Archive for January, 2006

01.09.06

Three Things (Smartass Edition)

Posted in General at 8:48 pm by Nicholas

It’s been a while since I took part in one of these blog memes, but Jim listed me as his first invitee, and I haven’t been blogging much lately, so I suppose I’ll give it a go — but I’m cutting the numbers from seven to three, because it’s the only way I’ll ever finish this infernal thing. While I’m at it, I’ll include Amazon Associates links in a blatant attempt to make a quick buck. Go ahead, click! Buy! Enjoy!

Three Things to Do Before I Die

  1. Sell a screenplay.
  2. Live for a while in Europe.
  3. Become truly fluent in at least one foreign language.

Three Things I Cannot Do

  1. Sing.
  2. Dance.
  3. Breathe underwater.

Three Things That Attract Me to Blogging

(Apparently not much, these days, or I’d be doing it more often.)

Three Things I Say Most Often

  1. “the”
  2. “of”
  3. “to”

Three Books I Love

  1. The Pelican Shakespeare
  2. Collected Fictions, by Jorge Luis Borges
  3. The Complete Essays of Montaigne

Three Movies I Watch Over and Over Again

  1. This Is Spinal Tap
  2. The Big Lebowski
  3. Brazil

01.02.06

It Can’t Happen Here … Can It?

Posted in Literature at 3:56 pm by Nicholas

It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair LewisOn my reading list for the new year: the recently rereleased Sinclair Lewis novel It Can’t Happen Here, an amazingly prescient book about a folksy politician who’s elected president during a period of unrest, then begins “temporarily” stripping away various freedoms, citing external enemies and promising that things will return to normal when the threat from abroad has passed.

And the parallels don’t end there.

The book is available via Project Gutenberg as well, but personally, I’m ordering a hard copy.