The Interview Meme: Rules

[saavedra77]

1. Leave a comment saying you want to be interviewed.

2. I'll reply and give you five questions to answer.

3. You'll update your LJ with the five questions answered.

4. You'll include this explanation.

5. You ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed. And it just keeps going, and going, and going.

Resulting in these questions from uniquecrash5

1. What are your favorite 2 comics series, and why?

Right now? #1: Love and Rockets for the characters (I’ve gone from my teens to my late ‘30s w/ Maggie, Hopey, & Ray, & they’ve grown older right along with me) and the wonderfully elaborate, sometimes tragic stories ("The Death of Speedy", "Poison River"). #2: Jason Lutes’ Berlin for the simply beautiful art, complex, believable characters, and meticulous recreation of another time (Weimar Germany).

2. Do you have a totem, and if so how did you discover it?

Well, I hate to be obvious, but: the first time I laid eyes on a Maine Coon Cat, I knew that I'd found my mascot, totem, & lifelong demon familiar. (Then again, maybe the MCCs are just stand-ins for something wilder, more exotic: a lynx or bobcat …  It’s feline, independent, got those badass ear tips.)

3. If you honest-to-god got to sit down and talk with GWB, what one thing would you say to him, and what one thing would you ask him?

I feel like there’s such a psychological and intellectual ocean separating me from this man, & he is so plainly resentful of (& now insulated from) criticism, that it’s hard to imagine what one could usefully say. I might quote Jefferson, who encouraged a student to "question with boldness even the existence of a god," praised the First Amendment’s "wall of separation between church and state"(he actually invented that phrase), and who wrote that it was "sinful & tyrannical" to set up one’s "own opinion & modes of thinking as the only true & infallible"--& especially tyrannical "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves" (i.e., faith-based initiatives). Then I’d ask W his opinion about Jefferson's idea of the separation of church & state, just to see which wheels would turn. My guess is that W would just default back to something like "Well, Jefferson also said that men were 'endowed by their Cre-A-tor with certain inalienable rights'." Meaning no God, no rights, so we can selectively ignore that seldom-quoted religious toleration talk (an "argument" others have used for tearing down that "wall of separation"). Or W could lump Jefferson's unreliable views on religion together with his undeniably immoral career as a slaveowner. Either way, I doubt that you could penetrate W's basic stubbornness and smugness, or the ideological coccoon his people have spun around him, when it comes to matters of religion & patriotism.

4. What do your cats think of you?

Puig essentially thinks I’m his Mommy: his primary source of nourishment, affection, and safety. Even at age 14, he’s a Momma’s boy--still comes running to meet me at the door. Zoe, by contrast, thinks that I’m the hired help, insisting that I come to her when she wants something. Also, she thinks I'm kinda hard of hearing. I'm like this elderly, unreliable manservant that she's inherited along with the family estate.

5. What inspires you?

My great-niece & great-nephew (did I ever mention that the age differences between my siblings & I are immense ...?)

The sight of the Olympics looming over Puget Sound in the morning.

The Hagia Sofia (formerly the spiritual heart of the Byzantine Empire & Greek Orthodox Christianity, then the grand mosque of the Ottoman Muslim caliphate, now a museum for everybody--& I think still one of the most remarkable buildings in the world) 

Pro-democracy movements, anyone who stands up for human rights, especially where it’s hardest & most dangerous to do so

Fifth-century Athens (a hundred years that gave us Aeschylus, Demosthenes, Euripides, Pericles, Socrates, Sophocles, democratia, the roots of humanism, scientific empiricism, & a lot of other precociously "modern" ideas)

Shakespeare, Cervantes, Garcia Marquez (eloquence, wit, empathy, imagination …)

Sublime’s "(Love Is) What I Got" (even if neither the singer nor the band epitomized the sentiment …)

R.E.M.s “I Believe” (on "Life’s Rich Pageant")

The view of the English Channel from Mt. St. Michel

Michelle Shocked’s "Come a Long Way"

The movie “Blue Sky” (now THAT’s love!)

San Francisco (Balmy Alley, Telegraph Hill, North Beach, Golden Gate)

72-year-old Ibrahim Ferrer joking about how many more kids he was going to have

A certain red-haired desert Amazon who has greatly influenced my outlook on life … ;)

Comments

Re: Good questions!

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

I've had it with my job, I'm looking for another. Makes me wish that I had the cash to just pull up stakes and move south to Cali, like I've been thinking about ...

Re: Good questions!

[aztecson23.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear that. Looks like we're both having off days. SUCKS majorly.

I feel like cussing in spanish, but I making an effort to clean up my act:-)