Sam Austen's Blog, page 8
October 4, 2022
MEOW Podcast Ep. 8: Tao Lin's Mandalas, Repetition Compulsion, and Hofstadter's Labyrinth
Episode 8: Tao Lin’s Mandalas, Repetition Compulsion, and Hofstadter’s Labyrinth
Today we discuss Tao Lin’s recently publicized mandala art as an extension of his literary practice. Known for its simple language, circularity, and psychedelic aloofness – biting yet airy, kaleidoscopic yet concise, concrete yet polymorphic, polarizing yet irresistible – Lin's prose and poetry embody, to some, the fullest and most elegant form of human expression, infinite yet featherlight, redolent of a master’s koan.
In a 2016 interview with artist Dorothy Howard, the author paraphrases Jung, calling mandalas “psychological expressions of the totality of the self.”
As texts and images created by computer-controlled “neural nets” proliferate, Lin’s visual art and writing stand uniquely positioned to interrogate the role of human cognition in generating meaningful and aesthetically resonant patterns. What forces inform the unique character of Lin’s work – are they something personal and uniquely human, or a bio-agnostic expression of reality’s latent structures, a universal compulsion to repeat certain forms in a certain sequence?
To confront this issue, we have trained a neural net to "meow" in a sequence corresponding to Tao Lin’s 8x8 = 64 method of mandala generation, converting the 8th sentence of every 8 paragraphs of Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas R. Hofstadter’s seminal work on the primacy of human consciousness, to a correspondingly inflected and contextualized MEOW. The result is a provocative meditation on Tao Lin’s work, the ontology of thought, and the sanctity of human reason.
MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.
This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .
To view and purchase prints of Tao Lin's Mandalas, click here .
Praise for Meow: A Novel"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan DidionFollow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary
September 27, 2022
MEOW Podcast Ep. 7: Chelsea Martin: Tell Me I'm an Artist, Simulacra, and False Consciousness
In her newly released Tell Me I’m an Artist, Chelsea Martin’s obliquely autobiographical protagonist embarks upon a seemingly absurd project of self-disclosure, embodying the Self as a homebrew remake of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, a film she’s never seen. In so doing, she reifies her own identity -- alternately self-reflexive and self-abolishing, embodying the deepest contradictions of the archetypal Outsider -- in ways not possible in any other form. The threat that this project, through its knowing absurdity, poses to the enveloping class-narrative of the elite art school overseeing its creation becomes overwhelming, at last liberating protagonist, author, and reader from the bounds of an all-enveloping false consciousness.
In this episode, we pay homage to Martin’s anarchic methods by meowing nonstop for over twenty-five minutes, an act which has nothing to do with her book, which we know little about and have never read.
MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.
This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .
Praise for Meow: A Novel
"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair
"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion
Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary
September 20, 2022
MEOW Podcast Ep. 6: Jordan Castro's The Novelist, Georges Bataille, and the Triumph of Fecality
Today we discuss Jordan Castro’s divisive prose debut, paying particular attention to its unprecedented 22-page exposition of a single bowel movement: how it gives form to Bataille’s symbol of the ‘Solar Anus,’ and how this development has begun to perturb and reshape the contemporary canon.
We then draw parallels between the excretion of the fecal stick to the breech emergence of a newborn, and propose the genesis of certain novels, Castro’s in particular, as a form of male childbirth – an act transitioning from oxymoronic to quotidian, metaphorically and in alleged biological fact, in progressive online spaces like those both Castro and his fictional avatar harangue against. Castro’s work, we go on, is both an antidote to and affirmation of Bataille’s “purely parodic” conception of the world, exemplified by such incursions of the fringe and fantastical into the Commons.
The universe may indeed be a litterbox, the aperture beneath its occupant’s arched and quavering tail ever-widening. But with Castro’s refined sensibility, we argue, comes hope: an abundant release of rich, fertile coagulum awaits, portended here by a stream of meows – at first, strained and hesitant; at last; buoyant, choiring, resolute.
MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.
This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .
