Oh, I'd just be repeating myself, now, wouldn't I? But since I *am* boringly pedantic, here's the thumbnail: SF, politics, music, history, cooking, the Internet, Canada, the British Isles, Japan, Russian folk tales, extinct animals, anime, manga, democracy, yada-yada...
Well, you're here now. Do you like music? Do you like to read, would you go mad without reading material? Has a book changed your life? Do you like cheesy movies and quirky television, and adore great movies and television? Do you like red wines with too many tannins? Do you believe in better living through chemistry? Do you even care what that means? Do you understand that caring about things *is* cool, and that irony should be put on a shelf, and taken down and dusted off only occasionally? Do both the sun and the rain raise your spirits? Do you know at least two riddles and one joke? Can you swear creatively, and do you know why you don't necessarily have to? DO YOU VOTE????? No matter where you live, what country you live in, DO YOU VOTE????Great. The bourbon's on the sidetable. Pour yourself two fingers and pull up a chair.
Ellington said "if it sounds good, it *is* good. I'll go with that. Oh. You want specifics. Kurt Elling, Nirvana, Nat Cole Trio, Nick Lowe, Barra McNeills, Kate Bush, Van Dyke Parks, Gregorian chants, Chinese flute music, Huun Huur Tu, Keola Beamer, most any type of harp music, even New Age, REM, Coldplay, XTC, KT Tunstall, Bruce Cockburn, Fats Waller, some Dinah Washington, a lot of west coast 1940s R&B people whose names I don't know; Aaron Copeland, the Who, the Beatles, the Kinks (the only band that matters, along with the Clash and the Turtles, the other only band that matters); Joe Hisaishi, Kanno Yoko...or for heaven sakes, you get the idea.
Stray Dog, Seven Samurai, most of the rest of Kurosawa's stuff, almost all Zatoichi movies, and stuff that's even cheesier. John Woo's early stuff, especially titles with the redoubtable Chow Yun Fat. (Note the overuse of the word 'stuff'? I planned it that way.) The Bride With White Hair and the Heroic Trio - the uncut version; You Can't Take It With You, It's A Wonderful Life, and most other Capra; Bringing Up Baby, the Philadelphia Story, Young Frankenstein, the Full Monty, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, the LotR trilogy (too many times to count), all the Harry Potter movies, the Fifth Element, Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, Cries and Whispers, but almost nothing else of Bergman's, every single Miyazaki movie, especially Castle in the Sky and Spirited Away, Casablanca, but I love To Have and Have Not, and Key Largo even more, pretty much anything with Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly...Must. Stop. Now.
The news. Morse on Mystery; Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes; The West Wing; Frasier; Austin City Limits; Buffy; Monarch of the Glen; Firefly; Dead Like Me; Eureka; Adult Swim; anime wherever I can catch it on the tube (current faves still include Fullmetal Alchemist, Last Exile, Cowboy Bebop, Eureka 7, Ghost in the Shell, both gigs); Battlestar Galactica (the new one); Dr. Who, old and new (a Nine lover); Andromeda and the Stargates (admitting those very fast is the best idea, like tearing off a sticky bandage quickly); CSI (I even like CSI Miami); Project Runway..Oh - does TWoP count? as TV?
How about authors instead? Emma Bull, Steven Brust, Fritz Leiber, Michael Shaara, Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Martin Gardner, Lois McMaster Bujold, Karen Armstrong, Edith Hamilton, Harlan Ellison, Garth Nix, C.S. Lewis (although I rarely agree with him), J.R.R Tolkien (stop rolling your eyes); Gerald Durrell (bored stiff by his brother); Enid Blyton; the Brothers Grimm; Edgar Pangborn, Ursula LeGuin, C.J. Cherryh, Glen Cook. Others available upon demand.
Margaret Barss Stackhouse, Warren McNeill Routliffe, Ed Sunden, Paul Wellstone, Al Franken, Carl Sagan, Penn and Teller, Nelson Mandela, Hillary Rodham, William Jefferson Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Sir John A. MacDonald, Richard Feynmann, Alan Turing, Paul Simon (the Senator), the members of the Order of the White Rose, Geronimo, Tommy Douglas, the Fathers of Confederation, Albert Einstein, Austin McPherson, Mary Glen Keirstead Routliffe Stirling.