A Reference Guide To Everything I Blogged From 2010-2012
3rd Grade– A tag from when I wrote about one of my classmates in elementary school throwing up blood
90s – Can’t recall why this was used, but now that you’re here I want to say you have to be done pooping your pants at the beginning of the decade you claim to be “a child of.”
The Family – I linked to the original version of “Nothing Compares 2 U”
A Woman Named Beth – I’d written something about a person I once knew. Her name is not Beth.
A Woman Named Megan – Ditto but her name is Megan. She played volleyball. We were 23.
A Guy – Stumped on this one.
ARP – Association of Retired People. I think my tens of readers gave this a bemused and inward ha.
Academic Coercion – This, I recall, was referring to the factory farming of short stories, their proliferation within MFA schools because of their palatability for grading.
Admonishments – Not sure who’d go searching WordPress for “admonishments.” Whoever they are, they’re not someone who likes the things I write. Which is a crucial fault in the way I market myself.
AdultFriendFinder – Not relevant to whatever I wrote about then. But I have been, and always will be, curious to meet someone who used AdultFriendFinder to meet their husband or wife
Age Of Adz – It was the best Sufjan Stevens album
Aging – The post mostly dealt with balding.
Alabama – About a time I had in the state, not with the band
Alan Rickman – No one, I knew then and do now, has been a better Sheriff of Nottingham.
Alexis Krauss – In her earlier stuff, around the time I would’ve tagged her, she sounded as if she was orgasming when she sang
Alfred Hitchcock – I had the feeling his guy wasn’t the nicest of guys. But that’s often the case with overbearing movie directors
Amazon – They enjoyed a spike in traffic after I tagged them, I bet
American Trilogy – A trio of films by Von Trier, Dogville, Manderlay, then another one, Washington, which he either had postponed or forgotten about entirely.
American Movie – One of the great documentaries of the last 30 years. Still whenever I watch it I have a hard time believing it’s real.
Andrei Tarkovsky – The film director.
Andy Warhol – I tagged Warhol? Pop art was the collage art of its time.
Anelise Chen – It would have been in reference to this essay
Anne – See: “A Woman Named Beth”
Andie MacDowell – Her hair was and is an art all to itself.
Apocalypse – From the book of Revelation.
Appreciating Beauty – This had something to do with butts or MeInMyPlace, or both, from around early 2011
Arcade Fire – Their music was used in a sermon by a non-denominational pastor as an example of uplifting songwriting, and I thought that seemed about right
Art – See: “Admonishments”
Art Projects – From my project where I wrote a 2000 word short story for anyone who asked and typed it on a typewriter. My pathetic attempt at starting something, one of many
Arthur C. Clarke – I think, if I can remember, I mentioned him for his pairing with Kubrick for Space Odyssey. A modern equivalent might be George R. R. Martin and P.T. Anderson
Aurelie Claudel – It was a French model teaching another French model how to tie a tie.
Avant-Garde – I thought it was often a replacement for the word “immature”
B. R. Myers – Writer of The Reader’s Manifesto and critical essayist, once focusing his harshest lens on Franzen’s Freedom. I agreed with his review
BP – The company who dumped their oil in Gulf Coast. It was topical then, though I’m pretty sure most of that oil is still out there
Back Hair – I’d go on to write more about it
Back-Patting Bad Art – It was a heavy wink to the incestuous nature of literature
Balding – It was an obsession of mine around the time of this blog. Lesser so now, but only because I have less hair.
Bandoppler – A culture/thought magazine founded by my friend Jason Dodd and his crew of writers in Seattle
Bangs – Jenny Lewis’s not Lester’s
Barn – For an agrarian short story I was working on
Baseball – Why did I tag something with “Baseball?” I feel like that’s something I would’ve done at age 10, and, I guess, at age 30.
Bathing Suits – It was a Mayer Hawthorne video. It will take you to summer
Battleship Potemkin – An old movie I know nothing of but am fascinated I once wrote about it
Beard – It was about the spousal mask, not the facial hair
Bearded Drummers – No clue
Bearded Folk – Because of this Fleet Foxes song. It was like a lost Neutral Milk Hotel song, I thought
Beauty – Had something to do with butts, I’m sure
Beer – All this does is make me wonder if there was a time in my life when I drank more beer than I now remember.
Bieber – This song produced by El-P
Bert Blyleven – I wrote a six sentence story about Blyleven being inducted into the Hall of Fame in the style of the ending of the first chapter of The Easter Parade
Bibson Geefeater – What the father character drunkenly orders for himself instead of a Gibson Beefeater in “Reunion,” the story by John Cheever
Billy Murray – Why did I spell it “Billy Murray?” Most likely it’s a typo, which is annoying, years later
Birds Without Songs – I wasn’t doing drugs then but you wouldn’t by the tags I used
Bjork – The Icelandic singer, in reference to Dancer in the Dark, which contains her best music
Blake Bailey – His book on Richard Yates reads like a novel itself. I can’t recommend it enough.
