The Pretentious Survey
Time for me to do it as well.
1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly? Gotta go with Astaire.
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises? Gatsby. Sun never seemed to go anywhere.
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington? Tough one. By a hairline margin, I’d say the Count.
4. Cats or dogs? Depends on my mood. Generally dogs.
5. Matisse or Picasso? Picasso
6. Yeats or Eliot? Eliot, OF COURSE. The Wasteland, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock? I love the way he played with words.
7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin? Chaplin
8. Flannery O’Connor or John Updike? Updike
9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca? Casablanca
10. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning? Tough, but I’ll go with Pollock
11. The Who or the Stones? The Who
12. Philip Larkin or Sylvia Plath? Sylvia, no question in my mind
13. Trollope or Dickens? Dickens
14. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald? Fitzgerald
15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov' takes the cake. Though I couldn’t get past the first chapter of ‘Crime and Punishment’…
16. The Moviegoer or The End of the Affair? …
17. George Balanchine or Martha Graham? --Martha Graham
18. Hot dogs or hamburgers? If they’re made right, hamburgers. Though Nathan’s hotdogs provide really good competition.
19. Letterman or Leno? CONAN
20. Wilco or Cat Power? …
21. Verdi or Wagner? Tough one. I’m going to go with Verdi though. Much as Wagner did advance his art, Verdi’s unparalleled at balancing orchestra and voice to make a melody soar on its own.
22. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe? I have to say Marilyn.
23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash? Johnny Cash
24. Kingsley or Martin Amis? Kingsley, no question.
25. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando? Brando
26. Mark Morris or Twyla Tharp? …
27. Vermeer or Rembrandt? Much as Rembrandt is good, I find Vermeer’s use of light exceptional.
28. Tchaikovsky or Chopin? Tchaikovsky. Purely for the fact that most Chopin sounds the same, versus Tchaikovsky who wrote some varied and complex stuff. And I mean really, how many others could write music to a ballet that’s good enough to be performed by itself?
29. Red wine or white? Depends on mood and what I’m having it with. Alone, generally white. Though sangria with a good red… yeaaaah.
30. Noël Coward or Oscar Wilde? Oscar Wilde of course
31. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity? High Fidelity
32. Shostakovich or Prokofiev? Prokofiev.
33. Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev? …
34. Constable or Turner? Turner
35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo? Rio Bravo
36. Comedy or tragedy? Tragedy. Why do we all empathize so much with pain? But yeah, there’s just something about watching it all go to hell that I find much more interesting compared to light, generally flat stuff.
37. Fall or spring? I’m usually ready for each one by the time it comes around.
38. Manet or Monet? Tough, but Monet.
39. The Sopranos or The Simpsons? The Simpsons
40. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin? Gershwin and Gershwin.
41. Joseph Conrad or Henry James? Hmmm… Conrad I guess.
42. Sunset or sunrise? Can’t decide. Depends on my mood.
43. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter? Cole Porter, no question for me there.
44. Mac or PC? Both good for different things.
45. New York or Los Angeles? New York
46. Partisan Review or Horizon? …
47. Stax or Motown? Ehhh, neither.
48. Van Gogh or Gauguin? I agree with Catherine, these two aren’t really comparable. I like Vincent better though.
49. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello? Elvis Costello
50. Reading a blog or reading a magazine? Probably a blog.
51. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier? Gieldgud, no question!
52. Only the Lonely or Songs for Swingin’ Lovers? …
53. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde? Chinatown I think
54. Ghost World or Election? …
55. Minimalism or conceptual art? Conceptual, minimalism was ok for its time and now just seems absurd.
56. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny? Bugs, duh
57. Modernism or postmodernism? I don’t find either particularly exciting.
58. Batman or Spider-Man? Spider-Man
59. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams? …
60. Johnson or Boswell? Hmm, I dunno.
61. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf? Can’t say I’ve read much of either. Austen I guess.
62. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show? Much as I like Dick Van Dyke, the Honeymooners.
63. An Eames chair or a Noguchi table? I’m gonna go with the table.
64. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity? …
65. The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni? In direct contradiction to my earlier statement on tragedy versus comedy, the Marriage of Figaro.
