I try to write one myself, adopting the lines that good Woody set. Let’s see: I agree with Groucho Marx, but I would include Curly Howard, because of the immense nostalgia that those childhood mornings provoke in me when we watched, on the heavy TV of the time, “The Three Stooges Show.” Instead of Jimmy Connors (huge attacking player whom I always preferred over Guillermo Vilas or Björn Borg), I would include Roger Federer. If we talk about Mozart, I would stick with the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 9, “Jeunehomme”, but I would not deprive myself of mentioning the last three piano sonatas by Beethoven. There would be nothing related to jazz in my list, but I would have to tango (“A Homero”, by Troilo and Cátulo Castillo, sung by Goyeneche) and rock (“Absolute Beginners”, by Bowie, or “Not Dark Yet”, by Dylan ). Flaubert bores me immensely and I would opt for Faulkner’s “The Wild Palms”, with that final phrase: “Between pain and nothingness, I choose pain”. I do not like Brando and in his place I would place Bogart. Bergman would be replaced by Truffaut, Visconti or Fellini. “Sam Wo’s seafood” could be substituted for a fugazza with cheese and a moscato at Santa Maria, and “Tracy’s face” for my wife and daughters.
With an old girlfriend we had fun building lists. It was normal that in the tedium of a long bus trip we began to elaborate one with “songs with a woman’s name” (“Michelle”, “María”, “Malena”, “Bess, You Is My Woman Now”, “Penelope “,” Lucia “,” Mathilde “,” Mrs. Robinson “,” Angie “and so on to infinity), for example. I remember that we once put together one with “rock groups that produced a single great success and then fell into oblivion.” An example is The Knack and their classic “My Sharona”, which rose to number one in the rankings before the band went into eternal limbo.
Life, deep down, consists only of enumerations until one day the number stops growing. And then the list ends. But the question that most worries, however, is another: in which lists will we be included? Who will write our name – if anyone does – on his? Or will we just be part of those sad payrolls that are built without anyone noticing, and in which our preferences in the role of consumers are recorded? Let’s hope not.
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