Even before I saw High Fidelity, I enjoyed making random top 5 lists. Listing 10 sometimes threw me, but on almost any topic I could rattle off at least 5 things, and any topic I knew more than 5 for, I could pretty easily prioritize which got 5 billing. I always enjoyed the debates I had with myself when it came to sorting them into a hierarchy. It's been one of the things I have done to amuse myself for a while, sometimes in margins in class notes, sometimes in my head while cooking (top five uses for parsley: 1- giving the illusion of chlorophyll to a steak platter...,) whenever.

I'm gonna try to make it a regular feature on Fridays to do one.

Apparently there isn't enough structure to my life.

So, Top Five Playwrights:

1. Henrik Ibsen
2. Aaron Sorkin
3. Aristophanes
4. William Shakespeare
5. Tom Stoppard

You may notice Shakespeare isn't number one on the list. This is my fault. I get easily annoyed with english grammatical constructs that I have to consult footnotes to comprehend. It's not that I'm too lazy to parse "Twasn't not twither thou wouldst if thy verily couldn't hope to never again say ere..." and then something about a fortnight.

Well, maybe it is that I'm lazy. Regardless, there's a language barrier there, and while I don't hold it against his effort, he gets bumped. Burn. You didn't make number one, billy-boy. I guess you'll just have to take some posthumous solace in being roundly considered the greatest writer to ever live and have your plays live on into the 24th century wherein they will be used to teach androids valuable lessons about life by the intrepid Captain Picard.

Neil Simon got bumped by Aristophanes. Sorry, man, I have the ghost of Thespus to worry about. "They point out what is important by mocking that which is not." They bring humility. He and Sophocles knew their shit.

Luigi Pirandello got bumped by Stoppard. Which sucks. But that's the no-holds-barred world of a 5 slot battle.

Anyone who wanted Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, or Moliere, well, you can take Vladimir and Estragon with you on your way to hell, spend two hours screaming at each other, and teach me french, repectively.

Eventually I will probably post next week's top five topic at the end of this week's entry, but I don't have a firm one yet. Next week's will probably have something to do with cartoon ninjas, which means 2 slots are probably already burned with Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, and Snake Eyes clearly gets the top slot there. After that I could easily fill out the rest of the list with mutant turtles, but that seems kind of cheap.

I'll figure something out.

Right now I have other, unstructured things to do.

[what a freakin' nerd]