• Carl Sagan (1934-1996):
  Astronomer, Skeptic and Popularizer of Science

  
  When thinking back to some of the most influential people of my life I would say, without hesitation, that Carl Sagan tops the list. Sagan's COSMOS series was produced in a time when the internet did not exist, the Cold War was in full swing, and I was at a very impressionable age. I had an insatiable appetite for learning how things worked and Sagan was there to the rescue. He explained concepts that were absolutely intriguing to me and showed me the way the universe REALLY is. It was OK to question everything, including authority, what we all cherished and fully believed may not, in many circumstances, hold any water. Sagan reassured me that this was OK and was essentially the operation of science and was what contributed the most progress to our species. Science was what really set us apart from the rest of the natural world.
  
  I consider myself a visual learner and COSMOS and Sagan's popular books helped me as a young child understand what it was like to imagine what, and where, the 4th dimension was; what it was like to fall into a black hole; what it was like to travel at or close to light speed; what evolution looks like in fast forward or in reverse...or condensed into a single calendar year; why we must question what we are told is true; what aliens may look like, where they are, how many there are; what it was like to walk among the greatest repositories of world knowledge in the ancient world: the library at Alexandria; etc, etc.
  
  For all of this, I thank Carl Sagan for much of my scientific curiosity, my questioning of authority, my concern for the future of Earth, and my hope for our continued survival and progress.
  
  So, thank you Carl Sagan and Godspeed...



• Albert Einstein (1879-1955):
  Physicist, Nobel Prize Winner and Pacifist

  
  As my progress into the understanding of science grew I began admiring not just Einstein's similar views on questioning authority and his modesty, but also on his seeming stubborn character of continuing with his deeply held and controversial ideas, both scientifically and politically. Even though I already had it a part of my being that no unproven idea should be held as absolute, since the very next experiment may show it's failure, Einstein was different. He held onto proven ideas that were counter to society's common beliefs and onto scientific ideas that, also, were on the verge of being proven correct.
  
  Einstein was a Socialist. His May 1949 article "Why Socialism?" had me questioning our current bloated economic system and gave me an impetus and a courage to believe that Capitalism may, fundamentally, be the wrong system to accept.
  
  His pacifism was also an influence to my philosophies and was the seed that grew to my later activism against America's relentless foriegn policies and my dislike of many militaristic mentality, styles, and operations.



• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804):
  Classical Philosopher

  
  From middle school to college I was fascinated by philosophy. Especially philosophies of consciousness, metaphysics, and science. And from early on I was very interested in Hegel and Kant's epistemiological ideas of a priori (non-experiential) and a posteriori (experiential) knowledge. Kant's mission to built up a framework of metaphysics against all odds (and against Hegel's total destruction of the classical forms of it) was heady stuff and I voraciously consumed Kant's writings while in high school. It took me much of my senior year to slog through his "Critique of Pure Reason", his masterpiece tome.
  
  "Pure Reason" changed the way I thought and perceived knowledge. The concept that it is possible and demonstrable to create new knowledge without having any experience of it whatsoever (what Kant called "Synthetic a priori knowledge") was mind-blowing to me and I recognized that it had far-reaching consequences for the other fascinations in my life: science and mathematics.
  
  While I can say that I am skeptical of many of Kant's other ideas, such as his counter-utilitarian ethics, and his unquestioned faith in God as the ultimate "thing in itself", I can say that without a doubt his theories of perception and understanding have had a resonance with me that lasts to this day. If there is one philosopher that I would have to pin down as being the most important, I would have to say it was he.



• Noam Chomsky (1928-present):
  Linguist, Philosopher and Critic of American Foreign and Domestic Policies

  
  Without Noam Chomsky, I probably would never have known the real truth about America's aggression and its usage of power to indoctrinate its citizens to fulfill certain wills. Almost all of the claims made by Chomsky flies so much into the face of common belief and popular conception that at first glance the claims seem absolutely absurd. But listen to Chomsky and you will be amazed at his depth of knowledge, his breadth of sources, his completely different, yet obvious, perspectives on policy and belief.
  
  One of the most influential ethics reminded us by Chomsky (to me), but which is also something so profoundly obvious and yet rarely acknowledged (and much of the time vigorously attacked) is the idea that regardless of what other's do in their lives to themselves or to others, you are responsible for your own actions and their consequences. While this is a truism, its importance and shock value become amplified when applied to countries. For example, take the fact that Iraq had gassed and killed thousands of its own people under the Saddham Hussein: the ethnic Kurds; he had unilaterally attacked Kuwait, in good part to control their oil reserves; relentlessly oppressed, tortured, and killed many of his own countrymen, etc. By all counts, Iraq's foreign and domestic policies were brutal. All of this should be considered independent of America's consideration of the consequences of America's own actions against Iraq: thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of Iraqis have been killed both directly and indirectly by our own actions there. Those deaths cannot, according to Chomsky's reminder, be attributable to Iraq's brutality nor can that country even be a part of the equation. It is an equation with only America's actions.



