CURRENT MISSION

Physically separating the City of Toronto from the land surrounding and becoming a mobile island city-state, relocating same to the Baltic Sea.

ABOUT ME

An aspiring time-travelling political scientist (the sort soon to be capable of gathering first-hand accounts of controversial historical events and altering them if necessary or fun), Mr. Gaudio enjoys long rainy afternoons in the library, reading about faraway lands.

He also, on occasion, enjoys visiting these self-same faraway lands.

PHILOSOPHY

I live by a hard-and-fast empiricist analytic worldview - I must see it in order to believe it. That said, imagination is essential to understanding the world - anyone without creativity is probably and unfortunately lost.

So I've gone ahead and imagined the world. Now it's time go out and gather empirical data (that is, see it).

I live life for lack of a better alternative. Given that I may as well enjoy it while I'm at it, I give over lots of it to learning as much as I can about the world, and just about every facet of it. Everyone and everything has something to teach - I can probably learn from you, and I'm eager to do so.

While I would not describe myself as an optimist per se (an optimist always believes things will be fine, all evidence to the contrary), I'd definitely call myself an idealist - I am aware of the contradiction between the world-as-it-is and the world-as-it-can-and-should-be. It can get better. Whether or not it will is a choice left to us.

That said, it's pretty beautiful as it is. (Ever look up at the sky on a clouded-over winter's night where the streetlamps reflect on the snow and upwards, turning the sky red? It's common to just about any major city and light pollution or no light pollution, it's glorious.)

Interests

literature, dreams, history, dying/extinct cultures, hanseatic architecture, film, swimming, satire, pontification, theatre, livonia, spontaneous song and dance routines, hiking, cycling, the kasatchok, political theory.

• literature
• poetry
• architecture
• concerts
• dancing
• reading
• traveling
• cycling
• hiking
• soccer
• swimming
• history
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

In no particular order:

Movies: Dr. Strangelove, The Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, Lawrence of Arabia, Bananas, Zoolander, Le nuit américain (Day for Night), Spartacus, Manhattan, Spaceballs, Annie Hall, A Mighty Wind, The Castle, Blues Brothers, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Sleeper, Brazil.

Music: Jean Leloup, Rock Plaza Central, The Kinks, J.S. Bach, Wilco, Air, Zero 7, Sigur Ros, Apostle of Hustle, The Clash, The Pogues, Spoon, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Joanna Newsom, M. Ward, Mike Doughty. Et Cetera!

Books: Sometimes a Great Notion (Ken Kesey), The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov), A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole), The Tin Drum (Gunter Grass), Ficciones (Jorge Luis Borges), At Swim-Two-Birds (Flann O'Brien), Fifth Business (Robertson Davies), Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Douglas Adams), On Liberty (J.S. Mill), One-Dimensional Man (Herbert Marcuse), In Praise of Idleness (Bertrand Russell),

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Still working on it. Probably the time I, some friends, and some of their friends (about 25 people altogether) snuck into the abandoned ballroom of a posh hotel some 17 floors above downtown Toronto.

And played a concert. And read poetry. And played football (soccer).

And didn't get caught. The ballroom had at one time been the place to see and be seen in Toronto, and for fifty years has lain derelict - the view is unparalleled - nothing short of breathtaking.

Countries I’ve Visited

Estonia, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada

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