George Bush's assassin
Cloud Cult, Radiohead, Andrew Bird, Skream, The Postal Service, The Flaming Lips, Rufus Wainwright, Phish, Tom Waits, Tabla Beat Science, A Tribe called Quest, Architecture in Helsinke, Beethoven, Hallucinogen, John Zorn, Mum, Talking Heads, Willie Colon, Coldplay, Tool, James Brown, Gomez, Tito Puente, Fela Kuti, MMW, Orchestra Baobob, Outkast, Aphex Twin, Spuarepusher, Prefuse 73, Frank Zappa, Raiz di Djarfogo, Afro Cuban All Stars, early Ben Harper, the Roots, Ry Cooder, Sigur Ros, Sufjam Stevens, the Arcade Fire, Paul Simon, Matisyahu, Sublime, Chucho Valdes, Modest Mouse, Ali Farka Toure, Polyphonic Spree, Death Cab,the Disco Biscuits, Simon Posford, etc etc.
Welcome to the Dollhouse, Pulp Fiction, anything by Charlie Kaufman, Fight Club, Silence of the Lambs, Baraka, old Woody Allen, What the Bleep, etc
"Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery-it recharges by running." -Bill Watterson
My favorite is Tom Robbins! Ayn Rand, Alan Watts, Terence McKenna, Paulo Coelho, Caleb Carr, Bill Bryson, Law of Attraction, Christopher Moore, Kite Runner, Understanding Media, The Tao of Physics, Freakonomics, Blink, Fast Food Nation, You are Being Lied To, too many to list
The Mockingbird - Mockingbirds are the true artists of the bird kingdom. Which is to say, although they're born with a song of their own, an innate riff that happens to be one of the most versatile of all ornithological expressions, mockingbirds arent content to merely play the hand that is dealt them. Like all artists, they are out to rearrange reality. Innovative, willful, daring, not bound by the rules to which others may blindly adhere, the mockingbird collects snatches of birdsong from this tree and that field, appropriates them, places them in new and unexpected contexts, recreates the world from the world. For example, a mockingbird in South Carolina was heard to blend the songs of 32 different kinds of birds into a ten minute performance, a virtuoso display that served no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art.