Entitled | I think this fits in here...

I am very much into titles. A great title counts very much to me. A title for a book, a song, a movie, everything. And the title doesn't necesarily have to be corny, or artistic, just..adequate and very well composed. I mean I love the title of the new Stereophonics album "just enough education to perform". And so on. Does anybody else care for titles? Do they matter for you? What are the best titles you've ever seen or heard?

I know whatcha mean.  Whenever I've finished a story, poem or an essay, I spend an agonizing amount of time trying to come up with a title.

When I'm shopping for records, I love taking a gamble on stuff with great titles, even if I've never heard of the band.  The same applies to books.  Cover art goes a long way with me as well.  Yes, I have been known to judge a book (or at least whether it might be worth reading) by it's cover.

Yes. That's what I mean. It's a great pleasure to me, in my diary (not livejournal, i write at home), to come up for a title for the day I've just described..And I had to do that quite a few times, considering that I have over 1700 pages written...

I want the title to be curiosity inspiring. Usually a bit cryptic title catches my attention, and even if the following contents is not that good, I usually at least go through it once if the title is good.

Titles are quite an important part of any creation, as it gives us the first impression of the contents, and often is the part that makes us... to take any notice at the thing in question.

I love titles also. I try to put a lot of thought into my titles: I have a poem called The Paper Thin Man, which I believe Inertia has read, another story called Paper Hearts which I will post here soon, another story called Melissa Kadmon.

Anyway, titles I love:

Things You Can Do - Deltron 3030. My love for this title could be influenced by the fact I love the song.

Memento Mori - an X Files episode. The X Files is actually a very good source for nice titles, but the rest of them escape me.

Yellow Rat Bastard - I don't know if this counts: it's the name of a clothes store in New York that I really love.

Never is a Promise - Song by Fiona Apple. I promised someone a while ago that I wouldn't ever self-harm again, and I said to her that I hadn't because "never is a promise and I can't afford to lie." Spooky thing was, I said it before I'd ever heard the song.

Gutter Fusion - One of my mother's paintings. I'm not really into the painting, but I love the title.

Girl Fly - This one is too hard to explain.

Bah, those are shite examples. I'll come back with some better ones when I've had some more gin.

Memento Mori...On of the most fantastic episodes ever..I've been watching it quite a lot lately, given that my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer a month ago...The opening speech is incredible. I would listen to it over and over again, the journey speech.
And of course THe XFiles, and Millennium too, are great sources of super titles. Amor Fati is one of them...Or Sein und Zeit, another great one. I could list roughly the entire episode guide here...
And Ile, you are right about the curiosity inspirind thing. I like a title also not to reveal much of the content, or to be a generic summary of it. A great example, for songs, is Estranged. The title never appears in the lyrics, but it summs it up so well...

(Edited by Amor Fati at 3:09 pm on May 4, 2001)

And how could I forget. One of the most brilliant XFIles title, given the content of the episode and the dualistic concept that comes from the title, is En Ami. Pure genius.

BTW Speaking of Millennium: I watched it as far as when the virus ran everything over, at least that's the image what the ending gave to me. Then some time ago, I noticed it was on TV again, with no mention of it being a re-run. Now did mankind survive and did the script writer(s) thus spoil an excellent end for the series, or what?

I never have had the courage to check it out, 'cause I'd hate to see that they submitted to the call of greenbacks and made some crooked turn of events that spoiled the end I wanted the series to have.

Yeah, unfortunately they did. They made another season. They made the outbreak small, only killing like 60 people, and everybody else lived. They moved Frank Black in DC, gave him a female partner, and this season only had like four or five decent episodes. And the definitive ending (this time)  is one of hope though. The last image is totally opposed to the other ending...

Quote: from Girl Fly on 2:58 pm on May 4, 2001

Yellow Rat Bastard - I don't know if this counts: it's the name of a clothes store in New York that I really love.

How strange that there is a clothing store with that name. My friend came up with "rat bastard" as a deragotory (sp?) name for someone several years ago. Probably 6 or 7 years. How long ago did that store open?

One title that really caught my eye was from a book that same friend owned. The title was "Cunt", which I'm sure some of you have to admit, would cause you to be curious enough to open it and read...

It turns out the book was written by a local San Franciscan (my friend lived in SF at the time) and she was exploring the use of the word: Cunt is usually known as a filthy name for women. However, that's only becasue men began using the word for that purpose a long time ago.

Makes you wonder what other words have been twisted by being used in a hurtful context so that their meaning is changed forever.

Duh, I'm having one of those days, where I can't think clearly enough to form complete and accurate sentences...

Quote: from Amor Fati on 1:26 am on May 5, 2001
Yeah, unfortunately they did. They made another season. They made the outbreak small, only killing like 60 people, and everybody else lived. They moved Frank Black in DC, gave him a female partner, and this season only had like four or five decent episodes. And the definitive ending (this time)  is one of hope though. The last image is totally opposed to the other ending...

NOHOOOOOO!! That totally suxor. That didn't happen in my world. Stupid moneygrubbing...