Friday, October 21, 2005

There was a classic commercial when I was growing up in the US, for Chevrolet. It was nothing but a theme song and a montage of scenes depicting Americana; the song went "Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet", over and over. At the time, it really seemed to sum up America, and was a very popular commercial, if I remember correctly.

I'm currently working on the web site for Holden, Australia's biggest and truest car maker, in spite of their actually being part of GM. And the other night on TV they had a hour long documentary on the history of Holden, which I felt compelled to watch. They showed some early commercials, and one was almost identical to the aforementioned Chevrolet commercial. They had different words, though, to the theme song; this, apparently, was how you summed up Australia at the time: "Football, meat pies, kangaroos, and Holden cars".

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

So now Time Magazine gives us a list of the All-Time 100 Novels (in the English language). Of them I've read:
  • Catch-22
  • The Catcher In The Rye
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • Deliverance
  • The Grapes of Wrath
  • The Great Gatsby
  • The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
  • Lord of the Flies
  • 1984
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
  • Slaughterhouse Five
  • Snow Crash
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God
  • To Kill A Mockingbird

    Fourteen percent -- that's a lot better than I usually do on these sorts of lists. I also tried to read Neuromancer but couldn't take it. It's a questionable pick anyway.