This self-summary is, much like me, a work in progress: both will be spent before I have either perfected. So I guess I better learn to love the process, hmm?

Some random facts:
I like to watch old people dance. I'd love to try out those shoes with wheels in the heels, but I'm sure I'd fall down and break my neck. I'm saddened when I see Christian evangelists on the street corner yelling out the gospel to indifferent passersby; sadder still is seeing people listening to them. I'm secretly disappointed that I never worked at a café, serving espresso.

Este resumen personal, como su autor, es una obra en trámite: se agotarán ambos antes de que los perfeccione. De modo que debo hacer las paces con el proceso, ¿eh?

Unos hechos aleatorios:
Me gusta ver bailar a los viejos. Me encantaría probar llevar de esos zapatos que tienen rueditas en los talones, pero seguro que me caería y me partiría el cuello. Me entristece ver a los predicadores cristianos en la esquina gritando el evangelio a transeúntes indiferentes; es más triste aún ver que algunos los escuchan. En el fondo, siento no haber trabajado nunca en un café, sirviendo expreso.

Je regrette que mon français ne soit vraiment pas assez bon pour traduire mon autoportrait entier, seulement en partie. Regarde ci-dessous l'article « La chose la plus intime que je suis prêt à dévoiler ».

אני מצטער, העברית שלי לא מספיק תובה כדי לתרגם את התיאור האישי השלם שלי. חלקים, כן. תסתכלי בקתע ’הדבר הכי אישי בו אוכל להודות פה’. תודה

I am unorthodox, iconoclastic, and polyamorous

Paying the mortgage by knowing two languages really well, and rendering things spoken or written in either into the other.

I'm *finally* getting around to putting my recording studio back together. (We remodeled the house and had a kid about six years ago.)

Watching my son's motor, cognitive, and linguistic development. The first is nice; the second is interesting; the third is fascinating (especially since it's happening in three languages)!

Reading a bit, now and then.

Thinking, dreaming, fantasizing, laughing, making others laugh. I'm okay at languages. No really, that's not false modesty: I grew up with the first two, so my big accomplishment is keeping either from eroding the other. I certainly haven't *mastered* my third and fourth languages. I haven't even gotten good enough to watch movies in those languages without the subtitles on, or read preschoolers' books without the dictionary handy.

How should I know? By asking them? Ask yourself, how many people would answer honestly if you asked them, "What's the first thing you noticed about me?"?

Perhaps my tendency to play devil's advocate?

UPDATES IN PROGRESS... WATCH THIS SPACE.

a) Most recently, *The End of Faith*, by Sam Harris. (I've now read all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins and Dennett.)

*The Better Angles of our Nature*, by Steven Pinker. The thesis is that humans (collectively) are getting more ethical as time goes by. A truly heartening tome. Now that I've finished it, it's still handy: at 800 pages, it easily props open my office door.

*God is not Great*, by Christopher Hitchens. A great polemic, but it's even more fun to watch him debating theists on youtube.

*This Is Your Brain on Music*, by Daniel J. Levitin. Even the title alludes to how I respond addictively to hearing and making music.

*The Stuff of Thought*, by Steven Pinker. This guy is so smart and touches on so many other fields of human endeavor that his name turns up in about half the books I read these days. I reread this book once every couple of years.

*When You Are Engulfed in Flames*, by David Sedaris. May his typewriter's ribbon never tear (because he refuses to use a computer).

Before that, *The Lovely Bones* by Alice Sebold. I can't quite decide if I like magical realism generally, but she does it in an unintrusive way, letting her characters express emotions more genuinely than in anything I can recall reading.

*The God Delusion*, by Richard Dawkins
*Breaking the Spell*, by Daniel C. Dennett (okay, I think about religion a lot, critically [in both senses of the term])
*In Defense of Food*, by Michael Pollan
*The Omnivore's Dilemma*, by Michael Pollan
*The Botany of Desire*, by Michael Pollan (okay, I think about food a lot...)
*Guns, Germs and Steel*, by Jared Diamond
*Collapse*, by Jared Diamond
*Out Of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil*, by David L. Goodstein (really, I'm not nearly as dour as all these titles make me out to be...)
*A People's History of the United States*, by Howard Zinn
*Freakonomics*, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
*The Tipping Point*, by Malcolm Gladwell
*The Culture of Fear*, by Barry Glassner
*The Left Hand of Darkness* by Ursula K. Le Guin
*A Time of Changes* by Robert Silverberg
*The Tripods*, by John Christopher
*The Salmon of Doubt*, by Douglas Adams (particularly the essay "Is There an Artificial God?")
*Lolita*, by Vladimir Nabakov
*A Confederacy of Dunces* by John Kennedy O'Toole
*Le Ton beau de Marot*, by Douglas Hofstadter
*The Language Instinct*, by Steven Pinker
*Words and Rules*, by Steven Pinker
"The Moral Instinct", by Steven Pinker

