What I’ve Been Reading - Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs/Master of Reality

March 2, 2010

What I’ve Read:
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
Master of Reality by John Darnielle

Though I’d like to claim differently, pop culture is not my forte. I say this with caution – the last thing I need is a billion more useless references clouding up my head – but with certainty: I don’t want to use pop culture (as in, drop canny comparisons on unsuspecting friends) as much as I simply want to understand the joke.

I just don’t know that much about pop culture. I mean, I get the grand schemes. I understand the obvious jokes, and when it comes to music and Web memes and certain genres of television and film, I can hold my own. (And don’t get me started on professional wrestling, 90s video game culture or The Beatles/Pink Floyd. Seriously. You don’t have enough time.) Overall, I’d say I only get about 50% of pop culture references*.

So, when Bill Simmons talks at length about Hoosiers and Jersey Shore and The Bachelor and early 80s butt-rock videos, I’m at a loss. My frames of reference don’t fit. They’re barely even sturdy enough to hold glass, let alone a free exchange of chuckles.

This is the mindset I brought into Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, a self-proclaimed “low culture manifesto,” though – let’s be honest, here – the book’s filled with enough high-minded theories to make a stoned group of film majors giddy with argument. These essays aren’t low culture in thought as much as they use pop culture as a vehicle for explaining human nature.

I, for one, enjoyed it. But I fear not as much as most of my friends would.

The essays take the standard “Rob Gordon in High Fidelity” approach to things, using music and film and television situations as similes for how life plays out in real life. What Klosterman does differently – and it’s what drives me to seek out more of his writing – is that he doesn’t use pop culture as a crutch. Indeed, he does the opposite, deftly explaining how pop culture helps shape our life – through experience and, ultimately, disappointment – all while shaping life’s more complex issues in a way that dullards like myself can understand.

Klosterman explains: Romantic comedies set us up for an unrealistic look at real love; everyone in the real world can be boiled down to a Real World doppelganger; Star Wars is responsible for Generation X’s attitude (and Luke Skywalker is probably the first grunge slacker).

However, the best essays move away from high-minded manifesto and into true journalism. “Appetite for Replication” follows a professional Guns N’ Roses cover band on the road, exposing every musician’s need for acceptance and sheer love for the material. “I, Rock Chump” takes the cover band mentality and applies it to Klosterman himself, throwing him deep into a circle of True Music Reviewers (and utter bores) at a national conference.

It’s inspired, and while I felt the essays tried a little too hard upon first reading, I find myself going back to them, reassessing them post-read, appreciating them for what they were: thoughts on real life using the common language of pop culture. I said “whatever” as I read them, but that “whatever” hasn’t stopped me from wanting more Klosterman.

John Darnielle, like Klosterman, isn’t a True Music Reviewer. Instead, he’s simply an indie darling, the voice and guitar and piano of The Mountain Goats and author of a 33 1/3 book on Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality. A self-proclaimed metal maniac, Darnielle’s take on MoR moves away from the standard 33 1/3 review – thankfully, as I’m not sure how long I could handle a 100-page look at Ozzy Osbourne’s songwriting habits.

Instead, Darnielle goes back to metal’s roots. By which I mean, “the cassette players of young, angst-filled boys with a penchant for trouble.” This isn’t a review, it’s a love letter – written in the voice of Roger, a teenager thrown into a mental institute, forced to keep a journal and obstinately refusing to write about anything aside from his love for MoR and Black Sabbath in general.

It’s a pretty brilliant approach. Unfortunately, it’s also a short one. It’s by far the skinniest of the 33 1/3 books I’ve seen, and what should be a deep look into the heart of a confused teenage kid is truncated by the fact that the confused teenage kid is the one doing the talking. Sure, Darnielle captures the boy’s lack of emotional maturity, but it’s that same lack of emotional maturity that keeps us from seeing a little further inside.

Why Master of Reality? Why Black Sabbath? It’s explained as you’d expect: BECAUSE I THINK IT’S COOL BECAUSE YOU SUCK BECAUSE I HATE THE WORLD. And that’s about as far as the feelings get. Cool idea. But awkward execution.

