I consider myself a writer, but I know my limitations. Having the ability to articulate on any given topic is not one of my strongpoints. That’s why I’d admire writers like Chuck Klosterman. It’s not because of his insane pulse on contemporary culture (though that’s why I ultimately read his stuff), or his keen ability to pull insight out of the banalities of everyday life. I’d admire Klosterman for the clarity in which he writes. That is the goal: To convey one’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas to another through the written word. He does this better than any writer right now.
With that said, I skipped 60 percent of “Eating the Dinosaur” because (a) it’s a hodge podge of essays that jump from the subtleties of interviewing to Ralph Sampson to the Wildcat formation to ABBA to David Koresh to time travel to Rivers Cuomo to laugh tracks to Ralph Nader and (b) I didn’t have a damn clue as to what he was talking about in some of those essays.
No matter, though. I knew what I was getting into. Chuck Klosterman’s brain is a strange place.