Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
by Chuck Klosterman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Chuck KlostermanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-06-22
ISBN: 0743236017
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Scribner
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780743236010
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
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Book Reviews of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
Book Review: Entertaining, Yeah, But Not Enduring
Summary: 4 Stars
Manifesto? No. Essay collection? Yes. Can one tread the razor's edge between ironically tragic and tragically ironic, and manage to say something concrete and memorable? Can one deliver profound insight into Life and living by extensive deconstruction of lame TV shows, vapid celebrities, and the way the rest of Idiot America so desperately, needily relates? This seems to be Klosterman's game here, but he doesn't really walk that edge; he just keeps hopping back and forth across it. The conclusion of the foreword clues you in: "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What really matters is that nothing is ever `in and of itself.'"
Okaaaay, so jump on in.
It's something when a book can make me actually laugh out loud, and Klosterman's book did that about a half-dozen times, like when he asks if two titles in the born-again-Christian/Armageddon "Left Behind" series, The Destroyer is Unleashed and The Beast Takes Possession were Ronnie James Dio albums. I'll give him that much: when he's rolling, he can write some really funny and entertaining stuff, absolutely hilarious. That being said, within a couple of weeks of finishing this book I was struggling to remember what it was all about. I remember an essay about The Sims, ruminations on porn and the Internet, extended dialogs on Saved By the Bell and a chance Olympia, Washington (just screaming Sleater-Kinney) encounter with a serial killer, and some stuff about dating and working and scratching a living as a defiant Gen-X slacker, but that's about it.
Other reviews have called his essay subjects "stupid," but I'd argue that "inventive" probably would be a more accurate description. He's a serious geek who's totally gay for Star Wars, porn, basketball, reality TV, movies and music, but he's also a guy who doesn't just sit and bob his head; he's got that thinking thing going on, too. That comes through in the rambling and ultimately self-contradictory and confusing--yet thoroughly fun to read--essay on the true musical genius of Billy Joel, where somehow Serpico, Steely Dan, Patrick Henry, the Clash, the suckiness of the Eagles, World War II, the Sex Pistols, the Carter administration's relationship to Born to Run, Elvis Costello, Randy Newman, Catch-22, and Raymond Carver all orbit cosmically around the Piano Man. And that's just 12 pages of riffing. Later we're informed that Pamela Anderson is the "most crucial woman of her generation," and it takes another 12 pages of extended footnoted dissection to attempt to make it all clear.
Klosterman is at his best when he lets his own personal details slide into the cultural riffs, when he contextualizes his wide-ranging abstracts with concrete examples of where he's gone, what he's done and seen, and what he truly thinks about the issue at hand. The best parts were his admissions of failure, his admissions of lying and deceit when it comes to women, how most of the pieces he wrote as a movie reviewer were so soundly rejected because they offered insight and analysis, more than a shallow synopsis and a formulaic thumbs up/down. These aren't raw, juicy secrets, just simple personal admissions of failure and disillusion, and I found it to be the most connective writing in the entire book.
My absolute favorite part of the book is the list of 23 questions Klosterman has devised to test "whether (he) can really love" someone. These are great ice-breakers, and good for use in the office as well. They're definitely a way to get to know someone, if they answer truthfully. My only disappointment here was that he offered no answers from either himself or others.
There are some little things in this book that did endear Klosterman to me: The table of contents has a credits listing just like album liner notes. He actually uses footnotes for intellectually relevant portions of his discussions, and just for fun, too (man, that comes in handy for that painful The Real World narrative). And there's actually an index! This is a brilliant addition, a perfect intellectual counterpoint to the footnotes, but the editorial execution is sloppy; there are tons of names listed in the book which do not make it to the index.
Bottom line: If you're older than 45, most likely you're just not going to get it, period. The references that make up Klosterman's cosmology will be a complete mystery. If you're looking for organized, linear, straightforward media and pop-culture analysis, then Klosterman's scattershot, jump-cut, ADHD approach will infuriate you. But, if you're plugged in to TV and music and mainstream American media, and you are able to think past next week's "American Idol" to questions of what it all means and where all this is headed and what it's doing to us as a society, then this book will resonate with you, and you'll enjoy it, as I did.
Summary of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman. With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an almost effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges (of which there is none). And don't even get him started on his love life and the whole Harry-Met-Sally situation.Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane -- usually all at once. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about art, entertainment, infotainment, sports, politics, and kittens, but -- really -- it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'" Read to believe.
There's quite a bit of intelligent analysis and thought-provoking insight packed into the pages of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, which is a little surprising considering how darn stupid most of Klosterman's subject matter actually is. Klosterman, one of the few members of the so-called "Generation X" to proudly embrace that label and the stereotypical image of disaffected slackers that often accompanies it, takes the reader on a witty and highly entertaining tour through portions of pop culture not usually subjected to analysis and presents his thoughts on Saved by the Bell, Billy Joel, amateur porn, MTV's The Real World, and much more. It would be easy in dealing with such subject matter to simply pile on some undergraduate level deconstruction, make a few jokes, and have yourself a clever little book. But Klosterman goes deeper than that, often employing his own life spent as a member of the lowbrow target demographic to measure the cultural impact of his subjects. While the book never quite lives up to the use of the word "manifesto" in the title (it's really more of a survey mixed with elements of memoir), there is much here to entertain and illuminate, particularly passages on the psychoses and motivations of breakfast cereal mascots, the difference between Celtic fans and Laker fans, and The Empire Strikes Back. Sections on a Guns n' Roses tribute band, The Sims, and soccer feel more like magazine pieces included to fill space than part of a cohesive whole. But when you're talking about a book based on a section of cultural history so reliant on a lack of attention span, even the incongruities feel somehow appropriate. --John Moe
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