PERSONAL INTERESTS
My research and teaching activities often have some deep connections with what goes on "behind the scenes" of my professional life. For that reason, I engage in the following self-disclosures ...
Music: Above all else, I am a life-long aficionado of Classical, especially BBMHH (alias Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Handel, and Haydn). But, in an almost contradictory fashion, I also am an opera buff, including Wagner, Puccini, Mozart, Richard Strauss, and Verdi (in that order!). Oddly, this love of opera has most recently drawn me - via Erich Korngold, Bernard Herrmann, and Sergei Prokofiev - into an ever-growing fascination with great film music, whether of the Golden Age (Victor Young, Miklos Rozsa, and Max Steiner) or modern (John Barry, Mark Isham, Ennio Morricone, Vangelis, and John Williams). Speaking of modern, I also like much contemporary music, such as the choral works of Arvo Pärt and John Tavener, the operas of Philip Glass, and the chamber music of George Crumb. When under lots of stress, however, I'll turn to medicinal music, like Celtic, New Age, and Smooth Jazz.
Literature: My biggest passion here is English poetry from Geoffrey Chaucer to Alice Walker, but most especially the plays and sonnets of William Shakespeare (a.k.a. Sir Henry Neville?). I also greatly enjoy Spanish literature in the original, with special affection for Jorge Manrique, Cervantes, Becquer, Unamuno, Martí, Darío, Valle-Inclán, Quiroga, García Lorca, Neruda, Cortázar, García Márquez, and Frank Rivera. In English translations, I was most strongly moved by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Plutarch, Omar Khayyám, Kalidasa, Chuang Tzu, Sei Shonagon, Yoshida Kenko, and Basho.
Languages: In the past few years my long-term fascination with mathematics quite surprisingly transformed into a profound curiosity about the world's languages, both ancient and modern, whether major or otherwise. I have repeatedly listened to tapes for more than three dozen of them (all 33 in the Language/30 series plus Afrikaans, Ukrainian, Armenian, Zulu, Tibetan, and Mayan). Yet I have absolutely no gift for mastering any language: I can only just get by in Spanish, become totally tongue-tied in German, and cannot render a single word of French intelligible to a native speaker - the last disability despite being one quarter Québecois!
Art & Artifact: A visit to a new city, whether in the US or abroad, is not considered complete without time spent in its major museums. I like art of all kinds, but have a special affinity for Classical Chinese painting (especially Southern Sung landscape), Islamic architecture (oh, Mogul India!), Persian miniatures, Japanese netsuke and Ukiyo-e prints, El Greco, Goya, and Van Gogh, plus virtually all contemporary painting, sculpture, and architecture (the stranger the better). Apropos of the latter, I have done some modern pieces of my own, most notably several "kinetic container" sculptures made entirely of found objects (a.k.a. "junk art") that have some allusive affinity with the work of Joseph Cornell.
Film & TV: After a lapse in interest in the 1980s and 1990s, I have since revived an early interest in great motion pictures, albeit I remain not much of an enthusiast for Hollywood "mainstream" productions (except some super hi-tech special-effect sci-fi). Besides Igmar Bergman, Orson Welles, and Alfred Hitchock, I greatly enjoy Spanish-language movies from both Europe and the Americas, including the films of Luis Buñuel, Carlos Saura, Fernando Trueba, and Pedro Almodóvar. Not a big TV fan, my watching is confined largely to public television and sports broadcasts.
Food & Drink: Not gifted with adequate taste buds to be a secure connoisseur of anything, I still cannot resist a fascination with wine, a hobby that allows me to combine my interests in geography, history, culture, agriculture, chemistry, art, literature, music, and languages. Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc (or "Fumé Blanc") are my favorite varietals. My preferred wine regions are those of Australia (Barossa), Chile (Maipo), Spain (Rioja), and South Africa (Stellenbosch), and, of course, California. I used to own stock in a great winery in the Dunnigan Hills of Yolo county - until I was bought out by a major international corporation! Although I made a very handsome profit, I would have rather been able to continue contemplating my investment in some oak barrels filled with the finest grape juice.
Sports & Exercise: I played some (American) football in high school ("half-back"), and still avidly follow the sport, especially the 9ers, albeit with a sense of deep tragedy at the low point to which they have fallen - but with some hope that Alex Smith and the rest will have a better season this year than the last. On occasion I'll catch a good basketball game, especially if involving the Sacramento Kings, and have even been caught watching tennis, bicycling, and golf. Intellectually, I totally crave to become a devotee of soccer (football) - as the most international and egalitarian of team sports - yet find myself emotionally incapable of doing so, whether as player or spectator. To keep healthy, I have a regular program of weights and aerobics, bicycling (> 30 miles per week), and running (> 10 miles per week, < 10 minutes per mile). Perhaps I should also include my weekly yard care with manual mower, prunner, edger, and trimmer. I'm more exhausted after that than after my 5-mile run!
Religion: Besides the Pacific Ocean, the Sierra Range, and Classical Music - especially the sacred music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Poulenc, Fauré, Byrd, Palestrina, Monteverdi, Hildegard von Bingen, and Gregorian chant - my chief source of religious and moral feeling comes from the writings of the world's great thinkers and the scriptures of the world's major religions (in particular, the Upanishads, Tao Te Ching, Psalms, Dhammapada, Gospels, Epictetus, Pascal, and Thoreau). If I were forced to convert to just one faith, it would probably be Buddhism, the most psychological of all major religions. I would then seek out a Japanese Zen master!
It is amazing how many once regular activities have passed away into oblivion with the passing years. No longer do I play rock and jazz guitar or go back packing in some wilderness area. I have not acted in any plays since my college years. My once extensive involvement in volunteer work has atrophied into mere check writing for various causes and charities. Yet, with maturation I may have learned at least a little about how to become a better person. I hope that process continues.
Some Less Known Things about Dean
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