Since we were on the subject of geeks earlier…
What makes you a geek?
Robert describes it as (and I like this a lot):
So here and now I am going to come out of the geek closet and list a few things about which I am pretty passionate, about which I know at least slightly more than the average person and about which I am constantly in fear of talking too much.
Ah yes, that “talking too much” thing. We all probably know that feeling.
“Ooops, I know wayyyyyyy too much about [fill in the blank] right now.”
People are listing what it is that they know “slightly more than the average person” … They’re great fun to read. Like I said: I love to encounter people who are passionate about stuff, and know stuff – however random!
Okay, so I’ll list ten of mine:
1. Anything to do with Lucy Maud Montgomery (her life, or her books). If I don’t know it, it’s not worth knowing.
2. The Charles Manson murders. Helter Skelter is a dog-eared book, let’s just say that.
3. Marilyn Monroe.
4. The American Revolution. I feel like I was there, and that I could describe it to you personally, like a personal anecdote.
5. Sylvia Plath. Do not even get me started. I am ONLY comfortable talking about Sylvia Plath with another “Plath geek”. Otherwise I just feel too damn crazy.
6. The novel Mating, by Norman Rush. If you pulled a random sentence out of that book, not only would I be able to tell you, “Oh, that’s from the chapter titled….”, I would also be able to tell you the placement of the sentence on the page. “Oh, yeah, that one goes at the top of the page.” “That sentence wraps around from bottom of one page to top of another.” It’s crazy. I don’t know anyone else who has read that book, so I have no one to talk to about it. Which is probably just as well.
7. The films of John Cassavetes. Again, I am pretty much only comfortable talking about Cassavetes to other Cassavetes freaks. One of my three marriage proposals came after the guy had gone to a Cassavetes film festival, and realized that there was only “one girl on earth who would ‘get’ what I’m going through right now, and that would be you.” THAT’S the kind of Cassavetes freak I am talking about.
8. Anything that has to do with Russell Crowe, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor or Eminem.
9. I know slightly more than the average person about the Central Asian “stans”, but I don’t know more than this guy.
I can only come up with 9 at the moment. Not 10. Also, there’s another thunderstorm raging right now, and I have to leave.
Buh-bye.
Be well. Please add your own geek-cred below.
Update: Here are Big Stupid Tommy’s.
My favorite one?
5. I have to see any movie that feature disaster footage on a grand scale. Independence Day, when Los Angeles, Washington and New York are getting obliterated? I’m there. Tidal wave sweeping over New York, in Deep Impact? Oh yeah. Paris getting blown to bits in Armageddon? Truly great film making. In fact, if you need me to go see your movie, there are two shots you need to put in your trailer: 1.) Some famous landmark getting swept away, smashed by a comet or being climbed by a giant monster, and 2.) A bunch of people running away from it. It doesn’t even have to be on that grand a scale…my favorite scene is the Marshmallow Man scene in Ghostbusters, especially when he steps on the church to get at the Ghostbusters.
1. I know way too much about Star Trek
2. Star Wars too.
3. I am an extreme history geek, focusing primarily on American History, though I have a recent interest in the Napoleonic Wars.
4. One word: Sharpe’s
5. I devour anything written about military technology, be it the latest stealth technology or the operation of a 28-gun sloop.
6. When I first saw Return of the King, I cried because I could never see it again for the first time.
7. Baseball, my love of the Mets and hatred of the Yankees knows no bounds.
8. Movies in general, old ones, new ones, obscure ones. I can talk about them for hours on end. In fact, I think we have.
9. I will watch just about anything with Bruce Willis. In fact, I’ve been watching my old VHS of Die Hard With a Vengeance during meals this week. “Attention…attention! Nils is dead! I repeat, Nils is dead!”
10. If I love someone’s music, I will seek out just about anything ever recorded by them. The best instance of this is the spending spree I went on to buy up just about everything David Kincaid recorded after hearing “The Irish Volunteer”.
I can go on about any of these subjects forever, or until someone tells me to shut up.
