Bev, at Burning Silo, passes on an interesting meme about literature, music and art, and I couldn't resist filling in those blanks. I passed it on to Laurie, and he had his own list. So, here we go, two lists in one:
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Q: Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving copies away.
A: WW (me) --"Breaking Smith's Quarter Horse" by Paul St. Pierre. I lived in the area ("down the hill" in Bella Coola) for 8 years, so I've met Smith's twin, many a time. St. Pierre has it down pat.
Laurie -- Nobody reads the ones he would pass on. He names Shakespeare's sonnets, Palgrave's Golden Treasury and Hazlitt's Essays. And he gave me a copy of the Oxford Shorter Dictionary and went out and bought himself a new one. Does that count?
Q: Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music
A: WW -- The protest songs of Bob Dylan/Joan Baez, etc. I still hadn't developed a taste for classical (too much forced listening as a kid) and otherwise, I only knew hymns and 1950s pop, which were fine to sing and play but which didn't "relate" to anything in me. The protest songs spoke to my values.
Oh, and Mexican folk, especially the dances, as portrayed by Amalia Hernandez. That set my blood to racing!
Laurie -- Quote; "bloody umpteen". Every few minutes for the rest of the evening he came up with another one.
Q: Name a film you can watch again and again.
A: Both of us named "African Queen". Laurie added "Casablanca".
Q: Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief
A:WW -- none, whatsoever. I'm a born skeptic, I guess.
Laurie -- Peter O'Toole, in Lawrence of Arabia.
Q: Name a work of art you would like to live with.
A: WW -- Fragonard's "A Young Girl Reading". I live with a copy (ripped out of a Readers' Digest) that my son framed for me some 30 years ago.
Laurie -- Lives with art all the time. He collects antique Japanese porcelain and houses an ever-changing display case. Beautiful, unique pieces every one of them.
Q: Name a work of fiction that penetrated your real life
A: WW -- Several. As a young girl, the "Anne" series. I was Anne. (I didn't know why, back then; now I do.) The Bible. 'nuff said about that. Later, "The Cry and the Covenant", about Ignac Semmelweiss. And finally, the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Samwise became my hero; I saw in him the same strength I found in Semmelweiss. And no, I never saw the movie. Perhaps he is portrayed differently there.
Laurie -- A bit of history here. Laurie was a teenager when WWII broke out. He spent the war years as a private in India and SE Asia. Afterwards, while he was waiting to be demobbed, he had a chance to read. One book was Somerset Maugham's, "The Trembling of a Leaf"; Laurie says that it "opened his eyes to reality." Another was Chekov's short stories translated by Constance Garnett. Once back in England, he found Arnold Bennett's list of "Essential Reading" and worked his way through it.
Q: Name a punch line and/or a sight gag that always make you laugh.
A: WW -- Hard to say. I find life itself vastly entertaining. I laugh a lot. At all kinds of things.
Laurie -- He didn't know. But I mentioned one word, and he cracked up. Recently, he (and I for a couple of episodes) watched a 50-episode Korean soap/drama/epic/history, with subtitles, called "Emperor of the Sea". One of the characters, a Madame Jami, had a limited repertoire of expressions, "sly", "angry", "conniving", "superior" and occasionally "complacent". All I have to do to make Laurie laugh is imitate one of those expressions, or even say her name.
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Thanks, Bev. That was fun!
