The Lonely Hearts Club

 

It’s not exactly a slow news day; but I have nothing useful to say about the news. So let’s talk culture. The Beatkes are in the culture news, with “Now and Then.” Seems to me it is a comment on how moribund pop music is these days, that the biggest news is a new album by the Rolling Stones and a new single by the Beatles.

The idea behind the Beatles’ “Sergeat Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album cover was that the audience standing behind them was meant to represent their ideal audience.

I don’t find the selection that impressive.

Aleister Crowley?
The Vargas Girl?
Karl Marx?
Sonny Liston?

Rather adolescent.

I imagined my own selection. Rules: must be dead, and no fictional characters. Not necessarily the greatest people ever; perceived kindred spirits.

Stephen Leacock
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Leonard Cohen
Dylan Thomas
W.B. Yeats
T.S. Elliot
George Orwell
Sinead O’Connor
Prince
William Blake
Don Bosco
Theresa of Avila
Rene Descartes
Ian Tyson
William Kurelek
Kateri Tekakwitha
J.D. Salinger
Richard Halliburton
Hans Christian Anderson
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Jack Kirby
Maurice Sendak
Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Thomas Jefferson
John Stuart Mill
Edmund Burke
Buster Keaton
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Daniel O’Connell
William Shakespeare
Confucius
Stanley Kubrick
Alfred Hitchcock
Milton Friedman
Lauren Bacall
Carrie Fisher
Patty Duke
Jack Benny
Lewis Carroll
John Paul II
Benedict XVI
John XXIII
John Locke
Whitney Houston

Readers might enjoy making their own list; or send nominations in the comments.