Ron

What I Like: Page Six gossip; The psychology of the Apex Predator; the organic ochre patina of African Masks; 1980s death metal (Merciful Fate, Celtic Frost, Overkill); Nabokovean literary puns (trilingual, bathed in mauve shadows); the soaring architectonic spirals of a Coltrane alto-sax; 1st century Roman mosaics (blood reds, imperial purples, staring eyes); the Sunday New York Times, Kenyan coffee and a nickel bag of "the sweet leaf" (pffft!); the history of Pirates; Picasso's late, haunting erotic paintings; "... as sharp as a Vermeer"; Japanese Noh Theater; Igabo metaphysics (animism, fetisshizing of ancestral spirits); the gemlike clarity and hidden satire in Jane Austen's prosody; a peppery Cognac; 80s supermodel Helena Christennsen; artistic representations of The Minotaur (esp. Fellini's Satyricon); I, Claudius, but only when its raining; late 80s Afrocentric hip-hop (Public Enemy; Clan X); Old Masters and young mistresses; glottal Byzantine Chants (Rennaisance Corsican music, see also); Glenn Gould's Golberg Variations: the most sublime piece of music in the history of the world; traditional Cambodian temple architecture; the lunar blue pigmentation of El Greco; Gregory Corso's "Bomb" (anticipating the End of History?); 70s drama of urban decay ("Dummy," Baretta, Fort Apache, the Bronx"); Medieval Falconry; the theory of the Fifth Dimension; Milton's Satan; Bergman's Best Intentions; the sharp sound of clashing consonants in Homeric Greek; supermodel Helena Christenssen; Cheetah's; the hybrid Roman-Zeroastrian mystery diety Mithras; African folk tales of the clever Anansi the spider; the smell of old books and good pipe tobacco (the deep-in-the-ancient-forest scent); Wales; The exasperating naivite of the 70s "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" commercial (if it were only that easy to achieve world peace); Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers; Einstein's Relativity Theory; Burnt umber and the sinister, skeletal oranges and scarlets in Goya; the curve of a woman's neck; watching Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters" on Thanksgiving; Horned Babylonian graven images with cloven hooves. And: Low frills Carribean comedies like "Claffy"