Release your inner geek
Sheila asks you to list ten things you are geeky about. Here are mine: 1. I know way too much about Star Trek 2. Star Wars too. 3. I am an extreme history geek, focusing primarily on American History, though…
Hmmm – how much geekiness equates to “geek cred”?
Let’s see – in what subjects would I claim true geekiness??
Aviation, scuba diving, probably skydiving, various extremely technical military subjects, 50s and 60s rock and roll, some areas of history (particularly aviation history – I am THE geek of Pan Am), some old movies (John Wayne, Bogart, Hepburn, Cary Grant, etc.), probably I know a little too much about Star Trek as well.
I used to be a Soviet geek – now a little passe’, I guess. I’m pretty geeky when it comes to computer and electronics-related subjects, but the bar is pretty high there for true geek cred. But I have shopped at Fry’s in Sunnyvale.
“Perfect little filet steaks were coming.”
How about that one? (Couldn’t resist putting you to the test!)
I was raised by three things:
Moving pictures, Video Games, and Comics.
From that came an appreciation for television, action figures, video game systems, and computers.
I can communicate with most strangers via cliche’s from movies & TV shows that seem relative. I have a similar technique used with actual soundfiles associated with events on my PC. I can walk into a crowded area, and reveal the fans of a particular tv show by loudly requesting that someone ‘Bite my shiny metal ass.’
This same technique can be used with most videogames, anime, etc.
Of course I run the risk of being stared at by total strangers who don’t get the point.
Apparently, it comes from an appreciation for music, where someone will chime in with you if they know the song. It’s more obscure to quote certain films.
Oh dern, I was s’posed to make a list.
Military history trivia. All of it. Wanna know the difference between a phalanx and a legion? The the real story of the fabled Polish cavalry charging the German tanks (down to their commanding officer)? The NCO billets in a Union infantry regiment? The chronology of BOTH Warsaw uprisings? Bring it on.
Pop music from the fifties through the early nineties. Everything. I was in radio for 13 of those years and worked as a nightclub DJ for a bunch more of them.
Casablanca, especially as re: Ingrid Bergman.
More will come to me, I’m sure.
I’ve been to CW’s site, the Pan Am thing is true.
Most of my friends do not bring up:
The Civil War, particularly artillery.
Printing, as in presses, as in any form.
1967 Triumph GT6’s
Daylilies
Fishing the St. Croix River
Cisco IOS 12.any
Whiskey
Sorry, that’s not ten but that will have to do.
I can recite most of Jean Genet’s work from memory. This qualifies me officially in the “sick fuck” department.
I can’t stop reading “Under Milk Wood” by Dylan Thomas. Over and over.
Speaking of “over and over”, my personal anthem as of late is Madonna’s “Over and Over” from Like A Virgin. “I get up again, over and over, I get up again, over and over….”
Sheila, have you read or done much Garcia Lorca? If yes, I have some “stuff” I must send right away.
I think I have read every story ever set in a British boarding school, as well as most works of criticism on the subject of British boarding schools. The only one that I haven’t read (that I know of) is The Loom of Youth by Evelyn Waugh’s older brother Alec, but this is only because it is quite rare and I have never been able to track down a copy.
1) There are perhaps six movies from which I can quote extensively: “The Princess Bride”, “Star Wars”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “The Blues Brothers”, “Ghostbusters”, and “Die Hard”.
2) I am about the Civil War the way you are about the American Rrvolution. I actually made someone cry (in a good way) telling them about the stand of Joshia Chamberlain and the 20th Maine at Gettysburg.
3) I can find a quote from The Simpsons for virtually every situation in life.
4) I can create a character for at least three role playing game systems from memory.
5) 80s Music. Give me a couple seconds of the beginning of the song and I can tell you title and artist.
6) Tolkien. I won money because I knew who Beren and Luthien were. I’ve actually toyed with arranging “A Elbereth Gilthoniel” for four-part a cappella chorus.
That’s all I’m confessing to right now. I can see you all scooting away from the screen right now as it is.
Like others, I know way too much about Star Trek. But that’s just the surface.
I know the number on the trash compactor in Star Wars by heart.
