What are the best gems of American art and culture?

9 comments

1. – book: Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five

   – song: [Tool – Fear Inoculum](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q7DfQMPmJRI)

   – film: Blade Runner

   – painting: [The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Midnight_Ride_of_Paul_Revere.jpg)

   I can’t give you what I think are *the* best or *the* top in each category. I think that’s impossible. What I *have* given you are some of my favorites.

   Edit: I originally chose *Hell or High Water* as one of my favorites, but how could I have overlooked *Blade Runner*? It’s also adapted from a novel by one of the best science fiction writers, Philip K. Dick.

2. Book: House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

   Song: Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin

   Movie: The Searchers

   Painting: No idea.

3. Seveneves

   Paradise by the dashboard lights (meatloaf)

   Terminator 2: judgement day

   Fannie (fingerpainting)

4. **Book**: *Mason & Dixon* by Thomas Pynchon

   (OR, *Song of Solomon* by Toni Morrison )

   **Song**: *Ball and Chain* by Big Brother and the Holding Company (Janis Joplin)

   (OR, *Thriller* by Michael Jackson)

   **Movie**: *On the Waterfront*

   (OR, *Citizen Kane*)

   **Painting**: *Nighthawks* by Edward Hopper

   (OR, *American Gothic* by Grant Wood )

5. I’m hitting this from the “most American” rather than strictly the best.

   Book: *Hocus Pocus* by Kurt Vonnegut. *Slaughterhouse Five* is magnificent but you really have to read *Hocus Pocus* to get in Vonnegut’s head.

   Movie: This one is easy if not intuitive. It’s *Jaws*. Man vs. nature, Moby Dick-style, but writ both large and small. Also one of the most game-changing films in American history.

   Song: this will be unpopular but *Amazing Grace*. I’m an atheist and I still love to sing along to this song. Probably the most-sung song in the USA. So goddamned beautiful.

   Painting: this is really hard but I guess I have to nominate Wyeth’s *Christina’s World*. A daring, excellent painting, and it also kind of captures the spirit of America in a way. The vast expanse, and the determination to get over that horizon. It makes me feel feelings every time I see it.

6. Book: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

   Song: Fanfare for the Common Man – Copland

   Painting: Washington Crossing the Delaware – Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, it just bleeds American. German American immigrant creates of the most epic depictions of the Revolution?

7. 1 book: The Power Broker (Biography of Robert Moses) by Robert Caro

   1 song Chimacum Rain by Linda Perhacs

   1 movie No Country for Old Men

   1 painting The Avenue in the Rain by Childe Hassan

8. Book: “The Grapes of Wrath” – John Steinbeck

   Song: “Stand by Me” – Ben E. King

   Movie: “Apocalypse Now” – Francis Coppola

   Painting: “American Gothic” – Grant Wood

9. Norman Rockwell