i've been told that i am very impressionable and it's true. i am easily: haunted: by things that other people say and do. so i'd say that i have a big fat body of influence, from really pretentious stuff like holden caulfield to kids on the street saying "QRS, TUV, W, X, and Y, and Z. Boom-shakkalakka!"
this is a very partial list.
- the credits, and especially the names, when you run adobe photoshop 4.0.
- russell leong: mentor and friend, he came up with the name 'dante woo' and inspired this persona.
- lady miss kier and deee-lite, who help me party better (and i don't mean ecstasy).
- bjork, and the surprise in her music
- john coltrane: i read that he would wake up and play for 16 hours, then fall asleep with the horn in his mouth. inspiration that stretched from my music making to music and other writing.
- aaron copland: quiet city became something that an 18 yr old would listen to every night with the moon shining on him.
- mona hatoum: art that is like the kind of person i want to be
- when harry met sally, which first made me want to live in new york
- bessie head: the most beautiful writing that i have ever read.
- the smell of pikaki flowers in hawaii
- bell hooks: her thoughts have rocked me in a way that no class or instructor ever did, and pushed me to consciousness.
- evelyn hudehart: professor of ethnic studies who made me feel for the first time that queer and person of color were identities that could intersect. inspired me to create my own concentration in ethnic studies.
- comic books, dungeons & dragons, and other things that my mom freaked out about, but that improved my vocabulary
- adrienne kennedy: author of 'the owl answers' and a book that extensively probes her own influences. helped get me to think about all the places i am coming from.
- larry mcdonald: my clarinet professor when i was a music student, who also read beckett and told me to think about journeys and sadness when i played.
- me'shell ndegeocello: you enchant me so, my bittersweet flower ... let me digest you
- parker posey: i know, just like the rest of gay america
- twin peaks and thirtysomething
- anais nin: i first read her in a used bookstore near columbia university and finished the book on the stairmaster, 3 months later
- vincent persichetti: composer of music that touches religiously and aesthetically
- clubkids from the early '90s
- carl phillips: an excellent poet.
- assata shakur. a lot more deadly.
