IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE:
1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly? Fred Astaire
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises? Great Gatsby
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington? Duke Ellington
4. Cats or dogs? Cats
5. Matisse or Picasso? Matisse
6. Yeats or Eliot? (Please. You even have to ask?) Yeats.
7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin? Must I choose?? I choose neither. Love them both.
8. Flannery O’Connor or John Updike? Flannery O'Connor
9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca? Tough choice. I'm going with To Have and Have Not.
10. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning? Jackson Pollock
11. The Who or the Stones? Neither
12. Philip Larkin or Sylvia Plath? Sylvia Plath. Although I love Larkin's stuff, too.
13. Trollope or Dickens? Dickens. Never got into Trollope. Which ... is awful. I know.
14. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald? Billie Holiday
15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy? Dostoevsky
16. The Moviegoer or The End of the Affair? Graham Greene, I presume? No idea.
17. George Balanchine or Martha Graham? Balanchine, all the way.
18. Hot dogs or hamburgers? Hamburgers. No contest
19. Letterman or Leno? Letterman. No contest
20. Wilco or Cat Power? Wilco.
21. Verdi or Wagner? Verdi
22. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe? Marilyn Monroe, my all-time favorite
23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash? Johnny Cash
24. Kingsley or Martin Amis? I choose neither. Don't like either of them, and my feelings about Martin Amis border on irrational DISlike.
25. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando? Brando. Although Mitchum rocks
26. Mark Morris or Twyla Tharp? Mark Morris!! His version of "Nutcracker" is awesome! Rent it!
27. Vermeer or Rembrandt? Rembrandt
28. Tchaikovsky or Chopin? Chopin. It puts me to sleep. And I mean that in the BEST way. Listening to Chopin is like lying on perfumed satin sheets. Relaxing, soothing, healing.
29. Red wine or white? Red.
30. Noël Coward or Oscar Wilde? Tough one. Hmm. I think Noel Coward. Private Lives!!
31. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity? High Fidelity. I hated Grosse Pointe Blank. Sorry, Pat McCurdy.
32. Shostakovich or Prokofiev? Do not know either.
33. Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev? Nureyev. (Nureyev used to say, about his famous leaps, that when he jumps in the air, he just chose to "pause" a little bit. Ha!)
34. Constable or Turner? No clue.
35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo? Oh boy. My lack of Western knowledge is catching up to me. No clue
36. Comedy or tragedy? Comedy
37. Fall or spring? Fall. I love melancholy. (Which is a pretty funny thing to say, in light of my answer to # 36. But I will let the contradiction stand. To quote Whitman: Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.)
38. Manet or Monet? Monet. Manet, to me, seems too rich, like a big fat piece of cheesecake.
39. The Sopranos or The Simpsons? Simpsons.
40. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin? Rodgers and Hart.
41. Joseph Conrad or Henry James? I gotta go with Conrad. Not wacky about James.
42. Sunset or sunrise? Sunrise. Because anything can happen at sunrise. At sunset, all possibilities end.
43. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter? Oh shit. Do I have to choose? I'll go with Cole Porter. Reluctantly.
44. Mac or PC? PC
45. New York or Los Angeles? New York
46. Partisan Review or Horizon? No response
47. Stax or Motown? I have no idea. I love Motown. Don't know Stax.
48. Van Gogh or Gauguin? Van Gogh. Gauguin's a bit much.
49. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello? Elvis Costello
50. Reading a blog or reading a magazine? Magazine
51. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier? Olivier.
52. Only the Lonely or Songs for Swingin’ Lovers? What?
53. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde? Chinatown
54. Ghost World or Election? Election. Yeah!!
55. Minimalism or conceptual art? Minimalism
56. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny? Bugs. He's more subversive. A smart-ass.
57. Modernism or postmodernism? Oh Jesus. Modernism, modernism, modernism. DIE, POSTMODERNISM, DIE.
58. Batman or Spider-Man? Batman. Can't stand "s"s.
59. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams? Emmylou Harris.
60. Johnson or Boswell? Johnson. I should do a post on Johnson someday.
61. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf? Emily, do you want to take this one??? HA! I love Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf leaves me flat.
62. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show? Oh no contest. The Honeymooners.
63. An Eames chair or a Noguchi table? No clue. Don't know nothin' 'bout furniture, Miz Scarlett.
64. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity? Another terrible choice. I'm going with Out of the Past - which if you haven't seen - you MUST. Mitchum and Kirk Douglas - smoking AT each other threateningly throughout the whole film.
65. The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni? No clue
66. Blue or green? Green
67. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It? As You Like It. Midsummer Night's Dream is a better play, but As You Like It has my heart.
