gbrown
My blogs
| Industry | Education |
|---|---|
| Introduction | A writer must “know and have an ever-present consciousness that this world is a world of fools and rogues… tormented with envy, consumed with vanity; selfish, false, cruel, cursed with illusions… He should free himself of all doctrines, theories, etiquettes, politics…” —Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?). “The nobility of the writer's occupation lies in resisting oppression, thus in accepting isolation” —Albert Camus (1913-1960). “What are you gonna do” —Bertha Brown (1895-1987). |
| Interests | To pursue a life based on reason, logic, critical thinking, compassion, empathy, humility, integrity, dignity, political and social justice, responsibility, mutual respect, and life-long learning. |
| Favorite Movies | Casablanca, The Pride of the Yankees, On the Waterfront, Christmas Carol (1951), Seventh Seal, Some Like It Hot, The Magnificent Seven, Pocketful of Miracles, To Kill a Mockingbird, Zorba the Greek, King of Hearts, Five Easy Pieces, Duel, Dirty Harry, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Paper Chase, Annie Hall, Breaking Away, The Warriors, Apocalypse Now, The Empire Strikes Back, Amadeus, The Natural, Stand by Me, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams, Born on the Fourth of July, Scent of a Woman, My Cousin Vinny, The Sandlot, Schindler's List, A Bronx Tale, Tombstone, Legends of the Fall, Shawshank Redemption, That Thing You Do, Beautiful Girls, Good Will Hunting, Das Boot, The Red Violin, Saving Private Ryan, As Good As It Gets, The Hurricane, Donnie Darko, The Boondock Saints, Almost Famous, I Am Sam, 61, Catch Me If You Can, The Rookie, Miracle, The Last Samurai, Glory Road, The Kite Runner, The Bourne Trilogy, Once, Into the Wild, Grand Torino, Bright Star, The Help, Midnight in Paris, Not Fade Away, Lincoln, The Railway Man, The Imitation Game, The Big Short, Spotlight, Darkest Hour, Green Book, Indian Horse... |
| Favorite Music | Rock, Folk Rock, Blues, Jazz, Classical: In other words The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Moby Grape, The Byrds, The Youngbloods, H.P. Lovecraft; Geoffrey Brown, Dylan, Neil Young, Simon & Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot, Fred Holstein, Stan Rogers, John Gorka, Lowen & Navarro; Melvin Taylor, Michael Bloomfield, Ronnie Earl, SRV, Eric Clapton, Danny Gatton, Roy Buchanan, B.B. King; Tom Waits, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Gene Harris, Oscar Peterson, Eberhard Weber; Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Copland... |
| Favorite Books | Novels/Novellas/Plays: The Trial (Kafka), Notes from Underground & Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky), Demian (Hesse), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce), Grendel (Gardner), Heart of Darkness (Conrad), Justine (Durrell), The Death of Ivan Ilych (Tolstoy), Sorrows of Young Werther & Faust (Goethe), The Stranger, The Fall, The Plague & The First Man (Camus), The Immoralist (Gide), Lenz (Buchner), Zorba the Greek (Kazantzakis), The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald), Moby Dick (Melville), Huckleberry Finn (Twain), A Volunteer's Adventures (De Forest), Nausea & No Exit (Sartre), Hamlet & Macbeth (Shakespeare); Exposition: Philosophical Investigations & On Certainty (Wittgenstein), An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Hume), On Liberty & Utilitarianism (Mill), Symposium & Crito (Plato), The Myth of Sisyphus & The Rebel (Camus), Unpopular Essays (Russell), The God Delusion (Dawkins), Philosophers without Gods (Antony), The Moral Landscape & The End of Faith (Harris), Philosophical Ethics (Beauchamp), The Oriental Philosophers (Tomlin), Readings in Ancient Western Philosophy (McLean/Aspell), The Shallows (Carr), The Omnivore's Dilemma (Pollan), Breaking the Spell (Dennett), The Blank Slate (Pinker), Warped Passages (Randall), A Brief History of Time & Brief Answers to the Big Questions (Hawkins), Until the End of Time (Greene), The Brain That Changes Itself (Doidge), War and Morality (Wasserstrom), Letters from the Earth (Twain), Imperial Hubris (Scheuer), The Big Short (Lewis), State and Local Pensions (Munnell), Retirement Heist (Schultz), American Constitutional Law & To End a Presidency (Tribe), Democracy in Chains (MacLean), It's Even Worse Than You Think & Free Lunch (Johnston), Republic Lost (Lessig), The Shock Doctrine (Klein), Aftershock (Reich), Winner Take-All Politics (Hacker/Pierson), The 48 Laws of Power (Greene); Poetry: any book by Dunn, Dickson, Hoagland, Collins, Djanikian, Collier, Roberts, Kooser, Greenway, Meinke, Pastan and Mueller... |