Bloc Party – A Weekend In The City, because it was and is one of the most underrated albums of the last decade
Blowhards – Was speaking about literature communities here
Blue Sweaters – A preppy sweater I once wore to a bar and was made fun of for it by the guy who was currently, and still is, seeing my ex-girlfriend
Bohemian Europeans – See: “Admonishments”
Bon Iver – I find it hard to believe Justin Vernon lives in Eau Claire, WI. Just something I think about from time to time
Book Clubs – I was saying a certain book was a “Book Club” kind of book: bland and generic, predictable, ringing false, etc
Boost Mobile – This Aqua Teen episode. Not as disturbing as “Hand Banana”
Brad Pitt – Peaked with Legends of the Fall
Brian Moore – One of the more underrated novelists of the 20th Century
Brooks Brothers – Many great writers wore Brooks Brothers. Not sure if that’s still true. Seems a little too WASP-y now.
Brown Dresser – Good stuff. Great tag.
Bullshit – It was in relation to a writer or a think piece on the internet
Cable Television – Made me think of Cronenberg or Wallace, maybe Terry Gilliam. No one is making art about cable television’s erosion on the American Family anymore, and I can’t say I have any desire to see or read anything on it either. Seems more like a late 80s/early 90s thing.
Capitulation – I pullled excerpts of a novel I thought was finished
Car – Jesus Christ. That’s me talking.
Cars Don’t Exist – I think they do. Not sure what I basing this off of.
Cash Money – In the way the phrase is used in Disney movies in the 50s like Old Yeller, not by the rap collective of Lil Wayne, Tyga, Drake, others
Catholics – Big subject. I hope I tackled it well.
Cavemen – I often use “Cavemen” as a way to show my feelings as a person who obsesses over Twitter followers and literary notoriety against what it must have been like to worry about more basic things like a next meal or shelter
Cavewomen – See: “Cavemen”
Celebrity Crush – It was Alia Shawkat
Cell Phones – See: “Catholics”
Cerberus Shoal – A post-rock drone psychedelic bizarro folk band from the early to mid 00s. I wrote a review of one of their albums for PopMatters
Chan-wook Park – On Oldboy, one of the five best movies of the 00s.
Charlie Rose – This interview
Cheever – John
Chesty – 32/50 at jonathanleder.com in “35MM”
Chick Lit – I may have even used it as an insult, but I don’t think “Chick Lit” is a lesser genre. If anything, writers able to craft books into a genre are often more talented than writers writing ubiquitous literary fiction
Chrindie – On a subgenre of indie Christian music popular in the late 90s and early 00s.
Chris Farley – Actor. Deceased.
Christian Marriage – Something I always wanted, until I didn’t. Which gives me hope that someday I’ll stop wanting to be a writer so I can happy.
Christianese – This explains it pretty well
Christians – People who believe in the death and resurrection of a man from the Iron Age as a way of attaining eternal happiness
Christmas – The day we’ve picked as the day the man who grants eternal happiness was born
Christopher Hitchens – A man who didn’t have time for either of the previous two
Chuck Close – Artist. Admire all his work
Chuck Klosterman – Essayist. Admire his work as an essayist
Clothes – I know I was trying to be “funny,” or meta in a way that lampooned the idea of tags themselves, but then why didn’t I just not use tags? These are questions I can only ask myself now
Coen Brothers – Top five films are now Fargo, Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, Barton Fink, Inside Llewyn Davis
Coke – The caffeinated drink, not the powder for Wall Street types
Combine – The tractor used to harvest crops, not the act of taking two or more things and mixing them together into something else
Common Sense – I was being very obvious here
Community – I was early adopter of this show, but I thought it was strange how they ended their episodes with the same saccharine easy life advice they wanted to subvert
Comparative Literature – It was in reference to a real-life date I went on with someone majoring in Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota. She was from OkCupid and I wrote about it, more or less, exactly how it happened.
Counting Crows – I have no recollection of posting any of their songs to my blog but I wouldn’t click away from a blog that did
Coveting – This, again, was in reference to a butt or bottom in some way. Or it could have been someone’s life. But almost certainly not a material thing. Not that I don’t like material things, it’s just that I like buns and other people’s lives more.
Crispin Glover – The actor. I think it could’ve been for this
Cronyism – A partiality to long-standing friends in the lit-scene, is something I probably wrote.
Dane Cook – I said I liked him when he first came out
Danielle Luft – This video, which is NSFW. At the time I was applauding their approach to hipster nude photography. Though later they divorced and I have to wonder why. I mean, I don’t actually wonder why, the reason is obvious, but it’s sad anyway
David Bazan – I had like 12 followers at the time and he had over 10,000 and he responded to my tweet calling him out for playing Christian festivals when he wasn’t a Christian. He responded by making fun of my fiction pursuits.
