DrugMonkey is perpetuating a meme again. He does it so rarely, it stays fun to participate. This meme is simple: Post a link to your first(ish) blog post in each month along with the first sentence of the post. So here's a quick year in review.
January: I'm feeling like crap for a number of reasons, including complications of the surgery and a plain old cold, so I haven't been posting regularly, but this did catch my attention today.
February: Tired of Valentine's Day advertising?
March: Two blog anthologies made recent announcements I'd like to share.
April: We have a corner lot in the city, with plantings where a lot of people would have lawn, so lots of trash gets blown into our yard and stays for a while.
May: How do you build up a movement with destructive criticism?
June: "Because I said so" may be four of the most satisfying words in the English language.
July: Still in the middle of a couple of insanely busy weeks, but I'm enjoying them immensely, due in no small part to my honeymooning Canuckistanian friends.
August: Something interesting happened just the other day.
September: I'm delivering a guest lecture at a local community college this evening on religious skepticism.
October: Yesterday and today are the Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN.
November: There's a certain irony in the conservatives saying that they're "taking back their country," because that's exactly what I intend to do tomorrow.
December: Let's just go through a few of the highlights since my last blog post, shall we?
Showing posts with label Silly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silly. Show all posts
December 12, 2010
September 19, 2009
Pirate How To
From my favoritest pirate ever, despite the hair.
Oh, you mean it's Talk Like a Pirate Day. Never mind.
Oh, you mean it's Talk Like a Pirate Day. Never mind.
Labels:
Silly
July 20, 2009
Tagged--15 Books
DuWayne is going into meme overdrive and has tagged me with the 15 books meme that two people also tagged me with on Facebook tonight. Just for him, I'm posting my answers here before I put them on Facebook. (It's been mean to him.)
Rules are simple: 15 books (or in DuWayne's case, 15 minutes of books) that will always stick with you. I make no claims about whether my list says anything profound about me. Feel free to psychoanalyze in the comments.
I'm not tagging anybody, since the last time I tagged people, those tag hung out there for more than a month. I hate feeling as though I've obligated anyone to do anything. Still, if you want to participate, I'm always interested in what people read and what influences them. Meme away.
Rules are simple: 15 books (or in DuWayne's case, 15 minutes of books) that will always stick with you. I make no claims about whether my list says anything profound about me. Feel free to psychoanalyze in the comments.
- Andersen's Fairy Tales
- Grimm's Fairy Tales
- Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevski
- Deerskin by Robin McKinley
- The Demon Breed by James Schmitz
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery
- Flim-Flam by James Randi
- Brokedown Palace by Steven Brust
- Cards of Grief by Jane Yolen
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet
- Drinking Sapphire Wine by Tanith Lee
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
- An Old Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott
I'm not tagging anybody, since the last time I tagged people, those tag hung out there for more than a month. I hate feeling as though I've obligated anyone to do anything. Still, if you want to participate, I'm always interested in what people read and what influences them. Meme away.
Labels:
Silly
May 31, 2009
Cover Meme
Ambivalent Academic tagged me with the cover meme running around: best and worst cover ever.
I was torn, oh, so torn. I mean, everybody knows that the best cover ever is a twofer: "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go." Okay, a lot of people don't actually know that those were both covers. (Trivia: because Soft Cell released "Tainted Love" as a single with "Where Did Our Love Go" on the B-side, they didn't make any money off of all those sales. Money flows to the writer, not the recording artist for that.)
And of course, there are Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, who do mostly thrashed up covers of beloved classics. And the fact that there are very few Beatles songs I don't prefer performed by someone else.
In the end, it came down to the bad cover. As much as I love Satchmo, I firmly believe he did the world a great disservice when he jazzed up "Mack the Knife." Some things aren't meant to be pretty. Some people (and characters) aren't meant to be antiheroes. MacHeath is one of those. Kurt Weill knew that singing about something wasn't the same thing as endorsing it, but you'd never know that from the long parade of jazz covers.
Bobby Darin
That isn't the worst cover of the song, though. To create that, someone had to go back to the original intent behind the song and screw it up. That takes ego big enough to not understand your musical limits. That takes singing a pop version of a cabaret song. That takes:
Sting
So how do you not make this song glorify a sociopath? You take it even closer to its roots. Weill did not make pretty music, although he made some that was beautiful. And how do you not make it pablum? You give it to someone who will strip it down to its essentials and who isn't afraid of a little menace. Unfortunately, this video cuts the song short, but it's still lovely.
Nick Cave
The full version is well worth a listen. It's one of those songs that always lives on my Nano, no matter what else rotates on and off.
Now, who to tag. I'll have to go with Mike and Lou, Crystal and Muse, I think. And thanks, AA. This one was too much fun.
I was torn, oh, so torn. I mean, everybody knows that the best cover ever is a twofer: "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go." Okay, a lot of people don't actually know that those were both covers. (Trivia: because Soft Cell released "Tainted Love" as a single with "Where Did Our Love Go" on the B-side, they didn't make any money off of all those sales. Money flows to the writer, not the recording artist for that.)
And of course, there are Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, who do mostly thrashed up covers of beloved classics. And the fact that there are very few Beatles songs I don't prefer performed by someone else.
In the end, it came down to the bad cover. As much as I love Satchmo, I firmly believe he did the world a great disservice when he jazzed up "Mack the Knife." Some things aren't meant to be pretty. Some people (and characters) aren't meant to be antiheroes. MacHeath is one of those. Kurt Weill knew that singing about something wasn't the same thing as endorsing it, but you'd never know that from the long parade of jazz covers.
Bobby Darin
That isn't the worst cover of the song, though. To create that, someone had to go back to the original intent behind the song and screw it up. That takes ego big enough to not understand your musical limits. That takes singing a pop version of a cabaret song. That takes:
Sting
So how do you not make this song glorify a sociopath? You take it even closer to its roots. Weill did not make pretty music, although he made some that was beautiful. And how do you not make it pablum? You give it to someone who will strip it down to its essentials and who isn't afraid of a little menace. Unfortunately, this video cuts the song short, but it's still lovely.
Nick Cave
The full version is well worth a listen. It's one of those songs that always lives on my Nano, no matter what else rotates on and off.
Now, who to tag. I'll have to go with Mike and Lou, Crystal and Muse, I think. And thanks, AA. This one was too much fun.
December 23, 2008
30 Things Meme
A bunch of friends are meming on Facebook (yes, verbing weirds language), and rather than confining a bunch of random blather about me to a friends list, I thought I'd post it here as well.
1. I think we had more snakes when I was growing up than any other kind of pet. The mice didn't count. They were snake food.
2. I've never broken a bone (I think; not sure about my finger), but I sprained my back when I was in my teens.
3. I went to six elementary schools, three in sixth grade.
4. I wear three rings pretty much constantly. All were made by the same jeweler, based halfway across the country, and were purchased over eight years.
5. Both of my most serious ex-boyfriends ended up at Harvard for postdocs.
6. My cats have all had abstract nouns for names.
7. I did not do well on the swim team when I lived in Georgia. However, even years after moving back to Minnesota, I could still kick anybody's butt at swimming.
