Fandango’s Provocative Question #188

Let’s have some fun this week. Or what I hope you’ll think is fun. My question is simple. It’s all about favorites. If you were asked to name your absolute favorite in each of the following categories, what would they be.

• Song
• Musical artist or group
• Book
• Author
• Movie
• Television show
• Movie or TV actor (male & female)
• Stage play or musical
• Live concert

Remember, I’m looking for your all-time favorite in each of these categories.

When I was 18 I had all-time favorites. At 30, I had groups of favorites, depending on category. Today I can’t even remember what I’ve seen, heard, and read, much less my favorites. So my favorite tends to be the one I can remember right now. Don’t hold me to anything I say in this post because there’s a good chance I won’t remember what I said and if I remember, I’ll have already changed my mind.

FAVORITES

SONGS

Classical – Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, The Pastoral
Western – Lefty and Pancho (Composer Townes Van Zandt

Pop: We Didn’t Start the Fire – Billy Joel

Musical artist or group: Creedence Clearwater Revival

Book: I absolutely can’t answer this question for an individual book. I have read so many thousands of books through my years. Many have taken turns at being my favorite book. I will say that as a series of books, Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden series is my current favorite, although Mike Carey’s Felix Castor series is a tight second. If Carey would write one more book to complete the series, it could top my list. As a very close third, Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series is a competitor probably tied with Jodi Taylor’s series The Chronicles of St. Mary’s which is not about time travel no matter what anybody tells you.

If you have time, read all of them. And there are at least three or four more that belong on the list. That’s the problem with lists.

Author: Terry Pratchett. His Discworld series isn’t merely a series. It’s a concept. It’s hilarious it makes you think. That’s hard to do! I have other favorites but if you want to count the number of times I’ve read and reread Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, he is the winner, hands down. He makes me laugh, he makes me think, AND he created a flat world with magic. Does it get better than that? What a pity he died before he was finished.

Movie: I’ve got too many. I really can’t answer this.

Television show: West Wing if you want to go by how many times I’ve watched the entire series. Whenever I think there’s no hope, I watch it again and try to remember back to the good old days when we had a functioning government.

Movie or TV actor (male & female): Possibly Paul Newman. Maybe it was his oh-so-blue eyes. But also, he could actually act.

Stage play or musical: Cabaret. Jeff and I saw Cabaret seven times in one week. Never did we find it dull. I still watch it whenever it shows up on TV. Tied with Oh! What a Lovely War.

Live concert: Judy Collins at the Wang Theatre in Boston maybe 6 or 7 years ago. We haven’t been to a concert in a long time. There was COVID and driving to Boston is ridiculous and the prices have gotten too high for us to manage.

I included some nice songs, all full of memories.

Categories: #Books, #FPQ, Anecdote, Movies, Music, Provocative Questions

Tags: #FavoriteThings, #FPQ, Fandango's Provocative Questions, Marilyn Armstrong