{ and if I had the choice, yeah, I'd always wanna be there. }

[delga]

Last of the top fives. wishes_of_stone asked me for my five favourite songs and zeitheist wanted to know five moments of fiction (from any media) that moved me. Guys, did I miss anyone? Let me know.

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NGGGGGGGGH BRAIN FREEZE. This question isn't difficult because I have too many favourites; it's difficult because my tastes are so fickle, and because I'm worried I'm going to forget something super important from when I was younger, or something. So here are my top five songs, with the caveat that they are subject to change and to memory.

01. Joshua Kadison: Jessie. Oh god, this song makes me ache. (The video makes me cringe.)

02. Tracy Chapman: Fast Car. For years and years I was worried I would forget this song because it was never on the radio and I didn't know who it was by. And now I own everything Chapman's ever produced, and I don't worry so much, and this song is still an all-time favourite.

03. Sixpence None the Richer: Kiss Me. This is 90s summer music in a nutshell, isn't it?

04. Patty Griffin: Florida. This one is definitely changeable. Griffin had to be on this list, but depending on my mood it could be this track, or Mother of God, or Useless Desires, or Making Pies, or Truth #2, or, or, or-- et cetera.

05. Bryan Adams: Summer of '69. I think you can pretty accurately surmise my age from my choices. I'm not complaining. I love this song so, so much. It's one of those 80s songs that makes you want to dance and cry at the same time. (Yes, Dancing in the Dark, I mean you, too.)

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So, zeitheist went from asking things she'd already asked to THE HARDEST QUESTION EVER WHAT. Ugh, I have the worst memory? So, this, too, is subject to memory. Let's do it anyway.

01. The very, very end of From Caucasia, With Love by Danzy Senna. For a long, long time, I was in love with this novel. I read it during this phase in my mid-teens when I was reading voraciously, and going through every modern text in my local library. I read a lot of random books back then, from Sheila Kohler's Cracks (which is now a film!) to The Nose by Elena Lappin (which I doubt anyone here will know). During this period I came across Caucasia and...fell for it. Hard. It's about a biracial girl called Birdie whose parents go on the run, each one of them taking a child. Birdie, who passes for white, is taken by her mother; her sister, Cole, is taken by their father, because she looks black. It's a story about coming of age, as a lot of the books I read then were, but it's also a story about loving your parents, and about identity, and it resonated quite strongly. I wrote about the novel for my A-levels, too, coming back to it, and loving it still.

I won't spoil the end, but the scene that stuck with me was when Birdie sees another biracial girl on a school bus and is startled, her reflexes coming into play, being completely surprised to see her, and wanting to know the whole of her story. The moment passes so quickly, and Birdie shakes it off, but the end of the novel resonates: Birdie, split in two by her parents, is always going to be surprised to find that you can straddle a middleground if you want to.

02. Speaking of Cracks by Sheila Kohler: how fucking chilling is the climax to that novel? I mean, seriously. My spine curves involuntarily at the thought. It's retold in such a detached way - in a way that asks for so much from the reader - and the women swimming back down the river, as though baptised-- I don't think that image will ever leave me. And it's part of the reason why I'm so reluctant to see the film because I don't want someone else's idea of that climax to override my own.

03. There's that scene in Jarhead where Troy fucking loses it with the general because he and Swoff can't take that shot, and I don't know - that, more than the eviscerated cars, the knowledge of what awaits Troy after the war, the burning oil, that's what really got to me. That moment when everything he gets hyped up for is taken away from him, and he needs something - god anything - to validate him, and someone cruelly snaps it away. Fuck.

04. The end of Carnivàle, 1x06, Pick a Number is so, so, so cold. Watching Samson amble back to the carnie folk from the empty bar, and then seeing Dora Mae in the window, all those hands reaching for her-- oh god, horrific. Just horrific.

05. The night of Armande's party in Joanne Harris's Chocolat. Between the party and the aftermath, there is so much there that is lovely, and light, and tender, and so, so bittersweet. I hate the sequel to that novel; Chocolat is perfect as is.

I know that there are others and that I just can't think of them right now - a lot more from television than I've cited above. Ziva's confrontation with Jethro at the end of season 3 is a big, big deal for me, of course, and I find whole swathes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon extremely moving. The end of A League of Their Own, because everyone has at least one sports movie that makes them cry. Oh, god, almost all of El laberinto del fauno (Pan's Labyrinth), especially when Ofelia's mother passes. That scene in season one of The Wire when Prez cracks the pager code, oh shit. Most of Grace's harrowing revelations in Saving Grace. The scene in the middle of Elsker Dig For Evigt when Cæcilie calls Niels and he lies to Marie about where he's meeting her. That scene at the end of Valhalla Rising when One Eye can't possibly escape his fate. The male plural voice that narrates The Virgin Suicides and that section of the novel where they play records down the phone to the Lisbon sisters. The moment Susannah discovers Daisy in Girl, Interrupted. Danny's speech to the terrorists in the third season finale of Spooks. The first Christmas episode in Bones. The last charge of the musketeers in Man in the Iron Mask. The way the Hendersons came together to support Sarah after her miscarriage in Big Love, closely tied with Margene's baptism in the same show. The way the women come together in the climax of Practical Magic. SO MANY, GUYS. THERE ARE SO MANY. I enjoy the perverse cruelty of people having to face their fate. I enjoy the sweetness of loved ones holding strong. I enjoy watching things fall apart and I enjoy watching them come back together. So, so many.

Comments

[zeitheist.livejournal.com]

So, [info]zeitheist went from asking things she'd already asked to THE HARDEST QUESTION EVER WHAT.

*punches the air*

... *quietly*

I'm glad I asked that question, though; even though I haven't seen all of the examples you quoted, you are, as ever, fascinating to listen to (read?). Also: that moment in Jarhead. I think it was terrible because Troy had been so calm in the face of Swoff's anger during that scene with the television, and the guy's wife on video, so that when Troy just totally loses it with the general, you kind of feel it all the more keenly for that. Plus, he really does just totally lose it. Goddamn Peter Sarsgaard, man.

[fallapartagain.livejournal.com]

Your taste in music makes me so happy that I am not alone. ♥ I completely understand what you mean about Jessie. And the rest of your choices, I think. I love them all.