The Computer Room

Somehow, we never posted this excellent episode. I think this might be the last episode that we recorded together before the hiatus. -- Default Friend

The birds are chirping, the Gchats are pinging, and Default Friend and the Personality Girl interview the inimitable Tao Lin. TPG and Tao talk glyphosate; DF mixes up Terence McKenna and Timothy Leary; the three reverse engineer themselves into accepting Traditionalism wholeheartedly.

In 2012, Tao Lin’s literature website, Muumuu House published a short story called “Adrien Brody.” Written by the pseudonymous Marie Calloway, it recounted a tryst between a 21-year-old woman and a much older writer (with a girlfriend) in the Brooklyn leftist/literary scene. As people began to speculate about the real identity behind the titular character, a fiery debate started: Was this art, or was this an over-glorified Tumblr entry? Even critics who sided with Calloway, who enjoyed her writing, didn’t evaluate the story for what it was: a piece of short fiction.

If you Google “Marie Calloway + Adrien Brody,” it’s easier to find critiques of the piece than the story itself. To this day, it seems as though Marie’s writing is fated to be overshadowed by the conversation around it.

On today’s episode we finally give “Adrien Brody” the credit it’s long deserved. Not as a political statement, not as a feminist act, not as an attempt at micro-fame, but as a work of confessional art that poignantly captured what it meant to sexually awaken in the early 2010s.

(We love you, Marie.)

Stories and articles referenced:

Adrien Brody by Marie Calloway

http://muumuuhouse.com/mc.fiction1.html

The New Bad Kids of Fiction by Stephen Marche

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a23000/marie-calloway-tao-lin/

Microfamed by Hamilton Nolan

https://gawker.com/5870033%2Fgirl-microfamed

The Oversharers Win

https://gawker.com/5849014/the-oversharers-win

The Personal-Essay Boom is Over by Jia Tolentino

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-personal-essay-boom-is-over

Inefficient Intimacy by Rob Horning

https://www.popmatters.com/horning050613-2496181839.html

Marie Calloway on Her New Novel and Being Called Jailbait by Lisa Carver

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wdpw59/marie-calloway

Theme: Precocious Young Miss Calloway by Momus

You follow him on Twitter. You've read his books. You've subscribed to his Substack. And now, you’ve seen him in the Thursday Styles section of The New York Times. Default Friend and the Personality Girl are stoked to welcome the inimitable Paul Skallas, aka the LindyMan, to After the Orgy, where they have a wide-ranging conversation about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, tech, strivers, Adderall, young adult literature, parenting, and everyone's favorite topic: women under 25.

Theme: Lindy by Kenny Chesney

Default Friend and the Personality Girl are joined by infamous playwright, director, screenwriter, and BYU alum Neil LaBute. Together they unpack the question, "What should you do if your boyfriend doesn't think you're a 10?"

Theme: Jim Jim Falls by Morrissey

In 2018, Harvard fellow Nimrod Reitman filed a lawsuit against NYU, alleging that his PhD advisor, academic superstar Avital Ronell, had sexually harassed him. The media painted the case as an inverted #MeToo, asking the question, "What happens when a feminist scholar is accused?" The truth, as it turned out, was much stranger than the clickbait headlines made it seem.

In 2014, Emma Sulkowicz rocked the art world with her senior thesis piece, "Carry That Weight." The piece proved to be a watershed moment in our national conversation about sexual assault.

But it's not every day that a college artist's performance art makes headlines like Emma's did. What was it about Manhattan under the Obama administration that made Emma, who would go on to be known simply as Mattress Girl, so easily heard?

In this episode, we discuss T. Kira Madden's short story "The Feels of Love," and Eliza Hittman's film It Felt like Love. What does love feel like when you're a teenager who's never been loved?

In this episode, we discuss BDSM, the appeal of James Spader and the sexy sociopath, the eroticism of male restraint, how we’re living in an anesthetized age, and Secretary—both Mary Gaitskill’s short story and Steven Shainberg’s film of the same name. 

We also mispronounce several words… can you spot them?

Default Friend and the Personality Girl talk about why they missed two weeks of episodes. DF gives a recap of all the parties she crashed at Founder’s Fund’s inaugural #MiamiTechWeek and the Personality Girl talks about how she met a famous podcaster at a *** ***** screening. They also get into a fight, which has been mostly edited out.

Do Kristen Roupenian's "Cat Person" and Tony Tulathimutte's "The Feminist" read the same in 2021? Default Friend and The Personality Girl have a wide ranging discussion on Kristen Roupenian's "Cat Person," her short story collection featuring "The Bad Boy," Tony Tulathimutte's "The Feminist,"and the inverse of the fuck boy.