8. I was part of a trio of friends in my early teens. I'm the only one of us who survived past age eighteen.
9. I've skinned a squirrel.
10. I was one paper short of a college degree for nine years.
11. I spent much of my life up to about age seventeen afraid of everything. I don't know that I'm over that, but I've mostly stopped noticing.
12. I still haven't forgiven one junior high gym teacher for thinking I was faking what turned out to be arthritis.
13. I've been invited backstage at First Avenue, but I turned it down because I knew it was the equivalent of a date.
14. I "sneak" up on people all the time, but we usually both jump because I'm not trying to be sneaky.
15. Despite stage fright that's never fully gone away, I've been onstage as an actor, dancer, musician, singer and writer. Now I'm hosting a radio show.
16. I'm the slowest eater I know.
17. I would love to play with my hair color more, but I don't like coloring over my gray.
18. I've been scuba certified, but it's been almost 20 years since the last time I was diving.
19. Twice, I've gone on road trips to Canada on a whim.
20. I can cook ridiculously elaborate desserts with multiple layers, techniques and components. I'm no good at bread.
21. I used to take embroidery to class and do it during lecture.
22. I went an entire year without eating dairy, because things like pancakes made me throw up. It seems to have mostly worked, although I still can't drink plain milk, and ice cream sometimes still equals poison.
23. I'm a highly competitive person. Therefore, I rarely compete.
24. I don't do the polite Minnesotan thing. If I say I have no preference, it's because I don't. If I do, you'll hear about it.
25. I've seen my father twice since I turned eleven. The first time was at my wedding.
26. My favorite kind of lie is the one that tells most but not all of the truth.
27. I have yet to figure out any "rules" on what kind of music I like. I thought I had, then Beck came along. Fit the rules, but I said, "Eh."
28. I've only been stung once by a bee that I remember. I did everything right, but the stupid thing flew into my hair, got caught and panicked. Got me on the temple.
29. I use full capitalization and punctuation in instant messaging. It's faster for me than adjusting to text speak.
30. Coming up with 30 things to share was difficult because, despite blogging and occasionally treating Facebook status updates like performance art, I'm really bad at talking about myself.
1. I think we had more snakes when I was growing up than any other kind of pet. The mice didn't count. They were snake food.
2. I've never broken a bone (I think; not sure about my finger), but I sprained my back when I was in my teens.
3. I went to six elementary schools, three in sixth grade.
4. I wear three rings pretty much constantly. All were made by the same jeweler, based halfway across the country, and were purchased over eight years.
5. Both of my most serious ex-boyfriends ended up at Harvard for postdocs.
6. My cats have all had abstract nouns for names.
7. I did not do well on the swim team when I lived in Georgia. However, even years after moving back to Minnesota, I could still kick anybody's butt at swimming.
8. I was part of a trio of friends in my early teens. I'm the only one of us who survived past age eighteen.
9. I've skinned a squirrel.
10. I was one paper short of a college degree for nine years.
11. I spent much of my life up to about age seventeen afraid of everything. I don't know that I'm over that, but I've mostly stopped noticing.
12. I still haven't forgiven one junior high gym teacher for thinking I was faking what turned out to be arthritis.
13. I've been invited backstage at First Avenue, but I turned it down because I knew it was the equivalent of a date.
14. I "sneak" up on people all the time, but we usually both jump because I'm not trying to be sneaky.
15. Despite stage fright that's never fully gone away, I've been onstage as an actor, dancer, musician, singer and writer. Now I'm hosting a radio show.
16. I'm the slowest eater I know.
17. I would love to play with my hair color more, but I don't like coloring over my gray.
18. I've been scuba certified, but it's been almost 20 years since the last time I was diving.
19. Twice, I've gone on road trips to Canada on a whim.
20. I can cook ridiculously elaborate desserts with multiple layers, techniques and components. I'm no good at bread.
21. I used to take embroidery to class and do it during lecture.
22. I went an entire year without eating dairy, because things like pancakes made me throw up. It seems to have mostly worked, although I still can't drink plain milk, and ice cream sometimes still equals poison.
23. I'm a highly competitive person. Therefore, I rarely compete.
24. I don't do the polite Minnesotan thing. If I say I have no preference, it's because I don't. If I do, you'll hear about it.
25. I've seen my father twice since I turned eleven. The first time was at my wedding.
26. My favorite kind of lie is the one that tells most but not all of the truth.
27. I have yet to figure out any "rules" on what kind of music I like. I thought I had, then Beck came along. Fit the rules, but I said, "Eh."
28. I've only been stung once by a bee that I remember. I did everything right, but the stupid thing flew into my hair, got caught and panicked. Got me on the temple.
29. I use full capitalization and punctuation in instant messaging. It's faster for me than adjusting to text speak.
30. Coming up with 30 things to share was difficult because, despite blogging and occasionally treating Facebook status updates like performance art, I'm really bad at talking about myself.
Labels:
Silly
December 19, 2008
Movie Meme
I was all set to write a serious blog post, but why do that when someone hands you a meme on a platter? (Thanks, Greg.) This comes via Facebook, which is why it's text- instead of formatting-based.
Rules are simple: Xs next to movies you've seen, and if you've seen more than 85, you apparently have no life.
(x) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(x) Grease
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean
( ) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
( ) Boondock Saints
( ) Fight Club
( ) Starsky and Hutch
(x) Neverending Story
(x) Blazing Saddles
( ) Universal Soldier
( ) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
( ) Along Came Polly
( ) Joe Dirt
(x) KING KONG
Total so far: 6
( ) A Cinderella Story
( ) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
( ) Dumb & Dumber
( ) Dumber & Dumberer
( ) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Final Destination 3
(x) Halloween
( ) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
( ) Surviving -MAS
(x) Flubber (orignal only)
Total so far: 8
( ) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
( ) Practical Magic
(x) Chicago
( ) Ghost Ship
( ) From Hell
(x) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
( ) I Am Sam
( ) The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Whole Ten Yards
Total so far: 10
( ) The Day After Tomorrow
( ) Child's Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
( ) Bride of Chucky
(x) Ten Things I Hate About You
( ) Just Married
( ) Gothika
(x) Nightmare on Elm Street
(x) Sixteen Candles
( ) Remember the Titans
( ) Coach Carter
( ) The Grudge
( ) The Grudge 2
(x) The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask
Total so far: 14
( ) Bad Boys
( ) Bad Boys 2
( ) Joy Ride
( ) Lucky Number Sleven
( ) Ocean's Eleven
( ) Ocean's Twelve
( ) Bourne Identity
( ) Bourne Supremacy
( ) Lone Star
(x) Bedazzled (original only)
( ) Predator I
( ) Predator II
( ) The Fog
( ) Ice Age
( ) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
( ) Curious George
Total so far: 15
( ) Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
( ) Christine
(x) ET
( ) Children of the Corn
( ) My Bosses Daughter
( ) Maid in Manhattan
( ) War of the Worlds
( ) Rush Hour
( ) Rush Hour 2
Total so far: 16
( ) Best Bet
( ) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
(x) She's All That
(x) Calendar Girls
( ) Sideways
(x) Mars Attacks
( ) Event Horizon
(x) Ever After
(x) Wizard of Oz
( ) Forrest Gump
(x) Big Trouble in Little China
( ) The Terminator
(x) The Terminator 2
( ) The Terminator 3
Total so far: 23
(x) X-Men
(x) X2
(x) X-3
(x) Spider-Man
(x) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
( ) Catch Me If You Can
( ) The Little Mermaid (With a happy ending? Are you kidding me?)
