Old people. Poetry. Trees. Bungalows. Performance art. Schizophrenia. Wingback chairs. Eyebrows. Havarti. World War II veterans. Souvenir socks. Quakerism. Kitchen floors. Pettifores. Starfruit. Gift wrapping. Eating dinner on the davenport. Stationery. The Satellite Diner. A formidable collection of anything (Troll dolls excluded. I hear if you buy too many they all get wise and kill you).
Also:
Beirut, The Black Heart Procession, Eisley, Pilotdrift, A Silver Mt. Zion, Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Ros, Do Make Say Think, Bjork, Mogwai, Radiohead, Mum, The Mars Volta, The Decemberists, Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Arcade Fire, The Magnetic Fields, Grandaddy, Tapes n' Tapes, The Scissor Sisters, the 88, Simon and Garfunkle, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Otis Redding, ABBA, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Zombies, The Turtles, a smattering of other "the" bands, but not The Band. The Globes and Lamps and Shit are for life.
Also:
Jules et Jim, Coffee and Cigarettes, Pi, Ed Wood, Requiem for a Dream, Fast Cheap and Out of Control, Through the Eyes of Tammy Faye, How to Draw a Bunny, The Cuckoo, The Sea Inside, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Waking Life, Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Wizard of Oz, Roman Holiday, The Sound of Music, Broken Wings, Young Frankenstein, Bad Education, Talk to Her, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The 400 Blows, Gates of Heaven, Memento, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Seven Samurai, The Secret of Nimh, The Brave Little Toaster, The Neverending Story, The Royal Tennenbaums, Annie Hall, Amadeus, Amelie, Au Revior Les Enfants, Wings of Desire, The Triplets of Belleville, The Life Aquatic, La Vie En Rose, Once, George Washington
The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, The Office (UK), Reno! 911, Project Runway, The Kids in the Hall, Strangers with Candy, Inside the Actor's Studio. Any game show from the 1970s, including: Match Game, Family Feud, Super Password, $100, 000 Pyramid.
My favorite books are:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, You Shall Know Our Velocity!, How We Are Hungry, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night, Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters/Seymour: An Introdction, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion, The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, Post Office, Waiting for Godot, Rosencrantz and Guildentstern are Dead, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Slaughter-House Five, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and the collective work of the late, great Anthony de Mello, S.J.
My favorite poets are:
Li-Young Lee. William Carlos Williams. Charles Bukowski. Wallace Stevens. Allen Ginsberg. e.e. cummings. Mina Loy. Mary Oliver. Dylan Thomas. T.S. Eliot. D.H. Lawrence. Adrienne Rich. W.B. Yeats. John Donne. Walt Whitman. John Keats. William Blake.
"The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" will always be, in my mind, the greatest literary achievement of all Time. I love you, Benny.
Benjamin Franklin. Betty White. Gene Wilder. Billy Corgan. Artists. Poets. Musicians. Psychologists. Mystic Jesuit priests. World War II veterans. Classy older women. Anyone over the age of 70. Not Ernest Hemingway. Not bad people. Not Mac Smith. Not Mac Smith's tattoo.