CURRENT MISSION

If we take Sartre seriously, that man has no distinct existence save for the perception of other people, then my mission is to meet more people.

ABOUT ME

This is a difficult question. But I used to like to tell people:

I wonder as i wander but enough of that single line nonsense; I'm in for the helical, blood pumping, vertigo inducing, stumbling down streets of sentience in the dead of night. From garrulous Mezcal interludes in Guatemala, concussions out of day dreams, to tennis court benches on the shores of the Sea of Gallili, waking up in random places with memories, more or less, and meaning. I take great pride in run on sentences. Sometimes I tell stories. I find that bibliophilic pursuits can be conquered by crapulence or torpor. Once in a while i make small multicolored origami sailboats and drift away on streams of thought, escaping from the humdrum, but the wizards of the Far East find ways to block those certain loopholes out of which whimsy uncurls her intoxicating talons and cast me back into this pitiful remorse of reminiscing halcyon afternoons.

The world continues to fascinate me. I often drool over politics, art, and philosophy; literature is important. I take photographs of trash and nature, faces and static structures. I like to cook. Tattoos seem to be slowly taking over my body, one arm anyway. Raconteuring is important. I enjoy late night chess games over mate, wine, or Salad- open for interpretation. Coffee in the morning; tea all night.

I sometimes ramble at http://michaelcaster.com/

PHILOSOPHY

tear down the walls

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I consume couches and then try to pass them along in the future

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I took the train down from Seattle to Portland to see the Dalai Lama in 2000. A friend had given me the contact information of some of her friends in Portland so I could crash on their couch. It was really weird, coming home from a long talk by the Dalai Lama in the morning, waking up from a rest on their couch to the sound of a riot grrrl jam session in the same room. On the whole, I love incongruous situations.

In the summer of 2010 I couchsurfed from Beijing to the Netherlands.

Interests

I have a few

• arts
• literature
• tattoos
• human rights
• dining
• cooking
• wine
• beer
• coffee
• running
• politics
• chess
• origami
• tennis

Music, Movies, and Books

Some Authors: (in no particular order)

Langston Hughes, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Dylan Thomas, Ralph Ellison, Nikolai Gogol, Albert Camus, Hunter S. Thompson, Ma Jian, Khaled Hosseini, Jorge Luis Borges, James Baldwin, Henry Miller, Noam Chomsky, Charles Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, J.M.G. Le Clézio, Aurther Rimbaud, Rumi, Zygmunt Bauman, Charles Tilly, Slavoj Žižek, Simon Critchely, David Graeber, Pierre Bourdieu, Nazim Hikmet, Roland Barthes, Thomas Mann, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Judith Butler, Hermann Hesse, Arthur Miller, it changes...

Some music:

Tom Waits, The Devil Makes Three, Hackinsaw Boys, John Coltrane, Gogol Bordello, Motorhead, Do Make Say Think, Alice in Chains, Frank Sinatra, Department of Eagles, The Old Crow Medicine Show, James Cotton, Etta James, Sigur Ros, Beethoven, Etta James, Iron Maiden, Johnny Cash, Mum, Radiohead, Baaba Maal, Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, Grizzly Bear, Bob Dylan, Black Sabbath, Miles Davis, Beirut, The Beatles, Dio, Yann Tiersen, Jonsi and Alex, The Mountain Goats, Two Gallants, Svartsot, Towns Van Zandt

I enjoy the sound of pots and pans banging together in a nearly empty concert hall and the cacophony of bio-mechanical urban symphonies.

Teach, Learn, Share

We can discuss cultural or political theory or international structures of power and resistance. Knowledge is a mutual path toward a possible consensus on reality. One reality is food.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, China, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, Netherlands, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United States

•