We all aspire to good taste and high standards, and occasionally reach them. But our public or collective notions of artistic quality are sometimes very different from our personal preferences.  To illustrate, I’ve contrasted the following lists of “Greatest” versus “Favorite” works, based on the ideals of an imaginary but plausible individual (certainly not me).  When it comes to culture, not everyone can be impeccably discriminating all the time; I think we can all pick entries from both sets of categories.

Greatest Works of Literature                   Favorite Works of Literature

1. The Holy Bible (King James Version)  The Satanic Bible (LaVey Version)
2. Collected Plays (Shakespeare)           How to Solve Rubik’s Cube (Nourse)
3. War and Peace (Tolstoy)                     Tekwar (Shatner)
4. Ulysses (Joyce)                                  Truly Tasteless Jokes IV (Knott)
5. The Waste Land (Eliot)                        The Stand (King)
6. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)            The Best of Forum (Guccione)
7. To the Lighthouse (Woolf)                    Who’s Who in Wrestling 1987
8. Moby-Dick, or The Whale (Melville)     Mack Bolan: Payback (Pendleton)
9. The Outsider (Camus)                         Steal This Book (Hoffmann)
10. Jane Eyre (Bronte)                             Grand Theft Auto Cheaters’ Guide

   Greatest Albums                                       Favorite Albums

1. Sgt. Pepper’s… (The Beatles)         The Best of Bread
2. Birth of the Cool (Miles Davis)         VArieous MiXx tape (Drunken Buddy)
3. South Pacific soundtrack                 All-Time Outtasite Disco Classics
4.Songs For Swingin’ Lovers (Sinatra) Cheech & Chong’s Greatest Hit
5. Blonde On Blonde (Bob Dylan)      4 Hours of Classical Serenity for Only $2
6. Nevermind (Nirvana)                         Eternal Love Mix tape (Ex-girlfriend)
7.Anthology of American Folk Music Bloodcurdling Sounds of Halloween Terror
8. London Calling (The Clash)               Unleashed in the East (Judas Priest)
9. What’s Going On (Marvin Gaye)      Grow Taller With Subliminal Mind Power
10. Astral Weeks (Van Morrison)          Diver Down (Van Halen)

     Greatest Films                               Favorite Films

1. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)    One Froggy Evening (Jones, 1955)
2. 2001 (Kubrick, 1968)               Damnation Alley (Smight, 1977)
3. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)        Jackass 2 (Tremaine, 2002)
4. City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)    Back Door Beauties 5: No Holes Barred (2012)
5. The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957)  Enter the Dragon (Clouse, 1973)
6. Breathless (Godard, 1961)       Don Cherry’s Rock ’em Sock ’em Hockey
7. Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950) Bush’s 9/11 Lies Exposed (Anonymous, 2003)
8. Amarcord (Fellini, 1973)            Heavy Metal (Potterton, 1981)
9. The Third Man (Reed, 1948)     Repo Man (Cox, 1985)
10. Jules et Jim (Truffaut, 1962)    Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (Hough, 1974)