Fandom Snowflake, Day Six

[cassiopeia7]

Day Six.
In your own space, share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Book(s):
Carl Sagan's evolutionary work The Dragons of Eden, set fire to teenaged me's natural science / anthropological / evolutionary curiosity, eventually turned me on to the magnificence of natural science writers such as Stephen Jay Gould and Lewis Thomas, Richard Leakey, Thomas Lewin and Konrad Lorenz . . . and, of course, led me to Sagan's own "Cosmos" and "Pale Blue Dot" views of the universe that goes well beyond anything NASA (or the human race in general) has yet achieved, and is 5000% better than any science-fiction movie, because hey, that stuff is really out there. Sagan also turned me on to Neil deGrasse Tyson, Timothy Ferris and Stephen Hawking, so yay. ;)  Basically, Carl Sagan took me backwards to mankind before we were actually human, forwards into time and space that exists "billions and billions" of light-years away, fired up a lifelong interest in both the "hard" and "soft" sciences, and paved the way for my introduction to a good dozen other scientist-writers.  How many authors can do THAT?

Another literary game-changer was Richard Adams's Watership Down, which at first glance I very nearly put back on the library shelf, because talking rabbits? Really? But something made me check it out anyway, and Adams (and Hazel and Fiver) won me over halfway through the first chapter, totally altering how I viewed both "real" nature and "fantasy novels." From a fandom-related viewpoint, I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be as open to visualizing J2 as dragons, tomcats, dinosaurs, or bunnies if Adams had never opened my mind to the possiblities. (And the Watership Down movie from the late '70s is a TRIP.  If I can see John Hurt as a fluffy lil' bunny, it's easy to see Dean Winchester hoppin' down the bunny trail.)  XD

Song (okay, not a "song" per sé. but hey, it's music):
Adolescent me received John Williams's Jaws soundtrack as a birthday present from a very perceptive friend.  At first, I didn't understand why anyone would want the movie music sans the actual movie, but I listened to it anyway.  And man, what a revelation. To hear a movie soundtrack for the first time minus the imagery, dialogue, actors, and sound effects interrupting and obscuring, to hear the score itself?  WOW.  All the things you just don't notice while watching a movie, the individual notes, the different instruments and how they're utilized, the construction of a particular melody, the sheer amount of hard WORK that goes into mating music to scene?  It's a whole 'nother experience, and you can get absolutely lost in it.

Have a listen to "Man Against Beast"  -- the track that first opened my eyes (so to speak), all those years ago.  Just close your eyes and go.  :)

Click to view

It turns out I'm one of those obsessive weirdos who can listen to the same track dozens of times without ever tiring of it. (The parents bought me a good set of headphones shortly after that discovery.) But you know?  If you listen to a particular track enough to learn the time signature, where the cello comes in, when the trumpet takes over the melody, yeah, that's where the fun begins.  Learning -- then mentally deconstructing -- a piece of music is most definitely my idea of a good time.  ;)  John Williams and his Jaws score are directly responsible for my introduction to Bach and Stravinsky's compositions and my headlong plunge into movie-soundtrack world. And somewhere along the line, I discovered Jerry Goldsmith -- but do not get me started on Goldsmith's blazingly brilliant soundtracks with his trumpets and slap-sticks and psychotic pianos and French horns and polyrhythmic beauty, or I will never shut up.  Just ask pompeygirl27. ;)

And so, some three hundred soundtracks after that long-ago birthday present . . . meet the music geek.
*waves in 4/4*



. . . bring it ON, baby. ;)

Fanwork:
This one was for SURE a life-changer, but the catalyst was more the fanwork's creator than a particular fanwork itself.  At my very first SPN convention (Chicon 2010), I met up with fanartist lilchibibunny.  While watching her sketch out a Gabriel chibi, I made some silly comment about cartooning.  After she kinda dug it out of me that I, once upon a time, had drawn and painted and enjoyed it, the awesome and wonderful K. challenged me to draw the guys. Post-con, I took her up on it, and with almost the first contact of pencil to paper, my Muse returned from his nearly two-decade-long slumber. lilchibibunny single-handedly hauled me back into arting, made me remember why I originally loved to draw, then kept poking at me until I finally drew my first "real" fanwork and finally began truly participating in SPN fandom.   Oh, man, has my life been different since then.  K. is, sadly, no longer in the fandom, and I surely do miss her and her cheery artworks.

Wherever you are now, bb, thank youuuuu! ♥♥♥♥♥♥