I have been tagged with the Dread Book Meme by Jose over at Meme Therapy. As Trent Hergenrader has put it, now I've been rescued from impending productivity. Here are the questions:

1. One book that changed your life?

   The Mormon Murders by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. And I was lucky enough to meet them once and tell them so.

2. One book you have read more than once?

   Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

   Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter. It not only bears and even necessitates multiple readings, but it's so dense and intriguing that it would help distract me from the fact that I was on a desert island.

4. One book that made you laugh?

   Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.

5. One book that made you cry?

   Uncle Boris in the Yukon and Other Shaggy Dog Stories by Daniel Pinkwater.

6. One book you wish had been written?

   How to Hack Your Genes and Live Forever.

7. One book you wish had never had been written?

   The Bible. (Oh, oh, oh! Can I just lump all the "holy" books together?)

8. One book you are currently reading?

   The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Very slowly.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

   Ulysses by James Joyce.

10. Now tag five people.

    Hmm. Tagging people strikes me as a bit too much like forwarding a chain letter. So if you feel like joining the meme, please do. And please link back to this post!

Epidode #22 of "ShunnCast" is now available, in which Bill meets his new companion Elder Dedman, learns a novel new approach to tracting, and discovers the true meaning of the word "bucket."

http://www.shunn.net/podcast?id=22

See also shunncast.

I've talked here before about the home music server I created, which lets me and Laura listen to any of our 43,193 (and counting) MP3s from any location with a web browser and a broadband connection. My server has been operating for nearly three years, though it was only in February 2004 that I enabled it to keep track of what I listen to.

I hadn't checked my stats for quite some time, but this morning I thought I'd take a look and see what my most-played tracks are. I was pleased though not exactly surprised to see that Steely Dan's "West of Hollywood" (from Two Against Nature) occupied the top spot, with 23 virtual spins in these past 29 months. Less than once a month may not seem like very heavy rotation, but it's pretty significant when you consider that in that same span I've only listened to 23,898 of the tracks in my collection. (That's unique tracks I'm counting there, not the number of times those tracks have been played.)

I figure this is as good a measuring stick as any for saying that, in practical terms, "West of Hollywood" is my favorite song. And it is a great song. The lyrics hook me and always suck me in, and when Donald Fagen gets to the bridge part and croaks out, "She reached out for my hand while I watched myself lurch across the room, and I almost got there, I almost got there," I never fail to get a shiver. But the best part of this track is the, like, four minute Chris Potter sax solo, where Donald and Walter put the poor cat through a truly punishing series of changes and he just doesn't quit. It's an amazing outro to an amazing record.

So yeah, that's totally fair. I'll cop to "West of Hollywood" as my favorite song.

Here's my tally of the top ten*:

After the various indignities of the day and long night, some of which were heaped upon me by others, some of which I heaped upon myself, I was finally on my way home from work last night at 2:15 am when the cab I was riding in stopped in the congestion that develops there after the east end of the Queensborough Bridge and was promptly rear-ended by another cab.

The speeds were low and the damage to the back bumper was negligible, but from my point of view it was like someone had slammed a refrigerator into my back. I got out of the cab and checked myself out, but I seemed to be okay. Nothing obviously injured. The cab drivers didn't fight or anything, but mine gave the other a stern lecture about tailgating. Both were very concerned about how I was.

I wrote down both medallion numbers just in case.

As we continued home, my cab driver complained of some neck pain. My back hurt, and my teeth ached, and my upper arm hurt a little, but it was difficult to sort out injury from shock and nerves. At home, Laura prescribed Advil and scotch. Mmm, Talisker. It helped me sleep, but of course it has not made waking up so easy this morning.

Back to work. Via subway.

I am surely not the first to tell you to look at this short Flash animation, but hopefully I won't be the last:

The End of the World

WTF? (Fucking kangaroos.)

