The sea, sailing, pirates, and nautical things. Celtic design and knotwork. Modern art and design, children's book illustration. Traveling and sightseeing. Ambiance. Themed resorts, like those in Las Vegas and Disney World. Cream sauce. Mushrooms. Chile rellenos. Tokushima Ramen. Milk tea. Sleeping after a huge meal. Okay, sleeping in general, really. Character-driven stories. Japanese culture, and the aesthetic of cute. People that are open-minded and non-judgmental. Clouds. Chico's catalogs. Badgers foxes otters bears lions dragons vultures bunnies horses kangaroos crocodiles wolverines sealions. I have something of a pagan spirituality, and am skeptical of dogmatic religions that confuse faith with truth, especially those that strive to convert or exclude. Eating is one of the great joys in life, but I hate to cook. If you cook for me, I will do the dishes.
I'd like to meet:
The Sheriff of Nottingham. (The Disney one.)
Music:
Too much to list. Only the absolute favorites here... Rock/Pop: Porcupine Tree, Toto (after 1990), Tool, A Perfect Circle, Portishead, Sting, Bruce Hornsby, Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Duncan Shiek, Donna Lewis, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Tears For Fears (before 2000), John Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls. Electronica: Crystal Method, Everything But the Girl, Deep Forest (before 2000), William Orbit, Madonna, Massive Attack, Frou Frou, Bjork. Melodic trance music. Henry Rollins's music is not my cup of tea, but his spoken word perfomances are great. Celtic music: Afro-Celt Sound System, Capercaillie, Mairead Nesbitt, Donal Lunny, Secret Garden, Davy Spillane. Uilleann pipes are my favorite instrument. Jazz fusion: Acoustic Alchemy, Rippingtons, Chick Corea, Bela Fleck. New Age: Checkfield, Keiko Matsui, Richard Souther. Theatre: Cirque Du Soliel, Les Miserables, Into the Woods, Wicked, Rent.
Movies:
I'm very selective when it comes to movies. I'm tired of movies trying to wow me with special effects to make up for the fact the story sucks, or that characters are not developed or interesting. Computer graphics are a 'tool', not an entertainment medium -- use it to serve the story, not the other way around. I love animation, but the animation industry in America can apparently only make one kind of movie anymore -- a computer generated comedy full of wisecracking characters in a fantastical setting that's simply an alternate version of middle-class suburbia. For God's sake, please stop. I do have my favorite movies, however: The Dark Crystal, Se7en, The Secret of NIMH, The Hudsucker Proxy, Disney's Robin Hood, Dancer in the Dark, Grand Canyon, Watership Down, The Plague Dogs, Zoolander, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Millenium Actress, Mirrormask, Timecode, The City of Lost Children. Any Studio Ghibli film is excellent as long as you watch it subtitled instead of dubbed -- among these are Kiki's Delivery Service, Pom Poko, Whisper of the Heart, Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away. Wallace and Gromit kick ass. The first Austin Powers movie was great, and then they had to ruin it with lame sequels. Same with the Matrix. Star Wars got ruined long ago, and I boycotted the last couple movies. Remember, whenever you pay money to see a movie, even if it's a bad one, you're telling the movie industry to make more that are just like it.
Television:
After almost two years without broadcast television, I finally decided to get a satellite dish hooked up to my tv, which had previously only been used for DVDs and video games. It was a rough decision, because I think over 99% of what plays on tv is utter crap, and I hate the idea of paying for anything that is utter crap. However, there are a few things I'd been missing for the past two years, so now I can watch Mythbusters, Drawn Together, and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. I also like Avatar: The Last Airbender, a great series with a terrible title. Favorites in anime television series: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cardcaptor Sakura (the Japanese subtitled version not to be confused with 'Cardcaptors', the atrociously chopped-up and re-edited US dubbed version... It might as well be a different show entirely!), Sherlock Hound, Pokemon (an acquired taste), Legendz, and Monster (animated suspense noir!). Legal fansubs of Monster are available for download at Animesuki.com, since the show is unlicensed in the US. It's free, you just need to download a torrent client. Check it out! In videogames -- for me to like a game, it's gotta have a good story, and it's gotta have a rich immersive environment: Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy X, Ecco the Dolphin series, Oddworld series, Beyond Good and Evil, Ico, Grandia II, Rayman 2, Psychonauts, Breath of Fire III, Silent Hill 2. I also like Devil Dice. Pokemon Colisseum and Puzzle League (N64) are the only Pokemon console games that don't suck. I dig the Halo series, but what the hell is up with the end of Halo 2?! Not providing an ending in order to get people to buy the next game is greedy and unethical. I spend a lot of time playing Beatmania IIDX, a series of rhythm games for PS2 that have only been released in Japan.
Books:
There are very few books that both cater to my interests and are truly great. So I'm writing my own. "The Spirit Ring" will be a series of novels -- a drama fantasy in which eight principal characters try to find happiness in a world of complex relationships, miscommunication, hardship, and loss. It's heavy stuff, even though it's about talking badgers and foxes. Aesop never crafted his fables expressly for children, and neither will I.
Some books that I admire: The Wind in the Willows. Watership Down. Maus I & II by Art Spiegelman. The John Spencer trilogy (The Wreckers, The Smugglers, and The Buccaneers) by Iain Lawrence. Sorry, I tried to like Harry Potter, but I just could not get through the first book. I really don't think it's very good. (Yeah, yeah, blasphemy.) Picture book illustrators I like: Janet Stevens, Mercer Mayer, Jane Chapman, LeUyen Pham, Scott Gustafson.
Heroes:
Bear in the Big Blue House.
