high fidelity

The other day, She asked me why my walls were bare. I'm afraid I didn't know. Every room I've ever inhabited has been distinguished by its distinct lack of personality, and its whole-hearted embrace of the anonymity that I have so craved over the years. The present one is no different. Which makes it quite ideal, in all its unabashed nakedness, for my first megalomaniac pursuit in years.

This hostel room will have a poster. Or a collage of pictures, if you would prefer to call it that. Someone once took the trouble to make me (why me, God only knows) an electronic birthday card which was a montage of all the images that person believed represented my life, and this poster of mine will be similiar in concept, but vastly grander in execution. With pictures of everyone, and everything, that has ever had an infuence on me.

Of course, before I get down to making the poster, I have to, in true Nick Hornby tradition, make a List. Now that I think of it, I really have missed making long meandering Lists, and responding to long inane Tags. Honestly.

Anyway, this is it. I'll append it perpetually, of course.

List of Top Twenty Five Influences on MC's life
(in no particular order)

1. Mom. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm momma's boy, and proud it.
2. James Dean. Rebel without a Cause. Plus, he's my lucky wallpaper.
3. Midori. My favourite mistake. And my most well-intentioned apologies, as always.
4. Stone Cold Steve Austin. Don't laugh.
5. Almost Famous. If only for Penny Lane wearing a fur coat and that dazzling smile.
6. Nick Drake. Has there ever been a better to ode to sadness than Pink Moon?
7. The Fountainhead. I was young, and very impressionable.
8. The Lorentz Attractor. Where science meets art. My favourite juxtaposition.
9. The Catcher in the Rye. Just made me so sad.
10. Franny & Zooey. Just made me so happy.
11. Lost in Translation. Could yet turn out to be the story of my life.
12. Nevermind. Soundtrack of my teenage years.
13. Blow-up. Michelangelo Antonioni at his greatest. And the last scene. Oh man.
14. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. More than the film, the concept.
15. The Laughing Buddha. For being a source of solace.
16. Roy Keane. Only one Keano.
17. Piggy. Could have made this list for me. And got most of it right.
18. Speech Processing. Undergraduate thesis. Work of art, if I may say so myself.
19. R.E.M. I would play Automatic for the People as I killed myself too.
20. Snay. Kindness, personified. Never was 'nice' more appropriate. Or 'adorable'.
21. Economics. My biggest eye-opener in a decade.
22. The Shins. What they said in Garden State about New Slang was bang on.
23. Gregory House. I'd give anything for a little of the genius and the acerbic wit
24. Good Will Hunting. Or Elephant. You'd never have thought the same man could make both.
25. The Stone Roses. Enough said.

What remains now is finding the pictures. And putting them together. This is going to be so much fun.