Interests
Yes, well. We all have them don't we? So I guess I'd better share
mine with you all, just like everyone else on the web.
The music you are listening to is a piece by Frank Zappa called "Blessed Relief". It's a midi version of the track to be found on the album "The Grand Wazoo". Either you love Zappa, or hate him. If you hate him, it usually means you've never really heard him - you've listened to one of his more "inaccessible" pieces and decided "that's it... he's not the boy for me!".
In a nutshell, my musical tastes run the gamut from Beethoven to the Bonzos via Beefheart; Gregorian Chants to Gong; Handel to Hammill; but, Frank's The Man.
No, I'm not
religious. However, one of my favourite
artists is Salvador Dali
- ever since I was a kid in Glasgow, where the Christ of St.
John on the Cross
can be found, I've been fascinated by the man and his work. Again, when I was a
kid, I was lucky enough to see an exhibition of the jewellery that realised his
work in 3D. Cool, or what.
Other artists in my list of favourites include Piet Mondrian, Turner....
Dedicated Zappa web-sites are legion.
Too, too, tooooo many. Some good, some bad, and some clones of the bad ones.
Fortunately, and somewhat spookily, there's an entire site dedicated to all
things Zappa & Dali-esque, it was from this site that the background
music (if you can hear it!) has been er, "borrowed". Normally I
shy away from animated GIF's but this one for the link is allowed!
Architecture.
When Ah wis a wean, Ah wanted tae be an architect: I still
mentally undress buildings (bloody Norman Foster doing it for me - takes all the
mystique out of it). Anyway, enough prudism - Charles Rennie Mackintosh is, of course, the
master. His style, the completeness of the project: with all aspects of interior
design, garden layout, environment. In short a completist! Obviously a Gemini -
like me, he was born on Sunday, June 7. The Mackintosh House site of the Hunterian Museum
in Glasgow University is highly recommended - the Quicktime guided tours are a
must. In fact, the Hunterian is a splendid place to visit.
Books, Books,
Books, now there's a big set of subjects. Hard Sci-Fi:
Asimov, Bear, Vonnegut, Pratchett - all the usual suspects and - Topo D.
Bill is Iain (M) Banks. Possibly because he's contempraneous with me and seems to have led a similar
life to mine (poor guy). He writes the way I should, if I could write.
Drug of choice, probably tobacco. Yes - sorry, invererate smoker .
Hobbies: probably plagerism. This is where I own up to having plagerised the layout of the site from a certain Håkon T Sønderland owner, author, maintainer and boss of the The Culture Mailing List Site The site will look like this for quite a while I guess - the last one stayed unchanged for four years.
What's the
worst job you ever had? - check
out mine. Here's another one