Cool memes, cool beans
Ezra Klein wants to know where all the cool memes have gone.
Yes, once giants walked the earth, men and women went naked and were not ashamed, the lion lay down with the lamb, and cool memes bounced hither and yon across the vastness of cyberspace, touching hearts, challenging the best minds, and inspiring millions, to the relief of many a burned out, blocked, or harried blogger traveling over the holidays who needs something quick and easy to write about because he is trying to post from his mother-in-law's kitchen while she is bustling about cleaning up after breakfast and biting her tongue to keep from asking when she can use her own phone.
Ezra's question about the missing cool memes was brought on by his being tagged with the Meme of Four during a temporary lull in the holiday festivities when he was bored enough to actually tackle the Meme of Four.
The Meme of Four is a simple "Tell the class a little bit about yourself" meme arranged in lists of four.
Four places you've lived.
Four jobs you've worked.
Four albums you can't live without.
Etc. etc. etc. etc.
And as befits a Meme of Four, the memed is then asked to meme four fellow bloggers.
Ezra has tagged me.
This shows that even brilliant young men like Ezra Klein have their lapses when their minds wander. Perhaps a pretty girl walked by, perhaps he was watching a football game and his team scored a touchdown. Whatever he was doing, he wasn't thinking. If he wants more cool meme-ing, he should tag only the certifiably cool and I am the uncoolest guy on the left side of bandwidth.
Even Kevin Drum is cooler. Kevin gets points just from living in California and from never ever bothering to even try to act cool. I routinely prove my utter lack of cool by trying to pass.
Once, back in college, there was a moment when I was cool by association---this really cool girl thought I was cool, but the arrrival of the police and Interpol nipped that romance in the bud.
Answering the questions honestly would just prove how uncool a life I lead and send me into a George Bailey on the bridge existential funk.
To avoid that, I’ve decided to make some changes in the questions. Won’t make me any cooler, but the answers will be more fun to type. Anything is better than having to type Muncie, Indiana as anything other than a punchline.
Four jobs they couldn’t pay you enough to do: Hospital orderly, steeplejack, game show host, Sean Hannity’s barber.
Four movies you used to love and watched over and over to the point that now you have them memorized and the prospect of watching them again causes your eyeballs to bleed: The Philadelphia Story, MASH, It’s A Wonderful Life, Barefoot in the Park.
Alternatively, four movies you loved when you saw them in the theater but don’t dare watch again for fear they won’t hold up: Shakespeare in Love, Lost in Translation (Hello, Roxanne!), Big Night, and Election.
Four places in the United States you've always thanked God you don't live even when you were living in Muncie, IN: Dallas, Texas; Burlington, Iowa; Youngstown, Ohio; Waycross, Georgia.
Four places you would like to visit on an extended vacation: Paris; Edinburgh; Melbourne, Australia; Juneau, Alaska, no kidding.
Four TV shows you are strangely tempted to watch but have so far resisted: Lost; Charmed; Beauty and the Geek; The Iron Chef.
Four Websites that aren’t on your blogroll that you visit daily: Like hell I’m going to tell you! The blonde reads this.
Four foods you don’t really like and can’t understand why you eat them but you eat them anyway and feel bad about it afterwards: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; chocolate iced donuts; lentil soup; onion rings.
Four albums you never listen to anymore but can’t bring yourself to trade in at Tower Records: Baseball’s Greatest Hits; Wagner’s Parsifal; Grover Washington's Next Exit; the original Broadway cast recording of Man of La Mancha
Four places you’d rather be but sadly won’t be any time soon: Upstairs at Christians in Chatham; in the audience at any of the theaters at the Stratford Festival; Carson’s Ribs; a table by the fireplace in a cozy back room in some great bar with all of you on New Year’s eve.
Four people who are now tagged: Claire Helene, Bill Nothstine, Pepper, and Kevin Wolf.
Feel free to answer the original questions, my variations, or any variations of your own. And of course all of you reading are tagged and requested to answer any and/or all of the questions in the comments.
Word of warning: The Countess, Trish Wilson, has also tagged me with a similar meme. Ezra tagged me first, but I'll get to Trish's later in the week---and hers is a meme of seven!
posted by Lance Mannion @ 4:05 PM
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