Writing fiction, taking photographs, running, reading, visiting museums and galleries, looking at architecture, spending time with friends. The Velveeta Underground, my collection of short fiction and one act plays, was published as part of the EAA Signature Series in February 2006. It is now alas, out of print until I find a new publisher for an expanded edition.
Music
The radio shows I listen to most often are Radio Thrift Ship (wfmu.org), Roadhouse (kexp.org), Swinging Doors (kexp.org), the annual Country Music Festival (wkcr.org), the annual Bach Festival (wkcr.org), New Sounds (NPR), and Prairie Home Companion (NPR). When I'm waking up in the morning I like to listen to recordings of harpsichord music (especially pieces written by J.S. Bach). I find that travels through deep space are best accompanied by the music of Sun Ra.
Movies
Some of my favorites (directors in parens) are The Third Man (Reed), Contempt (Godard), The Conformist (Bertolucci), The Trial (Welles), Last Year at Marienbad (Renais), Pauline at the Beach (Rohmer), Romance (Breillat), Red Desert (Antonioni), Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman), Body Double (De Palma), Basic Instinct (Verhoeven), Paris, Texas (Wenders), Desperate Living (Waters). I also like old genre musicals starring performers such as Cab Calloway, Roy Rogers and Elvis Presley.
Television
I don't own one, and haven't for six years. My favorite shows when I did partake included The Great Gildersleeve, Mr. Ed, In Living Color, Get a Life, Strangers with Candy, The Young Ones.
Books
Let's start with Ada (Vladimir Nabokov), The Transit of Venus (Shirley Hazzard), Democracy (Joan Didion), The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton), Kathy Goes to Haiti (Kathy Acker), Sula (Toni Morrison), Wieland (Charles Brockden Brown), Memoirs of a Coxcomb (John Cleland), Joseph Andrews (Henry Fielding), A Severed Head (Iris Murdoch), The Golden Notebook (Doris Lessing), The Recognitions (William Gaddis), The Snare (Elizabeth Spencer), The Hearing Trumpet (Leonora Carrington), Neuromancer (William Gibson), The Translator (Ward Just), The Bold Saboteurs (Chandler Brossard), The Story of the Eye (Georges Bataille), Moll Flanders (Daniel Defoe), Gravity's Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon), Train Whistle Guitar (Albert Murray) The Devil's Dream (Lee Smith), George Mills (Stanley Elkin). . .
About me: I'm inclinded to think of this particular lifetime as one of Y-1 variant traversals of N +/- X dimensional space. Of course, no proof is possible. But, then again, no proof is needed in order to live an enjoyable life predicated upon this assumption.
Who I'd like to meet: . . .people who are civilized, witty and irreverent rather than edgy, opinionated and hip/cool/fly (or whatever).
RON! I can't search for some cool birthday comment to post since you already know I'm sitting in the "cyber-noncafe." However, let me take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful birthday! You are an amazing and interesting friend and I'm happy to have found you.
So, happy, happy, happy birthday...just a tad early! ~S~
Thanks for the kind words Ron! This is Oliver Devine Edsforth, the author. I loved Against the Day. In many ways it is the apotheosis of what Pynchon has been trying to create his entire career and stands next to Gravity's Rainbow as his most accomplished work in my opinion. Hopefully I will ge The Blows published this year and you can have the option of reading it in a nice clean format. Stay in touch.
-o.d.e.
