Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.... These are a few of my favorite things... :) I hope you find something  here that you like too!  If you do, let me know!  Or sign my guestbook above...

The Tiger Lillies are a psycho-circus troubadouresque band, complete with a falsetto opera singer and accordion.  Described by someone as sounding like "Tom Waits on helium."  Takes some getting used to maybe, but they're one of a kind!

Etoile-Polaire is the dream site of any Icelandophile.  French-run, with links to Bjork and every other Icelandic band imaginable! 

Yann Tiersen is the genius behind the Amelie soundtrack and other movie soundtracks, as well as his own happy, lovely, Parisian-cafe music.  This site rocks, too!

Joy Division is an old post-punk favorite. It was my favorite band in my mopier high school days, but it's still great atmospheric music, and some songs are really danceable.  FYI, they are the band that eventually gave birth to New Order...  

Popscene is my favorite dance club in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Thursday nights are 18+ but even though I am now legal and have other choices, I still love the Thurs. night crowd and music! Friday nights are live indie music, I think.  Some people there can tend toward the snobby pretentious style, but if you just laugh at it and dance, you're good to go.

Great American Music Hall has the best little indie britpopish bands playing at their venue, and bigger gigs.  If you are ever in the SF area, look at their calendar.

Arabic music is super gorgeous, and sometimes really really danceable.  It is my mission in life to make everyone everywhere love it.  Check out R.E.G. Project, Amr Diab, and Khaled).  You are getting very sleeeeeeepy...

Bjork is queen eccentric diva, yes she is.

Gus Gus, second only to Depeche Mode, is my second favorite band. And that only because Depeche Mode has the advantage of having a lot of nostalgic ties to my childhood.  Gus Gus rocks my world!  I'd describe them as icy-jazz- trance-techno, with love from Iceland.  

The Dandy Warhols are catchy, catchy, catchy.  Check them out.

Epitonic.com.  Thanks to my friend Wes for this one.  Great site for checking out lots of unknown indie bands and finding more CDs to blow money on.  Has a great recommendation bank, loads of samples.

KALX 90.7 Berkeley.  The volunteer-run radio station on the UC Berkeley campus.  I worked for them for a little while.  Some of their DJs have awesome taste in music.  Check out the DJ faves lists, esp. DJ Shawn.

Lo-Fi (aka Nano).  Another Icelandic outfit.  The new album, not coming out until the end of 2002 :(, sounds great.  Dark, kind of spooky, and gloomy, but gorgeous for those times in life when dark, spooky, and gloomy seem appropriate.  Icelandic Portishead?

Optiganally Yours.  Listen to their quirky song, Poodleman, and be hooked!  

Pinback.  Great San Diego band with perdy songs!

Dealership.  Man I love them.  They too are alums of UC Berkeley. Indie mixed with sentimental '60s?  I'm so in love with the drummer, he's adorable!

The Magnetic Fields/ Future Bible Heroes/ The 6ths.  Deadpan cynic lyrics to great music!  Go figure, someone heeded my prayers...

Closed on Account of Rabies:  Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.  His writings read by famous people, accompanied by creepy background music.  Jeff Buckley's version of "Ulalume" gives me goosebumps every time.

The Black Heart Procession.  Melancholy creepy music.  Hmm.. that doesn't make it sound too appealing.  But they're AMAZING!!!  GORGEOUS pianos!

San Diego bands gallore!!!  I'm really into the SD music lately.  Optiganally Yours, Pinback, and Black Heart Procession are all from there.  Find even more quirky bands from the next Seattle at this extensive site.  

The 'Breaking the Waves' soundtrack is probably the best whole CD I have.  ALL the songs are great, so you can just listen to it straight through.  Classic rock mostly (Rod Stewart, Leonard Cohen, Jethro Tull, etc.)

Nate Ashley.  A recent find.  And what a find!  Compared to Elliott Smith, and sometimes surpassing!  His first album is amazing.  Listen to samples here.

Royksopp.  Norwegian techno duo.  Like Scandinavia's Air, only more danceable. With some '60s and '70s sentiment thrown in for good measure.  

Songs: Ohia.  Great singer!!!!!  Folksy, and gorgeous.

Jeff Buckley.  No words necessary.  Just listen to him.  He had this absolutely indescribably beautiful voice... 

