Tao Lin is a writer who wrote a book of short stories called Bed. He is also the author of other things. He lives in New York.
I used to live in Los Angeles, and work at a bookstore called Skylight Books. There I met Kerrie Kvashay-Boyle who showed me a book called sometimes my heart pushes my ribs by Ellen Kennedy. Sometimes I dream about meeting Ellen Kennedy. One time she was transgender in my dream and she had a chin beard. One time I thought I saw her on the G train. I was with my girlfriend, Kat Thek. We both started yelling “Ellen!” in quick loud bursts hoping that she would look up. She never did.
Anyway, I liked her book a lot. I showed it to everyone I knew that I thought would like it, which was a lot of people. I even sold more copies of it than any other book of poetry at our store. They gave me an award at the end of the year for it – the Underdog Award, for most copies sold of a book that most people wouldn’t have already heard about.
Then I found out that Tao Lin had published that book. I had heard that Tao was coming to sign stock at Skylight, so I contacted him to let him know that enjoyed the book thoroughly. I asked him if I could contact Ellen at first, but she wouldn’t contact me back. So, I asked Tao if he would be interested in an interview, and he agreed.
So, I conducted an email interview with Tao. Well, two, actually. One was sold to the LA Weekly, and the other I have only recently completed. The LA Weekly interview was about music, and the other was about everything.
I left Skylight to move to Brooklyn and attend Graduate School. I moved in with an old friend, Jake Chudnow. My next door neighbors ran a small press called Small Anchor Press. One day, they were moving out and getting rid of all their stuff. At first I thought they were having a stoop sale, but then they told me to take some things for free.
“Really, I can have this?” I asked as I held a book of Wallace Stevens poetry.
“Yeah, this is the stuff that didn’t sell, we’re just going to throw it away,” said Jen Hyde.
Then Kat Thek and Jake Chudnow showed up. They started taking things, too. Before I knew it we were all in their apartment, which was freshly painted and cleaned to emphasize the nothingness.
“This is our apartment,” said Jake as he tapped the wall that boarded the two apartments.
“Do you want a bed,” Jen said. Before I could finish… “It’s Tao Lin’s bed.”
“Tao Lin?” I repeated. I wondered if it was the bed he wrote Bed on.
“Yeah, the writer. I got it from his old roommate, Justin Taylor.”
I really didn’t think we would take it. I didn’t have any need for a bed. No one I knew did. Jake thought he knew a couple of people who would need a bed. One of them was Carlin Cwik.
So, now my cats are fighting. They topple over each other when they fight, and I think the sound of their fat slapping the hard wood floor is very funny. They dodge the single mattress in the middle of the living room. I stare at it. I can’t not look at it. Why is it here? Why did we bring it in here? Why is this my life now?
I move in closer to the white bedbug protective cover. I move in closer to the indents of the Esher-esque twitter bird stitching beneath the whiteness. I move in closer to see a very tiny blood stain.
Jade Shames The Blog 