User:JM.Beaubourg/preferences

PERSONALITY

Libertarian Socialism

I am basically a libertarian socialist (but definitely not a social libertarian), born into a Marxist-Leninist society (however distorted), later questioning pretty much everything (dubito ergo sum). Today I try to formulate for myself a libertarian communism and municipalism without anarchism - orientated a bit on Star Trek but without all the American manners.

World Citizenship

I do not believe in the notion of Nations. This notion and religions are the two worst inventions in recent history, creating more divisions and hatred among people. All this quarrels remind me these tribal feuds European culture has so often - full of cliché - ascribed to African people but its actually all of us remaining in that state of tribe culture.

So I claim to be a world citizen, a true cosmopolitan. And naturally I'm not religious (not the least bit spiritual), an atheist (and I shrink away from the attempts to turn atheism into a church) who is both antireligious yet still tolerant enough to grant people their religions as long as they tolerate the religions of other people, or their being not religious. Consequently my opposition is aimed at the religious dogmata, institutions and conversions.

FAVORITES

selections - it's likely that these lists might grow

collection

Music

For a (not yet) complete list of records I own go to collection at Rate Your Music or my page at Discogs.

• The Alan Parsons Project — Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1987 Mercury Records)
• The Beach Boys — The Very Best of Beach Boys (1985 AMIGA)
• Depeche Mode — Violator (1990 Mute Records)
• Dimmu Borgir — Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia (2001 Nuclear Blast)
• Front 242 — Pulse (2003 XIII Bis Records)
• Front Line Assembly — Hard Wired (1995 Off Beat)
• Peter Gabriel — So (1986 Charisma Records)
• Elliot Goldenthal — Alien³ (1992 MCA Records)
• James Newton Howard — Signs (2002 Hollywood Records)
• Midnight Oil — Diesel and Dust (1987 CBS Records)
• Nitzer Ebb — Showtime (1990 Mute Records)
• David Shire — 2010 (1984 A&M Records)
• Bruce Springsteen — Born in the U.S.A. (1984 CBS Records)
• Vangelis — Blade Runner (2001 Esper Productions)
• Van Halen — 5150 (1986 Warner Brothers Records)

interesting artists: And One, Apoptygma Berzerk, Assemblage 23, Johann Sebastian Bach, Danny Elfman, Enya, Finntroll, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Jerry Goldsmith, Hallucinogen, Haujobb, Infected Mushroom, Billy Idol, Juno Reactor, Klinik, Leæther Strip, Henrik Nordvargr Björkk, Oomph!, Craig Padilla, Paranoid, Steve Roach, Dan J. Schulte, Solar Fields, Underworld and Hans Zimmer

Favorite Songs

see Favorite Songs

Movies

• 2010 starring Roy Scheider (1984)
• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension starring Peter Weller and John Lithgow (1984)
• La Cité des Enfants Perdus starring Ron Perlman and Judith Vittet (1995)
• The Dish starring Sam Neill (2000)
• Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones (1989)
• The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones (1993)
• Matinee starring John Goodman (1993)
• The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! starring Leslie Nielsen (1988)
• The Philadelphia Story starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart (1940)
• The Right Stuff starring Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid and Sam Shepard (1983)
• The Snapper starring Colm Meaney (1993)
• Support Your Local Sheriff! starring James Garner (1968)
• The Thin Man starring William Powell and Myrna Loy (1934) and its five sequels
• Thunderheart starring Val Kilmer, Sam Shepard and Graham Greene (1992)

interesting directors: Mel Brooks, Tim Burton, James Cameron, John Carpenter, Roland Emmerich, Peter Hyams, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Ridley Scott, Andrei Tarkovsky and Guillermo del Toro

interesting actors: Kathy Bates, Sean Connery, Marion Cotillard, Johnny Depp, Louis de Funès, Mark Harmon, Lance Henriksen, Michael Ironside, Gene Kelly, Ray Liotta, Bill Murray, Leslie Nielsen, Ron Perlman, Robert Picardo, Jean Reno, Bud Spencer, Spencer Tracy and Sigourney Weaver

interesting movies: The Abyss (1989), Back to the Future (1985) and its sequels, Blade Runner (1982), Dave (1993), Galaxy Quest (1999), Ghostbusters (1984), Gladiator (2000), Hellboy (2004), Lethal Weapon (1987) and sequels, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Il Mio nome è Nessuno (1973), North by Northwest (1959), Pitch Black (2000), Porky's (1982) and its sequel, The Presidio (1988), Taxi (1998) and its sequels, The Terminator (1984) and X-Men (2000) and its sequel

