If it's not already obvious, I love lists. I love making lists, actually; I don't particularly enjoy doing anything about them, like shopping or home repairs, but there's something deeply satisfying about imposing a sequence, however brief, on the chaos of human life.

Needless to say, I found Nick Hornby's High Fidelity a completely engaging read, not least because the main character and his record-store cohorts are obsessive rock-and-roll list-makers, and I liked the film, too. When Rob is challenged to come up with his top five Side One-Track One songs, he's being asked to do something I cheerfully do all the time. And when Barry dissects his list, explaining Rob's pretexts for including each item on it, I howled with laughter--and with self-recognition as well, because those were exactly the sort of rationalizations I give myself when I compose a list.

So from time to time, I'll simply throw out a list or two or three. Perhaps these will provide more evidence of my growing obsessive-compulsive disorder, or maybe they'll just start some arguments. If you have comments or disagreements, please feel free to e-mail me. I like arguments.

Top Five Side One-Track One Songs
1) XTC/ “Respectable Street” from Black Sea
2) Nirvana/ “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from Nevermind
3) Talking Heads/ “Blind” from Naked
4) Pete Townshend/ “Rough Boys” from Empty Glass
5) Big Star/ “Feel” from #1 Record
(Note: The Who’s “The Real Me” would be on here, but technically it’s the second song on Quadrophenia, following the swirling but mostly nonmusical “I Am the Sea.”)

Top Five Tracks Named After Girls
1) Rank & File’s “Amanda Ruth”
2) BR5-49’s “Little Ramona”
3) The Ramones’ “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker”
4) Matthew Sweet’s “Evangeline”
5) Spike Jones’s “Laura”

Top Five TWO-Hit Wonders
1) Sugarloaf—“Green-Eyed Lady” and “Don’t Call Us (We’ll Call You)
2) Looking Glass—“Brandy” and “Jimmy Loves Mary Ann”
3) The Zombies—“Time of the Season” and “She’s Not There”
4) Faith No More—“Epic” and “We Care a Lot”
5) the cranberries—“Linger” and “Zombie”

Top Five Songs Sung by Drummers
1) The Romantics/ “What I Like About You”
2) The Who/ “Bell Boy”
3) The Carpenters/ “Goodbye to Love”
4) Phil Collins/ “In the Air Tonight”
5) The Pixies/ “La-La Love You”

9:09 AM

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Easter is always a somewhat strange holiday for me, even when it's not rainy and grey and accompanied by the drudgery of dorm duty. My religious upbringing is such a bizarre mixture of experiences that I never expect to feel completely involved in any expression of faith, but I feel at least somewhat engaged by Christmas, or Passover, or Halloween. Not Easter, though. Of course, in America, Easter is the most culturally bizarre of celebrations, one which has its origins in mankind's primal belief in blood sacrifice and rebirth, but which is now rendered in nursery-school pastels and cute little ducky-and-bunny icons; it's the Passion Play re-enacted by the Teletubbies.

Today it's even weirder, given that I'm a bit irked by Indiana coach Mike Davis's comments last night. Actually, it's not just Davis, but a whole knot of athletes who seem to worship a peculiarly binary God of the Gym, a Supreme Being who expresses His love for His children in the sporting world by handing out victories, but only to the ones who've been good. These worshippers don't seem to realize that victories don't exist in a vacuum--they must be taken away from the losers.

In short, what we have is a bunch of people who thank God for yanking victory out of their opponents' hands.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable in considering this set-up to be both theologically suspect and at base unfair. I've always been told that God likes everybody equally, but in a contest, somebody's got to come out on top, even if the competitors are among God's very favorite people. Surely St. Peter and St. Andrew would have played friendly games when they were kids; they were brothers, after all. But if Peter were to school Andrew in a game of one-on-one in the driveway, would that suggest that God found Andrew less worthy, or just that Peter had made better use of his God-given talents and opportunities?

Everybody likes Santa Claus, but I have to wonder if he'd be such a popular guy if he worked on these principles. "Dear Santa: please bring me the N-64 System that you were going to give my brother. I like you better than he does."

Of course, the Easter Bunny brings eggs and candy to everyone, regardless of their piety or moral character. And if you ask me, he looks unsettlingly like Tinky-Winky.
11:12 AM

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