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Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
Pop culture writer thinks things through to silly end
By Michael Hill
Associated Press
Published on Sunday, Nov 08, 2009
Chuck Klosterman has a theory. A lot of them, actually. He has a theory about why grunge rock icon Kurt Cobain was like the late cult leader David Koresh, why the read-option offense signifies something deep and meaningful about football, why ABBA will never reunite, and why Garth Brooks created that goofy alter ego a decade ago.
''I've spent an inordinate amount of time searching for the underrated value in ostensibly stupid things,'' Klosterman writes in this book of essays. So true.
Klosterman's trick is to use stupid-sounding subjects as grist for smart, funny essays. Klosterman, a former Beacon Journal reporter, has built a career on this, gaining early attention for defending '80s hair metal bands and later writing about popular culture for Spin and Esquire.
Klosterman performs literary high-wire acts with his essays: They're great when he succeeds but things hit with a thud when he missteps. He mostly succeeds in this book.
Klosterman has more insights per page than most cultural critics and he really does think these things through. His riff on the different ways major sports leagues market themselves is dead-on and funny. His quirky takes on laugh tracks and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's manifesto are worth reading. And while many people have written about the cultural impact of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, Klosterman is probably the first critic to compare it to Keith Richards' guitar playing and Snidely Whiplash's mustache. In the same sentence.
Klosterman is so entertaining that readers might gloss over his tendency to pepper his arguments with ridiculously broad statements and the occasional sophistry. Consider this assertion: ''People who follow politics closely cannot comprehend people who aren't partially lying.''
And his argument tying the late Nirvana frontman Cobain to infamous Branch Davidian sect leader Koresh based on some similarities in their personalities is clever, but silly. By his same rules, you could argue Cobain was like Bill Clinton (talented with strong appetites, peaked in the '90s) or Lindsay Lohan (brushes with trouble, long blonde hair).
Here's another comparison in the spirit of Klosterman: These essays are like guitar solos by his beloved Eddie Van Halen. They show exceptional talent and are original. They can soar and part of the fun is trying to guess where they'll end up. The difference is that Van Halen didn't record the occasional bum note.
Chuck Klosterman has a theory. A lot of them, actually. He has a theory about why grunge rock icon Kurt Cobain was like the late cult leader David Koresh, why the read-option offense signifies something deep and meaningful about football, why ABBA will never reunite, and why Garth Brooks created that goofy alter ego a decade ago.
''I've spent an inordinate amount of time searching for the underrated value in ostensibly stupid things,'' Klosterman writes in this book of essays. So true.
Klosterman's trick is to use stupid-sounding subjects as grist for smart, funny essays. Klosterman, a former Beacon Journal reporter, has built a career on this, gaining early attention for defending '80s hair metal bands and later writing about popular culture for Spin and Esquire.
Klosterman performs literary high-wire acts with his essays: They're great when he succeeds but things hit with a thud when he missteps. He mostly succeeds in this book.
Klosterman has more insights per page than most cultural critics and he really does think these things through. His riff on the different ways major sports leagues market themselves is dead-on and funny. His quirky takes on laugh tracks and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's manifesto are worth reading. And while many people have written about the cultural impact of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, Klosterman is probably the first critic to compare it to Keith Richards' guitar playing and Snidely Whiplash's mustache. In the same sentence.
Klosterman is so entertaining that readers might gloss over his tendency to pepper his arguments with ridiculously broad statements and the occasional sophistry. Consider this assertion: ''People who follow politics closely cannot comprehend people who aren't partially lying.''
And his argument tying the late Nirvana frontman Cobain to infamous Branch Davidian sect leader Koresh based on some similarities in their personalities is clever, but silly. By his same rules, you could argue Cobain was like Bill Clinton (talented with strong appetites, peaked in the '90s) or Lindsay Lohan (brushes with trouble, long blonde hair).
Here's another comparison in the spirit of Klosterman: These essays are like guitar solos by his beloved Eddie Van Halen. They show exceptional talent and are original. They can soar and part of the fun is trying to guess where they'll end up. The difference is that Van Halen didn't record the occasional bum note.
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