Hello. This is a message from Scribner author Chuck Klosterman, welcoming you to the Internet.

Isn’t this interesting? Some super-nice guy I’ve never met has built me a web site, and now I get to use it for whatever I want.

Here are my intentions: 
 

1.)     Selling books.

2.)     Making ad hominid attacks against my enemies.

3.)     Spoiling the ending to every episode of Lost, except the one where Locke gets thrown out the window by his dad.

4.)     Selling books.

5.)     Posting photographs of cats who appear to be talking like mentally challenged Czechs.

6.)     Selling some books here and there.

7.)     Selling some audiobooks.

8.)     Purchasing some gold.

9.)     Writing about Paramour.

10.)   Creating the illusion of human interaction without actually meeting anyone or going anywhere.

11.)   Posting schematics of easily constructed, fertilizer-based car explosives.

12.)   Receiving casual e-mail from other minor celebrities who might occasionally google themselves, such as Tony Reali and David Prowse.

13.)   Promoting my upcoming YA novel, The Erotic Education of Young Hitler.

14.)   Promoting my upcoming vampire novel set amidst the 1983 English pop scene, New Moon (on Monday).

15.)   Promoting my upcoming Tide addiction.

16.)   Selling books.

17.)   To apologize for not updating my blog, which currently does not exist.

18.)   To aggregate things.

19.)   To link to other aggregated websites.

20.)   To get myself fucking aggregated.

21.)   Linking to YouTube videos of old Van Halen concerts, since there’s obviously no way you could possibly find such clips yourself.

22.)   Do a little “reverse twittering.” This is when you can get an unsolicited email from someone, but then you only read to the first 140 characters of the message.

23.)   I’m not necessarily trying to sell books, but I definitely want to provide a scenario where you could procure them. With a credit card.

24.)   Networking with the tragically obese.

25.)   Producing viral videos about buying and selling books (note: These would be books you’re buying and that I’m specifically selling).

26.)   Informing consumers when I am doing book readings and special events, as these situations inevitably involve the action of #27.

27.)   Selling books.

28.)   Posting fake suicide notes.

29.)   Selling collections of bound paper that feature words I’ve arranged into sentences and paragraphs.

30.)   Occasionally writing about how crazy Dolly Parton’s music is. This is kind of off-topic, but I happen to be listening to the box set Dolly as I type this list, and I’m kind of shocked by how darkly brilliant these songs are. For every really upbeat, optimistic track (such as “Nobody But You,” for example), there are all these insane ones about little kids dying (“Jeannie’s Afraid of the Dark”), hailstorms destroying the crops (“In the Good Old Days”), and little kids dying along with their puppies (“Me and Little Andy”). This material is so great. It’s also interesting how Dolly has a wonderful sense about the social hypocrisy of being an unwed mother (“Just Because I’m a Woman”), yet she’s gotta be one of the only female country singers from that era who doesn’t have, like, eight or nine kids. I mean, I know why she doesn’t have a bunch of kids, but come on – it’s not as if such a situation never happened before, if you know what I mean. And I think that you do. Things happen. Come on. We’ve all been there.

31.)   Selling books.

32.)   You know what else is a good song? “Busy Signal.” It’s too bad Dolly never worked with Phil Spector. He would have murdered this song.

33.)   It occurs to me that someone might read Reason #32 and assume I was making a joke about Spector’s murder conviction. In all honesty, that was not my intention – only now, in immediate retrospect, to I see how my slang use of the word “murdered” could be misconstrued. As such, let me rephrase that sentiment: You know what else is a good song? “Busy Signal.” It’s too bad Dolly never worked with Phil Spector. He would have totally shot that song in the face.

34.)   Semi-related: One of my original aspirations for this website was to use hip-hop slang incorrectly, mostly because that tends to really annoy humorless people. However, most of the time I can’t figure out what hip-hop slang is supposed to mean for real, so my attempts to use it incorrectly might inadvertently result in me using those terms in their proper context, which would just make me look like one of those misguided Caucasian idiots who talk too loud in bars. For example, on the track “Hip-Hop is Dead,” there is this line where Nas says, “Grinding, hitting Brazilian nines from behind.” He says it twice in a row. For the longest time, I had no idea what this meant. But then my friend Laura – who, weirdly, also works for Simon & Schuster – deduced that Nas was implying that he was having rear-entry intercourse with various Brazilian supermodels who were almost (but not quite) perfect 10s. It all seems so obvious now, but I had no idea what that meant for over a year. Oh well. Problem solved.

35.)   I’m sick of writing this list, so I’m stopping right now.

36.)   Actually, not quite.

 

So ANYWAY, [1] thanks for checking this website out. In truth, you really don’t have to buy anything offered on it.
It’s just that it won’t exist if you don’t.

 

                                                                                                            Love,

                                                                                                            Chuck

 

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