ABOUT ME

I'm a very easy going person who enjoys passionate sincere conversation. I try to surround myself with people I feel really connected to, a lifelong connection, rather than a friend of convenience. That said, I'm friendly and open to meeting a variety of people, and there have been several times where I've been happily surprised at the connections I've made. I like good natured respectful arguments, I hope to challenge and be challenged in my quest for understanding how life might be best lived. I like to listen, laugh, dance and feel awestruck as much as possible.

PHILOSOPHY

I live in awe of the people and places of this world, and work to maintain that feeling as much as I can.

Interests

I'm a major cinephile. I just completed a MA in Cinema Studies and New York University. My focus tends to "poetic" cinema with a spiritual connotation. I've spent most of my latest academic effort theorizing spirituality in film focusing on artists like Andrei Tarkovsky, Bela Tarr, Pedro Costa, Terrence Malick, David Lynch, Robert Bresson, and Nathaniel Dorsky. I apply to their works philosophical theories from such thinkers as Nietzsche, Emerson, Heidegger, and Deleuze. I'm also a filmmaker, I suppose I would call my work mostly small film poems. It's something I do for me. Cinema gives me a profound feeling of seeing past the everyday, of the potential to really create something transcendent out of the worldly. I'll mention that the last film I saw that really struck me was Leos Carax's HOLY MOTORS.
In terms of reading I'll just mention what I've been into as of late. I do lots in the area of philosophy of religion and aesthetics, poetry (I have phases, currently Walt Whitman), short stories (just read through the DUBLINERS for example which I found very provocative), and novels (just finished BROTHERS KARAMAZOV which I took so much out of, Dostoevsky's on a whole other level, and Herman Hesse's very short DEMIAN which I loved).
Music is also very important. Animal Collective would have to be my favorite band, there music takes you to some amazing places. Other artists I really enjoy are Sufjan Stevens, Nicolas Jaar, Gang Gang Dance, Dan Deacon, Seth Troxler, Burial, Optimo, Angelo Badalamenti, and Pantha Du Prince to name a few.

I also try to do as much hiking as possible. When I feel like detaching from life a bit I usually go the way of outdoor manual labor: I've done three summers on three different farms and a few months in a conservation corps.

• animals
• poetry
• beauty
• dancing
• movies
• reading
• music
• outdoor activities
• hiking
• religion

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Sitting on a sand dune in the Sahara Desert, looking out on what seemed a different planet, feeling sand blow like silk across my feet and crying at the beauty of it all.
On the last day of a two month project in the conservation corps I was working with, a very good friend and I hiked the 16 mile loop we had been working on. We hadn't seen anyone but the others in our group for the entire time we were out there except for one amazing elderly couple. It was a beautiful trail that hardly anyone ever goes on. It starts lined with aspens, then up into a grassland, then into desert, then back down into a green valley. We watched the sunset, the wind flowing through the grass, and didn't say a word.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Morocco, Netherlands, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, United States