User:Skookum1

Apt quotes re Wiki-"culture"

 * The arguments in favour of the deliberate development of the unreasoning faculties were much more cogent. But here they depart from the principles on which they justify their study of hypothetics; for they base the importance which they assign to hypothetics upon the fact of their being a preparation for the extraordinary, while their study of Unreason rests upon its developing those faculties which are required for the daily conduct of affairs. Hence their professorships of Inconsistency and Evasion, in both of which studies the youths are examined before being allowed to proceed to their degree in hypothetics. The more earnest and conscientious students attain to a proficiency in these subjects which is quite surprising; there is hardly any inconsistency so glaring but they soon learn to defend it, or injunction so clear that they cannot find some pretext for disregarding it.
 * - Samuel Butler Erewhon, Chapter XXI, "The Colleges of Unreason"


 * Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their own culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses - Plato.


 * The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits - Albert Einstein


 * Imagine a world in which the Wikipedia Foundation only cared to obtain money, to manipulate information, and to use superpowers for global blocking to intimidate the community. Isn't that what they are doing? - User:The Photographer on Jimbo's talkpage 18:47, 28 January 2015, originally in Spanish as translated to English by User:Chrisrus 18:47, 29 January 2015.
 * Spanish original: Imagina un mundo en donde la fundación wikimedia solamente se preocupa por obtener dinero, manipular la información y usar superpoderes para bloquear globalmente para amedrentar a la comunidad. Eso están haciendo?


 * "But the biggest worry is that the great benefit of the open-source approach is also its great undoing. Its advantage is that anyone can contribute; the drawback is that sometimes just about anyone does. This leaves projects open to abuse, either by well-meaning dilettantes or intentional disrupters. Constant self-policing is required to ensure its quality." - ''The Economist, 3/18/2006
 *  “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” - James Baldwin

Quotes about yours truly

 * ::"I accept that Skookum's style can be trying at times, but please do not claim that he is alone in his perspective. He has given ample evidence that there are many of us knowledgeable editors who agree with him. I, for one, am tired of arguing with editors who refuse to acknowledge the ample evidence backing up our arguments. Eventually, I think you'll all come around and feel rather embarrassed about your current position, but in the mean time, if Skookum feels strong enough about the issue to continue pressing these points and so long as he remains polite in his argument, it hardly seems fair to dismiss him as beating a dead horse." [or as disruptive or combative or TLDR/WoT etc etc etc.] TheMightyquill 10:34, 22 March 2014 re Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_February_19
 * Ít's about time someone exposed this person. He's caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people - FB news forum comment on the Vancouver Sun article re Talk:Adrian Dix, since removed; as I know who he's meaning, I took that as a very high compliment given it was an "establishment voice" saying it: those who have sought to use Wikipedia as POV-SPAM platforms, and others discussed in blogspace about "high crimes" by politicians and corporate and police in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada.
 * "Somewhere humanity collapsed and … some creatures similar to humans came and took the place of humanity." - Yasar Kemal

Maxims and memes

 * Never argue with someone committed to misunderstanding you. (really gotta remember to apply that more when taking the bullshit by the horns).
 * If someone wants to take offense, they will typically find a way, or make it up.
 * A mind is like a box. If it's open, things get put into it. If it's not, then nothing does.
 * The things you learn on Wikipedia include "when you're losing an argument, accuse your opponent of saying things they did not, and then when they respond, call it a personal attack and threaten to have them blocked. If they don't shut up, launch an ANI to tie them up further.  Even if you don't win, it will probably weigh against their position in the CfD or RM or other matter that is at stake, even if they are right or especially if they are right.


 * So little time, so much bullshit
 * The difference between a buffoon and a clown is that the clown knows what a mirror is, and also that he's a joke, which the buffoon does not.
 * Truth is not a POV, it is the truth.
 * NPOV does not mean untruth should be given equal weight to the truth.
 * Politically-correct language is inherently and by definition POV in nature.
 * Wikipedia should seek to reflect reality, not influence it or control it.
 * Wikipedia has too many admins, and not enough contributors
 * Wikipedia is infested by info-trolls and powertrippers
 * The world was built by short people, and is run by morning people
 * Never back a sasquatch into a corner.
 * corollary: never mess with a sasquatch
 * Wikipedia has too many people re-arranging deck chairs, and not enough building them.
 * The deeper you dig a hole, the bigger it gets - and the more room there is in it for you when the time comes to fill it in (advice to trolls, and spin doctors).
 * A consensus forged by fools is only foolishness.
 * Consensus does not mean that stupidity and ignorance be given equal weight to common sense and knowledge.
 * Never trust a reporter.
 * Reliable sources as defined by WP:RS often aren't reliable. In fact, a lot of them are horsetwaddle.
 * Quote from a post on Jimbotalk: "I've been around one hell of a long time and have contributed massive amounts to Wikipedia, and remember the days when AGF and NPA were not used to inflict AGF and NPA, but when people actually sought to talk to each other and reconcile differences..."



