CURRENT MISSION

Just a couple of peaceniks trying to change the world through guerilla artfare

ABOUT ME

I'm joie, and he's René. Together we make up Xitlalli Neruda Productions, a mixed-media collaborative art team based out of the Montrose area of Houston, TX. We are seriously irreverent goofballs who subscribe to the notion that virtually everyone is worth knowing, has a fascinating story, a beautiful experience to share, a corpse festering in their closet--and a pee-in-your-pants anecdote about how it got there. We love it when folks fly their freak flags...particularly when they do it peacefully. How creepy is it to talk about onesself like this?? Enough! Word.

PHILOSOPHY

Love love love (also pretty stuff and funny stuff) What's the deal with this question?????

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We offer a pad upon which the weary may crash, scintillating conversation, the opportunity to hang out with the cool kids, and if you are REALLY lucky, some of joie's amazing vegetarian cooking. Oh, and we wanna come crash with you too.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We have now surfed and been surfed with, and there is simply nothing like it. There is a unique beauty in the experience.

Interests

art/dance/music/literature/contemplative practice/smoking/drinking/practical joking/pacifism

• arts
• literature
• beauty
• make up
• dancing
• cooking
• vegetarian
• drinking
• flying
• traveling
• music
• communications

Music, Movies, and Books

I am such a book nerd---a true voracious reader. The best one I read last year was Katharine Dunne's Geek Love, followed closely by Tim O'Brien's Tomcat in Love. This year I've spent a lot of time reading Faulkner, a slew of various Latin American authors, and everything published to date by Augusten Burroughs. I love anything by Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gregory Maguire and Hunter S. Thompson. I really dig Asian Literature as well, both classic and contemporary. My all time favorite books include Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces, Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, James Joyce's Ulysses, Peter Hoeg's A History of Danish Dreams, and Geoffrey Euginides's The Virgin Suicides. Read lots of books...they're good for the soul!

Movies:Down By Law, Closer (makes me cry every time--except for now that I can't cry anymore), My New Gun, Niagra Niagra, Conversations With Other Women, Memento, Fight Club, Kalifornia, Harold and Maude (because I actually like it, not because it's cool to say you do)

Music:Tom Waits, Tom Waits, Tom Waits, Tricky, Martina Topley-Bird, Jim Bianco, Leonard Cohen, PJ Harvey, Ween, Dead Can Dance, Sly and the Family Stone, Arcade Fire, Jane's Addiction, Talking Heads, Cat Stevens,-- there are so very many others that just don't come to mind at the moment

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I have seen unbelievable and unexpected kindness in a world where it often seems that cruelty and apathy have the upper hand.

I've also seen toilet water travel through my IV into my pericardium via my superior vena cava

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States