I enjoy or appreciate music, sailing, cinema, reading, skiing, art, museums, archeological sites, the performing arts, the outdoors, wine, gourmet food, philosophy, and dancing. I also just started yoga, and, while I can't yet say that I look forward to every yoga lesson, I do like the way it makes me feel.

Oh, yeah, my username, Bermuda 40, refers to the manufacturer's name of a yacht that I like, the Hinckley Bermuda 40.

I should add that you would almost certainly find me to be less pompous, humorless, and self-involved that I have managed to make myself appear to be in this profile... I find myself somewhat uncomfortable with the process of writing a "profile" of myself, and it shows.

I work in a job that takes me overseas for years at a time. I have spent most of my adult life overseas as a result. Eventually, I would like to circumnavigate - sail around the world, at a leisurely pace, staying at places I like to explore and get to know them, but that is several years away in the future.

, well, I'll have to leave that up to you to decide. I have achieved modest proficiencies in some intellectual and athletic undertakings like analytical philosophy, skiing, mountaineering, and tennis. I started learning how to sail 8 months ago, got my skipper's license in June, and continue to learn ever time I go out. I wish I were more artistically or musically accomplished. Some people like my photography, but then I see other people's [photography] that seems so much better. I would like to learn how to surf and wind surf. I commute and shop on my beautiful (sounds weird - don't go there; it's not like that) mountain bike, and would like to do more real mountain biking.

I'm not sure what people notice about me at first; some people comment on my eyes. When I had a beard, too many people said I looked like Rasputin, so the beard or the eyes had to go.

Favorite books... Long term literary loves include Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy. I was also taken by some of the philosophical works I read at a younger age, including Hegel's 'Phenomenology of Mind,' Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason,' Plato's 'Dialogues', Bertrand Russell's earlier analytic works, like 'Logic and Knowledge,' as well as the works of other 20th century philosophers, including Husserl, Wittgenstein, Habermas, Adorno, and Foucault. My reading is not always so ambitious, particularly of late. I liked Umberto Eco's 'The Name of the Rose,' and 'The History of Beauty.' I enjoy books about art history, particularly Japanese woodblock prints, and about plants, like Spencer Beach's encyclopedic illustrated works describing the various fruits of New York State, and T. Harper Goodspeed's (great name!) 'Plant Hunters in the Andes'. Last Winter, I enjoyed reading: a biography of John Donne; 'A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland' by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell; and Simone de Beauvoir's 'Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre.' I have also been reading a lot on sailing, my new passion. I recently enjoyed reading three books about the desert, 'Rivers in the Desert; A History of the Negev;' 'The Negev; The Challenge of a Desert' which made sense of seeing the remaining traces of human desert culture, indicating how they managed water; and 'Timna, Valley of the Biblical Copper Mines.' I also very much enjoy lighter fiction reading, like Elmore Leonard, Louis L'Amour, and 'The Martian Series' by Edgard Rice Burroughs. Lately, I have been taken by Wallace Stegner, and am currently reading "Angle of Repose", but I forgot to bring it to the embassy the other day, so I picked up Jeanette Winterson's Lighthouse Keeping off my desk at work to read over dinner at a restaurant before going home, and am entranced by it as well.

Movies and Music; that will take some time...

Movies; anything by: Francois Truffaut; Eric Rohmer (particularly Pauline at the Beach which is like taking a vacation on the Atlantic coast of France; Bernardo Bertolucci; Pedro Almodovar; the Coen Brothers; Wong Kar Wai; Martin Scorsese (except for that recent embarassingly terrible Rolling Stones Concert film, which was such a disappointment after his great 'The Last Waltz' film of the last concert by the Band); Jim Jarmusch; the Polish Brothers (particularly 'Northfork); Tarantino; Akira Kurosawa; Ingmar Bergman; Woody Allen; David Lynch (particularly 'Twin Peaks'); Carlos Saura (particularly the 'Flamenco Trilogy' ('Blood Wedding', 'Carmen', and 'El Amor Brujo'), Anne Fontaine; Robert Altman, and films, great, almost great, interesting, or guilty pleasures too numerous to mention individually... but I will mention a few anyway: the 'Godfather Trilogy'; 'Wonder Boys'; The Big Lebowski, 'Paris Je T'Aime'; 'Ghost World'; 'Lost in Translation'; Big Fish; Young Adam, Moulin Rouge, 'Secretary'; ... the list goes on and on... I love movies.

I also recently liked three Israeli films: 'The Band's Visit' (a memorable ensemble film with some great music as well); 'The Schwartz Dynasty'; and 'The Secrets' ('Hasodot', the latter two films featuring the interesting actress Ania Bukstein). I am also enjoying my way through the the great 'Essential Art House; 50 Years of Janus Films" DVD set. Some of the most compelling performing arts I have seen on a screen in the last decade have been on the small screen, like the series' Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Rome, Mad Men, Lonesome Dove, Oz, and Ken Burns' Jazz.