Major undertakings in Wikipedia
Due to the untrue press about me of late, I find it necessary to point out the breadth and depth of some of my work here, to put the lie to the press coverage that I am here as a POV strumpet:
 * I came here originally from a number of years as Senior Geographer at the Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia (bivouac.com) and spent a good while organizing Category:Mountain ranges of British Columbia and corresponding articles and also related categories and articles from neighbouring jurisdictions.
 * created most of the historical election district articles for BC and expanded the historical election articles and Canadian-ized cross-border articles such as Columbia River and Oregon Treaty and others.
 * compiled large works such as
 * List of Boundary Peaks of the Alaska–British Columbia/Yukon border
 * List of peaks on the British Columbia–Alberta border
 * List of Chinook Jargon placenames
 * List of Royal Navy ships in the Pacific Northwest
 * List of ghost towns in British Columbia
 * List of mines in British Columbia
 * List of historical ships in British Columbia
 * worked with NorthAmNative to create and organize a huge number of First Nation and Native American government and people/language articles and the associated categories
 * worked with many editors in BC and neighbouring states to create and fix up the articles on Steamboats British Columbia
 * worked up the series of articles and related material connected to British Columbia gold rushes

Barnstars, wikibeers & occasional kudos
I'm not normally one to toot my own horn, or rather I do a lot of horn-tooting, just not usually about myself. This beginning of a revamp to my userpage is an assemblage of the barnstars I've been conferred, a couple of wikibeers, a wikithanks-sunflower, and some nice compliments-in-lieu-of-barnstar. I haven't found all the "get the hell lost" posts but am thinking of assembling some of the choicer ones. This section isn't bragging, it's a way of thanking the people who gave me the barnstars....I tried getting drunk on the wikibeers but they turned out to be non-alcoholic....Skookum1 (talk) 00:52, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Socratic Barnstar

 * Wow, thank you; I think I've got some other barnstars hidden away in my archives, but this one's special, as Socrates was a pain in the ass too....LOLSkookum1 (talk) 18:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Ha good point, he certainly didn't shy away from speaking his mind. Continue on!  H1nkles (talk) 19:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

--

Wikithanks

 * Hi, Skookum. [[Image:WikiThanks.png|43px|left|WikiThanks]] I deeply appreciate all of the information that you add to Canadian geography articles: I learn a lot from your contributions, and the articles you write are quite high-quality. It's clear that you're quite passionate about your craft and that you are an expert.

--

Alaskan Barnstar

 * But I can't even see Russia from my house!! Thanks mucho/hyas mashi, more on the way once I get a chance, been putting off a lot of intended content...Skookum1 (talk) 03:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Saskatchewan Spotlight Award
== WikiProject Saskatchewan Newsletter: Volume 3, Issue 1 - January 2009*Spotlight Award ==
 *  The January 2009 award is presented to Skookum1 who has diligently upgraded articles in compliance with references, point of view and other wikipedia standards. This generally enriches the quality of articles providing more enhanced encyclopaedic content.  January 2009 newsletter

Geography Barnstar
eu:Txantiloi:Geografia izarra

-

Wikibeer
Haha thank you, that was a good laugh =D  « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) 07:10, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * What this was for I can't remember....

-

Wikibeer 4U2
And I must do the same. No hard feelings! Dionix (talk) 17:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Likewise. But as above, I can't remember what it was for. Beer will do that...

Hereby...(Original Barnstar)
Wow. Thanks. I now have two - one for CanCon, of all things, given I'm virtually a BC separatist, and a Bridge River-Lillooet separatist on top of that ;-) Should I put these on my userpage or what?  Been thinking of overhauling it and archiving what's there; esp. since my Grand Recuse is about to start....Skookum1 23:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Talk pages (surrogate barnstar)
Always enjoy running across your comments on talk pages. They're always extremely informative and interesting. I learn a lot, so thank you.

