Art nouveau, BIBA, bookish-types, elegance and femininity, Edward Gorey, green tea, japanese culture. The English language. My 1950s Hammond Organ. Bargainous.
Dynamic and passionate: Arab Strap, Architecture In Helsinki, Beat Happening, Beck, Biffy Clyro, Blond Redhead, Camera Obscura, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cursive, DFA 1979, Do Make Say Think, Dismemberment Plan, Erase Errata, Fu Manchu, KaitO, Killswitch Engage, Kings of Convenience, Kyuss, Le Tigre, Macrocosmica, Mew, Minus the Bear, Mogwai, Moving Units, Murder By Death, Neutral Milk Hotel, Of Montreal, Q and not U, Radiohead, Raging Slab, Rasputina, Rilo Kiley, Silverchair, The Dears, The Decemberists, The New Pornographers, Tool, Willy Mason, Yo La Tengo ...anything with pulverising stoner riffs, ridiculously pretentious and overrated indie crap you won't have heard of and of course frivolous Brit-Pop.
Amelie, Kevin Smith films, Baz Luhrmanfests, anything containing berets.
Margaret Atwood, Aeschylus, Euripides, Kazuo Ishiguru, George Orwell, Chuck Palaniuk, Phillip Pullman, Sylvia Plath, Alice Sebold, Oscar Wilde.