As a child, I painted and modified several of my Star Wars action figure (they’re not dolls!) because they were not detailed enough for me.
The first computer I used was a TRS-80 with a cassette tape deck back in 1981.
I’ve had an email address since 1987.
Anyone can be a Doctor Who fan. I, on the other hand, am anxiously awaiting the Region 1 DVD release of Blake’s 7.
I know what Region 1 means.
I understand this reference AND think it’s hilarious.
I own many comic books.
…and several are polybagged.
I have played Dungeons & Dragons, Car Wars, Battletech and many others. At GenCon.
I downloaded and installed Linux…over ten years ago.
The first web browser I used was Lynx.
I have every single episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on tape. In SP mode.
I’ve traveled hundreds of miles to see Pat McCurdy, even though he regularly performs a mile from my house.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.
Emily –
I was in a laughably bad production of Blood Wedding. We literally would shake with laughter in between lines.
But please, send it on.
Jimmie:
I know who Beren and Luthien are, but only because Dave J made me read The Silmarillion.
I’m sure you know this, because you’re a geek, as am I – but Tolkien wanted to put “Luthien” on his wife’s gravestone.
Bill:
6. When I first saw Return of the King, I cried because I could never see it again for the first time.
Oh my God, I SO KNOW that sensation. Never really thought about it before – but it’s so damn true! There can only be one first time.
Thanks for admitting to it. :)
Okay, people, I have just spent some time reading over all of your geek confessions – and I just think that you all are spectacular.
Anne: English boarding schools??? That is so GREAT. Where did that come from?? Have you read Enid Blyton’s books?
Mark: You know the # of the trash compacter. I just … I think that is so beautiful and so terrifying. What is the number?
Also, that you would re-paint the action figures … THAT IS SO CUTE. Ha!
I guess I should have added “Pat McCurdy” to my list, too, although my Pat days are long over.
Emily: Member that moment in Wonder Boys when Michael Douglas, in the midst of falling apart, says something like: “So now we’re gonna turn James Leer into Jean Genet…” So funny!
Did you see the film made of one of Genet’s books with the doomed Brad Davis (gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous man)…Loved him in Midnight Express … and then they made this WACKO film of … was it The Thief? Let me look it up.
Oh, and CW: In some old post, you mentioned Robert Conquest. I read his great book on the famine in the Ukraine – but that’s about it. I know he’s one of your heroes. What other books of his would you recommend?
Emily:
It was called “Querelle”.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084565/
I had no idea there were so many obsessed Civil War and American Revolution fans out there! It’s a beautiful thing.
My obsessions would run along many of the same lines as the rest of you:
– Star Wars from a very young age.
– A group of us in college have always been Python fans. We used to sing the Philosopher’s Song *loudly* on the way to and from dinner.
– Military history with a concentration on the minutia of soldiers’ life: that comes with dressing up and playing soldier on the weekend. Currently I’m studying Battle of Britain era RAF groundcrew for my latest impression.
– Movies. I don’t feel I’ve got a lot of street cred since I haven’t seen many of the older greats but Netflix is helping in that department.
– Classic mixed drinks: whiskey punch, mint juleps, gin and tonics, cosmopolitans, martinis, mojitos, etc. Always looking for the perfect recipie.
You know, this sort of thing is probably something better done to you rather than by you. Others could probably list about eleventy-hundred things I’m nuts for where I can only come up with a handful.
bp
Typical of me to get into the conversation late, but here are five of mine:
1. I’d submit my interest in the Second World War is on par with folks’ interests in the Revolution and Civil War.
2. Following on point one, I have watched the old “War and Remembrance” mini-series at least a good half-dozen times. It is a twelve-DVD set.
2b. Upon watching it, I knew whether the actors actually looked like the generals and other figures they were portraying.
3. On a different topic, I can say that I have memorized the theme song to the old “Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser” show.
3b. I have had entire conversations in which the direct objects are expressed solely by their ticker symbols.
3c. Budweiser’s parody of its “Waaaaasup?!” commercials, in which one character says, “Oh, watching the market report and drinking an import. What are you doing?” was not far from my actual everyday experience for a time.
