Questions About Art & Culture

Node Link

What kind of Music do you like to listen to?

Node Link

I mostly listen to Rock and Pop, but have some favourite songs of many genres including Dance, Rap/Hip Hop, Soft Music, Classical Music (especially Crossover Classic, which I often find very fun), Instrumental Music, Country, Rhythm and Blues and Soul, and Ethnic Rock. I also like many songs that mash-up genres, such as Kid Rock’s “Cowboy” or some of the fairly common Pop Rock, or Pop Country, songs.

My favourite Israeli artist is Yehuda Poliker, and my favourite International artist are the Beatles. My favourite Israeli song is “Shlal Sharav” (or “Heat Booty” in English); it is sang by Gidi Gov, but it was composed by Poliker with words written by Meir Ariel. My favourite song in English is “You Gotta Be” by Des’ree.

What is the most freaky TV Show you ever saw?

Node Link

The Prisoner is my epitome of freakiness. I watched it in the summer vacations on Israeli television during the 80s. It was still infested with 1960s pre- Sesame Street paranoia, but is otherwise very cool.

What do you consider the funniest thing on TV?

Node Link

Hatzi Hamenasheh (= the half of Menasheh).

Who was your biggest celebrity crush?

Node Link

Sarah Michelle Gellar. She played Buffy Summers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I was 20 (and not forced-to-be-medicated-by-psychiatric-drugs) at the time. She is about my age, and I recall that her reported avoidance of consuming caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and harder drugs, partly convinced me to avoid them as well. That was along with a recommendation for that in Neo-Tech (= an idea system which I can no longer recommend perusing).

After I became maniacal, I imagined her as a wild and polyamorous girl who duplicated herself several times using Star Trek transporters and "all of her duplicates came out more normal than her".

As this 1998 email exchange indicates we still held her in some contempt, which is not unusual historically for entertainers.

Some of my favourite performances of her:

  1. Spiderman Parody

  2. Lord of the Rings Parody

  3. "Buffy is not a no-one"

  4. Sarah Michelle Gellar Monologue: Hit on the Host - Saturday Night Live

  5. Sarah Michelle Gellar Monologue: Vampires - Saturday Night Live - YouTube

And some favourite quotes:

  1. Sarah Michelle Gellar about giving back money and time

Note that I later found the Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters Cordelia and especially Faith more attractive than Buffy Summers.

Also note that I have created a lot of crossover fan fiction about her and Buffy.

Who is your favourite painter?

Node Link

Keith Parkinson who drew fantasy art (see his DuckDuckGo images' search).

painting by Keith Parkinson

Fiction Books (Literature)

Node Link

What are your favourite fiction books?

Node Link

My favourite children-oriented book is The Hobbit by Tolkien, which I read first in a translation to Hebrew and then several times in English. Aside from high adventure, I now realise it contained a lot of criticism of the contemporary English society.

My favourite adult-oriented book is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand which I bought and read once, and shortly afterwards my sister confiscated my copy because she too enjoyed reading it. Despite loving it, I found it necessary to parody and modernise it, and it is likely that I had had, even back then and at least sub-consciously, a lot of contempt for the original work.

Rivendell image by tednasmith.com

Do note that I threw away my only physical copy of The Hobbit due to my anti-"stuff" policy. It was a cheap one that featured this image of Rivendell on its cover, and which we bought in London.

What do you think about the other books/films by Tolkien?

Node Link
  1. I read the book The Lord of the Rings in its Hebrew translation, and found it boring and not memorable. By some peer pressure, I tried reading it again in high school, and stopped in the middle of the first volume.

    I strongly suspect that if it were written using fan fiction characters (e.g: Sauron → Ashurbanipal ; Gandalf → Moses ; Frodo → David ), it would be better in many ways: more memorable, shorter, funnier, more fun, and with a more effective message.

  2. The Silmarillion - was OK but I do not remember most of the plot (and do not care enough to).

  3. Farmer Giles of Ham was incredibly funny, succinct, and memorable. I may gladly read it again sometimes.

  4. The film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring could have been more enjoyable if the cinema my father and I watched it on would have provided an intermission, because by the end of its 3 hours we really had to pee. (Re Alfred Hitchcock's quote.)

