Private study has been my leading passion since the earliest years of my life. I have a deep interest in visionary figures in history, great artists, persecuted intellectuals and many of history's outsider artists from all epochs. Some of my study interests are personal. Others are part of a construct for things that I write.
By way of example, one of my most complex and ongoing writing projects is a vampire story that compels me to research lots of strange people in history and some of the most odd and progressive art movements. The story is very much a dark and terrifying comedy but also delves into surreal beauty in the tradition of good vampire stories. It also vamps many oddities from underground culture and the goth movement which has at times inspired mainstream society's ridiculous fear. My deeper interest is not so much in vampires or the screams of torture racks but rather in outsider artists and writers who appear to be on the deep psychological fringe for better and worse. We live in a world that has always penalized dreamers who dreamed too far. At times I love to satirize that world.
Recently I fell in love with the Web site Wikipedia.org, which is now a first resource when I study something. For better and worse, following are some examples of things I have archived from Wikipedia and elsewhere. Some of the items below are a deep interest, others a passing interest. The list below is just a very tiny portion of what I might study at any given time. The reason I offer this list is to enable discussion or collaberation where appropriate:
