Friday, February 20, 2009

'Mr. Hand, will I pass this class?' Gee, Mr. Spicoli, I don't know!

If you could make a single book, film, or album required material to graduate from high school, what would it be?

Isn't that a tough question? I'm going to make it a little easier and limit it to one from each category.

Book: "The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition."

Film: "Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain"

Album: Monterey International Pop Festival Live, 1967.

How about you guys?

10 comments:

Randal Graves said...

The book gives me a chance to inflict some froggery AND punishment on those who hate to read: all seven volumes of In Search of Lost Time.

Film? Holy hell, that's honestly tough. Since I want to have some pithy cultural commentary, Dawn of the Dead.

Album? If we're talking non-Beethoven, since he never released an album, only those lo-fi demo tapes, gotta go with, um, shit. Opeth's Blackwater Park I guess.

Long live wholesale!

Life As I Know It Now said...

I can not reduce this to one, even of just one in each category. Sorry.

Arkonbey said...

book: if fiction: "Stranger in a Strange Land" by R.A.H. If non-fiction: "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

Film: hmm. Amelie and Dawn of the Dead are good ones, but I have to go with Dr. Strangelove.

Album: Sunset Tree by The Mountain Goats

ThoughtCriminal said...

Book: Letters from the Earth - Mark Twain. Although if were required, the fundies with throw the mother of all crap-storms.

Movie: The Grapes of Wrath

Album: I really don't like imposing my musical tastes on a younger generation. But I would recommend Woody Guthrie.

ladybug said...

...uhn trying to reduce all those catgories to just one makes my head "asplode"!...a lame excuse..but true!

Lockwood said...

I agree with Liberality... but I gotta give it a try.

Book- Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos (actually two books, but one long story)

Movie- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Album- Laurie Anderson's United States Live, Parts I-IV. Again, this is several disks, but one fantastic album.

Don Snabulus said...

Movie - Porky's

Book - The "Left Behind" series

Album - Weird Al Yankovic "Dare to be Stupid"

My school sucks.

wiec? said...

book - the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, all of them. they have a year. they can do it.

movie- there will be blood. have them try to explain what it was about and it's underlying theme in a term paper. the stuff they'd pull outta their asses would be priceless.

album- Neil Young's Decade. Kid's today have it rough with popular music being the way it is. If one kid in my class ended up liking some Neil ... well... maybe there's hope.

Dick Tremayne said...

Book: The Portable Jung ~I'm a sucker for the collective unconscious and archetypes. The better one understands Jung, the better they understand themselves.

Movie: Gone Baby Gone ~poses some great moral questions that can be debated for weeks.

Album: Nothing's Shocking ~THE album that broke the barrier of heavy metal and opened the door for a slew of alternative rock bands that dominated the 90s. Great production and lyrics.

Distributorcap said...

based on the pictiure --- greatest lines from My Favorite Martian