b)
*Galaxy Quest*
*Wordplay*
*Ratatouille*
*The Apartment*
*The Incredibles*
*The Lives of Others*
I watched entirely too much TV until I was 25. After that, I hardly watched any, with the exception of *The Simpsons* and *South Park*, and then only in reruns. But then I signed up with Netflix, which allows one to watch TV shows without actually watching them the way that broadcasters want you to: with ads. Since then, I've become engrossed in "Downton Abbey", "The West Wing", "Deadwood" and "Futurama".

c) (Okay, with music, I felt inspired to be more complete: I dipped into my iTunes for a list and collated it with the list of stuff I still have to transfer from tape to digital. For no good reason, I present it here in order of line length.)

XTC
Devo
10 CC
Cello
Kitka
Queen
Slack
Owsley
Cri-Cri
Traffic
The B52s
Crazy 8s
For Real
Morphine
Muzsikás
The Bobs
Värttinä
Zucchero
Janis Ian
K.D. Lang
Kate Bush
Liz Phair
Pyewacket
Tom Waits
Tony Rice
The Police
Aimee Mann
Béla Fleck
Billy Joel
Chet Baker
Edith Piaf
Fred Small
J. S. Bach
James King
Joey Lupin
June Tabor
Laura Love
Leo Kottke
Luis Bonfá
Marc Ribot
Mati Caspi
Mr. Bungle
Paula Cole
Pink Floyd
Steely Dan
The Roches (especially the song "You're the Two")
Tom Lehrer
Brave Combo
Emily Bezar
Frank Zappa
Franz Liszt
Gjallarhorn
Gregg Miner
Heidi Berry
J. D. Crowe
Jazz Sahara
Johnny Cash
Mad Pudding
Maddy Prior
Mel Cooleys
Men At Work
Norah Jones
Paris Combo
Pat Benatar
Pedro Aznar
Pete Seegar
Quicksilver
The Bangles
The Beatles
The Go-Go's
21 Japonesas
Adrian Belew
Bill Bruford
Cyndi Lauper
Dave Edmunds
Dire Straits
Gentle Giant
Jay Leonhart
Jimi Hendrix
King Crimson
Laurie Lewis
Monty Python
Oingo Boingo
Pink Martini
Procul Harum
Quarterflash
Rubén Bládes
Scott Joplin
Stereo Total
Suzanne Vega
'Til Tuesday
Uncle Bonsai
Alison Krauss
Billy Bremner
Christy Moore
Crack the Sky
Hazel Dickens
John Coltrane
John Williams
Kingston Trio
Mary Coughlan
Ojos De Brujo
P. D. Q. Bach
Paul Williams
Rice Brothers
Robin Holcomb
Steeleye Span
Steve Tibbets
Stevie Wonder
Tasmin Archer
Tony Trischka
Was (Not Was)
Antonín Dvořák
Ben Folds Five
Bobby McFerrin
Boiled in Lead
Caetano Veloso
Eddie Palmieri
Elvis Costello
Godley & Creme
Homer & Jethro
Jim and Jessie
Latin Playboys
Marcus Roberts
The Cox Family
The Pretenders
Vince Guaraldi
Frédéric Chopin
Igor Stravinsky
John McCutcheon
Margot Leverett
Maura O’Connell
Three Dog Night
Vassar Clements
Alanis Morisette
Bare Necessities
Dick Hyman Group
Django Reinhardt
Jacques Loussier
Lynn Morris Band
Michelle Shocked
Orange Then Blue
Penelope Houston
Trio Los Panchos
Bruce Springsteen
Hypnotic Clambake
Jean Michel Jarre
Modest Mussorgsky
Naftule Brandwein
Simon & Garfunkle
The Balancing Act
Combustible Edison
Johann Strauss Jr.
Warrior River Boys
Amy X Neuburg & Men
Antonio Carlos Jobim
Electric Bonsai Band
Lou & Peter Berryman
The Del McCourt Band
They Might Be Giants
Dry Branch Fire Squad
Huey Lewis & the News
The Prosthetic Cubans
Idan Raichel's Project
Laika & the Cosmonauts
Achinoam Nini & Gil Dor
The Notting Hillbillies
The Vassar Clements Band
Luke and Jenny Anne Bulla
The Johnson Mountain Boys
Maddy Prior and June Tabor
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares
The Nashville Bluegrass Band
June Tabor and the Oyster Band
Yair Dalal & the AlOl Ensemble
Bunny Berigan And His Orchestra
Señor Coconut And His Orchestra
Bll Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys
Sidney Bechet And Noble Sissle's Swingsters

