User:ThePromenader/Personal

Interests

Photography, graphic design, history, 19th/early 20th century art and architecture, philosophy, exploration (les carrières de Paris particulièrement), maps and basically anything inventive that is useful, incites curiosity or "rings a bell".

Favourite Musicians/Music

• Talking Heads - Surtout "Talking Heads '77" and "Fear of Music" (the "Stop Making Sense tour" was my first concert)
• Gary Numan - I grew up with "Replicas"
• Sonic Youth - "Jet Set and No Star" - I love "Bull in the Heather"
• Radiohead - Can't get them out of my head for days every time I listen
• Crosby, Stills & Nash - Carry on, Questions. Brilliant.
• A Gang of Four - early works
• Nirvana - all the same chords down a stop, but still rock n' roll.
• John Coltrane - "My Favourite Things" for me was love at first... er, note.
• Miles Davis - Especially his earlier works, "Round Midnight" and "Sketches of Spain"
• Steve Lacy - "The Condor"
• Chet Baker
• Erik Satie - Best played by Jean-Joël Barbier
• Debussy - "Children's Corner"
• Beethoven - Sonata Nº14, Op. 27/2, Sonata quasi una Fantasia

Favourite Authors/Books

• Robert M. Pirsig - To tell you the truth I didn't really take to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" because it concluded with "something that can't be explained". Mr. Pirsig later explained that "something" quite nicely in his second book "Lila," so together these two make quite a sensible pair.
• Richard Bach - Quite contrary to the precedent authour, non? For me every one if his "you can if you want to" theories work just fine when applied to the imagination. In fact I'd say that his theories are the very motor of creation.
• Nietzsche - "Aurore" (French title) was a head-nodder for me at a young age, but beyond his study of human behaviour...
• Ayn Rand - Another young-age head-nodder. I do agree with the "I do, therefore, I am", but objectivism has been (purposely, it seems) cut short of treating anything outside of the individual. We as interactive humans make together a big machine: we cannot pursue activities in the name of self-interest that will drain or destroy it, especially when the same is the source of our livelihood. A sure route to auto-destruction, and a "blank out" of its own (to those familiar with the term).
• Umberto Eco - I'm a big fan.
• Anne Rice - Ditto.
• John Irving - Double Ditto.
• Stephen King - Yes, I know. I began reading him though at around age nine - Loved "It" and the "Different Seasons" novella set. I also loved the "Dark Tower" series until his impatient and uninspired "Wizard and Glass" - at its outset the series was one of the most "contemporary" themes I had read to date. And well written too. Here's hoping he'll drop the Hollywood clique and start dialoguing with his readers once again.

Favourite Architects

• Victor Horta - The master of Art Nouveau IMHO. Coming a close second is...
• Hector Guimard - Un p'tit "bouche" ici, un p'tit "bouche" par là...
• Frank Lloyd Wright - Still contemporary.
• Le Corbusier - His earlier works
• Gustave Eiffel - Namely for his bridges
• François Mansart - solid solid solid. The "Salle Z" comes to mind, but you'd have to ask me about that one.

Favorite sayings

"Pride is the belt that can hold your pants up, long after your pants are gone." - Stephen King, "Dreamcatcher"

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" - my grandaddy

Self-aquired Wikiwisdom

12:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC) - solidly-coloured signatures leave a dominant footprint through a talk page: this has the adverse effect of singling out the activities of a single editor over others, and can can become distracting and even annoying to other editors with time.