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
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 18:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 18:52 (nineteen years ago) link
I bought it after reading an excerpt on The Real World that I loved, but in this thread a lot of people who's opinions I trust are really going to town with the Klosterman hate and I'm wondering if I shouldn't even waste my time with it.
Though this line of thinking:
I suppose my problem is that not only can't I understand why anyone would waste their time watching Saved by the Bell, I feel a degree of contempt for the way it seems Klosterman is determined to make this into a badge of honor. Probably also I do this sort of thing myself, and it seem there's a pretty strong element of defensiveness in his stance; criticism is instantaneously diverted because he already KNOWS it's "low culture."
-- daria g (daria_gra...), August 28th, 2003.
does not appeal to me at all.
― David Allen (David Allen), Sunday, 10 July 2005 15:17 (eighteen years ago) link
How large is your car?
― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Sunday, 10 July 2005 15:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 10 July 2005 15:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mike Dixn (Mike Dixon), Sunday, 10 July 2005 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Sunday, 10 July 2005 16:06 (eighteen years ago) link
-- latebloomer (posercore24...), March 11th, 2004.
I STAND BY THAT STATEMENT.
― latebloomer: the Clonus Horror (latebloomer), Sunday, 10 July 2005 16:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― latebloomer: the Clonus Horror (latebloomer), Sunday, 10 July 2005 16:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 10 July 2005 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 10 July 2005 20:31 (eighteen years ago) link
I read a chapter or so of his new book at the bookstore, I think it's a lot better than his previous efforts. Other than that, I stand by about everything I've said.
― mike h. (mike h.), Sunday, 10 July 2005 21:08 (eighteen years ago) link
i'll readily (and i'm sure he will too) admit he's no master writer, and i think that's 1/2 his appeal is to say up front- i'm not very good at this, but i'll try. and it works, for the most part.
i don't get all 'teh h@t3' on him...
now, if someone can tell me where Mark Leyner is, i'd be much appreciative.
― eedd, Sunday, 10 July 2005 21:13 (eighteen years ago) link
yikes! you really think so? or that he thinks this? i never got that from him. i only read his esquire column (or is it gq?), but i never got that vibe. he knows how to write for one thing. he has journalistic skills up the wazoo. i actually liked his val kilmer piece in the last gq (or was it esquire?) i could never write that kinda thing in a million years.
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 10 July 2005 21:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 10 July 2005 21:22 (eighteen years ago) link
i think he CAN write but, like scott said, gets bogged down in the 'insights' category. but, said 'insights' can be pretty funny, too!
i guess my thing is i don't get why so many dislike him SO much.hell, i'm shocked that this many people even cared he writes!
boy, that eggers boy can write!!
― eedd, Sunday, 10 July 2005 21:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― Machibuse '80 (ex machina), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― hank (hank s), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 19:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 19:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― timmy tannin (pompous), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 19:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― hank (hank s), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 20:17 (seventeen years ago) link
i rest my case against both klosterman and kid a. (i'll let espn classic slide.)
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 20:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― Sundar (sundar), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:14 (seventeen years ago) link
It's just that he's gotten there by -- at first -- playing a sort of critic, the culture critic for people who aren't super-engaged with culture or criticism. (That is populist, I guess; it's how Roepers are born.) And he has a lock on a core audience, and a lucrative one -- guys who read Maxim at their friends' houses but Details at home, these sort of regular-guy young professionals who watch sports and enjoy New Pornographers and are shopping for good plasma-screen TVs because they're buying condos with their girlfriends, and they play video games and genuinely like to think about stuff (just not all the time) and spend lots of time on Metacritic and ESPN.com and buy lots and lots of DVDs and liked The Matrix because of its "interesting philosophical underpinnings." The more highbrow among them will see Klosterman as a regular dude, like them; the less highbrow among them will see him as a kind of intellectual type, but palatable and down to earth about it.
And he serves that audience decently -- his big forte isn't being "clever" so much as being conversational and engaging and digestible. (He's also really good at magazine features, just in terms of craft -- entertaining, readable, vivid, etc.) But of course this means that those of us who pay attention to culture in what we think of as "serious" ways will have to be slightly offended by him, this guy who's taking fairly uninteresting culture-views and packaging them for people who aren't necessarily in our circle. It's hard to complain, though, especially as he travels away from being seen as any sort of "critic" and becomes basically just a columnist, which is the honest vision of what he's up to.
Seriously, though: the Roeper of ten years from now, basically.
― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:31 (seventeen years ago) link
that's the most sympathetic take on him that i can basically agree with. sometimes i feel bad for how much he irritates me because i sort of think he's probably not a bad guy. and you're right about his audience -- which is still a niche audience, but it's a lot bigger niche than someone like, say, kogan or your-favorite-critic-here appeals to. i have met klosterman fans, the kind of people who would stand in line for 40 minutes at a booksigning for him, and they're totally fine. i tell them i can't stand klosterman and they just kind of laugh, they don't get mad about it or anything. which just makes me feel worse for badmouthing him.
as a member of his generation, though, i would like to file a complaint with cnn.
xpost: his 'snakes on a plane' column made him sound like the andy rooney of this year.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:37 (seventeen years ago) link
"The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records. They haven't seen the films that are supposed to be important."
Or perhaps the problem is that Klosterman, a man who claims to be a writer about culture, has obviously never actually read the New Yorker or listened to NPR?
― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:46 (seventeen years ago) link
The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.
― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot (marmotwolof), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 21:51 (seventeen years ago) link