A Million Apologies, But Anyway!

So I suck at this blogging stuff but whatever.  I have a new project (or 2).  I went to visit a few fine folks in Western Mass Halloween weekend.  On Sunday, I was walking around Amherst before I left and my host took me to this record store he loves (I think it may have been called Mystery Train and I think there MAY be one of those in gloucester, mass as well, but anyway) and while I was there, waiting for people to finish buying things, I notice this white paperback.  Nothing is written on the cover or the spine; there is no title page; there are no clear partitions between sections, chapters, stories.  So obviously I was intrigued and felt compelled to buy it because it was $5.00 and why not?  I recently finished Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk and wanted to start a new book, so I decided to go with the mystery white book.

I opened it and inside there is a red piece of paper folded up.  In big type, sideways on the page, it says "MANIFESTO" (presumably the title of this work), and in much much smaller type on the top of the page it says "Manifesto is."  This is followed by titles upon titles upon titles, starting with The Catcher in the Rye and ending with the movie Koyaanisqatsi (which I really need to watch again).  I am making it my goal/project to be able to check off each listed work in this paragraph.  I will recreate the list here and if I have read it in the past 2 years, I will consider it done.  Movies I will rewatch regardless of the last time I viewed them, and I'm not sure if there is music involved, but I'll listen regardless of time, as well.  Here it goes.

Manifesto/my literature/movie consumption for an undetermined period of time is: The Catcher in the Rye, Fight Club (book or movie do you think?), Trainspotting, Junky, On the Road, The Sun Also Rises, Go Ask Alice, The Bell Jar, A Clockwork Orange, Fear of Flying, Tropic of Cancer, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Stranger, The Outsiders, No More Prisons, The Trial, Bomb the Suburbs, The Journey is the Destination, Leaves of Grass, A Separate Peace, Savage Inequalities, Passages, The Road Less Traveled, The Bluest Eye, Cherry, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, The Great Gatsby, Journey to the End of the Night, Giovanni's Room, Flaming Iguanas, Hunger, Crime and Punishment, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, War and Peace, Demian, Siddhartha, Rule of the Bone, Beneath the Wheel, Fast Food Nation, My Side of the Mountain, Man's Search for Meaning, Things Fall Apart, The World According to Garp, The Red Balloon, The Phantom Tollbooth, Watership Down, A Wrinkle in Time, My Antonia, Thy Friend Obadiah, The Little Prince (I'll read Le Petit Prince), Jonathan Livinston Seagull, Hamlet, King Lear, The Odyssey, Catch-22, Peace Pilgrim, The Basketball Diaries, Winesburg Ohio, Bread Givers, Into the Wild, Becoming Anna, You Can't Win, The Lord of the Flies, The Chocolate War, Night, Wuthering Heights, The Secret Garden, Don Quixote, The Last Bongo Sunset, White Noise, The Fountainhead, Moll Flanders, Harlot's Progress, Pilgrim's Progress, Les Misérables, MAUS, Paul's Case, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Ferdinand and the Bull, The Giver, Steal This Book, all works by Bukowski, Vonnegut, Kafka, Noam Chomsky, Steinbeck, Dickens, John Fante, Camus
films: Kids, Drugstore Cowboy, If..., Kes, Natural Born Killers, Wings of Desire, A Thousand Clowns, Baraka, The Last Picture Show, The Razor's Edge, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (I didn't know there was a movie for this, I will trade Fight Club the book for Fight Club the movie and The Unbearable Lightness of Being the movie for the book), It's a Wonderful Life, Life is Beautiful, A Man and a Woman, Crumb, Vagabond, In the White City, La Dolce Vita, Five Easy Pieces, The 400 Blows, Clerks, Spun, Spirited Away, The Color Purple, Il Postino, Donnie Darko, Julien Donkey-Boy, The Breakfast Club, Jules et Jim, The Journey of Natty Gann, Swept Away, Heathers, You Can Count on Me, You Can't Take It with You, Office Space, Old School, Rushmore, Permanent Vacation, Stranger than Paradise, Time Bandits, My Own Private Idaho, Empire of the Sun, Bonnie & Clyde, Edward Scissorhands, Midnight Conduct, American Graffiti, thirteen, Girl Interrupted, Explorers, Swingers, The Flight of the Navigator, Harry and Tonto, Deconstructing Harry, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, Harold and Maude, The Goonies, Good Will Hunting, The Truman Show, Scent of a Woman, American History X, Benny & Joon, Sonny, A Beautiful Mind, Reality Bites, Mad Max, Apocalypse Now, Napoleon Dynamite, Little Miss Sunshine, American Movie, Love Story, Igby Goes Down, Being There, The Legend of 1900, Out of Africa, Sophie's Choice, Bleu, Blanc, Rouge, Swing Kids, The Land Before Time, The Graduate, Shane, Stand By Me, Arcadia of My Youth, Man with the Movie Camera, Dogtown and Z Boys, Giant, The Never Ending Story, Citizen Kane, Platoon, The Killing Fields, Dark Days, Streetwise, Goodfellas, Hotel Rwanda, Born into Brothels, Hud, High Fidelity, Life of Brian, Brazil, Broadcast News, Newsies, Thelma and Louise, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Garden State, 24 Hour Party People, Koyaanisqatsi

So there you have it.  There's the list.  Every time I complete one, I'll write a review or commentary of some sort, and repost the list, taking away the completed film or book.  I'm going to TRY to have it all completed by year's end 2010, however, with all of the "all works by" authors, I might have to take some extra time.  We shall see.  I see a new library card in my future though for sure.

Before I start these though, I'm going to read the little white book that inspired this, Manifesto.  If anyone feels like joining me or if you're just looking for some  "new" books to read, movies to see, comment and let me know.

On another note, I started this blog last night.  So that's my second project.  A 50,000+ word novel in 30 days.  If anyone's interested, hit me up on Twitter (the link listed in the side bar OR http://twitter.com/makeshiftkatie), comment here, email me, message me in some way before Monday, November 23 (the start date), and I'll add you to the OFFICIAL ROSTERRRRRRR.  Go to that blog for more really exciting information about the novel-writing project.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!