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(You can tell your parents have been visiting when you turn on your stereo to be greeted by a plummy English voice announcing a medley of ‘Les Misérables’ songs. But it’s reminding me how long it’s been since I last saw that show, and making me feel that it’s time to revisit. Or at least to get hold of the CD.)
Anyhow, I’m intrigued by the ‘things I own that no one on my friends list does’ meme (found from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fpb and threeoranges). To be honest, it makes me a bit uncomfortable, tapping as it does into all my am I interesting and original enough insecurities. I mean, yes, I’m sure I have things on my shelves that no one else on my f-list does (an old physics textbook perhaps, or a CD picked up from a street performer in Grenada), but they aren’t necessarily the ones that say most about me. And my favourite obscurities are precisely those that I’d love to discover were shared by some of you on my f-list!
So, I hope no one will mind if I let the meme multiply and adapt, and invite your answers!
The Uniqueness Meme
A book you own that no one on your friends list does:
Hmm. How about Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa?
Reading this one was actually more of a mind-twister in places than the aforementioned physics textbooks, along the lines of how difficult it is to progress spirituality when the whole notion of ‘spiritual progress’ is a temptation to all sorts of not-particularly-spiritual pride, envy etc that continually throws one off track.
A CD you own that no one on your friends list does:
Does anyone out there have Songs of Jacques Brel by Mich en Scène? Micheline van Hautem is awesome, as are the songs themselves, of course. Catch her if you can (e.g. at next year’s Edinburgh Festival, if we’re lucky).
A DVD/VHS tape you own that no one on your friends list does
More difficult this; my DVD collection isn’t vast. Probably the most obscure one (which isn’t saying much) is the complete Willo the Wisp. Yep, even though I don’t own a TV, I can still succumb to nostalgia for my favourite childhood cartoon. Evil Edna rocks!
A place you've been that no one on your friends list has been:
Erm, my bathroom?
Okay, I’ll try Virginia Falls in Nahanni National Park, NWT. I am privileged to have stood at (well, near enough to get wet) the foot of the falls. Pictures don’t do the place justice.
Okay, so now let’s turn it around…
A book you own that others on your friends list also own:
Erm, duh. Do I really have to answer that one?
Okay. Let’s exclude HP-related books for a moment. Heck, let’s even exclude fantasy.
Hmmm. That makes it somewhat more difficult.
Hmmm.
Does anyone else have The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran?
A CD you own that others on your friends list (might) also own:
Well, excluding anything HP or LOTR-related, let’s try the Indigo Girls’ first album. When I first heard it at the age of 17 or so, I thought ‘closer to fine’ was almost sacrilegious, but three years of university taught me the meaning of
I went to the doctor of philosophy…
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.
(Seeing them perform it live a couple months before my finals was an experience!)
I still don’t entirely agree that ‘The less I seek my source in some definitive the closer I am to fine’, but I do understand the point now. It’s damn hard not to keep seeking, though!
A DVD/VHS tape you own that others on your friends list (might?) also own
Again, duh.
And again excluding the obvious: does anyone out there have Dr. Strangelove (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb)?
A place you've been that others on your friends list have also been:
Heh. That’s too easy when one lives in a tourist city! But if Arthur’s Seat and the Royal Mile are too close to home… well, heck, there’s always Paris. And London, Rome, Berlin, New York and their ilk.
But really, I think the most interesting questions are:
A favourite book you own that you wonder if others on your friends list also own:
Round the Bend by Nevil Shute.
Or No Highway. Or anything at all by Nevil Shute, who is not only one of the few writers to base his stories around technicians and scientists, but also managed to write about people’s lives and loves in a down-to-earth way that feels utterly real without getting into prurient detail. Oh, and the times of which he writes…
A favourite piece of music you own that you wonder if others on your friends list also own:
I’ll try three here:
The first album by The Innocence Mission
(A fond companion from those pre-University days when ambition and opportunity had the illusion of alignment)
Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten
Astor Piazzolla’s The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night
(To dance to this with someone who knows what they’re doing is to understand that sex is merely a horizontal expression of a vertical desire.)
A favourite VHS/DVD you own that you wonder if others on your friends list also own
The Prisoner
(As recorded from Channel 4 when they aired it, erm, 12 years ago. Though strictly speaking I’m not sure if I still own this, because owing to my lack of VCR I left the tapes at my parents’ house.)
A favourite place that you hope others on your friends list have also experienced:
I have a strong sensitivity to place, and many, many, many beloved places, especially those that caught my imagination when I was a child. To list too many would feel boastful; to select might misleadingly imply a hierarchy of preference; and it’s hard to describe some of them, fleeting glimpses through a doorway or into a life, or a place that can be defined only in four dimensions because the angle of sun or the volume of water after rainfall was everything.
But still… to honour some of the places…
There’s a large treestump on the beach at Point Grey in Vancouver that watches the boats bound for far-off lands (I wonder, now, if any of them lumber past the islands in the Forth); the Avon Gorge, quietening at sunset; the glories of the Rockies in high summer and the loud silence of the frozen Mackenzie in midwinter; the crashing of Pacific surf on white sand; the Alhambra’s evening air of hidden mystery; the Stones of Stenness, which have a presence clear to those who trouble to stop and listen; the Château de Chenonceau, a place of night-time magic to a young girl with an overactive imagination; the cliffs and clear air of Durness, opposite in so many ways to the southern English villages whose solid beauty and stability I crave and whose snobbery I loathe; and last but not least the Lake District, especially Eskdale, Grasmere and ever-waiting Castlerigg.
