What I've Read: Eating the Dinosaur

My summer of Klosterman is coming to an end. I have only one of his books remaining, and Eating the Dinosaur was his most recent so the topics are a little fresher and his opinions and theories more refined.

There are 13 essays in total in this book, and as is the case with all his previous essay collections they cut a wide swath across the pop culture landscape. There were three that really meant the most to me since I either wildly agreed with them long before I even read them (which was a weird feeling to have to read passages and themes that I've talked about with friends and others long before I ever heard the name Chuck Klosterman). I'm not claiming I had anything as complete and lucid as his notions, but we did have conversations about these things during long days and nights in the Kernel newsroom and also at 278 Rose Street Apt A during our college years.

ABBA 1, World 0 is a deep look into the Swedish disco band. For those who happened to be in Macon, Ga., back in 2001 may have been in the bar that Ellen Lord took me to where we all drank way too much and I may have been coerced by the promise of more free drinks if I participated in the karaoke session by singing ABBA's "Dancing Queen." I got those free drinks, and a loud ovation.

Through a Glass Blindly is an essay about the work of Alfred Hitchcock, but primarily his movie Rear Window, which is far and away my favorite of his films and I've watched it about 45 times at least. He takes a position about voyeurism and the concept of identity and truly being/feeling alone.

"Ha ha," he said. "Ha ha" is total dissection and beat-down of the use of laugh tracks in TV sitcoms. I found myself not so much laughing at his criticism as I was noticeably nodding my head when he was tearing apart the modern network sitcom for its inability to be creative and creating a modern society where we are trained to laugh at even the most inane and meaningless writing possible. I nodded along as I recalled all the sitcoms that I like ("30 Rock", "Parks and Rec", "The Office", "Community" and others that I love which, not coincidentally, are void of laugh tracks).

The rest of the book is filled with awesome essays about Kurt Cobain, the NFL, the Unabomber, Garth Brooks' career and others. I definitely suggest picking this one up. It's a good one.