66. Blue or green? Blue
67. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It? As You Like It
68. Ballet or opera? Opera
69. Film or live theater? Generally live theater, but there are things amazing things you can do with film if it’s done properly.
70. Acoustic or electric? Acoustic
71. North by Northwest or Vertigo? North by Northwest
72. Sargent or Whistler? Sargent, DUH!
73. V.S. Naipaul or Milan Kundera? Kundera, again no question.
74. The Music Man or Oklahoma? The Music Man
75. Sushi, yes or no? Yeah, why not
76. The New Yorker under Ross or Shawn? …
77. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee? Williams
78. The Portrait of a Lady or The Wings of the Dove? The Portrait of a Lady
79. Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham? Hmm
80. Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe? Wright
81. Diana Krall or Norah Jones? Tough, but Norah.
82. Watercolor or pastel? Watercolor
83. Bus or subway? Subway
84. Stravinsky or Schoenberg? Stravinsky
85. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter? Smooth
86. Willa Cather or Theodore Dreiser? …
87. Schubert or Mozart? Mozart was complicated, Schubert was unparalleled at creating melodies. I mean really, The Unfinished Symphony, Ave Maria? Not to mention all the lieder. Schubert.
88. The Fifties or the Twenties? Tough call. Twenties because I could possibly get away with wearing a top hat ;-) Though not with mercury…
89. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick? Moby Dick
90. Thomas Mann or James Joyce? Mann
91. Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins? …
92. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman? Whitman
93. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill? They were in different eras so hard to compare, but I’m going with Lincoln.
94. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann? … Liz Phair?
95. Italian or French cooking? Depends on the meal. Generally I prefer Italian.
96. Bach on piano or harpsichord? Harpsichord. (Trust me, I’ve played it both ways and it’s better on the harpie)
97. Anchovies, yes or no? Nope
98. Short novels or long ones? Depends on how good the author is.
99. Swing or bebop? Swing
100. "The Last Judgment" or "The Last Supper"? The Last Supper.
Ok and sorry for all the emo entries recently. Life's been a little... weird... lately to say the least. Just a lot of things happening that I'm left not knowing what's going on. So I'll try not to talk about that too much and move on to philosophical matters instead.
1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly? Gotta go with Astaire.
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises? Gatsby. Sun never seemed to go anywhere.
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington? Tough one. By a hairline margin, I’d say the Count.
4. Cats or dogs? Depends on my mood. Generally dogs.
5. Matisse or Picasso? Picasso
6. Yeats or Eliot? Eliot, OF COURSE. The Wasteland, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock? I love the way he played with words.
7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin? Chaplin
8. Flannery O’Connor or John Updike? Updike
9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca? Casablanca
10. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning? Tough, but I’ll go with Pollock
11. The Who or the Stones? The Who
12. Philip Larkin or Sylvia Plath? Sylvia, no question in my mind
13. Trollope or Dickens? Dickens
14. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald? Fitzgerald
15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov' takes the cake. Though I couldn’t get past the first chapter of ‘Crime and Punishment’…
16. The Moviegoer or The End of the Affair? …
17. George Balanchine or Martha Graham? --Martha Graham
18. Hot dogs or hamburgers? If they’re made right, hamburgers. Though Nathan’s hotdogs provide really good competition.
19. Letterman or Leno? CONAN
20. Wilco or Cat Power? …
21. Verdi or Wagner? Tough one. I’m going to go with Verdi though. Much as Wagner did advance his art, Verdi’s unparalleled at balancing orchestra and voice to make a melody soar on its own.
22. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe? I have to say Marilyn.
23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash? Johnny Cash
24. Kingsley or Martin Amis? Kingsley, no question.
25. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando? Brando
26. Mark Morris or Twyla Tharp? …
27. Vermeer or Rembrandt? Much as Rembrandt is good, I find Vermeer’s use of light exceptional.
28. Tchaikovsky or Chopin? Tchaikovsky. Purely for the fact that most Chopin sounds the same, versus Tchaikovsky who wrote some varied and complex stuff. And I mean really, how many others could write music to a ballet that’s good enough to be performed by itself?
29. Red wine or white? Depends on mood and what I’m having it with. Alone, generally white. Though sangria with a good red… yeaaaah.
