Klosterman v Simmons

Posted on September 27, 2005 by Tito

Chuck and the Sports Guy swap emails:

Klosterman: I don’t see why it would be "honorable" to support anything unconditionally. That kind of thinking has been the source of almost every significant problem in the entire world, except for maybe the hurricanes.
Simmons: See, now you made it seem like I inadvertently defended the Bush presidency. You’re a devious man, Klosterman.

Of course, Klosterman chimes in on Killing Yourself To Live…

I don’t know … it’s just a predictably polarizing book, I suppose.
Some people truly loathe it, but the people who love it seem to love it
with an intensity I could have never possibly anticipated. In that
sense, I’m hoping that "Killing Yourself to Live" will end up being my
version of Weezer’s "Pinkerton" album. But who knows? It will probably
end up being my version of "Be Here Now" by Oasis. Either way, it was
really, really fun to write.

What does this mean for yours truly, who (at least at one time) counted Pinkerton as one of my favorite albums? I don’t know. But I’ll use my blogging of this as a literary device to remind all why you should hate me. True to form, BS finds the Celtics angle for this "interview"* and puts to CK

as a self-proclaimed Celtics fan in the ’80s, how could you ever snort
lines after what happened to Tony Montana and Lenny Bias? The Bias
debacle alone put the fear of God into me with coke for life.

Simmons at his best when talking about Boston sports. Breaking down society with CK…not so good. So I found my self skipping to the end to catch Klosterman pondering where he fits in the food chain of writers:

But it always seemed impossible to be influenced by people like Kafka
or Calvino or Salinger. That seemed completely beyond by ability. I
feel the same way about David Foster Wallace and Malcolm Gladwell — I
wish I could write with that kind of intellect or that kind of clarity,
but I’m just not sharp enough.

» Filed Under Drugs, Music, Sports

Comments

One Response to “Klosterman v Simmons”

  1. ed on September 29th, 2005 4:13 pm

    Tito: My copy of “Killing Yourself to Live” is yours if you truly want to go down that horrifying road. Let’s just say that Klosterman declaring himself “not sharp enough” is about as understated as pointing out that there are three rats running around in the kitchen and something should probably be done to take care of the problem.

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