300 Black Things Ben South Would Rather Not Live Without:
I've never met a color I didn't like but my lifelong favorite is BLACK. Totally positive. Sophisticated. Elegant. Posh. Formal. Rebellious. Intellectually stimulating. Fashionable. BLACK. Here are 300 reasons why BLACK is my favorite color.
--Ben South
1) Aubrey Beardsley prints
2) Wedgwood Basalt
3) The New York Times timeless print version
4) New Yorker Magazine cartoons
5) Matisse's "French Window at Collioure"
6) Majorcan pearls on a swan neck
7) Erno Laslo sea mud soap
8) Tall, fluted, taper candles (mine are from The Dandelion Shop)
9) My decades-old, black cashmere coat
10) An oil portrait of my father in a red scarf with a black background
11) Black Weejuns
12) Black wicker garden room seating at the Governor's Mansion
13) Thomas O'Brian's black towels at Target
14) My mother's cousin's black horsehair Belter Victorian parlor suite
15) Dominoes, the game with its white dots, played in a dark domino shed
16) Black velvet blazer (my brother's) dotted in goose feathers, a youthful indiscretion
17) Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy in "Breakfast at Tiffany's"
18) The Southernness gent fragrance of Black Vetiver
19) Black Strap molasses
20) My worn, black alligator belt
21) A black felt fedora I bought at Bonton Hatters to feel like a hipster
22) Black tails I wore my first wedding and an outrageous and fun memory of same
23) Doc Martens
24) Ebonized parquetry with pale walls
25) Aerin Lauder's eyes
26) William Faulkner's pencil outline for "As I Lay Dying" on his study walls in Oxford, MS
27) Black sky at drive-in movies
28) Black leather Smythson art/travel journals
29) Black rubber flipflops from The Gap
30) Any Matisse drawing, yes, a portrait; yes, yes, an odalisque
31) Sex in a shuttered room near the ocean
32) Mademoiselle Chanel's black lacquered Coromandel screens
33) Black suede Cole Haan loafers
34) A sheared-mink throw
35) David Joseph Self vases
36) La Chamba clay cookery from Columbia
37) Walking off the Churchillian "black dogs" as artist therapy
38) Antebellum mourning jewelry
39) A black leather, mid-century "butterfly" chair
40) My next Jeep
41) A certain black tailfin Cadillac I drove to Memphis
42) Chinese calligraphy scroll
43) Black porcelain flatware from Target (tarnish doesn't bother me)
44) Black linen slipcovers by my friend, Angie Billups
45) Shun Cutlery
46) Motown hits and B-sides
47) Louise Nevelson assemblages
48) Film noir
49) Southernness pecan coffee noir
50) A Goya, black mantilla
51) Jackie Kennedy's veil
52) Philip Johnson's eyeglasses
53) Steve McQueen's sunglasses
54) Microplane Classic Zester Grater (made in Arkansas)
55) Lodge cornbread skillet (made in Tennessee)
56) Mary Douglas Drysdales' riding coat, riding boots, and, yesma'am, crop
57) Anouk Aimee's hair
58) Flat screen televisions, turned off
59) Beatle boots
60) A Chopin Nocturne
61) A Whistler Nocturne
62) The nightsky at our rural farm
63) Sardonic humor and champagne toasts a my friend's deathwatch
64) Ebony piano sharps with ivory, too
65) Benny Goodman's clarinet
66) My trombone case with my silver horn
67) Jimi Hendrix guitar
68) Maybelline--why can't ya be true?
69) "That Old Black Magic," my mama's favorite Johnny Mercer song, sung by Nina Simone
70) The Napoleon III furniture in the backrooms of the Louvre
71) The wine dark sea by Milton Avery
72) An Ethiope's diamond-studded ear
73) "Othello" with Sir Laurence Olivier
74) My black glass iPhone
75) Pillows my mother had embroidered in white with fun memories of my childhood
76) Black vinyl, Hank Williams LPs
77) Black and white bandanas on courageous chemo-heads
78) Black linen blazer with heavy slub
79) "Paint It Black" by my favorite rock band, The Rolling Stones
80) The black veins in Humboldt Fog cheese, the world's yummiest mac and cheese
81) Thomas Jefferson's quill
82) Lang Lang's Steinway
83) Kuba cloth
84) Black calla lilies
85) "The Raven" by fellow Southerner and dark colorist, Edgar Allen Poe
86) Weber Grill as big as a Buick
87) Steak au poivre with lots of fresh black pepper
88) Black bean soup from my guest artist adventure in Puerto Rico
89) Charcoal drawings by the greats or my life study group
90) Tarpaper shack with dignified whitewash
91) Black and white + one-color Dorothy Draper schemes
92) Black wrought iron and filigree in the port towns
93) Black Beretta quilted jackets
94) Black Moncler not-too-puffy vests
95) Black pea gravel in jardins
96) The black merles on my childhood goat, Billy Faulkner
97) Uniball Vision elite black ink pens
98) Navajo pottery
