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fpbLook at your LJ “interests” list. If you have less than 50 interests, pick every fifth one. If you have between fifty and seventy-five interests, pick every seventh one. If you have over seventy-five interests, pick every tenth one. If you have fewer than ten, pick all of ‘em. List them on your LJ, and tell everyone exactly what it is about these things that interests you so much.
Aeschylus The greatest Greek poet after Homer. When I was 18, I read Robert Fagles' breathtaking translation of his Oresteia, which induced a state of euphoria such as I can only remember three or four times in my life. I could not avoid bending the ear of all the friends I met about this great new discovery, and kept saying "And I thought Shakespeare was something!" And I have not really changed my mind since. My only regret is that I have never seen Fagles' version - or anyone else's - acted. Fagles himself compares the titanic, triumphant ending to Beethoven's Ode to Joy, and not without reason: the reconciliation of Athena and the Furies, Reason and Instinct, Culture and Nature, is the mightiest theme that any playwright ever tackled, and it is dealt with in a manner worthy of its greatness.
Bob Dylan Dylan is someone who came to popular music with a talent and a perception of the form's potential so far beyond that of anyone else, that he, in a sense, spoiled himself. As everyone knows, he was acclaimed as a genuine poet as early as his twenties. The effect this had on him was, in effect, to encourage him to indulge in what has become the standard of his writing, free association, in producing songs delivered with tremendous convinction, but which may or may not mean anything. Nonetheless, he still stands above anyone else. Who has produced so many memorable tunes and texts? As for his singing, I remember when We are the World came out in '85. We are the world was a weak, sentimental song full of great moments; the Springsteen/Stevie Wonder duet, Ray Charles' solo. And yet I tell you that, even in such distinguished company, when I first heard Dylan's brief solo, I could only express my feelings by standing at attention and saluting.
Franz Schubert Everything about music which is exquisite, inexpressible, inwardly beautiful, and spiritually fulfilling, finds its perfection in the monstrous stream of creativity of this small, stout, funny-looking syphylis victim who died in atrocious pain in his thirty-first year, leaving behind an ocean of music - much of it sublime - that puts his contemporary Beethoven to shame. Everything that song can do, Schubert did; and did it with a depth of thoughtful beauty that never fails to astonish.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft A badly underrated writer. I enjoy the complexity and texture of his world-creation, although he made a bit of a mess exactly of what fans admired most - his mythology.
Lebor Gabala Eireann One of the primary texts of Irish pagan mythology, full of traps for the unwary and easily misunderstood by anyone who does not see that the very idea of gods and mortals could be different for people who had never heard of Christianity. All right, so it was written down by Christian monks, but it can be shown that exactly similar ideas about the past were recorded in Gaul by a Greek called Timagenes.
mythology I have loved myth and legend for most of my life. I have created my own and studied other people's, and I do not think I will ever be tired of them.
ramayana One of the great legends of mankind, dealt with in the grandiose and extensive way that India loves.
super-heroes Another thing I have loved all my life, producing my own and studying other people's. I do not think they represent ego projections, let alone, God help us, projections of the dominant social paradigm: my ego is neither small nor female, and my social paradigm does not wear a cape and fly through the air. No, they are generous and admiring imaginative projections of everything we admire in the people we love, human excellence given visible imaginative form.
Aeschylus The greatest Greek poet after Homer. When I was 18, I read Robert Fagles' breathtaking translation of his Oresteia, which induced a state of euphoria such as I can only remember three or four times in my life. I could not avoid bending the ear of all the friends I met about this great new discovery, and kept saying "And I thought Shakespeare was something!" And I have not really changed my mind since. My only regret is that I have never seen Fagles' version - or anyone else's - acted. Fagles himself compares the titanic, triumphant ending to Beethoven's Ode to Joy, and not without reason: the reconciliation of Athena and the Furies, Reason and Instinct, Culture and Nature, is the mightiest theme that any playwright ever tackled, and it is dealt with in a manner worthy of its greatness.
Bob Dylan Dylan is someone who came to popular music with a talent and a perception of the form's potential so far beyond that of anyone else, that he, in a sense, spoiled himself. As everyone knows, he was acclaimed as a genuine poet as early as his twenties. The effect this had on him was, in effect, to encourage him to indulge in what has become the standard of his writing, free association, in producing songs delivered with tremendous convinction, but which may or may not mean anything. Nonetheless, he still stands above anyone else. Who has produced so many memorable tunes and texts? As for his singing, I remember when We are the World came out in '85. We are the world was a weak, sentimental song full of great moments; the Springsteen/Stevie Wonder duet, Ray Charles' solo. And yet I tell you that, even in such distinguished company, when I first heard Dylan's brief solo, I could only express my feelings by standing at attention and saluting.
Franz Schubert Everything about music which is exquisite, inexpressible, inwardly beautiful, and spiritually fulfilling, finds its perfection in the monstrous stream of creativity of this small, stout, funny-looking syphylis victim who died in atrocious pain in his thirty-first year, leaving behind an ocean of music - much of it sublime - that puts his contemporary Beethoven to shame. Everything that song can do, Schubert did; and did it with a depth of thoughtful beauty that never fails to astonish.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft A badly underrated writer. I enjoy the complexity and texture of his world-creation, although he made a bit of a mess exactly of what fans admired most - his mythology.
Lebor Gabala Eireann One of the primary texts of Irish pagan mythology, full of traps for the unwary and easily misunderstood by anyone who does not see that the very idea of gods and mortals could be different for people who had never heard of Christianity. All right, so it was written down by Christian monks, but it can be shown that exactly similar ideas about the past were recorded in Gaul by a Greek called Timagenes.
mythology I have loved myth and legend for most of my life. I have created my own and studied other people's, and I do not think I will ever be tired of them.
ramayana One of the great legends of mankind, dealt with in the grandiose and extensive way that India loves.
super-heroes Another thing I have loved all my life, producing my own and studying other people's. I do not think they represent ego projections, let alone, God help us, projections of the dominant social paradigm: my ego is neither small nor female, and my social paradigm does not wear a cape and fly through the air. No, they are generous and admiring imaginative projections of everything we admire in the people we love, human excellence given visible imaginative form.
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