Did you ever send a message in IM that wasn't very complimentary toward some third party? And then, just after it's sent, you realize you sent it to the third party, and not to the friend you thought you were sending it to? And you can hear the third party talking loudly at the other end of the office, so you walk over to the friend's desk and quietly explain what's happened? And so the friend walks by the third party's office to check if they've seen their screen yet? And the friend comes back and reports that the third party is at a fourth party's desk talking, and says you should cause a distraction so the friend can get to the third party's computer? So you walk up to the third party, shaking, and ask if they can come see something at your desk? And you have no idea what you're going to show them, but the third party trails along with you, and all the time you're wondering if somehow they did already see the (very) uncomplimentary IM? And you sit down at your desk and fumble for some weird half-remembered problem with the site you can show them that will keep them looking over your shoulder for a few minutes? And you stumble over your words as your fingers fumble for the keys, and you're not making any sense even to yourself but you manage finally after a few tries to find the path through the web site that results in a very obscure error? And meantime your friend is slipping past you out the door, and the third party agrees that this is bad but not worth holding up work on other bugs? And the friend slips back into the room, but then slips out again almost immediately? So you start jabbering incoherently about how you're worried about what would happen if the clients happened to stumble across this path, and the third party considers this, sounding friendly but a little confused, and you wonder if it's because they did see the message you sent and are just trying to cover it up with a brave façade, or maybe your own nervousness is just rubbing off on them and you better get a grip, or maybe you're just scary in general and people in the office always walk on eggshells around you? And then thank fucking Christ your friend slips back into the room and nods that everything is good, and you let the third party go back to what they were doing? And lo and behold it turns out that the weird bug you dredged up is really something bigger, and suddenly the testers are IMing you other examples of it? And you're so fucking happy to fix the bug you can't even speak? And you resolve NEVER EVER to say a SINGLE BAD THING about anyone in IM or email or sign language or hieroglyphs or assembly language ever fucking again until the heat death of the fucking universe?

Nah, I didn't think so. Me neither.

The upcoming reading with Elizabeth Bear is now listed on the KGB calendar.

Drop me a line if you want to attend and you'd like an email reminder the weekend before the event.

It is a meme. It is the five questions meme. Here's how it works:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."

2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your journal with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

I was interviewed by none other than Norse-god-in-hiding Greg van Eekhout, and I will follow his lead by limiting myself to six, no, seven, seven respondents. Because if Greg had stuck to his stated six, he wouldn't have had room for me! And these are good, chewy questions. Here we go:

1. If current Bill had a time machine and went back to vist 17-year-old Bill and described current Bill's life to him, would past Bill be horrified? Relieved? Violent? What?

For all his pretense of devoutness, past Bill's biggest concern was science fiction, so from that point I think he would have been disappointed that I hadn't yet published a whole stack of novels. But the publications I have made would have thrilled him no end.

I know he would be stoked to see current Bill's wife, too.

As for religion, I honestly don't know. I like to think that past Bill would be relieved, but I don't think that would be the case. I think he would be horrified. True, past Bill would wish fervently that Mormonism weren't true and try to come up with scenarios where he could circumvent certain commandments without incurring any sin, but the bottom line is that he had to do that because he couldn't let himself imagine the church to be false in reality. In some ways, I think he would have to get to current Bill's point of relief by following a similar path, and it wouldn't happen overnight.

But my hope would be that a glimpse of current Bill's life would start the wheels turning faster sooner. After all, much of the writing about religion I do is aimed at an audience of 17-year-old-or-younger Bill. I write what I wish now I could have read then.

2. What's the best concert you ever saw? You get to pick the criteria.

I've seen a lot of memorable concerts, and I'm going to have to enumerate a few of them just to get them out of the way: Tom Waits at the Beacon, David Bowie at the Beacon, Spyro Gyra at Snowbird (yes, I'm serious), Oingo Boingo outdoors in Park City (wait 'til you hear my Danny Elfman story in the podcast!), Sting and the Blue Turtles outdoors in Park City, Barenaked Ladies at a tiny club in Seattle in 1995, Pat Metheny at Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake City, Michael Brecker at Kingsbury Hall. Sleater-Kinney at Irving Plaza. Living Colour at Irving Plaza. Any Dismemberment Plan show ever.