3d. At any given time, I can tell you the foreign exchange rates for the dollar in various different currencies off the top of my head.
4. I know far, far, far too much about Star Wars for my own good. Weirdly, my favorite characters are Han Solo and … Admiral Piett.
5. I have shamefully referred to non-journalist private citizens as “civilians” more than once, in conversations with other journalists.
OK, so that’s closer to ten after all. But hey.
These days it’s computer networking, jazz, and mutual funds.
It used to be comics, new wave music, and Thomas Mann; but I’m no longer capable of talking about these “too much”.
I saw the BBC version of Tom Brown’s Schooldays at an impressionable age – and the boys in it were all stunners. Anthony Murphy as Tom… sigh. Even then, at age 8, I was sensitive to homoerotic tension. Don’t know why.
Anne – so you must have literally lost your mind during Brideshead Revisited?
You know it.
And yes I did read some Enid Blyton, but she aimed at the girl market, and I was interested in boys’ schools.
Ah, the specificity of the geek interest is now clear to me. Boys schools. Fascinating.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ask me anything.
Sheila – that’s one of my favorite moments in Wonder Boys. “It’s been a long time since somebody’s written a really good book from prison.”
I’m sure you know this, because you’re a geek, as am I – but Tolkien wanted to put “Luthien” on his wife’s gravestone.
Wanted to? He did – and his says Beren.
I’m geeky about Tolkien. For starters.
Dan: FABULOUSLY geeky moment from you!!
For some reason, I thought one of his sons said “ix-nay on the uthien-lay.”
Clearly I was wrong.
Nope. Somewhere in my archives there’s a long-ass pendantic post about Tolkien and Edit and Bereth and Luthien and a link with pictures of said tombstones.
Ah..here’s the pic:
http://www.lordotrings.com/misc/grave.asp
As you were.
Now I’m a little bit scared of you.
But I am also impressed.
Am I a Tolkien geek? I WANT to be, but I can’t actually read Quenya or Sindarin (er…yet?), so can you, Dan? ;-)
Haha no I can’t read or write any ‘elvish.’
Dearest: I’m not admitting to anything here, but I would like to tell “Anne” that there is a bibliography [I have an autographed copy!] by Robert J. Kirkpatrick and Michael Rupert Taylor “Victorian boy’s school stories in books and periodicals”–it’s the stories that will do her in. I suppose that it is a bit geeky that I have this book, not because of any interest in English boy’s schools but my interest in bibliographies. love, dad
Anne? My dad appears to have information on the motherlode of boys’ school stories …
Ha!! Do you already have it?
I’ve actually seen it, but do not own it.
Sheila:
3263827. I always wanted to get that as my phone number. Couple that with a personalized license plate that said SLAVE I, one could solidify their UberGeek status.
Benjamin:
Admiral Piett?! Why not just say Mon Mothma?
jess:
1. What was Oz’s cousin’s name?
2. What did Xander say when he first saw Glory’s lock-opening tower?
3. Explain the significance of shrimp in the Buffyverse.
Anything by Conquest, on the Soviet Union, is authoritative. If I had to pick one, it would be _The Great Terror: A Reassessment_. That’s the update to his classic work (_The Great Terror_) that uses all the new information from the KGB archives that certain great Americans arranged to procure, for money, from the cash-strapped ex-KGB. That’s the one that Conquest wanted to title “I told you so, you fucking fools” because the KGB records not only proved everything Conquest said in Great Terror and Harvest of Sorrow, but as it turned out, even Conquest had underestimated the horror of Stalinism and the scale of Stalin’s genocide – because Conquest had only used solid, verifiable sources in the public record in the original version. Yet most of mainstream (leftist) academia dismissed his work right up to the point it was proven correct by the Soviets themselves, and even after.
Just like Claire Sterling – for another funny historical perspective, go back and read _The Terror Network_ about Soviet sponsorship of international terrorism. Everything Claire said was later proven correct, plus much, much more. Like Conquest, she was also essentially hounded out of academia until she was completely vindicated, and even after.
