Customer Reviews

All Ears: Cultural Criticism, Essays and Obituaries

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For those looking for vintage Cooper, you should be warned that nothing in this book is indicitive of Cooper's usual writing style, or any of the writerly idiosynchrasies that have given him cult celebrity. But that's only because it's a compilation of articles that Cooper did over the years for Rolling Stone, Interview, and other magazines. At best, this book is a cultural pastiche of a time that's slowly fading from the tips of our memories; the period of the late 80s/early 90's in which ennui, AIDS, and a new sort of decadance were laying the groundwork for the rest of the decade. Articles about the death of River Pheonix and Kurt Kobain, interviews with Courtney Love and Keanu Reaves,a rather scathing article about the death of William Burroughs,(the opinions in which I politely disagree)and Cooper's opiniated voice color this compilation with a sort of bleak, but humanistic worldview. Anyway, it's all worth it for an interview with Keanu Reaves (Pre-Speed) in which Cooper gets the then cult figure to talk about drugs he'd like to use...