David Foster Wallace – One of the times was when I quoted him as saying that life is “full of irrelevant complexity”
David Lynch – Unlike Wallace, I’m not a big Lynch fan, so it’s weird I would’ve tagged him. Could have been talking about Mulholland Drive, which is his best movie by far, the closest a movie is to a waking dream
David Remnick – Editor of The New Yorker, a magazine people once cared about
Decalogue – The film by Kieslowski. I’ve seen one or two of the installments of the ten in the mini-series, though I’m sure I feigned otherwise to make myself seem smarter than I am
Denis Johnson – Writer of Tree of Smoke and other books. Not overrated just overrated by people who read this
Derek Jeter – Was with Scarlett Johansson, which blows my mind each time I am reminded
Die Hard – Best America action movie of the 80s
Dizzee Rascal – Best British rapper of the 00s
Don Cheadle – I’m not sure but I know I just wasted about twenty minutes of my life watching all of his work as Captain Planet. “Woodpeckers” is the clue.
Donald Barthelme – One of the more overrated writers with Barth, Pynchon, McCarthy and Murakami, others. Highlighted the problem with literature. Everyone is afraid to be critical because to dislike an important book is to out yourself as stupid.
Dreamcatcher – The 2003 movie, not the handmade object made out of a willow hoop with different yarns and feathers attached to it
Drivers Tests – Right now I’m listening to “Angeles” by Elliot Smith. Thought I’d mention something interesting for this entry
Drunk – I was drunk when I wrote a response to David Bazan making fun of me on Twitter.
Dusk – The time of day, I guess?
Ebenezer Scrooge – The Dickens character
Ecclesiastical Fiction – I once wrote a very long exposition about losing my mind based on the book of Proverbs. It was disjointed and rambling but was eventually tightened up into this
Elizabeth Gilbert – I quoted her being self-aggrandizing piece in a talk she did as Steve Jobs
Elizabeth Perkins – Because of her role in Big
Embryonic – I listed a trace outline of a novel I never finished.
It Initial retribution
Growing up Modern day police scene
Lead up to ‘The Incident in the Shower’
2nd retribution
The incident and fallout and coverup
Another retribution
Cops can’t do a thing
Move coverup
Describe the room
Herod fights back
The GANG come over and destroys the room
Growing up/family sadness
Retribution/Herod Increasing power/mindless rampage
Janice intervenes
Swat team sniper shoots him through the head
Janice walks home
Violation of her by one Herod’s targets
The end.
You can see why I never finished it
Emily Grimes – Character based on Richard Yates and one of his ex-girlfriend’s, Natalie Bowen, from the novel The Easter Parade, possibly the best novel of the 20th Century, even though Anatole Broyard didn’t like it, but that was because he was jealous of his old friend Yates
Emo Kids – What happened to the emo kids of the early 00s who listened to Dashboard Confessional with bars tattooed around their forearms? That could be the beginning of what I wrote
Emotional Realists – My branding for what some of my favorite writers evoke, true emotional tones blended with realistic outcomes within actual settings for believable and always quietly tragic characters
End Times – One of my first attempts at writing fiction, in my late 20s, was a story about Armageddon, heavily influenced by Philip K. Dick
Essays – Maybe one of the first useful tags so far in this list
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind – One of the five best movies of the 00s
Ethan Hawke – He read an audiobook version of Slaughterhouse-Five
European Beaches – I was probably dreaming about quitting my job or something else impossible
Ewan McGregor – I might have compared his character in Moulin Rouge as a penniless writer to something I wished to be
Excerpts Of Great Novels – I posted the beginnings of novels. Some examples included Stoner, A Way of Life, Like Any Other, A Personal Matter
Exgesis – Should be Exegesis not “Exgesis,” buddy
Existential Angst – This tag could have been applied to every one of my posts, and hopefully not now, but probably
Existentialism – I find to hard to grasp what I could have possibly been trying to prove
Eyebrows – Was making a point that eyebrows should be left alone
Eyes – It was a woman who had attractive eyes
Failure – Ubiquitous in my writing life
Family – I rarely talk about my family so I’m not sure what this would have been about
Faulkner – Another one of the more overrated authors of the 20th Century
Feist – I tagged her because of a cover of one of her songs by a popular Christian synth-pop band, Joy Electric, who released a covers album Favorites at Play
Ferdico Fellini – Maybe in 2010 I just had yet to hear about spell-check? Or maybe I was always in a rush? But neither are any excuse. It’s Federico, and I love his movies, or at least the idea of them
Fiction – I once posted my fiction to my blog. Looking at that sentence now, I wonder if it’s the saddest one I ever wrote
Film – Serious film seemed to be evolving better than serious literature
Firm Ones – Boobs, but not a picture of boobs, though I am not against pictures of boobs
Fitzcarraldo – Most ambitious Herzog film, which is saying a lot.
