The Meme

Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies: The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. An amazing book that documents not so much a culture clash between Hmong refugees and American doctors, but shows two enormous cultural ships that totally pass each other in the night with disastrous consequences for one little girl and her family. This book is profoundly beautiful and moving. Fadiman is an excellent writer.

Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music: This is a hard one. I love music, but -- changing the way I listen to music? That's awfully intellectual and heady. Um, let's see, what has given me goosebumps? Maybe that's how to approach it. Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill and Here Comes the Flood. Johnny Clegg & Savuka's album Shadowman. The Pachelbel Canon (though the effect was somewhat spoiled by my time working in a fern and croissant restaurant in the eighties where it was WAY overplayed -- the very first time I heard it, it blew me away.) Marta Sebestien's voice. Bulgarian women's ensembles. The early days of the Irish folk music revival (the band Planxty, in particular) Phil Ochs' I Ain't A-Marching Anymore

Name a film you can watch again and again without fatigue: The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, Truly Madly Deeply, Babe, Little Women, Dr. Zhivago (the Omar Shariff one, of course), Errol Flynn in Robin Hood, Harvey, The War at Home (a documentary about the Vietnam War protests in Madison, Wisconsin)

Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief: Ugh. All I can think of is modern ones, and we are so steeped in every aspect of their lives by things like Peephole Magazine, that it is hard to suspend disbelief for any of them even if they are good actors. How about, Meryl Streep (I know, I know -- what a cliché.)

Name a work of art you'd like to live with: My tastes are simple: The Trevi Fountain in Rome, Van Gogh's Starry Night, a rose window from any one of those medieval cathedrals in Europe, Persian miniatures, mosaics from Pompeii

Name a work of fiction which has penetrated your real life: For a long time it was Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Aleksandrovich, Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver. Really recently, Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. Always, To Kill A Mockingbird.

Name a punch line that always makes you laugh: "Got any grapes?" (As told repeatedly by my 4 year old daughter a few years ago.)

Tagging: PoodleDoc, Ed, Potato Prints, Ginnie, Suzi-k or any of my siblings because I know you're all reading this religiously ... You can answer in the comments section or on your own blog.