the word of the day is: meme

Funny, I just got this word in my inbox today, the same day Darin (All Preparation and no H) tagged me for a meme.

Now, I usually don't do memes simply because I either think they're dumb, require too much thought, or I simply forget I've been tagged. Usually, I just forget. But since my Merriam-Webster Word of the Day is indeed meme, I'll accept the memechallenge.

Hey, I just coined a new word.

The Word of the Day for August 18 is:

meme \MEEM\ noun
: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture

Example sentence:
"Blogs are an interesting way... of seeing which ideas, memes, trends and news events are getting the most comment." (Clive Thompson, quoted in the _Sunday Tribune_, February 6, 2005)

Did you know?
In 1976, British scientist Richard Dawkins wrote _The Selfish Gene_, and in his book he defended his new creation, the word "meme." Having first considered, then rejected, "mimeme," he wrote: "'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene.' I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate 'mimeme' to 'meme.'" The suitable Greek root was "mim-," meaning "mime" or "mimic." Dawkins's "mimeme" was formed from "mim-" plus "-eme," an English noun suffix that indicates a distinctive unit of language structure (as in "grapheme," "lexeme," and "phoneme"). "Meme" itself, like a good meme, caught on pretty quickly, spreading from person to person as it established itself in the language.

Well, I'll be damned. I knew what "meme" meant, but I did not know it had such an extensive history.

And now you know.

So, the meme Darin asked me to do is this: List ten songs that you are currently digging ... it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to.

Oh god. Now everyone will know what a geek I am. For one, I was listening to "Superstar" by Sonic Youth when I got the meme, but that doesn't count. So I did what Darin did and looked at my iPod for what songs I've been listening to a lot, and this is what it told me, title followed by artist (and I mixed them up here so you all won't know what #1 is):

• Sign of the Times - Petula Clark
  
• Informer - Snow (Oh, stop. Leave me alone.)
  
• Blips Drips and Strips - Stereolab
  
• Wild Mushrooms - Lloyd Cole
  
• Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder
  
• Thank You - Coconut Monkeyrocket
  
• Center of the Sun - Conjure One
  
• Breathe (remix) - Blu Cantrell feat. Sean Paul
  
• Come On A My House Cha-Cha-Cha - Della Reese
  
• Connected - Paul Van Dyk

Moral of this story: Chad sometimes has horrible taste in music. Petula Clark is to music what Totino's frozen pizza is to food. Sometimes you just crave it and it's delicious when you take it out of the oven and tear into it. Della Reese...well, I'll just call her Lucky Charms 'cause she's magically delicious. And Coconut Monkeyrocket is brilliant...they take random old samples of obscure old songs from the 50's to the 70's and make these crazy mashups. What scares me is when I listen to their stuff I often recognize where these obscure samples are coming from.

Okay, here's my five people I'm tagging:

First and foremost, Michael in San Francisco. He sent me the sweetest email today and I want to know more about him. I also want the other Michael in San Francisco to do this simply because I miss him and I know one or more of the songs will be Rufus Wainwright, along with Cool Relax in Washington DC because he's cool and relaxed (and has a hot photo) and he intrigues me, (((pure noise))) down in Los Angeles (he's pretty fucking cool and I'm curious as to what he's listening to), aaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnd...oh why not...Piggy & Tazzy simply because I'm curious as to what they're listening to over across the Atlantic Ocean.