They’re everywhere in my life. I have them in my briefcase. I put them by the telephone. They occupy plenty of space on my desktop – my electronic desktop as well as the wooden one. I generate them at the beginning of the day, before I go to bed or whenever I sense I’m losing my way through the day. They give me a sense of security. They often make me anxious – if there are too many of them. And since it’s that time of the week to write my column, the Barris Beat has risen to the top of one.
Lists rule my life.
It is perhaps an occupational hazard of the writing profession, that I organize my thoughts, my assignments, the appointments in my daily schedule, indeed any of the chores and responsibilities I face, into some sort of ordered pattern. As many of you know, speaking dates, appearances, readings and the like, have occupied every spare moment the past couple of years. So, not surprisingly, I have relied on my week-at-a-glance date book as a kind of “life list.” Some might suggest I am a slave to those lists. Maybe so. But I have to admit that I tend to deal most efficiently with structure. Therefore I tend to treat the things I do the same way I do words, sentences, paragraphs and stories – as a list of creative challenges.
I remember when the idea of lists came into vogue. One day, back in the late 1970s, this interesting little book landed on my desk. It contained, among other things: the name of the five most hated and feared persons in history, the seven most popular man-made attractions, the 30 best places to live, the 12 best detective stories ever written, the six best positions for sexual intercourse, the 14 worst human fears, the 11 most famous tobacco smokers and on and on. Of course, the book was “The Book of Lists,” written by father and son team Irving Wallace and David Wallechinsky (the son changed his name back to the family’s original European name).
Instantly, I loved that book. It gave me fodder for stories in print and on the air. It occupied a special place in my reference library to provide me with inspiration. It also sat by my bedside for those rare times I suffered from insomnia. “The Book of Lists” spawned all kinds of copycats – “The Canadian Book of Lists,” “The Book of Answers,” “The Book of Wit and Wisdom,” “The Book of Failures” and a whole library of books listing quotations, foibles, historical highlights and lowlights, heroes and villains, good deeds and bad behaviour. The point was, suddenly the act of list-making was nothing to be ashamed of. It was hip. It was acceptable and publishable. And I could come out of the closet, as it were, with all my lists.
If fact, lists and list-making became so hip back then, that an entire manufacturing enterprise resulted from it. The 3M Post-it was invented to help inveterate listers get through the day. I used them on maps to list locations. I used them by the telephone for lists of messages. I used them in the kitchen, the car, the laundry room, as personal reminders on the bathroom mirror and of course all over my office. Post-its have helped me organize each of my last five or six book manuscripts. I even use them to stick a priority list to the outside of my date book full of dates, locations and other lists.
When people wonder about my preoccupation – dare I say addiction – for lists, I remind them of the importance and immortality of some of history’s great lists. I point out the Ten Commandments in the Bible. I remind them of Madame Defarge; she’s the peasant woman (in Charles Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities”) who recorded all the names of those to be executed during the French revolution, in a secret list contained in her knitting. I point out that the world has seen great thinkers, who also support my habit. John Bartlett listed quotations. Henry Martyn Robert listed the rules of order. My father used lists too. And one list-maker can never be refuted, especially this time of year. In fact, I’ll quote his theme song as evidence:
“He’s making a list and checking it twice…”
You see, even Santa Claus is on my side.
