Classic or Dud: Chuck Klosterman

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The thing that works for Klosterman so well is his distinct writing voice. It sticks out in a crowd, just like any great columnist. People who think he's a critic have long missed the point. He's not even a great features writer in asmuch as his analysis is always paralyzed by his overly self-aware prose; his insight and reportage are always his weak, telling link. He works at Esquire for the same reason Junod does, and it's plenty fair to point out that a lot of well-regarded critics and writers have long coasted on the merits of their writing voice (and yeah, I'm talking to you Lester Bangs.) What remains amusing to me are the people who refuse to accept this, and why Klosterman continues to succeed at it.

To me, Chuck is sort of the original blogger with all the weight and depth that title deserves. In other words, I probably wouldn't ever print out a blog posting by Chuck, but I might save the link somewhere on my hard drive.

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 22:57 (6 years ago) Permalink

a lot of well-regarded critics and writers have long coasted on the merits of their writing voice (and yeah, I'm talking to you Lester Bangs.)

"I SEE DEAD CRITICS! AND THEY WON'T SHUT UP!"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 22:59 (6 years ago) Permalink

OG Bloggah!

― grady (grady), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 22:59 (6 years ago) Permalink

Fargo Blog City

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 23:01 (6 years ago) Permalink

I just read Killing Yourself to Live and noticed he says "supper" instead of dinner and also uses the word "ectomorph" more than once. Just saying.

― pinder (pinder), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 23:05 (6 years ago) Permalink

Maybe he's actually HP Lovecraft.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 23:06 (6 years ago) Permalink

the mention of ylt reminded me of this classic

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27870

― timmy tannin (pompous), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 23:39 (6 years ago) Permalink

I think Don's analysis is basically OTM. As much as I'm loath to admit it, Klosterman does have a distinctive, immediate and instantly-inviting authorial voice. He sidles up to you and puts his arm around you and starts whispering his kooky ideas in your ear before you have time to register what's happened. It may take a while before you realize that he's wasting your time.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 7 September 2006 00:17 (6 years ago) Permalink

It is so ILM to focus on Yo La Tengo being used as an example and exhausting that point.

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Thursday, 7 September 2006 00:36 (6 years ago) Permalink

most of the people i know who've read any klosterman let alone know who he is are on ILX!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 7 September 2006 01:07 (6 years ago) Permalink

He sidles up to you and puts his arm around you and starts whispering his kooky ideas in your ear before you have time to register what's happened.

now i'm kind of afraid.

It may take a while before you realize that he's wasting your time.

if by "a while" you mean "on average, three sentences," i guess you have a point.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 7 September 2006 01:15 (6 years ago) Permalink

and btw i wasn't kidding about kid a up there. klosterman fits perfectly into my theory about radiohead, wilco and the impotence of modern bourgeois liberalism.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 7 September 2006 01:16 (6 years ago) Permalink

One last Yo La Tengo comment, it sure seemed like ol' SPIN magazine was a lot more responsible for their big mid 90's rock-crit push than New Yorker, NPR, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's etc., but then I never read/listed to any of that shit when I was a kid.

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Thursday, 7 September 2006 01:21 (6 years ago) Permalink

read/listened*

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Thursday, 7 September 2006 01:22 (6 years ago) Permalink

"He sidles up to you and puts his arm around you and starts whispering his kooky ideas in your ear before you have time to register what's happened."

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 7 September 2006 01:23 (6 years ago) Permalink

x-post -- Read/fondled/self-abused/vomited

Fitter, happier, more populist

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 September 2006 01:23 (6 years ago) Permalink

The kind of person who loves Chuck Klosterman is probably no more in touch with "mainstream America" than the kind that reads the New Yorker (even ignoring any overlap).

I don't really believe in "mainstream America" anyway. I don't think there's such a thing.

-- A-ron Hubbard (Hurtingchie...), February 26th, 2000.

