I got memed!
It’s never happened before. I confess I am blushing just the littlest bit ... like I just got invited to sit at the popular girls’ table.
Just to draw out the pleasure a bit, and because I’m totally overscheduled these days, I think I’m going to answer the questions one at a time.
1. Since we’re both fans of “Freaks and Geeks,” I’d love to know which character on the show you most relate to and why? Also, for bonus points: In your considered opinion, what is the single most cringe-worthy scene in the whole series?
That would have to be Lindsay. I underwent a similar transformation at about the same time in my high school life, and the people in my life responded to it in similar ways. Old friends were confused and concerned, my parents acted like I’d flown the coop ... whereas I felt like I was finally expressing my real self for the first time in my life. The reasons were similar too, now that I think of it – didn’t Lindsay’s changes begin when her grandfather died, way back in the pilot episode? In my case it wasn’t a relative who died, but a very close friend – someone I knew had suppressed a lot of her Self trying to be “good,” because she believed it would all lead to even greater rewards later in life. When she died, it suddenly made no sense to Not at least investigate everything I really wanted to do, because what if I died too, and never got to experience any of the things that interested me the most? I quit cheerleading (which had turned out to be the biggest disappointment of my life up to that point), traded in my feathers for a pseudo-punk hairdo (or so I thought of it at the time), picked up some new/old clothes at the thrift store, and started hanging out with questionable characters at the college radio station. One bright spot was that I also had a couple of great teachers who supported and encouraged me that year, like Lindsay does in the show, because they could see that I was just exploring and not really running amuck, as certain other people seemed to think. It meant a lot to me to know they still had faith in my good judgment.
As for the most cringe-worthy scene, the first one that comes to mind is when Nick auditions to be a drummer for some older guys’ rock band. He’s obsessed with drumming, and when he practices alone at home in his basement, with Rush blasting on his stereo, he really believes he has what it takes to be a professional musician – in his heart, he already IS a rock star. It’s so heartbreaking to see him totally floundering in front of these guys, and to know that no matter how much he loves music and no matter how hard he’s willing to practice, his dream of rock & roll stardom is just never going to happen for him. The death of youthful ideals, and the heaviness that settles in when you start to realize that your life might not turn out to be everything you ever dreamed of ... maybe “cringe-worthy” isn’t the right word for these moments. “Compassion-inducing?” Isn’t that sort of the same thing?
2. What was the last really good movie you saw (either in a theater, on DVD, or video) and why did you like it so much?
I just went through my Netflix history to see what might jump out at me, and even after that review I’m still going to go with the first one I thought of – Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. It’s a documentary hosted (very loosely speaking) by Jim White as he travels through the deep South, talking to people and listening to their music, which is homemade (see #3 below), heartfelt and highly evocative of ... something .... sort of feral and haunted, and beautiful and strange. The whole movie feels like that. Like visiting a dream planet where people speak the same language I do, but somehow after listening to them talk for awhile I realize I haven’t understood a word they said. All that’s left is a feeling I can’t put a name to. Except to say that I like it.
3. What’s your favorite musical instrument or combination of musical instruments?
I love scratchy old-timey homemade music, so my first thought is to mention instruments like the kazoo, the accordion and the banjo. They seem so ...proletarian! I like that. My grandfather was a banjo player. I also really love the cello and the piano. And wooden flutes. I have several different sizes of recorders that I’ve been neglecting ever since I met Mr. A. I need to get those out and start playing again.
4. More than a year ago, you mentioned that you were going to blog about your “Grizzly Man” obsession (with tangents about Chris McCandless and Everett Reuss)? How about blogging about that now?
I might have to come back to this one, because it still merits a whole entry in itself. But briefly, I’ve always been sort of fascinated with this type of character – the hermit. A person who withdraws from human society and goes off to live in a remote place populated only by plants and non-human animals, and finds some kind of peace there. The fact that these three people all died during their adventures doesn’t really factor into their appeal; I’d be even happier with their stories if they’d all lived long enough to tell what it was like to live that way for 30, 40, 60 or 100 years.
The only experience I’ve had personally of living somewhat like this was when I first moved out here in 1995. For two years – the last two years of my marriage – I lived mostly alone in a small house on top of a heavily wooded ridge of mountains between Napa and Sonoma. The house was a mile past the end of the county road, totally private and pretty well isolated from our nearest neighbors who lived another half mile away.
Because of what was going on in my relationship I felt sad and lonely and afraid a lot when I lived there, but at the same time I felt so supported by the place itself, that in my memory those years have ended up being some of the most peaceful years I ever spent anywhere. I loved the silence, the trees, the animals, the feeling of being so much a part of the place itself that I actually disappeared for hours at a time, walking along the shaded trails, climbing up the boulders in the creek bottom, watching red-tailed hawks circling over the windy ridge top, or just sitting on my deck listening to the wind in the redwoods. I felt more like myself there than I’d ever felt anywhere before.
