My List of Things That Have Made Life Worth Living Offered For Your Consideration In No Particular Order

Music
Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concertos	Since I was ten years old I've been unable to listen to Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048, Allegro without a gag in my chest and tears streaming down my face
Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge of Troubled Water Album	Every song on these album is unique, sometimes funny, sometimes gut-wrenching, but all are enough to take your breath away
Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits Album	Mrs. Robinson, Sound of Silence, Scarborough Fair, Homeward Bound, America, and Kathy's Song all gathered together on one disc. Incredible.
Cat Stevens' Teaser & The Firecat Album	For thirty-plus years I have had this remarkable album close by and have purchased it at least eight times (whether on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, or CD). This collection of songs is my life's blood, the milk in my bones, the air that fills my lungs. It is perfect, perfection, in every sense of the word. If I could only keep one album out of the 5,000 in my collection this would be the one.
Cat Stevens' Tea For The Tillerman Album	This album still beckons to be heard, a rare feat for any popular recording that has aged beyond 30 years. Cat Stevens completely transcends the self-conscious trappings that plague many musicians and delivers a sparkling testimony about the life of a seeker.
Cat Stevens' Catch a Bull At Four Album	This album isn't as memorable as Teaser or Tea but it is still heads taller than three-quarters of the shlock produced today. A wonderful listen.
Cat Stevens Buddha and the Chocolate Box Album	Often overlooked, Cat Stevens returns to form with Buddha after his misundertood Foreigner album, and produced a number of catchy pop songs here, including Music, Oh Very Young, and Sun/C79.
Miles Davis' Kind of Blue Album	With Coltrane, Adderly, and Evans, this may be the most sublime jazz album of its time. The opening tune So What will lift you into the stratosphere and Blue In Green will bring you back down to the hills of earth.
Finding Forrester Soundtrack Album	The compiled jazz on this album is topnotch, but Mile Davis' Recollections from The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions is slow, tempered, and altogether ethereal.
The Beatles' Rubber Soul Album	Rank 'em how you like, Rubber Soul is an undeniable pivot point in the Fab Four's varied discography no matter where, or how, you first heard it. Released in 1965 this album turned me from a mere fan to a devotee, an aficionado. There was everyone else, and then there were The Beatles.
The Beatles' Revolver Album	Eleanor Rigby, Here There & Everywhere, Good Day Sunshine, Got To Get You Into My Life. A pop classic.
The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Album	The king, the apex, the absolute top of pop albums. Period. In 1967 when this album came out there wasn't a baby boomer alive who didn't know that their time (whatever that 'time' was) had finally, firstly, and foremost arrived.
The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour Album	Not a high concept album like Sgt. Pepper's, Magical Mystery Tour is a great collection of now-classic pop songs like Strawberry fields Forever, Penny Lane, The Fool on the Hill, and I Am The Walrus which complimented Pepper's like no other album could.
The Beatles' White Album	A double-record release, instead of bringing The Beatles back down to earth after the success of Sgt. Pepper's, this album punched them higher into orbit. Filled with a mix of quirky experimentation, parody and pastiche, the White Album was (and still is) a force with which to reckon.
The Beatles' Abbey Road Album	Released in the Fall of 1969, this album was on every kid's Christmas list and Columbia Records cleaned up. Rumor of a break-up was in the wind and everybody wanted to hear what all the fuss was about. We did. It was about greatness, genius, pure and simple.
Paul McCartney's McCartney Album	Paul's first solo outing after the breakup of The Beatles is very much a homegrown affair with him singing and playing everything. That Would Be Something,Man We Was Lonely,The Lovely Linda, and Teddy Boy all make the grade, but everything is eclipsed by Maybe I'm Amazed, which remains one of his most enduring songs, up there with anything the Beatles themselves released.
George Harrison's' All Things Must Pass Album	Who could've imagined the shock and awe we experienced when this 3-disc album came out. George Harrison, who'd taken a backseat to the dominating Lennon-McCartney partnership of The Beatles produced a highly personal and spiritually charged album unlike anything The Beatles had done. My Sweet Lord, Isn't It A Pity, What Is Life, and Awaiting On You All were instant classics. Mind-blowing in every sense of the word.