That was before 9/11 changed everything, apparently.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 7 September 2006 01:29 (6 years ago) Permalink

he has a new big book out! i had no idea. there is even fiction in it, i think. i saw it at the bookstore. i never go to the bookstore.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 7 September 2006 02:11 (6 years ago) Permalink

it's called chuck klosterman iv, which i admit is pretty funny.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 7 September 2006 02:18 (6 years ago) Permalink

I am trying to think of a female writer who reminds me of CK.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:49 (6 years ago) Permalink

The article above particularly annoys me. It seems like Klosterman's typical exaggerated sense of his own significance - I can almost picture him saying "Hey, you guys should do a story on how I just don't get all these people calling me 'the voice of a generation'!"

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:53 (6 years ago) Permalink

then he does a column on the story on how he doesn't get all these people calling him "the voice of a generation" it can be the centerpiece of a new collection of criticism of CK by CK...

you get my drift. he's the post-Cheerios version of those laughable hack newspaper columnists like Bob Greene (who wrote a book about Alice Cooper in the 70s). self-consciousness sells like sex.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:03 (6 years ago) Permalink

middlebrow postmodernism.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:08 (6 years ago) Permalink

Napoleon Klosterman

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:11 (6 years ago) Permalink

"CHUCK! COME WRITE SOME SPAM!"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:12 (6 years ago) Permalink

I don't get the impression that he takes himself nearly as seriously as a lot of people here do. I think he's just as surprised of his successful middlebrowsing as his detractors. He's certainly not a phony, hypocritical asshole on the level of, say, Michael Moore. Nor does he seem particularly cynical or exploitative of his middlebrowing, which is something that most hi-falutin' writers embrace once they start getting checks from the likes of Esquire.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:19 (6 years ago) Permalink

Oh come on, he's one of the worst cases of self-aggrandizing modesty I've ever seen.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:40 (6 years ago) Permalink

I don't get the impression that he takes himself nearly as seriously as a lot of people here do

I think the problem is that he doesn't take himself seriously enough, and indirectly, that he doesn't take his audience seriously either. If he did, then he would probably try to think through his ideas a little better. Instead I get the feeling that he looks for the "Klosterman angle" on a story - ie., the unconventional perspective that will hold up a sociological phenomenon at an unexpected angle - which will give him the element of surprise. And as long as audience disbelief can be suspended for the three or four pages that a Klosterman essay typically runs, he is satisfied with that. He's not really that serious about the issues he discusses, though he tries to come off as a cross between Malcolm Gladwell and Dave Barry.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:56 (6 years ago) Permalink

that beard is really working for him.

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 7 September 2006 16:15 (6 years ago) Permalink

indeed, the last two books were ghost-written by it

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 7 September 2006 16:17 (6 years ago) Permalink

Ha, I would like to read the Saved by the Bell thing.

I'll put the book in the mail tomorrow. :D

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 7 September 2006 16:19 (6 years ago) Permalink

I am trying to think of a female writer who reminds me of CK.

Oddly enough, all the examples I can think of are men's-magazine sex columnists.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 7 September 2006 16:21 (6 years ago) Permalink

OK, fine, Tiffani-Amber Thiessen didn't really blossom until she bought tits post-SBTB, but I can't believe no one was willing to stick up for Lark Voorhees' hotness. What is wrong with you people?

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Thursday, 7 September 2006 16:33 (6 years ago) Permalink

lark voorhees was the secret weapon that kept the male crowd coming back.

― gear (gear), Thursday, 7 September 2006 16:37 (6 years ago) Permalink

screech was the audience surrogate, then?

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 7 September 2006 16:40 (6 years ago) Permalink

Nate, maybe Klosterman doesn't take himself seriously enough, but that isn't the fault of his audience. Nor is it his fault that his audience doesn't. His audience shows up despite his lack of seriousness (and by seriousness, I think it's more about his barstool wisdom. Barstool wisdom being just that--sounds good in the bar, but never vets well the next morning.) I think he's a lot like Dave Barry in that regard, only not quite as dork-funny.

