The Best Of Your Cup of Joe

A random tag from Russ McBee asks for you humble host (me) to point out five posts here which I like best. However, I am going to monkey with the tag meme and include some samples from the posts which I think are some of the best so far.

Oh and these are the "rules":

** Post about the meme and link back to the person that tagged you.

** Go back to your archives and link to your five favorite posts.

Link One: must be about family
Link Two: must be about friends
Link Three: must be about yourself
Link Four: must be about something you love
Link Five: can be anything you choose

** Tag five other people (at least two must be new acquaintances so that you can get to know them better).

First, this post comes from my first month of blogging and is an essay by my sister-in-law as she urged college students to create really good stories - but there is much more here. Her example focused on her cousin Gisele, who disappeared into the horrifying world of concentration camps during World War 2. By sheer chance, a commenter on that post prompted another search for information about Gisele and something astonishing happened. Please read the post here and be sure to read the comments to learn what happened. Here's a sample from that post:

" In fact, I’ve since learned, no one knows how or where or even if she died. The last thing we know about Gisele is that she resided for a while at Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia that was for most of the people who passed through there, the last stop before the Auschwitz.

I said the best stories are complex, but it’s not always easy to live with complexity. A cautionary tale about a girl who got bitten by a monkey is a lot easier to live with than a complicated narrative about a girl who disappeared in the crucible of World War II and whose fate will probably never be known. But just because you carry a story around in your head for years and years, doesn’t mean it’s right. And I’d rather have the complex story because even with its incomplete ending, it tells the truth. We like simple stories because they are easy to understand and their lessons are clear and easy to follow. Complex stories make us work to discover their meanings, if there are any, and their implications for our own lives can make us uncomfortable."

After this turn of events, any doubts I had back in 2005 about what good might possibly come from blogging immediately vanished and I have never had second thoughts again.

Second choice - a post about friends. For a few days last summer, I was in a panic when the sweet and lovable Sophie, The Editor's dog, somehow escaped the house and was missing for several days. What I learned from that experience was large - both Sophie, The Editor and I learned how fantastic our friends could be and dozens of other bloggers across Tennessee became new friends to us all. The full post in which I express both my sadness and joy is here and much happiness about her return and my thanks to many folks here. It was a drama and half, folks, maybe even two.

Third choice - a post about myself. There is no doubt my most revealing post (in many ways) was presented here. How revealing? Here's a sample:

"Have I ever told you about the time I went fishing and lost my pants and had to run naked to my truck? It is a true story.

Oddly, that post has been kinda popular. You'd be amazed at the number of folks who Google the phrase "naked fishing."

Fourth choice - a post about something I love. Well, dang. I post often on the topic of movies, and I loves both watching them and writing about them. But love for living things, that's what this next post is about. It's about an absent friend and my celebration of her life. WARNING: The post may elicit some tears. A sample:

"When I got to the animal hospital with her this afternoon, she waited in the truck while I spoke to the vet. An assistant asked me what color of fur she had (I have no idea why that was important) Before I could even think to answer, the words "She's golden" came out of my mouth. She is and always will be.

I have one more post to offer, just my own choice of a post I like. I am not sure which if any you dear reader might like. So I pick this one here, called Martian. One reader thought I must have been stoned-to-the-bejesus to write that. No, just me pondering the galaxy and the past and the future. Plus, the little NASA movie link in the post is still active. And I remain impressed with what I see.

"Maybe the best way to think of it is as development property -- a slow development, true. But I can almost see it all as part of the view of Our backyard. I have to use my imagination, to consider time and distance and what Life requires or how Life must adapt. I have to be willing to consider so many theories, and if I dismiss the possibilities, then I limit my view and I might as well stay in the caves."

OK, that's some of the ones I have liked best. I hope you have enjoyed these pages one-tenth as much as I enjoy making them.

Here's my choices for other bloggers to try out this meme -- the always thoughtful Alice, along with Valley Grrrl, The Editor, Tennessee Jed and Cathy at Domestic Psychology.

The Five Question Method

Interviews are seldom dull, though they sure can be. Happily, Newscoma came up with 5 questions which I thought were most interesting. Also, I cannot help but monkey with the meme and instead offer any readers here the same chance I have. So, if you are reading this and you would like to answer these same 5 questions in the comments or on your own blog, then please feel most welcome to do so!

1.What was the thing/time in your life that set you on a path of being politically aware? Hmmm. Well, I've often thought about this and the fact that I was always paying too much attention to the world of adults when I was a wee boy. Adults and their world perplexed and fascinated me. But I think it was, more than any other time, the summer of 1968, when I was 7, that I got engaged with politics. It was impossible to escape politics then - riots and protests and assassinations were everywhere you looked. I saw the impact the murders of Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy had on just about everyone. And then the Chicago Democrat Convention showed me images of troops and police beating the crud out of Americans. That was, I thought, not the way America was meant to be. And it showed me that a person has to take courage and speak their mind on politics, local and national, or one day I would lose my rights. Yeah, I'm a hippie. But that also means I'm hip.