I'd give you a barnstar, but I'm afraid I'm not finding anything suiting, so this'll have to do. Cheers. RichMac (Talk) 09:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Mine (above) can be from both of us, then. And of course, you're absolutely right.--Keefer | Talk 09:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Just ran across an old comment on Talk:Lajoie_Dam. I assume you've learned long ago that you can tag multiple stubs. And I'm sure you've learned how to sign your posts. Thought it was good for a lark though. Cheers. RichMac (Talk) 11:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

CanCon Award


In January 2006, I proposed that this CanCon Barnstar be awarded to those who make significant or "important contributions about Canada or Canadians." Since then, others have awarded it to those Wikipedians whose contributions fit the criteria I proposed. But I never did so myself. (Although it has since grown into a Barnstar of National Merit, the resolution of my initial proposal was to turn it into a  personal user award, which I then never awarded.)

Having reviewed Skookum's contributions, however, I am happy to recognize his work as being reflective of the spirit I had intended for the award: this Barnstar of National Merit is therefore given not only for creating new Canadian works, but also (and additionally in this case) for advocating (e.g., at the  journalist talk page) on behalf of the importance of CanCon on Wikipedia.

Cheers (and thank you), JTBurman 19:19, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Indigenous Peoples of North America
I merely wanted to thank you for the consistent effort you're putting into our Wikiproject. Thanks to you and the work of other dedicated users, it has become a great initiative and a thrieving community. Way to go! Kisses, P h a e d r i e l  ♥  tell me  - 22:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I wanted to say the same thing. TriNotch 07:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Random Smiley Award
 For your contributions to Wikipedia and humanity in general, and impressive passion for the project. I Baldy Blofeld hereby granted this coveted Smiley Award and ask to kindly smile at others in the face of difficulty. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦  <font color="Black">"I've been expecting you" 19:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)</DIV>

Old Intro to this page
Pe naika ticky potlatch konaway window kopa naika skookum illahee, naika hyas hyas stone illahee, yakwa siah-siah kopa lamonti. Chako nah alki (And I'd like to give everybody a window into my "skookum country" (the Pacific Northwest), my great, high stone country, that's high and far away in the mountains.  Come there sometime (Chinook Jargon)

Music
I rarely edit music or musician articles, though keep an eye on Canadian bands and composer articles and occasionlly kibbitz. I did create my own grandfather's article, however - Endre Johannes Cleven - in a breach of WP:AUTO/COI but he's notable enough to have deserved it, thought maybe for other things than as a composer, conductor and musician. However, as you spend time with the long list below of obsessions and delusions, please amuse yourself by visiting my music pages: - these two preceding are orchestral-sounding, though all played on a keyboard I had to sell for survival reasons. Part of the deal was I got a strat copy in return, and wound up buying first a Rockman, then a Danelectro Honeytone mini-amp, and this is some of my rangitang-y music, which is somewhere between acid rock, cowboy, traditional and funk. I know nothing about recording and have a tin ear, and some of this was recorded outside using a Zoom H4 recorder in harsh subzero weather or heavy rain, or just at night, so is not in concert pitch or in tune. People with perfect pitch should probably pass these by:
 * http://www.cayoosh.net/music
 * http://www.myspace.com/mikecleven
 * http://www.isound.com/tamanassman
 * http://www.myspace.com/skookumtamanass
 * http://www.myspace.com/hyastamanass
 * http://www.myspace.com/stonetamanass
 * http://www.myspace.com/tamanasstyee
 * http://www.myspace.com/tamanasshiyu
 * http://www.myspace.com/tamanassman

And all of what follows below needs major reorganization/focus, which I haven't had the stomach to re-do since through-writing it....

History of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest
There are two subpages within my user/talkpage: User talk:Skookum1/BC&PacificNorthwestHistory User talk:Skookum1/BC&PacificNorthwestHistory/MapResources

The first was a list of topics and some discussions; I'd meant to coordinate a kind of storehouse of various resources and links to talkpage discussions, but never had time to complete it, although certain other editors contributed to it on various topics. The second is a compilation, again incomplete, of map-making resources, including a catalogue of NASA/JPL satellite photos useful for making certain kinds of maps (see Monashee Mountains and Vancouver Island Ranges for examples.