• Howard Zinn (1922-present):
  Historian, Pacifist and Critic of American Foreign and Domestic Policies

  
  Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" was very influential in my thinking about America's not-so-innocent unethical historical ends and means. With that powerful expose on American history people became more informed about the realities of America.
  
  Zinn's "Declarations of Independence" was also a fascinating read and I'm very glad that there are still those among us who are not in any way afraid of exposing lies that others do well in perpetuating. Zinn is a well-known pacifist and socialist.



• Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988): Physicist, Nobel Prize Winner and Popularizer of Science

  
  Feynman was a fascinating personality. He was an adventurous and extremely inquisitive physicist who always wanted to know how things worked from their most fundamental levels...and he had a lot of fun in the search. Bongo drum playing is one of my favorite passtimes, due to Feynman. Feynman's unique perspective on everything helped me see the world in completely different ways. This is what has made Feynman really resonate with me. Why does dry spaghetti break into 3 pieces instead of 2 when bent? Can a positron (the antimatter opposite of the electron) really be an electron that is moving backwards in time? What is it like to be on the very edge of wakefulness and sleep? Can we really imagine what it's like to have millions of particles and waves passing through our bodies every second? What is it like to imagine seeing yourself from the top of a tree or the tip of your shoe?



• Salvador Dali (1904-1989):
  Spanish Surrealist Artist and Eccentric

  
  I remember the very first time I was introduced to Salvador Dali. My parents had an old late 50's, early 60's edition of The World Book Encyclopedia and as a young child I would read with absolute fascination many of the articles in them. I would return to a (black and white) picture of melting clocks lying on dead tree branches and pedestals in the desert. The horizen stretched and merged with the dark, depressing sky. And amongst this bizarre collection of oddities was the greatest and most intriguing of them all: a flattened, stretched out hairless head-like figure with a tongue sticking out. A melted clock was also on this figure. What was it? I really believe that my fascination with the desert grew from the seed that Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" planted in me.
  
  Surrealist art from then on has always been an art that I hold with the highest regard. It sparks the imagination and triggers curiosity more than any other work. It seems to stir more emotions within me than any other art form, with the exception of some music.
  
  I get chills whenever I think back to that picture in The World Book Encyclopedia. They are feelings of cautious fascination, enjoyment of the barren, comfort in having less, and as close to a spiritual ecstatic sensation of being lost on an alien world than at any other time.



• Yves Tanguy (1900-1955):
  French Surrealist Artist

  
  Dali's works are so varied and cover so many different types of settings that I have to pick and choose many of his works to be satisfied with getting the same sensations as I find from "The Persistence of Memory". When I discovered Yves Tanguy's works I had found myself within a Dali world that had been stripped of all distractions and "crowdiness" and left with the greatest essences of Dali's best works and their fundamental layers. Yves Tanguy's works are like gold to my artistic soul.
  
  Barren landscapes of organic forms; places where sky and land are not seperate entities; objects that seem to materialize from the fabric of reality or partially merge with it; forms that look like the most abstract of beings; a place where physics and logic does not exist. These are places where I feel comforted in times of stress and depression. They represent the basest of a dreamworld.

Non-Fiction

• ALL of Carl Sagan's Books!!

  These books are to blame for my continued fascination with science and my skeptical outlook on authority.

• "The Origin of Species" (1859) and
  "The Descent of Man" (1871)
  by Charles Darwin

  

  These works were great reads in that they allowed you to experience the thought process of Darwin himself as he reasoned through the evidence for natural selection and also how homo sapiens fit into the framework.

• "The Feynman Lectures on Physics" (1964)
  by Richard Feynman

  

  Part of the armentarium that I use in studying physics. Told from one of the masters of physics. Do not miss his Cornell lectures, also!

• "Ideas and Opinions" (1954)
  by Albert Einstein

  

  What were Einstein's non-science attitudes and opinions? Read them here and see how he thought about the rest of the world.

• "Critique of Pure Reason" (1781)
  by Immanuel Kant

  

  Kant's rebuilding of metaphysics and his explanation for our understanding of knowledge. Difficult and tedious to read, but so satisfying of an accomplishment by one of the greatest thinkers.

• "What Uncle Sam Really Wants" (1992),
  "The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many" (1993),
  and "Secrets, Lies, and Democracy" (1994)
  by Noam Chomsky

  

  Very concise and powerful introductions to Chomsky's political ideas and are awesome reads straight from his own mouth.

• "A People's History of the United States" (1980) and "Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology" (1991)
  by Howard Zinn

  

  American history as it really is and the thoughts and ideas from the perspective of Zinn on socialism and pacifism.

• "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Vols. 1, 2, 3)" (1776, 1781, 1781)
  by Edward Gibbon

  

  At the time I began my first year at the university of South Florida (1995), I grew a fascination about world empires throughout history, the greatest example of which was the Roman Empire. It's history was immense and it's role in military, philosophy, medicine, and civics projects have been lasting to this day. I had already been struck by Asimov's operatic telling of a galactic empire that populated the Milky Way and his telling of its own vast and sweeping history of rise and eventual destruction. Asmiov's notable impression on me from the Foundation series was in how his galactic empire prevented many more thousands of potential years of darkness due to a hidden and secret project that was implemented to store away all of civilization's knowledge in a vast undertaking called the Encyclopedia Galactica.

