So I just took a look at the analysis tools on my blog counter thingy, and it seems that there are folks reading this blog from all over–in addition to my beloved friends and family, there are people logging in from Alberta, Canada; Hungary; Lebanon; Atlanta GA; Kentucky; all over Israel, and even the few parts of California in which I don’t know anybody.
Granted, most of these could be people who were trying to find indiscreet photos of the Olsen twins or something.
Since the comments page is generally pretty quiet, I have to admit that I’m intrigued. Lurkers, any chance you’d be willing to give a shout-out? Even if you know me, ‘cmon, play. You can post under “anonymous,” that’s cool.
Tell me:
1) where you’re from
2) the title of one book that rocked your world when you were 16 (or, if you’re 16 or younger, what’s rocking you now)
3) one thing on your to-do list before you die.
I’ll start. I’m Danya. I’m from the Chicago area, but also kind of from San Franciso or LA (depending on what “from” means) but I’m in Jerusalem right now.
I still get all animated when I talk about The Stranger by Camus (or its corresponding song by The Cure.)
I would love to live in the country–someplace really rural. I never have, for any meaningful amount of time.
I simply cannot imagine Danya living in a rural environment. They don’t have small scale mock ups of older Jerusalem within walking distance.
I am Leon. I live in Washington DC. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan. I may noty be recalling correctly, you see I do live in DC, but I was rocked by “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napolean” when I was 16.I still have to have the carpet in the entryway of my apartement cleaned before I die.
Howdy, PD here from Saskatchewan Canada. I think I read Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis when I was about 16. I haven’t read a book since (almost). That book still deals with alot of stuff I deal with, great book whatever. Before I die I’d like to live.
So, there’s your info. How does it feel?
I’m Simon, and I’m from Jerusalem (at different times in the past I’ve been from London and the SF Bay Area). It’s a long time since I was 16 π but as far as I remember back then I mostly read SF, and I would go for either Heinlein’s “Time Enough for Love” or Clarke’s “The City and the Stars”. Before I die I want to visit India.
I’m Emily from Boston. I am 16 currently, and I read about a book a week. Right now it is “The Book And The Sword”, which is David Weiss Halivni’s autobiography. It’s pretty incredible. But my three all-time favorites are The Giver by Lowry, The Mezzanine by Baker, and Siddhartha by Hesse.
Before I die, I’d like to visit Dharamsala, and study talmud in the eretz hakodesh.
Okay, I’ll play. I’m Alana (on blog “the boiler,” and/or “effervescent one” handily misspelt for purposes of acronymization), I’m IN D.C., and FROM Maryland or California, depending on what you mean by “from.”
I would love to be able to remember what I read last week, let alone when I was sixteen (although I have a vague memory of reading Thomas Friedmann’s book on Vietnam sometime around then, and know that if it was science fiction there’s a good chance that I read it. I was also very into Shakespeare’s comedies, which I still think aren’t taken seriously enough).
Before I die, I want to finish writing this darn book on feminism and halakhah, but would settle for one complete run-through of the Shas in either regular Vilna style Aramaic or Steinsaltz version adequately to actually be able to remember it well enough to quote and defend myself when I go before the ΓβΓβ’ΓΒͺ ΓβΓβ’ΓΕΈ ΓΕΓΕΎΓΒ’ΓΕΓβ.
My name’s Brendan. I hail from Southern California and live behind the Orange Curtain in Anaheim, about as far from the Mouse as possible but still living IN the city of Anaheim.
When I was 16, I was reading comic books, science fiction and role-playing game books. F*** all if I remember what they were, but they were damn good.
Before I die, I want to matter.
Debi here from Seattle…actually FROM Lower Alabama, but I’ve been here for 11 years.
The only book I can remember truly rocking my world at 16 is The Jewish Book of Why. Took me another 10 years to become Jewish, but that was a pretty influential book.
And before I die, I want to see Australia.
