I've spent much of the last ten years in a graduate school cultural vacuum and have just returned to the land of indie music and urban life. So, you might say that I have a very "fresh" perspective on all things cultural. On the other hand, I actually live in smalltown Alabama, so my perspective is inherently geographically skewed. But then, I've always been a person out of time and space; here are a just a few of my funky life-ironies: I am an English professor, but I study computers, not literature. I was engaged for five years but never married. I was born in Germany, but I'm actually Swiss. And, like many Southerners, I am a classic preacher's kid -- but my dad is a Catholic priest, not a Baptist minister.

So, you might say my tastes are eclectic, if not contradictory. I am a Ph.D. in my 30s and still a card-carrying member of the R.E.M. Fan Club. I saw them first in high school on the Pageant Tour and have seen them just about every tour since. Indeed, as the Resident REMhead Minion, I even coerced a couple other minions to follow the band through the Midwest on the Monster tour. Recently, I have been helping some young artists organize an exhibition of artwork inspired by R.E.M. The exhibit, entitled, "Inspired" will open in May at Aurum Studios in Athens, GA and run through the month of June. (For more info, check out the website.)

I have started following some indie music since my return from the socio-cultural wasteland. Right now, I think you'd describe my tastes as "roots" and/or "garage" rock, though I have been known to listen to more esoteric music on occasion. I was also into Southern country-folk back in the '80s before it was "cool" and even went square dancing while in college. Right now, my local favorites include , American Dream, Crooked Fingers, and Myssouri. And, I've been really into Patsy Cline lately, but she's neither current nor local...

I may write a film or TV review from time to time, but I am often creatively incompetent, or at least lazy. Like other typical Coen Brothers film fans, I get bored with most mainstream movie garbage but will tolerate light movies with fabulous costuming and good music, like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and of course, John Hughes films. On the TV side, I've seen every episode of Trading Spaces, but I hate decorating, and in fact, have no decorations on my own plain white walls. My television tastes include politics-as-sport-and-entertainment (i.e., The West Wing and C-SPAN) and only certain cop dramas, especially the first few years of Law and Order. That was a bit of a grad school obsession, I'll admit-I can recognize and summarize any episode with Chris Noth in the first fifteen seconds. Sadly, the recent Law and Order spinoff series really suck. But, then, we all have our funky ironies...