7x7 meme

Lindsay at Majikthise sent us this 7x7 meme. And I’ve swallowed the bait:

1. Seven things to do before I die

(i) Hang glide (ii) Be a bartender at a semi-legal after-hours place in the city(iii) Beat Abbas at Scrabble by a margin of at least 300 points (iv) Learn Spanish (v) Learn statistical quantum mechanics (vi) Memorize the Divine Comedy (in English), and (vii) Drive down the 16,000-mile spine that is the pan-American highway, Alaska to Chile, and then drive off to Tierra del Fuego

2. Seven things I cannot do

(i) Whistle with my fingers (ii) Bake desserts, especially custards (iii) Yell (iv) Watch cricket (unless it’s done a la Bollywood musical) (v) Salsa (vi) Write poetry and (vii) Understand Hegel

3. Seven things that attract me to [New York City]

(i) Its deposits of time (ii) Its deposits of memory (iii) That it’s always used but never emptied or exhausted (iv) Its quiet places (v) Its non-parochialism (vi) That the instability of its parts makes a stable whole and home and (vii) The view of Manhattan while coming over the bridge on foot or on subway

4. Seven things I say most often

(i) Okey dokey (ii) I’m not sure (iii) You’re insane (iv) Will you let me finish (v) Too te too te too te too (vi) That’s trivially true and (vii) What’s your point

5. Seven books (or series) that I love

(i) Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Laclos (ii) Mimesis, Auerbach (iii) The Man Without Qualities, Musil (iv) The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bounaparte, Marx (v) The Great Transformation, Polyani (vi) The Making of the English Working Class, Thompson and (vii) Fact, Fiction, Forecast, Goodman

6. Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would if I had time)

(i) Sans Soliel, Chris Marker (ii) Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick (iii) My Beautiful Laundrette, Frears (iv) Apocalypse Now, Coppola (v) Touch of Evil, Welles (vi) The Matrix and (vii) LOTR

7. Seven people I want to join in, too

(i) Jason Kottke (ii) Matt Jones (iii) Sean Carroll (iv) The folks at Fistful of Euros (v) Cosma Shalizi (vi) Brad Delong and (vii) Darcy Argue

Comments

[Jon]

You'll have some trouble driving the Pan-American highway Alaska to Chile. (Besides, if you finish the route in Chile, you still are many thousands of miles from Tierra del Fuego: the road crosses over to Argentina well north of Patagonia.)

[Robin]

I can double back. What's a few thousand miles for a fantasy?

[Abbas Raza]

I'll just do my response here:

1. Seven things to do before I die

All seven are, how to put this delicately, ahem: ways of achieving orgasm. 'Nuff said.

2. Seven things I cannot do

(i) Play a musical instrument (ii) Sing (iii) Dance (iv) Control my temper (v) Win an argument with Robin (vi) Write poetry and (vii) Be spiritual

3. Seven things that attract me to [New York City]

(i) Its density: I have a choice of a visiting one of several million people by travelling less than 5 miles. (ii) Its mixtures of races and cultures (iii) That one doesn't have to drive (iv) Its electric energy (v) Its lack of sentimentality (vi) That everything can be delivered to your home, including your laundry (vii) The view of Manhattan while coming over the bridge on foot or on subway.

4. Seven things I say most often

(i) Hmmm... (ii) I have no idea (iii) No, you’re insane (iv) Stop talking while I'm interrupting (v) Achchaa... (okay or good or I see, in Urdu) (vi) No, really, I love you... (vii) Let's try to get together soon.

5. Seven books (or series) that I love

(i) Lolita, Nabokov (ii) Midnight's Children, Rushdie (iii) 100 Years of Solitude, Garcia-Marquez (iv) The Selfish Gene, Dawkins (v) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Rorty (vi) Orientalism, Said (vii) Godel, Escher, Bach, by Hofstader.

6. Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would if I had time)

(i) Scarface (ii) Jaws (iii) Mughal-e-Azam (iv) Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (v) Sorry, but Casablanca (vi) The Matrix (vii) When We Were Kings

7. Seven people I want to join in, too

My siblings and Nelson Mandela

[Cosma]

Ten days later...

[Robin]

Thanks Cosma.