Inexplicable

I am 22 years old. I live in Chicago, and I come from South Carolina.

I have a blue clipboard to which I clip my lesson plans for when I teach a bunch of 14-to-17-year-olds who think I'm the lamest man who ever lived.

Every day I teach, I feel a bit older and a bit less cool. I suppose I started this blog as an attempt to salvage any shreds of coolness I have left. Also to pretend that I am more relevant than I actually am.

For my first posting, I wish to discuss the word 'inexplicable.'

I'm a big fan of Chuck Klosterman, and lately I've been reading his 2006 book Chuck Klosterman IV, which is basically a collection of articles and essays with a novella tacked on the end. As I read the book I noticed that this guy loves the word 'inexplicable' (and its cousin, 'inexplicably'). Seriously, in nearly every chapter he uses the word a minimum of one time. And he employs it to refer to nearly everything, from human behavior to events in music videos to business deals.

Apparently Klosterman feels that reality itself is inexplicable. This is a uniquely postmodern sentiment; indeed, a very few years ago, cultural critics sought to make everything explicable - that is, they attempted to understand and explain away pretty much every cultural phenomenon by tying it into some human need or deeper purpose. Nowadays us postmodern types look around and realize that this is a pretty inexplicable place. Nothing makes sense. American culture is so diverse that what makes perfect sense in some circles is completely insane in others. It is through supreme enlightened self-awareness that people like Klosterman are able to step back, look at all sides of this multi-faceted diamond we call popular culture, and pronounce it 'inexplicable.'

But still. It kind of gets old when it pops up in every other paragraph. And it's a bit condescending, almost inexplicably so. Klosterman's use of the word 'inexplicable' is his Achilles Heel. That little word is the only thing that keeps him from being a truly great writer.

So keep working on it, Klosterman, and one day you might find yourself at the top of your profession. And when you reach the summit, it will be anything but inexplicable. We both know that.