(x) Freaky Friday (original only)
( ) Reign of Fire
( ) The Skulls
( ) Cruel Intentions
( ) Cruel Intentions 2
( ) The Hot Chick
(x) Shrek
( ) Shrek 2
Total so far: 30
( ) Swimfan
( ) Miracle on 34th street
( ) Old School
( ) The Notebook
( ) K-Pax
( ) Kippendorf's Tribe
( ) A Walk to Remember
( ) Ice Castles
( ) Boogeyman
( ) The 40-year-old-virgin
Total so far: 30
(x) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
(x) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
(x) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King
(x) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(x) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(x) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Total so far: 36
( ) Baseketball
( ) Hostel
(x) Waiting for Guffman
( ) House of 1000 Corpses
( ) Devils Rejects
( ) Elf
(x) Highlander
( ) Mothman Prophecies
( ) American History
( ) Three
Total so Far: 38
( ) The Jacket
(x) Kung Fu Hustle
( ) Shaolin Soccer
( ) Night Watch
(x) Monsters Inc.
( ) Titanic
(x) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(x) Shaun Of the Dead
( ) Willard
Total so far: 42
( ) High Tension
( ) Club Dread
(x) Hulk
( ) Dawn of the Dead
( ) Hook
(x) Chronicle Of Narnia The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
( ) 28 days later
( ) Orgazmo
( ) Phantasm
( ) Waterworld
Total so far: 44
( ) Kill Bill vol 1
( ) Kill Bill vol 2
( ) Mortal Kombat
( ) Wolf Creek
( ) Kingdom of Heaven
( ) the Hills Have Eyes
( ) I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman
( ) The Last House on the Left
( ) Re-Animator
( ) Army of Darkness
Total so far: 44
(x) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
(x) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
(x) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(x) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(x) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(x) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
( ) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
( ) Ewoks The Battle For Endor
Total so far: 50
( ) The Matrix
( ) The Matrix Reloaded
( ) The Matrix Revolutions
( ) Animatrix
( ) Evil Dead
( ) Evil Dead 2
( ) Team America: World Police
( ) Red Dragon
(x) Silence of the Lambs
( ) Hannibal
Total so far: 51
( ) Battle Royale
( ) Battle Royale 2
( ) Brazil
(x) Contact
( ) Cube
(x) Dr. Strangelove
( ) Enlightenment Guaranteed
( ) Four Rooms
( ) Memento
(x) Pi
( ) Requiem for a Dream
( ) Pulp Fiction
( ) Reservoir Dogs
( ) Run Lola Run
( ) Russian Ark
(x) Serenity
(x) Sin City
( ) Snatch
( ) Spider
(x) The Sixth Sense
( ) The Village
( ) Waking Life
( ) Zatoichi
( ) Ikiru
( ) The Seven Samurai
( ) Brick
(x) Akira
Total so far: 58
Well, looking at the list, 58 drastically understates my movie viewing. Where is my Thin Man, Strictly Ballroom, Born Yesterday, Real Genius, Galaxy Quest, Streets of Fire? Where are Gene Kelly, Gregory Hines, Rita Moreno, Judi Dench, Rowan Atkinson?
This list has the distinct feel of having been put together by a forty-something American guy with a horror movie fixation and a teenage daughter. Or is that what it means to not have a life?
Still, it's an opportunity for everyone to see how many movies I don't see.
Rules are simple: Xs next to movies you've seen, and if you've seen more than 85, you apparently have no life.
(x) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(x) Grease
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean
( ) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
( ) Boondock Saints
( ) Fight Club
( ) Starsky and Hutch
(x) Neverending Story
(x) Blazing Saddles
( ) Universal Soldier
( ) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
( ) Along Came Polly
( ) Joe Dirt
(x) KING KONG
Total so far: 6
( ) A Cinderella Story
( ) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
( ) Dumb & Dumber
( ) Dumber & Dumberer
( ) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Final Destination 3
(x) Halloween
( ) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
( ) Surviving -MAS
(x) Flubber (orignal only)
Total so far: 8
( ) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
( ) Practical Magic
(x) Chicago
( ) Ghost Ship
( ) From Hell
(x) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
( ) I Am Sam
( ) The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Whole Ten Yards
Total so far: 10
( ) The Day After Tomorrow
( ) Child's Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
( ) Bride of Chucky
(x) Ten Things I Hate About You
( ) Just Married
( ) Gothika
(x) Nightmare on Elm Street
(x) Sixteen Candles
( ) Remember the Titans
( ) Coach Carter
( ) The Grudge
( ) The Grudge 2
(x) The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask
Total so far: 14
( ) Bad Boys
( ) Bad Boys 2
( ) Joy Ride
( ) Lucky Number Sleven
( ) Ocean's Eleven
( ) Ocean's Twelve
( ) Bourne Identity
( ) Bourne Supremacy
( ) Lone Star
(x) Bedazzled (original only)
( ) Predator I
( ) Predator II
( ) The Fog
( ) Ice Age
( ) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
( ) Curious George
Total so far: 15
( ) Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
( ) Christine
(x) ET
( ) Children of the Corn
( ) My Bosses Daughter
( ) Maid in Manhattan
( ) War of the Worlds
( ) Rush Hour
( ) Rush Hour 2
Total so far: 16
( ) Best Bet
( ) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
(x) She's All That
(x) Calendar Girls
( ) Sideways
(x) Mars Attacks
( ) Event Horizon
(x) Ever After
(x) Wizard of Oz
( ) Forrest Gump
(x) Big Trouble in Little China
( ) The Terminator
(x) The Terminator 2
( ) The Terminator 3
Total so far: 23
(x) X-Men
(x) X2
(x) X-3
(x) Spider-Man
(x) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
( ) Catch Me If You Can
( ) The Little Mermaid (With a happy ending? Are you kidding me?)
(x) Freaky Friday (original only)
( ) Reign of Fire
( ) The Skulls
( ) Cruel Intentions
( ) Cruel Intentions 2
( ) The Hot Chick
(x) Shrek
( ) Shrek 2
Total so far: 30
( ) Swimfan
( ) Miracle on 34th street
( ) Old School
( ) The Notebook
( ) K-Pax
( ) Kippendorf's Tribe
( ) A Walk to Remember
( ) Ice Castles
( ) Boogeyman
( ) The 40-year-old-virgin
Total so far: 30
(x) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
(x) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
(x) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King
(x) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(x) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(x) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Total so far: 36
( ) Baseketball
( ) Hostel
(x) Waiting for Guffman
( ) House of 1000 Corpses
( ) Devils Rejects
( ) Elf
(x) Highlander
( ) Mothman Prophecies
( ) American History
( ) Three
Total so Far: 38
( ) The Jacket
(x) Kung Fu Hustle
( ) Shaolin Soccer
( ) Night Watch
(x) Monsters Inc.
