I woke up this morning and was minding my own business when Shelley threw not one, but two memes at me. It's been a while since I've encountered a formal meme. My original weblog over on blogspot was called MEME3, and to my surprise it's still there after years of neglect. I liked how the letters and numbers of "MEME3" were all pretty much the same shape turned, and at the time I thought ultimate truth or something would be found in breaking down false dichotomies. That was back in the days when I often read memepool, which is surprisingly still alive and kicking. So I have a special place in my heart for memes.
But this kind of thing has a bit of the feel of those "pass this around or you'll get cancer" type of chain emails, which I loathe. Jessica sent me one of those with a "person least likely to return this" question, for which she had thoughtly chosen me as the answer. Sure enough, I didn't fill it out. The questions this morning are interesting enough, and I've already read them enough to know my own answers. But let's not all make a habbit of throwing memes at Scott, okay?
Now, first question: Total volume of music files on my computer: This is a tough one. I have music scattered about three different computers right now. Some of it is my own recordings, which are of better quality, and so take up more space than a standard MP3. One computer has a radioSHARK connected, so that's full of NPR shows from the past few months. Another has a copy of NetNewWire running filled with only podcasting subscriptions. And my final machine has Indy running, which saves local copies of songs even if I only listen to five seconds. So I'm not sure what all I should be counting here. I'll just count it all now that I've made all those qualifications. I have, on those three machines respectively, 885MB, 6.97GB, and 3.25GB in my "Music" folders. By my math, that's over 11GB of audio. But I would guess only about 6 or 7GB of that is actually music.
The last CD I bought: I try not to buy CDs because I hate to indirectly fund lawsuits against music fans. I think the last CD I "bought" was actually an anti-Bush compilation from MoveOn.org. I think it was called "Rock Against Bush" or maybe that was a different anti-Bush compilation CD. I haven't listened to it much, but it was for a good cause (or against a bad cause), and it included a then-unreleased song by Elliott Smith, who I like a lot, though as I recall, the song wasn't that great.
Song playing right now: No audio is playing right now (Jessica is sleeping), but the last thing I listed to was "Between the Bars," by Madeleine Peyroux. It's a jazz cover of an Elliott Smith song, and JJ played it for me yesterday. I still have it in my head.
Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me: I was going to defer to iTunes here, but it turns out my most played songs are those I've listened to repeatedly while learning them for Los Vivos. I'm not sure those should count, but I'm also not sure how else to answer this. I'll just list five songs listen to a lot: XO by Elliott Smith, You Stay Here by Willy Porter, Cold Water by Damien Rice, Song for a Girl I Don't Know by JJ Hamon, and For Liberty by me, which I just now realize is not on my website for some reason.
Now, meme #2, books: You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? The first few times I read this, I thought it meant "as which book do you want to be burnt?" and thought "what difference does it make?" It's been a while since I've read Fahrenheit 451. But I now realize that this is referencing the books that characters memorized so as not to lose the contents. Shelley said "when faced with a society that could condone the burning of books, truth has to matter more than beauty," and then went on to not really answer this one. But I think the book I've found most valuable in my life would be particularly appropriate for a world in which book burning was common practice: The Essential Writings of Mahatma Ghandi. That may not be the "ultimate book on truth" Shelley talks about, but there will be other people memorizing books, so I think this one is good enough to be worthwhile.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? I guess. No one in particular, but I think I would be interested in the main characters in many stories.
What are you currently reading? In an attempt to understand the big deal about Hunter S. Thompson, I recently "borrowed" Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas from someone at my old job who I will likely never see again, but I haven't started reading it yet. I recently listened to the audio book of John Grisham's The Rainmaker. Does that count? I think my last treeware book was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon, but that was months ago.
Five books you would take to a deserted island? I would certainly not take any pleasure reading to a deserted island. I would probably start with the thickest botany book I could find, so that I could learn about the local vegetation and also have fire kindling if it came to that. Then maybe a boat-building book, a world atlas, a medical book, and a general survival guide. I wouldn't last a week on a deserted island, so my main focus would be to get back to civilization as soon as possible.
Now it's the fun part where I get to inflict memes upon an unsuspecting population. Bwahahaha... I'll pass to the two people I referenced here, who both conveniently have blogs: Jessica and JJ.