Two and two is...

Lately it seems I've fallen in with a bad crowd of meme addicts. True story: when I saw that Ben had been tagged by Becca with "The Meme of Four" my first thought before he even posted his entry was "I bet Ben tags me for this next, because I've previously shown myself to be an easy mark, a patsy, a sucker for this sort of thing." And lo, it came to pass!

The way this one works is that I give four responses in each category, then add a new category of my own at the end before tagging four other suckers. And so...

Four jobs I've had or currently have in my life:

1. sales clerk in a bookstore
2. answering telephones in a print shop
3. sign painter (only once: I misspelled "stationery")
4. handing out flyers in the street

Four countries I've been to:

1. Canada
2. England
3. Holland
4. New Zealand

Four places I'd rather be right now:

1. Ordering lunch at the Fishmonger's Cafe.
2. Visiting the Akihabara for the first time.
3. Having a pint at the Melton Mowbray in Holborn, London.
4. In bed with your sister, if by some unlikely chance you happen to be Jake Gyllenhaal.

Four foods I like to eat:

1. tuna sashimi
2. shrimp tempura
3. Belgian-style fries
4. oil-cured black olives

Four personal heroes, past or present:

1. Jack Kirby
2. Kurt Vonnegut, for reasons previously stated.
3. Mary Shelley, a brilliant writer who at the age of 19 understood what science was all about before they even used that word.
4. My dad -- this might seem a safe or gratuitous choice, but the truth is every day I find myself consciously emulating him in one way or another.

Four books I've just read or am currently reading:

1. The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones
2. The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain
3. Changing Planes by Ursula K. LeGuin
4. Science Fiction At Large, edited by Peter Nicholls

Four words or phrases I'd like to see used more often:

1. gawrsh
2. flibbertigibbet
3. pellucid
4. spot on

Four performances in history I'd attend If I had a TARDIS to bring me there:

1. 9 December 1978, Studio 8H in the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center, New York: Kate Bush performs as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, hosted by Eric Idle.
2. 30 January 1969, roof of 3 Savile Row, London: the Beatles perform "Get Back" three times (!) as well as several other songs from the album Let It Be for a bemused audience of office workers before the police show up.
3. 24 November 1964, Marquee Club, 90 Wardour Street, London: the Who play a gig for an audience of less than 30 people. We have reason to believe it was spectacular; word of mouth from those who attended was so positive that one week later, the band's next show at the Marquee had an attendance of nearly 300.
4. I'm stumped for a fourth choice. With the whole of human history and every variety of performing arts to choose from, I've picked three examples of pop music from within my own lifetime. I should probably mix it up a little and go for something like, I dunno, a 1599 performance of Henry V at the Globe Theatre? But that seems so forced. I'm definitely not fond of crowds, so the big theatrical events of history aren't what I'd choose anyway. I'd rather find something small and intimate that no one knew was going to be historic.

And the category I'll add to this meme is...four things I like:

1. coffee
2. used book stores
3. Earth shoes
4. voice actors and actresses

And the four people I'll tag are:

1. Rob
2. Mark
3. Joel
4. Jeff