( ) Titanic
(x) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(x) Shaun Of the Dead
( ) Willard
Total so far: 42
( ) High Tension
( ) Club Dread
(x) Hulk
( ) Dawn of the Dead
( ) Hook
(x) Chronicle Of Narnia The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
( ) 28 days later
( ) Orgazmo
( ) Phantasm
( ) Waterworld
Total so far: 44
( ) Kill Bill vol 1
( ) Kill Bill vol 2
( ) Mortal Kombat
( ) Wolf Creek
( ) Kingdom of Heaven
( ) the Hills Have Eyes
( ) I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman
( ) The Last House on the Left
( ) Re-Animator
( ) Army of Darkness
Total so far: 44
(x) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
(x) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
(x) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(x) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(x) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(x) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
( ) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
( ) Ewoks The Battle For Endor
Total so far: 50
( ) The Matrix
( ) The Matrix Reloaded
( ) The Matrix Revolutions
( ) Animatrix
( ) Evil Dead
( ) Evil Dead 2
( ) Team America: World Police
( ) Red Dragon
(x) Silence of the Lambs
( ) Hannibal
Total so far: 51
( ) Battle Royale
( ) Battle Royale 2
( ) Brazil
(x) Contact
( ) Cube
(x) Dr. Strangelove
( ) Enlightenment Guaranteed
( ) Four Rooms
( ) Memento
(x) Pi
( ) Requiem for a Dream
( ) Pulp Fiction
( ) Reservoir Dogs
( ) Run Lola Run
( ) Russian Ark
(x) Serenity
(x) Sin City
( ) Snatch
( ) Spider
(x) The Sixth Sense
( ) The Village
( ) Waking Life
( ) Zatoichi
( ) Ikiru
( ) The Seven Samurai
( ) Brick
(x) Akira
Total so far: 58
Well, looking at the list, 58 drastically understates my movie viewing. Where is my Thin Man, Strictly Ballroom, Born Yesterday, Real Genius, Galaxy Quest, Streets of Fire? Where are Gene Kelly, Gregory Hines, Rita Moreno, Judi Dench, Rowan Atkinson?
This list has the distinct feel of having been put together by a forty-something American guy with a horror movie fixation and a teenage daughter. Or is that what it means to not have a life?
Still, it's an opportunity for everyone to see how many movies I don't see.
Labels:
Silly
December 06, 2008
An Odd Year
DrugMonkey has posted an excellent year-in-review meme that involves posting the first sentence of the first post of each month of the year. Since 2008 was my first full year of blogging, and since almost none of my current readers won't have read that far back, I must play.
Let's see what the blog has to say for itself.
January: There's a character I've been wanting to write for a while but probably won't until the next book.
February: This is one of the cooler memes I've seen.
March: I don't know his name, but he's awfully cute.
April: I've been involved in a few discussions lately in which public school education and teachers got pretty thoroughly dissed.
May: So I'm on this client team at work, one of several.
June: I am not a specialist.
July: Yesterday at work, despite my best efforts to check off the 1,001 tiny things on my to do list and to clean out my inbox so I can figure out whether there's anything that never made it onto the list, I spent much of my time on two Projects That Will Not Die.
August: Transcriptase is the new site where some writers who had material in the Helix archives have reposted their work.
September: One of the local high schools has a gay-rights student club.
October: Like any goodnarcissist blogger, I like to see what search terms people are using to find my blog.
November: In my last post, I talked about the many excellent reasons to vote against Norm Coleman for senator.
December: When I was looking at old Animaniacs videos, I noticed that there seems to be a drive to bring them back (although there don't seem to be any results).
Uh, huh. Interesting. Some politics, some writing, some work (of all things), some silly. It all sounds about right, but it does raise the perpetual question. Can anyone tell me what this blog is about?
Let's see what the blog has to say for itself.
January: There's a character I've been wanting to write for a while but probably won't until the next book.
February: This is one of the cooler memes I've seen.
March: I don't know his name, but he's awfully cute.
April: I've been involved in a few discussions lately in which public school education and teachers got pretty thoroughly dissed.
May: So I'm on this client team at work, one of several.
June: I am not a specialist.
July: Yesterday at work, despite my best efforts to check off the 1,001 tiny things on my to do list and to clean out my inbox so I can figure out whether there's anything that never made it onto the list, I spent much of my time on two Projects That Will Not Die.
August: Transcriptase is the new site where some writers who had material in the Helix archives have reposted their work.
September: One of the local high schools has a gay-rights student club.
October: Like any good
November: In my last post, I talked about the many excellent reasons to vote against Norm Coleman for senator.
December: When I was looking at old Animaniacs videos, I noticed that there seems to be a drive to bring them back (although there don't seem to be any results).
Uh, huh. Interesting. Some politics, some writing, some work (of all things), some silly. It all sounds about right, but it does raise the perpetual question. Can anyone tell me what this blog is about?
Labels:
Blogkeeping,
Silly
December 03, 2008
5:56
Peggy tagged me with the new 5-56 meme. It combines an existing meme (fifth sentence on page 56) with a guessing game.
- You can pick and choose the books to find the most interesting sentences.
- At least five of the books should be fiction.
- Try not to use books that are so obscure no one could guess what they are.
- You can give hints, if you so desire.
- Tag some other bloggers to pass the meme along.
I don't know how much good this information does as hints, but here goes. All are fiction. I went with writers I've met and at least chatted with, so as I write this, I'm not sure how interesting the sentences will be. Most of the authors don't live in Minnesota. There are fourteen authors for the ten books, but only thirteen are listed on the covers. Of course, one of those is a pen name, so the question of who is actually credited is, well, complicated.
1. The worst were one her arms; the biggest burn, under her chin, was the size of her palm.
2. Though I preferred to think of it as vengeance.
3. She drank too much and invited the forge's handsome foreman to her new bed.
4. Can't he find satisfaction interfering in the lives of his parishioners and browbeating them to feel obliged to invite him to dinner?
5. I wince as he probes around the edge of the prosthetic arm, feeling the scarring.
6. Steep-roofed old townhouses still lined its narrow streets, but bits of their elaborate stonework had given way to the elements and bits had been stolen to replace other bits.
7. Bella slid the score gently across the table toward me.
8. 'You could have asked me to stay the night,' she said, in her cold-stone voice.
9. Gringras was sitting on the fire escape above her, his legs dangling down.
10. I lay on my side facing away from her, my hands clutching my injury.
I tag Mme. Piggy, Greg, Lou and anyone who recognizes one of their books above.
- You can pick and choose the books to find the most interesting sentences.
- At least five of the books should be fiction.
- Try not to use books that are so obscure no one could guess what they are.
- You can give hints, if you so desire.
- Tag some other bloggers to pass the meme along.
I don't know how much good this information does as hints, but here goes. All are fiction. I went with writers I've met and at least chatted with, so as I write this, I'm not sure how interesting the sentences will be. Most of the authors don't live in Minnesota. There are fourteen authors for the ten books, but only thirteen are listed on the covers. Of course, one of those is a pen name, so the question of who is actually credited is, well, complicated.