That being said, both books took steps I couldn’t possibly attempt, co-opting the emotions of popular culture and parlaying them into an exploratory narrative of human nature. How does music play an important part in a locked-up kid’s psyche? How does Zach Morris represent America’s ability to suspend reality only when it’s convenient?

Don’t ask me. Let me finish this episode of Jersey Shore and I’ll let you know.

*This statistic = made up.

Who needs comfort food when you’ve got comfort books?

February 25, 2010

We repeat foods. We repeat outfits. We watch our favorite movies multiple times, pour over the same season of Arrested Development until we’ve memorized casting cues, listen to albums even after the magic of hearing them for the first time is as distant as a Prohibition Era speakeasy.

We do it because they comfort us. We repeat them because they’re familiar and awesome and part of what makes us, you know, US.

But we rarely do this with books.

Why?

Don’t say length. You can’t say length. Not when a season of Lost or House or whatever can last up to 24 hours straight through. Not when we listen to an album 30 times over a span of a few months, adding up to not hours, but DAYS of time. Not when we’ll wear the same after-work clothes day after day after day until, oh, man, seriously, let’s get those in the washing machine BUT THEN WHAT WOULD I HAVE TO WEAR WHILE I WATCHED SEASON THREE OF HOUSE FOR THE FIFTH TIME?

Length doesn’t work. Perception does, though.

Books seem long. Yet, despite their length, they also seem disposable, like a magazine, or a reality program. They’re commonly ingested and passed along without a second thought. They’re the worst combination for some people: drawn out and forgettable. (Those people, of course, are wrong, if you want my honest and totally unbiased and also totally right opinion.)

I can’t help it, though. I have comfort books. I have comfort books that mean more than any comfort food or comfort album or comfort television program. I have comfort books that are as far from comfortable in subject matter as you could imagine, yet still draw me in, time and time again, despite my need to finish whatever book is in need of finishing.

Though it’s unwieldy and awkward, the seventy billion pound monster that is The Beatles Anthology book is something I return to quarterly. Graphic novels with heady themes – think Jimmy Corrigan and both Maus books – seem to keep ending up in my hands. British travelogues like Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island or Theroux’s The Kingdom by the Sea are on the list, as are short stories like Lorrie Moore’s “People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk” or Dan Chaon’s “The Bees.”

After thinking about, I’d bet you probably have some comfort books too. And for those of you that don’t, why not?

Why not find yours right now? You’ve got time while those pajamas finish drying.

Metagames

February 17, 2010

When I worked in CallCenterLand, dutifully typing conversations for the deaf and hard of hearing, I would count my time by a not-too-complex system of circles and Xs.

My ten hour day would be broken into 40 15-minute parts, each represented by a circle. I would cross them out, one by one, until it was break time. Upon my return, I would dive into the next set of circles. Each 15-minute period graphically represented, I would find myself with a visual reminder of how far I had come. Circle. Circle. Circle. X. X. X.

Even earlier, on my walks home from grade school, my route would be broken into one-block segments. How fast could I reach the end of stage one? Could I beat my record for stage three? The sixth block was extra long – like a par 5, I suppose – and it would be the biggest challenge.

This is the thought behind creating lists – not just to determine what needs to be done, but also to physically rid yourself of yet another stage, the dark black line crossing out a completed task signifying accomplishment like no other form of communication ever has.

Large or small, these are a form of metagame: namely, creating tasks within larger tasks. I suppose the true definition comes from true games; mini-games inside of ordinary tasks, like time trials during dishwashing or not touching the sidewalk during stage seven of your walk home, are now seen in today’s videogame world with increasing abundance. But for me, the idea of a metagame is just as much the way we spend time separating our everyday accomplishments into more palatable pieces.

No one can eat a sandwich all at once, or do the laundry in one load. Yet, we try to tackle projects in lumps – we look at writing books, not chapters; we look at writing campaigns, not individual print pieces. We take in the whole, even when it’s human nature to chop things up into pieces. It’s human nature to want completeness, even if it’s completing just one portion of a larger body.

I could talk more about metagames – and the issue of completeness – but I’d be entering into the territory of a fantastic article by Sleepover, San Francisco. An excerpt:

When a game has built-in achievements, explicit hidden items, and other layered-in experiences, it’s usually pitched as added value. In reality, they’re only adding in time consumption — a measure of value most likely derived from the era of arcades.

