Teenage Kicks

[threemonkeys]

I was talking to somebody I hadn't seen in many years. As part of the catching up, he asked me the question "so what is your favourite book?" I was at a loss. In the past I have got the favourite author question and that one is hard enough to answer but to try to single out a single book just seems impossible. I have toyed with the desert island volume notion and tried to name 5. It starts ok, but then you get into "but what about...". No sooner do you have a candidate than another "better" one comes to mind. It is the same way with music - I could never pick a favourite song.

But for some people, it is quite easy. They can name a favourite and probably even rank a top 10. It always amazed me that John Peel could pick a favourite song from the many many thousand he must have been exposed to over the years. So why can they do it? Are they more decisive? Is it a more linear, single variable, view of the world? Is it because of a much more narrow definition of favourite? I tried to test that last one. I tried to find a book or song that just gave me the best "feel good" feeling without worrying about notions of quality or influence. I still couldn't do it.

Context must have something to do with this inability to find a favourite. Where am I? What is my mood? What has gone immediately before? It makes sense that I cannot have a favourite because I am not always the same. Which raises another question. How much truly great stuff have I missed out on simply because I wasn't in the right mood at the time?

Comments

[stephanie-pegg.livejournal.com]

I was recently in a conversation where someone kept asking me what my favourite book was. Except it wasn't simply my favourite book of all-time, he wanted me to categorise by genre: children's, SF, fantasy, the list goes on. I ended up having to beg off, I was having so much trouble thinking them up.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

You can take the attitude of "just name a good book to shut them up". But you get to the point where even that is too hard.

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

That's what ... Bah! Lost the word. The things where you say "That's my favourite book where a person turns into a dragon-shaped hood ornament". "That's my favourite dystopian gun-kata movie".

I do that when pressed.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

There's a word for that?! ;-}

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

I just shrink the genre until the book/movie/whatever is the only one that fits the category.

There is a word for that. It's not addenda, or specialisation. It's... something.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I know the concept - a good friend of politicians during interviews, but I don't think I have come across a term for it. I tried the Onelook reverse dictionary (http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml) but to no avail.

[littenz.livejournal.com]

That music tribute could be hard work - much changing of discs.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Much easier when it is the name of a double cd set my sister gave me.

[littenz.livejournal.com]

Ouh! Ouh! Ouh! I want to borrow. Please (recursive).

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Sure - remind me in a few weeks when I have finished thrashing it.