1. The worst were one her arms; the biggest burn, under her chin, was the size of her palm.
2. Though I preferred to think of it as vengeance.
3. She drank too much and invited the forge's handsome foreman to her new bed.
4. Can't he find satisfaction interfering in the lives of his parishioners and browbeating them to feel obliged to invite him to dinner?
5. I wince as he probes around the edge of the prosthetic arm, feeling the scarring.
6. Steep-roofed old townhouses still lined its narrow streets, but bits of their elaborate stonework had given way to the elements and bits had been stolen to replace other bits.
7. Bella slid the score gently across the table toward me.
8. 'You could have asked me to stay the night,' she said, in her cold-stone voice.
9. Gringras was sitting on the fire escape above her, his legs dangling down.
10. I lay on my side facing away from her, my hands clutching my injury.
I tag Mme. Piggy, Greg, Lou and anyone who recognizes one of their books above.
Labels:
Silly
November 24, 2008
Arbitrary Things
Eek. Tagged again.
Thing One
I was, quite literally, a poster child. Back in the days when in-home daycare was a radical choice, my mother was involved in promoting it. Pictures of me as a very smiley, very blond two-year-old were used to show how happy children in daycare really were.
Thing Two
I have discovered, through a certain amount of experimentation, that overly sweet candies can be much improved by roasting them over a fire. Circus peanuts and peeps are particularly good examples.
Thing Three
I've never had a driver's license. I can drive a manual transmission and downshift around a corner, but I've never taken the test. There is no good reason for this.
Thing Four
My laugh is preserved for posterity. Neil Gaiman recorded material for his spoken-word album, Warning: Contains Language in front of several live audiences. Most of what made it onto the album was recorded in a studio, but "Chivalry" is the live version. That very loud, very distinctive laugh that's just a little early? That's me.
Thing Five
My music collection contains fairly complete discographies of a number of eighties "one-hit" wonders: Soft Cell, Men Without Hats, Thomas Dolby, Falco, Kate Bush, Yaz/Alison Moyet, Dead or Alive, Simple Minds, Madness.
Thing Six
I was in a play about seventeen years ago that the playwright came to see. It took me until this summer to ask the director, "So, did he actually like it, or was he just being polite?" Yeah. I still get stage fright too.
You may have noticed that I'm not very good at following rules. No this is not one of the arbitrary things (it's fundamental), but an explanation of why I'm only doing two-thirds of the list. If you want to consider yourself tagged, I'd love to hear more about you, but I'm not passing this one on otherwise.
- Link to the person who tagged you.
- Post the rules on your blog.
- Write six random arbitrary things about yourself.
- Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
- Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
- Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
Thing OneI was, quite literally, a poster child. Back in the days when in-home daycare was a radical choice, my mother was involved in promoting it. Pictures of me as a very smiley, very blond two-year-old were used to show how happy children in daycare really were.
Thing Two
I have discovered, through a certain amount of experimentation, that overly sweet candies can be much improved by roasting them over a fire. Circus peanuts and peeps are particularly good examples.
Thing Three
I've never had a driver's license. I can drive a manual transmission and downshift around a corner, but I've never taken the test. There is no good reason for this.
Thing Four
My laugh is preserved for posterity. Neil Gaiman recorded material for his spoken-word album, Warning: Contains Language in front of several live audiences. Most of what made it onto the album was recorded in a studio, but "Chivalry" is the live version. That very loud, very distinctive laugh that's just a little early? That's me.
Thing Five
My music collection contains fairly complete discographies of a number of eighties "one-hit" wonders: Soft Cell, Men Without Hats, Thomas Dolby, Falco, Kate Bush, Yaz/Alison Moyet, Dead or Alive, Simple Minds, Madness.
Thing Six
I was in a play about seventeen years ago that the playwright came to see. It took me until this summer to ask the director, "So, did he actually like it, or was he just being polite?" Yeah. I still get stage fright too.
You may have noticed that I'm not very good at following rules. No this is not one of the arbitrary things (it's fundamental), but an explanation of why I'm only doing two-thirds of the list. If you want to consider yourself tagged, I'd love to hear more about you, but I'm not passing this one on otherwise.
Labels:
Silly
November 12, 2008
Tagged!
I woke up this morning to discover that Glendon (of the amazing Flying Trilobite) had tagged me with a meme. In thanks for his not tagging me with all three of them, here is my prompt response.
The 5 Things Meme
5 things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Starting to think that writing was something I should take seriously.
2. Regrading the yard and putting in window wells to keep the water out of the basement.
3. Being a landlord.
4. Writing specifications for and testing a Y2K compliant GUI to replace a mainframe system.
5. Browsing at dial-up speeds.
5 things on my to do list today:
1. Find bread at the bakery that will handle grilled cheese, PBJ and pot roast.
2. Research just how much the crappy economy is trickling down.
3. Finish butchering a deer.
4. Shoehorn in quality snuggling time with boy and cat.
5. Get to bed a non-obscene hour.
5 snacks I love:
1. Apples.
2. Smoked almonds.
3. Candy corn.
4. String cheese.
5. Gin-Gins.
5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:
1. Give away more than I do now.
2. Pay off the house to be completely debt free.
3. Squirrel some away for cushion and additional income.
4. Write more.
5. Decide what my next challenge will be without regard for pay.
5 places I've lived:
1. Georgia.
2. Oklahoma.
3. In a trailer park in a rich suburb.
4. In an apartment when I already had a dorm room paid for.
5. In the hood, by choice.
5 jobs I've had:
1. Selling seashells, but not by the seashore.
2. Physics teaching assistant.
3. Psychology research assistant.
4. Team lead (twice, not happy either time).
5. Analyst (of three different sorts).
5 people I'll tag:
Five people I don't know enough about. Only five?
1. Betül, because her answers will be very different than mine.
2. Muse142, because she isn't blogging enough right now.
3. Juniper, for the same reason.
4. JLK, because I can be the first to tag a new blog.
5. R.E.S.E.A.R.C.H.E.R.S., because I can cheat and get a twofer.
The 5 Things Meme
5 things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Starting to think that writing was something I should take seriously.
2. Regrading the yard and putting in window wells to keep the water out of the basement.
3. Being a landlord.
4. Writing specifications for and testing a Y2K compliant GUI to replace a mainframe system.
5. Browsing at dial-up speeds.
5 things on my to do list today:
1. Find bread at the bakery that will handle grilled cheese, PBJ and pot roast.
2. Research just how much the crappy economy is trickling down.
3. Finish butchering a deer.
4. Shoehorn in quality snuggling time with boy and cat.
5. Get to bed a non-obscene hour.
5 snacks I love:
1. Apples.
2. Smoked almonds.
3. Candy corn.
4. String cheese.
5. Gin-Gins.
5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:
1. Give away more than I do now.
2. Pay off the house to be completely debt free.
3. Squirrel some away for cushion and additional income.
4. Write more.
5. Decide what my next challenge will be without regard for pay.
5 places I've lived:
1. Georgia.
2. Oklahoma.
3. In a trailer park in a rich suburb.
4. In an apartment when I already had a dorm room paid for.
5. In the hood, by choice.
5 jobs I've had:
1. Selling seashells, but not by the seashore.
2. Physics teaching assistant.
3. Psychology research assistant.
4. Team lead (twice, not happy either time).
5. Analyst (of three different sorts).
5 people I'll tag:
Five people I don't know enough about. Only five?
