Bring the Noise: The Best Pop Culture Essays from Barrelhouse Magazine

by Tom McAllister (Editor), Sarah Sweeney, Louisa Spaventa

Over the past decade, readers have learned to count on Barrelhouse to publish inventive, irreverent essays by authors exploring the ways their lives have been shaped by their pop culture obsessions. BRING THE NOISE is a collection of the magazine’s greatest hits, plus five new pieces produced exclusively for this anthology. Inside, a roster of accomplished and respected authors grapples with a wide range of topics, including Thin Lizzy, dive bars, Barry Bonds, Bob Dylan’s beard, pro wrestling, The Hills, roller derby, Adrian Grenier, and Magnum, P.I.

Passionate, insightful, and funny, this collection is simultaneously a celebration and a critical dissection of the ways in which pop culture affects us all.


Table of Contents

Introduction: On the Stupid Things We Love
by Tom Mcallister, Barrelhouse nonfiction editor

Before Adrian Grenier Got Famous
by Sarah Sweeney

Jam
by Paul Crenshaw

Home of the Poor and Unknown
by Chad Simpson

All Aboard the Bloated Boat: Arguments in Favor of Barry Bonds
by Lee Klein

Hipster Mosaic
by Johannes Lichtman

Irish on Both Sides
by Tom Williams

For the Love of Good TV
by Melanie Springer Mock

This is Not Their Job: The Never-ending Reality of The Hills
by Patrick Brown

Babyfaces
by W. Todd Kaneko

A Myopic Appreciation of Roller Derby
by Louisa Spaventa

Home From the War
by Steve Kistulentz

What it Means to Grow Bob Dylan’s Beard
by John Shortino

Return to Oz
by Matt Sailor

We Know the Drill
by Leslie Jill Patterson

This Essay Doesn’t Rock
by Joe Oestreich

Drumming
by Nic Brown

Lost Calls
by Jill Talbot

the illustrated story: On Tubes, by Ted Stevens
by Brian Furuness, comicked by Kevin Thomas

the swayze question
What’s your Favorite Patrick Swayze Movie?

Genres: Essays, Anthologies

183 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2013

About the author

Tom McAllister is the author of the novels "How to Be Safe" and "The Young Widower's Handbook," as well as the memoir "Bury Me in My Jersey." He is the non-fiction editor of Barrelhouse magazine and the co-host of the weekly Book Fight! podcast. His shorter work has appeared in a number of places, including Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Collagist, Hobart, The Rumpus, and The Millions. He lives in New Jersey and is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Temple University.

Reviews

[Lee Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have an essay in here about Barry Bonds, steroids, and the USA of yore (circa 2005). Nic Brown has a short, sober, admirably straightforward revelation about drumming in a popular touring rock band that's worth the cover price alone. The good/bad continuum by Joe Oestreich is genius (range = "total shit" to "totally the shit"). Goodreads' own Patrick Brown has an excellent bit in here about The Hills. (Did I at first forget to mention the Magnum PI piece by Steve Kistulentz? I did!) Pretty much everything has its moments. Can't wait to revisit this in forty years, assuming I'm alive and can read it. A time capsule of recent pop culture I expect will age well.

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the best NF anthology ever to feature something I've written.

[Jason Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorites are Sarah Sweeney's "Before Adrian Grenier Got Famous," Patrick Brown's "This Is Not Their Job: The Never-Ending Reality of The Hills," and Joe Oestreich's "This Essay Doesn't Rock." All the others are good too, though.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the best NF anthology I've ever edited.

[Brendan O'Meara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of essays about the stupid things we love. Lots of fun to read. I spoke with the editor of the book here: http://brendanomeara.com/?p=625

[Steve Kistulentz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: my essay on Magnum, PI is in here. So yes, this is one of the best nonfiction anthologies of the year. It's one of the best anthologies I've ever been in.

But in the meantime, I think each piece in here asks you to reconsider something familiar. That's something we don't like to do very often in our culture, but we should. And Tom McAllister's choices--taken from the pages of Barrelhouse--grab us by the back of the neck and ask us, sometimes rather pointedly, to think about the familiar in a different way. That may be the most valuable skill writers have, and this anthology has it in abundance.

[Michael B Tager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pop culture is important because people think it's important. A bit recursive, but that's ok. Some of the essays in this book really get at why pop culture means anything. Sarah Sweeney's essay about Adrian Grenier, Tom Williams's piece about Thin Lizzy and others broke my face a bit.

[Nathan Holic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll be using this book the next time I teach my Personal Essay course. A lot of fun, and one of those rare anthologies that delivers 100% on what it promises.

[Nita]

Housemate has an essay in this