  Converging on this idea was Carl Sagan's retelling of Egypt's ancient Library of Alexandria that was sacked and thus much of the Western world's knowledge and progress had, in the real world, fallen and been retarded by possibiliy thousands of years. One of Sagan's own personal favorites was Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

  This was all enough to motivate me to read through Gibbon's enormous tomes of history. I have read through all of the first 3 (of 6) volumes and it had taken me all of my first year at USF to do so. They read like suspenseful novels, where you were the invisible witness to the Emperors' daily duties, and spanned through vast sweeps of time (from 180 AD to 1453). I loved them and found that out of all of the historical readings up to that point I could easily say that they were the most interesting and satisfying.

  One of these days I hope to complete my reading of the rest of the set.

• "The Starflight Handbook" (1989)
  by Eugene Mallove & Gregory Matloff

  

  This book was unique in that it presented all different types starcraft engines in a scientific manner and in an analysis on their respective feasibilities. I had always been fascinated in possible starship designs and the science related to starship travel and all manner of consequence surrounding it. However, there was never an in-depth and readable collection of this material anywhere, until I discovered "The Starflight Handbook".
  
  When I was in elementary school I remember spending inordinate amount of time with two of my friends on making detailed schematics for a Bussard Ramjet type of starship that we had all planned on building and using to get us to Barnard's star!! I still have bits and pieces of the schematics. An issue of Odyssey Magazine is to blame for our fascination of starflight as children. It featured an article about Project Daedalus and using fusion fuel pellets to light up and push the manned starship to Barnard's Star in 50 years. Project Daedalus was a real technological study on the feasibility of building a starship.

• "Atheism: A Philosophical Justification" (1990)
  by Michael Martin

  

  This was my absolute ultimate "bible" on all things Atheism and the justifications for believing and living it.

Fiction

• The Foundation Series
  by Isaac Asimov:
  "Foundation" (1951), "Foundation and Empire" (1952), "Second Foundation" (1953), "Foundation's Edge" (1982) and "Foundation and Earth" (1983)

  

  The pinnacle of science fiction. My favorite science fiction stories. The grandeur and storytelling that all works of science fiction attempt to emulate.

• "Rendezvous with Rama" (1972)
  by Arthur C. Clarke

  

  A very curious look at what it would be like to find an alien artifact passing through our solar system. Fascinating story.

• "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions" (1884)
  by Edwin A. Abbott

  

  An introduction to mind aerobics in many dimensions. Lots of fun!! See the world not unlike the premise of "The Matrix", but in much more peaceful, dimensional and Victorian tones.

• "After Man" (1980)
  by Dougal Dixon

  

  A fascinating look at how humans would look like hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years in the future through evolution.
  
  I discovered this book at our local library when I was in early elementary school in Washington state. My friend and I returned home (to his home) after picking up an armful of books each. (A regular enjoyment of ours). One of these books I came back with was Dixon's "After Man". My friend's mother was a rabid Christian and when she found that I had brought a book into her house that talked about evolution she flipped! She demanded that I return the book back to the library. I refused and enjoyed every moment I had reading it at my home.
  
  This incident also introduced me to religious mentality and their fundamental close-mindedness and intolerance for science of the real world. I actually thank my friend's mother for being so harsh to me as it opened my eyes to another side of the world and taught me a lesson about authority.
  
  Thank you Dougal Dixon!! May the children of the world read your book and revel in the fascination it provides and the immersion in reality that it delivers.

• "Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the A.D. 2358 Voyage to Darwin IV" (1990)
  by Wayne Douglas Barlowe

  

  What would the flora and fauna of an alien ecological environment look like? And by "alien", I mean alien in the sense of extraterrestrial. Barlowe is an artist who is different from most in that he goes way outside the box and presents views of creatures that only an imagination armed with science could illustrate.
  
  A wonderful science documentary ("Alien Planet") was incidentally made on the Discovery Channel that is based on "Expedition". Check it out!

• "Spacecraft: 2000 to 2100 A.D." (1978)
  by Stewart Cowley

  

  This was one of my favorite books growing up. It featured pictures of future starships in a stylistic way that was very different and curious to me. I also remember losing it's title and author when I was younger and wished so much to have remembered it. I later rediscovered it at a local library and decided to research it's whereabouts where I could buy a copy for my own, as it had long been out of print.

• "Vacuum Diagrams" (1997)
  by Stephen Baxter

  

  I was never much into reading fiction. Whenever I did, it was almost always science fiction. I just always thought that reading fiction of any sort was kind of a waste of time, as that time could be used in reading about the way the world really is and not how we wish it should be. (Incidentally, I feel the same about video games and TV, in general. However, I break these rules more often than I care to announce when it comes to TV and movies). However, there are times when I can't resist and would like to place myself in another time or place to relax from the craziness of this one. Baxter's stories are my contemporary favorites in science fiction. His sci-fi is very hard-core and detailed and with "Vacuum Diagrams" he tells stories about the far, far future; my favorite time to think about!
  
