Memes Upon Memes

Ooh-lala

 

Katharine Hepburn
You scored 21% grit, 47% wit, 38% flair,  and 14% class!
You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You
go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand
head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing
and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or
conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common
sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet.
You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the
screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who
like strong women.

Find out what kind of classic leading man you’d make by taking the
Classic Leading Man Test.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

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You scored higher than 99% on grit
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You scored higher than 99% on wit
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You scored higher than 99% on flair
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You scored higher than 99% on class

Link: The Classic Dames Test written by gidgetgoes on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

And for gender balance:
 

Jimmy Stewart
You scored 23% Tough, 14% Roguish, 42% Friendly,  and 19% Charming!
You are the fun and friendly boy next door, the classic nice guy who
still manages to get the girl most of the time. You’re every nice
girl’s dreamboat, open and kind, nutty and charming, even a little
mischievous at times, but always a real stand up guy. You’re dependable
and forthright, and women are drawn to your reliability, even as
they’re dazzled by your sense of adventure and fun. You try to be tough
when you need to be, and will gladly stand up for any damsel in
distress, but you’d rather catch a girl with a little bit of flair.
Your leading ladies include Jean Arthur and Donna Reed, those sweet
girl-next-door types.

Find out what kind of classic dame you’d make by taking the
Classic Dames Test.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

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You scored higher than 99% on Tough
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You scored higher than 99% on Roguish
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You scored higher than 99% on Friendly
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You scored higher than 99% on Charming

Link: The Classic Leading Man Test written by gidgetgoes on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

(Via Literaticat.)

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Trivial Birthday

Have to start again sometime, so why not? The wikipedia birthday meme that everyone is doing. (3 events, 2 birthdays and 1 death)

July 12 (and I’m a bit distressed to find that the Rollerdome I want to rent out for my 30th birthday party has no information about said rentals on its Web site…)

Events
1812War of 1812: The United States invades Canada at Windsor, Ontario.
1892 – A hidden lake bursts out of a glacier on the side of Mont Blanc, flooding the valley below and killing around 200 villagers and holidaymakers in Saint Gervais.
1973 – The 1973 National Archives Fire destroys the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center.

Births
100 BCGaius Julius Caesar, Roman soldier and politician (d. 44 BC)
1880Tod Browning, American film director (d. 1962) (and in Ky., natch)

Death
1926Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist, writer, spy, and administrator (b. 1868)

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Random Images

Because this is kind of amusing and I’m useless for anything more today… Snitched from here via here.

The Rule is that you take the best picture you like from the first page of Google Images results:

The city and state of the town in which you grew up, no quotation marks.
The town in which you currently reside. (Note: Pleasingly weird and not current.)
Your name, first and last, with no quotation marks. Tied with this.
Your grandmother’s name. (I did both and chose my favorite.)
Your favorite drink.
Your favorite food. Another tie.
Your favorite smell.

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Better Than iPod

Yesterday, Rarely Likable proposed to memefy this New York Magazine feature wherein Colson Whitehead talks about five books chosen from his bookshelves by the interviewer. She says: If there’s no one nearby to choose books at random, figure out how your bookshelves/piles are divisible by five. Go to each one however many times as needed. Close eyes, spin around a couple of times (I’m totally serious about that part, it’s necessary) and touch a book. Be right back with my own results. (You can see her excellent results at the link above.)

This seemed like a great fun idea, so I made Christopher randomly choose some books for me. (Miraculously, he didn’t come up with all weird little nonfiction books.) And they are:

Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller by Marshall Chapman – I discovered Marshall Chapman by way of a Bob Edwards interview on Morning Edition. Which is geekily appropriate, since one of the things that defines Chapman’s cool is these flashes of nerdiness (some spirituality stuff) or bad taste (touring with Jimmy Buffett). But the thing is, Chapman herself is such a magnetic personality that you really don’t care if sometimes her songs get a little bit twee — the ones from the ’60s are hard core (see, er, hear "Rode Hard and Put Up Wet") and, in fact, I bet she could still set them up and knock them down with the best. Anyway, her anecdotes are fabulous and that’s what this book is, and what she was promoting on ME. But they’re actually funnier from her. So I’d recommend the book, sure, but only after you’ve listened to the interview (with outtakes) and heard her rap in Middle English. We went to see her read and play a few years ago and this is part of what I said then:

The guy who Marshall went out on her first date with at Vanderbilt showed up before the reading, got a book signed and left. He had on leather tassled loafers; freaky. Another couple in the audience had met Marshall in Switzerland in the late ’60s and had the pictures of her sleeping on the floor to prove it. Marshall asked them politely, "You know we had forged Eurail passes, right? They were forged. They caught up with us in Italy."

