Sameer S.

When traveling, I want to understand the local culture and what are the daily concerns of the people who live there. It helps me understand a bit about why a place is the way it is - I like talking about what the local politics are like, and what the history of the city is. I also enjoy meeting new people in general, and sharing time with them doing things like cooking, going to shows, and hiking in the area.

Most recently I really enjoyed Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blue. Among the books that I remember really enjoying are Infinite Jest, Catcher In The Rye, Gilead, Cloud Atlas, Haroun And The Sea Of Stories, Dava Sobel's Longitude, and David Benioff's City of Thieves. A movie I recently watched that I enjoyed a lot is The Farewell by Lulu Wang - that's already a few years old, but it was really very different from most of the stuff that has recently made it into widespread distribution. Some movies that I think still hold after all these years are Back To The Future, Betelgeuse, Goodfellas, American Beauty, and Little Miss Sunshine, in chronological order. I'm a fan of many European directors, like Bergman, Goddard, Truffaut, and of American directors like Wes Anderson, the Coen Brothers. I like comedy the most as a genre - I'm both a fan of British comedy like Monty Python and American/Canadian sketch comedy like Kids In The Hall, In Living Color, and MadTV. Oh, and showtunes. I love singing showtunes, esp that Rodgers & Hammerstein shit.