What is your
favorite virtue?
“The need to be
loved; more precisely, the need to be caressed and spoiled much more than the
need to be admired.
-
Proust
“Industry: Lose no Time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut
off all unnecessary Actions.”
-
Ben Franklin
Hello, internet! I’m talking to you about “Unnecessary Actions. Here is a great link to what the great man thought were the most important
things in life.
What do you regard
as the lowest depth of misery?
Not to be
able to create new work any more.
What is your idea
of earthly happiness?
To be
creative, and to be able to share one’s work with the people I love.
Where would you
like to live?
“A country where certain things that I should like would
come true as though by magic, and where tenderness would always be
reciprocated.”
-
Proust
Ooh, I like
Proust’s answer. Really, am I
supposed to compare my answers to Proust?
I think I’m hungry for a Madeline.
Ok, anyway – I love living where I’m living already: overlooking a
cathedral and a garden, able to see three boroughs (and New Jersey) and the
sky, and some occasional hawks.
To what faults do
you feel most indulgent?
“To a life deprived of the works of genius.”
-
Proust
sure what
Proust is saying there. But I feel the occasional pang of despair, and the pull
to waste time.
Who are your
favorite composers?
Bach,
Copland, Irving Berlin (whose catalog I’ve incorporated into a new stop-motion
Christmas special), Gershwin.
Who are your
favorite painters?
Seurat. Da Vinci was pretty great. I’m more of a sculpture guy…
What are you
favorite names?
Hawaiian
royalty King Kamehameha and Queen Lilioukalani. Super fun to say.
What is the natural
talent you’d most like to be gifted with?
Does flight
count as a natural talent? No, I
guess, unless you’re a bird. OK:
I’d love to be gifted with the ability to relax more easily. To turn off my
brain for a bit.
What is the quality
you most admire in a man?
Politeness,
interest in others.
What is the quality
you most admire in a woman?
Same, I
would say.
What is your
favorite occupation?
Making
puppets and sculptures, reading. Singing, too, when the opportunity arises.
Who would you have
liked to be?
Cliché, I
suppose, but I would have loved to be an astronaut. (After seeing Gravity
I don’t think I ever want to be, but it would’ve been nice to see space from
space, you know?)
Your most marked
characteristic?
“A craving to be
loved, or, to be more precise, to be caressed and spoiled rather than to be
admired.”
- Proust
Whoa!
That’s personal. Wow, Proust. Man. Pass.
What do you most
value in your friends?
Kindness.
What is your
principle defect?
“Lack of
understanding; weakness of will.”
-
Proust
Jeez! Was
Proust counting on the internet and having everything out there? I think not. Pass again.
What would you like
to be?
Someone
with something to say, something to offer – a person to whom others come for
advice and support.
Who are your
favorite prose writers?
Right now,
Alice Walker, Lewis Carroll, Homer (not Simpson – reading The Iliad in its entirety.) Oh, and Ray Bradbury. How did I make it so far in life
without ever reading Bradbury? The Martian Chronicles is gorgeous.
Who are your
favorite poets?
Shakespeare,
E.E. Cummings, Gwendolyn Brooks.
Who are your
favorite heroes in fiction?
Tyler
Durden, Fight Club. (And the first
rule of Fight Club is… well, you
know.)
Who are your heroes
in real life?
Henson, Wayne
White (“Beauty is Embarrassing”).
Who are your
favorite heroines in fiction?
Alice of Alice in Wonderland fame. Oh, and Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien & Aliens, which I just watched last night. Interstellar badass.
Who are your
favorite heroines of history?
Queen
Elizabeth I. Elizabethan Badass.
Who are your
favorite heroines in real life?
“A woman of genius leading an ordinary life.”
-
Proust
Proust
copped out on that answer. Oh, Proust! Writer mentor and friend, Tina
Howe. Suzen-Lori Parks. Gertrude
Stein.
What is it you most
dislike?
“My own worst
qualities.”
-
Proust
My own inaction,
and wasting time.
What historical
figures do you most despise?
Vlad the
Impaler! Yikes. What a baddie.
What natural gift
would you most like to possess?
“Will power and irresistible charm.”
-
Proust
I’ll go with Proust’s answer
here – willpower and irresistible charm.
How would you like
to die?
Peacefully, at a time when I’m
ready to go, surrounded by loved ones.
What is your
present state of mind?
Happiness at feeling creativity
surging back, ready to take on the future!
What is your motto?
“No fear in action” is my motto for
2013. Thanks for reading my
answers. And thank you, Proust.
