Category: Grab Bag

Carla writes in The No One Else Meme… about items you have that no one else I know has.

What the heck. I’ll play along:

Name a CD you own that no one else you know does: Kaserei Musei. When I was still working at WebCT, one one of our lunch excursions, I found myself going with a few others into a German sausage store on Route 1 in Peabody (I shit you not, an actual German sausage store). They were selling for $10 a CD of actual accordian oompah music. Check out that picture. You can see why I just had to get it…

Name a book you own that no one else you know does: This one was pretty tough. I have a ton of books and I know a lot of them no one else has, but they’re all boring. I mean, so what if I have a 10 year old copy of Adam Engst’s Internet Handbook (I only keep it because I’m mentioned in it) or something like that? Instead, I am borrowing one of Ann’s books since we both own everything and all that. It’s the original, pre-Disney One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. How’s that? I can be more obscure and say “Among Madmen” by Jim Starlin. He was my sister’s neighbor out in Chichester, NY and the book takes place in nearby Phoenicia (see below).

Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that no one else you know does: Kind Hearts and Coronets: This is a wonderfully funny classic Alec Guinness movie in which he plays a large number of the characters in the movie. My mother gave this to me a few years ago and it is truly a fantastic film.

Name a place that you have visited that no one else you know has: I was going to say Phoenicia but it turns out that a good friend of mine from summer camp goes there every year. What are the odds? So, I’m going to go with the alabaster chapel in S’ant Antimo, just outside of Montalcino, Italy. This is a small chapel that was supposedly built by Charlemagne and was vacant for centuries. It was taken over only about 20 years ago by Franciscan monks from France. The interior is all alabaster and when the sun hits it… wow… it was the most spiritually moving place I’ve ever been in my life.