Flaming Lips – Though controversial, their video with Erykah Badu for “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” is one of the great pieces of art
Flannery O’ Connor – I quoted her speaking about another writer, “The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get”
Flaubert – Writer of Madame Bovary, one of great novels ever written
Florida – Where Cops is filmed, I believe
Flowers – The reproductive structure in a plant, in reference to a story mimicking real life where, whenever I’d given them to someone, was a marker of the end of a relationship, not the beginning of one
Four Eyes – A picture of an exorbitantly attractive young woman wearing large round glasses opposite Abramović for The Artist Is Present performance
Fox News – The cable news channel
Foxy Women – It’s sometimes strange to look back at ourselves and try and identify with the person we once were, is what this makes me think
Franz Kafka – I was identifying with his desire to burn all of his unpublished writings before he died
Franzen – Jonathan. Tried to read each of his books. Each time the writing closed the book for me. I said in my post then, “It’s over 500 pages, but I have to imagine it’s light as a feather” in regards to its emotional weight, not the prose, which I’m sure is serviceable but draining
Free Books – The library
French Braids – Could have been within an earlier form of this long thing
French New Wave – The film movement
Fresh Air – The NPR program
Fucking And Mind Fucking – I actually like this tag
Fün People – I have no idea. There’s a hardcore band from Argentina called Fun People but they don’t have an umlaut over their name, and I’d never heard for them until I started writing this post
Gabe Delahaye – Writer, formerly of Videogum
Genetics – I feel for anyone who was looking for actual information on genetics and arrived at my blog
Geometry – See: “Genetics”
George Bush – I’m really not political so I’m not sure what I would’ve said. How distant he seems now, just painting all day long, probably drunk on some warm Texan ranch. It must be a tranquil life, one he is much more suited to.
Gigli – I don’t bemoan Affleck for making this movie. He and Lopez were both huge stars then and her ass would have convinced myself, and many others, to make movies worse than Gigli.
Glad-handing – I used this incorrectly by referring to a situation in which someone was praised for insincere phony work when it really means to greet someone insincerely. This is why I’m not successful. I like to think it’s because of a great conspiracy against me, but it’s not
Gnostic – I’ve always liked the idea of a secret spiritual knowledge. I think in the post I called myself a “Gnostic Hedonist.” Feeling good in the here and the hereafter
God – A major player in my blog posts. I’m sure He’s happy to get the love
Goober – A nickname for what a woman I once knew from Alabama called a penis
Good Christian Men – Part of one of the stories involving the woman who called a penis a goober
Good Radio – I listened to Christian talk radio, so I’m not sure what this would be. I can’t stand any sort of “alt radio” as it is as payola-driven as corporate radio, but with more old white men ponytails
Good Writer – I could have only been talking about a select few people
Grace Krilanovich – Attractive author of The Orange Eats Creeps
Greasy Back Alley Handshakes – Was talking about the lit scene here
Gwyneth – Don’t quite understand the vitriol people save for her. Seems like it’d be better spent. Not saying I’m a big fan of Goop, I just don’t get the hate
Hit it Or Quit It – The zine by Jessica Hopper
Hands – Not the Jewel song, I don’t think, but just in case
Harmony Korine – Writer of Kids
Harry Dean Staton – Should be Harry Dean Stanton. Also, I think I meant Dean Stockwell
Heart Of Darkness – Should have been Hearts of Darkness, the great documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now
Hebrew – I once upon a time wanted to get a tattoo, in Hebrew, that said “ONCE FOR ALL” referring to the sacrifice Jesus made for all people. One can be glad for indecisiveness every so often
Here Lies Stinky – This story by Caitlin Horrocks
High School – I don’t normally try to recall that time in my life, so I’m not sure
Hipsters – This is now like saying “People”
Hoity-Toity Suggestions – I think it was this list, which seemed like a good idea in theory but the books were not as enriching as I’d hoped.
Hope For The Masses – In reference to an out of print dead author who wrote elegantly, or a certain pair of buns
Hopelessly Sad – I was sad
Hot Christian Women – I think it was Gungor
Housing Bubble – Are we still worried about this? Is that how the housing bubble will burst again? When we forget about it?
HTML Giant – I used to read it religiously but became oppressively bothered by it so I stopped. Not in its content, but in the way it seemed to praise the worst writers
Humpin’ – It wasn’t me doing the humpin’
Husbands and Wives – The Woody Allen movie, in my top ten, but not top five which consists of Manhattan, Stardust Memories, Hannah and Her Sisters, Love and Death, Vicky Cristina Barcelona or maybe Annie Hall
Hypocrites – I was a sad boy again, it seems
Ingmar Bergman – Listed the best three Bergman films: Scenes from a Marriage, Cries and Whispers, and Fanny and Alexander
Inspiration – Talking about a big behind in some way
Internet – This would be like tagging “Chalkboard” at the bottom of a chalkboard after writing notes on a chalkboard
Internet Dating – All I have to say about internet dating now is that it is awful, and I’m sorry we ever came up with it
Internet Zeitgeist – Don’t know what this could’ve been, it changes most every day
Interpol – The band not the police agency. Not sure which song but I’ve always liked this one
Irish Women – Best accents on the earth, hands down. If that was point I was making then, I don’t know. But it’s a good point nonetheless
J.D. Salinger – The Buddhist author
J.F. Powers – The Catholic author
Jack Daniels – The post had nothing to do with Jack Daniels. I was just drinking it at the time.
Jacques – The high-art erotic magazine that, for all intents and purposes, ended when the founder and his model wife got divorced.
