Meme of the Arts

I starred a meme entry from Tense in my reader ages ago and hadn't gotten around to following through. No time like the present!

1. Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies:

The first book of the Lymond Chronicles by the late Dorothy Dunnett. Sara turned me on to these books years and years ago and we still regularly try to cast any potential Lymond movie. I'm supposed to be writing the script but I want to start with the first movie and I keep giving away my copy of the first book so I never get anywhere. If you want a copy for Chrismakwansoltikah just let me know.

2. Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music:

You'd think that, being the child of former music teachers, this wouldn't be a tough one for me but it absolutely is. I think Bjork's orgasm song (can't remember the title of it and a look on my pod revealed that I don't own it, this must be rectified) changed the way I opened myself up to music. I would never have guessed that she'd be an artist I would like and I kind of love her (though clearly not enough to be sure that I have her music on hand). So I listen more openly now to a lot of different things. (Just looked up the title of the song because I couldn't just leave it at that, the song I'm thinking of is called "It's Oh So Quiet") I think the duet between Susannah and the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro expanded the breadth of music I listened to and thought, "I could do this." Singing that music with someone was such a joy.


3. Name a film you can watch again and again without fatigue:

It would be a shorter list to name those I couldn't watch without fatigue. Let's see The Sure Thing; Secretary; Mystery, Alaska; Some Kind of Wonderful; Bring it On; The Godfather just to name a few.

4. Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief:

I find this one a little weird because it could mean a performer for whom you'd watch anything or it could mean that this performer is kind of shitty but you suspend disbelief because you love them so much. I mean Meryl Streep, I'll watch it all, she's glorious and she's made such bizarre and amazing choices but it's a rare moment when you have to suspend any disbelief because she's doing all the work for you. Joshua Jackson on the other hand can do quite amazing work. He has the ability to use good writing and direction to his advantage as well as to make bad writing unnoticable. Too bad he doesn't always use that ability. Still, wherever he goes there go I. I even appropriated ProfDoc's copy of Lone Star whatsit when she deemed it too horrifyingly bad to remain in her presence. Sometimes I put it in just to sneak peeks at the cowboy-boots-in-the-bath scene.

5. Name a work of art that intrigues you:

Pretty much any photograph by Annie Liebowitz. I love photography but remain baffled by what makes a shot "art" or "good." Are her celebrity photos special because they have gimmicky locales and costumes? I don't think so. But why? Well, I don't know. I think she has a rare ability to freeze a personality in a photo with or without special locations or costumes and I want that. So I am always looking at her work to see if I can find where she's hiding it.

6. Name a work of fiction that has penetrated your real life:

Wow, the pressure to pick "important" fiction is so great here. I feel like so much of the fiction that's penetrated my life has been on TV. I'm choosing to interpret this as a novel or short story or the like, though. I love a good series. When I was just starting to read my mother read me the entire Little House on the Prairie series and when we were done she had me read them to her. I continued to read my favorites of the group until well into adulthood and, next time I hit the home front, I may just rescue my battered paperback collection from mom's house and read some of them again. There's something about the way this woman talked relatively irreverently about herself as a not-so-great kid that made it probably the first time a book made me feel like I could be in it. Which, I think it's pretty clear, is where I've wanted to be ever since.

7. Name a poem that you love to read:

A Forsaken Garden by Algernon Charles Swinburne. It was used in my voice and speech class when I was in London. We read it over and over and over (along with Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot which I almost chose as my answer) and I thought for sure that a. I'd get sick of it and b. I'd stop finding new things in it. I was wrong on both counts. The rhythm alone just makes me feel better every time I read it.