There’s another one of those big personality surveys making the rounds on the ‘net this morning, 100 questions about your cultural preferences called the “Teachout Cultural Concurrence Index.” This survey originated on a blog belonging to a Manhattan music and drama critic named Terry Teachout. Given Teachout’s credentials, it’s not too surprising that some of the items on this survey are a bit, well, hoity-toity, and not really the sort of thing that would appeal to a non-New York intellectual. (That’s a roundabout way of saying that I, like fellow blogger Kevin Drum, didn’t know enough about many of the choices to have any preference. I hang my head in shame at my apparent Philistinism.) However, Teachout does state that his blog is about “all the arts, high, medium, and low,” and, true to that declaration, his survey has plenty of the lower-brow stuff that I can relate to. Besides, I like taking these things. And therefore I offer the following window into my tastes, or lack thereof:

1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly? Kelly. Astaire is beautiful to watch, but he’’s very formal, whereas Kelly amazes because what he does seems so natural and unplanned.
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises? I like them both, but I think I’’d lean toward Gatsby. Hard to say, though – it’’s been years since I read it.
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington? Don’’t know enough about either to form an opinion. I’’m not big on Jazz.
4. Cats or dogs? Dogs, although cats do have their charms.
5. Matisse or Picasso? Matisse, although truth be told, I’’m not keen on either
6. Yeats or Eliot? I’’m not big on poetry and so haven’’t read these guys.
7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin? I like both, but if we go by who makes me laugh more, it’’s gotta be Keaton.
8. Flannery O’’Connor or John Updike? Haven’t read Updike, so O’’Connor by default.
9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca? I love both, but I’’m going to have to say Casablanca.
10. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning? Abstract art –– bleah. But Pollock had a good movie made about him.
11. The Who or the Stones? The Who
12. Philip Larkin or Sylvia Plath? Haven’’t read either.
13. Trollope or Dickens? Dickens
14. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald? Not much experience with either, but probably Billie.
15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy? Haven’t read either.
16. The Moviegoer or The End of the Affair? Haven’’t read The Moviegoer, so End of the Affair by default, although I have to say that I didn’’t care much for it.
17. George Balanchine or Martha Graham? Who?
18. Hot dogs or hamburgers? Burgers, although a good chili dog is always a treat.
19. Letterman or Leno? Letterman
20. Wilco or Cat Power? Never heard of Cat Power and I find Wilco pretentious.
21. Verdi or Wagner? Verdi
22. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe? Kelly –– I don’t care for dumb women, or at least those who give the impression of being dumb.
23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash? Cash
24. Kingsley or Martin Amis? Haven’’t read them.
25. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando? Brando
26. Mark Morris or Twyla Tharp? I don’’t know these people.
27. Vermeer or Rembrandt? Vermeer
28. Tchaikovsky or Chopin? Not a lot of experience with either, but I’’d say Tchaikovsky.
29. Red wine or white? White
30. Noël Coward or Oscar Wilde? Wilde by default.
31. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity? High Fidelity. Grosse Point Blank was too ironic for its own good.
32. Shostakovich or Prokofiev? These are merely names to me. I’ve heard of them, but that’s about all.
33. Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev? Never seen a ballet, although Baryshnikov made a pretty good movie once (White Nights).
34. Constable or Turner? Don’’t know what this is referring to.
35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo? Don’’t like Westerns much, really don’t like John Wayne.
36. Comedy or tragedy? Tragedy
37. Fall or spring? Fall
38. Manet or Monet? Manet, although I admit that I’’m no expert on either
39. The Sopranos or The Simpsons? Haven’’t seen The Sopranos, but The Simpsons is a classic. (Besides how can you compare a mafia drama with an animated comedy? Duh.)
40. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin? Gershwin & Gershwin, although it’’s a close call
41. Joseph Conrad or Henry James? Conrad – James bores me to tears.
42. Sunset or sunrise? Sunset
43. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter? Porter by default
44. Mac or PC? PC
45. New York or Los Angeles? Tough choice — both overcrowded, dirty, dangerous places that have lots of cool stuff. LA, I guess.
