Growing things. Feeding myself with foods that make me feel alive. And pizza. Oxymorons and palindromes.A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.Heart-gushing love. My kitty. All things invisible and inexplicable. Turning my body, mind, and spirit into something more beautiful than it was yesterday. Asking questions that don't have answers. Autonomy. Humans and the way we act. Compost piles and cicadas. All things Miranda July. The scent of certain men's armpits. Learning how to communicate without words. Spreading love like mud on a spackling knife.
I'd like to meet:
Nessie the Loch Ness Monster. People who like to drive tractors and who like to play music. My doppelganger. Musicians, artists, dreamers, hikers, activists, bibliophiles, someone who might like to take tango lessons. People who would think a day of hiking or farming is perfect, especially when there's a meal of food you grew yourself waiting for you with a nice bottle of wine when you get home all tired.
Music:
I could not live without music. I'm in a band called Rude Rock Family. Our new album is called "No, no, no...yeah." Listen to some songs on Rude Rock's myspace! Tortoise, Tom Waits, Pink Floyd, and The Pixies are my all-time top favorites.Ryan Adams,Aerial M,Against Me!,Air,Animal Collective,The Arcade Fire,The Beastie Boys,Bjork,Boards of Canada,Bright Eyes,Dave Brubeck,Richard Buckner,The Buena Vista Social Club,Calexico,Can,Captain Beefheart,Johnny Cash,Coco Rosie,John Coltrane,Spade Cooley,The Daycare Swindlers,Miles Davis,DJ’s Krush, Shadow, Cam;Eagles of Death Metal,The Flaming Lips,Michael Franti,Serge Gainesbourg et Brigitte Bardot,Stan Getz with Astrud Gilberto,Gogol Bordello,Guided By Voices,Hem,The Hives,The Hold Steady,Immortal Technique,Iron and Wine,Isotope 217,Jane’s Addiction,Jawbreaker,Robert Johnson,Joe Jack Talcum,Pete Krebs,Leadbelly,Love,The Magnetic Fields,The Makeup,Manu Chao,Bob Marley,Juana Molina,Modest Mouse,Bill Monroe,The Mountain Goats,My Bloody Valentine,My Morning Jacket,Neil Young,Neko Case,Neutral Milk Hotel,Joanna Newsom,Palace,Pavement,The Pietasters,Pinback,The Police,Radiohead,The Rebirth Brass Band,Otis Redding,Django Reinhardt,Jonathan Richman,The Roots,Erik Satie,Savath + Savalas,The Sea and Cake,The Silver Jews,Nina Simone,Smashing Pumpkins,Elliot Smith,Smog,Sonic Youth,Bruce Springsteen,Sufjan Stevens,The Tall Dwarves,This Mortal Coil,TV on the Radio,Townes Van Zandt,The Velvet Underground,Wilco,Hank Williams, Sr.,Yo La Tengo.Every fall I listen to R.E.M.’s Life’s Rich Pageant because it reminds me of a time I may never replicate: Tenth grade. A rose garden in Durham. Life was perfect for one day.
Movies:
I love all Jim Jarmusch and Wes Anderson films. Jarmusch because his films are written as short stories filled with dialogue and then garnished with perfectly orchestrated accompanying images that accentuate the feeling. Wes Anderson's movies make me feel like all is not wrong with the world. Watch out for Miranda July. She's brilliant and she is combining media like no other artist I know of. Aside from her performance art, she also does internet art (mirandajuly.com), writes books, and her first full-length feature was awesome: Me and You and Everyone We Know. L'Avventurra is my favorite of Michaelangelo Antonioni's trilogy. Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders is incredible. I'm currently enamored of Maggie Gyllenhaal and like her in almost every role, my faves being Happy Endings, Stranger Than Fiction, Sherry Baby, Paris je'taime, and of course Secretary. Akira Kurosawa is one of the finest directors of all time. I will watch the Trois Couleurs Series by Krzysztof Kieslowski many times in my life. These movies affected my life: Stand By Me, Edward Scissorhands, The Dark Crystal, Baraka, Dancer in the Dark, Fried Green Tomatoes, Yentl, Slam (Saul Williams is such a badass in this), My Own Private Idaho. I had just read Henry the IV and recall the elation I felt when I realized that some of the dialogue in that Gus van Sant film was ver batim Shakespeare. I love me a good kung fu movie. My favorites are Zhang Yimou's Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. John Woo's Hard Boiled. I also love movies that refer to kung fu movies, like True Romance which has one of the wickedest fight scenes of all time. It involves a wine key.
Television:
Things I have seen and liked on DVD, seeing as I have not had a television in about 10 years: Six Feet Under, Smallville, Xena, Twin Peaks, Flight of the Conchords
Books:
The Sheltering Sky (Paul Bowles),A Prayer For Owen Meany (John Irving),As I Lay Dying (Faulkner),Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Annie Dillard),Rule of the Bone (Russell Banks),The Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Haruki Murakami),Second Nature (Michael Pollan),The Botany of Desire (Michael Pollan),The Sun My Heart (Thich Nhat Hanh),100 Years of Solitude (Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez),Stories of Eva Luna (Isabelle Allende),From the Good Earth (Michael Ableman),All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy),Lullabye (Chuck Palhaniuk),Everything is Illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer),Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston),McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern,On the Road (duh),The Night in Question (Tobias Wolff),Back in the World (Tobias Wolff),Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card),Prodigal Summer (Barbara Kingsolver),Sons and Lovers (D.H. Lawrence),Jitterbug Perfume (Tom Robbins),Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (Tom Robbins),Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Tom Robbins),Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison),Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole),Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison),Ramond Carver’s short stories,The Golden Apples (Eudora Welty),A Natural History of the Senses (Diane Ackerman),Under the Tuscan Sun (Frances Mayes),Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel),The Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut),Orion magazine (It’s not a book, but I love it.)Current reading: The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Pollan); Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Kingsolver); seed catalogs, hoophouse construction manuals; Honey, Mud, and Maggots.
Heroes:
My Mama. Rachel and Eric who own Waterpenny Farm. Two women named Miranda. William McDonough. People unafraid to live their dreams and art and adventures. My landlady’s late husband who, despite being in a wheelchair, fulfilled his dream of farming. Thich Nhat Hanh. People who devote themselves to change, truth, and growth. And the Incredible Hulk who could turn anger into productivity.
