Traveling, people, communication, laughing and dancing. Great books and movies. Art, the brain, behavior, leadership, economic development (my own), personal development, history, beauty and jokes.NOT interested in... structure. Passivity, cynicism. Predictable writing/conversations. Disingenuousness, ambition for its own sake. Boredom. Boredom is not peaceful or kind to my emotional state.
Strangers entertain me the most, and also elicit a sympathy my compadres miss out on.I almost typed "illicit". Illicit sympathy is what we crazies dish out when we're feeling like psychological poop.
Songs that makes me laugh, want to dance, are sad or make me kinda float off. as an aside, voltaire said something to the effect that anything too stupid to say has surely been sung. i think this is prob true, and why the classical composers get away with their smartie reputation - they avoided the exposure of bad lyrics.
The Squid and the Whale. Empire of the Sun. Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, This is Spinal Tap. Ghostbusters, Scrooged, LOTR, any Michael Mann/Alfred Hitchcock flicks. Old movies...The Thin Man, Philadelphia Story, Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep. Any David Lean, esp old black and whites. All About Eve. The Last Picture Show. Welcome to the Dollhouse. On the Waterfront. Nobody's Fool. Amelie. Cyrano.The Straight Story, The Elephant Man. Remains of the Day. Casablanca. Lost in Translation. Ghost World. About a Boy, High Fidelity. Get Shorty. Gods and Monsters. Grosse Pointe Blank. Living in Oblivion. Office Space. 24 Hour Party People. I really loved Signs. The Crying Game was good. Shine, Alien, Slingblade. AI. Bladerunner. The Fisher King.The Accidental Tourist, Kiss of the Spider Woman. Full Metal Jacket. 2001. The House of Yes. Being There. Fargo, The Godfather 1 and 2. Sideways is the best movie I've seen in a long time. Comedy is great, love Eddie Izzard. Jaws. Singin' in the Rain, Network. The Opposite of Sex was really good. Panic. Seven. Chinatown. Annie Hall. Manhattan. The Lion in Winter. Some Like it Hot. Double Indemnity. Hero was beautiful to look at. Crouching Tiger was great. The Apartment. Stalag 17. Wild Strawberries. The Princess and the Warrior. We Were Soldiers. Black Hawk Down, Winter Sleepers. Arsenic and Old Lace. Unforgiven. Team America. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I love goofy shit. Steve Martin, esp Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Bowfinger. Citizen Kane, The Third Man, Touch of Evil...all amazing. The Boxer was really good, Day Lewis is great. Martin Scorcese movies, esp Mean Streets, Goodfellas and Gangs of New York and The Aviator. Witness for the Prosecution, The Frighteners. Citizen Ruth, Election, Red, White, Blue. My Man Godfrey, Wonder Boys, Silence of the Lambs, The Producers, Nights of Cabiria, Mephisto, Sunshine, The Last Emperor, The English Patient, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Limey, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, Traffic. Hotel Rwanda. Lilo and Stitch. Wes Anderson's movies are funny. Great documentaries - Children Underground, One Day in September. Michael Moore can kiss my much-thinner-than- his ass.
Inside the Actors Studio can be neat. History Channel, X-Files, Joss Whedon without that Angel loser. Frasier, Lost. Friends, Travel and Cooking shows and C-Span Booknotes.
Amy Tan and Tom Perrota are pretty good. Ian McEwan. Theodore Dalrymple. Any Kazuo Ishiguro, Annie Proulx. The Dead was a good short story, as was A River Runs Through It. Patricia Highsmith is great, esp if you are in a misanthropic mood. Evelyn Waugh - A Handful of Dust and The Loved One are two of my favorite books. John Irving is good, too, though his politics are childish. Heaven on Earth, A Conflict of Visions (any Thomas Sowell), All My Friends are Going to Be Strangers. India Unbound, Capitalism and Freedom, The Law, H Potter 1-5. The Mystery of Capital was great. The Road to Serfdom. Pale Fire is good every time I pick it up, need to finish it. A Confederacy of Dunces is always hilarious.
journalists, scientists, artists and political leaders with integrity. regular, talentless people who make an effort to be nice. people who manage to combine being nice with being interesting. people who manage to combine being nice with being interesting and responsible.