For reasons you don’t care about, Chuck Klosterman asked a bunch of German students to write an essay about who they considered to be “the most interesting twentieth-century American — not necessarily the most historically important, but the individual you find most personally compelling,” and the responses are amusing. Especially this one:

Someone selected Ryan Adams. This made me happy for two reasons. The first is that I suspect Adams is something of an underrated semi-genius, and I like the fact that he’s more appreciated in places where nobody cares whether or not Paul Westerberg hates him. The other reason is that I think there’s probably a 98 percent likelihood that Ryan Adams will read this sentence, put down the magazine, walk over to his four-track, and immediately write a psychedelic country song titled “Hey Little Leipzig Girl (I’m Glad You Dug Those Whiskeytown Bootlegs),” which I will be able to listen to on the Internet forty minutes from right now.

We’re waiting, Ryan. Please don’t let us (and the little Leipzig girl) down!