Chuck Klosterman, Hugh MacLeod and the Culture of Culture

I've been trying to remember author Chuck Klosterman's name for a week now (sorry Chuck), as I was attempting to chronicle in my head all the wonderfully urbane treatises on modern culture I have read in recent years.  It finally came to me, albeit in pieces (first the Chuck, then two days later, the KIosterman) as I looked up another gem of inspiration - by gapingvoid.com blog author Hugh MacLeod, called Ignore Everybody: And 39 other Keys to Creativity.  Love this book.

For some reason that may be related to the wit and pop culture references of both authors, I was reminded of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. They are not exactly similar in subject matter.  Klosterman waxes not-so-poetic but with insight and a healthy sense of satire about popular culture like MTV's the Real World and other such generation-affecting media influences.  And MacLeod writes about ways to get your "big idea" out into the world without being tainted by the outside forces that always affect us when we're trying too hard.  Not even close to the same subject matter, and yet....

MacLeod and Klosterman both have a sort of "the world is ridiculous so be ridiculous in it on your own terms" sort of vibe, and while MacLeod is inspiring people to take their creativity to the next level, I personally am also inspired by Klosterman's form of genius.  Like a Seinfeldian book-about-nothing that is the creme brulee of dessert theories on Western culture's "finest" offerings - the Sims and cereal mascot wars among them.  His stream of consciousness rants on everything that inspired us as Gen X youth (despite the tired argument that Gen Xers are anything but inspired, Klosterman shows that the opposite is true, and that our healthy sense of irony is still intact even after surviving Saved by the Bell.

And as I visited Klosterman's (book publisher) web site, I saw that he put one one out in 2009 called Eating the Dinosaur, which is apparently about reality (or not) and the way the media and pop culture affect that reality (or don't).  Anyway, check out the page for yourself.  I'll be picking it up soon for sure.