January 11, 2005
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs! The World According to Chuck Klosterman
Welcome to our mid-week post-holiday blues, and, by the way, Happy fucking New Year and all that bull-caca!
Coming down from the aimless, unhurried daze of a long (and company-paid) winter break, we've hit upon a book to rescue us from the funk. The book is "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" and it is, as Dave Chappelle might say, "the bizzomb, bee-otch!"
Written by SPIN magazine scribe Chuck Klosterman, "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" (Scribner, 253 pages) itself isn't new (it was originally released in 2003), but it was recently published in paperback, which will make it all the more affordable to your average over-educated, semi-impoverished (yet iPod possessing) Los Feliz/Williamsburg uber-hipster.
What's more is that "Sex, Drugs" will make you laugh out loud, infuriate you (or mesmerize you) with its logic, or keenly entertain you with Klosterman's exacting observations on pop culture in its many forms. Quite likely, the book may do all these things to you simultaneously. But here is the key point, kids: "Sex, Drugs" is a damn fine read.
(Note: Links to interview, reviews, etc., after the jump.)
Subtitled "A Low Culture Manifesto (Now with a New Middle)," Klosterman's second book is a collection of 18 essays that wrap around a healthy polyphonic spree of American mass-culture output and phenoms--Star Wars, Saved by the Bell, amateur porn, tribute bands, The Sims, Pamela Andersen, the Lakers vs. Celtics rivalry, and the complete decade-long episodic corpus of MTV's The Real World series (in a spine-crushingly well-detailed analysis) are all given the treatment by Klosterman.
"Sex, Drugs" has won plenty of critical acclaim and fans, but the book and its author have also received their share of scorn and, in a particularly viscious review of "Sex, Drugs" by the NY Press' Mark Ames, outright hate.
We have some issues with Klosterman, too, but his essays are just too well written and funny to discount the book merely on the merit of his opinions. Even when provoking, Klosterman's prose snares you. And, at any rate, we find ourselves agreeing with many of his opinions.
Prior to penning music criticism for SPIN, Klosterman worked as a reporter for a newspaper in Ohio. But it was acclaim for his previous book, "Fargo Rock City," that got him noticed by the big league cultural cognoscenti. "Fargo," in a sentence fragment, is about loving heavy metal hair bands a la Guns 'n' Roses while coming of age in small town North Dakota. Klosterman published his telephone number in the book and people actually called him up to chat. Among the callers was musician/artist/former-Talking Head David Byrne.
The attention generated by the book eventually uprooted the writer from middle America (he is originally from North Dakota) and landed him in New York City with one of the plummest gigs in music journalism. In addition to writing for SPIN, Klosterman has written articles for various pubs, including the New York Times Magazine and Esquire, where he has a column called Chuck Klosterman's America.
RELATED LINKS
Q&A: Chuck Klosterman [Media Bistro]
Interview with Chuck Klosterman [Gothamist]
The infamous, vicious News & Columns review of "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" by Mark Ames [New York Press]
"Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" reviewed by Li Rapkin [Shotgun Reviews]
Posted by Robsam at January 11, 2005 10:37 PM
COMMENTS
Oh Good God -- someone is actually described as a "Los Feliz/Williamsburg uber-hipster."
Figures they would be a sucker for Klosterman's drivel.
Posted by: mm at August 20, 2005 12:09 AM
