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Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
by Chuck Klosterman

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/599.Sex_Drugs_and_Cocoa_Puffs_A_Low_Culture_Manifesto?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1157059726m/599.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/599.Sex_Drugs_and_Cocoa_Puffs_A_Low_Culture_Manifesto?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/375.Chuck_Klosterman">Chuck Klosterman</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/17336730?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>I enjoyed Chuck Klosterman’s "mix CD" of essays.  One of the quotes on the back cover of the books touts Klosterman as "sometimes exasperating but almost always engaging."  I couldn’t agree more.  As thought-provoking and incisively-reasoned as "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" is, it is also exasperating.  My primary criticism is that Klosterman seems to want to have it both ways in many of these essays – he wants to stand outside as the coolest, smartest, snarkiest observer (he is especially obsessed with the idea of 'authenticity' vs. 'irony'), yet is also clearly very much a part of, and a loving participant in, the things he profiles and discusses and trashes!  For instance, his essay about a rock and roll symposium roundly criticizes the participants as being hilariously nerdy, white, elitist, and antithetical to the whole notion of ROCK, yet he ever-so-casually mentions at the start of the essay what a good time he had at this convention.  After that briefest of admissions, the convention gets trashed.  But it’s clear in a careful reading that as much as Klosterman is making fun and pointing his acerbic, witty finger at these people, he is also very much indicting himself.  There is certainly nothing wrong with this, per se, but the taste it left in my mouth was…tricky.  Similarly, his essay on "Toby [Keith] vs. Moby" is ostensibly about the value of country music and the arrogant stupidity of people who proclaim that they like "all kinds of music except country."  (This is a topic particularly near and dear to my heart, as someone who likes all kinds of music INCLUDING country, and disdains those who summarily disdain all country music in the way Klosterman describes.)  Yet after setting up his thesis, Klosterman spends the remainder of the essay hitting country music with one backhanded compliment after another after another.  He, clearly, doesn’t like country music himself, and has tons of obliquely obnoxious things to say about the genre, at the same time as he is purportedly defending it from elitist detractors.  Boring!  I’m sure that this sort of irony-laden "text vs. meta-text" idea is very much up Chuck Klosterman’s personal alley, and I certainly acknowledge it creates an interesting conflict of authorial viewpoints, but it also feels like he is being a total holier-than-thou, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do-style jerk, for lack of better (or fewer) words.  I don’t think Klosterman would disagree with anyone who called him a jerk, and I don’t intend it as an indictment – only as a critical reservation I had towards the book itself: sometimes the "jerk factor" was overwhelming; most of the time he keeps it in check and allows his fascinating, obsessive connections to generate wonderful questions and insights.  My reservations, while probably detailed at too great a length in this review, are actually very minor.  On the whole I liked the book a great deal and was engrossed by his hyperverbal, hyperanalytical, hyperconnective analyses -- a thought-provoking, funny, and insightful book overall.
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/110449?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Martin's review
rating:
bookshelves: 2008books

I enjoyed Chuck Klosterman’s "mix CD" of essays. One of the quotes on the back cover of the books touts Klosterman as "sometimes exasperating but almost always engaging." I couldn’t agree more. As thought-provoking and incisively-reasoned as "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" is, it is also exasperating. My primary criticism is that Klosterman seems to want to have it both ways in many of these essays – he wants to stand outside as the coolest, smartest, snarkiest observer (he is especially obsessed with the idea of 'authenticity' vs. 'irony'), yet is also clearly very much a part of, and a loving participant in, the things he profiles and discusses and trashes! For instance, his essay about a rock and roll symposium roundly criticizes the participants as being hilariously nerdy, white, elitist, and antithetical to the whole notion of ROCK, yet he ever-so-casually mentions at the start of the essay what a good time he had at this convention. After t...more I enjoyed Chuck Klosterman’s "mix CD" of essays. One of the quotes on the back cover of the books touts Klosterman as "sometimes exasperating but almost always engaging." I couldn’t agree more. As thought-provoking and incisively-reasoned as "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" is, it is also exasperating. My primary criticism is that Klosterman seems to want to have it both ways in many of these essays – he wants to stand outside as the coolest, smartest, snarkiest observer (he is especially obsessed with the idea of 'authenticity' vs. 'irony'), yet is also clearly very much a part of, and a loving participant in, the things he profiles and discusses and trashes! For instance, his essay about a rock and roll symposium roundly criticizes the participants as being hilariously nerdy, white, elitist, and antithetical to the whole notion of ROCK, yet he ever-so-casually mentions at the start of the essay what a good time he had at this convention. After that briefest of admissions, the convention gets trashed. But it’s clear in a careful reading that as much as Klosterman is making fun and pointing his acerbic, witty finger at these people, he is also very much indicting himself. There is certainly nothing wrong with this, per se, but the taste it left in my mouth was…tricky. Similarly, his essay on "Toby [Keith] vs. Moby" is ostensibly about the value of country music and the arrogant stupidity of people who proclaim that they like "all kinds of music except country." (This is a topic particularly near and dear to my heart, as someone who likes all kinds of music INCLUDING country, and disdains those who summarily disdain all country music in the way Klosterman describes.) Yet after setting up his thesis, Klosterman spends the remainder of the essay hitting country music with one backhanded compliment after another after another. He, clearly, doesn’t like country music himself, and has tons of obliquely obnoxious things to say about the genre, at the same time as he is purportedly defending it from elitist detractors. Boring! I’m sure that this sort of irony-laden "text vs. meta-text" idea is very much up Chuck Klosterman’s personal alley, and I certainly acknowledge it creates an interesting conflict of authorial viewpoints, but it also feels like he is being a total holier-than-thou, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do-style jerk, for lack of better (or fewer) words. I don’t think Klosterman would disagree with anyone who called him a jerk, and I don’t intend it as an indictment – only as a critical reservation I had towards the book itself: sometimes the "jerk factor" was overwhelming; most of the time he keeps it in check and allows his fascinating, obsessive connections to generate wonderful questions and insights. My reservations, while probably detailed at too great a length in this review, are actually very minor. On the whole I liked the book a great deal and was engrossed by his hyperverbal, hyperanalytical, hyperconnective analyses -- a thought-provoking, funny, and insightful book overall....less

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