John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band Album	While most folks' favorite John Lennon album might be Imagine, especially following his tragic murder in 1980, the fierceness, anger, and iconoclastic angst of Plastic Ono Band is much more my strychnine-laced cup of tea. Well Well Well and Remember are primal screams set to music, but it is God that still gives me chills and sets me weeping everytime: "I was the Dreamweaver / But now I'm reborn / I was the Walrus / But now I'm John / And so dear friends / You'll just have to carry on / The dream is over."
Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Album	This is Elton John's Sgt. Pepper album, a double-disc collection of pop, epic rock, and pure story-telling at its greatest.
Elton John's Madman Across the Water Album	Recorded in 1971, this album quietly launched Elton John into stardom. The orchestration is powerful, while the songs themselves are haunting and beautiful. Tiny Dancer, which made very little airplay at the time, is alone worth the price of admission. Add Levom, Madman Across the Water, and All the Nasties and you're getting more than your money's worth.
Elton John's Elton John Album	This self-titled album introduced American audiences to Elton John and I for one took notice. I started purchasing each Elton John album as it was released year-after-year until Breaking Hearts which finally broke the chain for good. This album is sooo good, I still listen to it at least once a week.
Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection Album	Another concept album where Bernie Taupin's lyrics and Elton John's music combine to produce near-perfect story-telling.
Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Youngs' Deja Vu Album	CSN were great together, but when they joined with Young, the possibilities were endless. This entire album is a testament to harmonic collaboration. A perfect gem forever frozen in time.
Beethoven's Complete Symphonies and Piano Concertos Box Set	Jesus, what can I say. Ludwig Von. Here Otto Klemperer's interpetation of Beethoven is one of the towering achievements in the history of classical recordings. By today's standards, these performances are hopelessly old-fashioned: dark, heavy, and frequently very slow. But they are also the grandest, most unsentimental, most purposeful versions in the Beethoven catalog. In addition, the relatively slow tempos and forward wind balance permit more detail to be heard than in most original-instrument performances.
Tchaikovsky's Symphonies 4, 5, & 6	Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies are amongst the most passionate pieces of music ever written. This deep emotion is masterfully combined with a virtuoso-calibre score. Herbert von Karajan is at his best in these recordings. He breaks away from the "cold" technicality of which he is so often accused while still maintaining strict musical perfection. The result is impecable, providing both warm, sonorous comfort and fiery, musical energy.
Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake Ballet Suites	Another great musical interpretation of tchaikovsky by Herbert von Karajan and the Philharmonia Orchestra
The Who's Quadrophenia Album	In 1975 I was questioning everything—god, society, family, self—and along comes The Who's Quadrophenia album whose theme is composed of just such questioning. Perfect pitch, perfect time, perfect place. A near perfect (although mostly overlooked) work of rock genius.
Bruce Cockburn's Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws Album	Although Wondering Where the Lions Are introduced must Americans to singer/songwriter Cockburn, it was the Creation Dream and Incandescent Blue that I appreciated most from this incredible album
Bruce Cockburn's Humans Album	Darker and more bitter than the "cheery" Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws album, Humans is both contemplative and politcally aware. The songs Fascist Architecture and You Get Bigger As You Go say it all.
Bruce Cockburn's In The Falling Dark Album	Man, this album should be in everyone's collection. Cockburn is a master of the guitar and this album highlights his amazing abilities and songwriting talents. This album is probably one of the least political and angry of Cockburn's work (though Gavin's Woodpile hints at what's to come) and so in many ways makes a great introduction to his sheer musical ability. Lord of the Starfields is heartbreakingly beautiful and Silver Wheels technically incredible. Cockburn's lyrics are poetry in their own right.
Joni Mitchell's Court & Spark Album	A sleek, orchestrated pop style pulsing with jazz elements, Court & Spark finds Mitchell casting aside her earlier earth mother affectations and revealing herself as the thoroughly modern, thoroughly complicated woman she is. A near perfect pop experience.
Joni Mitchell's The Hissing of Summer Lawns Album	Although the session crew is largely the same as the Court & Spark album, and sleek jazz elements again abound, these songs find her introducing Burundi drums (The Jungle Line), layering magisterial but forbidding vocal harmonies (Shadows and Light), and casting rueful shadows across the sun-dazed Southern California of the title song. Her daring promptly earned critical scorn and halted her commercial expansion, but the album's confident eclecticism and dark beauty have outlived that reception. Incredible.
