CURRENT MISSION

Hiking to higher elevations faster

ABOUT ME

Just the usual eccentric pale, introverted SWM with editorial inclinations, born in the U.S. and spending too much time surfing the net and fantasizing about spicy food and my next day hike

PHILOSOPHY

I am scheming to find a way to fix the many widespread public abuses of the apostrophe, a sacred grammatical hallmark! Soon, SOON, I shall transform into the linguistic vigilante who vanquishes all superfluous apostrophes from signs everywhere!

Interests

My passions include music, reading, hiking, art, wandering around the city, eating foreign cuisine of all types, spicy food, independent and foreign films.

• arts
• dining
• movies
• reading
• music
• hiking
• backpacking
• surfing
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Some of my favorite books include "A Free Life" by Ha Jin (this is really excellent, check it out), "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger, "East of Eden" by Steinbeck, "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov, Charles Stross, Nancy Kress, Kurt Vonnegut, and "1984" by Orwell. The New Yorker is a favorite magazine. The Onion's free weekly New York edition (somehow much funnier in hard copy than on the net) reigns. What would I do without headlines like "Massachusetts Supreme Court Orders All Citizens to Gay Marry," eh?

Music: Vitally important. Some favorites include Spoon, Low, P.J. Harvey, Haale, Neko Case, Arcade Fire, Beck, John Fahey, Silver Jews, Steve Earle, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Shivkumar Sharma, Johnny Cash, Curve, the Orb, Neu, Kraftwerk, My Bloody Valentine, M83, Spaceheads, Ladytron, Blackalicious, the National, Budos Band, Sage Francis, Feist, Faust, Thao Nguyen, Zakir Hussain, TV on the Radio, Evolution Control Committee, Negativland, Pierre Henry, Bat for Lashes, Brother Ali, all sorts of things played on WFMU (wfmu.org), etc.

Movies: The Double Life of Veronique, the Vanishing (original version), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Coraline, District 9, Burnt by the Sun, An Education, the 400 Blows, Wall-E, the 40-Year-Old Virgin, Into the Wild, Gattaca, the Hurt Locker, some Altman (especially "The Player"), and almost anything by Hitchcock, Burton, Miyazaki, or Lynch. But I'm not opposed to the occasional mindless action movie, if done well (but no Michael Bay, because seriously, why would a non-coked-up person edit a movie like that?). My favorite TV includes the Wire, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Craig Ferguson (I'm more of a Craig Ferguson than a Jon Stewart), Lost, BSG, BtVS, Angel, Firefly, the Office (both versions), Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, DS9, Farscape, Daria, etc.

Artists: Magritte, Banksy, Bruce Nauman, Ron English, and many many many others.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Hiking to caves in Vang Viang, Laos, and eating the local cuisine from local stands. Buying food at the web market in Luang Prabang, Laos. Backpacking around Thailand, going north across the land borders into Laos and then to southwestern China by bus and truck. Riding ancient swerving buses in Laos through the mountains on the country's main highway which was the same quality as a third-rate U.S. mountain blacktop road but with utterly amazing views and hairpin turns and awesome sandwiches on French baguettes at the rest stops in tiny towns.

Countries I’ve Visited

China, Finland, Gibraltar, Laos, Russian Federation, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States