–By J.S. Porter
(for Cheryl, who insisted on my seeing the Hemingway museum outside of Havana and the studio of Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence and the mountain he so rapturously painted)
So… you’re a celebrity. What do you want in your dressing room?
A woman of simple taste: Sophia Loren wants white roses in her room.
Britney Spears wants Herve Leger dresses, Snickers bars, Diet Coke, magnolia blossoms, chicken, and potato salad. She also wants a manicurist, a facialist and a massage therapist
That’s a list.
“The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature.” So says the late Umberto Eco, that contemporary Renaissance man from Rome, in The Infinity of Lists: An Illustrated Essay.
Why do we make lists? “To make infinity comprehensible… to create order,” Eco posits.
My all-time favourite list is on page 261 of Carlos Baker’s biography of Hemingway, simply titled Hemingway: A Life Story. Hemingway jots down what he most loves in his physical and sensuous life. The list was put together after his African safari with his wife, Pauline, during the time he was composing his account of the safari, Green Hills of Africa.
"To watch the snow, rain, grass, tents, wind, changes of season…to talk, to come back and see your children, one woman, another woman, various women, but only one woman really, some friends, speed, animals, cowardice, courage, pride, co-ordination, the migration of fishes, many rivers, fishing, forests, fields, all birds that fly, dogs, roads, all good writing, all good painting, the principles of revolution, the practice of revolution, the Christian theory of anarchy the seasonal variation of the Gulf Stream, its monthly variation, the trade winds, counter currents, the Spanish bull ring, cafés, wines…”
Written in 1934, before his long stay in Cuba from 1940 to 1960, Hemingway goes on to list place names in the United States and Spain, including Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid.
"To stay in places and to leave, to trust, to distrust, to no longer believe and believe again, to care about fishes, the different winds, the changes of seasons, to see what happens, to be out in boats, to sit in a saddle, to watch the snow come, to watch it go, to hear rain on a tent, to know where I can find what I want."
Baker remarks that what Hemingway wanted was “a total immersion in the sensuous experience of living.” I love Hemingway’s attention to winds, rain, currents and animals. I’m puzzled by what he means by “the Christian theory of anarchy.”
There are many kinds of lists, including practical ones – shopping lists, checklists, employment lists, to-do lists, wills, menus, favourite songs, favourite movies, favourite books. Spouses especially like to-do lists. “
We like lists,” Eco says, “because we don’t want to die.”
We also want to pass something on to a loved one.
The day Rosanne Cash graduated from high school in Ventura, California, she went on a road trip with her dad. They rode together on a tour bus in the summer of 1973 and started to talk about songs. “My dad mentioned a song, and I said, ‘I don’t know that one’. He mentioned another and then another. I didn’t know any of them. He became alarmed that I was so steeped in the rock and pop music of my time that I did not understand the vital importance of the songs that were my musical genealogy, the songs that had informed him, and would eventually inform me.”
Rosanne recalls her dad making a list of songs for her. “I can still see him, pensive, with his pencil raised above his legal pad, considering which songs would make the List. It was a list to educate me, to tell me about my Southern roots and my American history, about my legacy. He called the List ‘100 Essential Country Songs,’ but he could have called it ‘100 Essential American Songs,’ because he included history songs, protest songs, early folk songs, Delta Blues, gospel, Texas swing, and standards that simply defy genre.” She says that she has held onto the list for 35 years. The list includes the familiar “Sea of Heartbreak,” “I’m Movin’ On,” “500 Miles,” and “Long Black Veil.”
I find myself making lists to keep record of what I’ve seen and heard.
- The last concert of the Penguin Café Orchestra at Harbourfront in Toronto
- Van Morrison and Bob Dylan in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast after the Good Friday Agreement
- Joan Baez at Hillside in Lewiston, New York
- Leonard Cohen twice at the Sony Centre in Toronto
- Bruce Springsteen in Toronto
- Dave Panting with my friend Dale in St. John’s at The Ship, performing a medley of Irish and Newfoundland songs and instrumental pieces
- And, my favourite, Jane Siberry at the Staircase Café Theatre on Dundurn in Hamilton, an audience of about a hundred
If I didn’t make lists, how would I remember anything?
