listing

Re-reading Wayne Koestenbaum's spiffy The Queen's Throat the other day, I came upon these sentences, relevant to various discussions I've witnessed recently about the importance of/desire to create lists. He's talking about opera-queen lists, but I think popnerd lists apply too.

"The purpose of a list is not to refine or browbeat, but to include, and to move toward a future moment when accumulation stops and the list-keeper can cull, recollect, and rest on the prior amplitute."

and later:

"List-making is a prophylaxis against loss. Lists perform sympathetic magic: we want names (of operas, theaters, divas, roles) to be corporeal."

Isn't that the most tender, loving, life-affirming way to think about compulsive hierarchilization/categorization? I just want to kiss the guy after reading that. And, of course, make a list.