Listomania soothes savage egos // Let us count the ways that '80s let us down: one, two, three...

I do it, you do it, it's reached the point where maybe evenbirds and bees do it: Let's do it, let's fall in list. Yes, it'sthat time again when Top 10 engines are revving up to declare theyear's best films, albums, books and plays, not to mention knittingbees, parking spaces and telephone conversations.

With the big 9-0 just around the corner, there are also the epicconcerns of the decade to deal with. Rolling Stone has alreadyrolled out its "best" 100 albums of the past 10 years, a ranking thatcuriously drops or demotes certain "bests" from the magazine's recent20-year poll. And some film critics have voted Martin Scorsese's"Raging Bull" the best film of the '80s. (As good as it is, it's noteven Scorsese's best film of the '80s, but let's not get into thatnow.)

For my part, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce the10 best films of November: 1. "A Hungarian Fairy Tale." 2. "Carnivalof Souls." 3. "Penn and Teller Get Killed" . . .

Well, you get the idea. At such close range, ranking films ispretty useless. Even through the wider lens of 1989, or thescenic-view telescope of the decade, there isn't enough distance todetermine which films will have lasting significance. AntonioSalieri, Mozart's old pal, made a lot of Top 10 lists a couple ofhundred years ago, and look what happened to him.

And yet, the urge to trot out titles is irresistible. Onereason, of course, is because it's fun - the adult equivalent ofbaseball-card check lists. Raging listmaking egos aside, the quickdisposability of a Top 10 (quick, name your sixth favorite rock albumof 1984) makes compiling one a carefree escape from the ironcladconclusions expected the rest of the year. It's also an enjoyableway to give attention to deserving but overshadowed efforts.

But at this point in time, as one of the Top 10 newsmakers ofthe 1970s, Richard Nixon, used to put it, you can't help seeing adown side to the listmaking phenomenon - especially when you considerthat our involvement in it has risen while the over-all quality ofthe works being considered has diminished.

Let's face it: Pop culture has seen better decades than the onenow limping toward the finish line. There were arguably more greatfilms released in 1958 (the year of Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo,"Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" and Douglas Sirk's "Tarnished Angels")than during all of the '80s. In rock, we didn't need to see youngbands shamlessly plugging beer for a break or Tina Turner shillingstation wagons to know the spark was gone. Broadway is such a thinshadow of its former self, observers saw more drama in the recentbrouhaha involving playwright David Hare and critics Frank Rich andJack Kroll than anything presented on the stage in a long while.

You could, I suppose, view listmaking as an exercise inoptimism: If we keep declaring "bests," no matter how slim thepickings, things will eventually rise to a level of distinction. In another sense, carving titles in journalistic stonefulfills one of the functions of entertainment: to distract us fromthe harsh realities of poverty, disease and war. Rating the Top 10films certainly beats rating the Top 10 atrocities in Central Americaor the Top 10 centers for the homeless.

It's just as easy, though, to view listomania as an attempt toconvince ourselves that the times aren't as bereft of significantevents as they seem. It's a way of reassuring ourselves thatAmerica's filmmakers, playwrights, musicians, authors, et al, areforging ahead even as the federal deficit grows, Japan continuesswallowing up our corporations and the United States increasinglybecomes a bystander to international developments. As long as we'restill filling out Top 10s, instead of Top 8s or Top 7s, we're in goodshape.

But for all the good times celebrated by Top 10-ing, the arts inAmerica are in big trouble. On the commercial surface that spreadsfrom Hollywood to Broadway, overspending and underachievement arecloser blood brothers than ever before. And on a regional level,arts organizations are being cut to the bone, subjected todrastically reduced government funding and a new wave of de factogovernment censorship and repression.

The White House may have played host Sunday to the winners ofthis year's Kennedy Center lifetime achievement awards. But whenkiss comes to shove, the government's interest in the arts amounts tolittle more than lip service. It was more than appropriate that oneof the VIPs in the presidential box at Kennedy Center was GeneralMotors chairman Roger Smith. In laying off masses of auto workers inFlint, Mich., the center-shot target of the documentary "Roger andMe" did for them what the Reagan and Bush administrations have triedto do to artists.)

The National Endowment for the Arts' recent cancellation andsubsequent reinstatement of a $10,000 grant for an AIDS-relatedexhibition - it was deemed "political" before a rare burst ofconscience - may seem like small potatoes down in Peoria. It alsomay seem far removed from the simple pleasures of attending the new"Back to the Future" and deciding whether it's one of the best 10films of the year.

But without the flame of original, provocative and genuinelyresponsive ideas beneath mainstream entertainment, safe and stagnant"product" will dominate even more than it does. A gifted directorsuch as Scorsese will continue to be forced out of his personalvision and into compromises like "The Color of Money." Lesscelebrated artists will continue to fight the good fight, but it willbecome a lot harder to find them.

Maybe it's time for someone to institute a different kind of Top10 list - one enumerating the worthiest projects canceled during theyear as a result of cutbacks. It's not a list from which anyone willderive much fun. If there's any hope for arts in the 1990s, though,it may lie in us spending a little less time with opinion and alittle more time with bullish raging.

In last week's column, I messed up the succession of "M.Butterfly" actors, so permit me to set the record straight with adefinitive Top 4: 1. John Lithgow. 2. David Dukes (not FrankLangella). 3. John Rubinstein. 4. Tony Randall. Don't give up onLangella, though. If a revival of "Dracula" doesn't grab him first,this favorite among Broadway's substitute stars may yet emerge fromthe wings of "Butterfly."