It Is Not Entirely My Own Fault

Following on from yesterday's Chomsky snippet, here is an article asking Can You Teach Your Kid To Have Taste? The premise is that a classical music reviewer has been dragging his ten-year-old son along to work and has begun wondering how that influences his son's taste in music/art/literature. The kid likes Tolkien, Russell Crowe westerns and visiting museums - maybe not the most average boy - but has that to do with his parents' (evidently highbrow) taste or is it something inert?

Unsurprisingly the writer does not come up with an answer, but the article made me reflect upon my own taste. I can pinpoint why I like Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter. I can also tell you why I enjoy reading Georgette Heyer and watch the Eurovision Song Contest religiously. But I come up short when I reflect upon my weakness for films like Roeg/Cammell's Performance and Todd Haynes' entire oeuvre. And what about my love of modernist poetry and early twentieth century abstract art? Not to mention my love of very, very bad sci-fi films? What has caused this odd pick-and-mix of things I grew up loving and things I have encountered later in life?

Can you trace how your own taste was formed?

And I Am Sunburnt

Lo! It is summer and I feel like reading Billy Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. I was an impressionable young lass when Branagh's adaptation hit the big screen and since then the play has always seemed like the epitome of summer. Maybe it was the white linen dresses or the sunny Tuscan landscape?

One of the many things I love about the play is how Benedict and Beatrice play and fight with words. They match each other every step of the way - it is a dazzling display of verbal virtuosity and this has me falling in love with Shakespeare all over again.

BENEDICK
What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

BEATRICE
Is it possible disdain should die while she hath
such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?
Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come
in her presence.

Called You Last Night from Glasgow..

This is one of the funniest film reviews I have ever seen. I heart Mark Kermode. Stay tuned for his attempt at being Swedish.

The Timeline of Fictional Events

This is really nifty: The Timeline of Fictional And Fictional Future Events.

1609: A vampire known as the Master converts a young woman dying of syphilis to fellow vampire Darla. The conversion reportedly took place in the Colony and Dominion of Virginia which at the time only included Jamestown 1620: Norville "Shaggy" Rogers' and Scooby-Doo's ancestors, McBaggy Rogers and Yankee Doodle Doo, arrive in Plymouth, Massachusetts aboard the Mayflower. 1622: Duncan MacLeod revealed to be an immortal. 1626: D'Artagnan arrives in Paris and meets The Three Musketeers. 1635: Gotham City is founded as part of the Swedish colonization of the Americas. 1659: Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked 1666: September 2 - September 5 - During the Great Fire of London, the Ancient One battles Dormammu and forces him to retreat. 1685: John Ridd and Lorna Doone find themselves caught up in events surrounding the Monmouth Rebellion 1687: Robinson Crusoe rescued

Fragments

I have my book! I also have dirt on my forehead from when I blacked-out in the middle of a path and somehow avoided the broken glass bits. And in a minute or so I will have a cup of coffee right next to me. Life is so exciting! Confession: I have a weakness for very silly Ben Stiller films. Dodgeball and Zoolander, particularly tickle my funny bone. So, when I saw the trailer for Tropic Thunder, I felt compelled to spread the news: think Apocalypse Now but with Ben Stiller as an action hero, Steve Coogan as the director and, er, Robert Downey Jr as an Australian Oscar-winning ah-k-tor who takes method acting to extremes .. It'll probably be utterly naff but I like being utterly naff at times. Sue me.

Okay, less naff entertainment: do judge a book by its cover. Aww..

Dodge Vs Lodge

Ah, the first of many possible author showdowns: David Dodge versus David Lodge. Popular culture author versus acclaimed literary critic and author. Is there really any competition here? Won't Lodge just throw Dodge to the floor?

Ah, but to quote Øystein at the I <3 Books messageboard: "Well, Dodge has a packmule and a one-eyed goth-trannie; Lodge has a tilde-spewing factory and a cricket bat-shaped woman. Really, Lodge had no chance here, poor fellow."

Also, I'd like to remind you, dear reader, that David Dodge wrote To Catch a Thief (the book). When did you last see Cary Grant or Grace Kelly in a David Lodge-based film?