Some topics I'm usually interested in and tend to quibble or kibbitz over; redlinks are articles intended or needed, and some non-redlinked articles may be things I intend to expand/rework but haven't gotten to yet. Some of the articles here are things I started; others those I've contributed to.: and more and more and more
 * the Chinook Jargon trade language - see http://www.cayoosh.net/hiyu/ But be warned: I am the bête noir of chinookology and regard Chinook as a multicultural heritage and not exclusive to Native Americans/First Nations; Chinookology article to be written.
 * Pre-Contact First Nations History and Contact-era history and intercultural stuff
 * Grease Trail
 * History of the Bridge River-Lillooet Country and Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
 * Okanagan Trail
 * Whatcom Trail
 * First Nations history (no, I'm not First Nations but I'm interested/opinionated anyway)
 * Fraser Canyon War
 * Chilcotin War
 * Lamalcha War
 * Rancherie
 * Quiggly hole
 * Laich-kwil-tach (Euclataws or Yucultas: Southern Kwakiutl)
 * Kwakwaka'wakw and others ;see Indigenous peoples Wikiproject listings of British Columbia First Nations communities and peoples/politics
 * Imperial Rivalry and Geopolitics in the History of the Pacific Northwest
 * Nootka Convention
 * Oregon boundary dispute
 * Oregon Treaty
 * Oregon Country
 * Columbia District
 * [New Caledonia (Canada)|New Caledonia]]
 * Alaska Boundary Dispute
 * Russian colonization of the Americas
 * Russo-American Treaty
 * Hayes-Herbert Treaty
 * Yukon Ports
 * Stikine Territory
 * and more
 * Colonial and Frontier Biographies and Politics
 * Characters, Criminals and Reprobates in BC history (including those also known as politicians)
 * Simon Gunanoot
 * David Spintlum
 * Chief Nicola
 * Frank Gott
 * Frank Barnard
 * John Andrew Mara
 * Charles Augustus Semlin
 * Steve Tingley
 * Ned McGowan
 * Hans Lars Helgesen
 * Joseph Martin
 * Andrew Onderdonk
 * Wild McLean Boys
 * Donald McLean
 * Donald Manson
 * Chief Hunter Jack
 * Mythography and Ethnography of the Pacific Northwest, pre and post Contact (quite often see the Discussion pages for these topics for my tendency to offer opinions/interpretations instead of "valid cites" because of my disputes as to what's valid and what's not, or why not):
 * Thunderbird and Whale
 * Forbidden Plateau
 * Siwash Rock
 * Sasquatch
 * Dzonokwa
 * Sisiutl
 * List of Haunted Places in British Columbia
 * General BC History:
 * History of Vancouver
 * History of British Columbia
 * New Westminster, British Columbia
 * Chinatown, Vancouver
 * Chinatown, Victoria
 * Chinatown, Yale
 * Chinatown, Lillooet
 * Modern BC history and politics (tricky stuff, a veritable minefield in fact)
 * Solidarity Crisis
 * Two Rivers Policy
 * Ghost towns and gold rushes; company towns and wilderness communities/localities
 * Lillooet, British Columbia
 * Shalalth, British Columbia
 * Tulameen, British Columbia
 * Seton Portage, British Columbia
 * Minto City, British Columbia
 * Bralorne, British Columbia
 * Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
 * Cariboo Gold Rush
 * Klondike Gold Rush
 * Omineca Gold Rush
 * Big Bend Gold Rush
 * Rock Creek Gold Rush

Geography of British Columbia
added maps to various geographic features, including ranges, rivers and other areas/items not listed here (yet)
 * British Columbia Coast
 * and many subarticles on individual inlets and waterways
 * various mountain ranges in BC
 * Clear Range
 * Lillooet Ranges
 * Cayoosh Range
 * Chilcotin Ranges
 * Shulaps Range
 * Camelsfoot Range
 * Bendor Range
 * Douglas Ranges
 * Pacific Ranges
 * Kitimat Ranges etc.
 * Environmental history, politics and protected areas/parks
 * Natural wonders and special features:
 * Hunlen Falls
 * Grand Canyon of the Stikine
 * Marble Canyon
 * Skookumchuck

Mountains

 * For the last few years I was a volunteer for the [Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia], for a while daring to bear the sobriquet "Senior Cartographer" and/or "Senior Geographer". I began at "Bivouac" contributing historical writeups on various mountains and the origins of their placenames, as well as other geographic placenames and town histories for the CME, which is the most comprehensive index of North American mountains online (thanks to yours truly, he says modestly).  I also posted my own collection of photo essays at that site, which are viewable with a paid membership only, as are the thousands of other photo essays in Bivouac's system.  Ultimately I got sucked into helped out expanding the CME's infrastructure and so charted digitally thousands of miles of coastline and river and region boundaries, as well as thousands of "new" peaks (most of them unnamed).  A big part of Bivouac's geographic work in recent years was tying the thousands of peak entries together according to their prominence relationships (definition below), and I am one of the most experienced of the online prominence community, which includes Peakbagger.com and Prominence.org as well as Bivouac.