Jacques Tati – The French filmmaker who I talk about a lot but know little about
James Cameron – Maker of Titanic and Avatar, two high-grossing movies you probably heard about it even without my blog
Jars Of Clay – Not sure why I mentioned them but they’re underrated. They are.
Jaw Of The Gods – When I googled it this video came up, which I recommend if you like “mirin”
Jeans – I said that my thing with jeans is that my thighs are too thick for the jeans that taper at the ankles so I have to wear the big ankle jeans, which means I’m about 10 years behind, but that’s my life
Jeff Magnum – It was this performance
Jeffrey Brown – The cartoonist
Jeffrey Ellinger – Truly, a new level of meta-stupidity
Jesus – Not like “Jesus” but a more academic “Jesus”
Jheri Curl – All I can think about here is Coming to America, which is a great film
Jim Norris – This is a fictional character I made up, AND I tagged it
Joanna Smith Rakoff – It was this which I found nauseating and more sexist than any man could ever be
John Cheever – I love a lot of his writing so it could’ve been any number of things but most likely this quote,” My definition of a good editor is a man I think charming, who sends me large checks, praises my work, my physical beauty, and my sexual prowess, and who has a stranglehold on the publisher and the bank.”
John Edward Williams – Writer of Stoner, which recently became a best-seller in Europe
John Gardner – I said I don’t like any of his novels. They follow none of the rules, or even the ideas, he sets out in his beautiful guides to writing fiction. The best of which is On Becoming a Novelist
Joshua Harris – A Christian who writes about how teens should abstain from sex. He has several books about it.
Julia Frauche – The other half of this
Karl Lagerfeld – My WordPress blog is gone now but I would like to know why I tagged Karl Lagerfeld. I guess there are just mysteries in life.
Katherine – A Christian from Alabama who got around having sex before marriage by taking the head of a man’s penis and rubbing it on her clitoris as the man entered her with his digits. I was one of the men.
Kele – Lead singer of Bloc Party. Released an underrated solo album
Kevin Wilson – It seemed to me that the amount of good to bad in writing against the amount of good to bad in other forms of art was so much higher.
Keys – Open doors? My best guess
Kingdom Come – Not the movie with LL Cool J
Klaus Kinski – Herzog’s muse
Knife – Not the band.
Kubrik – It’s spelled Kubrick, you stupid fuck, and his best movie is The Shining then 2001 then the first part of Full Metal Jacket
Kurosawa – To be honest, I’ve only ever seen Ran
Kurt Vonnegut – He knew the difference between good and bad writing, which is something a lot of writers don’t know. And his work is best for those just looking to get into reading and writing. I’d give my teenage son a Vonnegut book, not a Yates one.
Ladyhawke– The film with Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer
Lambos – Lamborghini
Lamplight – This was when I was still considering making my blog a mix of my thoughts and the pictures I took. This one included a picture with lamplight, but it was actually a streetlight, so, a failure
Lauren – I’ve never fallen for someone named Lauren, so I don’t know why her name was used.
Leather – If I were a bear I’d wear a lot of leather. That’s just something you should know
Left Behind – If there was one crowd-sourced project I would back it’d be to fund whichever Christian film company made the two Left Behind movies
Leo Tolstoy – This quote from Family Happiness, “I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books , music, love for one’s neighbor – such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps – what more can the heart of a man desire?”
Light – These kinds of tags are annoying, thus, I am annoying
Links – I once collected interesting links
Lists – This is my best
Literary Agents – Are they still a thing?
Liv Ullmann – Bergman’s muse
Lolita – A technically impressive, if tiring, reading experience
Long Lost Aunt – See: “Light”
Louisville Slugger – Part of a bad fiction story I wrote and posted to my blog. And I actually wondered then why I wasn’t more famous
Love – See “Long Lost Aunt”
Lovers Of Salvation – Original title of a novel. Almost everything from the first version is gone. If anything ever happens I’ll consider writing it my MFA experience
Maeve Brennan – Underrated short story writer and all-around stylish Irish woman
Mafia – I was referring to the literary mafia
Mafioso – Whoever the leader of that mafia would be
Magnetic Fields – One of my favorite band of all-time, before NPR kinda stunk them up
Maria Falconetti – From The Passion of Joan of Arc, a captivating presense/face/performance
Mariel Hemingway – From Manhattan, the same
Mark Borchardt – Over the years I’ve checked up, awaiting the release of his full-length film. According to IMDB, Scare Me is set to release this year. But that happens every year. Still hoping, though. I genuinely believe the man has an eye for capturing the essence of things, as evidenced by the few shots from Northwestern shown in American Movie
Mark Driscoll – Psychopath, bully. The Worst
Marriage – For someone who’s never been married, I talk about it quite a lot.