I guess what intrigues me about these guys is that while I sat in front of the fire in my comfortable cabin contemplating the hermit’s life, they actually lived it. And they also died in it. So their stories let me vicariously enjoy the life I dream about, and at the same time remind me why it’s important to not totally give in to my own hermit-like tendencies.
5. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
In the university town where I grew up, I knew a lot of people (including my own parents) who lived where they lived mainly because that’s where their job was. I guess that’s just how it is when you’re an academic, or committed to making a living with some other skill that requires you to go where the money is. But to me, that always seemed like an exactly backwards way to organize your life. Why would you spend your entire life, which could easily and without warning turn out to be much, much shorter than you ever could have imagined (see #1), living in a place you don’t really like?
Which is why I’ve always done kind of the opposite of that – chosen a place I loved, and then figured out how to make a living there. It’s not exactly the easiest way to live, but it is the reason I’m able to answer the question of where I would like to live more than anywhere else in the world, like this: Right here.
Also high on my list are Portland and Eugene, or anywhere cool, wet, green and close to the coast. One thing I don't like so much about where I live now is the climate – relentless sunshine and blistering heat in summer and never a drop of rain from May through October. Even in winter it doesn't rain as much as I would like, and I dearly miss summer storms.
Northern Utah is also on the list, because that's where most of my family is. I would love so much to be able to live close to them again. And the thunder storms at the end of summer are amazing.
Just to draw out the pleasure a bit, and because I’m totally overscheduled these days, I think I’m going to answer the questions one at a time.
1. Since we’re both fans of “Freaks and Geeks,” I’d love to know which character on the show you most relate to and why? Also, for bonus points: In your considered opinion, what is the single most cringe-worthy scene in the whole series?
That would have to be Lindsay. I underwent a similar transformation at about the same time in my high school life, and the people in my life responded to it in similar ways. Old friends were confused and concerned, my parents acted like I’d flown the coop ... whereas I felt like I was finally expressing my real self for the first time in my life. The reasons were similar too, now that I think of it – didn’t Lindsay’s changes begin when her grandfather died, way back in the pilot episode? In my case it wasn’t a relative who died, but a very close friend – someone I knew had suppressed a lot of her Self trying to be “good,” because she believed it would all lead to even greater rewards later in life. When she died, it suddenly made no sense to Not at least investigate everything I really wanted to do, because what if I died too, and never got to experience any of the things that interested me the most? I quit cheerleading (which had turned out to be the biggest disappointment of my life up to that point), traded in my feathers for a pseudo-punk hairdo (or so I thought of it at the time), picked up some new/old clothes at the thrift store, and started hanging out with questionable characters at the college radio station. One bright spot was that I also had a couple of great teachers who supported and encouraged me that year, like Lindsay does in the show, because they could see that I was just exploring and not really running amuck, as certain other people seemed to think. It meant a lot to me to know they still had faith in my good judgment.
As for the most cringe-worthy scene, the first one that comes to mind is when Nick auditions to be a drummer for some older guys’ rock band. He’s obsessed with drumming, and when he practices alone at home in his basement, with Rush blasting on his stereo, he really believes he has what it takes to be a professional musician – in his heart, he already IS a rock star. It’s so heartbreaking to see him totally floundering in front of these guys, and to know that no matter how much he loves music and no matter how hard he’s willing to practice, his dream of rock & roll stardom is just never going to happen for him. The death of youthful ideals, and the heaviness that settles in when you start to realize that your life might not turn out to be everything you ever dreamed of ... maybe “cringe-worthy” isn’t the right word for these moments. “Compassion-inducing?” Isn’t that sort of the same thing?
2. What was the last really good movie you saw (either in a theater, on DVD, or video) and why did you like it so much?
I just went through my Netflix history to see what might jump out at me, and even after that review I’m still going to go with the first one I thought of – Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. It’s a documentary hosted (very loosely speaking) by Jim White as he travels through the deep South, talking to people and listening to their music, which is homemade (see #3 below), heartfelt and highly evocative of ... something .... sort of feral and haunted, and beautiful and strange. The whole movie feels like that. Like visiting a dream planet where people speak the same language I do, but somehow after listening to them talk for awhile I realize I haven’t understood a word they said. All that’s left is a feeling I can’t put a name to. Except to say that I like it.
3. What’s your favorite musical instrument or combination of musical instruments?
I love scratchy old-timey homemade music, so my first thought is to mention instruments like the kazoo, the accordion and the banjo. They seem so ...proletarian! I like that. My grandfather was a banjo player. I also really love the cello and the piano. And wooden flutes. I have several different sizes of recorders that I’ve been neglecting ever since I met Mr. A. I need to get those out and start playing again.
