Top Fives (Drawing Hands edition)

I'll be the first to admit that I am not capable of truly comprehending what some amazing artists have done over the years which have inspired those around them.  I can think outside the box but you just have it or you don't...and on certain levels I do not fully get it.  A big part of it is that it's much easier for me to appreciate certain types of artwork then others.

On that note, I've already explained my love of El Greco's View of Toledo but it's M.C. Escher's work as a whole that really blows me away.  Click on this link and then on the left hand navigation line called picture gallery to take a look for yourself.  The fact that he was not mathematically trained is mindboggling. 

What Escher did, what pieces of art like Reptiles (1943), Balcony (1945), Drawing Hands (1948), Relativity (1953), Smaller and Smaller (1956), Ascending and Descending (1960) and Waterfall (1961) do to stimulate me intellectually I don't quite know how to explain.

The way he was able to use symmetry in some of his other works is also unbelievable.
On that note, here is officially my second edition of top fives:

Favorite Artists/Painters
1. M.C. Escher
2. Salvador Dali
3. Claude Monet
4. El Greco
5. Vincent Van Gogh

Top Fives (Barry Jive and the Uptown Five edition)

Just before the T.V. was turned off last night, we saw that High Fidelity was going to be coming on.  Even though I was definitely ready for bed I decided to grab some floor and stay up another couple of hours to enjoy the show.

We own it, it's not like I couldn't have watched it for a 30th time some night in the near future or, better yet, made my way to the bedroom with the DVD and just stopped it when I got too tired.

I don't like watching movies that we own on regular T.V. because of the commericals, etc., but there is just something that I love about catching it on a movie channel.  It's weird, I know.  I think it just feels more like you are at a movie theatre because you give up the control and have to carefully time things like bathroom breaks.

Gina stayed in the living room with me but fell asleep shortly after it started.  While I am tired this morning, I do not regret staying up.  It was exactly what I needed.

Anyways, it got me thinking about something that I have been working on for a while now.  A few months back I decided to start putting together top five lists for all sorts of different things.  I figure I will share them one by one over time.  They span everything from entertainment/sports/food/etc.

Considering last night, my all-time top five movies will be the list for today.  I based this list on level of enjoyment, rewatchability, how quotable it is, etc.  Movies that I love but can only watch every couple of years, for various reasons, would not make a list like this.  The ones below, I can watch again and again.

Favorite Movies
1. The Princess Bride
2. Bull Durham
3. Garden State
4. High Fidelity
5. Stranger Than Fiction

Just missed the cut: The Usual Suspects and Office Space