These Questions Two

[mrissa]

1. Do you read collections and anthologies in order? Or do you skip around in them? Or does the answer vary, and if so, what does it vary with?

2. If you could wipe a song from the face of the earth, including everyone's memories, which song would it be? I was thinking "Tell Laura I Love Her" because I have a hatred for that song far beyond its actual appearances in my life (which are few and far between). timprov suggested the entire oeuvre of Creed. We moved on to that one horrid car crash song, which would obliterate its original and Eddie Vedder remake forms. But surely we are missing entire realms of the horrid here. Enlighten us.

Comments

[zalena.livejournal.com]

That car crash song is part of a genre called "sickies." My brother loves them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ahh. Around here, the word sickie is used in an attempted "Princess Bride"-Colombo voice: "How's da sickie?"

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

Wow. The car crash song would be high on my list, but I think the honors would go to the one about the little boy buying shoes for his dying mother for Christmas.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Skip-around reader here. Pretty much all the time.

Song to eradicate? Hmmm, hard to choose. I tend to respond to music with violent intensity, which is nice when I like something, but awful when I loathe something and cannot remain in the room with it. I think the one I might first eradicate, all 9,456,564 verses and its smarmy melody, is "American Pie" which in 1972 you could not escape no matter where you went.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

They made a TV movie and a book out of that, and then a sequel book and TV movie, with a sequel song by the same band.

[loup_noir]

Anthologies get read in whim order as does a lot of other stuff, too.

"Please daddy, don't get drunk this Christmas." Song makes me want to throw things. It may be tied with a country western song -- the actual title escapes me -- that starts "Hello, I'm a truck."

[mkille.livejournal.com]

This is hard to answer, because there are lots of songs I have refused to listen to more than a snippet of, they were so grating. So I wouldn't know how to identify them. But the two songs I would most like to see disappear forever (in both directions of the time arrow) are "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies and "Counting Blue Cars" by Dishwalla.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I read collections and anthologies in order, with two exceptions:

1. In the bathroom. Sometimes, err, the length of a piece is important.

2. At work. Generally I feel obligated to be at least nominally on-task, so I'll skim over pieces that aren't directly relevant.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I'll generally read the first two or three stories in order, at the very least. Then if something suggests to me that I should read everything in order, I do. If not....

Anthologies (stories by a lot of different writers) I skip around with complete abandon. I may not even read the first story first, I may head right for an author I know I like to start with. I go back and forth and to and fro, and eventually hit everything, pinball-like. I suit my mood. I'll start something and decide it's not what I'm in the mood for - funny/farcical, too long, too short, too abrasive, too male - and skip to something else, knowing I can and will come back later.

Collections of stories all by the same author, I generally read in order until I stick on something, and then I'll skip that one and move on, but not necessarily straight on, because realizing what I don't want gives me a more active sense of what I do want. For instance, if I realize that I'm not enjoying a story because it is long and convoluted and I'm tired and don't have the attention span for it, then I'll move on to find a story that seems shorter and simpler, savoring the knowledge that something dense and complex awaits me when I have the brainspace for it.

Why?


I can't think of any song I'd eradicate. I'm sure there are such songs, I just can't think of them. Years ago, it would have been the Buddy Holly 'Roller Coaster' song, not because I thought the world needed to be free of it on principle, but because not only did I not like it, but it stuck in my head *horribly*. I would only need to hear one line of a muzak version in a store, and the song would be with me for days. However, it has lost its power over me, so I no longer mind it especially.

Songs and stories

[aet.livejournal.com]

As, like we say in Estonia "a bear has stepped on my ear", so most of songs sound pretty much same to me and I have no idea which one of them should be erased.

