i am alt lit

90.7 :: ‘our new york office’ by erik stinson

‘our new york office’ by erik stinson // cave agency, 2012*

90.7

really trying to figure out the ‘way we live now’
feel like most of my days are trying to figure out most of my days
have all these questions about the intersection of commerce and art and the internet
seems bleak; let’s be ‘real’
erik stinson steps into this space
forgot where i ‘first’ heard of erik stinson
think i heard that he and zachary german were ‘friends’
seems like i may have read this or that on ‘htmlg’

all of that ‘doesn’t matter’
b/c i really enjoy erik stinson
really enjoy this ‘criticism’
this is not ‘autobiographical fiction’
this is an analysis
these are carefully considered ‘observations’

then opinions given

feel like i understand the world more ‘clearly’ or something now

//

from ‘never go viral’

I work in Advertising and let me tell you: the only thing we want is
to “go viral.” It almost never happens. At least I am getting paid
to try. Working hard and producing a popular cultural product is the
opposite of going viral.

//
seems like i get ‘Nu Williamsburg’ now

seems like it is now the olympics held at disneyland

seems like artisanal froyo pours out of fire hydrants

seems like everyone’s ‘artistic’ fantasies are reflected back to them

like in an empty mirrored house

seems like that is the right name for williamsburg
some type of 90s visionary ‘schmaltz’

here are the adult kids wondering the williamsburg streets:

People come from the city, looking for something they
don’t understand. The bars fill with these people, who seem like
college students but are in their 30s with high-paying jobs: they are
confused, looking for sex or validation, but not really wanting to find
it. They are looking for a limited parody of the Williamsburg that came
before.

//
imo
we are overdue
for a proper
armpit analysis in web videos
//

very concerned about what it means to be an ‘artist’
in the world today
understanding that whatever vision there is now
it has been fully compromised

from ‘towards a new theory of creativity’

CREATIVE PEOPLE MUST KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING AND AT
THE SAME TIME ACTIVELY DISASSOCIATE FROM EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO GRASP
[THE NECESSARY REMNANTS OF WHAT WE STILL CALL] ORIGINALITY.

//
lot of corporatetalk in here
lot of adspeak in here
lot of ‘inevetibality’ in here
here are the q’s i have
who will feed branded medicine to the  corporationperson?
who will clean up after the corporationperson?
who will type up the doctor’s note for the corporationperson?
who will pay the medical bills of the corporationperson?

we all will

we’re doing it everyday #yolo

The middle layers of an American brand can settle down here for
decades.

*ed. note: seems like i emailed ‘cave agency’ about this essay collection several weeks ago, now having ‘trouble’ locating within the ‘erik stinson’ branded tumblr, see if you can find it, maybe i’m just ‘deliriously overlooking’ it. pls send ‘link’ if found to: @alt_lit