Montane "Prominence"
See Talk page (actually I'll write a subpage...) for discussion of this topographic concept and my work on it for The Canadian Mountain Encyclpedia

Resource pages
A long time ago I was avidly researching sources and material for various articles and compiling the info and comments and links on sandbox pages. These are:
 * BC & Pacific Northwest History
 * BC & Pacific History Resources
 * BC & Pacific Northwest Map Resources
 * Canadian Pacific in BC

Flag Stops/Railway Stations
I completely agree with your comments made a decade ago regarding the pointlessness of the stub articles that were created on this subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:M@sk#Railway_stations. After the passage of time, I am yet to find a single one of the stubs forming part of the Jasper – Prince Rupert train route that adds any useful information. Furthermore, these stubs vary from a little to largely inaccurate. At a minimum, all links to them should be removed for the wellbeing of any readers. Rewriting them is pointless, since it would merely duplicate the more comprehensive information included in many articles for the respective places. I am puzzled why your advice has not been taken up to merge the stubs into the place name articles. Surely there must be a general consensus to flag all these stubs for deletion.

Wikipedia articles I've either started or seriously augmented
or am intending to, if redlinked :)

Lots as yet unlisted as I don't come back here after creating things and/or editing/adding to them...

Lillooet, British Columbia and associated articles



 * Margaret Lally "Ma" Murray
 * George Matheson Murray
 * Fraser Canyon
 * Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
 * Wild Horse Creek Gold Rush
 * Tulameen Gold Rush
 * Rock Creek Gold Rush
 * Big Bend Gold Rush
 * Colville Gold Rush
 * Cayoosh Gold Rush
 * Atlin Gold Rush
 * Omineca Gold Rush
 * McGowan's War
 * Fraser Canyon War
 * Douglas Road
 * Lillooet Cattle Trail
 * Marble Canyon, British Columbia
 * Seton Portage, British Columbia
 * Shalalth, British Columbia
 * Chief Hunter Jack (to be started soon)
 * Bridge River
 * Bralorne, British Columbia (to be started soon)
 * Gold Bridge, British Columbia
 * Bridge River Power Project (to be started soon)
 * Shalalth, British Columbia
 * Lajoie Dam
 * Terzaghi Dam
 * Seton Lake
 * Anderson Lake
 * Chilcotin War
 * Lamalcha War

Early BC Notables and other bios
more to be added here, of all backgrounds, as well as historically or politically imporant chiefs and other native and other figures.
 * John Andrew Mara
 * Forbes George Vernon
 * Francis Jones Barnard
 * Chief Nicola
 * Simon Gunanoot
 * Slumach
 * Chief Hunter Jack
 * "Characters, Criminals and Reprobates" (i.e. politicians)

Geography of British Columbia

 * British Columbia Coast and the long list of inlets, rivers and other bits listed on it
 * Coast Mountains and most of its subcomponent articles/ranges and certain key mountains
 * Interior Plateau and subarticles
 * Lower Mainland and assorted towns, rivers and lakes therein
 * Ruskin, British Columbia
 * Mission, British Columbia existing article
 * Stave River

Historical British Columbia Electoral Districts:
I did most or the work for Nearly all of the pre-1966 riding histories for ALL British Columbia provincial ridings, historical and otherwise, and for many federal ridings. The easiest way to search these is to use the index of British Columbia general elections to find individual ridings in any given election, as there are too many to list here. Profiles of historical MLAs are one of my ongoing projects, although I haven't done any for a while.

Wikipedia articles I've meddled with

 * Canadian English (and its talk page)
 * Vancouver, British Columbia
 * Cascade Range
 * Oregon boundary dispute
 * Alaska Boundary Dispute
 * Comox
 * St'at'imc and St'at'imcets
 * Chilcotin

Music
I went to UBC and McGill in Composition, never graduating but wandered off to Europe in search of medieval song; in later years I began to write/play my own stuff, some of which is online at http://www.cayoosh.net/music/. Entirely improvisational and minimalist in inspiration and form, much of what's on that page will sound "classical" because of the instrument-patches I used; my instrument at the time was a Kurzweil PC-2x. Newer material on the guitar, also minimalist in form but because of the guitar more folk/traditional-sounding than classical I've posted onto myspace; translations of each pages Chinook name follow each link:

All of the tracks on those pages are song-writing bedtracks and are not to be considered finished material; put 'em up in the process of trying to find other players. Hopefully better tracks will be uploadable once I learn to record myself properly (and finish some lyrics).
 * Tamanass Tyee ("Dread Lord", also maybe "Dredd Lord")
 * Tamanass Hiyu ("a big, wild, crazy party)
 * Tamanassman (Sorcerer, Witch Doctor - one who has "tamanass")
 * Hyas Tamanass (Big Magic, Big Mojo, Great Dread)
 * Skookum Tamanass (Powerful Magic, Strong Magic)
 * Stone Tamanass (Yang, el duende macho)
 * [http://www.isound.com/tamanassman (most recent stuff)

