5 works of Art:
Movie: Endless Summer
Book: Grab the shelf of Torgny Lindgren (more later)
Architecture?: Trajan's Column (okay, so it will have to be a big bag--no bigger than the bag that would hold "The Gates of Hell."
Music: Vivaldi: Concerti for Mandolin(s)
Music: Vivaldi: Gloria
That's it for now.
In the bag got me to thinking about utterly inconsequential things, but it occurred to me that there's a giant tapestry by Joan Miro that hangs in the East Building of the National Gallery and there's the utterly magnificent Carnival of the Harlequin, also by Miro. Even in memory the painting looms and changes with its vaguely biomorphic forms in a tanguy-like space--a celebration in flat-world.
First five things that spring to mind:
Book: The Holy Bible, The Pentameron
Sculpture: The Gates of Hell--Rodin
Music: Genesis-Foxtrot, Durufle-Requiem
Okay, I think that does it properly. I wouldn't evenly distribute stuff in categories. And these were the things that sprang to mind immediately. I don't think I'd be happy long with my selection. And a surfboard--short board AND long board, and maybe a boogie board. Do these count as works of art or craft? If so they'd replace some of the above.
Teachout proposes an interesting little test--here are my five:
PAINTING: Rene Magritte--Castle of the Pyrenees
MUSIC: Maurice Durufle-Requiem
NOVEL: Charles Dickens--Bleak House
FILM: Billy Wilder--Some Like it Hot
POP SONG: The Ventures--Wipeout
These were really, really, really tough, and I'm not sure. I have a feeling they might fluctuate by day--maybe by hour.
Now my usual question--why are you watching movies on a Desert Islant? And is the desert Island Tavarua? And where is the surfboard? Sometimes these tests really are tests of logic. Now if someone said you were going to be stuck in an arctic hovel . . .
Erik has written (et seq.) some wonderful posts about the nature and meaning of semiotics. Most interesting in this regard is the suggestion of a semiotic study of music which appeals to me as the motifs in music do tend to be very traceable up to a point. Erik founds the grand tradition of Western Music on Gregorian Chant, to which I make no objection. But I do raise the question of the influences on Chant itself, and the relative lack of a clear means of finding these. But that is irrelevant to his basic point--merely one of those things that I often ponder. Go and read--be informed if you were not already aware, or entertained if you have already grasped semiotic theory.
