socrates171

Married (finally, 8 years ago at the age of 53). 1 Stepdaughter who I am planning on directly adopting. Out of work for 15 months (as of April 2010) just started an open-ended consulting gig.

Old enough to have attended the original Woodstock and the opening of the Fillmore East.

Carnivorous, love cats, panthers, snakes, storms.

Other than my family, I live for all of the below "interests" with a near-religious fervor:

Music - mostly 20th/21st Cent. experimental classical, rock, jazz, prog, zeuhl, folk in all kinds of fusions.

Scandinavian/Finnish/Eastern European folk/jazz/rock/funk.

60s psychedelia, power pop a la Big Star, punk, Velvet Underground.

Great American Songbook (Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Duke Ellington, et al).

Show music, Stephen Sondheim.

My avatar is the late, GREAT, John Cipollina, QMS etc.

Cinema - lots of films from France, Spain, and Argentina.

A few indie films, some good SF (i.e. Serenity, Blade Runner, The Man from Earth, & The Quiet Earth, not Star Wars or Star Trek, ).

Fred Astaire movies (his best partner was Cyd Charisse.)

James Bond movies (Roger Moore need not apply) and other espionage movies that are either satirical (not Austin Powers, which was just stupid) or angst-ridden (see under books.)

Someone finally made a good Modesty Blaise film: My Name is Modesty.

Moderately functional in French and Spanish (all those subtitles, man....)

A few comic books and graphic novels: Flaming Carrot, Groo, Beanworld, Those Annoying Post Brothers (Sparks) and Savage Henry (both Matt Howarth), Judge Dredd & other 2000AD series, etc.

In French: Philippe Druillet (Lone Sloane, Urm le Fou, etc.), Mœbius, Giger and others from Métal Hurlant.

TV - BSG (reimagined ONLY), Caprica, House MD, Buffy, Burn Notice, Babylon 5, Firefly, Topper, Castle, Fawlty Towers, The Avengers, The Prisoner/Danger Man, I Claudius, + a few more.

Riget & Riget 2 (but not the Stephen King rip-off, Kingdom Hospital. Mrs. Druse, indeed!!!)

John le Carré mini-series, Scandiavian mystery mini-series (Oskyldigt Dömd, Varg Veum, Raid, etc.).

MSNBC, Keith and Rachel.

On radio/tape/CD: The Goon Show. ("Ying tong iddle i po")

Air America

Books, fiction:

Literature - lots of SF, lots of UK writers, only a few US, a few Aussie, a few Canadian.

SFF Stylists like R.A. Lafferty and Cordwainer Smith.

Some Fantasy/Horror that is more urban than rural, The New Weird, M. John Harrison, China Mieville.

Slipstream/Interstitial/"everything is melting" such as Thomas Pynchon or post-SF J.G. Ballard.

Lovecraft and the more creative Mythos pastiches like Nick Mamatas' Cthulhu meets Jack Kerouac: Move Under Ground.

Latin American magical realism, the best being Julio Cortazar.

Love sardonic/ironic prose (Evelyn Waugh, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov; No Hemingway Required).

Scandinavian/Dutch/German police procedurals, Martin Beck, Wallander, Grijpstra & de Gier, etc.

Angst-ridden espionage, Len Deighton, John le Carré, Adam Hall's Quiller, Brian Cleeve's Sean Ryan, James Munro's John Craig.

Satirical espionage/crime, John Gardner's Boysie Oakes, Frank McAullife's Augtus Mandrell.

P.G. Wodehouse, early (pre-Horton) Theodore Geisel.

Also non-fiction books on the 3 lines below.

Geopolitics, Economics, Philosophy, cognitive processes, medicine, pharmacology, systems, taxonomy, physical sciences, and math, and history.

Politics - rabid anti-Rethuglican, pro-choice, anti-war, pro gay marriage, pro-single payer health system, pro-environment.

Beer (ale, not lager) including British Bitter room temperature and hand pulled and Belgian ale, gueuze or Trappist plus other Belgian styles.

Bicameral brain.

Twisted but largely harmless.

React poorly to lies or injustice.

Moved to tears easily (eg at the ending of Atom Egoyan's film Exotica with Bruce Greenwood, Mia Kirshner, & Elias Koteas.)

Straight, not bisexual, alas (so many fewer choices.)

Fear Twitter and it's ilk are destroying the English language.

Ironically, developing Luddite tendencies despite being some of the interests iterated above.

Compulsive list maker especially in Amazon Discussions, no doubt to the profound irritation of the other participants. (Ask for a list sometime!)

Ying tong iddle i po