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September 15, 2014
Only Rock 'n' Roll but it made you: Who could possibly care about which 10 books influenced lawyers and other white-collar generic dweebs the most?
People lie about the influence of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying; they never lie about the power of Shotgun by Junior Walker and the All Stars.
I feel like I died and went to Hallmark.
Some wonderful people and friends, many of them lawyers, are circulating the meme "what 10 books influenced me the most". A good thing. In arguably semi-literate America, it's pretty refreshing. And I, too, will chime in--although very reluctantly. Most us read pretty much the same Western left-brained literature in high school and college--if we really read this stuff--but whether you were influenced by Naked Lunch, Old Man and the Sea or Magic Mountain tells us nothing (zero, zilch) about what kind of human you are or about your soul or what moves you or makes you happy or angers you.
Instead why not the 10 rock 'n' roll tracks that have been the most influential (not favorite) in your life? That moves the ball more. It lifts back the veil each of us have over our self. We are are less likely to lie about it. People lie about the influence of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying; they never lie about the power of Shotgun by Junior Walker and the All-Stars. And if you're an American born after 1945, rock 'n' roll is the only true soundtrack any of us had (except sex). Anyway, I will publish mine soon. I promise.
In the meantime, you can show me yours, Jack. So go ahead. And there are no rules, except that anyone listing Zappa's "Help, I'm a Rock" gets a special commendation from this blog.
Oslo 1993
Posted by JD Hull at September 15, 2014 06:17 PM
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