MEME OF FOUR
posted by James Reel
Every so often, a “meme” infects the blogosphere; bloggers provide personal responses to a list that's floating around, with one blogger often tagging another to keep the meme going. Our Girl in Chicago has effectively tagged everyone, so I have no choice but to participate.
First, some caveats and elaborations. This was an incredibly difficult task for me, starting with the movie and television questions. I tend not to watch or read anything more than once, so there’s really no such thing as a movie I could “watch over and over.” But let’s pretend. The first and fourth movies I list are big epics that deeply reward all the time you have to invest in them; the second has scene after scene of little acts of decency that manage to choke me up; the third and fourth are visually inventive and full of remarkable atmosphere. Two of them are in French, which makes me look either smart or unpatriotic.
As for the TV shows, I watch almost nothing (I use my big plasma screen for movies), and I just don’t watch reruns. So I listed the one program I do watch, and those that reliably snag my attention when I’m channel-surfing in a hotel.
So here we go:
Four jobs you've had in your life: record store clerk, theater critic, newspaper editor, webmaster.
Four movies you could watch over and over: The Godfather (Parts 1 and 2, but not 3), La Gloire de mon père, City of Lost Children, Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Four places you've lived: Yuma, Arizona; Midland, California; Prescott Valley, Arizona; Tucson, Arizona.
Four TV shows you love to watch: 24. And if I watched reruns, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Babylon 5, The Twilight Zone.
Four places you've been on vacation: Chaco Canyon, Prague, Fez, San Francisco.
Four websites you visit daily: Salon, About Last Night, Arts Journal, Dilbert.
Four of your favorite foods: anything involving pasta, palak paneer, green salads with berries or citrus, wine (which I consider a component of a meal, not an intoxicant).
Four places you'd rather be: Provence, San Francisco, southern Utah, an adobe house in Tucson’s Barrio Viejo.
