User Profile

I tend to spend most of my days searching out the grand mysteries of life... or wandering around aimlessly. It's really the same thing.

Intellectual is probably the best word to describe me. At least it's the nicest. Snob might be appropriate. Driven certainly is. Some might say mad. I might flatter myself by following that up with "bad and dangerous to know" as well...

I'm in love with knowledge. When I grow up I want to be a lich. I'm slowly understanding how little I really know, and how much I want to know. I also like to argue. If you can't hold your own, you probably won't like me, and I certainly won't like you. However, you will probably amuse me for the 10 minutes or so that I mock you.

"The engines power down./Like a soldier to his end I go./Because I'm convinced/that there is nothing more./and whose life do I lead/and whose air do I breathe?/With whose skin/and whose blood do I feel?/What happens now?/Have I done something wrong?/Forgive my need to bleed right now./Please forgive my need to breathe/But I've so much to say/and it wouldn't matter anyway..." VNV Nation "Forsaken (Vocal Version)"

I'm the consummate sensualist. I need to be surrounded by beautiful things. I love good food, good wine and good conversation. Candlelight is a necessity. An ideal night involves opera, symphony or theatre followed by a fantastic meal, good company and conversation and dancing til dawn.

I worship Dionysus.

I'm with the lost/Leading the lonely/Who's for another tortured soul?/Be the saint/To whom I pray/To make me whole/Be the shoulder where I cry/A bed for me to die/And angel come to save me/The only one who ever forgave me" Marc Almond "Open All Night"

My mind wanders all over the place. I get obsessed with a topic and then get obsessed by something completely different. As a result, I know a little about a lot, but also, alas, a lot about little.

I'm focused when I have to be. I tend to be the grown-up, even though I hate it.

"Via lata gradior/more iuventutis/inplicor et vitiis/immemor virtutis,/voluptatis avidus/magis quam salutis,/mortuus in anima/curam gero cutis." "Estuans interius" from "Carmina Burana"

I ramble.

I quote song lyrics because it's hard for me to talk to people. If you really want to know about me, ask me what music I'm listening to these days. It's easier that way.

"And she showed up all the errors and mistakes,/And said I've lost control again./But she expressed herself in many different ways,/Until she lost control again./And walked upon the edge of no escape,/And laughed I've lost control." Joy Division "She's Lost Control"

Academically, I'm interested in the collision of gender and sexuality in various times and places. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

I believe in science about as much as I believe in any other religious system. I'm skeptical of everything, especially of skepticism. The world has a stronger, older magick than we are capable of understanding. Any attempt to do so is inherently flawed because our perspective of the universe is about the same as a gnat's perspective of a skyscraper.

There is no such thing as "objectivity". Any pretense at maintaing objectivity is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order.

I want to repeal the Enlightenment. The imposition of a rigidly linear modality of thinking has dulled our senses to the point where we're far too enclined to believe the ridiculous while completely disreguarding the sublime.

"Our ancient nightmares, our ghostly legends,/And the fiendish tales, all the myths are true./Scientists have unearthed enormous skeletons./They think we've disproved that all the myths are true./Year after year, science finds explanations, scientific reasons behind/all the legends. They think this proves that history was not as myth has/shown it, but in fact it proves that all the myths were true." All the Myths Are True, Abney Park

I'm currently working on an MA in Early American Intellectual history History. It was that or law school, and I don't want to litigate.

I own my own company. I adore politics. I also hate politics.

Artistically, I'm interested in contrast. My photography is abstract, and I'm more interested in light than in form. I almost exclusively shoot BW ultra-fast film. I've devised ways of brutalizing processing the poor film to develop for grain. I really dislike digital photography. More crimes against art have been committed by morons with Photoshop and a disgusting interest in filters than by any other single technological advance. Ask, and I'll show you my work. I like talking about it, especially if you're honest.

I love to cook. I just love food in general. I'm developing as an oneophile.

Yes, I really do talk this way. I'm a snob. I'm proud of that. I'm also smarter than you. I'm very proud of that.

Mythology and the concept of the collective unconscious is something I think about fairly often.

I'm discovering an interest in American material culture. Our stuff says a lot about us. Something which I'm both fascinated by and deeply ashamed of, especially when it comes to my own stuff.

I collect Victorian post-mortem photography. Yes, there are pictures of dead people hanging in my living room. They're an interesting example of American materialism and a lovely display of conspicuous consumption.

I love to read, alas, I don't often have time to simply read for pleasure.

Despite everything I'm an optimist.

I'm mad. Likely, you won't realize it at first. If you do, you'll be fascinated by it. But I promise you, it won't last, and eventually I will frighten you. Or you'll wind up like me. It's a sweet poison, but it will kill you nonetheless.

Have I bored you yet?

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