1. Betül, because her answers will be very different than mine.
2. Muse142, because she isn't blogging enough right now.
3. Juniper, for the same reason.
4. JLK, because I can be the first to tag a new blog.
5. R.E.S.E.A.R.C.H.E.R.S., because I can cheat and get a twofer.
Labels:
Silly
October 10, 2008
Happy Things
Before I parse how badly I was lied to about investing and while I figure out how to miss someone I never knew (no, no link), I thought I'd take Mme. Piggy up on her idea for a gloomy day meme. In the interest of lowering my blood pressure, here are a few of the things that make me happy, in no particular order.
Boys in kilts
A particular pair of deep blue eyes
A sleek, loyal little black cat
Talking nonsense
Hashing out a new idea
Treating libertarians like my personal catnip mice
Fireplace weather
People who don't scare easily
Crisp, clean sheets
Lazy days and energetic conversation
Imposing order
Discovering I've written something that isn't crap
Dirt under my fingernails
Pop music with complicated rhythms and clever lyrics
Using personal space to herd pedestrians
The iPod shuffle function
A crispy, gooey, chewy oatmeal raisin cookie
Bare feet
Discovering that there are more of "us" out there
Defiance
When the music is dancing to me
A big, unwieldy jigsaw puzzle
The bitter with the sweet
People-watching
Throwing a little swing into the slack rope
Unabashed metaphor
Following along one step ahead
Years-long running jokes
Strong cheese
Finding the flaw in the argument
Difference
The silent shared smile
Daydreaming
Information on demand
Looking behind the mask
Story, story, story
How about you?
Boys in kilts
A particular pair of deep blue eyes
A sleek, loyal little black cat
Talking nonsense
Hashing out a new idea
Treating libertarians like my personal catnip mice
Fireplace weather
People who don't scare easily
Crisp, clean sheets
Lazy days and energetic conversation
Imposing order
Discovering I've written something that isn't crap
Dirt under my fingernails
Pop music with complicated rhythms and clever lyrics
Using personal space to herd pedestrians
The iPod shuffle function
A crispy, gooey, chewy oatmeal raisin cookie
Bare feet
Discovering that there are more of "us" out there
Defiance
When the music is dancing to me
A big, unwieldy jigsaw puzzle
The bitter with the sweet
People-watching
Throwing a little swing into the slack rope
Unabashed metaphor
Following along one step ahead
Years-long running jokes
Strong cheese
Finding the flaw in the argument
Difference
The silent shared smile
Daydreaming
Information on demand
Looking behind the mask
Story, story, story
How about you?
Labels:
Silly
July 29, 2008
No Surprises
What kind of liberal am I again? Oh, yeah.
Actually, changing to any one of my second choice answers put me squarely among the "liberal elite." Again, very unexpected. But the graphic is cute.
Thanks to Bora and Mike for the pointers. I needed a little fluff today.
My Liberal Identity:
You are a Social Justice Crusader, also known as a rights activist. You believe in equality, fairness, and preventing neo-Confederate conservative troglodytes from rolling back fifty years of civil rights gains.
Take the quiz at http://www.fightconservatives.com/
Actually, changing to any one of my second choice answers put me squarely among the "liberal elite." Again, very unexpected. But the graphic is cute.
Thanks to Bora and Mike for the pointers. I needed a little fluff today.
Labels:
Silly
July 25, 2008
Book Meme--No, No, A Different One
This one comes from, oh, everyone at ScienceBlogs. Presumably, the average American has read six of them. Like the average American does book memes. And yes, there are problems with the list.
Bold are finished. Italics are partially read. Number of asterisks tells you how many body parts I'd give up before reading it again (I added that part myself).
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell **
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding ***
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
I've read other Du Maurier, Nabokov and Atwood and liked them. I just haven't read these. I'll read more Austen and probably Dickens, but I'm not in a hurry. I came to Tolkien too late for him to inspire enough wonder to get me to put up with the prose. I really need to read Dracula, but I was spoiled by reading Saberhagen's take on it first.
Much of the rest of this list just doesn't address why I read fiction. I don't do dystopias. Dostoyevsky is one of the few authors I know of who can write "cautionary" works that are still readable. I don't do the meticulously observed mundane. And I want something like a happy ending.
So let the "Oh, but you must read..." begin.
Bold are finished. Italics are partially read. Number of asterisks tells you how many body parts I'd give up before reading it again (I added that part myself).
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell **
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding ***
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
I've read other Du Maurier, Nabokov and Atwood and liked them. I just haven't read these. I'll read more Austen and probably Dickens, but I'm not in a hurry. I came to Tolkien too late for him to inspire enough wonder to get me to put up with the prose. I really need to read Dracula, but I was spoiled by reading Saberhagen's take on it first.
Much of the rest of this list just doesn't address why I read fiction. I don't do dystopias. Dostoyevsky is one of the few authors I know of who can write "cautionary" works that are still readable. I don't do the meticulously observed mundane. And I want something like a happy ending.
So let the "Oh, but you must read..." begin.
Labels:
Silly
February 10, 2008
Top 10 Signs You're Reading My Fiction
This is one of the cooler memes I've seen. It started on Fangs, Fur, & Fey and propagated on Wyrdsmiths. The original was specific to novels, but until I've finished another, it will be difficult to generalize about mine. This post includes my short stories.
- The main character is not integrated into their society. Yes, this says a lot about me.
- You won't see a lot of central romance. The romance you will see is usually more a flag for a change in outlook. This says much less about me, except, perhaps, that I don't equate romance with drama. What can I say? I'm happy.
- Fear is a greater motivator than danger, and there are lots of things scarier than death.
- Work and economic circumstances are a strong presence in the story and may drive the plot.
- The past often plays a larger role than the present.
- Narrators (and close POV characters) are sort of reliable. That is, they won't lie to you, but their outlook is limited or their focus narrow.
- Characters are not all able-bodied and -minded.
- Families, if relevant, are small and have frequently been pared down by circumstance.
- Someone is going to discover that their deeply held beliefs about the world aren't so much wrong as based on incomplete information. This will be critical to the resolution of the plot.
- Reading over this list, it seems a little grim, but the endings of most of my stories are cheerful, triumphant or both.
August 27, 2007
Writing Meme
Kelly started it, and while I'm feeling too busy to play, I'm also feeling like a bad mother to my blog, so here goes.
What do you find _______ about writing?
Hardest? Making sure the plot makes it to the surface of the story.
Easiest? Dialog and character tics.
Most fun? Breaking the rules, with malice aforethought, and making it work.
Most tedious? Submissions. I'd much rather just write, but I know I need to keep measuring myself against the higher standard to make myself improve.