30. Noël Coward or Oscar Wilde? Oscar Wilde of course
31. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity? High Fidelity
32. Shostakovich or Prokofiev? Prokofiev.
33. Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev? …
34. Constable or Turner? Turner
35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo? Rio Bravo
36. Comedy or tragedy? Tragedy. Why do we all empathize so much with pain? But yeah, there’s just something about watching it all go to hell that I find much more interesting compared to light, generally flat stuff.
37. Fall or spring? I’m usually ready for each one by the time it comes around.
38. Manet or Monet? Tough, but Monet.
39. The Sopranos or The Simpsons? The Simpsons
40. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin? Gershwin and Gershwin.
41. Joseph Conrad or Henry James? Hmmm… Conrad I guess.
42. Sunset or sunrise? Can’t decide. Depends on my mood.
43. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter? Cole Porter, no question for me there.
44. Mac or PC? Both good for different things.
45. New York or Los Angeles? New York
46. Partisan Review or Horizon? …
47. Stax or Motown? Ehhh, neither.
48. Van Gogh or Gauguin? I agree with Catherine, these two aren’t really comparable. I like Vincent better though.
49. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello? Elvis Costello
50. Reading a blog or reading a magazine? Probably a blog.
51. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier? Gieldgud, no question!
52. Only the Lonely or Songs for Swingin’ Lovers? …
53. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde? Chinatown I think
54. Ghost World or Election? …
55. Minimalism or conceptual art? Conceptual, minimalism was ok for its time and now just seems absurd.
56. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny? Bugs, duh
57. Modernism or postmodernism? I don’t find either particularly exciting.
58. Batman or Spider-Man? Spider-Man
59. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams? …
60. Johnson or Boswell? Hmm, I dunno.
61. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf? Can’t say I’ve read much of either. Austen I guess.
62. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show? Much as I like Dick Van Dyke, the Honeymooners.
63. An Eames chair or a Noguchi table? I’m gonna go with the table.
64. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity? …
65. The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni? In direct contradiction to my earlier statement on tragedy versus comedy, the Marriage of Figaro.
66. Blue or green? Blue
67. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It? As You Like It
68. Ballet or opera? Opera
69. Film or live theater? Generally live theater, but there are things amazing things you can do with film if it’s done properly.
70. Acoustic or electric? Acoustic
71. North by Northwest or Vertigo? North by Northwest
72. Sargent or Whistler? Sargent, DUH!
73. V.S. Naipaul or Milan Kundera? Kundera, again no question.
74. The Music Man or Oklahoma? The Music Man
75. Sushi, yes or no? Yeah, why not
76. The New Yorker under Ross or Shawn? …
77. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee? Williams
78. The Portrait of a Lady or The Wings of the Dove? The Portrait of a Lady
79. Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham? Hmm
80. Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe? Wright
81. Diana Krall or Norah Jones? Tough, but Norah.
82. Watercolor or pastel? Watercolor
83. Bus or subway? Subway
84. Stravinsky or Schoenberg? Stravinsky
85. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter? Smooth
86. Willa Cather or Theodore Dreiser? …
87. Schubert or Mozart? Mozart was complicated, Schubert was unparalleled at creating melodies. I mean really, The Unfinished Symphony, Ave Maria? Not to mention all the lieder. Schubert.
88. The Fifties or the Twenties? Tough call. Twenties because I could possibly get away with wearing a top hat ;-) Though not with mercury…
89. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick? Moby Dick
90. Thomas Mann or James Joyce? Mann
91. Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins? …
92. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman? Whitman
93. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill? They were in different eras so hard to compare, but I’m going with Lincoln.
94. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann? … Liz Phair?
95. Italian or French cooking? Depends on the meal. Generally I prefer Italian.
96. Bach on piano or harpsichord? Harpsichord. (Trust me, I’ve played it both ways and it’s better on the harpie)
97. Anchovies, yes or no? Nope
98. Short novels or long ones? Depends on how good the author is.
99. Swing or bebop? Swing
100. "The Last Judgment" or "The Last Supper"? The Last Supper.
Ok and sorry for all the emo entries recently. Life's been a little... weird... lately to say the least. Just a lot of things happening that I'm left not knowing what's going on. So I'll try not to talk about that too much and move on to philosophical matters instead.