IN THE BAG: Terry Teachout has a variant on desert-island lists, in which you can only take one of each kind of artwork, and you have to shove it in the bag right this second because the jackbooted thugs of the Desert Island Squad are about to batter down your door and haul you away. So this is your knee-jerk “want that!” response rather than a considered one. One of his lists (because of the insta-reaction aspect, these lists change with one’s mood) is here. Mine for today:

FILM: “The Lion in Winter.”

PLAY: At first I said “Waiting for Godot.” I prefer “Endgame,” but think I would get a lot more out of W4G on a desert island. But then I remembered, hello, Shakespeare wrote plays! So it would have to be “Henry IV part 2.” At least, it would be today.

BALLET: Um? If I could find it, maybe I’d grab that news photo I have showing an avant-garde production of “Swan Lake” with many burly guys in feathery pants. Eerie picture. Or maybe I’d swipe Edward Gorey’s “Gilded Bat.” That’s about as ballet-related as my life ever gets.

PAINTING: This one took forever. I’m desperately uncultured w/r/t paintings. Magritte’s “Nocturne” (the one with the burning house and the red bird). This was the first Magritte painting that ever really caught my heart.

BOOK: Paradise Lost.

If we replace ballet with photography, and split “book” into poem and novel, we get:

PHOTO: At first I said Lee Miller’s “Revenge on Culture.” Ordinarily not one of my favorites of hers, but I’m in the mood for it today. But then, when I went hunting for it online, I found “Nonconformist Chapel,” so although I can’t take back my “in the bag” choice, I can at least tell you that I now regret it!

POEM: Milton as above.

NOVEL: Stephen Fry, The Liar. Girl’s gotta laugh.


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