737. Landslide

The Fleetwood Mac version.

736. Crash Into Me (the song)

I forgot about the existence of Dave Matthews until Ellen told me he lives in our neighborhood. I'm not sure I would recognize him if I saw him, but I'm sure he wouldn't recognize me, so that's fine. Listen here.

735. Our Town

Boy meets girl. Boy marries girl. Everyone dies. (Oops. I ruined it.)

734. The Maryland state flag

Clearly the best state flag. It really stands out against all those other boring flags. (It's actually just the heraldic banner of George Calvert.)

733. Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up

732. Nessun Dorma

Listen here.

731. The Persistence of Memory

730. American Variations

Listen here.

729. The Lion King

You know, Hamlet, but with more wildebeest stampedes and less ear poison. (I'd love to see a production of Hamlet with a wildebeest stampede.)

728. Gateway to the West

Better known as the St. Louis Arch.

727. The Twist

(The song and also the accompanying dance.)

726. Für Elise

Elise is so vain, I bet she thinks this song is about her.

725. The myth of Cassiopeia

Don't brag that your daughter is more beautiful than all of Poseidon's daughters. Poseidon doesn't take kindly to that.

724. The Creation of Adam

Nearly three quarters of the way through, so any time I think of an iconic work that's not already on the list, you can be sure it's coming up. Also, about this painting, notice that God seems to be in a big floating brain. Just a fun fact.

723. How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Let's go with the TV special rather than the book. (And certainly not the movie.)

722. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

A novel about time travel paradoxes and the difficulties of the father-son relationship.

721. Pastoralia

An excellent short story about a man who is absurdly committed to his job of pretending to be a caveman in a historical recreation-themed amusement park that nobody ever comes to visit.

720. I'll Be Seeing You (the radio drama)

We went to see the KUOW production of this radio show from the 1940s. A soldier with PTSD falls in love with a woman who's temporarily released from prison.

719. Freaks and Geeks

The most honestly depicted family relationships I've seen on TV. But hard to watch if you've got low tolerance for awkwardness.

718. A Canticle For Leibowitz

After a nuclear apocalypse, monks preserve technological manuscripts without having any clue what they mean.

717. Fortunate Son

Listen here.

716. Marree Man

A modern large-scale geoglyph whose construction is still a mystery.

715. The Myth of Sisyphus

The actual myth, not the Camus essay.

714. The Tiger

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies	5
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?	10
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp	15
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?	20
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

713. Nine Dragons

712. Pain au Chocolat

Something about winter is making me lean towards edible art.

711. Land Locked Blues

Listen here.

710. If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

709. Schindler's List

Way up there on my list of excellent movies that you don't want to watch more than once.

708. Venus of Willendorf

Sir Mixalot would approve of Paleolithic tastes.

707. Give Peace a Chance

I originally had two typos in the title. I do feel like I would listen to "Give Peach a Change", but the message might not resonate as well.

706. I Want My Hat Back

On the face of it, it's a story about a bear who lost his hat and goes around politely asking his forest critter friends if they've seen it. I would argue that the main theme is really whether revenge can be justified, which is a bold choice for a children's book.

705. Cinderella

And the lesson is: Shoe size is as good a reason as any for picking your leaders.

704. Several Circles

There's just something about those shapes!

703. Chicken Noodle Soup

This may be the first time I haven't even been able to attach a country to a work of art.

702. The Siena Cathedral

701. The Cantina Band Song

Since everything in the Star Wars universe has an official name, the song is actually called Mad About Me. But you didn't need to know that.

700. The Bayeux Tapestry

A 230-foot tapestry detailing the Norman conquest of England. Look for special appearances by Halley's comet and also a monk punching a woman in the face.

699. Bein' Green

What a sad song.

698. Superman

A retelling of the story of Moses with more x-ray vision.

697. The scene with The Mouth of Sauron

 If there's one scene that shouldn't have been cut from The Return of the King, it's negotiations with The Mouth of Sauron.

696. The Messerschmidt Busts

A whole lot of busts of people doing interesting things with their faces. Here's someone in the middle of a yawn. I also enjoy the guy who's about to sneeze and the guy who just smelled something awful.

695. Mars, the Bringer of War

Listen here. Even if you know the piece well, this performance is worth listening to. They really go for a frantic tempo rather than a stately one.

694. Union Station (in Los Angeles)

693. Mean Girls

A movie that takes the Cormac McCarthy premise of "humans are animals", but explores the theme in a high school with lots of jokes and no important dialogue in Spanish. So a little more accessible that Cormac McCarthy.

692. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The cartoony art style was divisive. I liked it.

691. Prelude/Angry Young Man

Especially the Prelude. Billy Joel really knows his way around a piano.

690. The Wire

A television series about drug trafficking and police surveillance in Baltimore. Unfortunately, it's the source of pretty much everything I know about Baltimore, and it paints the city in a less than flattering light.

689. The King and I

That's Yul Brynner as the Egyptian Pharaoh, but you get the idea. Imagine him Thai instead of Egyptian, ignoring the fact that he's actually Russian.

688. This Van Gogh Self-Portrait

Van Gogh did a ton of self-portraits. I like this one with the bandaged ear and the silly hat.

687. Upward Over the Mountain

A good song for waking up. Listen here.

686. The Witches

Do note that the 1995 movie "The Pebble and the Penguin" didn't make the cut. It is nowhere near as good as that scene in Ferris Bueller where Cameron looks at the Seurat painting.

Now back to the normally scheduled, non-alliterative program. The Witches is disturbing and violent---a good way to introduce children to the unfairness and cruelty of the world.

685. The Princess and the Pea

I do want to highlight Aaron's excellent guess of "The Pugilist and the Proctologist", a work I am sadly not acquainted with. I should also mention that I love Wikipedia's deadpan summary of this story, namely that it is a fairy tale "about a young woman whose royal identity is established by a test of her physical sensitivity."

684. The Pit and the Pendulum

You know, like Saw, except actually good. By the way, I do intend to complete the "The P... and the P..." trifecta, but I'll leave it until tomorrow in case anyone wants to try to come up with a third work of art before I reveal my pick.