A friend—it was Tao Lin—recently recommended Sam Pink‘s lean new novel Person to me as a book he read in a “single-sitting.” Tao said it was “Hunger-like, but more readable.” I thought was an intriguing but odd statement, like many of the statements Tao will make. Hunger, a very existential and also very funny novel about a starving writer who becomes increasingly psychologically unhinged, is one of my favorite books, written by one of my favorite authors, the Norwegian writer (and Nobel Laureate) Knut Hamsun; however, it could hardly be argued that Hunger is unreadable, or even particularly difficult reading. Hunger is written in a very colloquial, engaging, unsyntactically complex first-person style. And yet, now that I’ve read Person, I would have to say Tao is right. Person is, indeed, even more colloquial and unsyntactically complex than Hunger—and just about as engaging.
Person is about a bad-smelling guy who lives in Chicago with a needy roommate. He has sex with his downstairs neighborhood; he drives to City Hall to pay the light bill; he applies to jobs bagging groceries that require, to his surprise, three separate interviews.
I do not think it’s entirely coincidental that I read a substantial portion of this novel between the hours of 2-5am the other night. It’s a compulsive page-turner, tracking the thoughts and actions of a compulsive mind. When I finished reading it, I felt several simultaneous impulses: I wanted to work on my own writing; I wanted to masturbate; I wanted to brush my teeth; and then I wanted to tell Sam Pink about feeling these simultaneous impulses. There’s something infectious, I think, about the honesty of the book, in how it relates the sometimes unflattering aspects of what goes on in a person’s daily life.
Among the things Sam Pink and I discussed were computers with crunchy keys, dudes who work at tattoo parlors, Glenn Beck in a “humanizing” situation, a “severe yet readable” editing style, and how boxing is a lot like writing. This interview was conducted last week over Gchat, over two separate sessions, each lasting around an hour. Typographical errors and punctuation (or lack thereof) have been kept intact and only minimally edited. Timestamps were removed for the ease of readability.
—James Yeh
I. “GETTING A TATTOO AT A TATTOO SHOP IS SEEMINGLY LOW-LEVEL HARDCORE.”
(first interview, 11/6/10, 2:59pm-4:20pm)
THE FASTER TIMES: Hi Sam
SAM PINK: hey man
TFT: how’s it going?
SAM PINK: i’m good man, i’m drinking instant coffee
TFT: nice. coffee is good. i was intending on drinking coffee while interview you, but i wasn’t able to get to the coffee shop in time
SAM PINK: yeah this coffee tastes kind of shitty but it’s ok. i borrowed a better computer so hopefully it won’t crash
my computer sucks
TFT: damn. yeah, i read something about your computer on the internet. you spilled a cup of iced tea or something in it?
and now it types badly?
SAM PINK: damn man
yeah
the keys are all crunchy
TFT: that seems like, lo-fi, or something
like how some bands record with 4-tracks
SAM PINK: yeah plus, sometimes, pressing one key activates the key two keys over
hell yeah
TFT: do you feel like this affects how you write?
SAM PINK: in some way maybe yes
in that
i feel comfortable on old, used things
like if i was typing on a really nice computer
it might make me feel uncomfortable
like a new sweater
TFT: i can see that
itchy
kind of stiff
SAM PINK: yeah but it’s cool, i got microsoft word like, 97 maybe, and ms paint
and minesweeper
TFT: do you play minesweeper often?
SAM PINK: not nearly enough
TFT: what kind of computer are you borrowing
SAM PINK: it’s an hp
probably still really behind but way nicer than mine
i think there is actually still the spill streak on my screen from the iced tea
fucking champion
TFT: jesus
i get really anal about my computer. like, i wash my hands a lot over the course of a few hours of using it, and like, make sure i’m not eating anything sticky
it’s like the opposite of what you just said
SAM PINK: that’s probably for the best, sometimes i’ll have a huge cup of something and purposely bring it to my mouth over the keys, almost like, to challenge myself
we’re just like the odd couple
TFT: ha, yeah, man
i’ve never really asked somebody about the way they use their computer, but it seems very interesting, as far as learning things about them.
maybe it’ll become my “thing”
SAM PINK: it seems relevant
TFT: yeah, like next to eating
which is something else i enjoy asking people about
eating, using the computer, using the bathroom i guess. the essentials. but you can’t really ask somebody about their bathroom habits, not in america at least. maybe you can do it in europe or something
SAM PINK: i sometimes eat a abanana in the shower, or have coffee
TFT: damn. do you just hold the mug out and wash yourself with one hand?
then, like, switch hands?
