Drawing, writing, reading, music, running, all outdoors sports and activities, motorcycling, concerts, shows, exhibits, movies, traveling back to Europe. Health foods, spirituality, theology. Turning tolerance into acceptance by advocating for special needs children, the disadvantaged and for human rights. Animal rescue. Peace and the environment. Adverse politics.
My Gypsy and Jewish ancestors.
Real, loving and alive women and men. French and Russian expats, other aliens, language professionals, scholars and thinkers. BIENVENUE A TOUS LES FRANCAIS!!!! Runners, hikers, bikers, and extreme seekers. Music lovers and musicians, writers and poets, inventors, craftsmen and artists. Globetrotters and Earth lovers (BIODIVERSITY IS OUR PLANET'S LIFE INSURANCE. If we do not act collectively and individually to protect it, we're going to fry or freeze!!!). Peacemakers, barrier removers, advocates, movers and shakers, trend setters, the politically incorrect (THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS ARE COMING SOON AND WE NEED SERIOUS AND POSITIVE CHANGE IN THE DIRECTION OF WORLD PEACE, POVERTY ERADICATION, DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE, RESPONSIBLE ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES, SOCIAL "VILLAGE-ORIENTED" PROGRAMS, RACE AND GENDER EQUALITY, UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE, GENUINE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, AN EDUCATIONAL OVERHAUL, "DEMATERIALIZATION" AND --DEFINITELY-- A RETURN TO AESTHETICS. It is our duty as members of Civil Society to STAND FOR WHAT WE BELIEVE IN and promote and elect what I would like to call "HEROIC LEADERS"). Minorities, "marginalities," stand-against-the-tiders, valuable rejects, the entire sun-bathed side of humanity. Siblings of Down Syndrome treasures and of anyone with a physical/mental challenge. MERCI for visiting and for reading my blogs, without you, this space would not exist!
1970-1995 rock, especially Genesis, Yes, Supertramp, Police/Sting and Dire Straits; Pat Metheny; The Cure, Dave Mathews Band, Muse. Reggae as a conveyor of message. French singers like Lavilliers, Jonasz, Gainsbourg, Charlelie Couture, Boogaerts, Bashung, Delerm, Daho, Souchon, Berger, Ferrer, Voulzy, Le Forestier, Duteil, Les Negresses Vertes, Paris Combo, MC Solaar, etc. New/local artists.
Last movies I saw: Tristan and Iseult, Hairspray, The Queen, Knocked up, Enchanted, Jules et Jim, Hot Fuzz, Under the Tuscan Sun, 300, Pierrot Le Fou, Impromptu, Marie-Antoinette, Alila of Israel, Ratatouille, Sin City, The Day After Tomorrow. All French and avant-guard movies. Epic movies (Ghandi, The Last Emperor). Anything Fellini. Edgy documentaries. The intelligently stupid (Laurel & Hardy, Napoleon Dynamite AND Coluche). One secret: I am a HUGE fan of Black American college marching bands and saw Drumline... many times.
TV5, the French channel for expatriates. Not much time for the tube...
Now reading: The Celestine Prophecy (Redfield) - Co-Dependent No More - Nickel and Dimed (Ehrenreich), Buffon - La nature en majesté (Laissus), Ada (Nabokov), Quantum Healing (Chopra), Elective Affinities (Goethe), Walden (Thoreau), Le Beau Monde (Peyramaure), Jim Morrison's biography, and Things Fall Apart (Achebe). My 80+ dictionaries for work! French classics and literary prizes. Spiritual how-to. Biographies. Break-through authors (Life of Pi). Kundera. Umberto Ecco. Jorge-Luis Borges. Arundhati Roy. All versions of the Bible.
My children. Women who set models. Missionaries, humanitarians and all those who spend their lives helping the poor, the sick, the abused. Survivors. Individuals who manage to overcome physical and/or mental handicaps. People who have a beautiful soul, are giving, spiritual, original, talented, knowledgeable and ideologically engaged.