To check out

• In the Shadow of the Moon starring the Apollo missions (2007)

Television

• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett
• Cosmos: A Personal Voyage presented by Carl Sagan
• Farscape created by Rockne S. O'Bannon
• Friends with my favorites Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry
• Futurama created by Matt Groening
• House, M.D. starring Hugh Laurie
• Les Guignols de l'info
• Monty Python's Flying Circus created and performed by Monty Python
• Stargate SG·1 starring Richard Dean Anderson and Amanda Tapping
• Star Trek: The Next Generation created by Gene Roddenberry

excitement about or fond memories of 21 Jump Street (starring Johnny Depp), Babylon 5 (starring Bruce Boxleitner), A Bit of Fry & Laurie (starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie), Capital News (starring Helen Slater), Chicago Hope (starring Hector Elizondo), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (starring William Petersen), Diagnosis: Murder (starring Dick Van Dyke), Due South (starring Paul Gross), ER (starring George Clooney), EUReKA (starring Colin Ferguson), Ghost Whisperer (starring Jennifer Love Hewitt), Hercule Poirot (starring David Suchet), Lost (created by Jeffrey Lieber and J. J. Abrams & Damon Lindelof), Maigret (starring Bruno Cremer), Max Headroom (starring Matt Frewer), Millennium (starring Lance Henriksen), NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service (starring Mark Harmon), Ну погоди!, Psi Factor (hosted by Dan Aykroyd), Sanctuary (starring Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne), Simon & Simon (starring Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker), Space Age (hosted by Patrick Stewart), the whole Star Trek franchise and Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner (created by Chuck Jones)

To check out

• Ice Planet (starring Michael Ironside)

Books

• Robert Asprin's MythAdventures series
• Sir Arthur Charles Clarke & Gentry Lee’s Rama series
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories
• William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy
• Frank Herbert’s Dune
• Tor Nørretranders’ Mærk verden
• J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
• Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos and his Joe Kurtz novels
• Hubert Schleichert’s Wie man mit Fundamentalisten diskutiert, ohne den Verstand zu verlieren
• Angela and Karlheinz Steinmüller’s Pulaster
• Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s За миллиард лет до конца света and other stories
• Michael Szameit’s Drachenkreuzer Ikaros

To check out

• Max Barry's Jennifer Government
• The works of David Brin
• Kenneth L. Feder's Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology
• Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science
• Ray Ginger's Six Days or Forever?: Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes
• Sesh Heri's Wonder of the Worlds (and sequels)
• Janet Jeppson Asimov's Mind Transfer
• Stephen King & Peter Straub's The Talisman
• Robert Rankin's The Witches of Chiswick (and sequels)
• Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash
• Stanley G. Weinbaum's A Martian Odyssey
• Far Horizons edited by Robert Silverberg
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 edited by Robert Silverberg
• The Unexplained: Mysteries of Mind, Space, & Time a magazine

Comics

• Dik Browne: Hägar the Horrible
• Masashi Tanaka: Gon
• Mosaik: Die Abrafaxe
• Jean David Morvan, Miroslav Dragan and Philippe Buchet: Sillage
• Joe Haldeman and Marvano: The Forever War

To check out

• Alan Moore, Gene Ha and Zander Cannon: Top 10

Art

• Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
• Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840)
• Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)
• H. R. Giger (1940-)
• Dave McKean (1963-)

Software

see Software I use

Food & drinks

• Drinks: tea (both black and green), cocoa, cola (Afri-Cola, Coca Vanille, Club-Cola), beer (Köstritzer Schwarzbier, Tuborg and Guinness), квас (if only I knew how to make it fresh)
• Food: bananas, chicken, peas, mashed potatoes, red cabbage, spaghetti, a fried egg on toast, paella, Saure Eier (a Silesian dish made of water, sugar, salt, vinegar, butter and wheaten flour, adding eggs at the end and eaten with potatoes - in other parts of Germany there are quite different recipes)