Let Me Entertain You

Music

The artists I listen to are varied, but since my interest in music is always emotional and rarely academic, I assume they must have something in common; for the life of me I don’t know what it is. If you enjoy buying CDs recommended by someone you don’t know,  might I suggest these:

“Doo-Be-Doo”- Lauren Molina

“Amelie” original motion picture soundtrack
“Sings the Rogers & Hart Songbook”- Ella Fitzgerald
“Hopes and Fears”- Keane
“Eyes Open”- Snow Patrol
“How to Save A Life”- The Fray
“Plans,” and “Transatlanticism”- Death Cab for Cutie
“Lady with the Torch”- Patti LuPone
“Coal Miner’s Daughter” original film soundtrack
“Assassins” (either cast album; both are fine)

In addition to CDs, I listen to radio online.  I love it.  Places like playit and pandora allow you to create your own radio stations that play music selected by you (and include the option to toss similar artists into the mix) so you don’t end up hearing Amy Winehouse or that “I Kissed a Girl” person every third song.

I currently have two stations, one that plays mostly music from the 1980s (that would be The Cure, Eurthymics, Book of Love, English Beat, etc., not The Scorpions and Metallica (although I have no issue with them)); while the other is a variety of current artists (Fray, O.A.R. Coldplay, Fastball, Greg Camp, Postal Service), with the uncoventional addition of Pasty Cline to keep it from sounding too pat (does anyone use the word pat anymore?).

Books

Okay, I can read, I just don’t as much as I ought to. I read mostly fiction (I keep trying to read non-fiction, but the characters never seem believable), and most often mysteries. I don’t know why mysteries—I never figure them out although I often figure out the subplots (oh yeah, I’m good at catching who’s sleeping with who even when they never say it- Ramses Emerson and Enid Fraser for instance).

I tried reading all that “important” stuff you are supposed to read in college, but I guess I should have done more drugs or spent more time with people who truly felt those works, since Burrows, Kafka, and Nietzsche never made any sense to me at all. I think I appreciated the poetic quality of some of them, but they never meant anything to me.

And as shocking as it may be to lovers of fine American literature, I have never enjoyed reading Hemingway. I don’t dispute his talent; I simply say he is not my kind of writer. A few books I really enjoyed are:

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
The auto-biographical books of Ruth Reichl
Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

Movies

I always piss someone off when I talk about movies.

I like comedies but from my standpoint, most of the comedies currently being made aren’t very funny. I’m pretty sure you are supposed to laugh during a comedy, and with few exceptions, I’m not laughing. Maybe my sense of humor is not as developed as people who wet themselves over Jack Black and Ben Stiller, but I am not convinced of that. In any case, I mainly prefer comedies that were made before I was.

I also like movies that have an inevitability factor; films in which things finished as they had to, whether or not that finish was happy or harrowing. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Big Night” are two [very different] examples of what I am talking about (I’m not a believer of everything happening as it should; perhaps that is why I like when movies do end as I think they should.)

Other favorites include

“Notorious”
“Vertigo”
“Stalag 17”
“Sunset Boulevard”
“Amelie”
“Shadow of a Doubt”
“Laura”
“Coal Miner’s Daughter” (How can anyone not love it?)
“Philadelphia Story” (Yes, that next to last scene should have been changed.)
“Desk Set”
“Shaun of the Dead”
“Pleasantville”
“Green Mile”
“Tootsie” (Now, that was funny.)
“Young Frankenstein” (I’m the only person alive who thinks this one was better than “Blazing Saddles.”)