1. If you were to be stranded on a desert island and could only have one piece of music to listen to, what would it be?
Fields of Joy by Lenny Kravitz. I’ve listened to that song probably 5 or 6 times a week since I first heard it (YEARS AND YEARS AGO) and I still haven’t gotten tired of it.
2. If you had to eat in only one restaurant for the rest of your life, which one would you pick?
Oh Mitchell … what was the name of our favorite restaurant in Chicago, where we would go when we wanted to splurge?? THAT place. Ross Angelis? Is that it?
Also, the OLD Term’s. Not Term’s as it is now, but no – Term’s as it used to be. My Rhode Island buds will get that one.
3. If you could eliminate one thing you do in the bathroom each day, what would it be?
Good Lord, “eliminate” is an unfortunate word in this context, isn’t it? But I wouldn’t “eliminate” “elimination”, because that would not be healthy. I guess if I could get away with not flossing my teeth, I would like to eliminate that. But you MUST FLOSS. However, it’s a drag.
4. If you could choose the way you will die, what would it be?
I have no idea. Something like: Having a heart attack at the age of 85 while on a roller coaster.
5. If you could have a secret camera in any one room in the world, what room would it be in?
Uhm … Ewan McGregor’s bedroom?
6. If you had to choose the single biggest mistake you’ve made in your life, what would it be?
I try not to look at certain things that way anymore. Stuff happens, things don’t work out, suck it up. It feckin’ sucks, no doubt, but that’s life.
You can’t always get what you wa-ant …
7. If you had to pick the worst sexual experience of your life, what would it be?
I try not to gossip in a mean (and public) manner about my suitors from the past.
8. If you could solve one unsolved crime from history, which would it be?
Black Dahlia.
9. If you had to name the most important invention in history, what would it be?
The printing press comes to mind.
10. If you were given a racehorse, what would you name it?
Ineluctable Modality
11. If you were to become the sex slave of a person from history, who would you pick?
Alexander Hamilton!! No contest!
12. If you could eliminate one of your pet peeves, which would it be?
People who talk loudly on their cell phones in public places – on busses, in stores, etc. I deal with this shite every single day, and am shocked at how much I know about total strangers. It makes me so mad that I want to rip the phone out of their hands and chuck it into traffic. It would be good to reach some kind of Zen peace with this annoying pet peeve.
13. If you could have the world’s largest collection of one thing, what would it be?
100 dollar bills. Or … thousand dollar bills? Am I thinking too small?
14. If you had to murder someone, how would you do it?
Circumstances definitely dictate this one. I don’t think I could slit someone’s throat, or do anything messy. Although I would do what I had to do if anyone tried to hurt my family. I would probably just shoot someone.
15. If you had to have been any dictator or tyrant in history, who would you have been?
Oliver Cromwell, so that I could kill myself immediately and rid the world of myself. Same with Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot – and many more! I would have loved to be them, so that I could arrange my own death very early on.
posted mine here.
Well, at the risk of being accused of racing to the top of the comments queue..
1. The song I keep going back to is Van Morrison’s Wonderful Remark.. in particular the 8 minute version on The Philospher’s Stone – keep going back to that song.. right on.
2. Ermm.. pass. Not many restaurants in Outer Mongolia to chose from.
3. I could say shaving, but instead I will go with tongue brushing/scraping.. ewww.
4. In my sleep, after a long life and having said everything important that needed to be said to those I love.
5. If I’m not in the particular room I have in mind I’d rather not have to watch.
6. No going back.
7. Well.. erm.. No.
8. Oh.. Black Dahlia is a good choice.. That or Jack the Ripper’s real identity.
9. Printing press is up there.. but I’m tempted to say the electro-magnet. From thence all around us flowed.
10. Hope Over History.
11. Oh jeez.. I don’t know.. can it be someone still alive?
12. An everyday irritation for me.. party-political apparatchiks. Think for yourselves dammit.
13. Heh heh.. can’t disagree with the 100 dollar bills.
14. Gullotine.. best to be sure.
15. Alexander. Have you seen the recent DNA analysis of his influence?
Dude, I love that you would murder someone with a guillotine. I just think that’s so classic. Would you have it in your basement, or out in your backyard?
Black Dahlia, that’s a good one. Why that one?
To get away with it, Sheila.. the gullotine would have to be in a town square.
If you could have the world’s largest collection of one thing, what would it be?
I’m not sure what this says about me, or if it indeed is connected in any way, but for some reason, when I read that sentence, the first thing that popped into my head were the Plaster Casters.
1. Judy at Carnegie Hall..can’t live without it
2. Legal Seafood or Rose Angelis
3. taking my meds..yuck
4. asleep while dreaming that im with Bessie and Dottie(grandmother and her sister)
5. Justin Timberlake’s shower
6. getting infected with HIV
7. see above
8. im still unconvinced that Oswald was the lone gunman
9. im such a tech-loser…but harnessing electricity?
