Thank you dear lovely Ludmilla for linking back to the original thread. It gave me the opportunity to spend a moment imagining Blade lying in the bathtub thinking pleasant thoughts of me. And it now allows me to quote my alter ego, my fantasy self:

"... my only goal in life has been to be that favorite dead man ... of a pubertal girl or boy, freshly arrived at the gate to a bright shining future, influenced by my bright shining example to follow my path..."

HA! By simply correlating this with the following thread

tribes.tribe.net/askerling...f19f7349b9

I find that my life's dream has been realized. Dear Ilaria, one of the young filmmakers to whom I refer, has put me on a pedestal, raised me up as an "influence," the highest honor at artist can achieve. Oh, let us now present the list in its entirety, oh yes, and shan't I loll about in the whipped cream wrestling match of it all, the fame, the adulation:

G.REGGIO, F.PIAVOLI,JON JOST,M.RAY.M.DUCHAMP,DZIGA VERTOV,K.KIESLOWSKI,K.W.WONG, I.BERGMAN,D.JARMAN,S.KUBRICK,W.WENDERS,R.SCOTT,S.SPIELBERG.AND ALSO JOHN CAGE,F.CHOPIN,PHILIP GLASS,ERLING WOLD,G.LIGETI, E.VARESE,A.WEBERN,B.BARTOK...L.WITTGENSTEIN,A.SCHOPENHAUER,PLATONE,SOCRATE,CARTESIO,LEOPARDI,RIMBAUD...

Wait, stop, did it really say ERLING WOLD, nestled there between Glass and Ligeti? Oh sweet joy! I can fall on my sword and die an honorable and happy death! I have proven that we, the second level artists, the less-than-perfect, the not quite godlike, rising up to a point just below the stratosphere, those of us able to play the slow whole notes of the second violin part, yes, we can produce just a few rays of that light, the heavenly light that shines ever-so-bright when wielded by the greats, the Platos and Ligetis and someone named S. Spielberg.

But lists of famous people as influences are merely icons, ways that we can represent to others whole categories through a single name. Clearly we all have other influences less famous. I had teachers, some in fact dead men, who influenced me greatly but whom I neglected to mention in my previous answer simply because none of you would have known them. And aren't we all to love our mentors, aren't we all meant to fall in love with and seduce them for favored consideration, like Octavian who seduced his uncle, the divine Julius, in a closet?

To the dear gods of land and sea and air and art and all things good and pure, flying and swimming and crawling, I thank you for what you have given me. Please take this small bit of my blood, dripping from my hand as I pierce it with a knife, as a token of my appreciation.