I am interested in what is interesting, and not what is trite or trivial.
Except for when I am interested in what is trite and trivial, in which case, I do NOT feel self-conscious for liking it. Nope. Not even if the whole world learns of my banality.
Here are some things relevant to me:
language -- mathematics -- books (reading them, reading about them, knowing about them, their contents, their covers, the way they're bound, their smell, the paper they're printed on and the inks and color processes and I bet you see where I'm going with this) -- children's books (esp. of the bizarre and/or philosophical variety) -- amassing oddities -- playing with the kitties -- knitting -- obsessively cutting out zillions of pictures and phrases from magazines -- random crafty hobbies that are only attempts to use up these pictures and phrases but which only fuel my drive to cut out more -- gardening badly -- Bitch, Bust, Reason, McSweeney's, Harper's, Columbia Review of Journalism, Skeptic, The Week -- mythology, fairy tales, religion -- how it all works -- creating long lists no one could possibly take the time to read through -- music listening -- origami -- letter writing -- nice pens -- atheism -- the robot and the snowman -- cleaning up cat puke -- inventing an elaborate but arbitrary aesthetic to accommodate the placement (and endless rearrangement) of my sizable and baffling Collection Of Neat Crap -- oh, and long walks on the beach
Music
Is this what you will use to define me? Please, oh please, evaluate my taste! Someday I will tell my grandchildren that I got an iPod and it changed my life. Not that I'll have grandchildren, most likely, since I've got no children. So I'll tell someone else's grandchildren, and they'll look at me strangely and make fun of me behind my back.
Some of the latest... Menomena -- Snake & Jet's Amazing Bullit Band -- Tapes'n'Tapes -- Soular -- Eric MdFadden Trio
Animal Collective -- Band of Horses -- Grizzly Bear -- Gogol Bordello -- Chad VanGaalen -- Peter Bjorn and John -- Joseph Arthur -- Ratatat -- Strays Don't Sleep -- Joanna Newsom -- Bettye LaVette -- The Gothic Archies -- Jeff Lang -- Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins -- Lily Allen -- Love as Laughter -- Ray LaMontagne -- Rilo Kiley -- Sylvie Lewis -- The Like -- Cloud Cult -- Jolie Holland -- Neko Case -- Sufjan Stevens -- PJ Harvey --Sigur Ros -- Nellie Mckay -- Edith Frost -- The Shins -- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club -- Fiona Apple -- Dido -- Leonard Cohen -- Jeff Buckley -- Bauhaus -- Tricky -- Martina Topley-Bird -- Radiohead -- Frank Black -- Regina Spektor -- Neutral Milk Hotel -- Tom Waits -- Keren Ann -- Decemberists -- Built To Spill -- Nirvana -- Beck -- New Folk Implosion -- Josh Rouse -- Jefferson Airplane -- Grateful Dead -- Holly Golightly -- Modest Mouse -- Bob Dylan -- Pinback -- Dr Octagon -- Pink Floyd -- Nick Drake -- Elliott Smith -- Bright Eyes -- Flaming Lips -- Princess Superstar -- Daisy Chainsaw -- Miranda Sex Garden -- Dead Can Dance -- Black Heart Procession -- Ugly Cassanova -- Broadcast -- Liz Phair -- Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- Simon & Garfunkel -- Ruby -- Eels -- Wilco -- The White Stripes -- The Sons of the Pioneers
Keep watching this list to find out more about what I listen to! Who wouldn't?
Movies
Human Nature -- Freaked -- Barton Fink -- Royal Tennenbaums -- Fear & Loathing in LV -- Return to Oz (yeah, RETURN) -- Age of Innocence -- the old Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory -- Nightmare Before Xmas -- Drop Dead Gorgeous -- Naked Lunch -- Army of Darkness -- Adv. of Baron Munchausen -- Atomic Cafe, which is more of a documentary, sort of -- Rosencrantz & Guildenstern -- crap, I swear I've seen SOMEthing good in the last 10 years -- most any Terry Gilliam, really -- and Wes Anderson -- honestly, I really liked Pirates of the Caribbean, but that's because I have psychedelic associations with the ride, plus Johnny Depp finally fulfilled all that potential by donning eyeliner -- Hairspray (the John Waters movie, ahem) -- Being John Malkovich -- Sense & Sensibility, cuz I love the period dramas -- Eternal Sunshine of etc.