I know much of what I know of musicology I admit to having learned from certain classes at university, and remain interested in:


 * Ethnomusicology and World Music and "Foreign Classical Music", esp. raga and gamelan and West African dance and afro-Braziliana
 * medieval and renaissance music and theory; modal counterpoint I was kinda good it, in fact
 * the Childe Ballades and the folk-song oral tradition in general, whether European, British Isles or North America
 * Mexican music and Latin-American music in general
 * Classical Greek musical ethics/aesthetics; recently re-studied; Euro-folk musics
 * Russian composers; recently read Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's autobiog and the Memoirs of Hector Berlioz plus the usual bio of Modeste Mussorgsky; lives (and deaths/bad habits/eccentricities) of the composers in general interest me although I wouldn't consider myself well-read.
 * instrument design and variation (not a collector though, except of pennywhistles - although I lost my main collection of them in a move a year ago....aaaaaargh). Don't play much anymore anyway; if I'd been playing them, they wouldn't have gotten lost, huh?  I own a saz baglama and a bodhran and mbira and a few other items; hodcked a datur from Uzbekistan I'd like to get back.  I wish I had a sarrusophone and also a euphonium, which was the first instrument I got capable on and still mentally run the fingerings for when I hear a melody (thirty-some-odd years later)
 * sight-reading stuff for fun, although I don't have a keyboard right now; I've been playing guitar and haven't played my pennywhistles in maybe over a year now, and not a lot for the last five years; just from living in the city and having nowhere to play (I play loud).

My favourite composers (some of whose music I can actually half-assed play) are:
 * Guillaume de Machaut
 * Alessandro Scarlatti
 * Johann Sebastian Bach (simple stuff only)
 * Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (sloppy sight-reader of most sonatas)
 * Ludwig van Beethoven (middle-period sonatas and a hack-through of the 3rd Concerto in C minor)
 * Robert Schumann (piano suites, e.g. Faschingsswank aus Wien, and the A minor piano concerto (orchestral part)
 * Johannes Brahms (Romanzes, Ballades, etc.)
 * Modeste Mussorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition)
 * Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; well, OK, he didn't write any significant piano music but I love his stuff; piano music by Cesar Cui, Karganoff, Borodin and Tchaikovsky I've hacked my way through, though)
 * Igor Stravinsky (although after Les Noces and The Rite of Spring I'm really only taken with Proserpina; his neo-classical stuff largely bores me: IMO Nadia Boulanger did no one a favour by taming his rawness)
 * Gustav Mahler
 * Carl Nielsen (Piano Suite Op. 45 "The Luciferic")
 * Leoš Janáček (Sinfonietta and other orchestral works; have never sat through any of his operas but they're "hot stuff")
 * Sergei Prokofiev (wish I could play the 7th Sonata, but I'd be happy enough finding a CD or mp3 or Glenn Gould's version on Columbia Masterworks, which I used to have on vinyl)
 * Sergei Rachmaninoff
 * Alexander Scriabin (the early etudes and 3rd sonata only; more or less and not to any great degree of skill, but I love his stuff; ditto re Prokofiev->Glenn Gould, which was on the flip side of thte same album)
 * Claude Debussy
 * Eric Satie
 * Terry Riley
 * Steve Reich
 * John Williams
 * Mikis Theodorakis
 * list is incomplete
 * My favourite singers and bands include:
 * Cesaria Evora
 * Maria Callas
 * Robert Preston (who wasn't really a singer, but...)
 * Tom Waits (who can't really sing, but...)
 * XTC (first four albums only; later stuff's kinda "soft")
 * Michael Hutchence
 * The B-52s
 * Underworld
 * Scooter
 * Leonard Cohen
 * Dick Gaughan
 * Gordon Lightfoot
 * Jan Peerce
 * Olodun
 * Paul Simon
 * Hound Dog Taylor
 * Andrea von Ramm, the Studio der Frühen Musik and the Scola Cantorum Basiliensis
 * Edvard Grieg (songs and piano music)
 * Carl Orff (OK, everybody likes Carmina Burana, but I can actually sing some of the solos from memory, and not half-bad either)
 * The Fernandez dynasty from Mexico (no Wiki article yet, not that I can find on the Fernandez disambig page anyway)
 * Babatunde Olatunji, who I had the privilege of meeting with and making a dancing fool of myself in front of during the Whistler Mountainfest in 1985, at which I was one of two VIP hosts....I got to carry Larry Coryell's guitar and John Handy's sax, and drove Elvin Bishop to the train. Never mind helping keep Martha Reeves from killing her band for partying too hard. Is that a set of lyrics or what?  Even better, I got to be temporary sideman for Della Flack - Roberta's sister, and she doesn't like to be introduced that way.  Hi Della if you're reading this; I lost your number and wish I'd taken you up on the invite to come East and play the circuit with you.....
 * And I really love techno, if you'll forgive me....and although I don't like hip-hop/rap so much, I think Eminem is a poetic genius...