Mars Hill – The corporation of churches in Seattle run by Mark Driscoll, a lying psycho, though I think people go there because of the tag directly above
Massengill Commercials – This was inspired by someone’s Twitter avatar, which is, interestingly enough, similar to another popular Thought Catalog’s current Twitter avatar. I won’t name names but I will link this
Mean Streets – Twenty years before Goodfellas and Casino there was Mean Streets
Melancholy – I still think of the third best Von Trier movie when I see that word capitalized
Melville House – The publishing house from the first episode of Girls
Men With Beautiful Hair – I’m sure I was just writing about people I was jealous of, and still am
Menomonee Falls – Not sure why I tagged the town where American Movie is set, but there you go
Metaphysics – See: “Existentialism”
MFA – I was arguing, in some way, about why it is such a worthless degree, at least when it comes to writing
Michael Steele – It was this
Mick Jagger – In regards to being originally cast as the lead in Fitzcarraldo
Minnesota State Fair – This, which makes me laugh and swoon always
Models – At the time it would’ve been MeInMyPlace, though now it’d be Creative Rehab. A man must grow
Money Pit – I was talking about owning a car, not the classic fixer-upper film with Tom Hanks
Months Of Editing Novels – Make it years
Mormons – Whatever was true then, it is just as true now
Ms. Cool Sunglasses – A take on a phrase once popular at Videogum, a now defunct blog which was a sanctuary of clean water common sense in the garbage pool that is the internet
Mushrooms – Never done them but don’t want to. Sorry hipster lit, I’ll never be relevant enough 4 U
My Fiction – I feel like if you tag your fiction with the tag “My Fiction” it’s guaranteed to be terrible
NEMO – Why is it capitalized?
NSFW – Because of a butt
Narcissism – I was saying someone else was being narcissistic, which is funny
Nature – Important stuff. Important tag
Necessary Evils In Teaching Writing – It was this quote from Vonnegut that goes, “teaching creative writing offers solace to writers who are down on their luck”
Nepotism – When it comes to writing and publishing
Nerd Stuff – Not sure, but I like RTS and RPG video games so it could’ve something with Empire Earth or Morrowind, my two favorites
New Testament – Making some kind of argument of why it made no sense
Newswriters – I once worked for Pitchfork as a newswriter, I was mentioning that, and making a point of how Pitchfork often forgets about bands they once so gladly promoted, because once a newer and shinier band comes around they disregard the former, even when they’re getting better and better. Case in point, Tapes N Tapes
Nikos Kazantzakis – Writer of The Last Temptation of Christ
Nina Rota – Like in this song
Nose – Huh?
Nothing New Under The Sun – An phrase from Ecclesiastes
Novelist Love – A number of attractive novelists I could have been mentioning
Novels – My own
Old Flames – See: “Novels”
Old Hard Drives – Full of bad writing
Old Yeller – My dad’s favorite movie and one of my own
Oui – Before Richard Kern there was Oui
Page 99 Test – It’s a thing
Paris Review – I like their Art of Fiction interviews, I do like that. This one is good
Parisian Women – I didn’t know about Adèle Exarchopoulos then, but I would’ve mentioned her
Passion Of The Christ – Harvey Keitel as Judas is still one of the best things in cinema
Paul Verhoeven – Director of the criminally underrated Showgirls
Pears – A delicious fruit, up there with peaches and plums, as Joanna Newsom already knows
Penny Marshal – Director of great films like Big and A League of Their Own
Perfection – Was talking about butts
Philip K. Dick – Writer of some books that got weirder as he got older, and better, which is reassuring
Photos – Even if people do use this tag to search for photos, I can’t imagine the photos they find are very good
Pining – For a bottom, I’d guess once more
Pitchfork – The music criticism website. Sometimes right, but often too afraid of being wrong
Platonic – The ideal
Playboy – This magazine still exists, somehow
Podcast – Where a comedian goes to complain about being a comedian
Politics – As pointless to believe in them as it is to tag them on a blog
Portland – A less mature and less interesting younger sibling to Seattle
Pouty Lips – Paz de la Huerta, this is NSFW
Price Of Gas – It was rising at the time to historic levels. Seemed like a topical thing to discuss, even though I rarely discussed topical things
Prince – The musical artist who is impossible to link to because his music doesn’t exist on the internet
Protein Supplements – I think this had something to do with a story but who’s to say, really, I could have just been getting really jacked at the time
Public Drinking – It was this which I still will watch from time to time because it’s charming and French
Public Transportation – See: “Public Drinking”
Publisher – I don’t have one
Purity – It was in relation to Joshua Harris
Pussy – I think I was calling myself one, not referencing an actual vagina
Questions – It was a serious of questions I had for myself. Not worth reciting them here.
Radiohead – Well-known band
Rankings – Of authors, or butts. Have had the idea, for a long time, of combining the two into a great list
Ravi Zacharias – The Christian apologist. One of the more level-heading, more clear-speaking pundits
Raymond Carver – My favorite remains “Gazebo”
Rebecca St. James – Was born Rebecca Jean Smallbone
Recently Reading – A series I abandoned. Could’ve been interesting if I would’ve had the time, patience, or will to keep it up. Though one could say that for just about anything
Red Lipstick – Can’t recall whose this was but it seems to me that red lipstick is most popular among more meaty female hipsters
Red Wine – A delicious healthy drink
Religion – A way to cope with dying
Resentment – I was probably talking about not getting published in some journal or another
Revel Magazine – I’ve never head of this magazine in my life but I googled it and it exists which means that pretty much everything exists that is going to exist
Relevant – For the sons and daughters of those who read Christianity Today
Rich and Famous – Not the lifestyles of, but that I would be rich and famous someday after accepting an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay of A Tragic Honesty: The Life Of Richard Yates
Richard Donner – Director of the original Superman
Richard Ford – Best novel is The Sportswriter, everything else by him is fine enough
Richard Kelly – Created Donnie Darko, but also Southland Tales somehow
Richard Yates – Best novelist of the 20th Century
Rick Ross – Rapper. Keeper of a beard.
