― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 1 September 2003 04:42 (twenty years ago) link
― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 1 September 2003 04:43 (twenty years ago) link
― dave q, Monday, 1 September 2003 07:18 (twenty years ago) link
Lester Bangs? Maybe not. But I'll take him.
― Chandler, Wednesday, 10 March 2004 21:36 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil, Thursday, 11 March 2004 02:58 (twenty years ago) link
― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 11 March 2004 03:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 11 March 2004 03:02 (twenty years ago) link
― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 11 March 2004 03:23 (twenty years ago) link
!
Uh, I'm with Mike on this one. But Stence, can you let me know how ya know?
Perhaps tellingly, today I was listening to Rush.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 11 March 2004 03:30 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil, Thursday, 11 March 2004 03:37 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 11 March 2004 04:01 (twenty years ago) link
― andrew s (andrew s), Thursday, 11 March 2004 04:06 (twenty years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 11 March 2004 04:09 (twenty years ago) link
― lovebug starski, Thursday, 11 March 2004 11:55 (twenty years ago) link
― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 11 March 2004 12:59 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 11 March 2004 13:58 (twenty years ago) link
― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 11 March 2004 14:49 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 11 March 2004 14:59 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 11 March 2004 15:29 (twenty years ago) link
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 11 March 2004 16:34 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 11 March 2004 17:05 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 11 March 2004 17:09 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 11 March 2004 17:12 (twenty years ago) link
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 11 March 2004 17:21 (twenty years ago) link
If you disagree with Atlas Shrugged, it basically means you disagree with the concept of “being great.”
what a douchebag.
― hstencil, Thursday, 11 March 2004 17:33 (twenty years ago) link
The Franzen reference is worse, though, because I think about how someone coming up to be saying something similarly negative about Loveless would just get a 'hey, that's fine' statement from me. Is my love for that album not justified in his eyes because I don't see fit to go into that ridiculous kind of defense he demands for his love objects? Fuck it.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 11 March 2004 17:43 (twenty years ago) link
Animal Farm by George Orwell (Signet, $8). No one has ever written something so brilliant, so concise, so insightful, and so charming all at the same time.
― hstencil, Thursday, 11 March 2004 17:52 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 11 March 2004 18:02 (twenty years ago) link
"Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" really feels like the thoughts of a guy who's spent a lot of time at the end of a couch watching too much tv, listening to the "cool rock" (and everything else) on the radio, and arguing with his roommate about ridiculous subjects that have no bearing on reality.
With that mindset, you end up ascribing a lot of personal importance to whatever's going on at the time, but you quickly end up realizing that it's going to be replaced by something else in short order. There's not really a strong sense of foundation or history, more about the here and now. Klosterman's sitting downstream from the guys who are idolizing the influential "greats" that stand the test of time, so he only ends up with the end product.
I'd imagine his writing has changed over the last few years, but that's my impression. Even the Rand thing fits in -- huge, romantic notions of greatness, without the thought that someone's probably already done all this and thought it through. It's all about the spectacle and the emotion.
― mike h. (mike h.), Friday, 13 August 2004 15:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Friday, 13 August 2004 16:15 (nineteen years ago) link
Its ironic, yes?
I enjoyed SD&CCP overall, the Ayn Rand thing makes sense but that's part of his sort of juvenile appeal I suppose. I think ppl in this thread are really making a bigger deal out of him than need be, as if he's TRYING to change the world or something. His self-deprecation is appreciated, he's wrong a lot but whatever. Its an enjoyable read, trashy and entertaining.
― djdee2005, Saturday, 14 August 2004 05:02 (nineteen years ago) link
― djdee2005, Saturday, 14 August 2004 05:06 (nineteen years ago) link
He managed to articulate my own fascination with "Saved By the Bell" very precisely. However I would say the worst essay in the collection is the piece toward the end about how Vanilla Sky is actually a "good" movie because well... actually it's not and in discussing cinematic discourse on the nature of reality Klosterman gets way off point. He doesn't seem to have a point in the essay other than not exactly sure why everyone hated the movie but him. If anyone else has read it, then they might possibly concur with me that Klosterman's enjoyment of the film is completely predicated on his own stated attraction to actress Penelope Cruz.
― herbert hebert (herbert hebert), Saturday, 14 August 2004 05:32 (nineteen years ago) link
Still, it's a shitty movie.
― djdee2005, Saturday, 14 August 2004 05:34 (nineteen years ago) link
Myself, I'd go for Diaz since she's livelier and exhibits far more 3 dimensional sexiness in personality than Cruz does in her wooden performance. Though, in her defense, Cruz doesn't really speak english and her getting cast in Hollywood films has more to do with the spread in maxim than because of her good performances in spanish-language films. Regardless of the geeky debate I'd like to have with Klosterman on the subject of diaz vs. cruz and their respective on screen hotness...it's a shitty movie.
― herbert hebert (herbert hebert), Saturday, 14 August 2004 05:50 (nineteen years ago) link
I haven't read "Fargo Rock City," which is what made his name, but I can appreciate that he gave voice to some kind of Midwestern its-only-rocknroll-buddilikeit populism. Fine. But the things of his I have read, magazine pieces here and there, just aren't interesting. That's his biggest problem. He introduces no new ideas, he traffics in watery received wisdom, and there's a prickly defensiveness underneath the golly-gee regular guyisms that makes him less likable than he thinks he is. I guess he shouldn't annoy me so much -- who really cares, right? More power to him for making a living at it.
Except that I can't help seeing some connection between his bogus, resentful anti-"elitism" and the bogus, resentful anti-"elitism" peddled by the Bush administration. Both seem calculated to appeal to people who want to be assured that it's OK not to know very much about anything, and to cast aspersions on knowledge itself. Which is maybe a heavy seabird to hang around the neck of Chuck fucking Klosterman, who's probably a Kerry Democrat for all I know and is certainly whole solar systems of magnitudes of malignance removed from Dick Cheney. But still, he annoys me.
― spittle (spittle), Saturday, 14 August 2004 05:53 (nineteen years ago) link
― herbert hebert (herbert hebert), Saturday, 14 August 2004 06:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― spittle (spittle), Saturday, 14 August 2004 06:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 14 August 2004 16:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 14 August 2004 16:55 (nineteen years ago) link
(This is the same sort of quick claim that either would debate endlessly, too.)
― mike h. (mike h.), Saturday, 14 August 2004 17:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 14 August 2004 17:28 (nineteen years ago) link
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/faceoff/040817/part1
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 15:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jesse Fuchs (Jesse Fuchs), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 16:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― cinniblount (James Blount), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 17:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― don carville weiner, Tuesday, 17 August 2004 17:07 (nineteen years ago) link
http://espn.go.com/i/magazine/new/simmons_klosterman_white.jpg
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 17:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 18:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 18:45 (nineteen years ago) link