How can you not love this woman?

The Panic Hand by Jonathan Carroll – Ha. The first time I read Jonathan Carroll, I was in high school. I lucked onto a copy of Bones of the Moon (which I still think is the one of his novels you should read first) at our Usually Doesn’t Have a Great Selection of Fiction local miscellany/bookstore Sqecial Media. I had heard of Jonathan Carroll, had heard friends from far away talking about how wonderful his writing was. I spent the next few years combing bookstores, used and new, for Carroll scraps, without any more luck smiling on the search. I don’t know if Amazon didn’t quite exist yet or I just didn’t use it then; probably a little of both. I think I’d finally managed to find another of the novels remaindered (From the Teeth of Angels), but the short story collection, The Panic Hand, eluded me. Anyway, in college, I drove up to Chapel Hill for a weekend visit to my friend Blair. Blair was a VW mechanic, among other things, and had this excellent house and this excellent dog, Samantha, and it was a good weekend. The night I arrived, he talked me into town via cell phone, to the bar where he was. We proceeded to traverse streets and bars late into the night. When we got back to his house (by taxi), I discovered he was in possession of a number of our mutual friend John’s books (John had recently moved elsewhere). I dug around in the boxes, drunkenly, and found The Panic Hand. Oh happiness! I was so smashed I had to close one eye to make the lines stay steady while attempting to read it. Needless to say, I got a lot more out of it the next day, even with the terrible hangover. I eventually picked up a copy, probably at Dreamhaven or another specialty store. I had occasion to pull it out not too long ago and reread one of my favorite Carroll stories, "Friend’s Best Man," because someone in the writing class turned in a similar story. I also ended up rereading "Uh-Oh City" and "The Panic Hand." They held up beautifully. Oh, I love this collection.

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey – I love this novel quite a lot, but I don’t have as much to say about it. I picked this one up circa mid-90s when I was trying to read more mysteries (I also read a lot of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett that summer). The most vivid memory I have of reading it is being in my parents’ big jaccuzzi tub with some sort of really stiff clay face mask on (which did nothing except create a kabuki effect and dry out my skin). I read all her books that I could get my hands on in short order, but this one’s my favorite. (Man in the Queue was the only one that disappointed me. I should probably give it another try.)

A Hammock Beneath the Mangoes, edited by Thomas Colchie – I bought this at Hawley-Cooke Booksellers in Louisville on a "class" field trip when I was at Governor’s School for the Arts in 1993. It has a truly great TOC (do a find for Hammock). These stories were the genesis of my love affair with Latin American fiction, and even in a sideways fashion led me to Eduardo Galeano (author of what on many days is my favorite book in the world, The Book of Embraces). When we got home from GSA, I photocopied the second story, Julio Cortazar’s "Axolotl," and mailed it to several people from our class that I felt could not live another moment without reading it. That story still knocks me out. To say that this anthology changed who I was as a person, a reader and a writer would not be overstating it. One of my dirty little secrets as a reader of SF is that I started out reading wayyyyy more of it in translation from other parts of the world or from the "literature" section, labeled all respectable. I didn’t care about respectablility, that’s just how it happened. Every now and then I reread a story or two from Hammock and think about writing an essay about it. Or a review to try and bring it some rediscovery. I would be oh so happy if a bunch of people respond that they’ve already read it (but only if you LOVE it!!!).

KristinrichardTrue Thai by Victor Sodsook – Oh happiness, again. And a fitting fifth book. This book was a present to us from Richard and Barb, following the first magnificent Thai Thanksgiving, which necessitated us taking this book out from the library. Our Thanksgivings are all about our family of friends and the new trappings Gloriousingredientswe’ve given the holiday. Mostly, this involves me (and Alan!) drinking and taking pictures of the action in the kitchen. The action in the kitchen starts way before the big meal, with the making of index cards for each ingredient and for each dish, detailing every step to perfection. The riot of cooking begins, with ingredients being handed off according to card, and more drinking. The result is always wonderful.

Now you.

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