With stories the trouble is I find it harder and harder work to submerge myself in a fictional world, hence reading short stories or, in fact, anything shorter than 200 pages, has become a rare occurrence indeed. I seem to recall, though, that I often pick - the story with author whom I know or who has name that catches my eye; or the story with most appealing title. As of why to pick - it just seems natural to reach out for the shiniest toy first.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

1. I read them in order.

2. America's Horse With No Name. Stupid lyrics and annoying, grating melody. Tell Laura I Love Her can go too, but not before Last Kiss, the one where the singer actually causes the car wreck that kills his girlfriend and then sings about it. Oh, and Teen Angel where girlfriend dies because she goes back to the car stalled on the railroad tracks to retrieve narrator's class ring. That should be the Darwin Awards theme song.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

No coffee yet. The car wreck does not kill the girlfriend and then sing about it, I promise.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I'm hopelessly linear and read anthologies and collections mostly in order. The only exception being if there's an author I really really like writing about one of my favorite series characters. That one goes first every time.

I think "Havin' My Baby" should be eradicated from the earth and all memories of it as well. Ick ick ick.
MKK

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

1) If the reason I'm reading the anthology is a particular story, I read that first. If the reason I'm reading the anthology is because shapeshifted cats in medieval Arabia is particular appealing to me that day, I'll read straight through.

2) I really hate that "someone left the cake out in the rain" song. I hate it in general (the lyrics are nonsense and the tune is irritatingly mournful for such a silly sentiment) and in particular (there's some very strange people out there who keep writing me emails asking why I don't post their theories on how the song relates to the legend of King Arthur on my website).

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Which car crash song? I'm thinking of "Warm Leatherette", but there are probably dozens of car crash songs.

I agree with the removal of all Creed, ever. Also, if I never hear "Come On Eileen" ever again, the world will be a better place.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

I generally read anthologies in order, but will skip past lame offerings to the next story.

I would like to eliminate the one bourbon, one scotch, one beer song. It is the most worthless waste of radio time I can think of and annoys me greatly.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Which is worse, Barney songs or DragonTales songs?

Song to Erase

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

The Name Game. ("Rosanna-danna, bo-danna, da-danna.."). Of course, that one HAS been largely erased from existence - you've probably never even heard it. I would hear it on the school bus every day (driver liked to play top-40 radio) and it would remain lodged in my brain all day. AARGGGHHHHH!!! Why did you make me think about that???

[songwind.livejournal.com]

1. In order if possible. I usually only read things out of order accidentally.

2. "Stairway to Heaven"

[oursin.livejournal.com]

1. Skip around, usually
2. TLILH is one, there's also 'Honey, I Miss You' and a nauseous thing called something like 'The Choice': husband is waiting outside obstetric ward and doctors say they have to save either his wife or their child: he has a dialogue with a divine being as a result of which he dies and Miracle! mother and child survive. 'Little Green Apples' is pretty toxic, too.

[jsgbits.livejournal.com]

OMG, that song was earwormed the moment I read the title!

[jsgbits.livejournal.com]

Barney. Hands down.

[gaaneden.livejournal.com]

I read them order, usually. However if I don't like the story I'm reading, I skip the rest of it and go on to the next story. Unless I've already read the anthology I'm reading. Then, I skip around.

No Doubt's "You really love me" makes me want to kick puppies and should be removed from existence.

[carbonel]

I read them in order, because otherwise I would only read the authors I recognize, and while I know perfectly well that I'm going to enjoy stories by unfamiliar authors too, there's a part of my brain that only wants to read dessert, as it were.

As for songs, there's a bunch of them I'd be happy to erase from the earth, but most of them have been mentioned and fall in the "teen death song" genre: "Our Last Kiss," "Leader of the Pack," and the one that's an urban legend about the girl who meets the guy at a dance except that she's dead and has the chorus "Strange things happen in this world."

Lydy and I play at banning music for ice skating competitions, and so far have banned "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet," "Tosca," "Carmen," and "Bolero" (because Torville and Dean did the definitive version). Probably others, too, but that's what comes to mind at the moment.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

1. In order. Nearly always. Skipping over a particular story constitutes a great and daring exception.

2. Nothing comes to mind. If I listened to commercial radio no doubt I'd have a long list at any given moment; so I don't, and I don't.