  What would lifeforms be like that evolved on a neutron star (one of the greatest gravitational environments in the universe)? What would human civilization be like that had evolved among floating cities within the Oort cloud of comets way out in the outskirts of solar system? What would it be like to "bump up against" the edge of time? What kind of technological artifacts would an alien civilization create that was millions and perhaps billions of years more advanced than we? Read Baxter.

• "The Persistence of Memory" (1931)
  by Salvador Dali

  

  Read about my impression of Salvador Dali in the "People" section on this webpage to know more.




• "Indefinite Divisibility" (1941)
  by Yves Tanguy

  

  An example of the vague representation of organic forms that Tanguy's art portrays. Read my take on Yves Tanguy on this page's "People" section to know more about my take on his work.




• "Through Birds, through Fire, but Not through Glass" (1943)
  by Yves Tanguy

  

  Same as above.




• "The Castle of the Pyrenees" (1959)
  by Rene Magritte

  

  I love works of art that leave you wondering and asking more questions than they answer. Magritte's "Pyrenees" is a prime example. How is the mountain staying aloft? Where did it come from? Is the castle fused with the mountainous rock? Fascinating and curious art.




• "Easter Island" (1988)
  by Chris Foss

  

  I think my curiosity of the real world stems, in large part, to my continued fascination with all things alien. I do not believe there has ever been alien contact with earth, let alone alien visitation. In fact, my belief is such that if visitation were to happen it would not be from organic creatures, but from their technological creations: robotic intelligences that have perhaps succeeded the organic extraterrestrial civilization. It will be the AI that will visit here not the long gone creatures that had created them.
  
  Many fascinating places on earth still retain so many unanswered questions and it is natural to be impatient in finding those answers and assigning, instead, extraordinary answers to them. Aliens built the pyramids, the Moai of Easter Island, Stonehenge, the base stone blocks at Baalbek, and the keyworks of Puma Punku. Foss's "Easter Island" plays to those ideas, but I love them and they build up a wonder for these questions!




• "The View from the Stars" (1972)
  by Chris Foss

  

  This is an example of the strange starship and extraterrestrial art that Foss is renowned for, and rightly so! By the way, I was introduced to his works from one of the books I have listed on this page "Spacecraft: 2000 to 2100 A.D." By Stewart Cowley. Awesome book of memory!

Classical

• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

  

  As a child I started dabbling in learning about the compositions of classical music and started to grow fond of it and it's complexity. Contemporaneous to this I was fully immersed in Sagan's works. It is through Sagan's "Murmurs of the Earth" that I learned of all of the sounds, music, images, and language that was carried aboard the Voyager spacecrafts. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F was one of the songs carried onboard.
  
  I wanted to learn and listen to everything Bach. Bach's works are perhaps some of the most intensely detailed and rich music that can be enjoyed. Even though Bach was a man of his times, and therefore deeply ingrained in sacred music, his works will perhaps be outlived by every living thing on planet earth and residing on 2 small artificial emissaries from that small planet. His works will move on through the cosmos as if they were timeless creations and, in a very deep sense, they rightly are.

• Anything of Baroque style

  Bach was of this period and many of the classical works of this time feature very lively and rich works that are uplifting and fun.

Rock

• Boston (1976-present)

  

  Boston is a group I grew to love after traveling with my sister through the desert on a road trip. Boston was featured prominently in my memories of cruising through the middle of nowhere. "More Than a Feeling" is perhaps my all-time favorite classic rock song. The lyrics inspire uplifting and a wonderful "out-of-body" experience and I find it ideal when alone and cruising in a car.




• Nine Inch Nails (1988-present)

  

  I love NIN! The best of powerful, depressing and dark music and lyrics from the great 90's. It brings back a lot of grunge and goth memories from that time.




• Heart (1973[A GREAT YEAR!]-present)

  

Indie

• Soul Coughing (1992-2000)

  

  If there is a way to encapsulate the surrealism that I feel and see in Dali's and Tanguy's works (see their respective descriptions on this web page) and place them within music, then I would have Soul Coughing! They are, by far, my favorite band of all time. No words can really describe how I feel when I listen to them. Sadly, they are now defunct and only left us with only 3 works of art (and a compilation of their greatest). I never tire of listening to them and I know I make those around me crazy after relistening to them so many times!
  
  My other love: The X-Files, is what introduced me to Soul Coughing. A song by them ("Unmarked Helicopters") was featured in an early episode of the show and that song, along with a couple of others, have been featured in soundtracks of The X-Files.
  
  Long live Soul Coughing!!!

