Year of the Hamster

For our double winter issue (the last issue of 2010 and first of 2011), we asked writer Tao Lin (Richard Yates, Shoplifting From American Apparel, Bed, EEEEE, EEE, EEEE) what he thought of 2010 and his expectations for 2011. Those familiar with the 27-year-old's awkwardness, preference for psychedelic drugs and pointed use of quotation marks will understand exactly what Lin's getting at below. For those unfamiliar, welcome to the weird and hamster-populated world of Tao Lin.

This is a graph of selected events from my 2010 and projected 2011, showing a brand movement away from "social anxiety disorder"/"hamsters" toward "drugs," within a context, in terms of this graph, of every unit of "matter" with desire and perception, regardless of time period, originating from the same source they each inevitably return to.

2010
1. Blog that North American Hamsters (iPhone app featuring profiles/drawings re: 60x hamster) will be released at an unspecified time in the future. (Feb.)
2. Blog that Carla Bluhm's "Introduction to Human Development" class (College of Coastal Georgia) is using Twitter to discuss Bed (2007), link student's tweet that says simply "Depression....." (Apr.)
3. Idly imagine my life as an extreme parody of "constantly denying I'm obsessed with hamsters" while peeing in NYU's Bobst Library, 3 p.m. (Apr.)
4. Show 9x "'piece' of art," including four featuring hamsters, in a group show at Hiding Gallery. (May)
5. Publish nonfiction "piece" re: Marina Abramovicć for Thought Catalog containing cocaine and Adderall references. (June)
6. Ingest Xanax in preparation for a podcast for The Rumpus, suddenly "realize" I'll be less awkward if I ingest Ritalin, ingest a large Ritalin, "tank" podcast so badly it's never released or mentioned by any of the three participants. (July)
7. Give man in Washington Square Park one of my three mangos after he approaches asking for one, listen to him speak about ethnicity and society, watch him "give up" on peeling his mango and eat most of it with the skin. (July)
8. Repeatedly think "I don't care about hamsters..." in a calm, zombie-like, non sequiturish, not unenjoyable manner while walking toward LifeThyme to buy "raw snacks/treats" for myself. (July)
9. Laugh aloud alone in my room at 2 a.m. after reading "Thom Yorke admitted he had developed severe depression" on Radiohead's Wikipedia page. (Aug.)
10. Ingest medium-large amount of psilocybin mushrooms 40 minutes before reading Richard Yates (2010) to a San Francisco audience at The Booksmith in a "livestreamed" event featuring a Q&A and a "book-signing session," link video of the event on my blog for a "discern what drug I'm on" contest. (Oct.)
11. Ingest two MDMA capsules before being interviewed by Chandler Levack in Toronto in a basement apartment for an interview published two weeks later in its 11,810-word transcript entirety on Thought Catalog. (Nov.)
11.5. Blog that MDMAfilms (self-consciously elitist company I founded with Megan Boyle to release "drugcore"/"extreme mumblecore" feature films and documentaries) has been created and is at mdmafilms.org. (Dec.)

2011
12. Earnestly relate thoughts re: drugs to mother using metaphors involving weddings/muffins/antibiotics while visiting parents in Taiwan. (Jan.)
13. Premier MDMA (feature film starring and written and directed by Megan Boyle and Tao Lin) at New Museum. (Jan.)
14. Lose $400 at blackjack in Las Vegas while "peaking" on MDMA, walk through casino feeling things I feel I've distinctly not felt before yet seem "surreally, distinctly, unbelievably familiar." (Feb.)
15. Publish Koko: The Talking Gorilla (6,000-word essay re: "Koko's life and brand") on Thought Catalog. (Feb.)
16. Premier Heroin (feature film starring and written and directed by Megan Boyle and Tao Lin) at New Museum. (July)
17. Purchase amount of MDMA a dealer might purchase exclusively for personal/friend usage to "save money." (July)
18. Play Diablo III for three hours with Brandon Scott Gorrell 40 minutes after we've ingested a medium-large amount of psilocybin mushrooms. (Sept.)
19. Gain literary agent representation from Bill Clegg for "120,000-word/concrete-literal memoir of Mar. 2009 to Dec. 2010 that uses real names and has a large, guidebook-like index." (Sept.)
20. Non sequiturly imagine a small, friendless child holding and petting a hamster in a medium-large house in Florida and feel emotional while peeing in NYU's Bobst Library, idly allow my eyeballs to "become watery" while standing in stall "drying" my penis head with toilet paper. (Sept.)
21. Publish selected unpublished blog posts (debut poetry collection by Megan Boyle) via Muumuu House. (Oct.)
22. Begin filming Bill Clegg (documentary starring and written and directed by Megan Boyle, Tao Lin and Bill Clegg) on a sunny afternoon in a canoe in Central Park. (Nov.)
23. Moderate panel on drugs at UCLA. (Nov.)
24. Publish i don't want to sleep but i don't know what i'm waiting for (my third poetry collection) via Muumuu House. (Dec.)


Text and illustration by Tao Lin