Five words.

[reddragdiva]

apiphile said: "Give me the titles of 1-5 books, films, songs, plays, poems or comics (as many of the media as you like) that have changed your life. And WHY."

1. Joy Division Unknown Pleasures: caught my ear and led me into becoming a g*th post-punk in black. (This was 1982, it wasn't even called "g*th" then.)
2. J.G. Ballard The Atrocity Exhibition (Re/Search edition with JGB's footnotes): inspirational. I am from Perth, which is Vermillion Sands. It really, really is.
3. B-Side (Australian indie rock fanzine): in the early to mid-'80s, a fanzine that talked about nothing but the music without big slabs of politics, television, etc. was a breath of fresh air. This inspired me to start my own fanzine and get into Australian indie rock, on which I am what passes for an expert.
4. alt.gothic (Usenet newsgroup): Got me back into g*th again starting 1995. Also got me laid copiously. Without a.g I wouldn't have come to Whitby, and thus wouldn't have moved to London.
5. alt.sysadmin.recovery (Usenet newsgroup): Brought home to me the horrible realisation that I would be quite suited to the career I find myself now doing.

Comments

alt.gothic

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Ah, so that's where you know me from! Now so much makes sense.

Re: alt.gothic

[reddragdiva]

Good fucking gosh. No, I don't remember you from there, I found you via flemco! When were you on a.g?

Re: alt.gothic

[reddragdiva]

I've just found you on Google Groups in a.g from 1997, when I was reading a.g as many hours a day as I could manage. Why didn't I remember you from there? Tch!

Re: alt.gothic

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Probably because I was living in Portland at the time, and therefore not interesting at all. Good Elvis Almighty, that place was a drain on my sanity.

Re: alt.gothic

[sister-stella.livejournal.com]

You were on a.g. too???

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Ah, a.g. My life hasn't been the same since.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

No, thats what Perth was to you, then.

Its not that I'm unaware of what Perth is like (I remember thinking Big Blacks Kerosene should be a Perth anthem), but its a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Don't tell me how my life is from a vantage point of many years and many miles.

[reddragdiva]

I still think you're protesting too much about this one. "Power and the Passion" wasn't explicitly about Perth either.

[sister-stella.livejournal.com]

No, it was about the Sydney Northern Beaches wasn't it?

[reddragdiva]

Yes. But it still applied (and applies) elsewhere.

[sister-stella.livejournal.com]

I think I'll do this on my journal now.