Great questions, Mark! Someday I’ll learn that if I talk shit, someone’s going to call me on it. ;)
1) Jordy. He’s the one that turned him into a werewolf.
2) I cannot spell it, but it starts with a “sh” and there’s a “p” in there somewhere. From “The Gift.”
3) I admit, I had to look this up. I remembered Tara being allergic to shrimp, but this is what the Buffy Trivia Guide has to say…
Anya says that Xander doesn’t travel well, like fine shrimp. Shrimp have been a referenced many times in the show: In Graduation Day, Part One, Willow finds a spell to “communicate with shrimp”; in Superstar, Anya compares a parallel universe with shrimp; and in Triangle, Anya mentions a ‘world without shrimp’, to which Tara replies that she’s allergic to them.
Judging from these comments I’m deeply knowledgeable on nothing, alas, but I can help cater to one of Sheila’s obsessions. The March issue of Poetry magazine had a very interesting essay on Plath by Meghan O’Rourke. Here’s an excerpt for the interested (any typos mine):
[W]e’re in what you could call a second age of Plath criticism. Where the first was characterized by stridency, anger, and the wish to build Plath up, this one is characterized by the impulse to cut down to size and humanize an over-mythified icon. . . . Given the historical circumstances of Plath’s death, it was perhaps inevitable that the poetry would end up being shortchanged. What’s stranger is that the fascination with the life has not led to the benign neglect of the work, but has actually resulted in its being actively misread (even by people who have never really read it). . . .
This is unfortunate. Plath’s work shouldn’t be cavalierly dismissed, because she is one of the most original American poets of the second half of the century. The fascination with the grisly bits of her biography has caused emphasis to fall on the poetry’s most heated, personal aspects — and indeed it’s easy to imagine how lines like “Every woman adores a Fascist,” repeated out of context, quickly come to seem more attitudinal than insightful. But Plath was among the most publicly ambitious, disciplined, hard-working poets of the century. (“Left to my own, what a poet I shall flay myself into,” she wrote.) And her work is for the most part anything but adolescent and baldly confessional; rather, it’s a mythic excavation of the unconscious. Her subject is the crucible of post-religious sentiment, the struggle of a self with the elemental forces around it — what Emerson called “the Not Me.” . . . [Plath]’s experience of selfhood — not her daily catalogue of personal woes — is her subject.
And now, back to the experts.
I love the Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters, especially his inappropriately adorable smile, and then his angry face after they blast him.
All these lists are great, but I have some favorites, mainly because I can’t imagine being obsessed with these topics myself:
“I am THE geek of Pan Am”
“I have every single episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on tape. In SP mode.” (it’s the SP part that gets me)
“1967 Triumph GT6’s”
“I know the number on the trash compactor in Star Wars by heart.”
Re that last one, I have to ask whether this qualifies me for geek status: A few weeks ago I was idly watching WarGames for the first time in a decade, and as David opened the drawer while waiting to see the principal, I knew the password would be PENCIL.
2) I cannot spell it, but it starts with a “sh” and there’s a “p” in there somewhere. From “The Gift.”
“Shpadoinkle.” If one peels back a layer from the Onion of Geekiness, they’ll find out it’s a reference to Cannibal: The Musical.
Mark,
Hey now, don’t knock the Admiral! He *was* noteworthy for being the sole Imperial officer to survive for two movies. Well, most of two movies, anyway.
You get major props for the trash compactor number, though. My question is: if I got a license plate that read TK421, would anyone get the joke?
“TK421, why aren’t you at your post?”
Yes, Ben. Lots of us would get the joke.
“We’re fine. We’re all fine here….now…thank you.
How are you?”
I wasn’t really knocking the Admiral; it just seemed like an odd choice. I know plenty of the minor background characters have fans. You’re the first one that’s ever admitted to Admiral Piett. If you had said Wedge, I wouldn’t have batted an eye.
TK421 would make an exellent license plate.
For Mark and jess: This may be why Willow wanted to speak with shrimp. To negotiate a peace treaty, you see.
Who You Calling A Geek, Geek?
At the beginning of the week Sheila wrote about geeks and what makes one a geek