68. Ballet or opera? Ballet
69. Film or live theater? I refuse to choose.
70. Acoustic or electric? Electric
71. North by Northwest or Vertigo? North by Northwest.
72. Sargent or Whistler? Sargent
73. V.S. Naipaul or Milan Kundera? Heh heh heh. Good one. I like Naipaul better. But Kundera is terrific.
74. The Music Man or Oklahoma? The Music Man. One of my favorite musicals of all time. "76 trombones led the big parade ... while 110 coronets came behind ... they were followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuosos ... the cream of every famous band!!!"
75. Sushi, yes or no? An emphatic YES. But I won't eat roe.
76. The New Yorker under Ross or Shawn? HA! Under Ross.
77. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee? Tennessee Williams
78. The Portrait of a Lady or The Wings of the Dove? Didn't like either. I don't like Henry James
79. Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham? No clue
80. Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe? I don't know the second dude. Can't choose.
81. Diana Krall or Norah Jones? Norah Jones
82. Watercolor or pastel? watercolor
83. Bus or subway? subway
84. Stravinsky or Schoenberg? no clue
85. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter? crunchy. I will not eat it smooth.
86. Willa Cather or Theodore Dreiser? Willa Cather.
87. Schubert or Mozart? Mozart
88. The Fifties or the Twenties? I am taking that to mean: Would you have rather lived in the 50s or the 20s? If that's the case, then I have gotta go with the 20s. I am convinced I would have committed suicide or been institutionalized in the Fifties. Or I would have been an alcoholic unhappy housewife, like every part Julianne Moore has ever played.
89. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick? Oh God, how can you compare. I'm going with Huckleberry Finn - but this doesn't mean I didn't think Moby Dick was one of the best books I had ever read, albeit a big MESS.
90. Thomas Mann or James Joyce? Oh please. Joyce.
91. Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins? Huh?
92. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman? Whitman.
93. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill? Abraham Lincoln.
94. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann? Liz Phair. Although I adore Aimee, too.
95. Italian or French cooking? Italian
96. Bach on piano or harpsichord? Piano
97. Anchovies, yes or no? Indifferent
98. Short novels or long ones? Long ones
99. Swing or bebop? Swing
100. "The Last Judgment" or "The Last Supper"? Paintings, I assume? No clue.
Oh, and there's some point system - go read Terry's piece to find out about it. I don't have time right now to do any tallying maneuver.
Hat Tip (BWAHAHAHAHA): Llama Butchers
Posted by sheilaSorry.
I mean, I know the titles of these guy's famous works - but not enough to say which I prefer.
I love Mozart. I suppose it's just because I know him better. What should I listen to of Schubert, so that I don't kill you anymore?
Posted by: red at July 7, 2004 11:57 AMI saw this yesterday over at Norm's blog, but didn't bother because there were too many where I just couldn't make up my mind.
Posted by: Emily at July 7, 2004 11:57 AMHere's some rather well done MIDIs I found online. (Sound quality of the piano will be dependant on the quality of your sound card.) The Wanderer Fantasy is perhaps his most well known piece. And for the record, I'm not a huge Schuman fan (That would be Chopin), but I do think he composes circles around Mozart.
Impromptus, Op. 90
Impromptu, Op. 90 No. 2 in Eb
Impromptu, Op. 90 No. 4 in Ab
Impromptus, Op. 142
Impromptu in Ab, Op. 142 No. 2 (M. Yasukawa)
Impromptu No.3 in Bb, Op.142 (83K) (L.N.Ellis)
Impromptu No.4 in f, Op.142 (31K) (S.G.Yogore)
Moments Musicaux, Op. 94
No. 1 (J. B. Weir)
No. 2 (Bernd Kruger)
No. 4 (Bernd Kruger)
No. 5 (Bernd Kruger)
No. 6 (Robert Finley)
Wanderer Fantasy (142K) (M.C. Bucknall)
Gretchen am Spinnrade (John Cowles)
Valses Sentimentales, Op. 50 (1st set - 87K) (M.C. Bucknall)
I can't believe you picked "Stone Cold" Steve Austin over The Rock.
Posted by: Big Dan at July 7, 2004 12:23 PMOh, and Sheila, my answer, re: # 61 would be "poison."
Posted by: Emily at July 7, 2004 12:36 PMBill Monroe or Johnny Cash? - I have no idea who Bill Monroe is/was. There goes another hour on Google...
Posted by: Noggie at July 7, 2004 12:58 PMThe Honeymooners over The Dick Van Dyke Show??????
And I thought I knew you.
