James profile picture

James

September's here again...

About Me


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I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. While in school my family moved to a suburb of Houston (which shall remain unnamed) that I escaped from as soon as possible. After university I took off and spent a good amount of time in central Europe. Soon after returning to the States, I relocated to San Francisco where I received my teaching certificate (a big hello to all former NWT people who might read this!) and taught there for a while. In 1997 I got an offer to teach for a year in Russia. I accepted the offer, little knowing that one year would stretch into more than seven. While there, I met my wife, Lyena, and attended the Peoples' University of the Arts where I recieved my Master of Photography diploma. After all that time, Yelena (Lyena for short), and I, and the cats came home to Texas. Currently I'm busy working and giving guitar lessons while getting my photo studio off the ground. My music profile is at www.myspace.com/jameschillmusic
I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4
All photographs (c) James Craig Hill

My Interests


Photography. Music - both listening to it and making it on my guitars, cooking, forteana and the unexplained, owls, film, spending time with my wife, history, art, good coffee, visiting with friends, cats.

I'd like to meet:

Those like-minded individuals from all over the world who share my interests in music, photography, art, the unexplained and other mysterious goings on.

Music:

Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Dead Can Dance, The Smiths, Bauhaus, The Cure, A Certain Ratio, Alternative TV, Buzzcocks, Chris and Cosey, Comsat Angels, The Creatures, Current 93, Curve, Death In June, Desperate Bicycles, Devo, Dif Juz, Durutti Column, Echo and The Bunnymen, Brian Eno, The Fall, The Glove, Heavenly Bodies, Robyn Hitchcock, Japan, Jesus and Mary Chain, Killing Joke, Kitchens of Distinction, Legendary Pink Dots, Love and Rockets, Lush, Mauve Sideshow, Modern English, Morrissey, Peter Murphy, Nature and Organisation, New Order, Of The Wand and The Moon, OMD, Pale Saints, The Pixies, The Prefects, Psychedelic Furs, Public Image Ltd., The Ramones, The Stranglers, Suso Saiz, Soft Boys, Sol Invictus, Sonic Youth, Swell Maps, David Sylvian, Television, Terminus, This Mortal Coil, Ultra Vivid Scene, Ultravox, Wall of Voodoo, Wire, lots of others. Some compilation albums that are important to me: Terra Serpentes (World Serpent), MM Compilation (World Serpent), Neo-folk.it Compilations, Neo-form.de Compilation, Lonely Is An Eyesore (4AD), Perpetual State of Oracular Dream (Anomalous), Dr. Death Compilations (C'est La Mort). I also like the darker side of electronic music. Thanks to my wife, classical and medieval music are in heavy rotation at our house.

Movies:

Silent movies (especially Murnau, Pabst, Lang, Chaplin,Keaton, Lloyd, etc), Marx Brothers pictures, Laurel and Hardy, Maya Deren, Bruce Conner, Shorts, Film Noir , Tim Burton's pictures, documentaries, etc.

Television:

We haven't owned a TV in over eight years, but there are some shows on dvd...

Books:

A list of books I love would take a good while to complete, but here's a list of books and authors (in no particular order) to get you started. Henry Miller, Mikhail Bulgakov, James Joyce, JG Ballard, DH Lawrence, John Fowles, Colin Wilson, John Keel, William Blake, Algernon Blackwood, HP Lovecraft, Beowulf, MR James, The King In Yellow, Ambrose Bierce, Arthur MachenSheridan LeFanu, Charles Fort, Brad Steiger, Ovid, Homer (The Odyssey), Robert Anton Wilson, Sergei Dovlatov, Mark Twain, Jan Harold Brunvand, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, "The Golden Bough", almost anything about Greco-Roman and Northern Mythology. Lots of others

Heroes:

My maternal grandparents, my teacher - Alexander Degtyaryov, Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, James Abbe, Eugene Atget, Cecil Beaton, Brassai, Clarence Bull, Imogen Cunningham, Gertrude Kasebier, Cosette Harcourt, George Hoyningen-Huene, George Hurrell, Yousuf Karsh, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Frederico Patellani, Man Ray, Leni Riefenstahl, Edward Weston. Artists, writers, photographers, musicians, dancers, dreamers, visionaries, seekers, and creators everywhere.

My Blog

The Dangers of Reading...

A WARNING to youth...http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF130-Book_World.gifW hile there, check out the other comics he has posted online - very funny!-James
Posted by James on Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:09:00 PST

New Addition to the Family

Well, you never know what to expect... I went home for lunch and to take my wife to work a while ago. On our way out, we heard the neighbor's dog barking like crazy. I walked over to find out what was...
Posted by James on Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:29:00 PST

Guitar book talk

Here's a list of some of my favorite guitar books that I use with my students:"Guitar For The Small Fry" by Dick Bennett - a great book for kids!"You Can Do It...Play Guitar, Dammit!" by Matt Scharfg...
Posted by James on Tue, 25 Sep 2007 11:11:00 PST

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered!"

Apparently it's easy to be categorized these days - just take a quiz when you're bored. Here's the results!..>..>..>You scored as Goth, Your A Goth!..>..>..>Goth..>..>..>..>40% Rocker, Mosher..>..>..>...
Posted by James on Fri, 21 Sep 2007 09:34:00 PST

Has anyone else noticed this?

Has anyone else noticed that the tagline on the Ranch Style Beans logo has changed over time? It used to say ' Husband Pleasin' ', then it became ' Family Pleasin' ', now it's ' Appetite Pleasin' '. T...
Posted by James on Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:10:00 PST

The Austin Trip

Our trip to Austin got off to a slow start. Although we left home at 5:30, we didn't get out of town until after 6:30 due to queues at the bank and the gas station. For the first hour and a half of t...
Posted by James on Mon, 03 Sep 2007 10:35:00 PST

You just never know who youll meet

This is how my Monday went this week. The story is excerpted from a letter to a friend. Looking back now, it's kind of funny, so I thought I would share it with all of you. Monday morning got star...
Posted by James on Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:05:00 PST

Drinking and Thinking...Its really hot here in Texas...

But Gin and Tonic on ice makes it tolerable. I'm having a double right now.Also, check this out:http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/08/redneck.games.ap/index. html?iref=mpstoryviewMaybe I'm being intolerant ...
Posted by James on Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:42:00 PST

Has anyone ever...

...actually USED these emoticons on their blog or status and mood indicator on their profile?ExanimateHornyIndescribableQuixotic RecumbentImagine, reading a profile and saying"Aha - X is indescribabl...
Posted by James on Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:03:00 PST

Part Deux :Where do you want to go?

The UK and Ireland - the rest of my family has been, but I wasn't able to make those trips, :-( ItalyFranceGreeceThere are lots of places in the US and Canada I'd like to visit too. How about you?...
Posted by James on Wed, 08 Aug 2007 08:48:00 PST