This is a list that my students usually ask for after a semester of hearing me yack about how great literature is. I am posting it here because I frequently lose this list and have to replicate it. Also, it will be easier to update from any terminal this way. Obviously, by posting this, I am submitting it to the public domain (not that it is any great achievement on my part) but I would appreciate it if you didn't mess the list up. If you want to argue with me about the list (how vain of me to imagine you even care) then go to
trimalchio/Talk. Thanks.
THE FRITZ LIST
As requested, here is my list of books and stuff that you might find
interesting as you while away the summer of your lives.
This is what I think someone needs to have under their belt if they want
to think they lived in the Twentieth Century. It's completely
idosyncratic, does not include music or vacation spots (the other great
mediums of the Twentieth Century) and it stretches back to a few key
pre-modern classics that are vital.
Also, bear in mind, there is a huge Rock of Salt that needs to be
swallowed when regarding this list. I am WHITE. I am MALE. I am
MIDWESTERN AMERICAN. I grew up a happy, Norman Rockwell life on a farm
with chickens and cats and dogs and corn and parents that stuck it out.
I was an Eagle Scout. I have Blue Eyes fer crisssakes! The only thing
that keeps me from being a complete white-bread facist is that I am
aware of who I am and where I am from. I realize how small and narrow my
place is in the world. But it is still my position.
So, from my white, male point of view, these are important Movies, Books
and TV shows. I think they are good, beyond their personal interest to
me, and I think they go a long way toward educating a person about where
the world has been. The white world, anyway. But that's a point of view
like any other.
So, again, let me foreground my almost transparent WHITENESS. I like
vanilla ice cream and four door sedans. But I also secretly have a
fetish for serial killers and fireballs.
Borken glass, sand in the face, surfboards, hula girls, imperialism, the
metropolis, and McDonalds?.
Anyway, I think you get my point.
Also, keep in mind that I think genre is bullshit. I use genre here to
give you a sense of where you might find things at the store. But, for
example, The Lord of the Rings is perhaps the greatest novel of the
Twentieth Century. Written by a World War I veteran for his son to read
while fighting in World War Two... LOTR is the strongest, realest
inheritor of the Western Canon. But no one reads it in college. Most of
the english speaking world is conversant in it, or has read it, or has
been influenced by it, but no one reads it in school. So, I say, read
the damn thing. It's better literature than Hemingway.
So, this list strips away some of those borders. Trust me, I believe
these works are GOOD. I'm not just pressing my taste on you (I am doing
that, but it isn't the ONLY thing I am doing).
As always, this is an incomplete list. I am sure it will seem to be too
long for some, and too short for others. do your best. use this email
group to ask questions if you feel like it. Have a good summer.
-Fritz
- Books
- Literature of the Western canon
- Horror
- Books on Writing
- Twentieth Century Classics
- Non-Fiction
- Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder [Lawrence Weschler]?
- Boggs [Lawrence Weschler]?
- Hiroshima [John Hersey]?
- Anthropologist on Mars [Oliver Sacks]?
- 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time John Vankin
- The Work of [JD Salinger]?
- [Catcher in the Rye]? [Jerome David Slinger]?
- Franny and Zoe [Jerome David Salinger]?
- Nine Stories [Jerome David Salinger]?
- Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenter [Jerome David Salinger]?
- Comic books
- Watchmen Alan Moore
- V for Vendetta Alan Moore
- From Hell Alan Moore
- Sandman [Neil Gaiman]?
- Ghost World [Daniel Clowes]?
- Astrocity [Kurt Busiek]?
- Tom Strong Alan Moore
- Jimmy Corrigan Cris Ware
- Why I Hate Saturn Kyle Baker
- Strangers in Paradise
- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns [Frank Miller]?
- Movies
- "Classic"
- Action
- Usual Suspects (watch after reading Dracula)
- The French Connection
- The Game
- [The Manchurian Candidate]?
- The Killing
- [Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill]?
