CURRENT MISSION

Destined for Japan to meet new people and form new friendships, walk endlessly through foreign cityscapes, visit sites off the standard tourist path, exhange wisdom and fancy, blow my own mind!

ABOUT ME

I'm a writer and artist living in Bloomington, Indiana (for the time being). I write mostly fiction. I also organize large performance art parties. I'm a ferocious reader and autodidact, as well as a sometimes musician.

I'm a great believer in good company and good conversation. I'm friendly, and do my best never to judge anybody at face-value and to be humble and respectful at all times. I enjoy conversation over coffee or drinks. I'm a vegetarian but don't mind staying in meat-eating households. I'm also a great cook and love preparing delicious meals with new friends, and picking up new culinary tricks.

PHILOSOPHY

It's my experience that the more ideas we encounter, especially those that challenge our own, the better equipped we will be to understand and make sense of the world around us. While people have all sorts of different perspectives and often differing ideas, I've noticed that in the right circumstances-- good food, good conversation, good music, good times-- people usually find ways to relate, if not agree, with one another.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

At the moment I live in a tiny apartment in Bloomington, Indiana with my girlfriend and don't have much room to offer, but in August I will be moving to New Orleans, Louisiana and hope to host many visitors!

In the meantime, I hope to find new friends in new places as I explore the world.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I am new to couchsurfing.com, though I am not new to travel, having done a fair bit of wandering inside the United States.

Interests

Hard-boiled detective fiction, mysticism, horror movies from the 1960's, Japanese psychedelia, hidden history, spectacle culture, sprawling cityscapes, free jazz, wearing great hats, the Mississippi River, board games, dancing, subways, dada, German expressionist painting, artichokes, populism, reading while drinking a huge mug of steaming hot coffee, wordplay, meditation, vodou, sludge metal, comic books, beards, dancehall, cultural appropriation, fabulous suits, ontology, philosophy.

• arts
• culture
• writing
• books
• literature
• performing arts
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• recipes
• coffee
• vegetarian
• meditation
• partying
• drinking
• movies
• board games
• reading
• traveling
• painting
• music
• jazz
• history
• religion

Music, Movies, and Books

My tastes are pretty scattered, but I'll give it a shot.

Literature:
William Faulkner (my absolute favorite), Philip K. Dick, Virginia Woolf, Michel Foucault, Jorge Luis Borges, William Burroughs, Alan Moore, William Gibson, Cormac McCarthy, Shakespeare, DeBord.

Music-wise:
Curtis Mayfield, Leonard Cohen, T. Rex, Betty Davis, Isaac Hayes, The Wu-Tang Clan, Sister Nancy, John and Alice Coltrane, Boris, Dylan, Serge Gainsbourg, the Clash, Crass, Black Sabbath, Link Wray, Funkadelic, Sizzla, Mingus, Earth, the Flower Travellin' Band, Fela Kuti, Prince, Nick Cave, Donovan, Tom Waits.

Film:
Werner Herzog, Orson Welles, Wong-Kar Wai, Akira Kurosawa, and Stanley Kubrick are some favorites. Other favorite movies: Night of the Iguana, the Wicker Man, the Fearless Vampire Killers, Alien, Stardust Memories, the Big Sleep, Miller's Crossing.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

It's hard to pick out one thing...

During my most recent visit to New Orleans, Louisiana, I walked around the area that was decimated by Hurricane Katrina and remains in ruins. It was a very powerful experience to walk through the gutted shambles of houses and school buildings and see all the objects that had been left behind. One feels a sense of sorrow for the misfortune of so many people, anger for the injustice involved in the disaster, great empathy to see the strewn objects that represent lives that no longer exist, and a immense humbling respect for the power of nature...

Teach, Learn, Share

I like to fancy myself pretty knowledgeable about literature, film, music, history, and so forth, and these are always great things to discuss...

A few unique things, though?

I study mysticism-- to me, this is a discipline with a lot of overlap into philosophy, religion, mythology, culture, storytelling, and so forth, and I love to discuss this with others.

As I mentioned before, I am a good cook and am always looking to share and learn new recipes.

I'm a good dancer too. Let's go dancing!