... Mark ... profile picture

... Mark ...

Thanks

About Me


Trying to live with love and humility

The world is basically a pile of shit and our job is to sculpt something pretty out of the excrement . . . somehow that's hopeful . . ...I didn't take that photo, Weston did. Way to go Wes.

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My Interests

???
Divorcing my idea of God from religion
Hope
People
Existentialism
Hermeneutics
Critical Theory
Music
Reading
Nature
Learning
Philosophy
Socialism
Religions
Humanity
Relationships
Psychology
Walking
Writing
Drawing
Painting
Thinking

I'd like to meet:

oh you know

Music:

Turning Point
Stay Gold
Trial
Snapcase
Minor Threat
The Answer
Verse
Bane
Explosions in the Sky
Stars of the Lid
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
A Silver Mt. Zion
Sonata Arctica
Sigur Ros
Eluvium
Mono (Japanese, not the other)
Cat Stevens
The Cure
El-P

Movies:

Good Bye Lenin!
Harold and Maude
Kung Pow
Motorcycle Diaries
Nobody Knows
Blade Runner
Postmen of the Mountains
The Barbarian Invasions
The Edukators
Himalaya
Royal Tenenbaums
Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
American Graffiti
28 Days Later
Meet Joe Black
Peter Pan (the new one)
Virgin Suicides
Dead Poet's Society
Edward Scissorhands
The Thin Red Line
Maria Full of Grace
City of God
Joyeux Noel
The Squid and the Whale
The United States of Leland
I love zombie movies and old horror movies, just like everyone else

Television:

nah

Books:

Lord of the Flies ~ William Golding
Heart of Darkness ~ Joseph Conrad
Clockwork Orange ~ Anthony Burgess
Man's Search for Meaning ~ Viktor Frankl
Cat's Cradle ~ Kurt Vonnegut
The Great Divorce ~ C.S. Lewis
Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek ~ Annie Dillard
Life After God ~ Douglas Coupland
No Logo ~ Naomi Klein
Tim O'Brien
Albert Camus
H.P. Lovecraft
Robert Frost
Soren Kierkegaard
Friedriche Nietzche (I mostly disagree with him, but I love the way he writes)
I spose it's a bit more low-brow, but I love survival manuals and those "Worst-Case-Scenario Survival Guides"
Calvin and Hobbes
Get Fuzzy
There are hundreds of books that have hugely impacted me but don't really seem to fit into a "favorites category" (my reaction might have been one of rage upon reading them, I may have formulated the opposite view from a book, etc.). At risk of allying myself with some of these books, I don't think I'll mention them (except the Fountainhead . . . I only got through 400 pages and had to quit . . .)

Heroes:

At risk of presenting a totalized view of admiration, here's a list: Jesus, Soren Kierkegaard, Viktor Frankl, my parents, Johnny Cash, Dr. Michael Roe, Ghandi, Siddhartha Gautama, Tenzin Gyaatso, Mother Teresa, Raoul Wallenberg, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Newman, Zach de la Rocha, Albert Camus, and plenty of other folks.
I'm inspired by anybody who perseveres through suffering or opposition, anyone who can ennact positive changes through non-violent means, humanitarians, those who do some good in the world, those who die for what they believe (unless of course you believe in killing others or some such nastiness, then I wish you'd have gotten your issues smoothed out before you died)

My Blog

The cars on fire and there’s no driver at the wheel

We're in a hole that we can't climb out of. All we can do is claw and scream and grasp in futility as we attempt not to slip further in. It's all damage control from here on out. The muddy sides ...
Posted by ... Mark ... on Sat, 04 Oct 2008 08:03:00 PST

Abortion and Gay Marriage

Okay, so to all of my socially conservative friends . . . I've heard too often that 'moral issues' are what's most important; that these are the issues which hold ethical value, whereas other th...
Posted by ... Mark ... on Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:27:00 PST

Car meets Mark

So there I was, riding my bike to work today, as I do most days. I'm rollin' (picture me . . .) through this parking lot (because, ironically, said parking lot seems safer than the very-un-bike-friend...
Posted by ... Mark ... on Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:18:00 PST

The Dark Night . . .

Did anyone else feel like the new Batman movie was riddled with conservative propaganda?Perhaps this was what they were going for:Now I'm going to hunt around to see if this movie was funded or writte...
Posted by ... Mark ... on Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:30:00 PST

Damn idealism . . .

Out of school . . . paying loans, but finally have leftovers from my paychecks for the first time in my life . . .Go have a consultation with a tattoo artist to get some jazz done that's been rolling ...
Posted by ... Mark ... on Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:54:00 PST

God and Rebellion

Fact 1: I know many people who state that rebellion is wrong, that 'God is against' revolution or even just smaller scale acts of rebellion.Fact 2: Many of these people also state that the U.S. is a C...
Posted by ... Mark ... on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:26:00 PST

Community

For quite some time I've had a yearning to form a community house: a place where multiple people lived with the intention of investing in each other's lives and simply existing together. Much of my co...
Posted by ... Mark ... on Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:05:00 PST

Clarification of "I-Hate-Me"

The self-defamation a few notes ago was prompted by two interactions that I had on the way home from work that night, both of which I went away from feeling very selfish and dishonest. I wrote the not...
Posted by ... Mark ... on Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:31:00 PST

Turning 180 degrees

On my way home from work I smelled lilacs. I searched but couldn't find the source, but still, I know they were there, and that's enough for me.The unexpected encounter with the scent of a lilac is th...
Posted by ... Mark ... on Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:40:00 PST

From Me to Me

"Got a dollar so I can get something to eat?""No, sorry man, I've got nothing . . . "Yeah you fucking fraud . . . nothing except the bus fare in your pocket, and the few dollars that will be your bus ...
Posted by ... Mark ... on Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:37:00 PST