New Age

• Steve Roach (1979-present)

  

  I remember in the middle to late 90's waiting outside of a store in a strip mall in my car for someone while it was storming outside. While I was waiting, I had turned to a radio station that normally during the day featured radical Left talk and thought that I would catch a piece of that. It turns out that the station, at night, switched to New Age and Indie music and had, that night, been featuring some music from an artist by the name of Steve Roach. Up until then, I had been a fan of environmental moody instrumental music and had been introduced to the genre by listening to Yanni. (I had even gone to one of his performances when I was in high school). I progressed into other subgenres of New Age while studying Physics at the University of South Florida.

  When I first listened to Steve Roach's music I felt like I had been placed in an alternate universe, literally! It was absolutely wonderful! It was exactly the style of New Age music that I seemed to have been looking for for years. To the untrained ear, it sounds very boring (especially to those not accustomed, or appreciative, of New Age music). But for those who do enjoy it, Steve Roach's style is different in that it is extremely simple in the sense of seeming to be stripped of everything, except the basest of environmental sounds. Much of his music is so flowing and trancendental that it feels like you are floating in a void and being nudged ever so gently towards nowhere.

  Some of music features soundscapes of desert southwest ghost towns; others are of desert landscapes experiencing thunderstorms; still others are those that feel like you are literally floating in a sea of nothingness in an alternate universe.

  While setting the lights down low (or off completely) and laying down in a quiet environment, turn on Roach's "Into The Void" and you'll be sent to a place that probably only LSD could bring you.




• Jean Michel Jarre (1971-present)

  

  I was introduced to Jarre's "Oxygene" while studying Physics at the University of South Florida. It was New Age music that was closer to the style I believe best suited my tastes. It featured music that was experimental and synthesized. I loved it, much seemed to always be missing one key ingredient. I could never really tell what that was, but on hindsight it seemed that Jarre's music was a little rougher and sharp than I would have liked it to be. It's still classic New Age.

Collections

• "The X-Files: The Album - Fight The Future" (1998)

  

  This is great 90's rock riffs that I continue to listen to and never grow tired of. It brings back so many memories of the 90's to me. It features my all-time favorite artist: Soul Coughing and includes music from other great 90's bands and artists, like Foo Fighters and Bjork.

  The mood it brings me is one of dark mystery and alien lonliness and abandonment. I have always been sort of a solo personality and feel very suited to this style of music. I was slightly into the Goth lifestyle when I was younger and this music satisfies my inner "spirit" and longings.




• "Songs In The Key Of X" (1996)

  

  Almost the same things that were said for "The X-Files: The Album" can be said about this collection. It is an older album and it was the one that first introduced me to the music of Soul Coughing. It also includes selections from Danzig and the Foo Fighters.

  For those who are X-Philes like myself (people who are great fans of The X-Files), this album always places me in (among other experiences) a scene within The X-Files that I have always loved. Soul Coughing is playing "Unmarked Helicopters" on a tape player within the Airstream trailor home of my favorite X-Files character: Max Fenig as Scully and mulder are searching around for him. I've always liked Max Fenig's character, because it seemed to represent a part of my persona: a hippie solo wandering soul looking for unconventional Truths that may be out there.

Non-Fiction

• COSMOS: A Personal Voyage (1980)

  



• The Mechanical Universe...and Beyond (1985-1986)

  



• Whale Wars (2008-Present)

  

  Look for my blog on Animal Rights concerning "Why I Am a Vegetarian" and I discuss Whale Wars and how it ties in with my ongoing vegetarianism and its ethical impetus. I great, courageous, and unconventional show. I wish TV were this brave all the time and showed the realities of the world like Whale Wars does.




• UFO Hunters (2008-2009)

  

  Real-life X-Files! I do not believe alien spacecraft, let alone aliens themselves have visited Earth. However, I love researching paranormal phenomena, especially, of course, UFO's. This all goes without saying...for those who know me!! UFO's are an extremely interesting subject, and regrettably, I believe "UFO Hunters" does a bad job at looking at the issue from both sides; they do a great job, most of the time, in showing the perspective that UFO's are extraterrestrial spacecraft, but do a horrible job at looking at it from my side: from that of the skeptic.

  That being said I still love the show, in the same sense that I enjoy reading about the subject or love listening to Coast to Coast AM, etc.

Fiction

• The X-Files (1993-2003)

  

  My all-time favorite TV show! I love being in the world of the paranormal, especially the subject of UFO's, and the X-Files universe is the closest I can come to it. I watch it religiously and identify very much with Scully's beliefs (skepticism and the use of science as her life's guide), Mulder's philosophy's and drives (knowing there are many unanswered questions that scream out for explanation and an urge to let the public know) and also of Max Fenig's philosophy's and lifestyle (less materialism and more wanting to know the Truth at any expense, including going it alone).