    My father and other family (but not I) have watched the other two films on DVD at home, which was easily capable of being paused and sought. I do enjoy the "One does not simply" snowclone, however.

One does not simply read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings

What do you think about Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment?

Node Link
  1. I spent large parts of a high school summer vacation forcing myself to read a paper copy of a Hebrew translation of Crime and Punishment. It was boring and I'd have stopped much earlier, if I didn't want to prepare for the next year's literature classes.

    For the record, I read and completed some long books in both Hebrew and English which I found more interesting and captivating, and which I wasn't forced to read for class. I also struggled less with some other assigned texts (e.g. Kafka’s The Metamorphosis or J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye ).

  2. That put aside - analysing it in class, after the summer vacation, was fun.

  3. In retrospect, I could tell that Raskolnikov is described as having clinical depression.

  4. At least one friend of mine did enjoy reading it, and found it captivating.

  5. On a different page, I compare Crime and Punishment to Little Red Riding Hood and conclude that the latter was far more influential, successful, and better written. (Even though I have some reservations about its message.)

  6. I'm not going to read Crime and Punishment again willingly.

  7. Zehu Zeh's reflection on Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" - (from the Israeli Educational Television; in Hebrew) was incredibly funny and true.

So: should you read it? On one hand, this is the kind of book that every modern intellectual is expected to read. On the other hand, its Signal to noise ratio is extremely low and it is not compliant with TL;DR / TL;DW / TL;DL. It is possible that reading the wikipedia page or a different summary will be adequate (assuming you are not forced to read it in class).

And take my advice at your own risk. If it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. 😉

Have you read the Harry Potter books (by J. K. Rowling)? What do you think of them?

Node Link

I read the first four installments. My favourite was the first because it didn't take itself as seriously as the next three. I stopped after reading the fourth book, because I noticed that, except for the first one, they all ended up making me ecstatic (see "hypomania" (= "below-mania")), which I preferred to avoid.

The books I read were captivating enough for me to persist in (although they seemed to have a slow start), often funny, contained interesting supernatural elements, and appear to have been written in an English register that was accessible enough for a foreign speaker like me (with a few unrecognised words that I looked up) yet not too dumbed down to be annoying (like e.g: the Simple Wikipedia).

What are your favourite poems?

Node Link
  1. If— by Rudyard Kipling ( Wikipedia page )

  2. "Walk to Caesarea" - by Hanah Senesh.

  3. "The Road Not Taken" - by Robert Frost.

  4. David’s Lament - from the Bible.

  5. "Burning Love [mod]" by Will Smith and Jazz ( Reference ; "Jazz as a pickup artist" ; "how to approach a MOTAS" )

Who are your favourite muppets?

Node Link

Animal.

photo of Animal the muppet

(Photo taken from the Wikia page. Thanks.)

In addition, I find Sam the Eagle’s conscientious obsession with maintaining a high standard of “morality” cute, in a pitiful way. Sam was likely, in part, a parody of Samantha Smith. Nevertheless, in my fics (and elsewhere), he still sometime exhibits a “bad-ass” side.

Who are your favourite My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic characters? (+ “Who is best pony?”)

Node Link

Discord is a natural favourite. He is mischievous, but kind. I like his Cassandra Syndrome, and the fact that he is narrated by John de Lancie who played Q in Star Trek. Discord also plays Christina Grimmie in Equestria's "Advanced Selinaverse Geeks" franchise.

Pony-wise, I am partial to Fluttershy (who plays Tiffany Alvord) and to Rainbow Dash.

Are you someone/something's biggest fan?

Node Link

I hate saying things along the line of “my fandom/fanhood of [creator] is bigger than yours”. Thus, I can be a fan, a big fan, or a very big fan of something. Hoewever, I will try to not claim that "I am a bigger fan of [something] than [someone else]" ( called "superiority" I think ) or “I am [something]’s biggest fan” ( called “superlative” ).

Also note that I try to be a non-fanatic, sincere, and critical, fan. If I am unhappy with a work of a creator, of whom I am a fan, I may likely inform the creator that I feel this way about it. See “Encourage criticism and try to get offended and try to grow a thicker skin”.