how the sun works, whether stars are really suns but just father away, what makes outer space so big, why i am stuck to the new york city part of this planet, why humans stick out in nature like a sore thumb, whether the best possible music can destroy my self, whether absolute perfection is so unattainable and in any case so deeply flawed that it's best just ignored, and many other things.
mold eradication specialists. disgraced ex-surgeons. people completely unlike me. secretive musicians with rare blood diseases. frighteningly articulate world travelers who graduated from prestiguous universities. people with completely idiosyncratic beliefs who aren't afraid to believe them.
all this weird finnish underground folk-improv stuff like islaja and other bands I can't pronounce, weird finnish rock-improv band called circle, finnish band named motelli skronkle that i know almost nothing about because all the available info when i google them is in finnish, qawwali like nusrat fateh ali khan etc, out jazz and free improv like later coltrane and all the current people pursuing that terrain, this turkish psych-folk band called bulent that made insanely pretty music, arvo part's tintinnabulations, old industrial madness like einsturzende neubauten and harsh noise like incapacitants or merbow, all of the records by swans, the dreadfully underappreciated birmingham group called pram that mixes lullaby-like vox with cut-up beats and nostalgic musical settings, the robot music of kraftwerk, the sweaty robot music of peaches, the twitchy spasms of new balkan madness by the likes of gogol bordello, romashka, balkan beat box, slavic soul party, kocani orkestar, zagnut orkestar, beirut, etc etc etc
old film noir, everything by david cronenberg, pan's labyrinth, casablanca, mulholland drive, blue velvet, drowning by numbers, the pillow book, mr. death, best in show, mike leigh flicks
franz kafka, han shan, dylan thomas, kathy acker, ws burroughs, ryokan, richard brautigan, wallace stevens, franz kamin, maurice kenny
david wisdom, kids