Art, books, music, film, learning languages, Mediterranean cooking; planting gardens... Inspired / influenced by Film Noir; German Expressionist film + graphic design; Picasso's drawings, paintings and ceramics; Matisse; Egon Schiele; African tribal art and sculpture; Italian Renaissance and 15th Century Dutch + Flemish painting; underground comics; writers who are too numerous to name, but who have touched me in many ways, and made me wish I could write even half as well. Yiddish humor; and the music, fashion, art, film, and hairstyles of the '60s...
I'd like to meet:
Old friends who I haven't seen or heard from in ages, and anyone with common interests...No spammers, anti-semites, or people with no sense of humor.
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Music:
Beatles; Rolling Stones; early Who; early Kinks; '50s R+B and roots music; early Elvis; rockabilly; all genres of '60s pop music: Motown; Stax; British blues and soul bands like the Yardbirds and the Animals; the girl groups; Dick Dale and the surf sound; psychedelic and obscure garage gems; Peggy Lee, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin; Brill Building songs; just too many bands to list; Lieber + Stoller; Simon + Garfunkel; the original Broadway soundtrack of "Hair"; French, Italian + Brazilian pop songs of the era, and the Monkees...Beyond that, I still love "old school" NY Punk Rock, much of the music that came out of Max's (my home away from home) and CBGBs from the mid till the end of the 70s (and special thanks to Peter Crowley for booking the best bands and putting together the best damn collection of music on any juke box anywhere--at Max's) as well as the British stuff of the genre from that time, and what evolved out of it all over the years, like Nirvana, etc. Always get the chills hearing Beethoven's 9th symphony...Paul Ryder...female soul singers, black and white...and Cher.
Movies:
In no particular order...A Clockwork Orange; After Hours; The Haunting (1963); A Face in the Crowd; The Girl in the Café; Boiler Room; Sliding Doors; The Visit (1964); A Letter to Three Wives; 12 Angry Men; Throne of Blood; To Sir With Love; Throne of Blood; A Hard Day's Night; Rebecca; Saturday Night and Sunday Morning; Notorious; Spellbound; Spinal Tap; Crumb; Wait Until Dark; Rififi; Mirage (1965); Some Like It Hot; Witness for the Prosecution; People Will Talk; Mother; West Side Story; DOA (1950); Pee-Wee's Big Adventure; Falling Down; Diva; Raising Arizona; Beetlejuice; Rain Man; Invaders From Mars (1953); Public Enemy; Sling Blade; The Uninvited; Saboteur; My Fair Lady; Attack of the 50-Foot Woman; Green Card; Shadows; Wild is the Wind; Rear Window; Goodfellas; The Rose Tattoo; Murder by Contract; Enchanted April; The Graduate; Do The Right Thing; The Commitments; Secrets + Lies; Stage Door; This Could Be the Night; As Good As It Gets; Romeo + Juliet (1968); Copycat; Johnny Stecchino; The Lady Vanishes; The Bad Seed; Angels With Dirty Faces; Amelie; The Station Agent; American History X; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; The Rat Pack; About A Boy; In Her Shoes; Moonstruck; The Tingler; The Birdcage; Mask; All About Eve; A Christmas Carol (1951 with Alistair Simm); North by Northwest; The Birds; Mambo Italiano; Angie; Lifeboat; The Women; It's a Wonderful Life; A Summer Place; The Warriors; Cry Baby; Crossing Delancey; Night of the Hunter; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Fiddler on the Roof; Alive; The Sound of Music; Ghostbusters; On Golden Pond; Psycho; Help!; Dial M for Murder; Valley of the Dolls...generally films that are dialogue-driven, smart, witty, moody and/or have a razor-sharp tinge of irony...
Television:
Old stuff that you only get to see once a year on holiday marathon weekends or on DVD collections, like Twilight Zone, The Little Rascals, Fawlty Towers, I, Claudius and The Avengers (Emma Peel collection); Mostly documentaries; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Scrubs; Medium; House; Entourage...And the films on Turner Classic Movies and indie channels...
Books:
Blink; Rebecca; The Glass Castle; Paranoia; The Tipping Point; Popism: The Warhol Sixties; The Two; I, Claudius; She's Come Undone; Cancer Vixen; The Gold Coast; The Hoax; Bottomfeeder; Playing Right Field: A Jew Grows in Greenwich; The Longest Winter; Faithfull: An Autobiography; I Know This Much is True; Harpo Speaks; Bocaccio's Decameron; Contact; Marie Antoinette by Stefan Zweig; Hilary's Choice; Lolita; Burro Genius; What Falls Away; A Yellow Raft In Blue Water; The Haunting of Hill House; A Twist of Lennon; Life With Picasso; Black, White and Jewish; Margorie Morningstar; East of Eden; Ice Bound; The Color of Water; All the President's Men; If Beale Street Could Talk; Steal This Dream; The Ginger Tree; Angela's Ashes; A Beautiful Mind; Mob Girl; An Empire of Their Own; Turbulent Souls; Flowers for Algernon; The Temptations; Mother Tongue; Portrait of an Artist: O'Keefe; The Scholar and the Madman; The Kite Runner; Memoirs of a Geisha; almost anything by Wilkie Collins; and on and on...
Heroes:
My Dad-absolutely...Inspiration / Influences: Hitchcock; Peter Bruegel; Picasso; Albert Watson; Maria Luisa Campoy; Saul Bass; Robert Crumb; Neville Brody; Tina Turner and Cher.