Front-row seats for Prince at MSG on the Musicology tour was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Rush on the Vapor Trails tour was amazing, and my friend Geoff and I felt like we were teenagers again for three hours. Mannheim Steamroller (yes, I'm serious again) was a great concert just because I was 15 and it was my first. Joe Jackson at the Bottom Line was great, even though I was sitting right underneath his piano and Laura got sick and had to go outside and throw up. I acquired a bootleg of that show, and I can hear myself on it! And Fiona Apple's legendary meltdown at Roseland was an event I feel privileged to have witnessed.

But I think the greatest concert of them all was Rush at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, on the Power Windows tour. What makes this one better than the others? The illicitness of it. My father never approved of rock music, and it was dicey for me to even smuggle records into the house. But when he found out I was going to Rush, he flipped. He forbade me utterly. I tried to make the case that it was an college assignment for my Music Appreciation course. I typed up all the lyrics to their new album in an attempt to demonstrate that there was nothing unseemly going on in the songs. My efforts went nowhere.

But I went anyway. I was 18. And the fact that I wasn't supposed to be there made it all the sweeter, eh?

(Not to mention that I got to see the Fabulous Thunderbirds open.)

3. Would you take more jail time to make your terrorist anecdote just that much better?

You know ... I do believe I would. I've always felt vaguely guilty that I got off as lightly as I did, and, say, 30 days in the clink would definitely make the story even more fun to tell—and, of course, for people like us having a good story to tell is as important as anything.

Had I gotten more jail time, I would have served it in minimum security at Spy Hill Provincial Jail. While I can't imagine that would have been exactly pleasant, I'm sure it wouldn't have been the end of the world either. And almost from the moment I was sprung I was inordinately proud of the minuscule amount of jail time I'd done.

But I'd have to draw the line at, say, 90 days. And that's pushing it.

4. Is there anything about the practices of your former religion that you find beautiful, uplifting, enobling, or that you still observe?

The best practices in Mormonism are those that build a powerful sense of community. When you're a Mormon, you do everything you can to help your fellow parishioners, and you know that they'll be there for you if you just say the word—or even if you don't. I always felt part of something bigger as a Mormon, and sometimes now the fact that this is missing makes me wish for it again. For me, that's the essence of Christ's message, and if just that much of Mormon practice could be exported to the world at large, I think we'd all be better off for it.

But that comes at a price, as well, which is that it tends to exclude those who aren't part of the tribe. The practice I have tried to cling to, and which I recommend wholeheartedly, is the fervent Mormon belief in education and self-improvement. A line from the Doctrine & Covenants (one of the church's four books of canonized scripture) sums it up thus: "The glory of God is intelligence." The way I always tried to think of this is not that you have to be a supergenius to be holy, but that you should certainly value learning and critical thought.

(Ironically, that's part of what helped me leave the church, but what can you do?)

But Joseph Smith was a great proponent of education, even if he didn't always garner his learning from the most reputable of sources. One of my favorite quotes from him, and one that I used to think made the writing of science fiction fall right in line with my former beliefs, goes like this: "Thy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity."

I later learned I had read that quote out of context, at least for the application in which I was using it, but I still think it allows the Mormon mind much greater leeway than the church seems to want to grant its members today.

5. What do you like best about your neighborhood?

The food, hands down. Greek, of course, but so much more as well. Astoria is a little culinary paradise tucked quietly away in the corner of Queens, and the only foodie reason to leave is to make the occasional pilgrimage to the temples of the superstar chefs of Manhattan. You could have an excellent meal every might of the month in Astoria and never duplicate the same country's cuisine.

This is not to say that there aren't many other great things about Astoria, but you can't go wrong with the food. The electrical service, well, sometimes it's a little shaky.

Ella spars around a Japanese maple with her arch-nemesis Nyla for four and a half tranquil minutes, accompanied only by the soft, soothing sounds of news radio. Pure bliss-out:

I'm trying out the new <lj-template> tag with this little video Laura took on Sunday afternoon. When your street is blocked off for blackout repairs, what else are you going to do but...