Nothing In Itself

Nothing in Itself

What Herbert Blau suggests, in Nothing in Itself, is that fashion itself, today, has been anticipating and redefining, in the dazzle on the runway, or even in ready-to-wear, the terms in which it is critiqued, while sometimes giving the impression that it is inseparable from critique; in short, there is little to be said of fashion that is not somehow visible in fashion, though even in the mainstream we may call it antifashion. Which is all the more reason to look at the clothes. The book does so copiously, with a fastidious eye to style, as if nothing could be said of a garment, no appropriate fabric of thought, without the felt sensation.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs

From the kid who brought you Fargo Rock City -- the first book in history to garner the praise of Stephen King, David Byrne, Donna Gaines, Sebastian Bach, Jonathan Lethem, and Rivers Cuomo -- comes Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs -- the first book in history to examine breakfast cereal, reality television, tribute bands, Internet porn, serial killers, and the Dixie Chicks. Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman -- with an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and a seemingly effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter. Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry of the 1980s, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane -- usually all at once. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about movies, sports, television, music, books, video games, and kittens...but, really, it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'"

NPNF1-04. Augustine: The Writings Against the Manichaeans and Against the Donatists