The Sigla Blog

In the introduction to his collection of essays, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto, Chuck Klosterman says the book is based on one premise: “Nothing can be appreciated in a vacuum” and he proves this by the sheer breadth of topics and themes he tackles. What we should all be asking ourselves, according to him, is what it means to alive, and he prefers to to shove the question through the meat-grinder of popular culture. Whether he´s talking about Guns ´n´ Roses tribute bands, snobbishness in musical taste or examinations of reality in cinema, Klosterman is hugely knowledgeable and always engaging. In these 18 essays, he has a habit of starting at one point and making constant detours to illustrate his take on things. More than anything, Klosterman is very funny. It’s an unrelenting avalanche of opinions, but he combines this with personal experience and anecdotes. In the opening chapter, he rails against the kind of fake love we see in films like When Harry Met Sally and thanks Woody Allen for making it possible for “nerdy, bespectacled goofballs” (like him) to sleep with beautiful women by fabricating “the illusion of intellectual humour”. So even though this a book of consumerist rants, it’s generously sprinkled with nuggets of self-deprecation.

One of Klosterman´s obsessions is with serial killers. In an essay entitled ´This is Zodiac Speaking’, which deals with the kind of coincidence worthy of Paul Auster, he tells us how three people he has encountered have respectively known Jeffrey Dahmer, a Seattle woman-killer and John Wayne Gacy. The man who knew Gacy has one of his paintings, (of Elvis) hanging in his home. This act prompts Klosterman to conclude that Gacy has attained a twisted kind of celebrity - and draws an astute parallel between America boasting the largest number of serial killers in the world and being the most celebrity-fixated country.

The book is laid out like an album tracklisting, and like a mix CD, we´re presented with very idiosyncratic choices. Separating each each essay, are interludes; pithy observations about everything from Johnny Cash to The Fonz and reality TV. Sardonic and witty, it does Klosterman a disservice to pitch him as an intellectual clown. In one interlude he relates how victims of the Oklahoma bombing are represented in a newspaper breakdown, with one description alloted to each name. With an air of poignancy, he concludes that “beyond your closest friends, you can probably describe everyone you know with one sentence.” Klosterman also has a canny descriptive ability. He reveals how an article came about while he was suffering a severe stomach bug that “felt like the Neptunes had remixed my digestive tract, severely pumping up the bass.”

Klosterman used to work as a film reviewer and the chapters in the book about cinema are the most absorbing. Titanic is “designed for audiences who don’t really like movies”; Star Wars is over-rated - except The Empire Strikes Back where he says Luke Skywalker is the first Generation Xer because he’s “whiny… and over-educated in things that have little practical value”) - and Sci-Fi is “philosophy for stupid people”. In a brilliant piece called ‘The Awe-Inspiring Beauty of Tom Cruise’s Shattered, Troll-like Face’ he examines versions of reality through films like Memento, Vanilla Sky and The Matrix. Using a kaleidoscope of pop culture references the former Spin and Esquire writer examines the times we live in. In ´Ten Seconds to Love´, he takes the Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee sex tape as a starting point to rail against our obsession with physical perfection. A regular sportswriter, he compares the rivalry between the basketball teams the LA Lakers and the Boston Celtics to issues of race and politics in contemporary America.

On the back cover of the book is a the PR sound-byte that compares Klosterman to “Nick Hornby and Douglas Coupland… but he´s a more tenacious critic than either”. He’s far toothier than both and if the quote wasn´t from an American newspaper, the critic might have compared him to Charlie Brooker. Klosterman´s pronouncements cover much of the same turf that Brooker does, with the same misanthropic tone and just as many laughs.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto is published by Faber.