I figured I might need some inspiration for this crazy didleedoo blogathon thing I'm doing, so why not make a list of the ten people who inspire me the most?
1. Alan Moore- I. Love. Alan. Moore. It's kind of a problem, really. But what can I say? The guy knows how to form a sentence AND he's the master of creating really friggin' cool ideas. Everyone knows Watchmen was amazing, because it took these two-dimensional Charlton comics characters and made them so human. It took the man twelve months to completely change our views on the caped crusaders.
But he's done so much more than that. Another great example of his work is League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where he took characters from all these different literary periods and smooshed them into one massive, eon-spanning universe. Honestly, reading that as a sophomore in high school completely changed my views on literature in general. I really got into that idea of the "Great Conversation," or that idea that the great works of literature are connected, and thus in a way they're almost communicating with each other.
And he's a good enough writer, even when he's not shifting your paradigm to a completely new level. Like in Top Ten, he told a Hill Street Blues-esque police procedural story WHERE EVERYONE HAD SUPER POWERS. It was pretty cool and a lot of fun, and showed that he's a good-enough writer that sometimes, he can just entertain.
2. Frank Sinatra- What can I say? In regards to my music tastes, a lot of the oldies really are goodies. Somehow, the guy managed to smoke, yet still be able to belt out of powerful song. Better yet, he pretty much sang from the 40's into the 90's, and for most of the time successfully. As opposed to many singers, he adapted to the times, and I can really respect that.
As if that wasn't enough, what really got him on the list was the fact that he was also an actor, who acted in quite a few films (around 50, according to Netflix). And he wasn't just some two-bit actor who got his foot in the door because of his singing. He was actually a really good actor. And it's kind of astonishing that someone can have such a big career in films, yet still be remembered mainly for his singing. And he was in my favorite film, Manchurian Candidate! Need I say more? Didn't think so.
3. Satoshi Kon- This one probably seems a little bit like out of left field, but I actually like anime quite a lot. I don't know why, but there seems to be something so surreal about the genre, that can't be found elsewhere. Every time I dip my toes into an anime (and I mean the 12-26 episode gems. I'm not talking about those ba-jillion episode anime, which might be good, but still can't beat things like Paranoia Agent, Cowboy Bebop, or Baccano!), I find this completely new experience that I wasn't quite expecting. And quite often, that experience changes my view of the world, ever so slightly.
As you might have surmised, Satoshi Kon is the master of this perspective-shifting. Director of the anime series Paranoia Agent, and films like Perfect Blue, Paprika, and such, anything he's done is such a trip. Yet at the same time, he's simply using the medium to tell a story he likes, in a way that's strangely personal to him. He takes the tools he has and does things completely unexpected with them, simply because that's who he is. And that's something I can respect.
4. Craig Ferguson-I love talking. It's really quite fun to do, when you get right down to it. The exchange of words and information from one person to another, sometimes meant to educate, sometimes meant to entertain, and quite often simply meant to pass time is an amazing thing to behold and even more fun to take part in.
And there's just something so beautiful about the way this old Scottish talk show host does it. Every time he comes on at, like, 12:30, he does so with a certain irreverent bombast. He basically looks and the world and says, "Aw, screw it. I'm not here to be nice and warm and fuzzy. I'm here to make some fun penis jokes, and keep you up for as long as possible." Yet for all he tries to convince us that he doesn't really care about people, he really does pay attention, and you can tell in his interviews that he's trying his best to keep all his guests comfortable.
Well, perhaps comfortable isn't the right word, given the fact that he's so prone to telling his guests he's going to start and awkward pause and he does just that. But I guess he always makes sure that his guests are having fun. He cares about people while making them laugh. In my day-to-day life, I think I've always striven to do that.
5. Ray Bradbury- Oh, Ray. I don't even know where to begin with you. You're probably most famous for warning people against the perils of television in your seminal work, Fahrenheit 451, yet one of my favorite things to do is watch vintage television (or Craig Ferguson), so how can I say you've inspired me? Well, suffice it to say it's a pretty complex relationship.
I started out reading Fahrenheit 451 in 7th grade. Didn't like it much. It was too depressing for me back then, with all its dystopian vibes and the belief that an individual couldn't change society until society was ready to change. But then I had to read it for school in my Sophomore year and it was another one of those books that completely changed the way I looked at things. Suddenly, I realized that maybe the Internet was shortening my attention span, just like Bradbury had warned television might. But that didn't really change things too much (as can be evinced by this little blog post right here). Instead, what really impacted me was the way he weaved sentences, and the way he created such depressingly relatable characters. He told some dang good stories and he told them well. And that was good enough for me.
NEXT: Part 2 of People Who Inspire me!
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