10. Burt Bacharach…he was sexy like a race horse
11. Alexander the Great..ever read The Persian Boy?? or Gregory Peck.
12. Lying
13. Homes
14. Push them off the red-line platform as the Evanston express whizzes by Granville( can i get an amen from my Chicago peeps???)
15. im gonna get crap for this but …screw it..i’d be George W. Bush…somehow people love this frat-boy ass-monkey!!??? sorry Sheil!!!
Damn, Mitchell manages to get huge bonus points by invoking Legal Seafood and then pisses it all away by equating George Bush to Hitler (um, disagreeing with someone politically does not ipso facto make that person a tyrant, and to suggest it does is to degrade everyone who has ever suffered under REAL tyranny). I guess those cancel each other out.
Dave J.- i accept ur criticism openly..i was aware as i typed that it was incendiary..but it was the emotional response to the question..and “diagree with” oversimplifies my feelings about the man and his administration..but i apologize for offending.
politics aside..Legal Seafood rules..doesn’t it??? I could live with a lobster bib around my neck!
Oh, and since I passed by the one at the Pru on my way back from dinner (not there, unfortunately), I wanted to get it exactly right: that’s Legal Sea Foods, three words, plural. That hairsplitting aside, I think pace the snobbishness post below, I do not understand how some people can hate seafood. Intellectually I can grasp it in theory, I know it’s purely subjective matter of taste, but…still.
i agree.. i love all sea food…unfortunately im in Indiana for a month and the idea of lobster so far from the ocean scares me! Im joes-ing!
Having a heart attack at the age of 85 while on a roller coaster.
85? Jumpin’ Jesus on pogo stick, think bigger, woman. In my family, that’s considered dying young. Go for 116, at least.
Ok, Mitchell, we’ll firm up these plans for RI- Lobster bibs, lobsters, Stylistics and my pool. I can NOT wait for summer!!!!!
Here’s my list:
1) Something by J. S. Bach, but I’m not sure what. There’s so much to choose from. As much as I love Mahler, I would get really neurotic if that’s all I had to listen to for the rest of my life. Bach is healthier.
2) Madras Pavilion: the best vegetarian Indian cuisine in Austin
3) I tend to agree with Sheila here; flossing sucks.
4) I would like to become such a powerful meditator that I could do like the Vietnamese Buddhist monks and douse myself with gasoline, set myself on fire, and sit peacefully in meditation posture with a faint smile on my lips until by body lost structural integrity and imploded.
5) Michelle Pfeiffer’s bedroom. I know that’s boring, but that’s where it would be.
6) Without getting too specific, it involved someone else’s girlfriend. Not my finest hour.
7) See question 6.
8) I’m kind of a crime ignoramus. I don’t know of any good ones.
9) Writing systems
10) Sheila, “Ineluctable Modality” is beautiful! So in honor of that, I’m going to name my racehorse “Nebeneinander.”
11) Catherine of Sweden comes to mind, but probably only because I have associated Greta Garbo’s face with her.
12) I don’t think I really have any pet peeves.
13) Once more, Sheila has the right idea on this one.
14) I’d get him half-drunk and then tell him about the case of Amontillado that I just bought but was unsure that it was genuine. Then after he had come down to my cellar to judge it, and I was just about to lay the final bricks to wall him in, I would insist that he say, “For the love of God, Montressor!”
15) I don’t know about any dictators, but if I could be an absolute monarch, it would be King Solomon, just for the sheer quantity of concubines that he had.
“I would probably just shoot someone”….that is hysterical.
1. It would have to be something by Bach or Dvorak something complex enough that Id not get tired of listening to it over and over again.
2. It no longer exists, sadly, but the Old German in Ann Arbor, Michigan was pretty much the perfect place for me. The food wasnt the absolute be-all end-all (but it was pretty good) but the atmosphere was so comforting to me.
3. Well, maybe not a daily task for me, but Id say removal of superfluous body hair. Yes, I know, its a choice I could decide to not shave my legs. (But I couldnt, really .)
4. At age 96, immediately after falling off my roof, where I had gone to retrieve my Frisbee.
5. Gonna go a totally different place with this than other people have gone, and say the habitat of the clouded leopard. Not because I want to watch new clouded leopards being conceived get your minds out of the gutter but because so little is known about this creature, and theyre really beautiful.
6. Uhhh .not being more social in high school and college. Not screwing up my courage again to ask guys out after one particular guy laughed in my face when I asked him.
7. Ladies do not kiss (or whatever) and tell.
8. It has to be a crime? Id really like to know if Shakespeare really wrote all those plays, but thats not a crime.
9. Written language. Printing press a near second, because without the press, its a lot harder to disseminate writing.
10. The Hopeful Monster (Also a good name for a band )
11. Uhhh .that question creeps me out. The whole sex slave thing. And really, I cant say Ive thought of historical figures in that way. Sorry. It might be interesting to go on a date with Einstein, but as for getting down n dirty cant really think of anyone.