99) Hank Aaron and the Black Barons
100) Brother Joseph's habit
101) Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc"
102) Black Gold, the 1924 Kentucky Derby winner
103) Arabian horses
104) Rosary beads, the 20-minute set
105) Pumpernickel
106) Black spots on Catahoula Curs, Louisiana leopard hounds
107) Black Standard Poodles and that they were bred to hunt
108) Brook and Hunter garden pruners
109) Wool felt on a library table
110) Leontyne Price recording "Porgy and Bess"
110) Black Hushpuppies
111) Iron industrial elements as sculpture
112) Black nylon luggage, the now-classic stewardess rollerbag
113) Cy Twombly scribblings
114) Perelli flooring
115) Granite countertops with mirrored backsplash
116) Black bathroom porcelain
117) Rustoleum black satin spray paint
118) Kiwi black shoe polish
119) Brooks Brothers kidskin, unlined gloves
120) Hogarth etchings
121) Al Hirshfield caricatures
122) van Gogh ink drawings
123) Blackberry cobbler
124) Black Mozart Chocolate Liqueur
125) Meiji Black Asian Chocolate Bars
126) Shiny black, industrial paint for all inside doors
127) Lampshades lined with silverleaf
128) Trees in Central Park in winter
129) Zig calligraphy pens
130) Swimming pools and lily ponds insides painted bottomless black
131) "Ferdinand, The Bull" illustrations by Robert Lawson
132) American Colonial silhouette portraits
133) My beautiful, young mother's blue black hair, possibly the root of my lifelong love of the color
134) A basket of snapshots of my happy childhood and happy this morning
135) Light-hearted, fun-loving Goth kids and elders
136) Amish buggys
137) The Rotring Art Pen for handwritten notes
138) The AT&T building in Downtown Nashville
139) The unbuilt twin of the Taj Mahal
140) My black plastic cylinder trash can
141) A black crocodile Hermes notebook
142) An exer-expanding little black book
143) Anouska Hempel interiors
144) Edward Gorey's "Alphabet"
145) Charles Addam's humorous family
146) Whistler's "Arrangement in Grey and Black" of his mother
147) Rothko's Chapel for the Menil Collection in Houston
148) Morton Feldman's music composed for "Rothko Chapel"
149) Barnett Newman's "Stations of the Cross"
150) Franz Kline "Black Reflections" with colors
151) Azzedine Alaia Parisian bondage fashion
152) Ida Kohlmeyer's "Mystic State 1" serigraph
153) American black walnut
154) Decorating dictum: Every room should have a touch of black
155) "The Flying Nun's" habit
156) David Hick's black-lacquered library
157) Ralph Lauren three-piece suit
158) Jack Spade laptop murse
159) Mies van der Rohe "Barcelona" daybed
160) Miles Redd's glam kitchen
161) Palladio architectural renderings
162) Primitive African masks
163) German Black Forest cake made with Japanese black chocolate
164) Maira Kalman's witty doodling
165) Joel Woodard's fashion illustrations
166) Robert Mapplethorpe's botanical photography
167) Catherine Pittman Smith's botanical photography
168) West Virginia coal
169) William P. Gottlieb's photograph of Billie Holiday
170) Dancing the Black Bottom and eating Black Bottom Pie
171) Rocking with Fergie and eating blackeyed peas
172) Maryland Blackeyed Susans
173) Petrossian Beluga caviar
174) Aquascutum lambswool coats
175) The left side of Chicago's giant Daley Plaza Picasso sculpture
176) Paloma Picasso's onyx jewelry for Tiffany
177) Verdura black jade cuffs
178) Donald Judd's "Horizontal Black Line" minimalist sculpture
179) Bernard Lansky's silky rayon shirts for "The King"
180) Watermelon seeds for spittin' contests
181) Ellsworth Kelly's "South Ferry, 1956"
182) Blackbeard, The Pirate
183) Elvis' eyeliner
184) Markings on a mockingbird
185) Roller skates and ice skates
186) James Brown's cape
187) Little Richard's pompadour
188) Alligator wallet from Wehmeier's in NOLA
189) Eiffel Tower
190) Liechtenstein Art Museum in the Rhine Valley
191) Starlit Southern sky
192) Moonlit Midwest
193) Nighttime Northeast
194) Sundown Southwest
195) Black Friday shopping
196) Wool beret for this artist
197) John Hardy man-gles
198) Star Wars Light Saber app on my iPhone
199) Ansel Adams landscapes
200) Preston Sturges comedies, particularly, "The Palm Beach Story"
201) Richard Wilson's "Black Oil" installation at Saatchi London
202) My cheap laptop
203) Pint of Guinness
204) Converse hightops
205) Scraffito that I did in the 3rd Grade with crayon and this spring in ceramic
206) Windsor tavern chairs in Colonial Williamsburg
207) Quilt pieces at Gees Bend from widow's weeds
208) Amish color block quilts with large blocks of black next to large blocks of vivid color
209) The stilled surface of Lake Lanier
