OK, this is another silly Facebook object trouve meme. Let’s see how this turns out.

INSTRUCTIONS::
1. Put your iPod or other music player on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the “next” button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS! (or stupid)
4. Tag friends who might enjoy doing this as well as the person you got this from

My list is below the fold; my conclusions are given right here: This is dumb. Although it’s supposed to yield deep insights or at least some humor, it really just generates noise. There is a disturbing trend in today’s society tho believe in the innate wisdom of randomness, as if throwing a patische of things together somehow tells us something important. That can happen but it rarely does.

More significantly, perhaps, the originator of this meme misunderstood iPods nearly as much as Apple does. I have 26 GB of songs. Most of them were on albums with other songs I like. Some were on albums I decided I didn’t like after hearing. Probably most have been listened to one or two times. Heck, some of them are just physics demonstrations. Picking songs at random from that collection is no more likely to reveal something interesting about me as, well, pulling Scrabble tiles from a bag is to reveal the Question to life, the universe, and everything.

I can see two ways to improve this and give it a fighting chance of being interesting. First, the songs should be picked from a Party Shuffle of songs you actually, you know, listen to. Second, I think it would be better to pull maybe 20 songs into a playlist but then choose which song matched which question. Utter randomness is, by definition, without meaning. But allow me to mediate consciously, and I just might reveal something.

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
“The Beat Goes On” — Sonny & Cher

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
“One More” — Greg Sell

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
“Me & Julio Down By the School Yard” — Simon & Garfunkel

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
“Pyjamarama” — Roxy Music

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF You?
“New & Improved” — Michael Giacchino

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OFTEN?
“House of the Rising Sun” — Shawn Mullins

WHAT IS 2+2?
“This River is Wild” — The Killers

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
“The Pinnacle” — Kansas

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
“Ending Titles” (Tron) — Wendy Carlos

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
“Welcome to Pylea” — Robert Kral

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“The Twelve Days of Christmas” — Boston Pops Orchestra

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
“Flash Lightning” — Papa Fritas

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
“Pistolero” — Juno Reactor

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
“So I Built Myself a Shoulder” — Palivicinni

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
“Looking Ahead: Governance and Democracy” — Larry Diamond, John McMillin, Paul Collier

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
“Influence of Masking Noise on Pitch” — Houtsma, Rossing, Wagennars

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
867-5309 — Tommy Tutone

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
“The Wild Frontier” — Bruce Hornsby

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
“Stretched & Compressed Scales” — Houtsma, Rossing, Wagenaars

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
“The Long Race” — Bruce Hornsby

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
“The Trio (Main Title)” — Ennio Morricone

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
“Fire Down Below” — Nick Cave

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
“Be Here Now” — Ray LaMontagne

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
“King of Pain” — Alanis Morrisette

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
“West Wing Main Title” — W.G. “Snuffy” Walden

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
“It’s Just a TV Show” — The Be-Fives

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
“Mandatum Novo Do Vobis” — The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
“Strip Polka” — Johnny Mercer

There is a viral meme going around Facebook about listing 25 random things about yourself. It’s not accurate, since people spend some time crafting the 25 things (so they’re not really random … it’s not like people write 500 things and do a Monte Carlo selection or anything). Anyone, I got tagged by Annie and gamely set out to make my list, which is reproduced below the fold.

2. My fondest memory of college is an evening before Winter finals, spent sipping hot chocolate and coloring with crayons on the floor.

3. I once took a journey by rail in a figure-8 around the nation.

4. While growing up in NYC in the 1980s, whenever I awoke to the sound of thunder, I spent a minute wondering if it was a Soviet nuclear strike.

5. I have a curious attraction to songs that repeat their openings in the closer.

6. People tend to be misled by me because I mean exactly what I say.

7. I wrote my first love poem at the age of 20. It was pretty bad. So were the next twenty-three.

8. I think Sneakers was five years ahead of its time and so became the most underrated movie of 1992.

9. I am absolutely convinced that we are living in the final century of human history. What comes after, I don’t know.

10. Much of my professional success has come from a lopsided mix of ability and (mostly) confidence — even when the latter isn’t justified.

11. If they had had those computer-linked digital microscopes when I was growing up, I very well might have been a biologist.

12. Every year at college I fell hard for exactly one (different) person. I didn’t get over the last one for over fifteen years.

13. I am liked by more people than I like. At the core this makes me worried that I present a false face.

14. My favorite breed of dog is “mutt”.

15. Despite what everyone seems to think, I have no skill at chess.

16. I think that, had he not written “pop”, Billy Joel would be recognized as a great American songwriter on the order of Copeland — and I don’t care what anyone else thinks.

17. There are times I worry that my muse of writing has abandoned me in retaliation for neglect.

18. I have known few joys as satisfying as figuring out a really good way to get a point across to my students.

19. I don’t know what or who God is, but anyone’s definition that leaves out music is simply wrong.

20. I have been in love many, many times. I have been loved exactly once, and it’s still going on, and I still don’t exactly know how to react.

21. But I can’t imagine my life any other way anymore.

22. I can’t get through the “Le Marsailles” scene in Casablanca without tearing up.

23. I think that life is simpler than people make it out to be.

24. I’m not so keen on arbitrary rules and, apparently, cannot count to 25.

25. I think about the vast and timeless sweep of the Universe, so brimmed with meaning beyond our sight or understanding, and I am floored by the fact that I can think about it.

26. Every minute of every day I am imbued with a desperate knowledge that we are running out of time. We have to become stronger, smarter, better – and we have to do it now.

27. At the end of it all, for absolutely no good reason, I remain an optimist.