Carter's Top Ten Books/Movies/Recording Artists (this week)
1. Hunger, written by Knut Hamsun. A writer breaks down and we go through
it with him.
2. Aguirre, the Wrath of God, directed
by Werner Herzog. Madness, the
Amazon River, a conquistador's search for an imagined city of gold, and a
series of striking images (a man's severed head counting, a ship caught in the
forest canopy, a raft overrun with monkeys) make this my all-time favorite film
3. Ceremony, written by Leslie Silko, taught
me that it's good to be alienated.
4. The Drones
create bleak, noisy, religious death rock (kind of paraphrasing from their
myspace page with vivid lyrics and loud guitars. "Jezebel" is their masterpiece.
5. Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky,
explores the desire to escape spiritual oppression.
6. Green Grass, Running Water (or The Truth About Stories) by Thomas
King. The Truth About Stories explores the same ideas and themes in a
series of essays that Green Grass,
Running Water does in a masterful and hilarious novel about a wishy-washy
Indian and his encounter with four spirits. King is a master of broad humor as cultural critique.
7. Nature and Madness, written by Paul Shepard,
examines the cultural consequences of modern humanity's alienation from our
lived environments.
8. '70s
"krautrock" by bands like Neu!, Faust, and Can. Crazy stuff that now influences the likes of Radiohead. Good music to write with--kind of long
and rhythmic and repetitious, helps me find the writing groove and keep moving
in it.
9. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon is where I turn
when I need a fix of beautifully composed, hilarious prose.
10. Duck Soup, starring the Marx Brothers. Anarchy = slapstick = liberation.
I adore Green Grass, Running Water! It is such a clever, hilarious book! I'm excited to read more of King's work in class.