user:WickerGuy

In 2010, I graduated from Pacific School of Religion with a degree of Master of Divinity/Master of Arts, having completed a Master's Thesis about William Blake. I decided being a Unitarian minister was one of the last things I wanted to do, and have been working as a substitute teacher and private tutor since then. Prior to PSR, I was software engineer.

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On January 6, 2009, I was awarded the Film Barnstar by Luke4545

style="border: 1px solid {{{border|gray}}}; background-color: {{{color|LightGrey}}};" |rowspan="2" valign="middle" | 100px |rowspan="2" | |style="font-size x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;" | The WikiProject Films Award

style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" |I noticed you've done a lot of work on film-related articles; so, I thought I'd award you The Film Barnstar. Good job! -- Luke4545 (talk) 20:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

On October 28, 2009, I was awarded the Literary Barnstar by Abie the Fish Peddler

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style="vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | This Barnstar has been awarded to WickerGuy for the knowledge, time, and effort you've spent, and hopefully will continue to spend, on William Blake's article. Awarded by Abie the Fish Peddler (talk) 04:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

On January 14, 2011 I was awarded

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style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | Thanks for finding that other series' have images, and what is acceptable in that regard, and for finding and inserting the image and then linking it to The Chronicles of Narnia article. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:07, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

On April 27, 2011 I was awarded

style="border: 1px solid gray; background-color: #fdffe7;" |rowspan="2" valign="middle" | {{#ifeq:{{{2}}}|alt|100px| 100px}} |rowspan="2" | |style="font-size: x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;" | The Tireless Contributor Barnstar

style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | for your tireless work on Stanley Kubrick and your devotion to keeping it in prime condition. Rusted AutoParts (talk) 14:34 28 April 2011 (UTC)

On May 12, 2011 I was awarded

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style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | I hereby award WickerGuy this Editor's barnstar for his fine work on 2001: A Space Odyssey (film)...excellent work!! Dreadstar ☥ 18:02, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

On August 22, 2011, I got my second barnstar (out of 6 now) specifically for my work on the Stanley Kubrick article.

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style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | This Wikipedian of Excellence Award has been awarded to WickerGuy for the knowledge, time, and effort you've spent, and hopefully will continue to spend, on Stanley Kubrick's article. AndrewOne (talk) 20:06, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

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style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | Great work cleaning up Psycho IV! Doniago (talk) 03:08, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

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style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | Thank you for your lead, diligence and civility in pulling the Charles Dickens article together. Span (talk) 16:53, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

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;Subjects worked on in Wikipedia

• Lots of stuff on Stanley Kubrick,
• the James Bond (film series) article,
• the Star Trek article,
• Narnia-related articles.

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;Subjects I wish I'd worked on
in Wikipedia but haven't (sniff)

• The Beatles
• H.G. Wells
• Isaac Asimov
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Doctor Who

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;Favorite Music

• Pop music from the '40s thru '70s
• Modern classical (especially Mahler and Stravinsky)

;Favorite Song Writers

• Joni Mitchell
• Bob Dylan
• Paul Simon ("I want a shot at redemption/ Don’t want to end up a cartoon/ In a cartoon graveyard")
• The Beatles (Yes, I know this is a really esoteric arcane choice)
• Buddy Holly
• Donovan
• The Grateful Dead
• Pete Seeger
• Sting

;Favorite Singers

• Joni Mitchell
• Judy Garland (Hell to work with, heaven to listen to)

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;{{space|3}}Favorite television

{{space|3}}* Most science-fiction and period drama. Yes, I'm a Trekkie, and fan of Buffy and Doctor Who.

;{{indent|3}}Favorite movie directors

{{space|3}}* Stanley Kubrick

{{indent|3}}* Alfred Hitchcock (His most unfairly neglected film is Shadow of a Doubt)

{{indent|3}}* Laurence Olivier (Better known as actor, and only directed 5 films)

{{indent|3}}* Charlie Chaplin

{{indent|3}}* Woody Allen

{{indent|3}}* Fellini

{{indent|3}}* Martin Scorsese

{{indent|3}}* Francis Ford Coppola (has neglected gems such as The Conversation and Rumble Fish as well as acknowledged classics)

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;{{indent|2}}Favorite Books

{{space|2}}* Lord of the Rings In the words of the author...

"The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence, except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short"

• Jane Eyre

(such romantic dialogue...

“You examine me, Miss Eyre,” said he: “do you think me handsome?”

“No, sir”.

It still works.)

;Favorite classical writers

• Charles Dickens, D.H. Lawrence, Jane Austen (OK, I know I've only actually read "Pride and Prejudice"), Charlotte Bronte,
  

George Eliot ("We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it"), Thomas Hardy, and of course William Shakespeare

;Favorite popular fiction writers

• Arthur Conan Doyle
• Ian Fleming (only author listed here I've read everything by)

;Favorite science-fiction writers

• Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. LeGuin

;Favorite literary critics

• Harold Bloom, Camille Paglia

;Favorite Poets

• Wordsworth, Walt Whitman ("Hark, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician"), Allan Ginsberg

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;Favorite thinkers I mostly agree with

• Dalai Llama, Thich Nhat Hanh,
• Thomas Merton, John Shelby Spong

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;Favorite thinker I don't really agree with

• Friedrich Nietzsche ("We are, all of us, growing volcanoes that approach the hour of their eruption")

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;Most obscure and arcane organization I ever joined

• Sangha for Skeptical Buddhism (for practicing Buddhists who don't buy reincarnation)

;Two dumbest recent quotes from the atheist-religion debate

• Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.

- Victor Stenger, prominent activist for atheism

• Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very

glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

- Ben Stein creator of film "Exposed" and prominent anti-Darwinian

conservative

;Political affiliation

• Democrat

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;Favorite people of my political persuasion

• Barack Obama ("Yes, we can")
• Al Gore (And, yes, he really did help create the Internet.)

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;Favorite figure not of my political persuasion

• Andrew Sullivan

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;Least favorite figure not of my political persuasion

• Ann Coulter (Who would have thought you could cross Basic Instinct's Catherine Tramell and Pat Robertson without creating an artificial black hole in the process??)

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;Least favorite figures of my political persuasion

• Joseph Lieberman (Looks like Teller of Penn and Teller. Might consider a disappearing act.)

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;Favorite Democrat Presidents (that have left)

• Franklin Roosevelt (Who says the New Deal was a raw deal??)
• John Fitzgerald Kennedy

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;Favorite Republican President

• Dwight Eisenhower (warned us about the "military-industrial complex")

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;Public figures about whom I have the most conflicted hot/cold feelings

• Christopher Hitchens (Like him often, damn funny, off on religion I think)

and for mostly different reasons...(this really is strange bedfellows)

• C.S. Lewis (great fiction writer, great literary critic, great historian of literature, overrated as theological apologist IMHO)

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;Other schools attended

• University of Pennsylvania. Bachelor's in History.
• Kent State. Studies in Computer Science

;Passionate Hobbies

• Live theatre, wilderness hiking, poetry, and hanging out in coffee shops.
• Occasional writer of poetry.