Literature and Poetry
list is incomplete
 * I've stopped writing poetry, but I have some of the damned stuff I wrote when I was young is still full of fire on-line at http://www.cayoosh.net/poetry/ (but "I'm not him anymore", so don't assume that what you see is what you get)
 * My literary and poetical interests are wide-ranging and somewhat multilingual. My favourite poets in English are:
 * William Butler Yeats
 * Sir Philip Sidney
 * the Metaphysical Poets
 * William Everson
 * Algernon Swinburne
 * Seamus Heaney
 * Gerald Manley Hopkins
 * My favourite poets/poetry in other languages are:
 * Homer
 * The Elder Edda
 * Federico Garcia Lorca
 * the German poets
 * Franz Kafka

Personal Bibliography
Way more than I could ever list; I've forgotten the titles of well over half of what I read (except the contents). I don't read any more because (a) my eyes are going and I'd rather talk and (b) an increasingly scattered attention span from having read too much...

Histories and Annals

 * 1066 and All That
 * Thucydides
 * Constantinople, City of the World's Desire, Philip Mansel
 * Black Elk Speaks; Red Cloud
 * James Teit - histories of the Plateau peoples
 * A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe
 * A.J.P. Taylor, An Illustrated History of the Great War
 * A.J.P. Taylor, The Eastern Question
 * A.J.P. Taylor, The Austrian Monarchy
 * A History of Nations: Denmark, Norway and Sweden (1890s edition)
 * Stephen Runciman, Obolensky, George Ostrogorsky on Constantinople/Byzantium
 * Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire by Jason Goodwin
 * The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture by Otto J. Mänchen-Helfen (ed. Max Knight):
 * A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman
 * Heimskringla, Landnámabók and Fagrskinna and various sagas and all the Eddas; I'd like to turn Laxdælasaga into a film cycle...
 * anything by Colin McEvedy
 * Taigne bo Culagine
 * West-Viking by Farley Mowat

BC History

 * Short Portage to Seton by Irene Edwards - Bridge River-Lillooet-Fraser Canyon History
 * Halfway to the Goldfields, by Irene Harris - Lillooet-Fraser Canyon family histories
 * ''The Great Years', by Lewis Green - comprehensive history of the Bridge River goldfield towns and their societies and characters
 * Derek Pethick, First Approaches to the Northwest Coast and The Nootka Crisis
 * John R. Jewitt, The Adventurers and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt
 * Nemiah: The Unconquered Country by Terry Glavin
 * Chiwid by Sage Birchwater
 * In The Sea Of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia by Joseph Morton
 * Pemberton: History of a Settlement by Francis Decker. Did you know that the use of iodine to combat goiter was discovered in the Pemberton-Gates area of British Columbia, and that corespondence education was created in response to local parents in this area petitioning the BC government concerning their children's education?  And more....

Criticism and historiography

 * The Disinherited Mind by Erich Heller
 * Beyond the Tragic Vision by Morse Peckham
 * The White Goddess by Robert Graves
 * The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
 * The Tools of Empire : Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century by Daniel R. Headrick. Amazing analysis of everything from steamboats to quinine re European expansionism and empire. More detail about bullets and gun/artillery bores in lay language than I've ever seen before.
 * Technology and Empire : Perspectives on North America by George Grant. OK, OK, so I tried reading it anyway...
 * Closing Time, Norman O. Brown. Had a browse through Love's Body and other works, Closing Time is in a class by itself

Novelists, Cultural Critics and Social/Psychological Observers

 * Kenneth Clark (enjoyed his autobiographical Another Part of the Wood especially)
 * Graham Greene
 * Lawrence Durrell
 * D.H. Lawrence (incl. Ken Russell's film Women in Love) and re Ken Russell, the amazing TV/video bio he did on Wordsworth
 * Henrik Ibsen
 * August Strindberg
 * Ole Rolvaag
 * Halldor Laxness
 * Knut Hamsun
 * Mary Renault

Historical Novelists and sundry

 * The Alexander Trilogy and other works by Mary Renault
 * Wilbur Smith's Egypt books
 * The many Anne Rice books (not really historical novels but historical in flavour/content)
 * the Harry Flashman series
 * Robert Graves' Claudius series
 * innumerable B-grade historical novels, including Aztec and others
 * The Khazar Dictionary by Milorad Pavic (quelle bizarre! - I think mine was the male edition).

