Oxford love is the best kind of love. CMRSers for LIFE.
I'm a dork and I know it.
I don't ever use this thing. Just Facebook me, friends.
People-watching, finding solace in a cafe, my iBook, words, making music, photography, English pubs, red wine snobbery, bitter (as in ale), late night diner runs, wit and unnecessary verbosity, archaic customs, friendship, Facebook wall posts, flowers, writing, boisterous gatherings, and a really good story.
Intrigue me. Inspire me. Sweep me off my hypothetical, proverbial feet with feats of intellectual prowress and musical virtuosity.
NICKEL CREEK (Chris Thile, Sean and Sara Watkins). To love me is to love the Creek. Saw them accidentally at the 2000 Philly Folk Fest, and it's been true musical love ever since.
Newgrass/bluegrass/folk artists of the moment: Ray LaMontagne, Edgar Meyer, Mark O'Connor, John Hartford, Tim O'Brien, Bela Fleck, Del McCoury, and The Nields.
The Decemberists, Coldplay, Iron & Wine, Wilco, Fiona Apple, Joan Osborne, Damien Rice, Death Cab for Cutie, Staind, The Fray, Frou Frou.
Showtunes: Aida, Les Mis, Moulin Rouge, Ragtime, I Love You You're Perfect Now Change, Into the Woods, Godspell, Crazy For You, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and more.
Art music: Bach, Beethoven, Holst, Dvorak, Liszt, Vivaldi, Schubert, Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten, John Williams, Howard Shore....
Moulin Rouge, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Garden State, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Pride & Prejudice (the A&E/BBC version), Finding Forrester.
College has mostly weaned me off of the damn thing, but The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Fraiser, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and Law & Order.
Pride & Prejudice (and most anything else Austen), Harry Potter, Tolkienn's Lord of the Rings, To Kill a Mockingbird, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Great Gatsby, anything Roald Dahl, and the odes of John Keats. The short stories of Raymond Carver, Kurt Vonnegut, and Ernest Hemingway.
My late Pop-pop, a complicated man who adored his family, didn't know how to handle small children, did more good in this world than I will ever truly know, voted Republican, and drank like the Irish Catholic he was. Our lives haven't been the same since.
My late Amma, the physical embodiement of love. She absolutely radiated it.
C.S. Lewis. Roald Dahl. Harper Lee. J.R.R. Tolkienn. Jane Austen.
In the entertainment world, to name but a few...
Nickel Creek, musicians of the very highest quality who play because they love to play. Kate Winslet, an actress of the finest caliber, who defies conventional Hollywood body images. Ewan McGregor, who only acts parts he believes in and sings like a god. Viggo Mortenson, a true artist in every respect and facet.