August 23rd, 2021 - The Iceman
Dear TNY,
A big old “fuck you” to “The Iceman”.
Well, maybe not so big. But still. Amid some decent descriptions and some okay details, we have a lot of problems.
One, who gives a fuck about Wim Hof? This story reads like the author went on the weekend bender we have all gone on and came back to the elite world of all-to-important readers you, TNY, have curated, to say, “You guys ever heard of Wim Hof?” Like, that’s so fucking dumb. I can imagine all of you sonsabitches with your niche cocktails (made by a mixologist with a waxed moustache (moustache is spelled with a u; I would know as the 2009 World Champion Hungarian Moustache winner, you fucks) and suspenders) chatting about Wim fucking Hof at some hip speakeasy. Nothing against Wim. Dude’s on his own journey. And that journey looks NOTHING like the “literature” that you purport to publish. And if that is the point, to change that up with Wim Hof, that’s like a hipster bar in Seattle putting Sriracha on everything and the plebe’s lapping it up. You know how original dies? It gets overused by people who aren’t fucking original at all until it’s commonplace and fucking lame.
Fucking Wim Hof. Ugh.
Two, I’m sick of your basic two types of stories. The most overused one is some writer, likely in NYC, who is struggling with mundane fucking problems that 99.999% of people don’t care about because they have other more consequential shit to think about. And the other type is when you “slum” it. As you have done in this story. Just because you publish stories about the hospitality industry (or service, or retail, or poor Asian donut shop owners, or etc) doesn’t mean you understand them. It just pisses me off. Somehow, when you write about writers, you piss me off (I think it’s likely because of the banal shit they do and how they all seem to be academics, which, and I know you are reading this David and it might be a gross overgeneralization, but most academics…that’s not life experience; they are all still responsible for going out and living and getting expertise in living, like living), and when you write about non-writers, you piss me off (because, as in this story, you focus once again on banality). Maybe the authors you publish are incapable of imagining (or living) a vibrant life? Where’s the fucking ranch hand? Where’s the female archer who’s a hunting guide? Where’s the story about Darrel, the career pencil maker who secretly wants to marry his pet goat but Christ compels him not to (literally the carved wooden Christ on his wall says he can’t). I don’t know. Where’s the interesting shit? Why does literature have to be so fucking dry and the editing ensure that the “plot”, as it were, a nasty word that is often looked down on in literature, but is relevant, goes nowhere? Same rant, as always.
And my biggest beef is he didn’t stay in the room. And maybe that was the point of this “literature”. The “Hofian” test of will. Pffff. Fuck off. What’s gained by this? The tragedy of this man, so fixed on Wim’s bullshit that he isn’t actually living his life? Should we, rather, be Joris, the author’s weak attempt at a foil for the earnestness of the MC? Or should we look at his leaving the room as a lesson to us all to avoid the sins of man, the folly of existence, and instead ice ourselves out, become, as it were, perfect? Pointless all around. All fucking three. Because if you can’t ask yourself these fucking questions on your own and you need a TNY story to do so, then you’re derelict as a human.
You want to know which was the right choice? All of them. There are no fucking wrong answers in life. No one is watching. Death is going to happen. Mostly, there aren’t any long-term consequences. Also, none of them are the right choice. See? It’s that easy. So if every story of all time is really about all this existential bullshit, which is an argument that can be made (even so, I prefer connection/disconnection stories, existential nuclear mindfucks in their own right), then the story, aside from the “message” or “question”, should be fresh, clean, and add something to the canon that isn’t there. A perfect example is “The Indian Uprising” by Barthelme. Whatever you believe it’s about, I assure you, it’s already been written about, and there’s an opera about it, and there was a sculpture carved out of marble in 1257 B.C. (I don’t know the new terms and don’t care) that depicted it. But Barthelme brought something new in his fucking style, man. Fuck, my dude, I remember, and I’m paraphrasing here, reading a Bukowski line about a woman at the race track in a red dress, and he said to us, the reader, “you see that ass, she shits out of it, same as I do.” Tell me we all haven’t been telling that fucking story forever.
What I’m saying is that this literal iceman (as is his vocation) isn’t doing anything new. It’s just more beige shit from your beige-shit publication, but in this case it seems to be a toastpoint to bring some new kind of steak tartare (in the form of Wim Hof) to your elitist, ill-informed, dickbeater friends (or clitbeaters (or asexual Barbie & Ken bald, detailess, moundbeaters (I’m not a monster, all representation is appreciated))).
Just fucking do something. Take a fucking risk, goddamn it. Sometimes, and I stole this line, it feels good just to hear the gun go off.
Meanwhile, you pigfuckers, I want to die. As per usual. And I’m in Nashville. And your story has got me thinking that, yes, I am the problem. See, I think you publish for most people. And most people are, you know, good people but are likely beige themselves, choosing to drink life with the small glass that they were given. I have thrown out my glass and choose to drink from the firehouse (shoutout to UHF!). And it’s just not healthy. I think a lot about Van Gogh. I think he actually felt the world the way he painted it. And that’s agony, how beautiful it must have been. And my guess is that most don’t see shit like that, or feel it like that. And some that do, maybe they opt out. But fuck if I’m going to lay down and pre-die like you motherfuckers, walking around barely even touching this existence. I’d rather live each day wishing I was dead because the grandiosity, vibrancy, and richness of life is so beautiful that I can barely hold it, than to live like you, being so thankful that I’m alive but completely blind to the overwhelming external beauty, and so full of narcissism that I find my own reflection in everything, the only beauty I can see.
So I have to go now, because I was drunk and broke my phone the other night and had it fixed but it’s not really fixed. And then I’ll play pinball and drink. And hope to meet a “Lucy” or a “Sarah” or an “Elsa” who drinks from the same fucking firehose so that we can both get on the floating door in the North Atlantic, and avoid your Titanic sinking (or sinking Titanic; I’m good with either position (also, I’m good in a lot of positions, wink wink, so slide into my DMs (just kidding, I obviously am trash and don’t even have social media in which one could slide))).
What I’m saying is I have to make it through today.
And tomorrow.
And the day after that.
Because what I seek is seeking me. Or this too shall pass. Or pick some other cliche thing. There are reasons to be here. I might find one today.
I’m fucking rambling.
Whatever. See you next week, babycakes.
Nick
