Not too long ago, for reasons I can’t remember, I started thinking about the artists who have meant the most to me over my life. Not the greatest, necessarily - although many of them are indisputably great - but those who have affected me deeply and personally. I have always cast my net pretty wide when it comes to the things I love — I don’t have much patience for those who create a dividing line between “high art” and “low art.” I love The Three Stooges and Oscar Wilde. I love Ingmar Bergman’s “Cries and Whispers” and “Napoleon Dynamite.” If you were to look over the music on my iPod, you’d think I was insane with selections ranging from the Russian National Anthem to “The Little Blue Man” to Martinu’s Piano Concerto to Polly Paulusma to Miles Davis to Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.

The upshot is, I thought it was high time to give some thought to the art that is most important to me and to try and figure out how and why it helped shape my life. I’m starting with a simple list. And little by little, I’ll add essays on each, trying to get at what I find so irresistible about them. This is certainly navel-gazing at its most pronounced but I hope it will create a conversation with some of you. Who knows? Maybe you’ll introduce me to the next member of My Pantheon.