I believe the main reason games like Farmville maintain a huge player base is the enticement of the metagame. The actual game mechanic of farming — which comprises most of the game — is unfathomably dull. It’s the abstracted layer above the farming that creates the primary motivation: ribbons (achievements), new items, leaderboards, etc.

But the blur of time-consumption and value is simultaneously damaging Farmville. Because satisfaction is derived only from the metagame, success is a measure of how many hours you’re willing to play, not your abilities. Players who have invested a lot of time into the game end up feeling bitter about the fruits (or vegetables) of their labor.

You have to see the page for yourself. The article is a series of metagames of its own.

(Via someone, from his or her blog. Can’t remember. Sorry.)

What I’ve Been Reading: The San Francisco Panorama (McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 33)

January 29, 2010

What I’ve Read:
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue #33 (The San Francisco Panorama) – Dave Eggers (editor)

You know, sometimes McSweeney’s can get a little too cute. Ask the poor souls who subscribed to McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and ended up with the “Pretending It’s a Pile of Mail” issue. Or the “Three Books in One Connected by Magnets” issue. Or the “Who We Should Invade Next Parody” issue. And while I love the Quarterly Concern and would defend it to death, you’d be right if you assumed McSweeney’s focused on the package more than the writing.

Sometimes. You’d be right sometimes.

So, yeah. Of course McSweeney’s would be presenting Issue 33 as a newspaper. A real newspaper, on newsprint, with journalists and newsy things. Of course they would. That’s what they do. See the above paragraph. The one that talks about being too cute.

To say I was a little skeptical, despite McSweeney’s consistent track record of great writing, is an understatement. This could have failed miserably. This could have been a waste of a Quarterly Concern.

Oops.

Turns out this idea was absolutely fantastic. I stand corrected.

Printed on oversized, thick newsprint, the Panorama is a beautifully designed “new-newspaper” prototype, filled with in-depth reporting and high-dollar contributors. Originally designed to show what newspapers could be, the viability of a 120-page newspaper (not including a 96-page Panorama Book Review and 112-page Panorama Magazine) with 218 contributors seems rather low. The ten-section/two-magazine publication cost $80,000 in editorial costs, with a unit cost of $7.98.

It sells for $16. One issue. $16. A bargain compared to the typical Quarterly Concern hardcover price, but still – seemingly expensive for a newspaper. Even as a weekly publication, its life would be cut short by penny-pinching subscribers and lack of mainstream coverage.

But let’s be honest. This isn’t just a newspaper. Dave Eggers, editor and McSweeney’s chief, understands this. He understands that this is a special edition, that this test is more than just a prototype, but also a tribute to the craft of newspapering.

And it’s beautiful. It’s easily one of the coolest things I’ve ever read. I can’t recommend it enough – especially for those who have grown tired of their local paper (those not lucky enough to get a real one like the New York Times or Washington Post or even Minneapolis Star Tribune) but still miss the feel of those oversized pages, those hyper-timely articles, those “can’t miss” moments and random-yet-brilliant Style pages.

So all I can say is this: get this, if you have a chance. It’s pretty great.

- - -

And now, A list of the best things in the San Francisco Panorama (not including the Panorama Magazine or the entire Panorama Book Review, both of which I haven’t even finished reading.)

• “The Tragedy of Mendocino” by Jesse Nathan, about California’s Emerald Triangle and its hidden and environmentally dangerous marijuana trade.

• “Golden State: Transition Basketball” by Free Darko

• “On the World Series” by Stephen King (including a fantastic retro Converse ad on the back page)

• “Living With a Yellow Dwarf” monster two-page infographic on the unusually quiet solar cycle

• The Death Cab for Cutie infographic

• Let’s face it: EVERY infographic

• “Can a Paper Mill Save a Forest?” by Nicholson Baker, about the possibility that digital information may be harder on the environment than paper

• “KPOO,” by Chinaka Hodge, on San Francisco’s long running independent radio station, KPOO

• The Comics (which, on their own, retail for $10) including Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman and Erik Larsen

• “The End, The End, The End, Etcetera,” by China Mieville, about the overabundance of movies about the apocalypse

• “The Desperate Art of DVD Covers,” by Moze Halperin, on the difference between marketing and art as it relates to film posters and their respective DVD covers

• “I Participate in TV Studio Audiences,” by Kevin Collier, a mini-memoir about jumping from studio audience to studio audience, from Maury to Paula Deen.

