Best Vocalist
While drinking and enjoying some old tunes late yesterday afternoon, I pondered this question: Who's the greatest pop/rock male vocalist of the 20th century? Jim Reeves? Marty Robbins? Johnny Mathis? Sam Cooke? Roy Orbison?
I'm talking about pure singing talent, not most popular, the kind of voice that even an opera fan would appreciate as beautiful. The lists that I located online that include Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, or Bob Dylan are prima facie not relevant to my query.
Dystopia
Are you going to The Hunger Games? I am. My family is really into the series. Marie thinks the books are libertarian to the core: it's what happens when the central government gets too strong and the principle of subsidiarity is smashed. That's good enough for me and, although I won't read the books, I'll get a secondhand appreciation for them through the films.
The books, of course, are part of the dystopian genre, which I enjoy: 1984 (which The Hunger Games might replace as the most popular dystopian story of all time), Brave New World, Idiocracy. I always meant to read the novels of Philip Dick, but I never got around to it.
Catholic novelists should have an edge in this area: as our government and culture turn increasingly against our Catholic heritage, the world will fall apart. If you don't believe that, you're not Catholic. If you do believe that, it gives you an edge on what that world will look like, since you know why it fell apart. Any Catholic dystopian writers out there?
If so, now is the time to get that book to an agent. From a newsletter service I subscribe to:
Turns out that in 2012, dystopia is back... at least in the estimation of the bookworms who populate the website Goodreads. The webmasters there have analyzed all the site's reviews of books published in the last century.
The last time dystopian books were this big was when the McCarthy era was winding down...
The newsletter wonders (rhetorically and with a smattering of sarcasm): Is there something about America 2012 that makes these kinds of novels resonate with the American people? It's a good question.
