Fresh Klosterman here! Get your ice-cold Chuck Klosterman here!!

Klosterman is very hit or miss for me. It reads VERY overwritten most of the time, but I do think he also makes good points. If I could sort through the verbiage, I think I'd like him more.

 

For what feels like the umpteenth time on here, of course he isn't some savior or burning new intellect. I certainly don't think his stuff reads like he thinks he is, either.

He's a guy who carved out a nice little niche based on a simple quirk of deconstruction: That the text being analyzed really doesn't matter. So instead of teasing the inherent contradictions out of Keats, he does it to Nirvana records. And, in the process, people like to read what he has to say, so he's able to get paid for what he writes rather than having to teach freshman composition for the next 40 years.

Good for him.

 

There's more nobility in teaching English 20 to a bunch of hungover freshmen than there is deconstructing a goofy commercial from the 1980s. But, that's just me.

What some call niche-carving is what others might call a whore's skirt-lifting. Big Boy Chuck could use a lot of the same charm.

 

Which I guess is your perogative, but, to a deconstructionist, at least, the subject matter truly doesn't matter.

And one could argue -- and I certainly would -- that writing using those techniques with subject matter that might be of interest to someone not inclined to reading literary theory books might just open up some new ways of thinking to people who otherwise would not be exposed in any way to academic writing.

It's not like Derrida seminars are all the rage.

 

Zeke,

It's all bullshit bar talk. And he can't do it better than some of the funnier friends that we all have. They don't have a price, either.

Why do you think Simmons and him had their territorialistic little bitch fight not too long ago? Maybe it was all made up, but there's a lot to that. They're both fighting for the same very small hill, and neither has the ability to take a higher one.

 

His Esquire pieces lately haven't done much for me, but I love most of his sportswriting and espn.com stuff. Since they're often thrown together, I will too, and say Klosterman's sports articles make Simmons's pieces look absurd and amateurish. Yes, the pop culture stuff is similar, but Klosterman's just a superior writer. (maybe that's the thing: I really like his writing, but the thinking part of it can be a bit much)

Have also enjoyed all his books, though I don't know about reading his novel. I'm also a bit biased being that I hail from the same part of the world.

 

And what, pray tell, separates "bullshit bar talk" from "important writing"?

And, I don't know about you, but my friends most certainly have a price, and it's almost always another round.

Also, if I'm supposed to not like the guy, telling me he made fun of Bill Simmons probably isn't heading in the right direction.

 

Man, I just love these arguments over deconstructionism. Tell me more!

 

We're actually arguing over arguing about deconstruction. But I'll buy you a Miller if you agree with me.

 

I agree. And I'll be deconstructing some beer cans tomorrow in the parking lot of Tropicana Field.

 

Lacan and Lyotard ruined it for everybody with their North American Reunion Tour in '86. Once people heard they came out and did 35 minutes on infinite regress and then walked offstage without an encore, you couldn't give those tickets away. And it was acoustic. That, and they tore up too many hotel rooms.

 

Lacan. Now there was a guy who was full of shit.