ABOUT ME

Hi, my name is Michał, but my friends call me Kurc or Misze. Like every CSer I'm rather open-minded, like meeting people and traveling, but I'm not necessarily a happy-go-lucky type. More like level-headed and rational. Not to be confused with beeing annoying smartass or boring (I hope so). Also a little bit deranged (in sense of having unusal interests and weird sense of humour). I like staying awake late at night listening to the music and reading about life cycle of an eel (anquila anquila), various pyrophytic plant spiecies and precolumbian surgical instruments. Wikipedia and discogs are my 9gag. I don't like tomateos and think Freud was charlatan.

Few words about my lingustic abilities: since I have little occasion to speak English, it does not come naturally for me. Basically sometimes I speak like a drunken Borat (especially when I'm drunk), but I'm working on that. Feel free to correct me from time to time. As for German and Hindi - I know only basics (poorly). I can also read and write in dewanagari script (used for hindi), square aramaic (used for yiddish and hebrew), cyrilic and greek alphabet, although those skills might be a little bit rusty.

PHILOSOPHY

Keep your head open enough to catch a new ideas, but not enough to allow your brain leak out.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Few years ago a friend of mine persuaded me that one month hitch-hike trip through the Balanks is a good idea. He was right. It wouldn't be possible without help of many great CS people on our way. Now, since I've just got a decent flat suitable for hosting guests it's time to repay my debt to the CS community. I'll start as soon as I settle down in my new place.

Interests

Recently I've merged my longstanding hobby (which is music) with more academic aproach, and made anthropology/sociology of music the main subject of my future PhD dissertation. That's why most of my interest focuses on music - reading about music, listening to the music, mixing music (I've just started to learn how to DJ with oldschool turntables) and even construction of analog instruments like a dub siren (along with friend who knows much more about electronics than I do) and so on. I've also used to play guitar (acoustic, electric, bass), and tried to play drums and didgeridoo.

Apart from music - when I was a little younger, I enjoyed shooting a bow, acrobatics, martial arts and fire show, but lately I have not had the time nor the conditions. Still remember few things though. Right know I'm more into stationary activities like reading books or writing popscience/trivia blog (unfortunately only in polish).

• books
• music
• guitar
• drums
• martial arts
• archery
• anthropology
• social science
• sociology
• djing
• popular science
• didgeridoo
• fire spinning
• fire show

Music, Movies, and Books

MOVIES

I'm definitely not a fan of blockbusters, but don't appreciate most Dogma95-like movies either. They can be sometimes interesting, but usually exhausting and unbearably pretentious. Hollywood pulp and 6-hours long surrealistic black&white experiments are equally bad. Good story is a fundament of a good movie (maybe with few honorable exepctions). It don't have to be straightforward, but shouldn't require five hours long analysis either. If it comes to intellectual charades, I prefer books.

Few movies that I really enjoyed: Taxi Driver, Ondskan, Apocalypse Now, Touching the Void, Kontroll, What We Do in the Shadows, Carnage, No Man's Land, Human Traffic, Ninth Gate, Se7en, Wojna polsko-ruska, Obława, Alien, They Shoot Horses Don't They, 12 Angry Man, Jacobs Ladder, Siekierezada, Moon, In Bruges, Blues Brothers, The Big Lebowsky, Death at the Funeral, Clerks, Victoria, Demon, Borat, Gran Torino, Gummo, and many many others. Here's my filmweb profile. Not sure if english version of this website exist. http://www.filmweb.pl/user/KurC/

MUSIC

Short version (TL;DR): Heavy, Dark & Trippy.

Long version: Good music should be able to make strong impact on your nerves. That's why I think there is no such thing as too heavy or too dark music. Breakcore, tekno (which I'm focusing on as a DJ), hardcore, darkpsy/forest trance, extreme metal, grindcore, dark ambient, darkside drum & bass, jungle, industrial, power electronics - name it. Though it's not like i don't like anything moderate. Actually, there's a lot of stuff, that doesn't immediately scare people of, that I really enjoy. For example: dub (both classic like King Tubby, The Upsetters or Scientist and new digital school like Panda Dub, Kanka or Dub Engine), roots reggae, goa trance, stoner rock, classic psychedelic rock, minimalism (Reich, Glass), ska, punk rock, post-punk, ambient, IDM, minimal, classical music (Bartok, Ligeti, Wagner, sir Edgar, Penderecki) etc. I prefer rather weird/heavy/dark/experimental/psychedelic than conventional/soothing/cheerful music. Never enjoyed house, chillout or soul. Few examples of artists that I really appreciate: Venerian Snares, Electric Wizard, Spectre, Igorrr, The Doors, eMeL, Sam C, Derango, Psykovsky, Panda Dub, Dom&Roland, Minilogue, Kyuss, Eyehategod, Lustmord, Aphex Twin, Acid King, Astral Projection... and many many more. If you happen to like any of the above, I can bet diamonds against peanuts we will get along :). There's much more of it, so I'll just leave here a link to my last.fm profile:
http://www.lastfm.pl/user/KurtzprzezCe
Fun fact: even though I'm a music geek, I can't dance.

BOOKS

I read non-fiction mostly: popular science and science books from fields of sociology, psychology, cultural anthropology, cognitive science and evolutionary biology. As for fiction: old adventours books like Jules Verne "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", hardfiction fantasy or sci-fi (especially by Jacek Dukaj), utopias, anty-utopias and dyspotias, well-known classics such as Dostoyevsky, Gombrowicz, Kafka, Camus, Orwell, and less-known like Gardner or Queneau, I'm also a fan of Roland Topor (short stories which absurd/grotesque homour). Sometimes I also read really bad books for fun. Not that I laugh from retardation.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Lived in the walled up room with no normal entrance (just a
square-shaped 50x50cm hole) for 3 months during the studies.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach basics of poi (fire show), firebreathig, playing the guitar, circular breathing (needed to play the didgeridoo), archery (if I had a bow) and a few simple acrobatic tricks. Now also DJing, but friendly warning - I'm just learning myself so I suck at this.

If you can teach me anything simple that will not require long-range effort from me, you can be sure that I am happy to try to learn it (maybe execept for dancing - I'm hopeless case).

What I Can Share with Hosts

Since I really enjoy mocking polish pope John Paul II, I cannot serve you for typical example of polish guy (if you are into learning about polish culture and so on), but I guess we can hang out and drink some beer instead. I'm also open to the music exchange, though I'm a little bit picky.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia

Countries I’ve Lived In

Poland

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