• The Twilight Zone (1959-1964)

  

  The Twilight Zone introduced me to the bizarre and the strange when I was younger. My favorite episodes were "Five characters in Search of an Exit", "The Bewitching Pool", an episode featuring a group of colonists that had been stranded on a very hot planet and were seeking to return back to Earth (can't remember the name of the episode), an episode (again one I can't remember the name for) where I lonely woman in a house in the middle of nowehere becomes terrorized by mini "alien" creatures, "All the Time in the World", and finally "Little Girl Lost". (I must say that the episode "The Eye of the Beholder" is the penultimate in Twilight Zone representation and I do include it in my list, also, but I would just say that any Twilight Zone fan has it as one of their favorites as a default).

  I highly recommend you check these particular episodes out! Your world will look very different afterwards. To think that a TV show in black and white and was produced so long ago could have so much influence and wonder after all these years and still remain so popular shows how important and powerful The Twilight Zone has been. And so it has been with me, as I was indoctrinated into its world when I was very young. I am so thankful for this!

  Thank you Rod Serling. Thank you so much!




• Kung Fu (1972-1975)

  

  Fung Fu taught me, when I was young, the philosophies of Buddhism and a hint of Asian cultures, both of which were mysterious and fascinating. The art of Kung Fu was, to me as a young child, a way to become "superhuman", in a sense. A way to become like an animal and see the world as they do. In addition, I felt, it was a way to tap into a strength that you could not get anywhere else. It was fascinating and it had been a mystery to me to think that only the Orient had discovered this ancient "secret".

  "Fung Fu" was also the seed that produced in me a strong sense of empathy for suffering, of animal rights, of cooperation and understanding as a solution to war and conflict, and especially a sense of trying to overcome materialism and to live with simplicity. All of these philosophies were right there, in the TV show. Thank you, Kwai Chang Caine!




• The Martian Chronicles (1979)

  

  This was a 3 part made-for-TV movie that I had watched when I was younger. It was yet another show that gave me a sense of wonder about the mysterious, but of a slightly different flavor: of New Age beliefs and character. To me, it mixed the subjects of extraterrestrials, New Age philosophies, human colonization of Mars, and art.

  If I could put into words, how it makes me feel when watching it, it would be close to saying adding the feelings I get when looking at an Yves Tanguy painting, watching and experiencing COSMOS from Carl Sagan, and listening to Steve Roach's "Into the Void".

Non-Fiction

• Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1993)

  

  This documentary introduces Noam Chomsky life and philosophy and also exposes how important and powerful the media is on our lives.




• Religulous (2008)

  

  A powerful, funny, honest and enlightening look at the realities of religious belief in both our country and in others.

  It asks the same question I've been asking for so many years now: why do we need this ancient and Midieval line of thinking anymore, especially in a technologically advanced society? Why continue holding on to ideas that are institutionally dangerous, brutal, dishonest, unethical and just plain wrong in every sense of that word? For people who have these thoughts in other subjects would be called, by the rest of society, psychotic, insane, delusional, and/or very uncompromising. The strange thing is that society just doesn't get it and, instead, labels religion as something virtuous and valuable. It defends it at just about any chance. To demonize religion is one of the worse offenses someone can lodge and those who do are pushed to the edge of society and looked at as demons themselves.




• Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

  

  The masterpiece that Michael Moore exposed to the world! Those on the Right hated it with a strong passion, while most sane people loved it and learned a thingor two about the Bush administration and its disastrous foreign policies.




• The Corporation (2003)

  

  Exposes what a corporation really is and how it historically got that way. It explains how "personhood" of a corporation destroys the resources of the planet like a virus and instills within societies unnecessary material wants.

  A great movie that gets to the heart of the most powerful and dangerous entities of our time.

Fiction

• 2001: A Space Odyssey

  

  "2001" is what I believe to be the closest explanation to what extraterrestrials may be like. The movie describes human evolution as it progresses and is helped by the monolith; a mysterious, black, impenetrable block that appears in the prehistoric Serengeti when human progenitors are just barely staying alive. The monolith, after helping early humanity's intelligence is later, after humankind reaches a spacefarer stage, found embedded within the moon. A signal is found to have been directed at the Jupiter system and a spacecraft, along with an artificial intelligent computer (the HAL-9000) is sent to investigate the receiving end of the monolithic signal.

  The story gets stranger still once the lone surviving astronaut finally reaches the Jupiter system. Another monolith is, indeed, found and jumps humanity's evolution ahead yet again in a shocking, strange, and mysterious ending that becomes one of the lasting legacies of the movie.

  Stanley Kubrick asked Carl Sagan to help in the depiction of the science in Arthur C. Clarke's adaptation. This is another reason that this sci-fi movie should get extreme accolades: the science is just plain correct! The way the objects in the movie float in zero-g, the slow tumbling and monotonous movements, the soundless void of space, the physics of situations are all so accurate that this movie puts Star Wars, Star Trek and other fantastical sci-fi movies to shame in the arena of science. In addition to this, the extraterrestrials are never seen...only their artifact: the monolith. This was deliberate. Sagan suggested not to show the aliens; he said to leave the audience wondering would make the film much more mysterious and lifelike. He was correct.

  "My God...it's full of stars!..."




• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

  

  When I was a young nuisance I found "Close Encounters" to be a movie that became so much apart of my being that I remember becoming extremely depressed when, finally, I had found that it had come to TV and we didn't have the ability to watch it. I wanted so badly to be a part of what the little boy, Barry, had been associated with. The pure mystery and awe I had for the movie was palpable. It left so many unanswered questions that I felt so compelled to seek out their answers...and the may possibly be one of the greatest reasons that I grew to have such a scientific outlook on life.

  What were the UFO's? Where did they come from? Who was "piloting" them? What did they look like? Why were only a few people honored enough to have been touched by their presence? How was the mothership built and how did it manage to float above the ground and move so gently? What on Earth were all of those instruments and contraptions that seemed to be attached to the ships, especially the mothership? What was the Kodaly Method hand signals? As a young boy asking these questions, I grew to have an insatiable appetite for knowing.




• CONTACT (1997)

  

  "Contact" was based off of Carl Sagan's book of the same name. There are some differences, including a radical deletion from the end of the book. This is another look at how extraterrestrial civilizations would make contact with humanity. This is the most accurate look, yet, at how they would do it. The story is absolutely compelling: receipt of an alien radio broadcast with information on how to build an extremely advanced piece of machinery for traveling through space using wormholes.

  Carl Sagan, a scientist himself, approached Kip Thorne, a gravitational physicist, on the most appropriate way to travel across space in the fastest concievable way. Thorne and his students got to work and came out with the solution of using wormholes as the mechanism.

  Again, Sagan decided not to show the alien's true forms and had them represented in a more pleasing way.




• TRON (1982)

  

  A groundbreaking film for its time. TRON has been a favorite of mine since it first came out. I was a video arcade game fanatic when I was young and found the movie's theme very exciting: people get inserted into the digital world of computers and games.

  The visual appeal of the movie was very exciting and groundbreaking, as well. And still, to this day, it delivers awe and wonder. I can't wait until TRON 2.0 comes out (if it does)! The lightcycles themselves will be enough for anybody to get into the film.




• ERASERHEAD (1977)

  

  This was a surrealistic film that took David Lynch 5 years to create! It was all shot in black and white, grainy and very foreboding. The images and scenes were those that can be found between dreams and nightmares. A single song that was sung in the movie "In Heaven" stayed with me for days afterwards. I soon found out that "Bauhaus", "The Pixies", "Modest Mouse" and others had since performed tributes to that song.




• The Godfather: Part II (1974)

  

  A powerful movie among the series. Depicts Italian-American life in the early and mid 20th century in America. The food, the music, the family strengths, the culture are all exciting to see, especially if you are Italian! The Mafia theme and how it ties in with "the family" bonds are convoluted and compelling. Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are, by far, my favorite actors for reasons this movie can show.




• Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

  

  My favorite, so far, from the whole Star Trek "enterprise". It is, perhaps, the most philosophical and mysterious of the series and stands out as a wierd individual in the collection. It has themes that were very similar to "2001: A Space Oddysey" and the "The Martian Chronicles". V'ger and its goals for seeking out its creator are enough to leave you wondering about artificial intelligence on this planet, where it might lead, what consciousness really is and if it's even something that can be extended to our own creations. Awesome things to think about!




• The Shining (1980)

  

  My favorite horror flick and is scary as hell when you try to place yourself in the hotel alone for the Winter.




• Poltergeist (1982)

  

  Another of my horror genre favorites. The poltergeist storyline and way the little girl gets trapped in the TV are strange thoughts and ideas. I love it!




• Real Genius (1985)

  

  I wanted to be Lazlo Hollyfeld! A hippie-super genius who lived in the hidden basement of the physics department of a Caltech-like school.

  Looking back, I really believe that "Real Genius" was the reason I moved toward studying physics as a career.




• War Games (1983)

  

  Another story about artificial intelligence, but this time it is in control of a possible worldwide nuclear war. This was a great 80's Cold War flick.

  The 80's seemed to come out with some awesome teen science movies that were great. I really loved them all!.

• Chess (from the second half of the 15th century)

  

  I used to spend long hours studying and playing Chess. I first started playing against my father and he would always win! It was depressing and I was determined as ever to play good enough to at least beat him and maybe a few others, too. Well, I did eventually reach that stage and have not played many more games since. This is probably another game that you lose a lot of skills in if you do not constantly practice. The game can suck up a lot of time and so, I've decided to stay away...at least for the time being.




• Rubik's Cube (1974)

  

  I was able to solve the Cube in a little under 2 minutes on average when I was at my best. I cannot do it anymore. This is something that you pretty much completely lose, if you don't continue it. It was very fun, while it lasted, though.




• Atari 2600 (1976)

  
  
  

  I mostly liked Atari video games because the girls liked the boys that played them:

  

  Atari came around at a time when personal computers were beginning to show up in average people's homes. It was also a time when I was a fanatical video arcade game player, so it became a deadly mix. I became addicted to the system and played for LONG periods of time. I would save up what little allowance I would get and try to purchase a game, usually at the end of the month. (The games were usually around $30 a piece). I was so unbelievably happy when I was able to bring home a brand new Atari game.