Coolest? Discovering that maybe I did know how to do that after all. It's always nice when I hit the dreaded bit and just write right through it.
Least cool? Knowing that in some ways, I'm ten to fifteen years behind the trends in my genre.
Best? Being able to scratch that creative itch and know that what I made beats the hell out of any sticker-laden, ribbon-bound, specialty-sheared, cutesy, disposable scrapbook.
Worst? Never quite grasping what I'm reaching for.
What do you find _______ about writing?
Hardest? Making sure the plot makes it to the surface of the story.
Easiest? Dialog and character tics.
Most fun? Breaking the rules, with malice aforethought, and making it work.
Most tedious? Submissions. I'd much rather just write, but I know I need to keep measuring myself against the higher standard to make myself improve.
Coolest? Discovering that maybe I did know how to do that after all. It's always nice when I hit the dreaded bit and just write right through it.
Least cool? Knowing that in some ways, I'm ten to fifteen years behind the trends in my genre.
Best? Being able to scratch that creative itch and know that what I made beats the hell out of any sticker-laden, ribbon-bound, specialty-sheared, cutesy, disposable scrapbook.
Worst? Never quite grasping what I'm reaching for.
February 14, 2007
Who Is This Strange Person?
I’m currently revising a novel, making sure I keep writing new things, and playing beta reader for a couple of friends, so the blog is going to continue to be underloved for a little bit. Here’s a meme running around that will at least give you an introduction to the person behind the stock CSS. Thanks to Doug Hulick for the idea.
1. What bill do you hate paying the most?
The car, which replaced a much loved car that died in an accident, is the only bill I still have to put in the mail. Everything else only requires that I not do something silly enough to lose my job.
2. Where's the best place to eat a romantic dinner?
The only qualifications are that we have to stop whatever else we’re doing and pay attention to each other and that it can’t be too noisy.
3. Last time you puked from drinking?
I think I was about fifteen. I woke up the next day with the flu, so I’m not sure it was the brandy, though.
4. When is the last time you got drunk and danced on a bar?
One word—acrophobia. Actually, drunk and dancing are mutually exclusive. The particular high of dancing doesn’t often come if I’ve got more than a wee buzz.
5. Name of your first grade teacher?
I’m pretty sure I was in first grade. My mother thought it would be bad for me to skip it and be two years younger than everyone else in my class. I just don’t remember any of it.
6. What do you really want to be doing right now?
Carving out a big enough chunk of time to really get rolling on my new story.
7. What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A teacher, until I realized it meant being on stage all day. A dancer, until my joints betrayed me. An astronaut, similarly ruled out by my body. A counselor, until I discovered that there was no evidence that most types of therapy had any lasting value.
8. How many colleges did you attend?
Two.
9. Why did you wear that shirt you have on right now?
It’s warm, clean, and I haven’t worn it in a while. That and it went with the handiest pair of clean pants.
10. GAS PRICES?
I walk to work, so I don’t have a lot of personal stake. I’d like to see prices accurately reflect our society’s investment in oil, but I’m pretty sure that the brunt of any changes would be borne by the people who can least afford it.
11. If you could move anywhere and take someone with you?
I’m awfully happy where I am, and I’d have to take a bunch of people with me to be happy anywhere else long-term. However, I’m rather fond of Edinburgh, Flagstaff, and PEI.
12. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?
The first three beeps somehow worked into my dream at the time. Then my first thought was, as it always is, to shut it off before it disturbs Ben. This is silly, since my alarm doesn’t wake him up even when he has to get up first, but I never claimed to be brilliant before dawn.
13. Last thought before going to sleep last night?
Heck if I know. Falling asleep is almost always a long process of the brain winding down.
14. Favorite style of underwear?
Ones that fit.
15. Favorite style of underwear for the opposite sex?
Favorite cut depends on the cut of the guy.
16. What errand/chore do you despise?
Dishes.
17. If you didn't have to work, would you volunteer at an art gallery?
Nope. Art museum—maybe. Art gallery—no.
18. Get up early or sleep in?
What am I trying to accomplish today? Sometimes sleep is its own goal.
19. What is your favorite cartoon character?
Danger Mouse. Well, it might be Penfold, actually.
20. Favorite NON sexual thing to do at night with a girl/guy?
Stay up talking until the world takes on that slightly surreal glow and anything can be said without worries.
21. A secret that you wouldn't mind everyone knowing?
Nope. Sorry. Either someone knows, so it’s not a secret, or it’s dying with me.
22. When did you first start feeling old?
Getting arthritis at 13 made me a bit precocious.
23. Favorite 80's movie?
Real Genius.
24. Your favorite lunch meat?
Smoked turkey.
25. What do you get every time you go into Sam's Club?
Hives.
26. Beach or lake?
Lake with trees and rocks along the shore. Someplace nice to sit and just stare at the water.
27. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual that was invented?
It works for me.
28. How many people do you stalk on Myspace?
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a Myspace page once.
29. Favorite guilty pleasure?
Sambuca or Drambuie. Depends on the day.
30. Favorite movie you wouldn't want anyone to find out about?
I don’t usually scream to the world that I have a small collection of Danny Kaye movies, but I don’t care if anyone knows, either.
31. What's your drink?
See 29.
32. Cowboys or Indians?
Never played either as a kid, but I’m some tiny part native Canadian.
33. Cops or Robbers?
Both. I usually root for whomever is smarter.
34. Who from high school would you like to run into?
Evan. Erin. Jackie, if it were still possible. Pete. Stacey. I'm sure there are others I'm missing.
35. What radio station is your car radio tuned to right now?
I don’t drive. Ben keeps it on the Current until I’m appalled by what I’m hearing. Then it goes on the local alternative station until the commercials come on.
36. Norm or Cliff?
Carla.
37. The Cosby Show or the Simpsons?
Simpsons.
38. Worst relationship mistake that you wish you could take back?
There was a lot of being young and a lot of learning. I’d spare some people’s feelings if I could, and there were a couple of boys who weren’t worth kissing. For that matter, there were a couple who I should have just gone ahead and kissed, circumstances be damned. But I’m happy with where it all got me.
39. Do you like the person who sits directly across from you at work?
Uh, there’s no one there, but most of the people I work with are cool. I try to keep the ones who aren’t from realizing it.
40. If you could get away with it, who would you kill?
"Whom," people, whom would I kill. Are you trying to make me homicidal? Seriously, though, I think the consequences of killing even an awful person would be too hard to predict.
41. What famous person(s) would you like to have dinner with?
Alton Brown (for the conversation more than the cooking), Alan Cumming, Miss Snark, Oscar Wilde—almost anyone clever and not too sweet.
42. What famous person would you like to sleep with?
And dispel the mystique? You’re kidding, right?
43. Have you ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?
Nope.
44. Last book you read for real?
The last one I finished was a Tamora Pierce YA. I’m reading Mary Roach’s Spook currently.
45. Do you have a teddy bear?
I think I still have a Gund that was given to me tucked somewhere in a closet. I have a stuffed dinosaur, though.
46. Have you ever brushed your teeth?
Duh. Ew.
47. Somewhere in California you've never been and would like to go?
I’ve never been to California. Seeing M5 Industries would be cool, though.
