Jordan Castro, Tao Lin Reading At The D.I.T. Festival In Kent, Ohio 9/11/10

Tao Lin reading an excerpt of Richard Yates. Video courtesy of Glenn Cox.

And here are audio tracks:



Flip through the tracks to hear each. The first is Jordan Castro. The second is Jordan Castro. The Third is Tao Lin.

Or download: JC 1, JC 2, TL

Do It Together Fest 2010

Each year since 2007 my Monster House roommates Richard Wehrenberg and Matt Scheuermann have organized a DIY punk festival called "Do It Together Fest" in Kent, Ohio. This year's iteration takes place over September 10th & 11th at The Vineyard and at Professor's Pub.

Wehrenberg, a renowned poet as well as an accomplished DIY promoter, said, "It's going to be pretty cool, I guess."

Scheuermann, of Punknews.org's band/record of the year, The Sidekicks, said, "It's your typical fest."

But would your typical fest have Tao Lin, author of Shoplifting From American Apparel and the forthcoming Richard Yates, fly in to read, slapping himself or his publisher with "mad" fees, and staying with Jordan Castro + Jordan Castro's parent(s) for four days in Solon, Ohio? Would your typical fest do that?

No. It's the most internet-literature-DIY-punk fest in the world. Or, at least, more so than Berea Fest.

Also out of the norm: rumored "awesome" after show will feature the debut of underground hip-hop sensation, Monstrosity. The first in the wave of 3rd floor hip-hop acts that call The Pocket home. Soon we will have something to rival St. Catherine's incipient "Spy Girl" scene.

Full DIT Fest schedule after "The Jump."

BTW

Mosaic Magazine, an undergraduate art and literature publication at OSU, recently put its 2008 issue online. That issue reproduced two of my flyers, "No Christians" and "For Brian Shaffer: Capitalism Will Disappear  Too." Mosaic changed the title of the Brian Shaffer flyer by cutting, you guessed it, "Capitalism Will Disappear Too." Brian Shaffer, for those that do not live in the pocket, is the OSU student who walked into Ugly Tuna and never walked out. The flyer dedicated to him is an image of my kit-kat Dori laser beaming a stand-in for The South Campus Gateway.

Microcosm Publishing used an excerpt from my essay on Ben Snakepit's Snakepit in their promotional blurb/product description for his book.

Melville House Publishing's Dennis Johnson (not Denis Johnson) wrote a short note about my blog entry where I described my surreal experience of reading a book, Tao Lin's Shoplifting From American Apparel, and discovering that I was INSIDE the book.

I Am Someone

On the Megabus today I was reading Tao Lin's novella "Shoplifting From American Apparel." The last fourth of it happens during 2008's FEST in Gainesville and features Chris's backyard. And so I thought that was ha-ha as Pat's tents are repeatedly mentioned. And then:

I am someone. And I needed to be reminded of that today. I was extending an invite to read at the Wexner Store. Since this book is supposed to be, like, "voice of a generation," this is a little like being in The Great Gatsby or White Noise or Less Than Zero or Generation X or The Sun Also Rises or On The Road. Except it's about our generation which is markedly less interesting to read about. So instead it's a little like being in a Tao Lin book as "someone."