d)
(in order of decreasing volume) water (often tinctured with naturally caffeinated substances), grains, vegetables, the flesh of deceased animals, alcohol, refined sugars, minerals. I try to follow Michael Pollan's rule (which I take the liberty of paraphrasing here): if someone's grandparents (not necessarily yours or mine) wouldn't recognize it as food, don't eat it. What we often think of as "ethnic" cuisines are really just (approximations of) traditional diets from around the world. This makes them both tasty and fairly healthy.

Beyond that, there's a mercifully short list of ingredients that *are* real foods that I still haven't learned to like (e.g., raw carrots or bananas).

(In order of decreasing mass) hydrogen, oxygen, carbon... oh, wait: they mean figuratively.

Music,
humor,
ethics,
things to read,
people to love, whether emotionally or physically, or whatever combination thereof;
my brain: it's like a friend to play with. Things in the world and the brain's thoughts are toys and games to play with. It finds certain toys and games fascinating, and others, not so much.

• Politics. Okay, Obama. You got your second term. Now get stuff done.

• Language. I'm slowly making my way through all of Steven Pinker's books.

• Ethics. Pinker seems to be branching into this field as well, though I've read more on this subject by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Douglas Adams.

• Alternative relationship structures. I'm always stunned how widely polyamory (by whatever name) is practiced compared to how few representations there are of it in literature, music, film, theater, etc. There's plenty of coverage of people cheating, but rarely of anybody doing anything as outlandish as *agreeing* to a non-exclusive relationship.

• What I want from romantic/sexual relationships. I'm not fickle, per se, but I tend to want very different things from different people.

Here are some possibilities:
1.) Love. I'm open to feeling and expressing love if we're highly compatible intellectually, emotionally and sexually. (I've already got a primary partner, so if I were to embark in this direction with someone, the relationship would never include cohabitation.)
2.) Friendship and sex. Much like the above, but neither of us feels inspired to use the L-word.
3.) Fuck-buddies. We respect each other; we like each other well enough to spend two or three hours together getting our rocks off (once a week?/month?/year? -- it all depends...). I can have this kind of relationship pretty easily. It does require great sexual chemistry and clear, direct communication.

Yes, a relationship can start as any of the above and transition to either of the other possibilities.

Having dinner with my wife and son, wishing them a Shabat Shalom (though she and I are both atheists. As for my son, we'll have to wait a while to see how he turns out, not having a proper religious upbringing to rebel against).

I'm a big pervert. Further details upon request. (As I'm editing, OKCupid suggests that I should answer in each language I know. [God, that's exhausting. Not the first two, the other two.])

Soy perverso hasta la pared de enfrente. Mayor información: a petición de la interesada. (Conforme edito, OKCupid sugiere que debería contestar en todos los idiomas que sé hablar. [Carajo, eso sí que agota. No los primeros dos, sino los otros.])

Je suis pervers jusqu'à la moelle. Pour plus de renseignements, adresse-toi à la direction. (Alors que je révise, OKCupid me suggère de répondre en chacune des langues que je connais. [Mon dieu que c'est épuisant. Pas les deux premières ; plutôt les deux autres.])

Ani soté. Od pratim lefí bakasha. [Bazman sheaní orej, OKCupid matsía shejová alái la'anot bejol safot sheaní joshev. (Or, if you prefer it in the proper script, ... אני סוטה)]

1) You love yourself inside and out. (That doesn't mean that you think that you're perfect; rather it means that you're satisfied and confident.)
2) You think that you might like me.
3) You're poly, too (whether you refer to the concept by that name or another).

If your intentions are 100% platonic, number 3 isn't required. Heck, maybe you're a native speaker of French and/or Hebrew and you'd like to exchange lessons for help with your Spanish or English, or perhaps you have a burning desire to help me learn Pro Tools better. Conceivably you're putting together a band and need a drummer or a guitarist. Perhaps you like board games and card games (Quoridor, Set, chess, Taboo, etc.).