I’ve said enough, I think – I didn’t expect this to get quite so personal, though I should have. Not just for what some of this may way about me, but for the way some of those memories touch me, fleeting fragments of preciousness that reawaken my soul…
Yes, I have said enough. Over to you, should you wish.
Anyhow, I’m intrigued by the ‘things I own that no one on my friends list does’ meme (found from
fpb and threeoranges). To be honest, it makes me a bit uncomfortable, tapping as it does into all my am I interesting and original enough insecurities. I mean, yes, I’m sure I have things on my shelves that no one else on my f-list does (an old physics textbook perhaps, or a CD picked up from a street performer in Grenada), but they aren’t necessarily the ones that say most about me. And my favourite obscurities are precisely those that I’d love to discover were shared by some of you on my f-list!So, I hope no one will mind if I let the meme multiply and adapt, and invite your answers!
A book you own that no one on your friends list does:
Hmm. How about Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa?
Reading this one was actually more of a mind-twister in places than the aforementioned physics textbooks, along the lines of how difficult it is to progress spirituality when the whole notion of ‘spiritual progress’ is a temptation to all sorts of not-particularly-spiritual pride, envy etc that continually throws one off track.
A CD you own that no one on your friends list does:
Does anyone out there have Songs of Jacques Brel by Mich en Scène? Micheline van Hautem is awesome, as are the songs themselves, of course. Catch her if you can (e.g. at next year’s Edinburgh Festival, if we’re lucky).
A DVD/VHS tape you own that no one on your friends list does
More difficult this; my DVD collection isn’t vast. Probably the most obscure one (which isn’t saying much) is the complete Willo the Wisp. Yep, even though I don’t own a TV, I can still succumb to nostalgia for my favourite childhood cartoon. Evil Edna rocks!
A place you've been that no one on your friends list has been:
Erm, my bathroom?
Okay, I’ll try Virginia Falls in Nahanni National Park, NWT. I am privileged to have stood at (well, near enough to get wet) the foot of the falls. Pictures don’t do the place justice.
Okay, so now let’s turn it around…
A book you own that others on your friends list also own:
Erm, duh. Do I really have to answer that one?
Okay. Let’s exclude HP-related books for a moment. Heck, let’s even exclude fantasy.
Hmmm. That makes it somewhat more difficult.
Hmmm.
Does anyone else have The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran?
A CD you own that others on your friends list (might) also own:
Well, excluding anything HP or LOTR-related, let’s try the Indigo Girls’ first album. When I first heard it at the age of 17 or so, I thought ‘closer to fine’ was almost sacrilegious, but three years of university taught me the meaning of
I went to the doctor of philosophy…
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.
(Seeing them perform it live a couple months before my finals was an experience!)
I still don’t entirely agree that ‘The less I seek my source in some definitive the closer I am to fine’, but I do understand the point now. It’s damn hard not to keep seeking, though!
A DVD/VHS tape you own that others on your friends list (might?) also own
Again, duh.
And again excluding the obvious: does anyone out there have Dr. Strangelove (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb)?
A place you've been that others on your friends list have also been:
Heh. That’s too easy when one lives in a tourist city! But if Arthur’s Seat and the Royal Mile are too close to home… well, heck, there’s always Paris. And London, Rome, Berlin, New York and their ilk.
But really, I think the most interesting questions are:
A favourite book you own that you wonder if others on your friends list also own:
Round the Bend by Nevil Shute.
Or No Highway. Or anything at all by Nevil Shute, who is not only one of the few writers to base his stories around technicians and scientists, but also managed to write about people’s lives and loves in a down-to-earth way that feels utterly real without getting into prurient detail. Oh, and the times of which he writes…
A favourite piece of music you own that you wonder if others on your friends list also own:
I’ll try three here:
The first album by The Innocence Mission
(A fond companion from those pre-University days when ambition and opportunity had the illusion of alignment)
Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten
Astor Piazzolla’s The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night
(To dance to this with someone who knows what they’re doing is to understand that sex is merely a horizontal expression of a vertical desire.)
A favourite VHS/DVD you own that you wonder if others on your friends list also own
The Prisoner
(As recorded from Channel 4 when they aired it, erm, 12 years ago. Though strictly speaking I’m not sure if I still own this, because owing to my lack of VCR I left the tapes at my parents’ house.)
A favourite place that you hope others on your friends list have also experienced:
I have a strong sensitivity to place, and many, many, many beloved places, especially those that caught my imagination when I was a child. To list too many would feel boastful; to select might misleadingly imply a hierarchy of preference; and it’s hard to describe some of them, fleeting glimpses through a doorway or into a life, or a place that can be defined only in four dimensions because the angle of sun or the volume of water after rainfall was everything.
But still… to honour some of the places…
There’s a large treestump on the beach at Point Grey in Vancouver that watches the boats bound for far-off lands (I wonder, now, if any of them lumber past the islands in the Forth); the Avon Gorge, quietening at sunset; the glories of the Rockies in high summer and the loud silence of the frozen Mackenzie in midwinter; the crashing of Pacific surf on white sand; the Alhambra’s evening air of hidden mystery; the Stones of Stenness, which have a presence clear to those who trouble to stop and listen; the Château de Chenonceau, a place of night-time magic to a young girl with an overactive imagination; the cliffs and clear air of Durness, opposite in so many ways to the southern English villages whose solid beauty and stability I crave and whose snobbery I loathe; and last but not least the Lake District, especially Eskdale, Grasmere and ever-waiting Castlerigg.
I’ve said enough, I think – I didn’t expect this to get quite so personal, though I should have. Not just for what some of this may way about me, but for the way some of those memories touch me, fleeting fragments of preciousness that reawaken my soul…
Yes, I have said enough. Over to you, should you wish.
