CURRENT MISSION

To dig into cities and understand what makes them tick

ABOUT ME

I'm pretty introverted (there's the first thing you need to know), but like most introverts, I have layers. One of my favorite things about myself is that I can spin an adventure out of any experience, no matter how mundane.

Interests

Music is my life, or, you know, at least a good 30 percent of it. I play the violin, but more importantly, I am on a quest to know all there is to know about classical music. I love all flavors of history, as well as politics (but only of the electoral sort; I can't handle much else). I am also into linguistics and foreign languages and urban studies, and I love to walk for absurd distances, either on nature hikes or across whole cities. I also feel a pull towards urban exploration, towards abandoned buildings and infrastructure, towards infiltration, towards going places I'm not supposed to be... I think that's one of the most compelling ways to explore your world.

• poetry
• coloring
• politics
• reading
• music
• classical music
• violin
• hiking
• business
• history
• languages
• mountains
• urban exploration

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: no

Music: Classical music is my first love, but I am currently cheating on it with indie a little bit. I also really love electronica and Sondheim musicals, and am trying to get into jazz and world music. My goal is to be open-minded enough to love any kind of music you put in front of me.

Books: I end up reading mostly history and classic literature, but I am pretty scattershot about it. One of my favorite authors is Bohumil Hrabal, a Czech author who wrote books that float between poetry and prose and pure music and who had his friends bring him pitchers upon pitchers of beer every morning so he could get blasted before he started to write. Italo Calvino is another huge favorite. I am pretty positive about Thomas Pynchon, and I *love* William Faulkner.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Europe: Riding a dangerously overcrowded train from Olomouc in the Czech Republic to Poprad in Slovakia through some of the most beautiful mist-shrouded mountains I've ever seen, with sunsets behind hills and castles perched atop crags, hanging my head out the window for six hours and taking formless long-exposure photos of the color green.

North America: Holding a poetry reading in the middle of an abandoned highway tunnel, underneath a mountain, three quarters of a mile from the outside world, in sensory deprivation so absolute that I could not imagine the world had, at one point, existed.

Teach, Learn, Share

I know a few things, but there are only a few that I could teach someone as opposed to just aimlessly babbling about them. I can show you my city, for sure. I can give you an impromptu three-hour lesson on the history of Western classical music. I can teach you how to understand a city by looking at how its people and buildings and public spaces interact. I can help you make recognizable notes on a violin. I can explain how to analyze any American accent. I can say lots of things about the concept of national identity in eastern Europe, though now we're getting into aimless babbling territory. Courtesy of a previous job, I can also advise you on how to get into business school, should you ever, for god knows what reason, want to go to business school.

Countries I’ve Visited

Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Switzerland, Tajikistan, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, United States