Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century

by Chuck Klosterman

You know who knows me? My clothes. My clothes know me very well.

Tulsa makes Akron seem like Las Vegas (and I lived in Fargo, so I can say this).

Someday, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” will be part of the public domain, and filmmakers will use its opening riff to specify the ’90s in the same way we use “The Charleston” as shorthand for the ’20s. In a hundred years, it might be the only song from the ’90s the average American can recognize—the title and the artist will be lost, but its abstract sound will be emblematic of an era.