Krellin, you really are an unpleasant philistine. Do you not comprehend that there are people who actually enjoy high culture?

When I was a poor college student, I would try to attend every performance on campus. I would volunteer as an usher so I could see plays and musicals and concerts. I hitched rides to Shakespeare festivals and to live performances of Greek tragedies. Nowadays I frequent our local Shakespeare in the Park, and I attend small community theater. I do this because I love it.

I'm 40. I live in San Francisco, which has and is near a lot of live theater (American Conservatory Theater, Cal Performances, Best of Broadway, California Shakespeare Festival). I binge annually at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland (where I'll be going in a few weeks to see seven plays in four days). I travel to New York about once or twice a year and try to get in as many Broadway shows as my schedule will accommodate. I've been to London a few times, again making an effort to fit in the West End or National Theater. I'm not a "kid amongst millions", but an adult amongst millions who is fortunate enough to have the resources to fuel this interest of mine. I'm also fortunate that my parents thought it worthwhile to take me to live performances when I was younger.

I find it interesting you first insist that people couldn't legitimately pick Shakespeare as a favorite playwright, and that those who do so must not have the breadth of experience to know better. Then, when confronted by someone who actually has seen a lot of plays and still picks Shakespeare, you insist that it must be a lie.

@dipplayer...GOD DAMN! How WONDERFUL of you to display such AMAZING cultural insensitivity. To one...use a middle-eastern racial slur again me...and then suggest that only fans of European arts enjoy "high culture" makes you one of the most racist, ignorant fucks around.

Please...do tell me why European culture is soooo superior to any other culture?

Are all of you European assholes going to suggest that there is no "Shakespeare" amongst the thousands of years of Chinese culture? That the Japanese have no art? That there is no fine literature amongst the Africans?

You people - who claim to be so enlightened, so thoughtful, so "liberal"....you, in truth, happen to be a bunch of Euro-centric ASSHOLES who think if some white guy didn't write is, it isn't worthy art.

God...I LOVE pointing out the hypocrisy and racism of the elitist leftists...

@HAnged Man....I find the argument that some poor college puke has manged to see 30 most-famous plays to be a bunch of bullshit....that's what I say. Have you read them...I'll believe that...Seen a few? sure....but you SEEN them all? That's just an OBVIOUS pretentious lie, created to support a prior pretnetious lie that his favoirte (whatever) is....gasp, big surprise....the trite, popular pick....and WHY? Becuase you have never read/experieinced anything beyond what has been force-fed to you by your European elistist professors.

Obvious fans are...OBVIOUS....

^Oh dear, we're al just too OBVIOUS for krellin...

Shakespeare's too OBVIOUS and TRITE and MAINSTREAM!

krellin...are you somehow managing to be a conservative hipster?

Because...conservative I can handle--hipster, not so much.

@krellin, you guys can throw poo at each other and I don't really care, but i wanted to point out a few things. Philistinism, may derive from an arab slur but it has evolved to mean anti intellectual. That would be akin to saying I am using anti German slurs when I call someone or something barbaric. Get off it. I can't speak for the others but I don't speak any eastern languages and can only read what is translated to English. I am willing to read it if people think it is good. That being said, no one implied or stated that eastern work couldn't be better you put that in their mouths. I am sure if you could come up with a great Japanese playwright that has been translated to English and said, "Guys, I think you are just not well read enough, this person wrote some of the most beautiful plays ever, check them out and tell me if you still think Shakespeare is the best," They would be willing to take a look. However, you just told them they were dumb for liking Shakespeare.

For What it's worth:
I haven't been to a lot of theater but I have seen a few.
Arsenic and Old Lace
Wicked
We Will Rock You
And a play about a middle eastern girl that marries an older man and it takes place in a hotel room. It was pretty good, but I was totally focused on trying to sleep with my date so I can't remember much more about it.
I have seen some Shakespeare but most of that has been video recordings from the BBC.

"CAn't wait until morons liek Obi leave academia and have to deal with REAL human beings in the REAL world...where all his pretentious bullshit earns him a job doing dishes at MCDonalds...moron"

Good people work at McDonalds, krellin--my immigrant friend does.

And anyway, plenty of great authors worked menial jobs while coming up with something to write...

Besides--

All the trouble I have finding a job with no work experience, I'll take McDonalds...I'll be the only one there quoting "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day..."

Well, maybe everyone else working there will feel that way about working tomorrow as well.



krellin, you really do come across as the kid who takes a read of something difficult, slams the book shut in the middle of class and shouts "THIS IS STUPID!" and expects applause.

Sorry--we don't do that in the academic OR adult world.

Why can't you believe he saw those plays. He lives in SF. He is 40. Most colleges put on 2 or 3 plays a year. Shakespeare in the park can fetch you several performances. Colleges usually put on the more common and famous plays. If he is actually interested in the stage it seems very feasible.

^Yep.

I know my HS did a Shakespeare play 4 times in 8 years...

And my old college did some famous plays, too.

Plus, the thing about Shakespeare plays:

1. No rights to pay for, they're public domain
2. Everyone in the Western World pretty much knows the major ones, ie, R&J or Hamlet
3. Thus, you get name recognition
4. Plus, a lot of theatre students are just that--theatre students, so doing a Shakespeare play in these schools lets them put on a performance for no rights paid AND get their actors and actresses some Shakespearean acting experience at the same time

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo. Been to see this about 6 times absoluely rootin' tootin'

there#s a t missing there somewhere....

Krellin, you've obviously not been paying attention if you think I am any kind of leftist.

