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Hello all. Glad you could make it. Welcome. If you'd like to stay at my little gathering of the mind, pull up a chair, and bring your favorite subject for discussion. Since this is my soiree, I shall suggest that the host is of liberal opinion, but conservatives are welcome so long as they remain polite, and as long as they are comfortable. I will most often turn towards music if given even half an opportunity. In fact, like an eager Italian mother, I will probably try to feed you music. "Listen! Please! You're too skinny, you should hear more symphonies. Have another fugue."

I enjoy the music of many style periods and composers, and I'm always open to new experiences. Beyond music, I also enjoy architecture, poetry, fiction, armchair philosophy, and many other things. I loved the sciences throughout my youth. Particularly biology and physics. I still find evolution and biochemistry fascinating, though I have only the most superficial of layman's knowledges of such things. I give a well argued and tested hypothesis much more weight than untestable polemic.

I ask that all those who remain in my home beyond this point show the utmost respect to the entertainments that we enjoy. (You may stay at the party if you disagree, but please do not tell us how or how not to enjoy ourselves.) I drink with abandon when the mood takes me. I enjoy a good dry white wine, particularly a good Seyval. I love beer. (Someone once said, in a book on the proper cooking of conductors, that German and American conductors were especially delicious, but prone to a beery aftertaste. I resemble that remark.) Food was meant to be eaten. It is beautiful in its complex and splendid variety. I hope that you might share some food with me. I don't smoke myself, but there is a spacious covered porch in my home available for the enjoyment of those who do, and I will most likely be out on it with you while you partake. Caffeine is something to be cherished. I am particularly fond of coffee, but I also enjoy tea and colas of one sort or another. At my party I encourage the free expression of sexuality. We are sexual animals. Our genitals were made to be enjoyed. They should not be a source of embarrassment, and I have no room for those crusaders who would remove them, either philosophically or physically.

This is but a sampling of my party. The most basic rule is enjoy what you will, so long as you do no harm to those around you. If you might aid others in their health or enjoyment, this is a blessing. The more you see and do the happier you will likely be. Have fun. I hope that you might join me in stimulating merrymaking.

Sincerely, David

I teach music at a small liberal arts college in rural Missouri. On paper I'm woefully underqualified, and I confess, I am inexperienced, but darn it if the students don't seem to have learned something. Further, I compose. Beyond these, I write poetry, paint miniatures, study, make random fictitious maps, make occasional factual hopefully fairly accurate maps of real places, and much more. I read, and sing, and draw. I travel with as much regularity as I can manage as far as I can afford. I do quite a lot, if given a chance.

Try me. I'll try almost anything once. And I try to do new things pretty frequently.

I've managed of late to get a fair helping of my music up on ye olde internette, so you might now hear a sample. This is the first movement of a symphony in c-sharp minor .

If you're on dial-up and have not the patience to download an eight minute movement, here is a shorter piano work called French Moment.

And somewhere in between these in scope, here is a recent fugue for organ in c minor.

The main page isn't all that hard to intuit, but if you can't find it, and would have an interest in hearing more, I'll gladly send you links to more material. I have a variety of orchestral, keyboard, and organ pieces available on line at present. I try to circulate things in and out from time to time, as I write new material, so check back if you enjoy any of this.

Many things thankfully. I used to hike fairly long distances. I play Trivial Pursuit fairly well. I'd like to believe that my composition is pretty darn solid. I'm also not to shabby at photography, and role-playing. I'd like to believe that I could be a decent actor, though I haven't had any serious experience. I'm more woodsy than most, thanks to the BSA experience. I've done a pretty good job of growing vegetables in the past. I can clean well, if I can find the inspiration. I'd like to think that I dress well, and I've actually been introduced to costume design. I'm good at listening to my elders, and they usually have great stories. There's certainly more, but this will have to do for now.

They tend to notice them with their ears, I think. I talk too much. I sing, and my voice though not quite operatic, is at least inoffensive. I'm not unintelligent. I'm not especially shy. My girlfriend thought I was cute, but exactly what facet of my physiognomy she latched onto first I couldn't say.