And I cry every time I see Babe.
That's true, and I share it only because I like you so much.
Television
I watch entirely too much Star Trek. Much more than I did when it was originally on. Not sure why, actually. The Next Generation is interesting all by itself, of course, while simultaneously being a little time capsule of the nineties. Don't like Deep Space 9 at all (too many Ferengi... they're so annoying). (Also, too depressing. And FAR too beige.) Voyager has its moments, but my next fav is Enterprise.
Other than such nerdliness, I view a steady diet of crap: Best Week Ever, The Soup, various travel-cooking-redecorating shows, all the Simpsons & Gilmore Girls reruns I can get. Yo Gabba Gabba is the grooviest bit of preschool nonsense I've seen in years (hooray for the zeitgeist!).
I'm the first to admit the lameness of teevee. But I'm in a period of pop culture absorption, after a many-years absence. You can't help me until I help myself.
Books
Yes, please.
BROWSE BY TITLE! Actual Air -- The Bloodless Revolution -- The Dud Avocado -- Killing Yourself To Live -- The Mouse & His Child -- The Language Instinct -- A Clockwork Orange -- Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas -- Jane Eyre -- Neuromancer -- Dune -- Chronicles of Narnia -- Chronicles of Prydain -- On the Road -- The Fan Man -- The Stranger -- Waiting for Godot -- A Moveable Feast -- The Secret Life of Puppets -- His Dark Materials -- Ask the Dust -- Elvissey -- Tropic of Cancer -- Alice in Wonderland; Through the Looking Glass -- Fast Food Nation -- The Other End of the Leash -- The Stinky Cheese Man -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type -- America: The Book -- The Girl in the Flammable Skirt -- Science Friction -- The Puttermesser Papers -- I Am Papa Snap & These Are My Favorite No-Such Stories -- The Little Prince -- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius -- Wuthering Heights -- A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears
BROWSE BY AUTHOR! Francesca Lia Block, Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Donald Barthelme, Nikolai Gogol, Lydia Davis, all on the shelf in front of me -- PG Wodehouse -- Evelyn Waugh -- e.e. cummings -- Orson Scott Card -- Edward Gorey -- Louisa May Alcott -- Roald Dahl -- Anthony Browne -- Vonnegut -- Jean Rhys -- Ray Bradbury -- Jonathan Carroll -- Dorothy Parker -- Philip K Dick -- Sylvia Plath -- Annie Dillard -- Anne Sexton -- Franz Kafka -- Bruno Schultz -- Frank Miller -- Lemony Snicket -- Edward Eager -- JD Salinger -- Jonathan Lethem -- Dave Barry -- Mark Twain -- Oscar Wilde -- Raymond Chandler -- Colette -- Dr. Seuss -- Shel Silverstein -- Rilke -- Natalie Babbit -- WB Yeats -- Harlan Ellison -- John Berryman -- Dorothy Parker
Heroes
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)
The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion. -Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer (1917-2008)
Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. -Roland Barthes, literary critic and philosopher (1915-1980)
Who I'd like to meet: Being dead must make people more interesting. Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss and Mae West and my uncle who committed suicide before I was born. Philip K Dick, Colette, Borges, Calvino, Jane Austen of course. Oh, Jim Henson.
LMFAO...it's so freakin' funny that you asked that because I've been craving the hell out of Asiago bagels with light vegetable cream cheese and rasberry vinegarette from Einstein's! I know, it's crazy, but I used to eat those things w/sprouts and fresh tomatoes every morning when I was in Florida! lol....that's what I've been craving like you wouldn't believe! lol ♥JD♥
Alright, so it's official...we went to the doctor Monday, and he's a BOY!!! They said I'm starting my 5th month and the ETA due date right now is May 28th...oddly close to Logan's b-day...hope he likes to share!
Besides my job, things are good! The Main OR has fired or suspended many of their Surgical techs, so we are being thrown to their mercy. They aren't getting any applicants, and they are short-handed. We are being sent down there to work, and it's such a hostile, negative environment. I don't know my way around, where stuff is, etc.
Oooh, scientific calculators are fun!!! I remember being excited when I needed one for school. I was bad though - I'd cheat and save formulas in it for tests... =P
I actually have Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. Saturday is already booked, but Friday or Sunday would be great days to go for coffee. Will you be in town?