Posted by: Alex at July 7, 2004 1:07 PMAlex - there were a couple of these that were like Sophie's Choice. I love the Dick Van Dyke show. But ... there's just something about The Honeymooners ... I find it apocalyptically funny.
Posted by: red at July 7, 2004 1:09 PMSheila, even I have read Trollope's Barchester Towers.
Posted by: Patrick at July 7, 2004 1:45 PMHi Sheila,
Where Schubert is concerned, I recommend "Winterreise," the "Death of the Maiden" string quartet, and the Unfinished Symphony.
I like Mozart better than Schubert, though.
-Bryan
Where the question of Schoenberg vs. Stravinsky is concerned, I love them both, but if pressed I would pick Schoenberg, whom I regard as one of the great titans of modern music. His music isn't easy at all, but after repeated listenings you start to perceive its greatness. Here's what I recommend of his work:
Transfigured Night
String Quartets 1-4
Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16
Violin Concerto
Piano Concerto
Variations for Orchestra
Chamber Symphonies 1 and 2
Wind Quintet
Pierrot Lunaire
The Book of the Hanging Gardens
-Bryan
Posted by: Bryan at July 7, 2004 2:46 PMBy the way, Sheila, my jaw was on the floor in disbelief that you asserted that "Moby Dick" is a big mess. That you should think this is intolerable to me; now I'm going to have to write a long essay proving that it's not. You have just issued me a challenge.
-Bryan
"35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo? Oh boy. My lack of Western knowledge is catching up to me. No clue"
The Searchers was a much more controversial and dramatic movie and I would go with it.
Rio Bravo was your standard cowboy action movie.
Posted by: j swift at July 7, 2004 2:55 PMIt is a big mess! It's not in any way, shape, or form a conventional novel. It starts out with Call me Ishmael. First-person. It switches to omniscent narrator/oceanographer - it relates private moments of Ahab and Starbuck - stuff Ishmael could never have seen.
I mean "mess" in that you must succumb to HIS form, rather than get all confused like: "Wait - where did Ishmael go?? And ... why do we have an entire chapter about the eyeball of the whale? Where's the plot?"
You have to give up those simple questions, and just go with Melville.
Its very messiness as a book is why I found it one of the most exhilarating reading experiences of my life.
Posted by: red at July 7, 2004 3:05 PM"The Whiteness of the Whale" chapter. Best writing EVER. I am haunted by that chapter.
Posted by: red at July 7, 2004 3:06 PMHmmmmmmm... Well, I'll grant you the point about the oddness of Ishmael's perspective as a narrator, but I think I can argue that the eyeball chapter and other similar episodes have structural purpose within the novel. You seem to be using "mess" as a term of praise, and I can agree in the sense that one might assert that "Finnegans Wake," for example, looks like a mess if you go into it expecting to read a conventional novel. But "looks like" is the operative phrase here; it isn't really.
So I'm still going to have to write that essay...
-Bryan
Posted by: Bryan at July 7, 2004 3:19 PMDid you just read the word "mess"? Or did you miss that I also said: "this doesn't mean I didn't think Moby Dick was one of the best books I had ever read..."
I'll take the mess of Moby Dick over any tidy well-made obedient novel any day.
Of course those whale-body-part chapters have a purpose. I'm just saying that they would have no place in a conventional tidy little novel. Suddenly the point of view goes away ... and we have this enormous distance ... and every single piece of the whale ends up being a metaphor for some aspect of the human condition.
Like I said - the book thrilled me no end.
Posted by: red at July 7, 2004 3:37 PMHi Sheila,
Ok, it looks like our points of view our converging. I took the word "mess" to mean, "The novel is poorly organized and has superfluous material," whereas now I see that you meant, "The novel is not organized as a conventional novel is," with which I agree entirely.
And no offense intended on my part. I still think you're brilliant and gorgeous.
-Bryan
hee hee hee. Yeah, I like to stir up disagreements just so that you can reiterate my gorgeousness.
No, but seriously. Wanted to make sure it was clear that I loved the book, almost like no other book!
Posted by: red at July 7, 2004 3:55 PMIt cannot be reiterated enough, my love. For my part, I recall your saying in a post a while back that your ideal man would be one who challenges you every day of your life, so this is my aspiration.
Yours
Posted by: Bryan at July 7, 2004 4:17 PMDid I say that? I must have been a lunatic.
Posted by: red at July 7, 2004 4:20 PMSounds like I need to change my strategy :)
Posted by: Bryan at July 7, 2004 4:30 PMSheila,
This whole thing is a cunning method of measuring your developmental maturity, measured by your consistency.
The key is in the white wine/red wine question. Red wine drinkers always make the choices you made (Jane Austen/V. Woolfe - I mean, really - only a namy-pamby white wine drinker can even consider Ms. Woolfe).