To say that I could not live without any given thing save for the obvious biological necessities of life is somewhat self-deceptive. Truth be told I could live indefinitely without almost anything but for these. On the other hand I would to some greater or lesser extent suffer exquisite agony on any number of levels if deprived for an extended period of time of any one of several broad categories of concrete and conceptual things. This is in reality what we mean when we say this. We choose these things sometimes out of pure self-indulgent pleasure, sometimes out of a desire to impress others with our impeccable good taste, and sometimes out of some sense of moral obligation, which can itself be either genuine, self-serving, or superficial. In that sense, I shall proceed leaving you, my dear reader, to sort through the detritus of my psyche.

To begin with I "could not live" without love. This takes several forms. I crave the acceptance of my family. I long to do well by them. And of course I often genuinely enjoy them. What's more I feel that they are good people. I have a duty to all mankind, whether I choose to fulfill that or not. In the case of my family, it is a pleasure. Further I love my beloved, and she loves me. Or I choose to believe that she loves me. And she does not ordinarily give me cause to believe otherwise, and I struggle to do the same. I cannot imagine a life without love and companionship of the interpersonal erotic kind, and my beloved is a phenomenally rewarding person with whom to so relate. Finally friendship and general human kindness round out this category. I feel that we as humans have an obligation to our fellows to treat them with dignity. What's more, this should not be onerous, but can be highly rewarding, if done correctly. Mind you I fail quite often to practice this, since I am indeed the chief of sinners.

Second I could not live without art. Art is what makes human endeavor tolerable. Otherwise we're just some great cancer spreading over the face of this rock ruining the place for all of the other more aesthetically attractive life forms. Not that this should bother me since that's exactly what they would do if they had half the chance, but as it happens, they don't and we do. They can't wipe the mat with us, but we can and do with them. Our own success has given us the ability to take a marvelous, chaotic, colorful, complex, ball of life and render it stultifying, regular, drab, simple, and lifeless but for ourselves, and a few fairly simple things that might be able to slip through the cracks. Art helps to compensate for our tidier tendency by readmitting a bit of color and chaos. And I do of course mean art in all of its myriad forms. I want art to address all of my senses, and I've got at least five of them. The visual and plastic arts might satisfy my vision and touch (on those occasions when one is allowed to touch a genuine work of art, which are by the way more common than you might think if you define art too narrowly) but I'll still need music to please my ears, and food with value beyond nutrition to satisfy my tongue. And what of life devoid of the thousand unique bouquets whose existence we owe to the chef, vinter, and perfumer, not to mention those arts whose odor, however pleasant, is altogether incidental, as say leatherworking? I'd be less than happy without art.

Thirdly, I could not live without nature. Nature is vivid, brutal, and honest. All those things that we ourselves like to believe we've out-grown, but haven't. It's a darn fine mirror in which we can see ourselves. It's perhaps difficult to believe that a predator that disguises itself as a vein in a leaf (as say a unique variety of predatory Hawaiian caterpillar) so that it needn't actually chase its food, but can instead simply wait until some hungry bug decides to land on the leaf, thereby coming to it, as honest, but it's a fundamentally honest form of trickery. And how do you knock a bug that appreciates delivered meals? Nature is wonder filled. It's so big I can't even describe it with the more conventional word wonderful anymore unless I carefully define it first. From the starkness of the Escalante wilderness to the richness of the Amazon jungle. Where else could we ever call home?

I suppose that there are only three things here, and not six, but it will have to do.

I spend a pretty good heap of time thinking about philosophy, words, music, beauty, and whatever else I can manage to wrap my mind around. Had you noticed that earlier?

There's nothing that really makes a Friday distinct from other days of the week to me. I use and abuse all days equally. I might stay up a skosh later of a night like this fair Friday, but not much. Which is to say that I might be writing, playing, singing, drinking, working, reading, or otherwise making an ass of myself. Fridays make a good gaming night. They're also a good night to perform, or observe someone else's performance. They're sometimes a good night for sex, but which would be bad?

If you read between the lines there's quite a lot here already. I'm a bit of what some people might call a slut. An acquaintance of mine recently called me a libertine, and I'm afraid that I liked it. I've occasionally found myself associated with a camp of people increasingly referred to by the over clinical term "polyamory," which is nothing more than saying that I don't quite see the purpose to monogamy. Honesty seems far more desirable than monogamy, and if I were truly monogamous, then could I honestly flirt with all of the wonderful people on this server, particularly if I'd like to actually meet and perhaps connubially enjoy an evening or a healthy chunk of life with someone else here?

This can perhaps serve as my confessional moment.

If you've actually read all of this, I'd very much like to know your opinion. Write me if you read this far. Please. By all means.