Ricky Gervais – The Office, Extras, even through the Golden Globes and some of his strident atheistic stuff. But then there’s Derek…
Roadhouse – Not the best movie of the 80s, but one of them
Roadies – I don’t know.
Roadside Monument – Played a pretty unique brainy of math-rock. One of the more daring Christian bands from the 90s
Romantic Love – From Sherman’s March, one of the best documentaries of the last 30 years, “For a long time I’ve had this notion that love was possible. I mean romantic love, you know, two people falling deeply in love with each other and somehow managing to stay together for more than two weeks. But time after time it seems that a woman would get involved with me and want some sort of commitment and I would decide that it wasn’t right, or vice versa, and no matter how passionate things were at beginning there was never an equilibrium and nothing ever seemed to last”
Ron Livingston – Actor. Office Space
Ross McElwee – Filmmaker. See: “Romantic Love”
Rumbles In Jungles – See: “Rick Ross”
So Long See You Tomorrow – The novel by William Maxwell, longtime editor of The New Yorker. Most of his fiction is dry, but this one is good
Salivating – Over a book, not a butt
Scenes From A Marriage – One of the great Bergman films
Scribd – Where I used to put all of my writing
Seasons Of Singleness – A term Joshua Harris invented to denote a time in a Christian’s life set apart for being single. A fancy way of saying “I’m taking a break from men (or women) right now”
Seattle – Lots of parades and rain and fleece
Serious Art – Was making fun of a blog post on HTML Giant that was laughably full of itself
Serious Music Criticism – Could have been talking about Amy Grant, for all I remember. Why not
Sex – I said it was a misnomer to say that men think about it more than women. Men think about acquiring sex more than they desire, as Julianne Moore once said, “the physical act of love.”
Shakespeare – Sonnet writer
Sherman’s March – A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
Shiga – I feel like this is a misspelling
Sholem Aleichem – Russian writer
Short Stories – I once posted them to my blog. Still do. I will kill myself one day
Showgirls – Understand how exciting it was for a 15 year-old to see Jessie undressed. Life-changing
Siddhartha – The Gautama
Silkworm – This song
Sin – The evil that makes its way into the world by way of man
Slavoj Zizek – I liked the way he talked. An empathic lisp
Sloane Crosley – Very shiny hair
Small Scope – See: “Joanna Smith Rakoff”
Small Town Worries – An early title of a novel I never finished. In my defense, it was unfinishable
South Dakota – One of the top five windiest states in the union, if you didn’t know
Spokane – A city in eastern Washington. Part of a short story I wrote for my friends one Sunday morning. I can email you a copy
Sports – Haha, cool tag
Springtime – A season
Stanley Kubrik – Why did I insist on spelling his name wrong?
Stephen King – I was talking about he was upset about how The Shining came out, which is insane
Stephen Malkmus – This profile by Chuck Klosterman
Stephin Merritt – Grumpy songwriter who, for a time, was better than just about any other songwriter. I had listed my ten favorite non-69 Love Songs love songs
Steven Spielberg – Director. More money than God
Stockholm – It was a picture of three Swedish women from Last Night’s Party. I tagged it so they would see it and fall in love? Not sure, but they were stunning. I said that everyone should move to Sweden, and they should
Stuff Magazine – Remember that? It was like a Maxim rip-off. Is it still a thing?
Suffering – Oh, the lamentations and trials of being Jeffrey Ellinger!
Sufjan Stevens – Even though he said “amazeballs” on his Tumblr once, he still seems like an alright guy to me
Sunrise – The silent film
Sweden – See: “Stockholm”
Swimming Pools – Like in Cheever’s story “The Swimmer”
Swiss Family Robinson – One of the all-time great films. The end scene, where they fight off the pirates, was always a thrill when it came on Disney Sunday Night Movies
Takashi Miike – Director of Audition and Ichi the Killer. I hope everything is okay with his brain
Tale Of Two Cities – See: “Michael Steele”
Tanlines – It was this picture. NSFW
Tao Lin – Writer of bad novels. Sorry, they just are
Tapes ‘n Tapes – It’s funny to me how much hype and attention they got after their first album, which is forgettable, and how much everyone ignored them by the time they got to their last album, which is their best. This is how the world works
Tech Corporations – Another tag that annoys the shit out of me when I see it now
Techno – See: “Tech Corporations”
Television Personalities – It was this song
Terry – Character from a fictional story I wrote. Influential tag
Terry Gilliam – Always a bit overreaching, but there’s something admirable about that
That Giddy Feeling – See: “Techno”
The Art Of Seduction – It had something to do with The Game, which seems to have lost popularity, though I had friends who did the stuff they tell you to do in that book and they did find significant others that way.
