jamesbankston

Profession: Writer/Editor/Proofreader

Hobbies & Interests: Film, art, architecture, religion, nature, literature, history, collecting books and old postcards, politics, genealogy, animal rights, photography, travel, gastronomy, music, and Basset Hounds.

Favorite Books: Anything by Jorge Luis Borges, Hunter S. Thompson, Ernest Thompson Seton, William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Robert Service, Sam Hamill, A.E. Housman, B. Traven, Jack Kerouac, Jack London, Emile Zola, Honore de Balzac, Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Yukio Mishima, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marguerite Duras, Georges Simenon, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Mark Twain, Truman Capote, Oscar Wilde, Edward Gorey, Jonathan Gash, and others. Also Elizabeth Enright's Melendy Family series, Vamba's Emperor of the Ants, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and much else besides.

Favorite Movies & TV Shows: TV--The Rockford Files; Hawaii Five-O; Green Acres; Secret Agent; The Prisoner; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Angel; Bonanza; Family Guy; American Dad; The Venture Brothrs; The Simpsons; King of the Hill; The OC; Dark Shadows; Cracker (the UK version); No Reservations; The Galloping Gourmet; Iron Chef (Japanese version only); Malcolm in the Middle; The Dick Van Dyke Show; Star Trek (the original series); Mannix; Jonny Quest; The Equalizer; Seinfeld, Hustle; etc. Movies--Patton; Truffaut's Antoine Doinel cycle; Fight Club; The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Lost in Translation; True Romance; Pulp Fiction; Il Posto; Chinatown; Farewell, My Lovely; Amelie; Batman; Reservoir Dogs; Citizen Kane; The Magnificent Ambersons; Clown; Islands in the Stream; The Dreamers; Alphaville; Henry and June; Monsieur Ibrahim; Heathers; Seabiscuit; Babe; Go; 24 Hour Party People; The Adventures of Ford Fairlane; Glengarry Glen Ross; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 8 1/2; Breathless; Sling Blade; Grey Gardens; Bob Le Flambeur; Y Tu Mama Tambien; Howards End; Taxi Driver; Ikiru; High and Low; Throne of Blood; Akira Kurosawa's Dreams; Naked Lunch; The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill; My Favorite Year; etc.

Education: BA-- double major in English and history, Sam Houston State University.

Favorite Music: Serge Gainsbourg--Histoire de Melody Nelson; Miles Davis--Bitches Brew, Sketches of Spain, 'Round About Midnight; Vince Guaraldi--A Charlie Brown Christmas; Johnny Cash--Live at San Quentin, Unearthed; The Streets--A Grand Don't Come For Free, Original Pirate Material; Bernard Herrmann--Psycho: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; William Shatner--Has Been; Travis--The Man Who; Philip Glass--Mishima: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; Charles Mingus--The Complete Town Hall Concert; John Coltrane--A Love Supreme; Ornette Coleman--Free Jazz, The Shape of Jazz to Come; Oasis--(What's the Story) Morning Glory?; Blur--Parklife; Glenn Gould--The Goldberg Variations; The White Stripes--Elephant; Bright Eyes--I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning; Sondre Lerche--Faces Down; Amelie Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; Tom Waits--Rain Dogs, Swordfish Trombones; Reinbert De Leeuw--Satie's Gnossiennes and Gymnopedies; etc.

I Am an Expert In: See Hobbies & Interests.