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Title: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs : A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman ISBN: 0-7432-3600-9 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.08 (26 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Sex, Drug and Cocoa Puff-a-rific
Comment: Yeah, that title pretty must covers it.
Klosterman's essays are chock full (and I hate to use this term) of Gen-X references to everything we've grown up loving.
Now, these aren't essays ON Saved by the Bell and Pamela Anderson, but rather, he uses cultural icons as a jumping off point for rambling, funny and (uh-oh) thought provoking discussions. Klosterman is the kind of guy that you would want to hang out with at a party. Look. You're either going to love this book or you're not. You're either to find the tangential, rambling essays endearing and interesting, or simply tangential and rambling.
So what kinds of subjects are you in for? How about the Tori Paradox in which Klosterman deconstructs the idea of Tori on Saved by the Bell? One season, after Tiffany Amber Thiessen and Elizabeth Berkley had left for more naked pastures, Tori shows up. And then, just before a graduation special that was to air on NBC, Tori was gone. And Kelly and Jessie were back. Klosterman argues that Saved by the Bell is a lot like life. First people are there, and then they're not - gone. Only to be forgotten and at the most, vaguely remember. Of course, Klosterman explains much better than me.
Just the pure assault of pop-cultural references was enough for me. It's not uncommon for Klosterman to reference such diverse items as the music of Radiohead, Who's the Boss and Trix cereal all in one essay. And I wouldn't be exalting his references if he was just throwing them out. They actually mean something to the people that grew up in the post-Boomer era...
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the year's best...
Comment: Chuck Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" is the 27th book I've read this year, and only Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" and Alison Burnett's "Christopher" rank higher in my list of delightful, insightful, brilliant books. I ask two things of books-- that they force me to stop everything I'm doing to finish them, and that they have something new about life to tell me. I am often disappointed on both counts.
"Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" is full of brilliant insights; the kind that you wish you had thought of first. The essays manage to be both focused and digressive at the same time, a trait that only the best writers can pull off. Klosterman is witty, bitter, and romantic at the same time, kind of like his alter ego, Woody Allen. (Or so he says in the first essay. I think he looks more like a Scandanavian Mike Mills.)
My 3 favorite essays in this collection are the first, where Klosterman presents us with an unavoidable truth: Generation X has been ruined by "fake love"; the second, which offers a brilliant analysis of just how fake(and influential) reality TV is; and the last, which confirms that I am not the only Gen Exer who has given serious thought to the worldview of Tim LaHaye. (That's the "Left Behind" author, for those of you who haven't.)
A great discovery; well worth the hardcover price.
Rating: 5
Summary: Lots of laughs from sex and drugs
Comment: This book is an excellent read. Chuck manages to say the things we've only before thought with humor and insight. He has hilarious thought-provoking "interludes" after each chapter which briefly talk about everything from his loathing of punk rock to cats who steal his socks. If you enjoy sociology, pop culture, and a good book, buy Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.
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Title: Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota by Chuck Klosterman ISBN: 0743406567 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 01 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste : A Lester Bangs Reader by JOHN MORTHLAND, LESTER BANGS ISBN: 0375713670 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 12 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Schott's Original Miscellany by Ben Schott ISBN: 1582343497 Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Pub. Date: 04 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung : The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock'N'Roll by Lester Bangs ISBN: 0679720456 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 12 September, 1988 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll by Gavin McInnes, Shane Smith, Suroosh Alvi, Suroosh Avi ISBN: 0446692816 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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