| Overwhelmed |
[May. 20th, 2007|10:19 am]
Tony Grist
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I don't recognise the Bowie references in Life On Mars because when Bowie first appeared I was looking the other way (career, kids, the usual) and I missed him.
And yesterday  idahoswede made a joke about Three Coins In a Fountain and I looked it up on Amazon and realised I hadn't see it and I'd like to
And Amazon were offering it in a package deal with Roman Holiday which- in spite of adoring Audrey Hepburn- I haven't seen either
And- oh sweet Jesus on a barmcake - the world is so full of books and movies and albums I've never read or seen or listened to
And I'm just so ignorant...
So maybe I'll use my "golden years" (ha-bloody-ha) to play catch-up.
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| Comments: |
I feel I've fallen behind. I want to be able to have an intelligent conversation about David Bowie.
But, yes, there are things I don't care about. I'm pretty certain I'm never going to bother to educate myself in the works of Norman Mailer.
Until my 50's, I'd never admit that I didn't care about particular areas, and I'd try to educate myself as broadly as possible. Now, in my mid-50's, I have realized the finiteness of a) my brain and b) my life.
I don't care about either Norman Mailer OR David Bowie, and it feels freeing to say so. One of the things that crystallized this for me was that I finally stopped reading British murder mysteries. By and large, I found that I couldn't relate to them, and that I was better off with Americans. This was a difficult admission, and I was ashamed to say in public that I dislike PD James, that I prefer her early mysteries about the women's detective agency to most of her Dalgliesh books. I find Anne Perry's Cadfael books boring.
However, there are other things I care about deeply and pursue like a hound dog.
I read one or two of P.D. James's books and found them stuffy and old-fashioned.
I'm inclined to prefer contemporary American crime fiction too. I like Kathy Reichs and Sara Paretsky. | |