48. Number of texts in a day?
Now I know you’re kidding. Do you know how few cell minutes I use in a month? I'm a poster child for a shared plan.
49. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?
I’m working on the new career, although I don’t expect it to replace the current one.
50. Do you go to church?
Aside from weddings, christenings, and funerals, maybe twice in my life.
51. Pencil or pen?
Keyboard.
52. What do you want to achieve in life?
Perfection, but I’ll manage if I never get there.
53. How old are you?
36
54. Where do you see yourself when you are 40?
I plan for retirement, since it helps to start early (mmm, compound interest), but my other long-term goals are pretty fluid. So far, adult life has treated me well. I think I’ll hang in there and see how it goes.
1. What bill do you hate paying the most?
The car, which replaced a much loved car that died in an accident, is the only bill I still have to put in the mail. Everything else only requires that I not do something silly enough to lose my job.
2. Where's the best place to eat a romantic dinner?
The only qualifications are that we have to stop whatever else we’re doing and pay attention to each other and that it can’t be too noisy.
3. Last time you puked from drinking?
I think I was about fifteen. I woke up the next day with the flu, so I’m not sure it was the brandy, though.
4. When is the last time you got drunk and danced on a bar?
One word—acrophobia. Actually, drunk and dancing are mutually exclusive. The particular high of dancing doesn’t often come if I’ve got more than a wee buzz.
5. Name of your first grade teacher?
I’m pretty sure I was in first grade. My mother thought it would be bad for me to skip it and be two years younger than everyone else in my class. I just don’t remember any of it.
6. What do you really want to be doing right now?
Carving out a big enough chunk of time to really get rolling on my new story.
7. What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A teacher, until I realized it meant being on stage all day. A dancer, until my joints betrayed me. An astronaut, similarly ruled out by my body. A counselor, until I discovered that there was no evidence that most types of therapy had any lasting value.
8. How many colleges did you attend?
Two.
9. Why did you wear that shirt you have on right now?
It’s warm, clean, and I haven’t worn it in a while. That and it went with the handiest pair of clean pants.
10. GAS PRICES?
I walk to work, so I don’t have a lot of personal stake. I’d like to see prices accurately reflect our society’s investment in oil, but I’m pretty sure that the brunt of any changes would be borne by the people who can least afford it.
11. If you could move anywhere and take someone with you?
I’m awfully happy where I am, and I’d have to take a bunch of people with me to be happy anywhere else long-term. However, I’m rather fond of Edinburgh, Flagstaff, and PEI.
12. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?
The first three beeps somehow worked into my dream at the time. Then my first thought was, as it always is, to shut it off before it disturbs Ben. This is silly, since my alarm doesn’t wake him up even when he has to get up first, but I never claimed to be brilliant before dawn.
13. Last thought before going to sleep last night?
Heck if I know. Falling asleep is almost always a long process of the brain winding down.
14. Favorite style of underwear?
Ones that fit.
15. Favorite style of underwear for the opposite sex?
Favorite cut depends on the cut of the guy.
16. What errand/chore do you despise?
Dishes.
17. If you didn't have to work, would you volunteer at an art gallery?
Nope. Art museum—maybe. Art gallery—no.
18. Get up early or sleep in?
What am I trying to accomplish today? Sometimes sleep is its own goal.
19. What is your favorite cartoon character?
Danger Mouse. Well, it might be Penfold, actually.
20. Favorite NON sexual thing to do at night with a girl/guy?
Stay up talking until the world takes on that slightly surreal glow and anything can be said without worries.
21. A secret that you wouldn't mind everyone knowing?
Nope. Sorry. Either someone knows, so it’s not a secret, or it’s dying with me.
22. When did you first start feeling old?
Getting arthritis at 13 made me a bit precocious.
23. Favorite 80's movie?
Real Genius.
24. Your favorite lunch meat?
Smoked turkey.
25. What do you get every time you go into Sam's Club?
Hives.
26. Beach or lake?
Lake with trees and rocks along the shore. Someplace nice to sit and just stare at the water.
27. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual that was invented?
It works for me.
28. How many people do you stalk on Myspace?
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a Myspace page once.
29. Favorite guilty pleasure?
Sambuca or Drambuie. Depends on the day.
30. Favorite movie you wouldn't want anyone to find out about?
I don’t usually scream to the world that I have a small collection of Danny Kaye movies, but I don’t care if anyone knows, either.
31. What's your drink?
See 29.
32. Cowboys or Indians?
Never played either as a kid, but I’m some tiny part native Canadian.
33. Cops or Robbers?
Both. I usually root for whomever is smarter.
34. Who from high school would you like to run into?
Evan. Erin. Jackie, if it were still possible. Pete. Stacey. I'm sure there are others I'm missing.
35. What radio station is your car radio tuned to right now?
I don’t drive. Ben keeps it on the Current until I’m appalled by what I’m hearing. Then it goes on the local alternative station until the commercials come on.
36. Norm or Cliff?
Carla.
37. The Cosby Show or the Simpsons?
Simpsons.
38. Worst relationship mistake that you wish you could take back?
There was a lot of being young and a lot of learning. I’d spare some people’s feelings if I could, and there were a couple of boys who weren’t worth kissing. For that matter, there were a couple who I should have just gone ahead and kissed, circumstances be damned. But I’m happy with where it all got me.
39. Do you like the person who sits directly across from you at work?
Uh, there’s no one there, but most of the people I work with are cool. I try to keep the ones who aren’t from realizing it.
40. If you could get away with it, who would you kill?
"Whom," people, whom would I kill. Are you trying to make me homicidal? Seriously, though, I think the consequences of killing even an awful person would be too hard to predict.
41. What famous person(s) would you like to have dinner with?
Alton Brown (for the conversation more than the cooking), Alan Cumming, Miss Snark, Oscar Wilde—almost anyone clever and not too sweet.
42. What famous person would you like to sleep with?
And dispel the mystique? You’re kidding, right?
43. Have you ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?
Nope.
44. Last book you read for real?
The last one I finished was a Tamora Pierce YA. I’m reading Mary Roach’s Spook currently.
45. Do you have a teddy bear?
I think I still have a Gund that was given to me tucked somewhere in a closet. I have a stuffed dinosaur, though.
46. Have you ever brushed your teeth?
Duh. Ew.
47. Somewhere in California you've never been and would like to go?
I’ve never been to California. Seeing M5 Industries would be cool, though.
48. Number of texts in a day?
Now I know you’re kidding. Do you know how few cell minutes I use in a month? I'm a poster child for a shared plan.
49. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?
I’m working on the new career, although I don’t expect it to replace the current one.
50. Do you go to church?
Aside from weddings, christenings, and funerals, maybe twice in my life.
51. Pencil or pen?
Keyboard.
52. What do you want to achieve in life?
Perfection, but I’ll manage if I never get there.
53. How old are you?
36
54. Where do you see yourself when you are 40?
I plan for retirement, since it helps to start early (mmm, compound interest), but my other long-term goals are pretty fluid. So far, adult life has treated me well. I think I’ll hang in there and see how it goes.
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