The latest one is from OGIC:
Four jobs you’ve had in your life: Paralegal, Disc Editor, Register Operator, Target Snack Bar Lackey.
Four movies you could watch over and over: Kieslowski’s Dekalog, Mike Leigh’s Naked, Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.
Four places you’ve lived: San Francisco, Santa Clara, Sacramento, San Jose (in short, Northern California all the way!).
Four TV shows you love to watch: I can’t answer this because there are in fact only three television shows I watch: Lost, Battlestar Galactica and (oh what the hell, everyone needs a guilty pleasure!) Smallville.
Four places you’ve been on vacation: Vacation? What’s that? Berlin, Oregon County, Vegas, Zamora, California (don’t ask).
Four websites you visit daily: Well too many, but here are four that don’t get the attention they deserve: Quiddity, Foghorn, Grumpy Old Bookman, and the BART RSS feed (which is more amusing than you might think).
Four of your favorite foods: The burrito (particularly chicken verde with a spinach tortilla), chicken vindaloo (served with naan and rice), all manner of temaki, and I cannot resist fresh prawns mixed with either string beans or veggies.
Four places you’d rather be: Poring through the tomes at the Library of Congress, on the beaches of Cabo San Lucas with a margarita and a novel, the Great Pyramids of Giza, attempting to climb Mt. Everest.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
In re TV shows: Have you tried Deadwood? Veronica Mars? I’d put those two up there with Battlestar and Lost. Hell, I’d put those two above Lost.
Four words: I value my time.
I should also note that I have seen a few episodes of “Everybody Hates Chris” and thought them disturbingly close-to-home.