Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Tagged!

Okay, my new blog pal Thomma at Tennessee Text Wrestling has tagged me, probably in polite retaliation for my laziness in not linking to her from my sidebar yet. LOL! Hey, what's the upcoming holiday* break for, if not for blog maintenance?

Four jobs I've had:

1. Bartender at a 5-star restaurant
2. Locksmith assistant
3. Computer tech support
4. Bookkeeper for a jazz club

Four places I've lived:

1. Muncie, IN
2. Fresno, CA
3. San Antonio, TX
4. Houston, TX

Four favorite foods:

1. Indian (any kind)
2. Cookies (any kind, but especially oatmeal-raisin)
3. Ice cream (cookies and cream or vanilla)
4. Flan

Four movies I could watch over and over:

1. This Is Spinal Tap
2. The Life of Brian
3. Pandora’s Box
4. (anything with Buster Keaton)

Four TV shows I enjoy:

N/A (I haven’t watched more than the occasional documentary or news report in years)

Four places I've traveled:

1. Maine
2. Vermont
3. New Mexico
4. Washington, DC

Four places I'd like to visit:

1. England
2. Spain
3. China
4. Argentina

Four websites I go to daily:

1. Bloglines
2. Evil Editor
3. BBC News
4. Arts and Letters Daily

Limiting the websites to only four was tough! And TV was quite a stumper, too. Even as a kid, I didn't watch much TV. And how come there's no books on this meme? I supposed I'd be hard pressed to name only four books in any context, though, so maybe it's just as well.

Speaking of books, I'm currently reading We by Yevgeny Zamyatin in the new Natasha Randall translation. It's sort of the Ur-dystopian novel, and I'm really enjoying it. It's occurred to me that a lot of the "classic" dystopian novels follow a theme of "male central character, content/resigned with his lot in a totalitarian state, meets female agent of chaos/rebellion." Isn't it interesting that in so many of these novels it's the woman who sees the totalitarian state for what it is and inspires the male central character to seek his own truth and meaning? It's actually a sort of reverse Adam and Eve, if you think about it-- the female tempting the male from the wilderness toward Heaven.

I bet someone could get a doctoral dissertation out of this, if no one has already.

* For anyone who gets their knickers in a twist over the use of the word "holiday," get over it. The context is Christmas + New Year's. More than one holiday in one break = "holiday" break. It's only a Christmas break if I have to go back to work before New Year's. Which I don't. Thank God, and Merry Christmas!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed reading your answers, bunnygirl! And yeah, the TV thing was hard for me, too -- I don't watch much TV except for occasional movies (that's how I found Dexter), and the Simpsons and Star Trek:TNG are shows I watched a lot ten to fifteen years ago, LOL!

We sounds like a fascinating book -- must put it on my to-read list.

spongey437 said...

See now, TV shows was the easiest for me. I have three kids and once they are in bed, I am on the couch.

I had trouble with movies a bit - there are so many that I like out there that it was hard to limit it to four.

My list is posted on my blog if anyone is interested.

spongey437 said...

And I have to agree on the "Holiday" thing. I think sometimes people are a little too PC - like the Seattle airport that took down all it's Christmas trees because a Rabbi complained that there was no Jewish representation.

At my company Christmas party, the President broke the boundaries - exact quote "Screw the PC crap, Merry Christmas." I was almost in tears I laughed so hard.

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

Spongey, it seems like when I was a kid, "Happy Holidays" always meant either you weren't sure what winter holidays the recipient celebrated, or you were wishing more than one happy holiday in a two-for-one deal, usually Chrismas + New Year's.

I don't know when or why wishing Happy Holidays came to imply one had something against Christmas. Maybe I'm just culturally naive.

WRT the rabbi thing, I do hope that everyone was just overreacting. There was no reason to take down the trees, but I can think of no reason not to put up a menorah, either, if it was politely requested.

My husband had to share an office with a Jehovah's Witness last year and it was an unpleasant experience. The JW was militant and not only could Dan not have any sort of decoration for Christmas (or any other holiday) but the JW made sure no one else could, either.

Live and let live, people! What's a few decorations going to hurt? Unless it's something like that singing bass. Those are evil and should be stopped.

Anonymous said...

I bet someone could get a doctoral dissertation out of this, if no one has already.

Luckily, I work for a certain company which publishes and microfilms dissertations. A quick search of our database brought up:

The novel "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin: Parody and politics
by Aginsky, Vera, D.M.L., Middlebury College, 1999, 148 pages

Pink tickets and feathered frocks: Sexual politics in Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We" and Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"
by Bjornson, Kathryn, M.A., Dalhousie University (Canada), 2004, 151 pages

And those are just the ones which mention the book specifically in the title.

pacatrue said...

Which Pandora's Box movie do you have in mind?

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

Paca: Why, Louise Brooks, of course!