user interests meme, ahoy!
i was tagged by murdermystery to do one of these interest list memes. i like this one better than most memes, so here it is:
"If you comment on this post, I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along."
if you want to comment and not do this on your own journal, that's fine by me, obvs. i'd like to read the accounts though. anyway, here's what mike picked for me...
1. 14 iced bears are a british band that can be described as indie pop, lo-fi, twee pop, etc. they were part of the C86 scene, so chances are they pre-date all the bands you currently resent for fitting the labels i just listed. i'm not wild about their second album, wonder, to be quite honest. they drifted into a bland "college rock" sound that i can't really hang with by the early nineties. but their early stuff is pop music at its simplest and most loveable. listen to this track, and picture me dancing like michael stipe throughout my house. you know you want to.
14 iced bears, "shy like you" mp3
michael stipe has nothing to do with this band, by the way.
2. chinua achebe entered my life after a phase where i was reading a lot of graham greene novels. greene is a fantastic writer, but i wanted to look toward a different kind of voice in relation to his typical subject matter (end of colonialism, etc.). achebe was the perfect follow-up. like greene, his novels are concise and economical. and as a native of nigeria, his perspective on colonial occupation, etc. is obviously much different than greene's. achebe has a real knack for balancing a variety of allegiances and ideologies, and writes with a seemingly effortless lack of pretension. my favorite book of his thus far is a man of the people, but there are many i have yet to get through yet.
3. exact change press is a fantastic publisher, and i'm *really* glad mike picked this one for me to write about. they specialize in re-issuing lesser-known literature from the major art movements of the twentieth century (with a special penchant for surrealism). it's through them that i discovered novels like leonora carrington's the hearing trumpet, louis aragon's paris peasant and unica zurn's underrated dark spring. furthermore, exact change is run by damon and naomi, the psych rock duo that once made up two thirds of galaxie 500!
4. philip guston
...is probably the painter with which i feel the greatest affinity personally. he was pre-occupied with apocalyptic imagery... felt powerless in the face of an abysmal socio-political landscape (vietnam, upheaval surrounding civil rights, etc.)... worked with a fine-tuned vocabulary of icons and images... added immense amibiguity to the identity of his own icons (e.g. what exactly am i to make of his cartoon KKK hoods?)... and, hell, he even did his best work at night, apparently. minus his gooey application style, there isn't an awful lot i can't relate to about the d00d in my own work, honestly.
5. regis philbin reminds me of my grandfather. and jack lemmon. and jack lemmon reminds me of pretty much every man over the age of 60 on my mom's side of my family. somewhere in that chain of associations, i developed an affection for regis. we all have our quirks.
HEY LOOK IT'S YOUR NEW FAVORITE HAT!!!
6. ryszard kapuscinski is someone i wrote about not too terribly long ago. so i'll merely add that since i wrote that, imperium has become my new favorite book by him.
7. and finally, weird mouths are something i find sexy in the ladies. i'm particularly hot for big teeth, crooked-or-otherwise-irregular smiles, and-- sometimes-- big lips (though pouty lips are starting to become maxim magazine fodder in a way that doesn't do it for me). an example of a girl with a weird mouth that i'm smitten with:
oh chelsea clinton, i've been crushin' on you since i was like a senior in high school, seriously...
"If you comment on this post, I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along."
if you want to comment and not do this on your own journal, that's fine by me, obvs. i'd like to read the accounts though. anyway, here's what mike picked for me...
1. 14 iced bears are a british band that can be described as indie pop, lo-fi, twee pop, etc. they were part of the C86 scene, so chances are they pre-date all the bands you currently resent for fitting the labels i just listed. i'm not wild about their second album, wonder, to be quite honest. they drifted into a bland "college rock" sound that i can't really hang with by the early nineties. but their early stuff is pop music at its simplest and most loveable. listen to this track, and picture me dancing like michael stipe throughout my house. you know you want to.
14 iced bears, "shy like you" mp3
michael stipe has nothing to do with this band, by the way.
2. chinua achebe entered my life after a phase where i was reading a lot of graham greene novels. greene is a fantastic writer, but i wanted to look toward a different kind of voice in relation to his typical subject matter (end of colonialism, etc.). achebe was the perfect follow-up. like greene, his novels are concise and economical. and as a native of nigeria, his perspective on colonial occupation, etc. is obviously much different than greene's. achebe has a real knack for balancing a variety of allegiances and ideologies, and writes with a seemingly effortless lack of pretension. my favorite book of his thus far is a man of the people, but there are many i have yet to get through yet.
3. exact change press is a fantastic publisher, and i'm *really* glad mike picked this one for me to write about. they specialize in re-issuing lesser-known literature from the major art movements of the twentieth century (with a special penchant for surrealism). it's through them that i discovered novels like leonora carrington's the hearing trumpet, louis aragon's paris peasant and unica zurn's underrated dark spring. furthermore, exact change is run by damon and naomi, the psych rock duo that once made up two thirds of galaxie 500!
4. philip guston
...is probably the painter with which i feel the greatest affinity personally. he was pre-occupied with apocalyptic imagery... felt powerless in the face of an abysmal socio-political landscape (vietnam, upheaval surrounding civil rights, etc.)... worked with a fine-tuned vocabulary of icons and images... added immense amibiguity to the identity of his own icons (e.g. what exactly am i to make of his cartoon KKK hoods?)... and, hell, he even did his best work at night, apparently. minus his gooey application style, there isn't an awful lot i can't relate to about the d00d in my own work, honestly.
5. regis philbin reminds me of my grandfather. and jack lemmon. and jack lemmon reminds me of pretty much every man over the age of 60 on my mom's side of my family. somewhere in that chain of associations, i developed an affection for regis. we all have our quirks.
HEY LOOK IT'S YOUR NEW FAVORITE HAT!!!
6. ryszard kapuscinski is someone i wrote about not too terribly long ago. so i'll merely add that since i wrote that, imperium has become my new favorite book by him.
7. and finally, weird mouths are something i find sexy in the ladies. i'm particularly hot for big teeth, crooked-or-otherwise-irregular smiles, and-- sometimes-- big lips (though pouty lips are starting to become maxim magazine fodder in a way that doesn't do it for me). an example of a girl with a weird mouth that i'm smitten with:
oh chelsea clinton, i've been crushin' on you since i was like a senior in high school, seriously...