Yahudi... with clean feet!
Wow, seriously... I'm all over the place. From Neil Young to Otis Redding, and Pete Rock to Thievery Corporation. Most of the new shit I listen to is chillout/downbeat (ninjatune or tru thoughts)... Out of close to 1000 cds, at least half are jazz (davis to coltrane to Jimmy Smith to Cal Tjader to Art Blakey to the Kansas City soundtrack - whoah!)
the next biggest category is classical rock - (Boston to Led Zepp to Ten years After to Black Sabbath (1st five albums) to U2 to CCR to Sonic Youth to Poco (!)
hip-hop... I'm really dating myself here: Eric B & rakim, BDP, to EPMD, to Gangstarr, then Wu-Tang, the Roots, Outkast (Aquemini is still their best)
misc category: DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, Kruder & Dormeister, St. Germain, Nicola Conte, Amon Tobin, Bonobo, Mr. Scruff, Ursula 1000:P
Netflix and now (BlockbusterOnline) has been good to me....
Of course, I worship the giants of cinema: Fellini, Scorsese, Ozu, Lang, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Welles, Kurosawa, Bergman, Leone.
Frankenheimer is seriously underrated IMHO. My idea of modern masters are: Wong Kar Wai, Assayas, Ozun, Mann, Almodovar, Lee, Hsiao-hsien Hou, and yeah, Tarantino.Random favorites:
The Third Man, Yi-Yi, Mishima, Winchester 73, The Conversation, L'Atalant, Waiting For Guffman, Bamboozled, Umberto D., The Triplets of Belleville, Trees Lounge, In the Mood for Love, Central Station, Touch Of Evil, Rushmore, Beau Travail, Raising Arizona, Persona, All About Lily Chou-Chou, Heat, Bad Education, One From The Heart, Flowers of Shanghai
The Simpsons on Sunday night is the only show I watch and that's it!....
Well, I have the digital MLB package, so I watch a lot of baseball too.
On dvd, I've discovered:
Arrested Development
Strangers with Candy
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Get A Life
Homicide:Life on the Streets
The Office (uk)
The Corner
Mr. Show
Da Ali G Show
Chapelle's Show
Knowing Me Knowing You w/ Alan Partridge
The Prisoner
The Outer Limits (1963)
Scrubs
Lost (yeah, I'm on the bandwagon)
I kind of drifted away from fiction for a few years. No real reason.
I just started the Lensmen books by EE Smith. And then stopped. Corny SF soap opera shit.I recently finished my first Stephen King, "The Stand." Whew! 1200 pages. Fun stuff, though.
Other recent stuff:
Wilde- The Picture of Dorian Gray
Hemmingway- The Old Man and the Sea
RLS - Kidnapped (the accents got on my nerves and I gave up). I re-read "Treasure Island." Shit, I forgot how much fun this was.
James Ellroy- Destination: Morgue - (the first couple stories were real good... I like his fiction better)
"Red Smith on Baseball"- brilliant stuff.
A Canticle For Liebowitz- Faith vs. scientific rationalism. Some beautiful scenes and wonderful arguements in here. I loved this.
Alfred Bester- short fiction. Fuckin' A. I wish this guy wrote more shit.
A Neil Jordan Reader - (includes the screenplay for "The Crying Game") not bad....
The Quiet American - Graham Greene. I really dug the catholic guilt trip thing :)
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S Thompson- good shit...
Three Ed McBain crime novels from the 50s. Cheap, fun stuff.
Siddhartha WOW. An amazing book. Really moved me.
Their Eyes Were Watching God ... kinda like Women of Brewster Place, but much better.
The Great Gatsby no really, I never read it until now. Stunning. Every fucking line is powerful.
The Sun Also Rises Can't get enough Hemingway. Plus I'm going to Colombia and I'll see bullfights. Sounds really interesting.
Manny Farber's Negative Space... hard to describe his writing style. Unique and enthralling, perhaps.
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls yeah I know, this came out like 10 years ago, but I just got around to it. Good gossipy shit.
Hellboy: The Bones Of GiantsEh, not bad.
Animal Farm & Lord Of The Flies No, seriously, I never read these in high school. (instead I had some contemporary urban/ethnic stuff, that I don't really remember). Really good.
The Milagro Beanfield War Surprisingly good. I liked his style. I absolutely don't want to see how Redford handled this.
Mishima's Spring Snow. Excellent.
Rosenbaum's Essential Cinema- A collection of his essays/reviews for the Chicago Reader. Good stuff. My current favorite critic.
Village Voice Film Guide - A couple sore thumbs (something about mary?! donnie darko/primer??) - but overall excellent.
I discovered Hard Case Crime publishing. Can't get enough of those grimy pulp yarns.
Currently reading : Jim Thompson's "After Dark, My Sweet"
Jackie Robinson