Another book rote

The infamous "they" suggest this diversion: "List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you: list the first 15 you can recall in 15 minutes. Don't take too long to think about it."

1. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkein


2. Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny


3. The Guns of August - Barbara Tuchman


4. Cyrano de Bergerac - Edmond Rostand


5. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce


6. The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold


7. The Once and Future King - T.H. White


8. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams


9. The Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov


10. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein


11. A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula Le Guin


12. The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster


13. Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett


14. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut


15. How Much for Just the Planet? - John M. Ford

I found it diverting. My list contains some works that are not lifechanging high literature, but are truly memorable to me, so I think that's fair.

And, mutating the game...

List 15 songs that have gotten stuck in your head over time. Try not to think about them too much.

1. Clampdown - The Clash


2. Eminence Front - The Who


3. LA Woman - The Doors


4. Man on the Moon - REM


5. Smash It Up - The Damned


6. Turning Japanese - The Vapors


7. Battle of Evermore - Led Zeppelin


8. Livin' la Vida Loca - Ricky Martin


9. Aquarela do Brasil - Ary Barroso    (Well, the instrumental part, at least)


10. Twa Corbies - esp. Steeleye Span


11. Read My Mind - The Killers*


12. Hotel California - The Eagles


13. Rock'n'Roll Radio - The Ramones


14. I Fought the Law - The Clash


15. Lawyers, Guns, and Money - Warren Zevon

I say nothing about whether I like these songs, just that they have proven able to get stuck with me. And now maybe with you, too. (cat9 Said that, unlike the fond memories that the book version engenders, this one would be the devil incarnate. So be it.)

*(When I head this song on the car radio I jotted a note for myself to look it up later, on my arm. I was slightly confused when in the shower I found a messily scrawled note to the effect that "killers read my mind")

On accents

The other day I was musing on acting accents, spurred partly by a discussion in james_nicoll's journal about how practically no one gets them right, and partly by a background train of thought on playing Elizabethan theatre. Someone asked me a while back whether I did an English accent for Shakespeare; I hadn't really thought about it, but I guess for upper class characters, at least, I do a mostly region-neutral aristocratic tone. I mused on trying to make my pronunciation at least a bit more British, but as before mentioned accents are very tricky. House, M.D. is passable, and Amy Walker seems pretty convincing to me, but this is a singular talent, I would say, which is not possible, and perhaps not desirable, for the majority of actors to use. Because an accent can also be distracting, and an even slightly imperfect accent doubly so. Some roles, like Captain Fluellen, clearly demand an accent, but that's part of the character, written in to be an accent, and so not a distraction laid on top of it.

Still, there is some thinking out there that Shakespeare is more properly played with an English accent, and so I mused on whether I was doing my parts a disservice by not learning their proper tones. But then, while looking at opinions expressed on various internet fora, I saw a point made that was terribly obvious, and completely changed my thinking: modern British English is as much evolved and changed from Elizabethan English as American English is. So until we can all learn to con a true Elizabethan speech, I do not think we should feel lessened for not speaking in a different incorrect dialect.