Personal Interests

"You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you." "Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day. "It's long," said the Knight, "but it's very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it--either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else---" "Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause. "Or else it doesn't, you know."

Hights and depths

Allalinhorn (4 027 m)

River Gurara (-30 m)

Literature

• Michail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita,
• Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange,
• William Faulkner: The Unvanquished,
• Witold Gombrowicz: Ferdydurke,
• Graham Greene: The end of the affair,
• Paul Johnson: A History of Christianity,
• Jan Kresadlo: GraveLarks,
• Vitezslav Nezval: Valerie and her week of wonders,
• George Orwell: 1984,
• Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses,
• Jerome David Salinger: The catcher in the rye,
• John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces,
• Michel Tournier: Le Roi des aulnes,
• Mario Vargas Llosa: La guerra del fin del mundo,
• Evelyn Waugh: A Handful of Dust,
• ...

Beauty

• including the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
  

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Ecce Ancilla Domini

Music

• singing poetry of Karel Kryl,
• classical (mainly Baroque) music:
  • Johann Sebastian Bach,
  • Adam Vaclav Michna,
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
  • Henry Purcell,
  • ...
• modern styles:
  • Belleruche,
  • Carnem,
  • Liz Cherchal,
  • Cranes,
  • Joy Division,
  • Samia Farah,
  • La Femme,
  • Laika,
  • Lamb,
  • Lhasa de Sela,
  • Portishead,
  • ...
• including Brazilian music:
  • Adriana Calcanhoto,
  • Cibelle Cavalli,
  • Bebel Gilberto,
  • Suba,
  • ...
• and, of course, Portuguese music:
  • Madredeus,
  • A Naifa,
  • ...

Cinema

• my favourite directors and/or films:
  • Andrew Birkin: The Cement Garden,
  • Bertrand Blier: Un deux trois soleil,
  • Leos Carax: Mauvais sang,
  • Jean-Luc Goddard: Le mepris,
  • Peter Greenaway: Prospero's Books,
  • Michael Haneke: Code inconnu,
  • Roland Joffe: The Mission,
  • Krzysztof Kieslowski: La double vie de Veronique,
  • Elem Klimov: Come and See,
  • Jan Jakub Kolski: Pornografia,
  • Stanley Kubrick: Eyes Wide Shut,
  • Emir Kusturica: Underground,
  • Lisa Langseth: Beloved,
  • David Lynch: Mulholland drive
  • Julio Medem: Lucia y el sexo,
  • Marian Quinn: 32A,
  • Eric Rohmer: Ma nuit chez Maud,
  • Carlos Saura: Dispara!,
  • Martin Scorsese: The Last Temptation of Christ,
  • Jerzy Skolimowski: Ferdydurke,
  • Nadine Trintignant: Les fugueuses,
  • Peter Weir: Picnic at Hanging Rock,
  • ...
• Czech and Slovak cinema separately:
  • Vera Chytilova: Ovoce stromu rajskych jime,
  • Juraj Nvota: Krute radosti,
  • Jaromil Jires: Valerie a tyden divu,
  • Martin Sulik: Zahrada,
  • ...

Drink

• tea
• good beer, i.e. Czech beer
• good wine, i.e. not Czech wine