SAM PINK: yeah you have to be on the fringe of the showerhead’s range
usually i drink the coffee post-washing
just stand there thinking and staring
TFT: what do you find yourself thinking about
SAM PINK: it depends
a lot of times i will find myself “coming to” after a long train of thought
like i find myself becoming conscious again at the end of some long thought
TFT: it said you were typing something but then you stopped
SAM PINK: i was going to mention something about singing/neurotic things
TFT: heh, you should mention those
if it’s really stupid we could just like edit it out
SAM PINK: like, i will sing songs i’ve made up, or i do a lot of air drumming fills, or just sounds that i have made up somehow
TFT: lol
SAM PINK: a lot of blast beat drum fills
TFT: nice
do you listen to music while you are in the shower, or is it silent?
SAM PINK: it’s silent
sometimes i have the window open and i listren to the people downstairs on their deck
TFT: what are they usually doing
SAM PINK: i think they own a tattoo shop nearby
i’ve been planning on like, offering to sweep their shop or something, in exchange for free tattoos
TFT: do you have any tattoos
also, do you think they’ll take you up on your offer
SAM PINK: yeah, i have a flower tatooed over my elbow (i got this while on acid in high school), and my old dog’s name tattooed on my leg (because i went to the parlor with someone who was getting his girlfriend’s name tatooed on his leg and i was mocking his bad idea) and then i have a few tattooes that i gave myself with a gun i stole
as for them taking up my offer
i’m not sure
most tattoo parlor owners seem like assholes
the girls are usually nice and sweet
but the guys have some kind of weird ego thing
like, “i can draw a fucking skull with a snake in it, i’m awesome”
TFT: heh
but surely it must go deeper than that, right?
SAM PINK: the ego thing?
TFT: yeah, maybe
like, “i can draw a fucking skull with an intricately detailed snake in it, which represents, like, discord, i’m awesome”
i don’t know
SAM PINK: yes, and also
i think a lot of them feel insecure about other people maybe thinking they “aren’t real artists”
TFT: i haven’t been in many tattoo parlors. but amongst people who are, like, really into things like that, there also seems to be that toughness/competitive aspect. like, who is more hardcore about it, who is more impervious to pain, weakness, etc; basically who is beyond death
SAM PINK: yeah, that’s funny because getting a tattoo at a tattoo shop is seemingly low-level hardcore
like, it’s definitely behind like, “fighting a dog with your bare hands”
et cetera
TFT: heh
do you find yourself thinking about things that are “hardcore,” or the idea of “hardcore”?
SAM PINK: not sure
i think i would have to understand what other people mean by that, and then my thoughts wouldn’t be too genuine
i have realized that mentioning my thoughts to new people will alienate them
it has happened many many times
where i try to be honest and genuine and it just alienates people
TFT: it’s tough not to alienate people
when being honest
or if you just talk a lot
and have, like, any opinions
i was talking to my sister last night on the phone and she said how she voted “mostly republican” yesterday
i felt alienated
it occurs to me now, also, that maybe i should have asked her “what’s mostly.” because wonder if she voted “all republican,” but just didn’t want to tell me because she already knows how i feel about that
SAM PINK: yeah
like
i’ve been trying lately
to be ok with the alienation
like to always be ok with whatever happens
not sure if i am getting at what i am feeling
but like
just trying to get past the small shit that makes people get angry at each other
like, “i’ll be myself and you be yourself and we’ll see what happens but what happens is always ok”
TFT: have you been doing this with strangers as well as friends?
SAM PINK: yeah man, it feels more like, free, to just be welcoming to strangers too
if i am myself around a stranger, and that person does not accept me, then i have learned something, not lost something
i feel more and more able to calmly accept those things and not reject them
TFT: that seems good
it seems like ‘person’ is a little bit about that.
like a lot about that
actually
SAM PINK: yeah i can see that
TFT: (not to put it in a box or anything)
SAM PINK: like, becoming more and more concentrated on living as a single person in a single life of many small moments
single meaning individual, not “without girlfriend”
II. “I THINK ABOUT AN ACTOR WHO PLAYS LIKE, SUB ZERO IN THE MORTAL KOMBAT MOVIE, AND LIKE HE’S IN HIS TRAILER JUST SITTING THERE READING A NEWSPAPER WITH THE COSTUME ON.”
TFT: that reminds of something i wanted to ask you about. the book, itself, is composed of many small moments as well. if i’m not mistaken, every paragraph is made up of a single sentence. could you tell me more about that? why did you choose to do it that way?
