(no subject)

[sorcyress]

So, for teacherclass, we just watched "A Private Universe" which is basically being all "Oh hey, people don't know simple scientific facts like why there are seasons".

This led me to wonder about what other basic knowledge there is that people don't necessarily have. Certainly, it ties in with my basic pop culture thing --while I myself am *woefully* uneducated, there are still things that I will find jawdroppingly shocking if you admit you're not familiar with them. (Like what do you mean someone born, in America, fifteen years after it came out has never read Where the Wild Things Are. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN!?)

I try very hard to not have any resounding pop culture biases, but I recognize that there is a list in the back of my mind of things I expect people in my circles to be familiar with. If not Flying Circus, every geek ever should probably have seen Holy Grail --even if you hate it, you now get roughly 1200% more references.

Or more importantly, The Princess Bride. I mean, I know I'm biased, what having acted in it, but how do you survive as a geek in this country without having seen The Princess Bride? Hell, while it's an amazing read, I don't even demand you read it, just...not having seen it? Dear lords.

Those are all part of the geek set, and I just more or less expect people to know them. Hell, I quoted "Why are you smiling" "Because I know something you do not know --I am not left handed!" last night, and will probably quote something else in the next twenty four hours, just because that's how I roll.

Additionally, I have a personal set of things that I think everyone ought to experience. I don't necessarily expect my friends to have seen Dr. Horrible or The Middleman, but dear lord, admit those gaps in your experience and I will do the best I can to help you fill them. Or holy hell lords, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I don't demand anything past the first book, but seriously, if you *haven't* read at least that one? I...I'm afraid I can never look at you in the same way again.¹

((Of course, I lose out on several people's personal sets for not ever being able to get through the second Lord of the Rings book. I'm sorry, I just...can't. I wish I could, but it's really not happening.))

SOYES! What are the overarching things that all geeks need to experience? What are the personal things, that you believe all people in your friends group need to experience?

Oh and bytheway? Before you leave a comment? Take twelve minutes out of your life in order to watch How To Kill A Mockingbird. Yes, yes it is worth it. It is basically what "To Kill a Mockingbird" would have been if Harper Lee had been aware of tvtropes.org's "Rule of Awesome"

~Sor
MOOP!

1: This is totally why Chris and I wouldn't have ever worked out in the long run. He dating KT for a couple years just saved us the inevitable argument and subsequent heartbreak.

Comments

Shudder

[dhs.livejournal.com]

"Stephen R. Donaldson" is my cue to put the book down and wash my hands. Twice.

Re: Shudder

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

The most painful part is that I slogged through the entire first Thomas Covenant trilogy ("oh, but the next book[s] are so much better!"). Thank goodness I read very fast. There were about 30 pages [spoiler: the part about the massacre of the Giants at Seareach] which were superb and chilling -- but then I was returned to the Goddamn Self-Pitying Whiner Programming Already in Progress.

I can't read Heinlein either, no matter how many people tell me _Stranger in a Strange Land_ was simultaneously (1) a major influence on their lives and (2) atypical of his other work. Respecting books and writers as I do, I can count the number of times I've thrown a book across a room on one hand and have fingers left over...

Re: Shudder

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

I found the Covenant books to be pretty terrible, too (and the second trilogy was worse than the first, though for some reason I still read them all), but a while later I read The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through, and I recall liking them pretty well. They certainly don't have the same problems that the Covenant books do, though it's been a while so I don't remember exactly what I did like.