Complex people, secrets, books, my own cleavage and chili cheese fries.
People who make things. Or people who make me want to make things.
Seriously? But there's Sean Beste, Mel Mains and Square (no matter what), Elliot Smith, Johnny Cash, The Decemberists, Rufus Wainwright, Aimee Mann, Elvis Costello, The Shins, Death Cab, Stephen Sondheim musicals, Dave Beste, CPO, Jack White, Nellie McKay, Doyle Bramhall, Ben Folds, Billie Holiday, Regina Spektor, Modest Mouse, Muse, Foo Fighters, The Who, Amy Winehouse, Turin Brakes, Maxeen, Prince, Feist, so many others.
Closer, Grey Gardens, Roman Holiday, There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, Lost in Translation, Ghost World, Shopgirl, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Once. Then there's Meatballs, The Apartment, 40-Year-Old Virgin, Philadelphia Story, Fargo, and I never, EVER get sick of Groundhog Day. I will watch any movie with Juliet Binoche, Audrey Tautou, Clive Owen, Christian Bale or Bill Murray in it.
Egg The Arts Show (sigh). Arrested Development. Sister Wendy on PBS. Iconoclasts. Family Guy. The Office (both). 30 Rock. And the graphic opens of Dexter and Six Feet Under.
The ones I'd grab if my house were on fire: All stories by Alice Munro, Flannery O'Connor, Lorrie Moore, Mary Gaitskill (that dirty, dirty girl), Chekhov, Salinger and Hemingway; all books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Jonathan Safran Froer. Then there's the old staples: Franny and Zooey, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Jane Eyre; read those three a dozen times each. My new all-time favorite is The History of Love. T. S. Eliot writes words I want to tattoo on my body; Neruda, Dorothy Parker, Jack Gilbert, Anne Sexton always in heavy rotation. Marilynne Robinson writes the most unassuming sentences, but they'll change your life if you read 'em twice. Joyce Carol Oates makes me want to throw out my pen. And there's Jim Dodge, my new best friend, who wrote a couple of good things about drugs and rock and roll and a duck.
People who have new ideas and make new things, and banjo players.