Coldplay.  To date, the CD that has been spinning in my player the most.  Can't get sick of this music, it's too darn lovely!  

KSCU 103.3: The saving grace while living in doldrums suburbia during high school.  Local university indie music station.

Amelie is the best movie ever!!! It's instant happy on a disc!

Twin Peaks was the most underrated show ever.  Quirky and dark and mystic all in one, with a HOT FBI agent who will make any girl's heart go pitter- patter.  Awesome site, too.  Twin Peaks Gazette is another great site.

Shockheaded Peter is the best play I ever saw.  It is playing now in London, apparently, only minus the Tiger Lillies, who originally wrote and crooned the music.  Based on the tweaky German children's book Struwwelpeter.  SO cool!

Gustav Klimt is more than that famous Kiss painting. I like that painting, but I think some of his other stuff is just as good, if not better.  

Maxfield Parrish is a rather underrated artist.  He did these highly detailed, brilliantly colored paintings that make you feel like you just stepped into a technicolor dream world.  

Ross Bleckner is the only somewhat abstract artist I adore. His older watercolors are gorgeous! I went to see him speak in Berkeley, he's adorable and sweet.

Artchive is the best and biggest online archive of artists.  Want a painting by an artist? It's probably here.  

Blue Art Gallery  Twisted but fun Alice-in-Wonderland (mostly) illustrations by another Genevieve/Gennie!:)  Check out her artwork, and maybe even buy a little something...support an artist today!

Red Dwarf is the funniest thing since sliced bread... A British spoof on Star Trek.  The best episodes were, IMHO, Polymorph and Quarantine. 

B. Kliban. The most hilarious and odd comic strip artist since the Far Side, although this guy supposedly came first.

Edward Gorey's quirky macabre picture stories, I find them sidesplittingly funny.  I love his stuff!

b7UE graphics.  Designed CD covers, posters, etc. for the likes of the Tiger Lillies and Run Lola Run.  I aspire to be Klaus Pelzer, who apparently is the artist behind this label, because he rocks!

Joseph Cornell.  You know those annoying shoebox dioramas we all had to make in grade school?  Cornell's diorama-like art is way way hipper. 

Alphonse Mucha.  More art nouveau.  This Czech artist's posters of girls and curly-Qs are gorgeous, and takes you back to days when people still drank absinthe in cafes.  

John Waterhouse.  Really beautiful romantic/mythological paintings, mostly of women, and mostly the same woman - his wife.

Edvard Munch.  'The Scream' is probably my least favorite of this Norwegian artist's paintings, but I still like it. A Scandinaviophile favorite!

Trading Spaces.  I am addicted to this home decorating show.  Sounds lame, is really addictive!!!  And there's a chick named Genevieve on the show.  

Auguste Strindberg and Helium is a funny and odd little animated comic.  Related to this is the general site for Killing My Lobster, the SF-based comedy troupe.  They are wacky!  Check out 'Retzelscheft.'

the-artists.  Quick modern artist fix if you need it.  

Cate Blanchett is my favorite actress!  She's gorgeous, and she can actually act, instead of just playing herself over and over again in different wigs like most actresses.

Ralph Fiennes is my favorite actor!  I am so so soooo so enamored with him.  My ex-housemate and I once debated the merits of Ralph over his brother Joseph, but I mean really, it's no contest.  Ralph Ralph RALPH.

Oscar & Lucinda is a great movie (starring both Fiennes and Blanchett as quirky lovers...).  The book, by Peter Carey, is probably even better because there's more detail, although I never actually finished it - I have problems finishing books when I've already seen the movie.  

Advertising Rules! is a German movie that's good to watch when you are thinking of going into advertising.  And it's funny and cute too.  

Dooda Galleries.  A place for all aspiring artists of all forms (poets, painters, musicians, etc) to post their work and get some exposure.  I recommend listening to burymeinthebackyard in the music section.  

Howard David Johnson.  Nouveau art nouveau.  He combines all kinds of media to create new Klimt- meets-Waterhouse hybrids.  They're pretty stunning.

Thrillpeddlers.  What the Grand Guignol (the real theatre that inspired the vampire theatre in Interview with the Vamp.) was to Paris, Thrillpeddlers is to SF.  They have really interesting links as well to theatre of the macabre type things.. books and such.  