  Later in life, I became a fan of collecting the old Atari system games and now have over 260 Atari 2600 games and various other Atari components and systems.

  Viva la Atari!




• MYST (1993) computer game

  

  The MYST series was great in that it appealed very much to my surrealistic artistic senses, in addition to my love of puzzles. The game places you in a world of strange, lonely environments where you must complete puzzles to move to different areas.




• Breakdancing (early 1970's)

  

  My friends and I would put on our breakdancing clothes with a boom box in one hand and a large cardboard box in another. Our goal was the nearest supermarket entrance. Placing the cardboard and the boombox down, I would turn the hip-hop on and begin the most amazing moves that humankind had ever witnessed. I had become a freaking robot and was in a superdigital world of sharp breaking and popping movements, otherworldy spins, moonwalking footwork, and acrobatics the likes that have never been seen on this planet.

  My pointless moves and ridiculous wear of the 80's was so absolutely cool at that time that nothing else could stand in my way, short of another competing robotic friend who had better moves than I.

  I would go home unroll my newly purchased breakdancing movement posters and stick them to my wall, slam in a my new hip-hoppin' b-boy music and would practice until I broke something.

  I actually thought that I was the one who invented the Moonwalk. I believed that I was doing it long before Michael Jackson was. But then again this is coming from the same guy who thought it cool to show off my gloved hands, zippered pants and jackets, and awesome moves to customers frequenting the store for butter.

Vegetarian

• Eggplant Parmesan (Italian)

  

  Tastiest Italian vegetarian dish this side of the universe.




• Palak Paneer (Indian)

  

  Tastiest Indian vegetarian dish this side of the planet.




• Pad Thai (Thai)

  

  Tastiest Thai food, that again happens to be vegetarian, this side of Thailand.




• Bi Bim Bap - with no meat (Korean)

  

  Tastiest spicy Korean dish this side of K-Town.




• Vegetarian California Rolls
  (Rice on outside/Nori on inside)

  

  Tastiest vegetarian Japanese look-alike this side of "Save the Whales, dammit!"




• Mango Lassi (Indian)

  

  Tastiest thick Indian Mango shake this side of Mango shakes.




• Sunflower Seeds (with the shells)

  

  Funnest nut snacks this side of the X-Files.

Non-Vegetarian
(and other unhealthy and unethical foods)

• Big Mac (Mars)

  

  Children who seemingly have frequent Big Mac Attacks.




I'm sorry...here's the Big Mac



Have YOU had a Big Mac Attack lately?




• Anything from Captain D's Seafood (American)

  

  Save the fish!

• Beef Jerky (Redneck Country)

  

  If you recognize beef jerkey as meat from a cow, then there's something wrong with you. In fact, beef jerkey orginally comes from the alien visitors who taught the inhabitants of ancient Easter Island how to create the Moa. A lot of people, surprisingly, do not know this. The only difference now is that we dip the strips in saturated brine and allow the sun to dry them off.




• Salmon with Hollandaise Sauce (French)

  

  Nowadays, I love this dish minus the Salmon.




• Dragon Roll (Crunchy California Shrimp Roll)

  

  Dragon rolls made of shrimp...and that are crunchy? Damned good stuff that I will not eat.

• Death Valley, California (USA)

  

  A strange place in the California desert that is away from everything else and that contains rocks that like to move by themselves across the ground when no one is looking.




• South Korea

  

  My absolute favorite Asian country. Highly technological and clean in the cities, wonderfully rural and naturesque outside of the cities.




• Yosemite National Park, California (USA)

  

  Not a place to have arguments, conflicts or disagreements with old elementary school buddies.




• Seattle, Washington (USA)

  

  Great place to be born and grow up. Mountains; forests; lakes; cool, laid-back cities; coffee shops; fish markets; volcanoes; earthquakes; rain...what's not to love?




• Portland, Oregan (USA)

  

  A mini environmentally-aware Seattle and Washington with a younger hippie population.




• Rachel, Nevada - next to Area 51 (USA)

  

  First, and last, stop on your way to Zeta Reticuli. When approaching Rachel veer left onto the dirt road and follow the unmarked military bus 20 or so miles toward the mountains. Ignore the Camo Dudes in their black, unmarked SUV's and rifles, and gate security clearances that you may pass. If they yell that deadly force will be used if you continue...just announce either of these secret statements: "Trust No One" or "I Come In Peace". Continue following the bus full of military guys who happen to prefer bus over plane from Las Vegas, drive up to the Groom Lake Flats bar and have a drink. Continue drinking until a last call is made for the S-4 entrance and subsequent loading of the Roswell retrieved craft. This will be your last chance to see our planet. Wave goodbye.

  Another option: continue past the dirt road and arrive at Rachel, settle in to the Little Al'e Inn and rest with a refreshing beer. Later, buy an Area 51 coffee mug then go outside and take snapshots of the Roswell craft on its way to the only planet in the Zeta Reticuli system.