2. What is something about yourself that you would not change and why? Odd but this is connected to the previous question. One thing I would not change is that I still have a child's sense of curiosity and wonder. Some say I am childish. No, no. Not true. I was old when I was younger so it makes sense to me to be younger in my thinking as I get older. Now if I only knew what I was doing, I'd be in tall cotton.


3. If you were stuck on a desert island and could only have one book, one movie and one song to play during your time there, what would those three things be? Why? Yeesh. Almost impossible to answer. The book is easy - Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. I find new things each time I read it and it is immensely entertaining to me. One movie? Urg. If anything would make be batty it would be to lose access to endless movies. I'm addicted to them. But having only one to watch might just be worse than having none. Could I take two books?? One song? Oh that too would likely drive me bonkers, having only one song to listen to. The best I could do would be to pick just one album and that is Miles Davis Kind of Blue.


4. What is your favorite guilty pleasure? Maybe it was the Baptist upbringing I had - aren't all pleasures guilty ones? My fave? It's my movie addiction. I can't help myself.


5. If you could go back in time, what would you tell your 18 year old self now that you are an adult? Why? I would tell me several things. Perhaps it could proceed as follows: "Joe! Start drinking coffee!! You'll love it, trust me. You can actually make it to your 8 a.m. classes. And since I have your attention, Joe, stop signing up for 8 a.m. classes. Never take a class that starts before 10 a.m. I also know you are thinking about going to work for the Peace Corps. Do it. You'll get to travel and more important in the big picture, helping people to build a clean source for water or teaching them to read and write are some of the best things anyone could accomplish. And here's some shocking info for ya, bucko -- you are going to get old. Plan accordingly. And that girl you like? She's gonna be rich one day and living in Manhattan and she would like for you to be there as the years tick past, so don't be a chickenshit. It may not last forever, but maybe it will. And you are spot on about writing, so hammer away at it even harder. What's that, Joe? You don't need or want advice from old farts like me? Well, you're an old fart now, bucko!. But, yes, the journey is more fun than either of us can know. Now then, fix me a drink and tell me what we're doing tonight."

NOTE: In response to some queries, the header on the post is a variation on The 13 Question Method.

Five-Question Inverview

Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.” I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. If you don't have a valid email address on your blog, please provide one. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

I first saw this mini-meme at Tit's List, and being more than a little egotistical I asked to be interviewed. And if you wish me to create five questions for you -- just say so in the comments on this post.

1) How hard was it to maintain eye contact with Dolly Parton when you interviewed her? Well she is a wee little thing, standing five feet tall. So much of my eyesight was directed in a downward direction, except for those times when we were sitting and talking. But I'm dancing about the question, huh? It was next to impossible not to glance away from her pretty eyes to take in that massive chest. And I mean massive. Real or enhanced, it draws the eyes of any and all who gain some proximity. Plus. I'm male. And dang, they're massive. So ... yeah, I looked away from her eyes often.

2) If we were fighting off zombies, what form would you, 'Coma, and I take to defeat them? An excellent and useful question! As we (Tits, 'Coma and I) are Wonder Triplets, I considered a few options: fire-based weapons, machine guns, 3 giant robotic nail guns, etc etc, But based on all the movies I've seen and books I've read on the zombie menace, I think we should break it down into 3 things -- a shotgun, an expert marksman, and a never-empty giant-assed box of shotgun shells.

3) What is unforgivable? Due to recent events here at our home, breaking in to steal our pit bull easily falls into that category!! Cruel and brutal acts to children by parents/guardians/adults are pretty much unforgivable, meaning they should both be criminally punished and never allowed to have a moment's contact with said children. The remakes of certain movies are unforgivable acts of stupidity, no doubt. The optimist in me says almost anyone can attain some redemption for the wrongs they have done -- but the realist says sometimes behavior crosses a line and trust is forever gone. Oh, and a steadfastly closed mind. And one more thing - relentless greed which deprives the humanity of others is something I cannot bear. It's one of the worst evils.

4) If you could only watch one movie ever again, which would it be? For a few days this question has had me locked up like a trick question from Cap'n Kirk to some out of control computer. I can give you a list of 5 or 10 movies I must have if deserted on some island ... but the question asks for just one. Hell, the list I did make had 20 movies as potential answers. But I must go with a movie which has always inspired my imagination and wonder, has fascinated my brain with the ideas of just how the movie was made and it's story creation on film, it's ideas always make me ponder on the depth and breadth of who we are as humans and what we can accomplish and it's a movie that stretches from the Dawn of Man to Jupiter and Beyond. So my choice is "2001: A Space Odyssey". It was the first VHS tape I owned, even when I did not have a VCR. (The only downside to this movie, it doesn't really have much imagery of the female form, and I would hate to think of a live lived without that. As a side note, the one movie the hero watched endlessly in the apocalyptic movie "The Omega Man," was the concert movie "Woodstock", which is a mini-documentary of some amazing everyday people and some fantastic music.) Very tough question.

5) Would you like to come over for dinner sometime? Abso-friggin'-lutely. I mean, have you seen Tit's Food Blog? Not just recipes, but pictures aplenty!! She recently sent me some baklava she made and I swooned with delight at each morsel. And my money says the conversations at that dinner would be just as delicious!!