Praise for Meow: A Novel"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair
"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion
Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary
September 19, 2022
MEOW Podcast Ep. 5: Ottessa Moshfegh, Feline-Borne Illness, and the Evolution of Human Consciousness
In 2007, a chance attack by a street cat changed the trajectory of Ottessa Moshfegh’s life, supplying the impetus for her career-defining enrollment in Brown University’s Creative Writing program. In her own words, “[Cat-scratch fever] was an experience that matured me…. I had and have a very keen sense that my time on this planet is limited and that can sometimes invoke great anxiety, but it is also a great motivation not to waste my time and to make sure my priorities are in order.” In this episode, we discuss the etiology of cat-scratch fever, toxoplasmosis, and other feline-born illnesses; how they affect the central nervous system; and how neurological changes resulting from these conditions may foreshadow the next stage of human development. We also examine Moshfegh’s output pre- and post-scratch, from her early short fiction to 2022’s Lapvona, noting her work's many B. henselae-imparted refinements along the way. To aid immersion, these ideas will be coded as a series of vigorous meows, proceeding without interruption for twenty-five minutes.
This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .
Praise for Meow: A Novel
"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair
"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion
Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary
MEOW Podcast Ep. 4: Jennette McCurdy, TikTok, and the Will to Parricide
In this episode, your cat will be given an overview of Jennette McCurdy's hit memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died. We then explore the psychological implications of this stark account of abuse and recrimination's runaway success among the "booktok" and "bookstagram" set. The book's opening image - a Munchean tableaux of dying mother and ambivalent, psychically immured daughter - is discussed at length. The weight of a generation's collective gaze upon Mother's perishing flesh, and the Freudian / algorithmic double-binds which see its members vacillating between dire self-abnegation and memetic grandiosity can only be expressed by meowing thousands of times, without refrain, for over thirty minutes.
This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .
Praise for Meow: A Novel
"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion
Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary
MEOW Podcast Ep. 3: The Twilight World, Heat 2, and the Economics of the Cinematic Novel
In this episode, your cat will be given a close-up on a dying artform through the lens of several blue-chip film directors-cum-literati, including Michael Mann, Quentin Tarantino, Brian De Palma, and Werner Herzog. Have these world-class auteurs become true believers in the primacy of the written word, or are they simply victims of a sclerotic feature-film market, nudged by shrewd agents into recycling yesterday’s scripts for a quick buck? Thoughts about the cinematic novel are meowed vigorously, for a full thirty minutes.
MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.
This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel .
Praise for Meow: A Novel
"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion
MEOW Podcast Ep. 2: William Blake, Golgonooza, and Pathological Narcissistic Space
In this episode, your cat will be given an overview of William Blake's cosmogony, with emphasis on Golgonooza, a parallel London where imagination reigns supreme. Is this the creation of a true visionary, or merely a roadmap to an unbalanced outsider's coping mechanism, a paracosm born of trauma and isolation? Exegesis unfolds by way of thousands of scrupulously considered meows, clocking in at over thirty-five minutes.
MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.
This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .
Praise for Meow: A Novel
"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair
"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion
Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary
Meow: A Novel - Excerpt from our Revolutionary Audiobook, Available Now on Audible
Get the full, 14.5-hour audiobook on Audible. For those who prefer physical media, the sumptuous, 345-page paperback is available on Amazon.
Get the full, 14.5-hour production on Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Meow-Audio... Meow: A Novel by Sam Austen is the world's first and only studio-produced audiobook for your cat.
Get the full, 14.5-hour production on Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Meow-Audio... Meow: A Novel by Sam Austen is the world's first and only studio-produced audiobook for your cat.
MEOW Podcast Ep. 1: Hanya Yanagihara, Jacques Lacan, and Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty
This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .
In this episode, your cat will be introduced to the Lacanian themes undergirding Hanya Yanagihara's work, A Little Life in particular. Topics include the politics of victimhood; metonymy and desire; and performative readings of A Little Life in Silver Lake cafés (cover splayed wide, spine creaking from disuse, dust jacket artfully blemished) as a latter-day instantiation of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty. We convey the gravity and lasting import of these ideas by meowing thousands of times, incessantly, for over thirty-five minutes.
MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .
Praise for Meow: A Novel
"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair
"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan DidionFollow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary
