Soul music...

Kelly Love Johnson

Skirt! managing editor

Writer, editor, author, independent girly feminist hipster, slightly neurotic, cynically optimistic, compassionately liberal, fiscally conservative, somewhat intellectual, and always irreverent. ...

Kelly Love Johnson

Monday, March, 3, 2008

I finished reading Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman last week and haven’t been able to get it off my mind. It started as a book about famous rock and roll death sites, but ends up being more of manifesto about his own dysfunctional relationships. Reading it was a little like therapy, but in a good way.

There are several things that keep popping into my head: One, feeling nostalgic for a time period that you may or may not have been miserable for the duration with the additional caveat that the time period was, say, just a few months ago isn’t uncommon. Two, police officers enjoy Audioslave, therefore it could be called the new “cop rock.” Three, everyone has known Led Zeppelin Guy at some point in their lives and it doesn’t mean you can’t admit that you love Led Zeppelin (you just can’t make the statement that Led Zeppelin is the one and only greatest band in the Universe). Four, people in love cannot be reasoned with. Even if the person in love is yourself and you are a reasonable person. And five, everyone has a soundtrack and everyone’s soundtrack is constantly changing, therefore your soundtrack will not always be in sync with someone else’s soundtrack at a specific time and place in history. It’s nice when it happens though.

I want to know if it all turned out OK for Chuck, but I think his more recent book is a collection of previously published essays.