- Lone Star
X The Outlaw Josie Wales (watch together)
X A Fist Full of Dollars (watch together)
X Unforgiven (watch together)
- Tailor of Panama (watch after watching any James Bond picture)
- The Running Man
- The Limey
- Batman ([Tim Burton]?)
- [Raiders of the Lost Ark]?
- Silverado
- Donnie Brasco
- Taxi Driver
- Goodfellas
- Leon the Professional (Director's Cut... this is serious. If you watch the American Release you will be missing more than 20 minutes. The original release makes NO SENSE)
- La Femme Nikita
- Science Fiction
- Transformers the Movie (Orson Welles is the Villain and re-wrote the script!)
- Star Trek the Wrath of Kahn
- Blade Runner (Director's Cut)
- The Brother from Another Planet
- 2001
- A Clockwork Orange
- Dune (David Lynch)
X [Naked Lunch]? (watch together)
X Existenz? (watch together)
X Videodrome? (watch together)
- Fifth Element
- Twelve Monkeys
- Brazil Terry Gilliam
- [Time Bandits]?
- The Adventures of [Baron Von Munchausen]?
- [Close Encounters of the Third Kind]?
- Fire in the Sky
- Horror
- Comedy
- State and Main
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (watch after reading or watching some copy of Hamlet)
- [Joe Versus the Volcano]?
- But I'm A Cheerleader
- [Welcome Home Roxie Carmichael]?
- Heathers
- Fletch
- Caddyshack?
- Manhattan
- [Annie Hall]?
- Deconstructing Harry (to be watched with Anni Hall)
- [Ferris Bueler's Day Off]?
- The Breakfast Club
- Teen Wolf (watch after seeing [Michael Landon]?'s I Was A Teenage Werewolf)
- [Back to the Future]?
- [Edward Scissorhands]?
- The Burbs
- [The Lost Boys]?
- The Graduate
- [Grosse Point Blank]?
- Drama
- Godfather Trilogy
- Grifters
- City Hall
- Velvet Goldmine (watch after Citizen Kane)
- JFK
- Romeo and Juliet (the [Baz Lurhman]? production)
- Macbeth (the Roman Polanski production)
- [Glengarry Glen Ross]?
- [The Spanish Prisoner]?
- [All the President's Men]?
- Eight Men Out
- A Night on Earth
- Drugstore Cowboy
- Smoke
- [My Own Private Idaho]? (watch after reading Henry IV by Shakespeare)
- Hamlet ([Kenneth Branagh]? super-forever version)
- Henry V (K. Branagh)
- The Sweet Hereafter
- Affliction
- The Ice Storm
- [Ed Wood]?
- Stand By Me (read Stephen King's The Body)
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Papillon?
- Cabaret?
- [Big Chill]?
- Mosquito Coast
- Kundun
- Kurosawa?'s Dreams
- Kurosawa?'s Ran (read King Lear before viewing)
- [Lost Highway]?
- Blue Velvet
- War
- Documentary
- [F for Fake]?
- [Pumping Iron]?
- [Roger and Me]?
- [Fast, Cheap and Out of Control]?
- [Dr. Death]?
- [The Big One]?
TV
Daria? (MTV)
[Nero Wolf]? Mysteries (AE)
Shark Week (Discovery?)
Ultimate Guide (Discovery?)
Sex and the City (HBO)
MASH (in syndication)
NOVA (PBS)
The Simpsons (FOX?)
Futurama (FOX?)
[Malcolm in the Middle]? (FOX?)
[My So Called Life]? (MTV)
Twin Peaks (AE)
[Northern Exposure]? (AE)
[Picket Fences]? (TNN)
The Prisoner (Watch all seventeen episodes in order if possible)
[Wild Palms]? (the mini-series produced by Oliver Stone)
Sanbox:
A few Wikipedians have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in articles about states, cities and towns. Here they are: WikiProject U.S. States These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!