Influences: As a reader, writer and scholar, Eric's greatest influence is Beat literature with focus on the post-war period and specific scholarship about Kerouac.  This period of American history and the creative expressions that arose from it remain his greatest influence, whether the writers, artists, film makers or designers and aesthetes of the era.  Cinema is a strong influence, especially silent and depression-era cinema, Technicolor musicals, exploitation films and the French New Wave.  But perhaps his most imporant influences -- as, perhaps, his most important role: homemaker -- are Julia Child, Russel Wright, Dorothy Draper, Martha Stewart, and his grandmother.