top ten (ish) lists: round three.

it is not too late, people. deadline, schmeadline — got a list? send it to me.

excuses for not coming up with a top ten for Gail by travis elborough
1. I failed O level mathematics and have since developed a pathological fear of numbers and find that some days I am simply unable to face charts of any kind. There have been a lot of those kind of days lately. Possibly ten, even. But obviously I can’t be sure, as I was unable to count them.
2. I couldn’t think of ten things that I could wholeheartedly commit to. Three or four, sometimes. But ten. It suddenly got too much.
3. While thinking about top ten things I should write a list about, I was overcome with nostalgia for the 1990s, arguably the decade in which top ten lists really came into their own. By the time I’d got thoughts of Slacker, Generation X, So Tough, When I Was Born for the 7th Time out of my brain I was too exhausted to contemplate a top ten.
4. Phoebe, our cat, mistaking it for a mouse,a bird or something, tore up the piece of paper I had painstakingly composed my top ten list on. I lost heart after that.
5. I genuinely forgot. And having forgotten, didn’t remember until today. And, alas, inspiration didn’t exactly strike. Still hasn’t. Sorry.
6. I found I didn’t actually have ten excuses for not coming up with a top ten for Gail, so this one is in to make up the numbers.
7. God is seven, and it would be morally wrong to try and out do him/her by going in for a top ten.
8. All the other top tens were so good I just got overawed.
9. I just felt convinced that the base 10 number system had had its day.
10. I wanted to do sandwich fillings, bed-bound people in novels and Lloyd Cole songs but all of those had already been nabbed.

top ten roads in virginia by cynthia connolly
1. Route 11 (runs north / south)
2. State Route 40 (runs east / west)
3. Route 252 between Stauton and Lexington
4. Mount Tabor Road North of Blacksburg, Virginia
5. Route 231 south of Sperryville to Route 29
6. Crest Hill Road between Marshall and Flint Hill
7. Fodderstack Road between Flint Hill and Little Washington
8. Route 58 in the southern and western most part of Virginia
9. Route 42 between I – 77 and alt 16 going through Ceres
10. Route 311 west of Roanoke and then South on 635 terminating at 460

top ten reasons I am now in the eff-book herd by cf editor
yes, I know I have written on this very blog saying it was never gonna happen. I am ashamed. I am sheepish. I feel silly. happy?
1. I need a job.
2. peer pressure.
3. I was missing births, deaths and weddings.
4. every conversation I had on the old-fashioned land line (gasp!) was eff-book related.
5. to promote my new career as a TV chef.
6. to read gilmore’s london diary (see below).
7. so I could reconnect with all my cute bfs from 7th grade: will we have anything in common now?
8. nicole.
9. to be on the radar. sadly, this is the now way.
10. my real-life friend dawn sutter madell started a grassroots campaign to herd me in, flooding my private inbox, wrote this list:
top ten reasons why gail should be on facebook
1. It’s like all of your friends have blogs and can let you know what they are up to–what they are eating, taking photos of, all the mundane stuff like that.
2. It sounds so retarded and stupid, but it’s, sadly, a pretty amazing way to keep up with people.
3. All of your friends are on there. Facebook often reminds me of you when I’m on there
4. Gilmore’s London diary was some of the most amazing things I have read. Ever. EV-ER. I missed her writing!
5. You can see photos that other people post, like the ones I just saw of Dan Koretsky and Rian in high school. AMAZING. Dan looks like ducky in Pretty in Pink.
6. long chats with candice. candice. i haven’t talked to her in forever. so nice to chat with her. i’m sure you have spoken to her more recently, but still. it’s that kind of a thing. people that you have maybe fallen out of touch with, but that you REALLY like and miss.
7. oh i’m gonna stop now.
(dawn, if music supervision becomes obsolete, you can always become a lobbyist!)

top ten ways to avoid work, waste hours, be inspired. in no particular order by dawn “agoraphone” sutter madell
1. oh man. she has a great aesthetic.
2. so thorough and great. who needs martha?
3. great story teller. not to mention designer.
4. yummy veggie recipes. no, i don’t cook.
5. design-y. crafty. kids. i like it.
6. obvious.
7. sewing and knitting crafts. i sew, don’t knit.
8. again, i don’t cook. but i find this to be enthralling.
9. a potpourri of great things.
10. cosmetics database (for the paranoid in you)

Ten books you should read before you say you’ve read the most beautiful book ever by “louis philippe” auclair
1. Philip Larkin – The Whitsun Weddings
2. Antal Szerb – Journey by Moonlight
3. WG Sebald – Austerlitz
4. Alexandre Dumas père – Le Vicomte de Bragelonne
5. Kingsley Amis – The Old Devils
6. Guy de Maupassant – La Maison Tellier
7. Haruki Murakami – Sputnik Sweetheart
8. Albert Cohen – Belle du Seigneur
9. Mikhail Bulgakov – The Master and Margarita
10. Boris Pasternak – Dr Zhivago

Fifteen films you should see, etc. by philippe auclair
1. Ingmar Bergman – The Silence
2. Jean Renoir – Une Partie de campagne
3. Preston Sturges – Sullivan’s Travels
4. Terence Davies – Of Time and the City
5. Howard Hawks – Only Angels Have Wings
6. Carl Dreyer – Ordet
7. Michael Powell & Eric Pressburger – I Know Where I’m Going
8. Michael Powell & Eric Pressburger – The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
9. Orson Welles – Touch of Evil
10. Chris Marker – La Jetée
11. Billy Wilder – The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
12. Albert Lewin – Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
13. Jean Vigo – L’Atalante
14. Lars von Trier – Idioterne
15. Andreï Tarkovsky – The Sacrifice

Ten mushrooms I look for in autumn by philippe auclair
1. Shaggy Parasol
2. Chanterelle
3. Beefsteak mushroom
4. Charcoal Burner
5. The Deceiver (laccaria amethysta)
6. Oyster Mushroom
7. Penny Bun (boletus edulis)
8. Lawyer’s wig
9. Horn of plenty
10 Woodland agaric

10 Lloyd Cole songs people don’t appreciate enough. each described in 10 words by joe pines / foxgloves
1 Don’t Look Back: Morning breaks, open roads, wide-eyed stoic, Grand Canyon guitar
2 What He Doesn’t Know: Crickets chirp, delicacy, nocturnal tendresse and regret, a lost standard
3 Rain On The Parade: Weeping guitar, smouldering stories: mixing again formality and rainy seediness
4 The ‘L’ Word: Alternate take sounds live, casually cool, Quine burns it down
5 A Long Way Down: Old New York, space, daylight, cruising drums, Lloyd on lead
6 Man On The Verge: Astor Place, D arpeggios, Quine blows the place apart again
7 Minor Character: Touchingly melodic drama: 1985 strings, histrionics, strain, 12-string, motion, closure
8 Alright People: Fresh picking, skyful of sound, guess what? Quine on fire
9 Shelf Life: Lengthy closer, hypnosis repetition riffs, piano echo, life’s time passes
10 Wild Orphan: Controlled verses, leaping choruses: Jodie Foster, twanging air, true joy