Joni Mitchell's Hejira Album	After the expanded instrumental scale and sonic experimentation of Court & Spark and The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Joni Mitchell reverses that flow for the more intimate, interior music on Hejira, which retracts the arranging style to focus on Mitchell's distinctive acoustic guitar and piano, and the brilliant, lyrical bass fantasias of fretless bass innovator Jaco Pastorius.
Led Zeppelin's Complete Studio Recordings Boxed Set	The premiere collection of LZ's career recordings in chronological order, with all original artwork intact, and digitally remastered to utter perfection. It does not—I repeat: does not—get any better than this anywhere in the known universe.
Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here Album	Although PF's Dark Side of the Moon was spectacular, I actually overplayed it to the point that if I hear Money again I think I'll bust a gasket. However, I think it would be impossible to overplay this phenomenal album. Bristling with anger, self-loss, confusion, and ultimately hope, Wish You Were Here is a tribute to Floyd's original front man, Syd Barrett, who burned out early and lost himself along the way.
The Moody Blues' On The Threshold of a Dream Album	A longtime Moody Blues fan with over ten of their albums, this is the one I still listen to the most. Go figure. None of the songs on this disc ever had any real airtime, but it is the album that has stayed with me the longest. never Comes The Day is particularly wonderful.
Fleetwood Mac's Tusk Album	My opinion of Tusk itself hasn't changed much since I bought the LP back in 1979. It was a welcome 180 degree turn from Rumours, which preceded it. Lyrically and musically it's all over the place. Lindsey's Buckingham's songs reek of cocaine paranoia, Stevie Nicks' songs are the same mystical/romantic tunes, and Christine McVie's songs are still beautifully crafted and full of hooks - pure pop celebration. Still, despite these quirky drawbacks it sounds frickin' fantastic!
Books
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon	I made 10+ attempts at completing this book over a 25 year period. Finally, once I made the commitment to keep going it took me nearly six months to carefully work my way through this 768 page technical and postmodern marvel with a handy supply of reference books, dictionaries, and case studies at my side. It was sooo worth the effort. Having made it to the explosive ending I can now say unequivocally that Gravity's Rainbow may be one the greatest American books ever written...period. It really is that good, though definitely not for the intellectually lazy, weak-kneed, or weak of heart.
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey	This is another book that took me a few tries to start, but I can now say it is my all-time favorite book. It is, quite simply, one of the great classics of the 20th century, its pace and moody evocation of the Pacific Northwest verbally stunning. Kesey's jump between third and first person narrator (including stream-of-consciousness) is nearly flawless in this tale of the big and brawling Stamper family on a logging river in Oregon. A fantastic read. Absolutely superb.
Sophie's Choice by William Styron	One of the two or three finest novels about the Holocaust, Sophie's Choice encapsulates through Sophie's anguished story the sweep and brutality of history. Styron's prose is remarkable making this one of the best novels I have ever read (and I've read a few).
The Magus by John Fowles	An smooth and easy read, but don't let that fool you. Just when you think you've got it all figured out as to what is going on, Fowles pulls the rug out from underneath you forcing you to start back at square one. Neither a mystery or supernatural thriller, The Magus is both mysterious and supernatural in an academic way. A great, great book.
Demian by Hermann Hesse	This is the first novel by Hesse that I read and it led me down a road of countless other novels by him... until I had read them all. I highly urge you to pick up this book, to turn the cover over and begin an incredible journey. I believe I am a better person today for having committed my time to Hesse's work, and Demain a story about youth, coming-of-age, and sometimes painful maturity.
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse	One of the best books by Herman Hesse. The story of these two characters shows a beautiful dichotomy between a spirit hungry for experimentation and another starving for knowledge.