The Best – It wasn’t really
The Big Lebowski – The third best Coen Brothers film
The Birchman Home For Boys – The fictional group home from a short story I wrote for a group of friends. See: “Spokane”
The Blues – See: “Suffering”
The Booksmith – The book store in San Francisco
The Doors – An emo lead singer before the term existed
The Easter Parade – Arguably the best novel of the 20th Century
The One With Curls And Hearts On Her Bottom – She was in this
The Glass Mountain – A short story by Donald Barthelme
The Grand Illusion – The Renoir film
The Message – A bad version of the Bible, which is saying something
The Millions of Questions – I had a bunch of questions for someone I’d met on OkCupid who had subsequently let me go. See: “Suffering” “The Blues”
The New Yorker – Full of bourgeois intellectualism. Often lacking in feeling as well as context of the larger society which surrounds it
The Pale King – Novel by David Foster Wallace, great essayist/thinker, overrated novelist. A tortured soul who was much too smart for his own good
The Stranger – The Camus book, though I knew little to nothing about Camus or this novel
The Swimmer – A Cheever masterpiece
The Vagaries Of Life – See: “Suffering” “The Blues “The Millions of Questions”
Theodore Dreyer – The Danish film director
Timothy Treadwell – The protagonist of Herzog’s Grizzly Man. Fascinating but troubled individual
Tobias Wolff – Very good, maybe great, writer of novels and short stories. Bald man
Todd and Jen – See: “Tech Corporations”
Tony Wilson – Portrayed by Steve Coogan in the very good film 24 Hour Party People
Top Gun – Did you know someone was tweeting this entire movie frame by frame until Paramount shut it down. Life is weird. Twitter is weirder
Transformer – Having the best transformers in the mid 80s denoted a boy with a wealthy family
Truman Capote – Writer of In Cold Blood
Turning 30 – I did. Cool stuff.
UW – Wonder why their creative writing department didn’t reach out to me
Ula Brown – Host of this video series
Undergraduates – See “Todd and Jen”
Updike – A talented writer who never fails to not move me with any of his writing
Vacuum – See “Undergraduates”
Vaguely European Women – Honestly, I have no idea. This list is starting to wear me down
Val Kilmer – Actor. Willow, other films
Vampires – I posted this
Vehicle Registration – See: “Vacuum”
Very Fit Model – It was this NSFW
Very Skinny Jeans – It was the same as above
Videodrome – A weird good movie.
Videos – See: “Vehicle Registration”
Vladimir Nabokov – Virtuosic writer, who, like Updike, never fails to not move me
Von Trapp – The Family
Walter Matthau – A wonderful actor, particularly in Bad News Bears
Wandering Hands – See: “Videos”
War And Peace – Never read it nor will I ever, I suspect
Wasted Lives – See: “Wandering Hands.” Side note, I’m actually shocked at the amount of pointless tags I once used
Wayne Cohen – Is buddies with Miley Cyrus now, which seems right. I don’t mean that in a denigrating way. Truly, it seems about right
Werner Herzog – Strange man with German voice
Wes Anderson – Grand Budapest is his twee masterpiece but I was talking about Royal Tenenbaums then
West River – It was in regards to the way South Dakota is divided. East River is the “city” side of the state. West is the more untamed part, the part you saw on Dances with Wolves.
Wet – The magazine
When Pointing One Finger Three Fingers Are Pointing Back – See: “Wasted Lives”
Where Is My Mind – A song at the end of Fight Club
White – See: “When Pointing One Finger Three Fingers Are Pointing Back”
White Guy Soul – I posted a Jamie Lidell song, if my failing mind remembers correctly
Will Ferrell – Mostly known for his work as Robert Goulet
William Maxwell – Writer
William Trevor – Better writer
Wings – Chicken?
Women – A group of people who are not men, except when they are.
Women Vs Men – It would turn into my most commented on Thought Catalog article
Women With Freckles – Are often attractive. This time it was her NSFW
Wood Nymphs – Although this one is once again useless, I kind of like this tag, or at least the idea of a wood nymph
Woods – Not the band. Just woods, with trees
Woody Allen – I said Stardust Memories is his 2nd best film
Woolgathering – It was basically all my blog was
Work – I think I was actually talking about my job. But still See: “White”
Worlds Colliding – Not sure which worlds and who they belonged to but See: “Work”
Would You Rather? – I’ve been told I’m good at this game, but everyone thinks they’re good at this game
Writers – Are the worst. That’s not what I said then, but I should have
Yeasayer – It was this. It’s good
Yeezy – I was talking about Kanye West
Young Adult Singles Groups – The saddest succession of words I’ve ever seen
Youth – It’s beautiful but See: “Work”
Zach Galifianakis – It was one of the early ferns, maybe Cera or Kimmel
Zoltar – The machine in Big that makes Tom Hanks younger
Zooey Deschanel – I was in love after Elf. It later faded, like everything