SUNDAY NIGHT LIST FEVER
It's not easy being a guy. There are certain gender-defining obligations, certain imperatives to which we must respond, that speak to our deepest sense of masculine identity. Until these regular rites of passage are negotiated we simply cannot be at ease with ourselves as men & we must needs live a half-life, flitting wraith-like between boyhood & the full adult manifestation.
One of the most potent & demanding of these rituals is the making of lists. I have just entered a new cycle of listmaking &, as part of the process of essential expiation, I present below the early products of this latest phase.
I have decided upon a set of five groups ñ MUSIC, POETS, NOVELS, PLAYS & FILMS. Apart from within the first group in which I have played my joker early & included one extra category, there are five examples of Favourites. As in all male lists I reserve the right to alter my choice totally within minutes of apparently unequivocal inclusion. It is possible, therefore, that until the current list season passes my weblog will be given over entirely to minutely adjusted versions of the lists displayed belowI hope that my small but discerning group of readers will be patient & supportive during this stressful time.
I shouldnít need to point out that it is traditional for other men to respond to the challenge of a neatly-turned list & I trust that others who are in season at present will prepare & display their own idiosyncratic tabulations of preferences in whatever is their chosen field. These may be displayed in my Comments box or on the respondentís own weblog.
MUSIC
JAZZ: As Catch Can / Gerry Mulligan + piano-less quartet ñ The energy of bop & the intelligence of cool. Art Farmerís open-throated trumpet & Mulliganís hoarse, breathy baritone over the dream rhythm section of Bill Crow on bass & Dave Bailey on drumsÖ
ROCK: Gimme Shelter / The Rolling Stones ñ Rock & Roll coming of age via the adult swagger & menace of their greatest trackÖ
BLUES: Working Man Blues / Sleepy John Estes ñ Just about the first country blues I ever heard. Exotic, alarming, alien but utterly seductive: I had to know what was going on behind the green doorÖ
FOLK: Famous Flower of Serving Men / Martin Carthy ñ Something from another age, entirely English but wrapped up inside a guitar tuning that brought in breezes from beyond our island shoresÖ
CLASSICAL: Goldberg Variations / Glenn Gould ñ Ice-cool melodies of geometric complexity but played with a passion so intense that you can hear Gouldís harsh breathing down by the keyboardÖ
PLUS: Music for Airports / Brian Eno ñ Music from the Land of Nod. Indispensable for its absolute serenityÖ
POETS
W.B. YEATS: Beyond all limitations of style & content. The first modernistÖ
JOHN BURNSIDE: Dark, minimalist miniatures, deceptively quiet & stillÖ
AMY CLAMPITT: Wild, unstoppable monologues from a poet not published until into her 60sÖ
PETER REDGROVE: A visionary with Blakeís capacity for squaring up the hallucinatory with the commonplaceÖ
PHILIP LARKIN: The sour, misanthropic, fitfully racist Larkin whose complicated, disappointed life produced poems of startling beauty & truthÖ
NOVELS
THE SEA, THE SEA / Iris Murdoch ñ ìSuch richness of imagination & such grandness of intellectÖî. A novelist at the peak of her mighty powersÖ
1984 / George Orwell ñ Arguably the most important English novel of the 20th century. Visionary & overwhelmingly, but presciently, bleakÖ
ON THE ROAD / Jack Kerouac - The most exciting adventure I have ever read (& re-read). Given a certain wry detachment in age, still for me a vibrant & life-enhancing novelÖ
UNDERWORLD / Don De Lillo ñ Sprawling, panoramic yet compassionate & human scale too from a John dos Passos of the late 20th century
LUCKY JIM / Kingsley Amis ñ The funniest book I have ever read (& re-read). Scathing, savage, satirical but with a romantic heartÖ
PLAYS
WAITING FOR GODOT / Samuel Beckett ñ For all Beckettís demurring & denial, the ultimate statement of the existential dilemma. Not at all the grim, pessimistic tract its critics describe but full of humour & poetryÖ
KING LEAR / William Shakespeare ñ The greatest play in the English languageÖ
LARK RISE / Keith Dewhurst ñ A revolutionary approach to presenting historical material. A powerful synthesis of hyper-naturalism & epic stagingÖ
THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE / Bertold Brecht ñ Full of pace, action, comedy, romance, spectacle & real political clout. Gives the total lie to the image of BB as a dry didacticÖ
THE CARETAKER / Harold Pinter ñ Razor-sharp dialogue from the real world set within an atmosphere of dream-like menaceÖ
FILMS
IF / directed by Lindsay Anderson ñ A frightening, hilarious & devastatingly powerful assault on the prevalence of the English class system & an audaciously imaginative film. A landmark movieÖ
THE GRAPES OF WRATH / directed by John Ford ñ One of a handful of brilliantly successful cinematic interpretations of works of great literature. A film of enormous passion & conviction, perfectly castÖ
BRIEF ENCOUNTER ñ directed by David Lean ñ For some an object of affectionate derision in its portrayal of agonisingly zipped-up, tight-lipped English adultery. For the rest of us an achingly romantic & yet dignified & truthful depiction of an accidental love affairÖ
THE WILD BUNCH / directed by Sam Peckinpah ñ Described as ë the last westerní, an elegy with a hard core about ageing, the arbitrariness of violence, the passing of an era. A director in his prime + veteran actors giving of their bestÖ
SCHINDLERíS LIST / directed by Steven Spielberg ñ Spielbergís grown up movie ñ intelligent, controlled, beautifully constructed & impeccably acted. No concessions to melodrama or calculated shock. A deeply serious filmÖ
12:47:38 AM 
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