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse	This book is a masterpiece of the eastern hero's inner journey. The main character, Harry Haller, is compelled to examine ordinary facets of his life that turn out to be extraordinary. Haller is an introverted scholar who has two personalities, the mild and conventional Harry who conforms to contemporary social expectation and the lonely wolf of the steppes who has a savage and unruly nature. The battle for the guidance of Harry's soul takes place in the theater of the mind where the human known as Harry becomes aware that he has not merely two personalities within him but countless others, some of which have been born this morning and others of which are as ancient as the race itself. In this way Haller becomes a metaphor for everyman's condition: an infinitely singular multiplicity. This is literature that is able to arise only when a western man creates fiction based upon eastern ideas. The journey to the soul is an infinite regress that brings one out to where he already was and all he can do once he understands is laugh.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse	All good books facilitate opening up of the mind to a new world and challenge the reader to see more clearly, if not differently. One of the themes of this book is that all things in this world are intertwined. Both those things that appear good or seem evil are in the end spectrums of the same Life. One might say that everything being part of the One is inherently Godly and any notions that we have that suggest otherwise are actually illusory.
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham	A tale of one man's search for enlightenment. His quest weaves through European and American society from WWI through the Great Depression, allowing Maugham to introduce characters from every niche of French, American, and English society. The title of the book comes from the Katha Upanishad aphorism, "The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to salvation is hard."
The Bible (Old and New Testaments): Harper-Collins Study Bible (NRSV)	Most 'Bible believers' who rigorously defend their beliefs have never actually read the Bible or made any concentrated effort to analyze how it was produced and compiled or its long history. That, I imagine, would actually take a bit of effort, and doing work is a whole lot harder than to simply nod one's head and happily believe. Well, I have read the Bible from cover-to-cover on more than one occasion, and studied both Hebrew and Greek, and can boldly state that biblical contradictions and inconsistences (apologists like to sugar-coat these by calling them 'difficulties') are glaringly apparent before you've even made it halfway through Genesis, the Bible's very first book. From there it's all downhill.
The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament Edited by John H. Walton, et al	This reference book is an important introduction toward understanding the historical context and background sources which led to the development and compilation of the Old Testament, something so very few 'Bible believers' know anything about. What makes this book even more incredible is that it was produced through the auspices of the InterVarsity Press, a decidely 'Christian' publishing house, and managed not to pull too many punches. A carefully reading of this commentary alongside all the available Bible evidence will quickly reveal just how much of the classic Old Testament stories were assimilated, borrowed, and reworked from older Sumerian, Babylonian, Canaanite, Egyptian, and Persian material—things most believers will never be taught in Church or Bible study classes. A must read for anybody more interested in getting to the heart of truth than in upholding a precarious faith-based belief system. Highly recommended.
Old Testament Parallels by Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin	This book goes into even more depth revealing just where the Old Testament writers "borrowed" and assimilated older stories that were reworked to include in their own canon. No sensible person can follow this well documented line of evidence without admitting how the Old Testament writers really got their 'inspiration'.
Movies
Once Upon A Time In America Directed by Sergio Leone (1984)	This 3 hour 45 minute film is an epic, episodic, tale of the lives of a small group of New York City Jewish gangsters spanning 40 years. Told mostly in flashbacks and flash-forwards, the movie centers on small-time hood David 'Noodles' Aaronson (Robert De Nero) and his partners in crime; Max (James Woods), Cockeye (William Forsythe) and Patsy (James Hayden) from growing up in the rough Jewish neighborhood of New York's Lower East Side in the 1920s, to the last years of Prohibition in the early 1930s, and then to the late 1960s where an elderly Noodles returns to New York after years in hiding to look back at the past. Easily my favorite film. Excellent and haunting soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.
Harold and Maude Directed by Hal Ashy (1971)	Black comedies don't come much blacker than this cult favorite, and they don't come much funnier, either. It seemed that director Hal Ashby was the perfect choice to mine a mother lode of eccentricity from the original script by Colin Higgins, about the unlikely romance between a death-obsessed 19-year-old named Harold (Bud Cort) and a life-loving 79-year-old widow named Maude (Ruth Gordon). They meet at a funeral, and Maude finds something oddly appealing about Harold, urging him to "reach out" and grab life by the lapels as opposed to dwelling morbidly on mortality. Excellent soundtrack and songs by Cat Stevens.