The more I think about it, there are a lot of music writers who possess a strong writing voice that yet don't really have that much to say. Jessica Hopper comes to mind.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 7 September 2006 16:43 (6 years ago) Permalink

what do people think of joe queenan these days? he fits somewhere in the barry/klosterman space-time continuum. except he hates low-brow stuff. he wrote a whole book about hating red lobster and riverdance. are they all the bastard sons of pj o'rourke? or george carlin? who will write the next sniglets? why IS rich hall so popular in the u.k.?

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 7 September 2006 17:02 (6 years ago) Permalink

i think the dean martin celebrity roast DVD infomercial that rich hall hosts is the greatest television program of all time!

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 7 September 2006 18:20 (6 years ago) Permalink

wait I meant rich little!

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 7 September 2006 18:26 (6 years ago) Permalink

i used to watch rich hall every morning on the david letterman show do the pitkinville farm report. when david letterman was on in the morning.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 7 September 2006 18:26 (6 years ago) Permalink

I loved Letterman's show in the morning. I still remember when he played the Peter Marshall Sings album.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 September 2006 18:27 (6 years ago) Permalink

I love Joe Queenan's two books of movie columns but haven't read his pop culture stuff. Should I bother?

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 7 September 2006 18:30 (6 years ago) Permalink

I remember seeing some article he did about the Stones in the NYT that was awful.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 7 September 2006 18:31 (6 years ago) Permalink

yeah, the movieline magazine movie articles were the best. i don't know if he ever did stuff as good as that again.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 7 September 2006 19:13 (6 years ago) Permalink

(He has more time for Loverboy and Sleater-Kinney than he does for Pearl Jam or Smashing Pumpkins or Fall Out Boy.)

I bet Chuck likes Fall Out Boy more than Sleater-Kinney. I know I do.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 7 September 2006 19:54 (6 years ago) Permalink

Actually I don't know what he thinks of FOB. MCR or Creed or someone then.

― Sundar (sundar), Thursday, 7 September 2006 21:01 (6 years ago) Permalink

they remind him of black oak arkansas, donna summer, and die kruezen

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 7 September 2006 21:10 (6 years ago) Permalink

2 weeks pass...

I ran across a new Chuck Klosterman book the other day. (Isn't this one of those writers they talk about on ILM?) At a skim (and I have no interest in pursuing any further), horrible.

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 10:53 (6 years ago) Permalink

To say one thing in his defense, I was flipping through Esquire and came across this little ditty he wrote called "Five Things No Bar Should Have," - I chuckled at it. I think his writing style is good for this sort of thing.

Five Things No Bar Should Have

By Chuck Klosterman

1. Natural light. Bars are supposed to be womblike sanctuaries, separate from the blinding bleakness of mainstream society. They should always be poorly lit, and they should not have windows. If I'm drinking at 3:00 P.M., the sun should not remind me what time it is.

2. Patrons who are reading. Darkness also discourages all the bozos who think people will be impressed if they're seen reading in a bar, which is as cool as being drunk at Barnes & Noble.

3. Loud music. There is a belief among many bar owners that loud music creates intimacy (which theoretically increases the possibility of romantic interplay, thereby prompting people to return) by forcing patrons to sit closer together and scream directly into one another's ears. Everybody hates this. I have never been in a bar where people complained about the music being too soft.

4. Dogs. Never bring your dog into a bar. Ever. They're not clean, and they make the place feel like a veterinarian's office. How is it that you can't have a lit cigarette in any bar in New York or L.A., but you can have a pit bull? I understand that cigarettes cause cancer; they do not, however, rip the faces off small children.

5. Twenty-two-year-old female bartenders who "just wanna party." I already have enough problems. That's why I came to the bar.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 12:44 (6 years ago) Permalink

1. He's ugly

2. He's can't be out pretensed

3. He's old

4. He's got no dawgs yo

5. all of the above

― PappaWheelie demands you to ''only pick any'' (PappaWheelie 2), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 15:03 (6 years ago) Permalink

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