Gerhard Richter.  Hey, I never knew I loved this guy's artwork, but I do!  I just saw an exhibit of his stuff at the SFMOMA, and wow was is great!

Starving Artists Showcase.  Some kind of interesting artists.  Also free portfolio hosting for artists.  Give them a looksy. 

Michelle Korn.  Fashion designer.  She has her own lines, one of which is called Ophelia Unbound.  Not that I'm really into all this hoity-toity fashion stuff, but if I was, I like her style... 

Wicked, by Gregory Maguire, is the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West.  A really clever and entertaining reworking of an old classic.  

Harry Potter, by J.K.Rowling.  If you have been holding out because it's too trendy, don't!  Being unique also means you have the right to do what's trendy if it is also insanely enjoyable, which these books are.  They are candy for your brain!  

Thomas Hardy is somewhat depressing, but oh so beautiful.  Check out the poem Neutral Tones, and the book Jude the Obscure.  

I Am The Cheese, by Robert Cormier, is my favorite young adult book, with a great twist ending.  Good for adults, too, don't worry.  

e.e. cummings wrote clever, beautiful, innovative poetry.  

Yehuda Amichai did too.  My favorite poem is The Real Hero.

He wishes for the cloths of heaven, by Yeats.  My favorite love poem. sigh... 

Kierkegaard's Fear & Trembling.  Feel like waxing philosophical?  So far, my favorite philosopher.  Dense, but worth deciphering.

Qrisse's Edgar Allan Poe page.  Read all his works, know everything you ever wanted to know about the master of psychological horror.

Jonathan Cainer's Horoscopes.  Looking for a daily, weekly, monthly horoscope that isn't completely cheesy?  These are eerily true-seeming, and even if they aren't for you, they are really uplifting and comforting pieces of wisdom.  Horoscopes with a brain and a heart.

Beth Hillman's website.  My friend and ex-housemate Beth's site.  She is in Japan teaching English right now.  

Stacy Maughan's website.  Another friend/ex-roommate's site, living in England now.  Check out her awesome stories! 

Ken Chen's website.  Another friend of mine's website.  He is a writer and graphic artist, now at Yale.  Check him out.

Frank Cseh's Lotus Notes page.  My daddy's computer page.  Give him a looksy sometime, won't you?  Funny foreign man, Bethie! :)

Cafe Prague.  Best cafe I have been to so far in San Francisco.  They have amazing! soup, a quirky, Eastern European little art cafe feel, very eclectic and quaint. 

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  Famed psychologist, known for his 'flow' theory, which is pretty much the only thing in psychology I'm still interested in personally. :(

Oh, and Parapsychology is still interesting.  This site has some fun self-tests.  Check to see if you have ESP! :)

Recipe Source.  Recipes from around the world.  Get cookin'!

Absinthe.  Hey, I've never had it, and I'm not condoning it, but it is part of the bohemian mystique, and fun to read about, at least.  Everything you could ever possibly want to know about 'the green fairy' drink.  Incl. history (very interesting!), availability, less brain-eating alternatives, etc.

Dr. Pepper.  The best drink on earth.  Happy, William?

Sweden.  The best country on earth. Happy, Roger?  (Psst!  I've never actually been there.  But as a Scandinaviaphile, I suppose I'd love to one day.)  See also Iceland.  

UC Berkeley. Ah, the old alma-mater.... A great school.

Il Palazzo Hotel, Venice, Italy.  I saw this hotel on a trip to Venice, glimpsed a room through an open window, and thought to myself, that's the hotel I want to stay in for my honeymoon, if I ever go on one.  Now that I see the prices, I guess I won't be.  Both going on a honeymoon, and staying there.  But check out the Royal Suite under Il Palazzo's Accomodations section... whew... ::sigh:: ... If only I was Bill Gates or Oprah...

The Best Page in the Universe.  If you don't understand sarcasm, this site is not for you.  It's hilarious, for the rest of you.

De-motivators.  A pessimist's mecca.  Hilarious!!

Tom Robbins.  I can't believe I didn't read this guy's books earlier!!  Read "Skinny Legs and All"!!! It rocks!  He's the most fantastic writer!  Reading his books will change your life.