Susan Sontag's Likes and Dislikes

Came across a list of things that cultural critic Susan Sontag "likes" and "dislikes."

Let's play a little game and italicize all likes and dislikes that I might have in common with Sontag:

Things I like: fires, Venice, tequila, sunsets, babies, silent films, heights, coarse salt, top hats, large long- haired dogs, ship models, cinnamon, goose down quilts, pocket watches, the smell of newly mown grass, linen, Bach, Louis XIII furniture, sushi, microscopes, large rooms, boots, drinking water, maple sugar candy.

Things I dislike: sleeping in an apartment alone, cold weather, couples, football games, swimming, anchovies, mustaches, cats, umbrellas, being photographed, the taste of licorice, washing my hair (or having it washed), wearing a wristwatch, giving a lecture, cigars, writing letters, taking showers, Robert Frost, German food.

Things I like: ivory, sweaters, architectural drawings, urinating, pizza (the Roman bread), staying in hotels, paper clips, the color blue, leather belts, making lists, wagon-lits, paying bills, caves, watching ice-skating, asking questions, taking taxis, Benin art, green apples, office furniture, Jews, eucalyptus trees, penknives, aphorisms, hands.

Things I dislike: television, baked beans, hirsute men, paperback books, standing, card games, dirty or disorderly apartments, flat pillows, being in the sun, Ezra Pound, freckles, violence in movies, having drops put in my eyes, meatloaf, painted nails, suicide, licking envelopes, ketchup, traversins [“bolsters”], nose drops, Coca-Cola, alcoholics, taking photographs.

I don't have much in common with Susan Sontag's preferences and non-preferences. However, there are some modifications I can make and ask some questions:

From list #1 of likes: "Fires"? Is Sontag's fire a fire as in "something is on fire?" or is it fire as in a cozy "fire place?" If its the latter, I do like fire. I like tequilla, but I suspect Sontag, being the consummate Europeanist that she was known to have been (the ace avant garde), means "tequilla in the sunset," a pleasure that would be sought by many, not just myself. I like sunsets, but the sun has to set in a particular context, like when (and if) I, as a free spirited individual, can relax on some beach or on some roof top in another world perhaps, and lazily watch the sun go down, wondrously. I haven't smelled newly mown grass for a while, but I'd sure like to avail of that olfactory sensation one day (best if its the grass in my backyard, not somebody else's).

Haven't seen any Louis XIII furniture (though I've seen images of them and know they are phenomenally ornate and "elegant" and "classy").

From list #1 of dislikes: Doesn't bother me to sleep in an apartment alone. In these days of economic downturn, should be grateful to have an apartment to sleep in, even if its alone. It would be another matter if the apartment were ghost-infested, but even then were it to come cheap in a nice place, wouldn't mind...It's like they say how abandoned and semi-derelict houses (some of them quite sprawling and luxuriously architected) are being snapped up for dirt cheap in cities and suburbs across the nation. One has to learn to live with inconveniences like ghosts and burst pipes and overgrown weeds.

Actually, I do like anchovies!

On mustaches, I have no opinion to offer, and cats I could like if they were someone else's.

Overally, I see cats as evil, selfish animals who can only shed hair. One noble thing about them is their habit of moving out of sight when they are about to give up on their lives.

Umbrellas are a necessary evil, especially in New York City. But then again, so are they in Chicago and San Fran (and Denver).

I don't particularly "like" washing my hair, but its something I have to in case my hair gets stringy. We all like that little "bounce" in our hair, but I'd prefer a non-soap-based shampoo to instill that bounce. How about saying "I like to wash my hair" with non-brutal agents.

I understand why Sontag wouldn't like either washing her hair or being photographed. These two activities pertain to image instead of the real. Even when photography is for memories sake, it still is image, a Sontag's murmur of discontent in the essay "On Photography" suggests. When people make photographic memories of friends, families and vacations on Facebook or in a traditional album, they are still creating an image of the real in the sense that the photographs are all of fulfillment and joy ("fun"), not of real engagement with the context. 

I love writing letters and taking showers. However, the recipient of these letters have to be somebody I cherish in complex ways.

Taking showers? Just gives me a moment of escape from my immediate reality. Bathrooms can be fleeting sanctuaries, and when I'm in the bathroom I have to busy myself with bathroom-like activities, like taking a shower.

List # 2 of likes: I don't know how to "like" ivory. I've grown up seeing little ivory statuettes at home. My grandmother had almost a museum-like collection of ivory objects. They may have been objects of inheritance. When I behold them next time, I'll look at them with special eyes to see if I can "like" them.    

I can't quite get myself to think of "urinating" in a like/dislike frame. I really don't "like" urinating but neither can I avoid this very common bodily function, especially in the few hours following a coffee-consumption spree. Sontag sees urinating as a word, is my belief, not an activity per se. She was all for leaving the stamp of the "real" on the world in which she lived and encouraging other to do the same. We shy away from the real to an extent that we deny "urine," and "shit" (among other bodily primarities) as being human. It is as if, if you say "Excuse me, I have to urinate," then you are breaking up the earth beneath the feet of the listener by invoking a sacrilegious and "low-class" action.

But Sontag could also be saying that she likes the sensation of urinating--of releasing into the subterranean something that can't be held back and could become a burden if held back forcibly. One could be said to feel free--a primeval kind of freedom, that is--when one urinates.

Sontag likes paying bills, whereas I intensely hate this activity. But for some the fact of paying bills is an empowering activity, as is the act of simply paying off dues.

List #4 of dislikes: I love baked beans but hate the fartaceous condition into which it puts my intestines.

I want drops to be put in my eyes as I believe that the drops would cleanse my eyes and restore moisture balance into these precious balance. But it's a tough task to perform as eyes instinctively blink or pull their shutters down upon seeing a tube or bottle advancing toward them.

I like painted nails, but somehow I'm not currently in a phase where I think I should paint my nails. Of course I don't "like" suicide. But I read recently somewhere that there is something worse than suicide, which is to disappear. Suicide means one can't live with oneself, whereas to disappear is to pin blame on another: to disappear means "I can't live with you thus I am disappearing."