Mariana T.

Bird Song and sounds of nature, Stan Getz, Eartha Kitt, Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Tom Waits, Dave Mathews Band, Patrick Ball (on Celtic Harp) Louis Armstrong , Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Blues , Neville Brothers especially Aaron Neville, Kitty Wells, Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Swamp Pop, Willie Nelson, Freddie Fender, Afro Cuban Allstars -All the local bands in Franklin, La. I love Flamenco guitar and am open to new music always.

Maria Zef, Paola Drigo, The House of Spirits, Eva Luna, Portrait in Sepia, Graveyards and Bayou Bars, Summers Full of Porch Bull, Grapes of Wrath, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love In The Time of Cholera, Letters from the Earth, A Confederacy of Dunces, Blue Highways, The Courtship of Julian and Frieda, The Scent of God, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Joy Luck Club, Two Years Before the Mast, The Good Earth, Five Quarters of The Orange, Planet Ocean, all Harvard Classics, The Holy Bible, Dictionaries, All Cookbooks, John Steinbeck, Isabel Allende, John Kennedy Toole, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pearl Buck, Mark Twain, Eudora Welty, Joann Harris, Anita Shreve, Elizabeth Berg, Amy Tan, Ernest Gaines, James Lee Burke, Judith Hendricks, Carson McCullers, Ana Castillo, Laura Esquival, Ann Rule, Joyce Carol Oates, Truman Capote, Poets: Oscar Wilde, T.S. Eliot

Black Orpheus, Fried Green Tomatoes, Casa Blanca, Chocolat, Like Water for Chocolate, Down by Law, Frederico Fellini, John Waters, Anything with John Wayne, All movies and documentaries filmed in Louisiana especially by James Lee Burke or Ernest Gaines. I just finished working on a documentary about Rivers of the World for GreenBay productions (Wales). (Mississippi area)

Turner Classics, Lawrence Welk - only on Cox Cable in Louisiana!, House and Garden Channel, Oprah, History Channel, Discovery Channel - Oh I do like all the real crime shows too.

I was born in Venezuela, grew up on the water - I've travelled all over the world & every place has gifted me with new friends and beauty - however, there's no place like my little hometown where I was raised - Franklin, La. I also reside in Santa Barbara, California which is gorgeous and Eureka, Nevada - my winter haven!

Painting large abstract works of art, creating using rusting objects, studying Eastern and natural healing, looking for the fountain of youth, communing with the soul in all things, talking to people on front porches, photography, helping stray animals find good homes, collecting other people's memories, harleys, old chevrolet pickup trucks, horticulture, diaries, hand-writing, Old Cemeteries - sepulchral monuments, epitaphs, antique emphemera, dreaming, bird watching, Feng Shui, designing my dream ART studio, watching my cats in their daily lives, working on a variety of projects, enjoying walks along East Beach, Santa Barbara, and looking for 4-leaf clovers.

I wish that folks would be more compassionate towards living things - touch, tread, talk gently - life is precious.

Interviewing folks about their lives, photographing places in states of arrested decay, learning new languages, exploring family trees particularly my own, deciphering regional accents, inspiring others about true wealth - their good health!

UCSB

Friends of the Library, St. Mary Parish Landmark Society, Santa Barbara Blues Society

www.bayoutales.com