As a North Dakota farm kid, Chuck Klosterman took in a lot of empty roads, endless skies, and fields of corn that stretched to the horizon. His pipelines to the greater world were Top 40 radio and eighties television. And then he heard Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil, which transformed him into a metalhead, who grew up to become a professional metalhead—that is, a music journalist. Klosterman offered obsessive yet engaging ramblings on topics such as the social relevance of Bon Jovi in his heavy-metal memoir Fargo Rock City. More recently, in Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story, he chronicled a road trip to the death sites of various figures of music history, including Graceland’s Elvis death toilet; the Macon, Georgia, street where two members of the Allman Brothers were killed in separate motorcycle accidents a year apart; Mud Island Harbor on the Mississippi, where Jeff Buckley drowned; and the Lake Street apartment where Bob Stinson drank himself to death. For a musician, dying is the ultimate career move. Since the same effect doesn’t translate to rock critics, we’ve decided to let Klosterman live. But we’re shipping him off to a desert island. Here’s what he’d like to bring along.??
1. Shane Carruth’s 2004 film Primer. This is the most confusing narrative movie I’ve ever watched; it makes Pi seem like Groundhog Day. I’ve seen it twice, but I’m pretty sure it would take two hundred viewings to figure out what is going on. (Note: This selection operates under the assumption that I will have a device that will allow me to play the film—if not, I guess I would just have to read the back of the DVD box really, really slowly.)??
2. Papaver somniferum. These are opium seeds. I have never experimented with heroin, but I can’t foresee any downside to smoking opium on a desert island. It’s not like I have to worry about being late for work. And I don’t have any friends there, so there’s nobody to alienate. ??
3. Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath (1970-1978). I thought about bringing the Beatles’ White Album, primarily because it’s one of the only legitimate albums I can think of that has rock (“Glass Onion”), metal (“Helter Skelter”), blues (“Yer Blues”), pop (“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and Monkey”), novelty (“Rocky Raccoon”), hippie music (“Piggies”), nap rock (“So Tired”), and experimental bullshit (“Revolution 9”). But then I remembered I was bringing opium seeds, so I might as well just lie in a hammock and listen to Sabbath until I die.??
4. One pregnant German shepherd. I grant that this is a curious decision for many reasons, one of which being that I generally prefer the company of cats. However, in this context I think I would be better off with a litter of German shepherd puppies that could be trained to serve and protect me. Perhaps they could even work in concert and kill wild boars for my own personal consumption! Obviously, the downside to this scheme would be the risk of eventually populating the island with packs of savage inbred dingoes. But I would take this risk.??
5. One Nerf football. Admittedly, not my wisest choice. But fun.
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