adopt your own virtual pet!
NOT people I don't know!!! Mostly people I've lost track of over the years. I'm so bad at keeping in touch with people.... Sorry, guys!
Anything jazz... I've been wearing out my copy of John Coltrane's Blue Train. Fucking stellar album. I've been in a pretty basic mood with music lately. Lots of classic jazz, mostly. Also some (good) classic rock. For edification on the finer subtleties that deliniate "good" versus "bad" classic rock, you all should check out my buddy Brendan's blog entry on the subject. You won't regret it (except maybe if you fall off your chair from laughing too hard, which is a distinct possibility!). I also love SOUL (Hell, yeah!) funk (within reason), crazy, sometimes totally unlistenable, inaccessable intellectual minimalist neoclassical "new" music (for those of you who actually know what I'm talking about, you rock), and Indian classical music... But really I just like any kind of music that is creative, with genuine artistry. I've just realized that my music collection doesn't really include much recorded after around 1976. Interesting.
Movies, movies, movies... I watch too many damn movies... In general, I like really intellectual films with twisted, unpredictable plotlines... But I must admit, I've developed a taste for Bollywood films thanks to a year of Hindi classes. Cheesy, but cool nonetheless. Some of my favorites: The Big Lebowski, Fight Club, Fear & Loathing, Run Lola Run, Amelie, Lagaan, Goodbye Lenin!, Sholay (wow, most of these are foreign), The Shining, Mullholland Drive, The Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction, The Lord of the Rings (all 3), The Matrix (the original; the sequels were a fucking waste of time), Lost Highway, Dil Se, Pather Panchali. Almost forgot: Monsoon Wedding, Salaam Bombay!
Don't watch TV... TV sucks.
how jedi are you? :: by lawrie malen
Fear and Loathing is one of my favorites. I love the way Hunter S. Thopson inserts himself (or at least his alter-ego) into the center of the storyline as a completely unsavory character, so that his social commentary on the realities of the hippie culture/free love/acid scene doesn't come off as preachy or condescending. Brilliant! Also Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (but the movie version totally ruined it for me; most of Tom Robbins' genius only comes through when you see it written down) Still Life with Woodpecker... Choke, although it disturbed me immensely... Catcher in the Rye, The Outsiders, Cat's Cradle, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (actually, I love any of Oliver Sacks' case studies, they're so bizarre). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, but I can't fucking find my copy!!! Yeah, I know Carl Sagan cracked up a little toward the end, but for most of his life he was a really kick-ass scientist. Most people don't know that... Under the Banner of Heaven; it's terrifying mainly because it's a true account, Farewell to Manzanar, the Diary of Anne Frank, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, On the Road (yay Jack Kerouac), High Fidelity (also a great movie, but I'm still debating whether I like the book or the move more).