You already know I’m here, but this is fun, so I figured I’d play along.
Rachel here, originally from South Texas but transplanted to rural western Massachusetts 12 years ago. I love it here a lot.
At sixteen my world was rocked by Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and by Richard Bach’s Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. Both feel pretty overblown to me now, but I still love them because they were so important to me then.
My lifetime to-do list is pretty long, but one of the things on it is to visit the high Arctic. (I’d love to see Antarctica, but it’s just too far and too expensive even to fantasize about. So high Arctic it is. I’m thinking maybe far northern Canada, or maybe Greenland.)
OK, the blog boss put the smack-down on my last thing, so …
Before I die … before I die … goodness, I can’t think of anything.
Before I die, I want to record an album.
Yeah.
Hellzyeah.
Oh, B hon, I didn’t mean to put no smackdown, just to “affirm” that you rock harder than a stadium full of AC/DC fans, even right now as we speak. That is all.
i’m gila. from omaha, from the twin cities, from los angeles, i guess…
the book–which always and ever rocks my world–is leaving home, by garrison keillor…to the point that it formed a huge part of my philosophy paper for rabbi dorff.
i want to play the lead in a musical. a big, fancy, professionally-costumed musical. yeah.
1)I’m from Alberta, Canada.
2)When I was 16?! Too long ago…I forget. Favorite books now? Barry Hughart’s Bridge of Birds and William Goldman’s The Princess Bride. Oh yeah and all of Patrick O’Brian’s stuff…..and all Dorothy Sayers’ and anything by Charles de Lint…you see where this is going, dont you? I’ll just stop.
3)To do before I die? See Paris again? Visit Jerusalem? NO! Meet Simon!
π
Yeah, and one more thing: Before I die, I wanna’ save the monkeys. Like “Save the Whales,” only way better, ’cause monkeys are cute, a lot more like us than whales and they fling their own poo.
Flinging poo.
It’s classy for the animal kingdom.
Really.
Ok, so
1)I am from Saskatchewan, Canada
2)Two books that rocked my world when I was 16 were ‘Poems’ by G.K. Chesterton, and ‘The Journey of Desire’ by John Eldredge.
3)I want to go canoeing more before I die. I can’t think of a more idealistic death than to die with a canoe paddle in hand. Of course, in reality that would probably mean dying by drowning or being bashed against rocks…but that’s part of the adventure!
Aw, you know KS is in da house… but I’ll answer too.
Living in San Francisco for 10 years now, grew up mostly in Tulsa, OK with every-other-Summer spent in Australia (Brisbane + Melbourne).
What book rocked my world at 16… Somewhere about that time I took my first poetry class and found Alice Walker’s “Goodnight Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning” and also “Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful.” What an epiphany – you can write beautiful, meaningful poems about everyday things and (wow!) poems don’t have to rhyme.
The BID to-do list… visit West Africa, go hang-gliding, pay off my student loans.
I’m Naomi. I’m from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which is not at all where I’m living now, but I think you know both that and my non-Hebrew name. When I was 16… let’s see, senior year of HS. That’d be the umpteenth rereading of Dorothy L. Sayers’s Gaudy Night (which I remember as being the only novel I took with me to Europe the summer before I turned 17).
Hello! Ann here from warm North Dakota! 16 is a long time ago – but I remember a youth team visiting our little Catholic church to share some great news. I discovered the Bible then and it really impacted me. Boring to some, maybe – but definately eternal for me π Before I die, hope to see my kids grow up (9, 6 and 10 mos) successful, happy, and positively impacting their world. Oh, and Drug Free!!
i’m jessie. i’m from a leetle town in the midwest, but i’m moving to j’lem in a month (!) to study at Pardes. I was rocked by East of Eden; that’s the first book I remember being absolutely shell-shocked by. Before I die I’d like to be able to keep a nice clean house. (Really. Lame but true.)