• The Food Section, which includes stories like “Water: A Road Trip” by Lisa M. Hamilton, about once-fertile California farmland now rendered useless thanks to a drougt-imposed restriction on aquaduct water; “Lambchetta in 58 Steps” by Ryan Farr, on knowing, slaughtering and cooking a lamb from beginning to end; and “Roadkill Stew” by L. E. Leone, on hitting a deer – and then cooking it.

What I’ve Been Reading - Furthering Education

January 25, 2010

What I’ve Read:
On Writing – Stephen King
Content Strategy for the Web – Kristina Halvorson
The Elements of User Experience – Jesse James Garrett

Self-improvement is a multi-billion dollar industry.

Okay. Just kidding. I don’t actually know how much money the industry makes. One thing’s for sure: it’s got a monopoly on annoyance and self-importance, and if you could put a price on those two traits I’m sure the industry would be somewhere in the multi-billions. AMIRITE?

I prefer my self-improvement to be self-driven. And for me, it often is.

It’s driven by a nagging feeling that I’m quickly being driven in to obsolescence by content mills and marketing directors who feel they can cut corners by writing their own copy. Driven by the knowledge that getting published requires an insane amount of collaboration between luck and circumstance, not to mention an actual amount of talent. Driven by the demons of self-doubt. By a writer’s constant sense of impending failure. By whatever it is that drives writers to write whatever it is they write.

So sometimes I read books about writing. And, because I like the Web and writing for the Web and learning about the Web and adding skills and adding to the multi-billion dollar self-improvement industry, I read books about things that aren’t writing.

In terms of those books about writing (and I’ve read a few – see: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and Elements of Style Illustrated by Strunk and White), Stephen King’s On Writing is easily the best. For real.

It’s easy to pass Stephen King off as mass-market pulp purveyor – the type of tripe you find on the stands at the airport – but, come on. The dude’s a very good writer.

How can you tell? Easy: he wrote an entertaining book on writing. As in, I’d recommend it to people who aren’t writers. I’d recommend it to writers who feel they’re too cool for Stephen King.

The book actually splits itself into two parts: one part life story, one part “how to write.” The two play off of each other rather well – the “how to write” part driving his life story, the life story giving a human quality to his “how to write” part. Some things you’ll learn: how to edit, how to drink a lot and recover, how to forget a large part of your career thanks to alcoholism, how to stop over-explaining, how to hole up and just write, how to have a near death experience, how to start your own newspaper as a grade-schooler, how to submit stories and expect nothing, how to be humble, how to understand that writing fiction is about as scientific as Intelligent Design.

Sure, it was inspiring. So inspiring that I took all of the lessons and jumped headfirst into another field: User Experience. And, once I had finished that, I jumped headfirst into yet another field: Content Strategy. (Which, I now realize, takes the craft of writing (featured in King’s On Writing) and applies it to the Web by way of User Experience. So, really, everything came full circle and this trio of books made perfect sense without making perfect sense at all.)

A bunch of other people can discuss Elements of User Experience better than I am able to. And I’ve already touched on Content Strategy for the Web – or, at least, my newfound interest in the field. The books themselves don’t matter that much when it comes to a “What I’ve Been Reading” post; in fact, the three books featured serve as one entry, one stage in my life when I understood that I needed to become better at something and I accepted all available resources to make it happen.

Kerrie bought me On Writing for my birthday. Knowing that I’m always three days away from finally starting a short story, she may have figured it would serve as a kick start. Instead, it made me more introspective, pushing me toward redefining what I want my writing career to be.

It may not have made me a better writer – just as the other books may not have made me a better Web person – but it did help me focus on simply being a writer, for better or worse.

