personality test

It has been said (here, even) that there are Beatles people and there are Stones people. Not that you can't like both or rarely do: just that it seems most people, if asked which of the two is better, will not only have an answer but will sort of think the answer is clear (and even be a little surprised and horrified that anyone would say the opposite).

The same is true for other pairs. Recently it became renewedly clear to me that there are Ween people and Tenacious D people, and here it's even starker because fans of the one often actually have antipathy toward the other. For example, I think Ween makes music that is both excellent and funny, whereas Tenacious D makes joke music that is neither good nor amusing, but people I respect not only disagree but have pretty much exactly the opposite opinion. And while I'm right and they're wrong (clearly), it's still interesting. Last night I was discussing the issue with two friends (a Ween person and a Tenacious D person) and edged toward the conclusion that the key difference has to do with how you take your irony.

Another such divide exists between There Will Be Blood people and No Country for Old Men people. Here people tend to like both, but if you ask which one is better, the answer is almost always "clearly" one or the other...and it's often tough to predict which answer someone will give. Last night we were again two against one, but this time I was the minority vote, representing Paul Thomas Anderson with the other two on the side of the Coen Brothers. From where I'm sitting, There Will Be Blood was a great film, not just one of the two best of its year of release but also with a place on the longer list of Best Movies Ever, whereas No Country for Old Men was entertaining and brilliantly done but not even near the top of the Best Coen Brothers Movies list, let alone any bigger list. One friend suggested that this disagreement might hinge on relative importance of character vs. plot, but I'm not sure that's it. I want to say it's a question of...where meaning lies?

I think there's a game in this. There was a part in The Fortress of Solitude* in which these characters were playing this game in which you name any group of four and try to map it over the Beatles. Look:

Now Dylan's friend Linus Millberg appears out of the crowd with a cup of beer and shouts, "Dorothy is John Lennon, the Scarecrow is Paul McCartney, the Tin Woodman is George Harrison, the Lion's Ringo."

"Star Trek," commands Dylan over the lousy twangy country CB's is playing between sets.

"Easy," Linus shouts back. "Kirk's John, Spock's Paul, Bones is George, Scotty is Ringo. Or Chekov, after the first season. Doesn't matter, it's like a Soctty–Chekov-combination Ringo. Spare parts are always surplus Georges or Ringos."

"But isn't Spock-lacks-a-heart and McCoy-lacks-a-brain like Woodman and Scarecrow? So Dorothy's Kirk?"

"You don't get it. That's just a superficial coincidence. The Beatles thing is an archetype, it's like the basic human formation. Everything naturally forms into a Beatles, people can't help it."

"Say the types again."

"Responsible-parent genius-parent genius-child clown-child."

"Okay, do Star Wars."

"Luke Paul, Han Solo John, Chewbacca George, the robots Ringo."

Pretty amusing. I was about to try my hand at Seinfeld but don't really feel competent...maybe because they're all children and nobody's responsible. Maybe Jerry John, Elaine Paul, George George, Kramer Ringo? Wanted to say Kramer Chewbacca, George the robots...

How about other polarizing pairs? There must be lots but I'm drawing a blank. Kevin Smith and Woody Allen? Terminator and Terminator 2? Picasso and Warhol? Tim Burton and David Lynch?

* One of a tiny handful of contemporary novels that I really enjoyed: didn't think it was brilliant or classic, necessarily, but didn't think it was a load of overrated horseshit, either.