210) Vampy broads with a pasted on beauty mark like Kitty West
211) The eight ball at a poolhall outside Atlanta with the best burger in Georgia
212) My real life ghost story of Howard told in the dark
213) Banjo picks
214) Drinking horns
215) Black olives
216) The patina in silvered mirrors
217) Charleston Bay at night reflecting the lampposts and pastel Battery houses
218) Jerry Brown face jugs
219) Appliqued Hawaiian quilts of black and white
220) Shutters penetrated by sunlight in Puerto Rico
221) Mattress ticking stripes
222) The hatband Nellie's added to my Brooks Brothers straw boater this summer
223) Outside meat on pit barbeque
224) The Wabash Cannonball locomotive
225) Photographs of serious personages like Martin Luther King, Jr. laughing
226) Midnight in the garden of good and evil statue in Savannah
227) Cannonballs stacked in a city park
228) My napping mask
229) A sturdy black primitive huntboard
230) Atticus Finch's briefcase
231) The Nachitochees River at night punctuated by Yuletide bonfires
232) Hot tar, hot tires and halter tops at a NASCAR race
233) Black mollies and tiger fish in a bedroom aquarium
234) The inside of mama's handbag plundered during prayer meeting
235) P. Allen Smith's colossal black, Jersey Giant show chickens
236) Watertubing at Riverfest in Little Rock
237) Purple-black martin gourd hotels
238) Black barn roof with "See Rock City" painted in white inspiring my pie shop signs
239) Black baking sheet bouncing pennies to every tune at Pat O'Briens
240) Ripe huckleberries
241) Creosote railroad ties
242) Walter Anderson's Ocean Springs' alphabet
243) "Tarbaby" created by Atlanta's Joel Chandler Harris
244) Moonlit magnolias
245) My friend, Frank Fleming's, so-called "satanic" fountain at the church
246) The attic fan at the lake house
247) Watching black-sequinned majorettes twirl fire against the nightsky
248) Mississippi Valley aboriginal pottery of my ancestors
249) Billy Graham's well-worn Holy Bible
250) Amy Winehouse's beehive and multi-tattoos
251) The garden benches Jefferson designed at Monticello
252) The velvety blacks of a Johnson Meade magnolia painting circa 1840
253) Heated basalt stones used in massage at Chateau Elan
254) Brunswick bowling ball, bag and shoes
255) Bronzy-black Heismann Trophy
256) My black and tortoiseshell Lars Bolander-like eyeglasses
257) My Anne et Valentine lunettes
258) Slow Box of ebonized mahagony I designed and Dan built
259) Honeychilde 3T tees, cute chic, fun
260) Melba Moore's Afro
261) Alexis Bittar's Bakelite jewelry for Neiman Marcus
262) The spots on a leopard that you're not going to change
263) "Madame X" by Sargent
264) "Le Smoking" by Yves St. Laurent
265) Christian Liagre wenge wood cocktail bar
266) Benjamin Moore "Onyx" paint color (11 parts black, 2 parts orange, .5 white)
267) And, these Ben Moore black paints: Deep Space, Midnight Dream, Blacktop
268) Purple black--Benjamin Moore Galaxy 2117-20
269) Bronze black--Benjamin Moore Night Horizon 2134-10
270) Brown black--Pratt and Lambert Wendigo 33-18
271) Green black--Martin-Senour Market Square Tavern cw401
272) Blue black--Benjamin Moore Hale Navy HC-154
273) Tazo Chai Spiced Black Tea
274) The Salem Witch Museum
275) The Black Hills of South Dakota
276) The Monitor and The Merrimac
277) Clara Barton's snood
278) The "melon-shaped" base of my Empire center table
279) Appalachicola oyster shells at the Peninsula Grill in Charleston
280) Johnny Cash's entire wardrobe
281) Marty Stuart's Grand Ole Opry pompadour
282) Van Cliburn in black tails playing Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2 on a black piano in Moscow
283) Charles L. Pinnell black leather chaps signed by the artisan
284) Blackened madaleinne tins from Lucullus in The Quarter
285) Birmingham iron bootscrapes
286) Ole Miss black humor of "We don't win every game but we nevvuh lost a party."
287) B&B Mesquite Lump Charcoal for grilling from Texas
288) Helen Keller's garden pump at Ivy Green in Tuscumbia, Alabama
289) Hugo Black's lega writings
290) Black marbletop petticoat tables
291) Blackened redfish and reddened blackfish
292) Black figs and fig jam from Henderson, North Carolina
293) Buddy Holly's nifty-fifties eyeglasses in his Lubbock, TX museum
294) Bill Traylor's folk art lessons in black paint on cardboard
295) Black Belt rich soil
296) Hemingway's cats still sunning at his Key West home
297) Tod's driving shoes
298) Stihl chainsaw
299) A Butet saddle
300) Luchese White House black cowboy boots
301) Pardue pocketknife
302) Sulka silk pajamas
303) Gokey leather hunting boots