Travel,learning new languages,people watching,watching classic and foreign film, world politics, and listening to classic rock and soul music and world music
Nelson Mandela, Writer Zadie Smith, Haitian film director Raoul Peck, Brazilian film director Fernando Meirelles, Dancehall king Sean Paul, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, Senator Barack Obama
Classic Rock - The Eagles, Queen, Elton John, Carol King, America, Hall & Oates, Billy Joel, John Lennon/The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Styx, Boston, Electric Light Orchestra, Fleetwood Mac, The Rolling Stones, James Taylor, Carlie Simon.Classic Soul/Disco - Al Green, Curtis Mayfield/The Impressions, The Brothers Johnson, The BeeGees, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cook, Jackie Wilson, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Isley Brothers, George Clinton/Parliament, Slave.World Music - Bob Marley, Cesaria Evora, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sean Paul, Zola, Les Nubianes, Zap Mama.
The Godfather I & II, All About Eve, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Saturday Night Fever, Rebecca, Sunset Blvd., The Leopard, Don't Look Now, The Innocents, A Dry, White Season, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, The Exorcist, Seven Samurai, Bullitt, The Getaway, The Sweet Smell of Success, The Hustler, The Matrix, Black Orpheus, City of God.
The Sopranos, Seinfeld, Sex and the City, Will and Grace, Hill Street Blues, re-runs of Twin Peaks.
"White Teeth" by Zadie Smith, "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova, "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse, "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, Bram Stoker's "Dracula", "The Count of Monte Christo" by Alexandre Dumas, "Miles", by Miles Davis, "The Secret Sharer" by Joseph Conrad, "Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany" by Hans J. Massaquoi.
Jean Dominique, Nelson Mandela, Oprah Winfrey (for her work in Africa), Malcolm X, Bob Marley.