A List

Pamela tells me lists sell. On blogs, there’s pretty much nothing more popular than posts that list things she tells me, and she should know, now that she’s gone pro.

Things, things to do, things to avoid, as long as they’re in list form.

So, in a crass attempt at driving up traffic in these parts, I thought I’d make a list.

I’m going to start easy though, by doing a miscellaneous sort of list, and hopefully, I’ll work up to top five or top ten lists at some point in the futre.

So here goes: My cool list of cool stuff that I’ve recently read or heard or seen (that I can remember).

• A really cool concert video of one of my favorite bands of the moment, Elbow, on fabchannel.com. Listen to at least a couple of songs before you make up your mind.
• Cassandra’s Dream, by Woody Allen (with a great score by Philip Glass). In the same dark vein as Crimes and Misdemeanors.
• The Hudsucker Proxy, by the Coen brothers (with a sublime score by Carter Burwell). A Tex Averyesque tour de force.

Damn! That’s all I can think of right now… Oh wait, what about books?

Hmm, I’ve been on a Ruth Rendell kick lately. The last two I read were The Water’s Lovely and A Sight for Sore Eyes. Oh wait, I mean:

• The Water’s Lovely, by Ruth Rendell. I love the way she weaves the somewhat disconnected storylines and how they ingeniously come together.
• A Sight for Sore Eyes, by Ruth Rendell. A particularly creepy, but mesmerizing, opus.
• My Secret History, by Paul Theroux. Boston, Africa, Siberia, England. The life of a travel writer, by a master travel writer…
• Un Lieu Incertain, by Fred Vargas. What can I say. I buy her books with my eyes closed (but read them with my eyes and mind wide open). I just connect with her brain on so many levels…

Currently, I’m reading De… No, scratch that. I’ll save it for my next list.