Science Fiction and Fantasy worth mentioning

 * Frank Herbert - Dune series
 * J.R.R. Tolkien - LOTR, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and A Tolkien Reader; haven't bothered with C. Tolkien's posthumous rehashes as I find them not as well written; more compiled notes than literature. IMO The Silmarrillion is a vastly underestimated classic.  The story of Turin Turambar floored me with its tragic power; had to put the book down for a few days afterwards.
 * James Blish - Cities in Flight, Fallen Star
 * Fritz Leiber - Lankhmar series et al.
 * David Lindsay - I agree with Colin Wilson that Voyage to Arcturus is one of the great novels of the 20th Century...
 * Samuel Butler - Erewhon. The appendix entitled The Book of the Machines should be mandatory reading for anyone in engineering and compsci.
 * Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels - so much more than a children's book!

Space-y stuff

 * Crop Circles
 * Warp drive
 * Lay Lines; Skara Brae, megalithic culture and belief, pagan worldviews and mysticism and ritual/lore
 * Tongues; created languages
 * Magnetic Resonance
 * Superconductivity and "Anti-Gravity"
 * Planetary Engineering
 * Tesla: How to Build a Raygun Contest
 * Resonater theory and application
 * field generators and power transmission (atmospheric and telluric)
 * "I hate temporal mechanics" - spacetime theory and practice on Star Trek, Farscape and other TV and film and in s-f and other popular novels.

Fantasy Fiction
Books/series I've read and am familiar with:

list is incomplete
 * A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
 * The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison
 * The Lord of the Rings and other works by Tolkien
 * the Tarzan and John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs
 * Cities in Flight and Fallen Star by James Blish
 * The Lankhmar series of stories and novels by Fritz Leiber
 * Anne Rice writing as A.N. Roquelare, The Waking of Sleeping Beauty (Yikes!)
 * The Marquis de Sade, Juliette. Horribly enough I found it some of the most spellbinding writing, i.e. as ion expressive in its grammar and tone, of anything I've read.

Mysticism and Mind: Mythologies and Mythography
Readings in Languages and Philology: at some time or other, sometimes more than once, and others where once was enough.

Geopolitical Theory and History

 * Toynbee
 * A.J.P. Taylor
 * Friedrich Ratzel
 * Burckhardt
 * Spengler

Culture, Metaphysics and Philosophical Esoterica

 * The Disinherited Mind, Erich Heller - Goethe, Nietzsche, Burckhard, Spengler, Rilka, Kafka and Kraus in succession and context; reading knowledge of German required at critical points (dark stuff...).
 * Beyond the Tragic Vision, Morse Peckham (enlightening; you'll never listen to certain music or poetry or look at certain art again in quite the same way
 * Closing Time, Norman O. Brown (on Vico and Joyce) - hallucinatory and brilliant epigraphs collected and interwoven by Brown from the author of The New Science and Finnegan's Wake and lots of other stuff; very interesting take on, um, being human, or something. Got more out of it than from Love's Body and Love and Death, both of which I've had goes at
 * Julian Jaynes - controversial and largely dismissed by mainstream psychiatry and historical/literary theory, but compelling; the breakdown of the mythological (bicameral) mind to the right-brained rational order that emerged with Socrates and that age; the birth of the (self-consciously) historical mind (Thucydides and the Hellenistic Age). Heady stuff, and like *The White Goddess by Robert Graves and his other writings put ancient religion in a new context, and make me wonder any time I read anything out of northern Europe (Ireland to Sweden) before the Conversion about what else the stories might mean; what their hidden meanings are; and of the lost oral works that were known only by memory and never written down (a vast array); and also of lost written works of the Classical Ages, and even in our own recent time
 * in the same light the early histories of those countries, from an old set of my grandfather's books on Scandinavia (long out-of-print, "supermarket" edition is what my bookseller told me - common in the day). Also "How the Irish Saved Civilization"
 * "The Rival Teachings of Jesus and Paul" - which I'll have to dig out again and get the archbishop-author's name; written during World War I, beginning on the question of "Why all the great Christian nations were warring against each other when the central message of the religion is Love?" In answer, he begins an analysis of the philosophy of Jesus and the extrapolations and distortions of Saint Paul.  I'm not in for religious reading although I do know a fair bit of religious history from having studied the Middle Ages, ancient history and non-European religions and magical/spiritual beliefs randomly; so I didn't finish it but got the gist.  This was radical stuff; good fuel if you're caught up in religious controversy or quandary, perhaps, although I'm no practicing Christian (more pan-religionist; or individualist; o