SAM PINK: i think the first time i encountered the single sentence as a paragraph thing was with “thus spoke zarathustra”
and i liked it
because it seemed to be like
a way of making every sentence complete and important i guess
then the next person to do that, that i noticed
was noah cicero
and the result was something nice to me
but i didn’t plan on making person like that
until i started editing it
and then it made sense to me to put each line alone to like, test it, i guess. because i wanted it to be edited in a severe yet readable way
and that made the most sense
it’s also, to me, like how thinking really seems,
always one thing after the other
and lastly, to be honest, i don’t know how to make a real paragraph
a lot of what i end up doing is because i am making up rules/ways of doing things
TFT: that makes sense. i hadn’t thought of “thus spoke zarathustra” while reading your book. i actually thought more of “hunger” (i guess due to the literal nature of your author considering voluntarily starving to death) and of david markson’s stuff, which also employs the single sentence paragraph form
SAM PINK: yeah i really like that form
i like to really think hard about whether each word/sentence/section works
TFT: yeah, i like doing that too. you write poems too, right?
SAM PINK: uh yeah
not sure what people would call them, but poem seems to be ok
TFT: heh
who are some of the poets you like
or have been reading lately
or finding “good for you”?
SAM PINK: i don’t read a lot of poetry. but i think the way that i write poems is influenced by archie ammons. not in terms of the things i’m saying, but more like, when i read all his books, it was nice to see someone just talking. like, he writes really long poems that almost read like a rambling message on an answering machine and i liked that. i also really really like “paradise lost.”
TFT: heh
that seems like the two poles of poetry
SAM PINK: yeah man
i dont know what it is about paradise lost but it seems awesome to me
i read paradise regained too
that was cool
there was the part where satan tempts jesus
and i like “the war in heaven” in paradise lost
TFT: epic
i just thought “epic”
SAM PINK: when i think “the war in heaven” i think “mortal kombat”
or something similiar
like how the guy used to say, “mortal kombat” in the commercials
TFT: ha
yeah, that voice
i don’t even know how to describe it
it’s like he’s so serious about it, he has something in his throat, but even that won’t stop him
SAM PINK: for some reason i can’t help but imagine that guy in the sound booth recording that sound bite, or like, ordering food at a mc donalds in that voice
or scolding his pet
TFT: that reminds me of, for some reason, this david shrigley comic of an executioner (black hood and axe). he does his job–executing–then gets on the bus, then goes home, then walks his dog.
SAM PINK: yeah i do that with a lot of shit. like i think about an actor who plays like, sub zero in the mortal kombat movie, and like he’s in his trailer just sitting there reading a newspaper with the costume on
seems insane
TFT: lol
yeah, exotic people in normal context seems, pretty much, infinitely interesting/absurd to me
exotic meaning like, people who are doing things that most people aren’t able to do, not like, people who live in place with a vastly different culture, or like, strippers
SAM PINK: sometimes that makes me feel good, to remember that everyone is a human. it sounds weird but that’s an easy thing for me to forget. like, when i see a homeless guy on the street, or some girl on the street or whatever
TFT: a lot of life, it seems, is designed to make us all forget
SAM PINK: like if someone is being mean to you, just imagine that person as a four year old awake at night hoping to get a nice present for their birthday and you will like them more
TFT: do you find yourself having to do that a lot, imagining the other person in a humanizing situation?
SAM PINK: i think it helps
because i can either be really nice and caring or a complete emotionless asshole
TFT: yeah. a friend once said, of an email i wrote, that i was “alternately too nice and too aggressive”
i guess that’s not the same as being emotionless
but i was still being maybe an asshole
SAM PINK: yeah you can be aggressively nice, maybe
like, getting up in someone’s face, pushing them, and saying, “hey i like you let’s be friends, nice shoes”
TFT: pushy friendshiop
*friendship
man, i’m really enjoying this conversation. would you be into talking, for a short time another day? i feel like i should ask you other stuff about your book maybe, but i would also like to talk about, just random human stuff too
SAM PINK: sure man
the book was ghost written by glenn beck anyway
TFT: cool. i need to get out of my house by a certain time everyday, or else i get pretty fucked up feeling
that fucker
he cries too much though, to have ghostwritten your book. the narrator says he “cries only once a year now”
glenn beck would have been like “i cry only once a day now”
SAM PINK: he also would never take the subway
TFT: heh
fighting the impulse to imagine glenn beck in a “humanizing” situation
SAM PINK: making a grilled cheese and singing to his cat
TFT: or standing in line at the drugstore
and like somebody saying something mean to him
and him just feeling bad
and confused
SAM PINK: “am i really that awful?”
—
Interview continued on Page 2.
James Yeh
James Yeh (b. 1982) is a writer, editor, and occasional DJ. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in NOON, PEN America, Vice, The Rumpus, and the anthology 30 Under 30 (Starcherone Books, 2011). A founding ...
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Glenn Beck, Hunger, James Yeh, Knut Hamsun, Lazy Fascist Press, Noah Cicero, Person, sam pink
