The Rewind Button: Thriller

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

Michael Jackson ThrillerMichael Jackson’s Thriller album brings up so many memories that an objective critique of it is impossible. So, instead of a proper review, I thought I’d list some of those memories.

I named my pet Siberian Husky dog Thriller, because of the album. He was a good dog who had a love of eating toads. I buried him in my backyard.

I begged my grandparents to buy me a faux red-leather Michael Jackson jacket (the kind he wore in the video for “Thriller”) at J.C. Penney. I wore it a handful of times, and it still hangs in a closet at my grandfather’s house.

I stayed glued to MTV to watch the “Thriller” video, the short movie version. It was an event that proved music videos could be much more than people standing around singing in a studio.

To this day, the moonwalk is one of my better (maybe only) dance moves. Though, I can do the leg shake thing kind of well, too.

“P.Y.T.” was a track that my friends Jonathan and Hank and I use to sing along to all the time in a field out behind my house.

My friend, Matt, played me Weird Al Yankovic’s parody “Eat It” for me on a blue cassette tape. You mean you can get blue cassette tapes?! My middle school mind was blown.

To this day, I still like to say “I’m a lover, not a fighter” from the single “The Girl is Mine.”

On my own Rolling Stone list, Thriller is a Top 10 album. Any album that can generate so many memories for you should always be in your top list.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

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Books Read in 2011

Books!Every year I post my annual list of which books I read, a list that helps me remember past events and feelings that I may have forgotten, like resting in my hammock on a nice summer day reading The Truth About Celia or the eagerness I felt flying to Italy while reading Poets in a Landscape. You could say that I remember things through the books I’ve read. I don’t think that’s such a bad way to live.  Happy reading in 2012, everyone!

Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Tinkers by Paul Harding
Me, Myself & I by Edward Albee
Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Diviners by Jim Leonard Jr.
The Second Child by Deborah Garrison
The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick by Peter Handke
A Week at the Airport by Alain de Botton
Burn This by Lanford Wilson
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr
The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh
The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey
The Mercy Seat by Neil LaBute
Augustus by John Williams
Poets in a Landscape by Gilbert Highet
Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
The Truth About Celia by Kevin Brockmeier
A Happy Death by Albert Camus
The Commedia dell’Arte by Giacomo Oreglia
The Architect of Flowers by William Lychack
The Actor’s Art and Craft by William Esper and Damon DiMarco
Dying City by Christopher Shinn
Slowness by Milan Kundera
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
Improvise: Scene From the Inside Out by Mick Napier
Book of My Nights by Li-Young Lee
The Sea Gull by Anton Chekhov
Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason by Jessica Warner
The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books by Jeff Martin and C. Max Magee (editors)
Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Jitney by August Wilson
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honday Dynasty by Tony Hoagland
Travesties by Tom Stoppard
Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
The Harvard Psychedelic Club by Don Lattin
The Wrecking Light by Robin Robertson
The Chairs are Where the People Go by Misha Glouberman with Sheila Heti
In a Forest, Dark and Deep by Neil LaBute
Whatever by Michel Houellebecq
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute by Grace Paley
The Night Season by Rebecca Lenkiewicz
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Seven Guitars by August Wilson
The Curfew by Jesse Ball
The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh
The Jokers by Albert Cossery
Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey Into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer
Normal People Don’t Live Like This by Dylan Landis

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Posted in <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/books/" rel="category tag">books</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/life/" rel="category tag">life</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/meetings-2/" rel="category tag">Meetings</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/reading/" rel="category tag">reading</a> Tagged <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/books/" rel="tag">books</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/life/" rel="tag">life</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/literature/" rel="tag">literature</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/memories/" rel="tag">memories</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/musings/" rel="tag">musings</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/reading/" rel="tag">reading</a> 3 Comments