James Ludwell-Grymes

About Me

I'm a father to a son, an artist and a lifelong gamer residing in Hillsdale, MI. Formerly, I was the interim director of S&P at Western Michigan University (WMU). While there, I served on the policy committee, acted as an advisor to the CIO, handled all incident response, maintained legacy C applications, and conducted penetration tests

Interests

• Playing sports and games, traditional and digital. My favorites are classics such as Go, Duplicate Bridge, Croquet and Shogi, "modern games" designed by Reiner Knizia (Medici), John Bohrer (Wabash Cannonball), Uwe Rosenberg (Agricola), Phil Eklund (Pax Renaissance), Cole Wehrle (Root), R. Eric Reuss (Spirit Island), Donald X. Vaccarino (Dominion), recently abstracts like Twixt and Slither, and roguelikes by Michael Brough (Cinco Paus) and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
• Making music with VCVRack, SunVox, Ciat-Lonbarde synthesizers, and a harpsichord
• Watching films by directors such as Woody Allen (Annie Hall), David Lynch (Eraserhead), Sion Sono (Noriko's Dinner Table), Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries), Jean-Luc Godard (La Chinoise, the petit-bourgeois Maoists, how ironic), Jean Cocteau (Beauty and the Beast, specifically with the Philip Glass soundtrack), Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen), Matthew Barney (Cremaster 3), Peter Greenaway (Prospero's Books), and Eric Rohmer (My Night at Maud's)
• Books about theology (most recently Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years), psychology (like Sapolsky's Behave, which I'm definitely not using as a coaster), philosophy (Derrida and Adorno), entomology (I like The Ants), as well as fiction by Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye), Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49), Cynthia Ozick (The Messiah of Stockholm), Henry James (What Maisie Knew), William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury), Vladimir Nabokov (Pale Fire), John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces, my valve!), and Samuel Beckett (The Lost Ones)
• Hiking, which I haven't been able to do since I was run over with a car in April of '24
• Fashion. People wanting a good Shetland sweater can find one at O'Connell's, and if you miss the old Brooks, there's Mercer
• Food and drink - if you ever find yourself in Louisville, be sure to eat at 610 Magnolia (the BLT amuse-bouche's fantastic) and Jack Fry's (you won't regret ordering the filet). If you're a fan of beer, try Chimay Dorée. For good tea, visit Yunnan Sourcing