Some choices you fluffed - but, hey, you're young, you'll learn. Curiously your two main mistakes were in paintings. You got the Matisse/Picasso and Vermeer/Rembrandt right - but you completely fluffed Monet/Manet and Van Gogh/Gauguin. C'mon Sheila - Monet is the 'beige' of Impressionism, especially the Givency period (which is all anyone ever buys prints of).
And no real red wine drinker will ever go past a rich, sensuous, earthy Gauguin for a nervous, pent-up, silently screaming Van Gogh! Its well known that Van Gogh sent himself mad drinking crates of white wine. And one day, in a moment of lucidity he realised what he'd become - a pathetic, nervous, overstrung white wine drinker. And shot himself.
Posted by: Nephew at July 7, 2004 7:53 PMHave you written of you Martin Amis dislike? I'd be interested to hear more.
Posted by: Anne at July 7, 2004 8:21 PMI don't think I have. LIke I said - it's relatively irrational because I only read a part of London Fields but it turned me off so much I couldn't finish it.
It seemed too ... cruel. Maybe? Mean-spirited? I may have been misreading it.
Posted by: red at July 7, 2004 8:22 PM52. Only the Lonely or Songs for Swingin’ Lovers? What?
Roy Orbison or schmaltz
I'm surprised you didn't know that!
Posted by: Jim at July 7, 2004 11:32 PMSorry to burst your bubble, Jim, but that is not the right Only the Lonely. Both of these titles are Frank Sinatra albums--I would go with Only the Lonely.
Posted by: DBW at July 8, 2004 9:35 AMNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!
You can't choose Rodgers & anybody over the Gershwins! My entire image of you is ruined!
I mean, at least it's Rodgers & Hart and not Rodgers & (shudder) Hammerstein, but.....
I mean I could forgive you liking Fred Astaire better just because you're a chick and all but....
I don't know you, lady.
;-)
Posted by: Dean Esmay at July 8, 2004 10:03 AMSheesh. All of you people being disappointed in me! It's only because you've got some idea of me in your head - like how I should be or something, or how you think I SHOULD respond - and the reality don't jive with the idea! :)
Dean: I adore the Gershwins as well. Adore. It was a terrible choice to have to make. I should have refused to do so.
And Nephew: didn't realize it was a true or false quiz and that you could get stuff "right".
Posted by: red at July 8, 2004 1:12 PMWell, at least you picked The Music Man.
;-)
By the way, while you may not believe this--seriously, I NEVER would have believed it--the remake that Disney Studios did recently, starring of all people Matthew Broderick, is fucking phenomenally good.
No, dude, I'm not even kidding. Go rent it. It's shockingly good. If you had said, "Matthew Broderick is The Music Man" to me beforehand, I would have stabbed you to death with a rusty spoon. But I'm not even kidding, not only is it a wonderful production, but he's REALLY GOOD IN IT.
Seriously. Go rent. You won't be sorry.
I can't even believe I'm saying it, but I'm serious.
Posted by: Dean Esmay at July 8, 2004 1:27 PMStax = soul label. You know, the theme from "Shaft." Isaac Hayes. Booker T. & the MGs.
Posted by: Rowdy at July 8, 2004 4:07 PMOnly the Lonely was written by Roy Orbison & Joe Melson and recorded by Roy Orbison. Who would listen to Sinatra over Orbison anyway? Sinatra belongs on the other side of the equation with the scmaltz.
Posted by: Jim at July 8, 2004 7:08 PMRowdy: Ah yes. Now I know what it is. The name had escaped me.
Posted by: red at July 8, 2004 7:11 PMOh and Dean: I will go and rent it! I heard good things about it. I am incredibly partial to the original and to Robert Preston - who was perfect - but I can't think of a better choice to play the Professor of Music than Matthew Broderick.
"welllll we got trouble here, folks
I say trouble right here in River City
Now sure I'm a billiard player
Mighty proud, I'm mighty proud to say it..."
Jim--I am not trying to make a big deal out of this, but the culture quiz's reference to Only the Lonely vs. Songs for Swinging Lovers is asking for a choice between two Frank Sinatra albums. The Only the Lonely on Sinatra's album was written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Huesen. While I would argue that Sinatra is not schmaltz, I am in no way denigrating Roy Orbison or his great, great album Only the Lonely. I am merely pointing out that you are missing the focus of that particular choice.
Posted by: DBW at July 8, 2004 8:52 PMNorth by Northwest over Vertigo? Are you insane?!
Deep, thoughtful poem of gain, loss, gain, and loss once again.
Or.
Cotton Candy Coated Creation Consciously Coined for general Consumer Consumption.