Public service and activism, art (making and viewing), music (producing or enjoying), writing prose and poetry, history, archaeology and anthropology, geology and climatology, linguistics and new mathematics - all the sciences, really, especially when interdisciplinary - politics and society, ecology/sustainability/natural resource conservation, but not to the point of making a jerk out of myself. Historical domestic architecture i.e. old houses. Self-improvement without the cheese, manners, kindness, responsibility and hedonism, misanthropy and social butterfly-ness. All things strange, bizarre, intriguing, challenging, puzzling, disturbing, inspiring - goth aesthetics come into play a lot. Being outdoors in good weather and being indoors in bad weather. Finding soul mates in unexpected places. Driving around the continent, from the Deep South and Appalachia to the wonderful insanity that is Los Angeles, and everywhere in between. Fine food and drink in restaurants with infinite ambiance, and sometimes just a good hot dog with lots of yellow mustard and a soda from a street vendor. Being a huge and goofy dork on a regular basis. Balancing my inner screen siren and my inner boy next door. Dancing around in my underwear to obnoxiously loud music. Keeping my paradigm flexible, and my brain in better shape than Jason Statham. And sucking up knowledge from every source available like an intellectual Dyson.
I'd like to meet:
"I'm not a concept. Too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make them alive, but I'm just a fucked up girl who is looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours."
-- from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
I love intelligent, creative, ironic, free-thinking people who want to change the world. People with sick and twisted senses of humor to whom nothing is sacred. People with no desire to compromise or conform, who eschew obsolete and restrictive social norms - and who know what "eschew" means. Human beings who have the courage to love without restraint, to live without fear, to take risks and make change. Mavericks who care more about what they think of themselves than what other people think about them. True friends who will call me on bullshit, tell me to stop whining when I really need to, and will push me to be a better human being. People who read good books and listen to loud music and watch intelligent movies. People who aren't afraid to take a stand and speak out for what is right. Strong-minded truth seekers who question everything, especially anything the government or organized religion have to say. Individuals who make it their mission to laugh, love, learn, experience, create, give, and add to life as much as humanly possible.
Music:
TOOL, Nine Inch Nails, Tori Amos, HURT, Marilyn Manson, Rage Against the Machine, A Perfect Circle, Maurice Ravel, System of a Down, David Bowie, Nirvana, Neil Young, Garbage, Fiona Apple, Red Sparowes, Stone Temple Pilots, Norah Jones, Scott Joplin, Sarah McLachlan, Johann Sebastian Bach, Gorillaz, Korn, Johnny Cash, Hole, Depeche Mode, Puscifer, The Doors, Meat Beat Manifesto, White/Rob Zombie, Hank Williams, Bush, Skinny Puppy, Cypress Hill, Patsy Cline, Led Zeppelin, Jolie Holland, The Cure, The Clash, The Cult, The Kinks, Dave Matthews Band, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, The Rolling Stones, and post-Nico era Velvet Underground. Many more I've forgotten to list. I'm constantly exposing myself to new sounds, and I don't own nearly enough music. And I think that, in a way, music being property is immoral and barbaric.
HURT'S FIRST LIVE MUSIC VIDEO!
Movies:
The Last of the Mohicans, Lawrence of Arabia, The Boondock Saints, Big Fish, The English Patient, Pi, Secretary, Man on Fire, Galaxy Quest, Elizabeth, JFK, Quills, The Iron Giant, Fight Club, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Wings of the Dove, When Harry Met Sally, The Matrix (but NOT the lame-ass sequels), Ghost in the Shell, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Grosse Pointe Blank, Romper Stomper, The New World, Chicken Run, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Lilo and Stitch, A River Runs Through It, True Romance, Way of the Gun, The Fifth Element and The Talented Mr. Ripley. I'm a gigantic nerd and will watch pretty much any documentary as long as it's intelligent and well-presented. Foreign films are usually good as well, as are beautiful, bizarre, and well-done music videos (see Romanek, Mark and Sigismondi, Floria for more info).
Television:
Hardly any - I think I watched it for the first time in six months the other night. But NOVA, Frontline, Secrets of the Dead, Venture Brothers, Metalocalypse, South Park, Invader Zim etc. do rock my world considerably. The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, PBS...did I already mention I'm a nerd? Adult Swim is a leading purveyor of genuine creativity and originality these days. I am an unashamed former Star Trek fanatic (DS9 was da bomb, yo), and I also really really liked The X-Files, Deadwood, Buffy, and, of course, Sex and the City.
Books:
My bibliophilia has progressed into bibliomania, and I'm pretty sure there's no cure except to keep filling my house with books...
Umberto Eco, Thomas Harris, Jim Marrs, Mark Twain, Tracey Chevalier, Jared Diamond, A.S. Byatt, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Neil Gaiman, Isabelle Allende, Clive Barker, Dave Eggers, Simon Winchester, Christopher Rice, Richard Adams, Ayn Rand, Harper Lee, George Orwell, William Faulkner, Alice Borchardt, Roald Dahl, Hunter S. Thompson, Antoine de Saint-Exuperey, Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Lewis Carroll, Gary Jennings, Gael Garcia Marquez, Michael Ondaatje, Frank Herbert, Sherman Alexie, Connie Willis, Norman Maclean, Lomas and Knight, Picknett and Prince, H.G. Wells, Stan Rice, Sappho of Lesbos, Isaac Asimov, Eric Schlosser, Daniel Quinn, Elaine Pagels, C.S. Lewis, Noam Chomsky, Francoise Sagan, Edgar Allen Poe. I just got introduced to Pablo Neruda after a quarter-century of deprivation, and we're bestest friends already. The end of The Crucible gets me teary-eyed every time. Biographies and books about history, archaeology, anthropology, prehistory, mystic traditions, gardens, science, self-improvement and architecture/houses are also welcome.
ON MY TO-READ LIST:
Chuck Palahniuk, Black Elk, Howard Zinn, Stephen Pinker, Robert Anton Wilson, Aleister Crowley, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas More, Charles Bukowski, Neil Strauss, Paolo Coelho, America's Founding Fathers, Emerson and Thoreau, more of everyone listed above.
Heroes:
MY MOTHER -- If I ever get to be half the woman and human being she is, I'll consider my life a success.
My close friends - they know who they are and why they're on this list.
Nelson Mandela, Frida Kahlo, Elizabeth I and Cleopatra VII, Leonardo da Vinci, Tori Amos, Sitting Bull and Geronimo, Ann Richards, Dr. Christy Turner, Galileo Galilei, Dr. John Nash, Jr., Dr. Marija Gimbutas, Joseph Campbell. Pico della Mirandola, The Buddha/ Siddartha Gautama, Jacques de Molay, Jamie "The Blakey" Douglas and Robert the Bruce, Nancy Ward, Giordano Bruno, Hildegarde of Bingen, Anne Rice, Catherine de Medici, Malcom X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
Survivors and thrivers.