46. Partisan Review or Horizon? What’’s that now?
47. Stax or Motown? Motown
48. Van Gogh or Gauguin? Van Gogh, although in general I prefer realism to impressionism
49. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello? Rick Springfield
50. Reading a blog or reading a magazine? Magazine. Although I seem to read more blogs. Hmm.
51. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier? Neither, really. Gielgud, I guess, for his grumpy old man roles in later years.
52. Only the Lonely or Songs for Swingin’ Lovers? And this is referring to?
53. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde? “Forget it, Jake — it’s Chinatown.”
54. Ghost World or Election? Haven’’t seen Ghost World, but Election didn’’t do a lot for me.
55. Minimalism or conceptual art? Um, paintings that actually looks like something?
56. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny? Bugs, definitely. Daffy is a spaz.
57. Modernism or postmodernism? Modernism. I’’m not hip enough for post-anything.
58. Batman or Spider-Man? Batman
59. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams? Can’’t recall ever listening to either.
60. Johnson or Boswell? Never read either.
61. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf? Never read either.
62. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show? Dick Van Dyke – Laura Petrie was hotter than Alice Kramden.
63. An Eames chair or a Noguchi table? Like I could ever afford either, but probably the chair.
64. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity? Double Indemnity (Barbara Stanwyck was yummy)
65. The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni? Never seen either.
66. Blue or green? Blue, but would really prefer red.
67. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It? As You Like It
68. Ballet or opera? Never seen either, never had much interest in either.
69. Film or live theater? Film. Theater is good too, though.
70. Acoustic or electric? Depends on my mood –– electric in the car, acoustic on a Sunday morning.
71. North by Northwest or Vertigo? NxNW
72. Sargent or Whistler? Sargent
73. V.S. Naipaul or Milan Kundera? Don’’t know who these are.
74. The Music Man or Oklahoma? Haven’’t seen The Music Man and didn’t care for Oklahoma (not big on musicals in general, actually)
75. Sushi, yes or no? Yes
76. The New Yorker under Ross or Shawn? Wouldn’’t know the difference
77. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee? Williams
78. The Portrait of a Lady or The Wings of the Dove? Haven’’t seen either
79. Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham? Don’’t know who these people are
80. Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe? Wright
81. Diana Krall or Norah Jones? Krall, although I don’t really go for either one.
82. Watercolor or pastel? Watercolor
83. Bus or subway? Light rail?
84. Stravinsky or Schoenberg? Composers, right? That’s about all I know about them…
85. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter? Smooth
86. Willa Cather or Theodore Dreiser? Cather
87. Schubert or Mozart? Mozart
88. The Fifties or the Twenties? What are we talking about? Culture? Music? Cars? The Fifties for design, the Twenties for the parties.
89. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick? Huck
90. Thomas Mann or James Joyce? Haven’t read either. (Well, I did like Joyce’’s short story “Araby,” but that’s not enough to form an opinion, is it?)
91. Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins? Never heard of ‘‘em.
92. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman? Great, more poets. Whitman.
93. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill? Lincoln
94. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann? Phair is hotter, but I don’t know their music.
95. Italian or French cooking? Italian
96. Bach on piano or harpsichord? Harpsichord, just ‘‘cause no one ever plays them anymore
97. Anchovies, yes or no? Hell no!
98. Short novels or long ones? Depends on how much I’’m enjoying them. Long if they’’re good.
99. Swing or bebop? Swing.
100. “The Last Judgment” or “The Last Supper”? “Supper”

So what have we proven here? Not much, except that I probably couldn’’t carry much of a conversation with Mr. Teachout. Am I uncultured? I guess so. I am not uneducated, but I certainly don’t know much about jazz, classical music, or the performing arts. Make of that what you will, I suppose.