WORKS ON DIGITAL PAPER

I have started working with an Italian. No large feat in itself, there are many Italians. A subgroup of the Romantic Language speakers, a sub genus itself of Continental Europeans, which itself is a larger subsection of Europeans, which includes a fair few scattered islands about the perimeter of the land mass. He is a very technical person while I tend to live my time in a far more intuito-feely sort of world. Yesterday he asked, unprompted, out of the blue, who my top ten favorite directors are. This is a question I am ill-equipped to answer.
"My favorite director is Kubrick, he is tops."
"Oh yes, he is very good."
"So he is on your list? Is he tops for you?"
"Um, yeah, I mean, I guess so. He is a very good director."
"What about Tarkovsky?"
"Oh yes, he's good too. I love Tarkovsky."
"But I can't watch a whole Tarkovsky movie through!"
"Oh? Really?"
"Yes, but he is one of the very best ever."
I did not want to tell him I reckoned George Cukor might be on my list. That might have upset him. But I had to admit, I am in ready mental possession of no such list. And when I reflect further, I am in no possession of any such list on almost any subject. I do not make such lists. At least not a list that might go beyond the number two. Or three. The Italian could not fathom this lack of taxonomic precision. Of course, I am a taxonomist at heart (aren't we all) and I took some private offense to his gaping. In fact, this made me realize the constant state of offense I inhabit in relation to such things I list as brazenly petty (a list I am unable to readily conjure, mind you.) But, as these thing go, they are really not petty. They are simply things to which other people pay attention to and I do not and to which my innate fuzziness tends to react with a feeling of intellectual inadequacy.
Today The Italian showed me his iPhone which he uses to take photos just like I do. Well, not just like I do, for the new iPhone (I have the old iPhone) has some rudimentary aperture type controls. He showed me a number of photos that I could never take with my own iPhone. The technical effect is akin to a jump from, well, a pinhole iPhone camera to a single lens reflex iPhone camera. He then mentioned that all iPhone photos are, regardless, the product of luck anyway, and he wouldn't shoot with a digital camera for any purpose other than documentation of some small quotidian matter. Of course here is where I draw the line. I carefully pointed out to him that there is nothing lucky about patience and really, any pinhole photographer you speak to will tell you that in pinhole photography there is no good luck, only bad. To this he said, "well yes, of course that's right." The Italian is actually quite pleasant. And very, very good at what he does.