Chuck Klosterman
Chuck Klosterman
Charles John "Chuck" Klostermanis an American author and essayist who has written books and essays focused on American popular culture. He has been a columnist for Esquire and ESPN.com and wrote "The Ethicist" column for The New York Times Magazine. Klosterman is the author of eight books including two novels and the essay collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth5 June 1972
CountryUnited States of America
jobs growing-up book
I guess it really didn't even dawn on me that you could be a rock critic as a job until I was maybe almost out of college. I knew criticism existed. I read Rolling Stone and Spin. Siskel and Ebert were on television. But I had absolutely no idea how to get that kind of life. And moreover, it didn't interest me that much. I just sort of read normal books growing up. I wasn't that media-conscious. I felt like the one thing I was able to do was to listen to a record and decide whether I liked it.
order rocks criticism
All my friends are rock critics, so we talk about rock criticism a lot. Because of that, in order to be part of the conversation, you have to have an awareness of what the discussion is.
stars writing ideas
When I was a film critic, the reason I kind of found it disenchanting was because the things that I wanted to talk about were the ideas in the movie, the theme of it, and contextual elements that weren't necessarily central to the story. But the only thing people really wanted was a plot description and how many stars I'd give it. It didn't matter how much effort you put into writing a piece, they looked at it solely as a consumer's guide toward going or not going to films.
reading thinking ideas
People are more interested in reading bombastic ideas, whether they're positive or negative. Part of me has sort of lost interest in doing criticism because of that. I've always realized that criticism is basically autobiography. Obviously in my criticism, it's very clear that it's autobiography, but I think it's that way for everybody.
art writing different
Different critics go to different lengths to disagree with that sentiment, but ultimately, they're the person experiencing this art, and whatever judgment or taste they use is internal, and says more about them than about the record they're writing about.
technology generations faster
Every generation is more influenced by technology, which is always changing faster.
halloween way costumes
In some ways, Halloween is much easier for women. They can just dress as sluts, and it's kind of a costume, if they never do any other time.
civilization oil america
Cars are the most central thing in America, in a lot of ways. They've probably influenced the way we live more than anything else, and yet every really big problem - whether it's the environment or who dictates the international economy because of oil - is all tied to cars. Ultimately, cars are bad for civilization. I don't know if they'll end us.
real hate epidemics
I really hate being sick. It seems inevitable that at one point, one of these predicted epidemics is going to be real. So often they come up, and there's people like me that are freaked out, and the majority of people are just like, "You're being idiots, this happens every other year."
drinking mask pops
When I'm walking around, I'm usually drinking pop, so I can't have a mask on. That's why I couldn't be a surgeon.
ocean ideas feet
If you can't swim, the idea of being in nine feet of water is terrifying, much less the ocean.
teenager scary height
I was a teenager in the '80s - and maybe I'm wrong about this - but it seemed like a bad era for movies that were scary. It was really the height of movies that were disgusting.
america people devil
I used to watch a lot of documentaries about Satanic possession - and I don't know if this is racist or not - but in the documentaries, it never happened to Americans! It was always happening in Central America or South America; that's where the priest was always going down to exorcise possessed people. So I didn't have a lot of fear of being possessed by the devil.
people who-cares adults
As an adult, the only people who care about horror movies are academics. No one loves to talk about horror films more than somebody with a Ph.D. in cultural studies at a university.