Obligatory List Post

Lists. Everybody's doing it, at least on their blog. What a great idea. Instead of trying to write a narrative or something resembling a column, I just have to create arbitrary lists that reflect my opinions, for which the world awaits with baited breath.

The other beauty of this idea is that I can trot it out anytime I am pressed for time or ideas, like now. Any idiosyncratic list will do! I tried to be original.

Limiting this to 10 lists. More exciting, craptastic content to come. This rules!


Artsy-Fartsy Lists

Top 5 Famous Works of Fiction that I Hate or Can't Finish:
1. Middlemarch, by George Elliot
2. Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
3. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
4. Cathedral, by Raymond Carver
5. Molloy, by Samuel Beckett

Don't get into an argument with a buncha female lit majors about Middlemarch. You'll get slaughtered.

Top 5 Highbrow/Pretentious Intellecual Pleasures (Music Division)
1. Beethoven
2. Schubert
3. John Coltrane
4. Just about any opera
5. Dizzy Gillespie

Classical, intellectual jazz, opera: what more pretense could you ask for?


Listen to an expert

Top 5 Lowbrow/Guilty Pleasures (Music Division):
1. Spinal Tap
2. The Ramones
3. AC/DC
4. Frank Sinatra
5. "Convoy"

Actually, I'm not ashamed of any of these. Except "Convoy."

Top 5 Books by Wm. Faulkner, Even Though I Might Not Have Finished Them:
1. The Sound and the Fury
2. Intruder in the Dust
3. Absolom, Absolom!
4. Light in August
5. As I Lay Dying

I couldn't tell you precisely what happened in Absolom, but it's a great book.

Top 5 Bogart Flix:
1. The Big Sleep
2. The Maltese Falcon
3. Casablanca
4. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
5. Key Largo

"Go ahead, scratch it."


Painful Memories Lists

5 Stupidest Catchphrases Used at My Suburban High School in the early 1980s:
1. "____ totally wales!" ("Def Leppard totally wales!")
2. "____ totally rules!" ("That Adrienne Barbeau poster totally rules!")
3. "Choice _____, for sure" ("'Spirit of the Radio' is choice Rush, for sure.")
4. "Totally awesome." (self-explanatory)
5. "No s--t, Sherlock."

Inane stuff, Sherlock.

5 Cool Words/Insults I Thought I Invented in High School, But, As It Turned Out, Did Not:
1. "Likmeister."
2. "Bizzart."
3. "Dingus." ("You stupid dingus!")
4. "Chucklehead."
5. "Jabutt." (contraction of "Jabba the Hutt.")

My cup overflowed with brilliance.

5 Cringe-Inducing Memories From High School:
1. My hair
2. My acne
3. Profound awkwardness around girls
4. Every losing sports performance/game
5. Failing my driver's license test the first time

See how different and special I was than every other teenage boy?

5 Worst Things Told to Me on a Date (absolutely true, NONE involving Wife):
1. "Black mothers don't take good care of their children."
2. "I don't read much."
3. "Is that fat-free?"
4. First (& last) date: "I could fall in love with you."
5. "No, I won't sleep with you. Never."

Can't do worse, except maybe what I said to dates.


Top 5 Most Painful Moments as a Sports Fan:
1. Cubs Choke in '03 Playoffs
2. Cubs Choke in '84 Playoffs
3. Cubs Choke in '89 Playoffs
4. Cubs Choke in '04 Regular Season
5. Cubs Choke in '05 (in progress)

Can't say why I keep going back, like a battered wife.