Music: Well, I love most kinds of music, from pre-classical through jazz, rock, and bluegrass. My favorite performers range from Jascha Heifetz to Alison Krauss, from Sviatoslav Richter to Neil Young, and from Jordi Savall to Bon Iver. Right now, I am listening to the Jacqueline du Pre recording of the Franck Cello Sonata, which is making writing difficult. I also like ensembles like La Nef, who program eclectic works, like Music for Joan the Mad; Spain 1479 - 1555 and Perceval; La quete du graal.

Most of my music collection is classical; the usual great composers cited for this kind of list: Pachelbel; Bach; Mozart; Beethoven (his late piano and chamber works are particularly amazing, so 20th century sounding); Schubert; Brahms; Mahler; Ernest Bloch (it's a shame that so little of his music is recorded; his Sonata #2, Poeme Mystique for violin and piano, and Bach's unacompanied partita #2 are, to my mind, acid tests for violinists); but those are just the tip of the classical iceberg. I am particularly pleased with the Glenn Gould 80 CD 'Complete Original Jacket Collection' and Jacqueline du Pre 'Complete EMI Recordings' sets I recently acquired.

I also enjoy jazz, including the usual suspects: Miles Davis; John Coltrane; Bill Evans; Thelonious Monk; Billie Holiday; the Modern Jazz Quartet; Sarah Vaughan' Django Reinhardt... it seems futile to even try and list individual acts, there were and are so many amazing jazz acts and composers.

I also enjoy rock, folk, swing, and country swingwhich I was introduced to when I lived in Boulder. I enjoyed going to a swing dance party organized by Swing Out DC at Glen Echo Park, the last time I was there.

There were many protean rock acts, like Derek and the Dominos, Blind Faith, Jeff Beck, The Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, The Band, Credence Clearwater Revival, Pogues, Van Morrisonand singer songwriters like: Warren Zevon; Lucinda Williams; Gillian Welch... that again, it seems futile to embark on listing the many I've heard and liked. The audio quality is amazing on the [Neil Young] Blu-ray audio 10-disk set 'Neil Young Archives Vol. 1'. It has to be heard to be believed; much better than CD, and even better than vinyl LP or Super Audio CD (SACD). Of course, live music is incomparable (unless it's in a stadium).

I also have a weakness for Motown, including the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Drifters, Aretha Franklin, as well as vocalists who are difficult to categorize, like Nana Mouskouri... again, the list goes on...

When I go to used record stores I check out every Atlantic Records (ATCO) LP I encounter, and, if I don't already have it, I frequently leave with it, and am rarely disappointed. The Ertegun brothers did so much for American music!

I wake up to a Harry Belafonte CD every morning in my clock radio/CD player.

I have particularly nice associations with the Supremes and Louis Armstrong... because I saw them with my father.

I am not as much up on more contemporary popular music acts, in part because it seems so much harder to find good radio stations for music these days, so I rely on sample CDs and publications like Mojo, Uncut, and, when they deign to still publish about music instead of just politics, Rolling Stone Magazine, to prompt me to buy CDs by more recent acts. If anyone knows of a good FM radio music station in Tel Aviv, please let me know.

I also like listening to live music of all kinds, and among my favorite live music clubs and venues are: Ronnie Scott's, The Twelve Bar in London, If and Manhattan in Ankara, 360 in Istanbul, The Green Door in Portland, The College Perk in College Park, the Bohemian Caverns in DC, and Mike's Place in Tel Aviv.

I have an extensive vinyl LP collection, which reminds me of how much more narrow the recorded music scene is today than it was a few decades ago.

Food: I am a fan of good food of all kinds, and not too big on junk food, though I have been known to use a microwave oven for more than defrosting on occasion. I particularly enjoy French Cuisine and French Wine most particularly from the Bourgogne, around Dijon. I would like to go to Dijon for a month or so to learn how to cook. I also enjoy the foie gras and truffle dishes of the Dordogne. I love good wines, and have a particular weakness for French wines, although good wines are being made almost everywhere these days it seems.

Aside from fundamental necessities of life, like air, water, food, shelter, my daughters, and the company of a woman; music, art, travel, reading, cinema... There are many things I would not like to do without. I guess I'm somewhat spoiled.

Editors

• DolpinLady

abstractions, like why there isn't more consensus on important things in the world, and some of the craziness that results, or is does the lack of consensus result from the craziness? I also think about sensually pleasing things, like music, art, beauty in every day real life, good food and wine, and physical contact.

eating out, or listening to live music, or going to a party.

is that I'm here.

you find anything in my profile interesting, provocative, or if you just want to chat or meet, as kind of a random thing.