Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Joyce Carol Oates. El placer de hacer listas

El gran Umberto Eco confesaba su amor por el vértigo de las listas, que consideraba una forma de hacer comprensible lo infinito de la cultura.

Susan Sontag también era muy aficionada a ellas. Una de las más conocidas son las cosas que le gustan y las que no.

... Sontag constructs an unusual list of her likes and dislikes, on the one hand unordered like a stream-of-consciousness meditation and on the other bearing the cyclical repetition and cadence of poetry:

Things I like: fires, Venice, tequila, sunsets, babies, silent films, heights, coarse salt, top hats, large long-haired dogs, ship models, cinnamon, goose down quilts, pocket watches, the smell of newly mown grass, linen, Bach, Louis XIII furniture, sushi, microscopes, large rooms, ups, boots, drinking water, maple sugar candy. 

Things I dislike: sleeping in an apartment alone, cold weather, couples, football games, swimming, anchovies, mustaches, cats, umbrellas, being photographed, the taste of licorice, washing my hair (or having it washed), wearing a wristwatch, giving a lecture, cigars, writing letters, taking showers, Robert Frost, German food. 

Things I like: ivory, sweaters, architectural drawings, urinating, pizza (the Roman bread), staying in hotels, paper clips, the color blue, leather belts, making lists, Wagon-Lits, paying bills, caves, watching ice-skating, asking questions, taking taxis, Benin art, green apples, office furniture, Jews, eucalyptus trees, pen knives, aphorisms, hands. 

Things I dislike: Television, baked beans, hirsute men, paperback books, standing, card games, dirty or disorderly apartments, flat pillows, being in the sun, Ezra Pound, freckles, violence in movies, having drops put in my eyes, meatloaf, painted nails, suicide, licking envelopes, ketchup, traversins [“bolsters”], nose drops, Coca-Cola, alcoholics, taking photographs. 

Things I like: drums, carnations, socks, raw peas, chewing on sugar cane, bridges, Dürer, escalators, hot weather, sturgeon, tall people, deserts, white walls, horses, electric typewriters, cherries, wicker / rattan furniture, sitting cross-legged, stripes, large windows, fresh dill, reading aloud, going to bookstores, under-furnished rooms, dancing, Ariadne auf Naxos.

La revista Port, en su versión en castellano, publica las listas que inspirándose en la idea de Susan Sontag le encargo a Joyce Carol Oates.

Manzanas, lluvia, Marlon Brando, la compasión, la paciencia, la amabilidad, Magritte, Banksy... entre las que le gustan.

Y entre las que no, los tópicos, el paté, las vísceras, Dalí, el Brexit, America first, la crueldad, la ignorancia...