Annie Hall Directed by Woody Allen (1977)	This clever, sharp and wonderful movie, one of the best of the 1970's, is about relationships. Based on the real life relationship between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, this movie draws off much of their shared experience of growing together and apart. I don't think Keaton was ever better than she was in this movie. As Annie, her love of life permeates the entire movie, and you, the viewer, come away from the film feeling all the richer for having met Annie Hall. This is the first movie I took my future wife to see when we first started dating. She laughed almost as hard as I did and the rest, as they say, is history.
Manhattan Directed by Woody Allen (1979)	Manhattan, Woody Allen's follow-up to Oscar-winning Annie Hall, is a film of many distinctions: its glorious all-Gershwin score, its breathtakingly elegant black-and-white, widescreen cinematography by Gordon Willis (best-known for shooting the Godfather movies); its deeply shaded performances; its witty screenplay that marked a new level in Allen's artistic maturity; and its catalog of Things that Make Life Worth Living (from which I have taken the title for this page).
Blade Runner Directed by Ridley Scott (1982)	Blade Runner stands out as one of the all-time best and most original sci-fi adventures ever put to film. The plot's premise surrounding the possibility of extended life hits the viewer to the core. And the "villains" are both repellent and highly sympathetic, making for some of the most complex and contradictory characters ever depicted. And Harrison Ford is perfectly cast as the deadpanned gumshoe wrestling with his own moral demons.
The Graduate Directed by Mike Nichols (1967)	Few films have defined a generation as The Graduate did. The alienation, the nonconformity, the intergenerational romance, the blissful Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack—they all served to lob a cultural grenade smack into the middle of 1967 America, ultimately making the film the third most profitable up to that time. Seen from a later perspective, its radical chicness has dimmed a bit, yet it's still a joy to see Dustin Hoffman's bemused Benjamin and Anne Bancroft's deliciously decadent, sardonic Mrs. Robinson. The script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham is still offbeat and dryly funny, and Mike Nichols, who won an Oscar for his direction, has just the right, light touch.
Chinatown Directed by Roman Polanski (1974)	Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency—and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is J.J. Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mold, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the black-hole center of this tale of treachery, incest, and political bribery. The crackling, hard-bitten script by Robert Towne won a well-deserved Oscar, and the muted color cinematography makes the goings-on seem both bleak and impossibly vibrant. Polanski himself has a brief, memorable cameo as the thug who tangles with Nicholson's nose. One of the greatest, most completely satisfying crime films of all time.
The Godfather DVD Collection Directed by Francis Ford Coppola (1972, 1974, 1990)	Throughout his long, wandering, often distinguished career Francis Ford Coppola has made many films that are good and fine, many more that are flawed but undeniably interesting, and a handful of duds that are worth viewing if only because his personality is so flagrantly absent. Yet he is and always shall be known as the man who directed the Godfather films, a series that has dominated and defined their creator in a way perhaps no other director can understand. Coppola has never been able to leave them alone, whether returning after 15 years to make a trilogy of the diptych, or re-editing the first two films into chronological order for a separate video release as The Godfather Saga . The films are our very own Shakespearean cycle: they tell a tale of a vicious mobster and his extended personal and professional families (once the stuff of righteous moral comeuppance), and they dared to present themselves with an epic sweep and an unapologetically tragic tone. Murder, it turned out, was a serious business. The first film remains a towering achievement, brilliantly cast and conceived.
Art
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People
Tawnie Jean	Since 1977 she has been beside me, suffered my stupidity and shared my fleeting Zen moments, always showing an amazing capacity for unconditional love and forgiveness while forceful enough to still slap sense into me (and on an almost weekly basis)
Ryan and Lindsay	My son and daughter. I never could have guessed that parenting should prove such an E-Ticket ride
Mother & Father	I wouldn't have been here if you hadn't met on that dance floor some fifty-odd years ago. What a long strange trip it's been.
My Brother	My only sibling. If I could give you anything I'd give you the opportunity to go to a four-year college, so you might learn to develop the processes necessary to think critically, research analytically, ask tough questions, and utilize practical reasoning with caution and deliberation. It's not what you believe, but why you think you believe it; it's not what you know, but why you assume you know anything at all.
Female Personae	Shrouded in timelessness and mystery. I am a better human being for having known you, a better man for having loved you, and a better person for finding the courage to let you go.