1. anything written by grant morrison
2. underworld's first two albums (dubnobasswithmyheadman and beacoup fish) / tomato design
3. alice in wonderland
4. 20th century art (picasso and duchamp esp)
5. peter greenaway and david lynch

(this is much harder than it appears. i look forward to seeing what you choose to include - it leaves so much out.)

High 5, more dead than alive, rockin' the plastic like a man from a casket (+ a couple)

1) The Far Side
3) sonic youth
4) frank lloyd wright: "Architecture is the triumph of human imagination over materials, methods and men, to put man into possession of his own earth.
5) U2 - The Joshua Tree
6) This Is Spinal Tap
7) The Lord Of the Rings
8) Le Corbusier - Ronchamp

Intersting topic-works would be really hard to list. For me, first things that come to mind are these people -

John Cage
Miles Davis
Robert Smithson
Nick Negroponte
Maryanne Amacher

Have been very very fortunate to spend some time with all except Miles who dropped his horn mute on me in the first row at a show in Boston and gave me a really dirty look when I handed it back to him... talk about formative experience.

For me the idea of condensing my formative life experiences into a top 5 seems limited, so I'll just have to give you my top under 10 (in categories) ok? Here goes...

1. Travel, Specifically to: Turkey (my Aunt and Uncle live there), Greece, Jordan (specifically the ruins in Petra), Egypt (absolutely the most fascinating country, the cradle of civilization. And if you SCUBA dive, the Red Sea is amaaazziing!), France, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Italy (the most beautiful women I have encountered thus far), Australia ( I find it funny that this country has some of the strangest and most of the most poisonous animals in the entire world all in a space not much larger than the continental US).
2. Animation from the 80s, specifically Robotech, other Japanese anime and manga, Transformers, GI Joe, Thundercats, Silverhawks and others.
3. Japanese Fim (specifically Akira Kurosawa)
4. American Cinema of the 1920s-40s (Frank Capra, Chaplin, Keaton)
5. The Original NES
6. Star Wars (and not the Reagan initiative)
7. James Bond
8. The musical stylings of Enigma, Deep Forest, Delerium, Dead Can Dance, Cusco.
9. Lloyd Alexanders Chronicles of Prydain Series

Just under 10. I made it. But really, this is just a small list, I have top 10s for almost everything you can think of. We'll have to compare more sometime.

1. Buckminster Fuller (many things..)
2. Yutaka Haniya (japanese metaphysical writer)
3. Paul Rand/Buruno Munari/Enzo Mari (designer)
4. Thelonious Monk/Yosuke Yamashita/Bill Evans (jazz pianist)
5. Alvar Aalto/Le Corbusier (architect)

i like creation by methodology and creation of methodology.

My list of people looks a lot like Scott’s only I’d swap James Turrell for Smithson and Philip Glass for Miles, only because I’ve had the privilege to work for them. This entire exercise could be reduced to two: John Cage and Bucky Fuller.

But I’ll take this challenge to name individual pieces, work I credit with letting me know that I wasn’t alone in the universe (in order of my encounters):

- Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings
- Robert Irwin’s white discs
- “Life and Times of Joseph Stalin”(1793) and “Einstein on the Beach”(1976)
- The Saragosa Manuscript
- M.Teste / Paul Valéry
- Borges and other Argentines: Cortázar, Macedonio, Puig
- Diderot and Didion