McNally Jackson. Times like this lead me to regret that decision.

The chatter is getting louder, I am desperately trying to contain myself. My presentation, my presentation, is all I can think, internally yelling past the blockade of background noise. I want to fucking scream. I can’t even get past the first note card.

“Did you hear Oprah is off the air after this year? Yes! What am I going to do at 4 o’clock? I guess have my first glass of chardonnay at 5.”

They laugh. I nearly shout but I swallow it.

“The issue is irrevocable, after speaking to the policy analyst…” I whisper to myself. Tattooed girl peers over the lobster that stamps her book. The second line of my speech is halted again as the old hag shouts a story about her granddaughter. I glare at her. I stare hard. I imagine her bursting into flames, burning slowly and brutally in a swirling inferno. I see that she finally catches sight of me out of the corner of her eye and I grin. I continue. She continues to look behind her, in between the seats, every few moments. It finally is unbearable for her, what I waited for.

“May I help you with something, sir?”

I reach into my distressed brown leather messenger bag and remove it, cautiously as we make our way through the tunnel. The darkness suits the scene, faces only lit by glowing orange lights. Tattoo girl sees what I hold, stares as I excuse myself past her, over the seat into the aisle. I brace it stiffly at my side as I face the old hag, noticing the green gum being clicked by her molars as she looks at me incredulously. Top notes of mint sooth me, reminding me of the gum that awaits me in my bag, my last remaining addiction. I lift it slowly and aim between her eyes. Commuters seated in the back of the bus scream, gasp, gulp. Men stir in their seats, excited by the chance to become heroes, a good story to tell the wife and kids later this evening, with high hopes of getting laid by the misses. The only story they have had to tell in days, months, or years. Their days chock full of meaningless breaths in their monotonous and mundane routines. The woman, this woman who has ruined my presentation and single handedly sabotaged our company, is now ghastly white. Her chest has not risen since the gasket touched her wrinkled brow. I unlatch the safety…”Please”… and pull the trigger.

The bus stops, arriving at the destination, the bus driver focused only on sending us on our way so he can chow down on his bacon egg and cheese that rests cool in his lap. I am the first one to exit the bus. Patrons just stare at me. I silently apologize, mouthing sorry for not following the proper protocol of letting those in front of you file off of the bus first. I watch the eyes follow me and I grin to myself as I let my three fingers fall back in to place, limp at my side, no longer holding my pointer and middle finger stiffly parallel as my thumb sticks upward. Oh, how I wish sometimes it were real, the boyhood replacement will have to do for now. For now…

Part One:

Part Two: