Sleater-Kinney, Drive-By Truckers, Okkervil River, Animal Collective, Silver Jews, Liz Phair, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Andrew Bird, Richard Thompson, Outkast, Gillian Welch, Low, Man Man, Of Montreal, X, Uncle Tupelo, Freakwater, The Magnetic Fields, Broken Social Scene, Will Oldham, The Beatles, Big Star, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Band, Lucinda Williams, Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca, Television, Patti Smith, Steve Reich, Fela Kuti, My Morning Jacket, The National, Bruce Springsteen, Richard Hell, Husker Du, the Minutemen, Meat Puppets, the Silos, Two Gallants, Times New Viking, High Places, Liars, Jens Lekman, Gang of Four, Mission of Burma, The Stooges, Spoon, Tori Amos, Beastie Boys, Slint, Sons and Daughters, Joy of Cooking, No Age, Calexico, Bob Dylan, Grizzly Bear, Tom Waits, Jolie Holland, Jay Reatard, Lynyrd Skynyrd, PJ Harvey, Throbbing Gristle, Yo La Tengo, (semi-guilty pleasure) Fleetwood Mac...and on and on. All my friends' bands: Mammoths Melting Out of the Ice, Manduo, Invisible Cities, Shaun Cullen.

Todd Haynes might be my favorite director; pretty much anything he's ever done has been genius. Martin Scorsese probably a close second. Probably my two current favorite films are Terry Zwigoff's Ghost World and Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know. Also love most Richard Linklater films: Before Sunrise/Sunset, Waking Life, Slacker especially. Also: Harold and Maude, Chasing Amy, City of God, Chuck and Buck, Lost In Translation, Duel, Groundhog Day, Election, The Princess and the Warrior, You Can Count On Me, Deliverance, Sherman's March (and pretty much anything Ross McElwee has done), Half Nelson (Ryan Gosling with the American flag band-aid on his face is brilliant), Rushmore, Paper Moon, Yellow Submarine...and on.

Anti-intellectualism is so hot. I'm currently reading the galleys of Sarah Palin's soon-to-be-published memoir/manifesto, "Barracuda 2012: Don't Call It A Comeback!".

music, going to concerts, going to record stores, playing guitar, watching movies, going to book stores, reading, storytelling, running, hiking, surfing, karaoke, exploring DC and Richmond, amateur architecture, art and history-museum-going, historical tourism in general, progressive politics, the Internet, getting my laundry done, Appalachia, the American South as cultural mythology, California as cultural mythology, Yosemite National Park, oceans, lakes, trees and rivers

Grad student in central Virginia.

I enjoy talking with people who like getting deeper into movies, deepest into music.