Five reasons McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama is a thing of beauty

January 4, 2010

Five reasons McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama is a thing of beauty:

1. Stephen King on the World Series
2. The comics page
3. The Panorama Magazine and the Panorama Book Review could stand on their own
4. In a time when more newspapers are trying to look more like CNN.com, McSweeney’s chose to design the Panorama like a classy magazine
5. A pull-out Stephan Curry poster

I’ll obviously post a full review of the “newspaper” when I’ve finished its 300+ pages. But until then, go read it - AND LOVE IT - for yourself.

What I’ve Been Reading: The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy

November 17, 2009

What I’ve read:
The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy - Bill Simmons

It might be a little hypocritical to slag on someone for being self-referential. As a blogger who writes primarily about his life and thoughts, most of my Internet persona is defined by self-reference.

Then again, I don’t purport to any other notion. You don’t come to Black Marks on Wood Pulp and expect non-personal writing.

However, when you read a book called The Book of Basketball, you expect it to be, for the most part, about basketball.

Let’s get this out of the way. I loved this book. As a basketball fan with a fleeting knowledge of history pre-1980s, it was a wonderful way to fill in the blanks. Was Wilt better than Russell? Was David Thompson as good as people say? Should I hate Karl Malone more than I already do? (The answers, respectively: no, yes, probably.)

I grew up watching Michael Jordan and Reggie Miller, so it’s good to have a reference point from which to compare. And if you’re looking for a more objective tome, there are probably better choices. However, if you’re looking for a down-to-earth synopsis of the NBA’s past 60 years, you can’t do much better.

The concept: Bill Simmons, who is sort of a pioneer when it comes to crafting Internet sports columns (in that he helped usher in the more relaxed, more opinionated and, ultimately, more enjoyable sports writing that we all take for granted today) uses his extreme fanhood to explain his take on the NBA, past and present.

A 96-player, pyramid based Hall of Fame that separates different classes of player based on accomplishments? Done. A listing of the top 10 teams of all time? Done. An incredibly insightful look at why Oscar Robertson’s numbers might be skewed, or a entire section devoted to what could have happened had certain moves not been made? Done. It’s like sitting down with a good friend – who also happens to be a huge NBA fan – and hashing out every great basketball argument ever made.

Yeah. It’s awesome. So let’s start picking it apart.

Seriously, Bill – your name is on the book – there’s no reason to keep reminding us that this is your opinion we’re taking on. I don’t care about who you know. I don’t need every argument to be unceremoniously finished with a reference to Teen Wolf, or a backhanded Shawshank Redemption quote.

He tackles race in an awkward way – he’s understanding, though at the same time strangely defensive and apologetic. He drops names whenever he can. He peppers his footnotes with the same kind of lame humor you’d expect to see in lesser blog comments on Deadspin. He makes no mistake that this is his book, and that we should expect more and more lame pop culture references and stories about his buddy House.

That being said, the self-referential nature only begins to grate around page 500. Did I mention the book is nearly 700 pages long? Surprisingly, it’s a fast read, though I can’t help but think it would be about 200 pages shorter if he took himself out of the story (an unfunny point he makes several times as you get closer to the end.)

See, there’s my problem. It’s easier to complain than it is to praise. Though the last three paragraphs sound like criticism, this shouldn’t frame my opinion of the book. They are minor blips on an ambitious project, one that doesn’t just present basketball history, but puts in context and in a way you can easily understand. This isn’t a book for stat hounds or nitpickers – this is a book for true fans, for those who long to have hour-long discussions about who was better: Bird of Magic.

(My answer: Bird. Bill’s surprising answer: Magic. Even as a Boston homer, Bill still couldn’t bring himself to be biased.)

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Black Marks on Wood Pulp has been commenting on life and everything associated with it since February 2005. He's also photoblogging at Much More Sure and writing about advertising and marketing at Post Haste. Everything you've ever wanted to know about Black Marks on Wood Pulp and Corey Vilhauer is located here, on the About Page.

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Posts

• “The Hot Rocks Polka” and my introduction to The Rolling Stones
• On solving creative block
• The Beatles, “Dig a Pony” - 1.30.69
• What I’ve Been Reading - Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs/Master of Reality
• On the empathy of a toddler
• Who needs comfort food when you’ve got comfort books?
• Atelier: a method of craft
• On trying not to let a second child’s accomplishments go without fanfare
• Who got the funk?
• Metagames

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