4. More than a year ago, you mentioned that you were going to blog about your “Grizzly Man” obsession (with tangents about Chris McCandless and Everett Reuss)? How about blogging about that now?
I might have to come back to this one, because it still merits a whole entry in itself. But briefly, I’ve always been sort of fascinated with this type of character – the hermit. A person who withdraws from human society and goes off to live in a remote place populated only by plants and non-human animals, and finds some kind of peace there. The fact that these three people all died during their adventures doesn’t really factor into their appeal; I’d be even happier with their stories if they’d all lived long enough to tell what it was like to live that way for 30, 40, 60 or 100 years.
The only experience I’ve had personally of living somewhat like this was when I first moved out here in 1995. For two years – the last two years of my marriage – I lived mostly alone in a small house on top of a heavily wooded ridge of mountains between Napa and Sonoma. The house was a mile past the end of the county road, totally private and pretty well isolated from our nearest neighbors who lived another half mile away.
Because of what was going on in my relationship I felt sad and lonely and afraid a lot when I lived there, but at the same time I felt so supported by the place itself, that in my memory those years have ended up being some of the most peaceful years I ever spent anywhere. I loved the silence, the trees, the animals, the feeling of being so much a part of the place itself that I actually disappeared for hours at a time, walking along the shaded trails, climbing up the boulders in the creek bottom, watching red-tailed hawks circling over the windy ridge top, or just sitting on my deck listening to the wind in the redwoods. I felt more like myself there than I’d ever felt anywhere before.
I guess what intrigues me about these guys is that while I sat in front of the fire in my comfortable cabin contemplating the hermit’s life, they actually lived it. And they also died in it. So their stories let me vicariously enjoy the life I dream about, and at the same time remind me why it’s important to not totally give in to my own hermit-like tendencies.
5. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
In the university town where I grew up, I knew a lot of people (including my own parents) who lived where they lived mainly because that’s where their job was. I guess that’s just how it is when you’re an academic, or committed to making a living with some other skill that requires you to go where the money is. But to me, that always seemed like an exactly backwards way to organize your life. Why would you spend your entire life, which could easily and without warning turn out to be much, much shorter than you ever could have imagined (see #1), living in a place you don’t really like?
Which is why I’ve always done kind of the opposite of that – chosen a place I loved, and then figured out how to make a living there. It’s not exactly the easiest way to live, but it is the reason I’m able to answer the question of where I would like to live more than anywhere else in the world, like this: Right here.
Also high on my list are Portland and Eugene, or anywhere cool, wet, green and close to the coast. One thing I don't like so much about where I live now is the climate – relentless sunshine and blistering heat in summer and never a drop of rain from May through October. Even in winter it doesn't rain as much as I would like, and I dearly miss summer storms.
Northern Utah is also on the list, because that's where most of my family is. I would love so much to be able to live close to them again. And the thunder storms at the end of summer are amazing.
3 Comments:
Great questions almost always solicit great answers. You two made a fabulous memeing pair.
I must see Freaks and Geeks!
I meant "elicit" not "solicit," above. Damn, now I have to do another word verification below!
Excellent, excellent answers!
1. For me, Lindsay is by far the most empathetic character. She's kind of like the person I wish I would have been in high school instead of the boring silent timid sheep that, in reality, I was. So interesting that you went through a transformation similar to hers.
And, yes, that scene where Nick gets crushed is compassion-inducing. He's such a nice, albeit, clueless guy. If I had to pick a cringe-worthy scene, I think it would be the scene in which Nick sings that song he composed for Lindsay--the song in which (if memory serves) the phrase "you're my lady" is repeated relentlessly. I think he was heavily influenced by Styx, no? Poor Lindsay having to sit through that oh so earnest rendition of that song after she'd pretty much decided to break up with Nick.
That show is just so well written and true.
2.OK. Wrong-Eyed Jesus is going in the Netflix queue.
3. As you know I am a HUGE fan of kazoos, accordians, and banjos, not to mention cigar-box guitars!!!! I also love the cello esp. when played by Yo-Yo Ma.
4. Fascinating! I think if you totally give into hermitlike tendencies, though, you end up dead. BTW: Did you know that a movie version of Into the Wild is coming out soon? I think it will probably suck, though.
5. You are lucky to love where you live. I agree, so many people end up living some place they'd rather not be. A word about Portland. Yes, it is cool, wet, and green, but we have that same super-dry summer, believe it or not. No rain from, say, mid or end of June to September. It gets really crispy (and I think it's getting worse, i.e., the dry season is starting sooner and lasting longer and we aren't getting as much rain as we used to). And thunderstorms are virtually unheard of. I do miss them. Still, I, personally, can't think of anywhere else I'd rather live.
Thanks for doing the meme! I *loved* your answers.
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