Via Marvin’s Electric Smack Shack. Marvin asked for some recommendations of good stuff, so I’m obliging. He asked:

Recommend to me:

a movie
a book
a musical artist, song, or album
a LiveJournal user not on my friends list (or a blogger not on my home page)
what I should have for dinner
a website
a quote

Then put this in your LiveJournal/blog and I’ll do the same for you (if I notice it and get around to it — let’s be honest — but I’ll try).

Well, if anyone wants to make a similar set of recommendations to me, I’d be more than happy to reciprocate.

Okay, now for my recommendations to Marvin:

a movie: have you seen Before Night Falls? It’s very good, and incidentally, yes, that’s Johnny Depp in several roles in the movie. Another good film worth checking out is the Korean movie Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring, which should be available by now, as it’s done the festival circuit. Look for it, I think it’s would really appeal to you. Finally, a last recommendation: Vernon, Florida. I’ll probably be the one to send you a copy of this, since I managed to get the DVD from an eBay pirate, but anyway, it’s so worth seeing.

a book: Well, I’ve been recommending China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station to everyone, but I would also like to recommend Graham Greene in general—I don’t recommend seeing his work on your shelves, but I think if you haven’t read him much already, you’d really appreciate some of his work. I especially recommend the novel of his I’m into now, The Comedians, which is so far ridiculously funny. How someone can make a trip to Haiti so funny is an amazing feat.

a musical artist, song, or album: I’m trying to remember what I burned for you, so I’m going to go with something else: German geekout ambient-glop, by a duo (now trio, I think) who go by the name Mouse on Mars. They’re one of my favorites. Check out their tracks on Bugsmusic. Click on the orange button at the top, which reads 전체듣기, to start a stream of all tracks. (You’ll probably have to install some ActiveX thing, and it’s safe, I assure you. This thing is used on most PCs in Korea.)

a LiveJournal user not on my friends list (or a blogger not on my home page): Sarong Party Girl is a webpage I recommended earlier today, and she’s interesting enough to recommend. More up my alley, as she’s all about the complexities of interracial/intercultural/interpersonal relationships in Jollye Singha Purda, but she’s often interesting, I find.

what I should have for dinner: Something you really oughtn’t, but that you really enjoy. Don’t do it too often, but do it for the sake of the shortness of life. And think about how many more times you may get to eat it in life. Make sure there’s good dessert, too.

a website: This site, long ago shown to me by my old friend Jack, contains some amazing pictures, among the first color photos ever taken. See old Russia as you may never have before. I’m partial to the Uzbek lass in front of her home. If you’ve seen that before, I recommend the Viridian Movement.

a quote:

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.

(Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or, Life in the Woods)

Let me know if and when you do check out some of these things. And I am curious to see what you will recommend to me!