Reply #20: The random-shuffle function of obsessions... [View All]

[Withywindle]

A fun post to write:



1. With ya on Jon Stewart. Mmm-mmmmmmmm.

2. Music from the Middle East and Central Asia. Particularly anything involving that reedy, sad string sound, which is a broad range going from Iranian komenceh player Kayhan Kahlor all the way out to Tuvan throat-singing group Huun-Huur-Tu and trance music from Afghanistan and Pakistan. I just can't get enough of this stuff. I think it might be because I'm a frustrated fiddle player myself: I feel the same way about good ol' Blue Ridge Mountain fiddling. I don't like the classical violin sound much -- I like the grit and the drone and the double-stopping.

3. My own state's junior Senator, the talented and lovely Barack Obama, annoying as his ludicrous amount of hype is. But I suppose it's not his fault it's SUCH a cliche that 2/3s of my city considers his pants highly desirable real estate. (Note that the Second City comedy troupe has a salacious torch-song tribute to him in their current political show.) I think what really won me over to the swooning section was reading his book--damn, he can write too! Not fair! Also, the leftyish alt-weekly paper I work for did a feature story on him as a promising progressive pol back in '95, so we might feel just a little smug.

4. Reading material also. Over the last couple years thanks to Peter Jackson and Alan Lee I've been immersing myself further in Tolkien than I've ever gone before (even though I've loved LOTR since I was 12)--not just the Silmarillion, but also some of the History of Middle-Earth volumes and some biographical stuff. I really loved 'Tolkien and the Great War," which describes in great detail the relationship of his WWI experiences to his use of myths and languages. I also just read a journal of Jack Kerouac's from the '40s (edited by one Douglas Brinkley, known here for biographyin' another favorite son of MA...) and I think that might be my next intensive re-dive-in. It's too bad he's still most known for 'On the Road,' which is far from my favorite book of his...I'm also reading quite a bit of Jorge Amado (Brazilian novelist - literary hero of my mom's hometown), and I am a hopeless Harry Potter addict.

5. "Lost." Yeah, it's Gilligan's Island meets the X-Files. Creepy, creepy plot twists and pretty, pretty men...dangerous combination. (My favorite is Sayid.)

6. Rahm Emmanuel. How did he lose half that finger, anyway? Flipping the wrong person off?

7. Nick Cave. Rowr. Also, for the vintage hotness, am on a young Robert Plant and Jimmy Page kick for some reason.