Krellin, Shakespeare absolutely amazes me -- he was more brilliant than anyone. And I never took a literature course or had a literature professor, so nice try, but that has nothing to do with my being impressed. You know what else? I don't read that much Shakespeare. I've read maybe 4-5 plays, and it's been awhile, because I don't enjoy it as much as some other things. But that said, it's pretty silly to pretend he's not in a class by himself (or, at least, with very, very few other people).

Putin, good choices. I like including AA Milne. I like Milne. I've read nothing beyond the Pooh stuff, but it's awesome and I always enjoy it. I'm sure his stuff for Punch is good too.

Anyway, my choices:

Novelist: J. M. Barrie (Favorite: Tommy and Grizel, usually). (I also really like Stevenson, Maugham, Tarkington, Cronin, Dostoevsky....)
Dramatist: J. M. Barrie (Favorite: Peter Pan)

(Hey, I really like Barrie, what can I say?)

Short stories: Poe or O. Henry. Hard to say.
Poetry: Keats or Wordsworth or Browning on any given day. Gray is amazing too. And I do enjoy Stevenson.

Milne is hilarious. My favorite story of his is the The Competition Spirit.

http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/37616/

krellin, you seem to have this incorrect fixed image of me, despite information to the contrary. Maybe you just ignore it because it doesn't match up with your disbelief. I'm not a "social deviant kid" or a "poor college puke." I graduated college about 20 years ago, and I've never claimed to be poor.

Attending entertainment events -- theater, rock concerts, sporting events, etc. -- is just a matter of interest and opportunity. IIRC, you live in the Detroit area. Maybe you don't get as many shows passing through there, and maybe you don't travel to other areas much. Where I live, let's say within an hour's drive of San Francisco, I could probably see 30+ different plays every year if I had the desire and funds. That's not even counting my annual trips to Ashland, or trips to other places like NYC.

Think about a Detroit Lions football fan who is 40 years old like me. He's had season tickets to the Lions since he was in his 20s, and before that his family had season tickets. When the Lions went to the playoffs, he always attended and perhaps he's also been to some NFC championship games and a Superbowl or two. At this point in his life, he's probably been to about 200 games (8 home games x 20 years plus random others) and considers himself a diehard Lions fan. When he says he thinks Barry Sanders is the greatest running back of all time, would you tell him he only thinks so because he's been brainwashed to think that way from living in Detroit, or because he has never seen other RBs play? Would you call him a liar, that there's no way he could have seen 200 games live? Maybe he's seen 200 games on TV, and maybe he's been to a few games, but saying he personally attended all of those is a pretentious lie and he only says Barry is the greatest because it's the trite, obvious answer? There's nothing wrong with disagreeing that Barry is the best (and in this thread, it wasn't even who is the best, it was who is your favorite dramatist), but it goes over the top to call the guy out as a liar who couldn't possibly have attended live football games.

Best novelist: Tom Clancy

Best works: Red Storm Rising, Rainbow Six, Executive Orders, Clear and Present Danger

Nobody likes Cormac McCarthy? No Country for Old Men was one of the best books I've ever read. He's an amazing novelist.

I loved Red Storm Rising. Executive Orders got kind of silly, and I think Clancy knew he was done with the present-day Jack Ryan storyline. Years ago, I was hoping for a Without Remorse movie with Willem Dafoe as Mr. Clark. He was cast in that role for one of the Clancy book-movies, I forget which. I don't think it's ever going to happen now.

I just finished Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, a very good read. I was very impressed by the scope of the the female protagonist's role, much wider than nearly anything I had seen before, but I'm not a fan of all the really gritty sex and violence. And just because it's what I do, I questioned the punctuation of the title. lol

My favorite plays of all time (and I'm not much of a theater fan these days) are The Foreigner, Godspell, and Boomers. I really hated Rhinoceros and the Voyage of the Dun Cow, and one other whose title I guess I've blocked out of my memory.

Clancy was great, back in the day. I really liked the Cardinal of the Kremlin.

Stieg Larsson's trilogy was good, but it hasn't stuck with me.

Anyone else like Peace Like a River by Enger? Probably one of my top novels ever, but it's not for everyone.

And I still go back and ready my Clancy novels off the shelf every once in a while. Good author. Michener another one that I can reread and enjoy.

@iMurk. He is one of my favorites. I bought the road while I was waiting for my plane and had forgotten to bring a book. I read it on the flight. NCFOM was amazing and I have read Child of God. I have Blood Meridian on my short list of next books.

@ THM

I'll admit that Debt of Honor/Executive Orders good a little unrealistic, but it was very entertaining to see Jack Ryan climb that high, especially since I have read every book in the "Ryanverse".

A Without Remorse movie would have been kickass. That was actually the last Clancy I read, and it blew me away. Mr. Clark is such a badass.

@ THM cont.

Will Dafoe played Mr. Clark in Clear and Present Danger the movie (which strayed WAY too far from the book, but it was still a decent movie)

"Clancy was great, back in the day." Agreed....now he sells his name out so other authors can stick it on the cover of their books. Bums me out...I've lost all respect for him.

They'll probably make movies from Clancy books again in about 10 years when Hollywood is scraping for retread ideas. Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, and Ben Affleck will have minor cameo roles. Somebody like Zac Efron will be cast as John Clark, and it will just be wrong, wrong, wrong.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle... etc etc

Albert Camus-L'Etranger
William Burroughs-Exterminator, Naked Lunch
James Ballard-Atrocity Exhibition
Chuck Palahniuk-Fightclub, Choke, Survivor
Max Stirner-The Ego and It's Own
Irvine Welsh-Porno
Anthony Burgess-A Clockwork orange
Kafka-The Trial, The Tower, Metamorphosis
Herbert George Welsh-Time Machine
William Gibson-Neuromancer