MEME-Time

Several weeks ago, The Fat Lady Sings tagged me with a MEME I said would willingly accept. I've been noodling it over since then and have decided I should have deferred to another one but, having said I would do it, will respond to this one, nonetheless. I now will ask some other bloggers to do the same. If any or all of the following are willing to tackle it, I'd be delighted to read their responses to this MEME. If they would rather not, that's OK, too. I think all of us recognize that MEMEs are not everyone's cup of tea. Tag, you're it (or not):

Perils of Caffeine in the Evening
What Do I Know
La Pajaro
Burning Silo
Morning Martini
Learning to Sequence
A Curmudgeonly Crab

Come to think of it, anyone who reads this blog, consider yourself tagged!

So, here it is...the questions and my answers:

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Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving copies away.
I don’t give copies away, but here is a tiny smattering of books recent and long-since read of which I am particularly fond:

The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger’s book about the 1991 storm that hit the eastern seaboard and how . As usual, the film version paled in comparison to the book. Junger is a journalist whose journalistic skills really melded well with the subject matter to produce a piece of amazing impact. The story focuses on the crew of a fishing vessel, the Andrea Gail, which is based out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. They were lost at sea during the storm.

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx. This was my introduction to Proulx, who I now consider one of my favorite writers. The book relates the story of Quoyle, an unimpressive journalist from New York, who returns to his ancestral home in Newfoundland to cope with the bizarre implosion of his life in New York. His reintroduction to his past in Newfoundland and his capacity to deal with both his past and his emerging present make for a great story. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1994.

The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion. This book follows Didion’s life during the year following the death of her writer husband, John Gregory Dunne. Her recollections and what they meant to her and what they say about how we deal with grief and personal attachment are extraordinary.

Isaac’s Storm, by Erik Larsen is a true tale of the 1900 hurricane that devastated Galveston, Texas and the meteorologist who played a pivotal role in predicting the storm and in dealing with its aftermath. The 1900 hurricane was one of the most devastating natural disasters to ever befall this country, and the story Larsen tells about it is riveting.

The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin is a book that I have not read in years and years, but is still one I remember as having been fascinating and provoking in me an odd sense of spirituality…or something…that gives me a sense that we (as in humankind) have the capacity to be, to communicate, to inform beyond the familiar physical world. I’m not a mystic, I am not religious, I do not believe in a power beyond us, so this strange sense of spirituality is contrary to me. But it’s there, buried deeply. I sometimes have a sense it’s just untapped intellect and physical capacity in humans that I sense.

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Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music
I think Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D made me realize, many, many years ago, that I listen to music as a means of comprehending my own emotions, rather than as a form of entertainment. For reasons completely beyond my comprehension, the first time I heard Pachelbel’s Canon I was almost instantly moved almost to tears. Ever since that time (whenever it was, in my youth), I have treated music as therapy, almost a form of self-medication. Other music of a completely different stripe that has had a similar impact on me is Angels in the Snow, a haunting piece of music written by Eric Andersen, Jonas Fjeld, and Ole Paus and which appears on an album entitled Danko/Fjeld/Andersen, a collaborative piece of Rick Danko, Jonas Fjeld, and Erik Andersen. The piece is sung in a mixture of English and Norwegian. It is an astonishingly good and moving piece of music. I’ve written on this blog about Leonard Cohen’s Tacoma Trailer, an instrumental piece that has the same impact on me as Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Other music that moves me in ways I cannot explain includes Dentro la tasca di un qualunque mattino, by Giannamaria Testa. Missing You, by Loudon Wainwright III, is another one that hits me in my heartstrings. Dimming of the Day, written by Richard Thompson and sung by almost anyone, is yet another.

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Name a film you can watch again and again
There’s only one, and almost no one knows it (at least no one in my sphere): The Shout, with Susannah York, John Hurt, and Alan Bates. It is the story of a traveller, who has acquired through his travels an ability to use an aboriginal shout. He uses this capacity when he encounters a man (Hurt) and his wife (York). It is an odd, utterly unconventional film, but I could watch it a dozen times per year.

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Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief
There are two. First, I'd say it is Judi Dench. I think she is a spectacular actress and she seems to have very good taste in the roles she takes. The next one will probably surprise you. I can watch Tommy Lee Jones in any film, playing any part, and I immediately believe he is the character he is playing. Regardless of his Texas twang.

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Name a work of art you would like to live with
I will have to change the question slightly…I will recast it to be “Name a work of art you would like to live in.” The answer to that question would have to be any home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and which had been subsequently updated to correct the inherent flaws of impracticality that I believe were designed in to virtually all of Wright’s architecture. I love the look of Wright’s houses, especially the flat-roofed, boxy-shaped homes that evoke in me a sense of chic 1950s wealth, designs that, all his “everyman” design sense notwithstanding, were available only to the wealthy. I like Wright’s work so much that my wife buys me coffee table books of his work and we buy our annual calendars with photos of his architecture.

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Name a work of fiction that penetrated your real life
This is a hard and dangerous question to answer, and so I will leave it for the imagination of the reader.

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Name a punch line and/or a sight gag that always make you laugh
The response attributed to Dorothy Parker, when asked by a reporter to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence: “You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.” Come to think of it, there are so many things attributable to her that I find hilariously funny.