12. Id love to be able to get rid of the sense of irritation I begin to feel when someone comes into my office, and instead of simply saying Is it possible for me to get an extension on this paper, Im having some personal problems, they give you their whole entire sad life story for the past five years. As the whole sordid mess unspools, I find myself becoming increasingly agitated and start doing little hush up and go away behaviors like sharpening pencils, checking my mail, etc. But usually people who are bent on dumping their lifes load of woe on you dont catch those subtle hints. Id like to just be able to sit there and listen sympathetically without thinking oh, man, Im gonna have a nightmare about this tonight or I reeeeeally need to prep for class now, please go away person
13. I dont know something very obscure to most people, like antique knitting needles or salt-cellar spoons.
14. As I am an ecologist and know a bit about mycology, there are a number of mushrooms that look fairly innocuous but are quite deadly. And the toxins are somewhat hard to detect in a conventional autopsy. Id invite the person over for a nice dinner of spaghetti with mushroom sauce. But of course, Id have cooked up two almost-identical sauces one with the harmless mushrooms for myself, the other one with the deadly toadstools for my dinner companion. After the meal, Id return the leftover harmless sauce to the fridge, and burn or bury the leftover poison sauce. If the cops came knocking at my door afterwards, Id be all surprised and horrified and hand over the rest of the harmless sauce for analysis, or something like that.
15. Marie Antoinette, but get myself the hell out of France before the peasants go totally ape.
A select few…
1. Probably better to have to be something long so I don’t burn out on it too quickly. Maybe Sibelius’ Second Symphony, or Wagner’s Die Meistersinger prelude, or maybe just “Surrender” or “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?” Hard to get down to one, but one of those for sure.
2. Phnom Penh, in Cleveland. Zilch for atmosphere, but I like the folks who run it and work there, and it’s jaw-droppingly good Khmer/Vietnamese food at good prices.
3. Probably shaving, but my beard is scraggly at best so it ain’t gonna happen.
4. If you’re gonna dream, dream big: Age 276, on the bridge of my starship, warp core breach. Won’t feel a thing. ;-)
8. Dealey Plaza, 1963. Settle it once and for all.
9. Printing press, no doubt about it. For all our wonderful modern technology, and no intention to slight same, I think the hardcover book is the pinnacle of human achievement. That, or central air.
10. Why the Long Face
14. .22 behind the ear at close range. No muss, no fuss.
15. Frederick the Great.
Ken,
Why 276 in particular? Just wondering.
Dave J –
I should have let Mitchell know that he needed to get “bonus points” with you. Mitchell – you clear on that?
Bryan – ha! I knew you’d get the ineluctable joke!
MJF: Justin Timberlake’s shower. You are so feckin’ hilarious. You are an unrepentant Justin fan, and I love that.
Bryan – That is some death, my friend. Wow.
Jean –
The “I would just shoot someone” line is reminiscent of:
“You vil tell her that you are passionately in luv with her, and that you want to make luv to her.”
Long pause.
“Couldn’t I just kill her?”
ricki – damn. Hopeful Monster. Now THAT’S a great name! Also the title of my favorite novel, weirdly.
And lastly, to Dave J: In case you haven’t noticed, this ain’t a site for political orthodoxy – or a “correct” way of looking at things. I have no interest in battling it out, and I also do not want others battling it out here – which is why I no longer post on politics. It’s why I haven’t posted on Terri Schiavo, because in general I have been extremely unimpressed with all of the commentary, and when bloggers post on it – the comments themselves have been ENRAGING to me to read.
As a reminder – I’ve got:
— leftists
— damn-near commies
— right-leaners
— indifferent
— staunch conservatives
— anarchists
— people who just love Cary Grant
— libertarians
— people who never read the newspaper but who love books
commenting here. I feel no need to correct people’s views, to correct people’s comments, or to ‘get into it’ with someone, if we differ on opinions.
Sorry. You know I like you, Dave J – but your comment (and what it represents to me) pissed me off.
Related to the question of how one would like to die, when I was a senior in high school my English teacher raised the question of what we would like our last words to be. Her own choice was, “Tell all those students who told me to go to hell that I’m on my way!”
Bryan – I have this huge compilation of “famous last words” somewhere on this blog. They’re incredible – or at least some of them are. I love Beethoven’s:
“Friends, applaud! The comedy is finished.”
Or maybe “over” – not “finished”.
Regardless – isn’t that incredible?
I agree, those are great last words.
I’ve always been intrigued with Mahler’s death words. He was in a semi-coma for many hours before his death, and in this state he repeated the word, “Mozart,” over and over. Every once in a while he would say, “Alma,” the name of his wife, and then he would revert to saying, “Mozart.”
Bryan. Hmm. Fascinating.
Bryan–
Well, I wanted it to be north of 250, but no sense getting completely ridiculous :-p. I had to pick some number, so I went with “Success Story,” by the Who:
Back in the studio to make our latest number one
Take two hundred seventy-six
You know, this used to be fun
Hi Ken,
The reason that number caught my attention was that when I was a teenager I read some crazy book that did the equivalent of Kabbalistic gematria on the New Testament. Gematria, for those who don’t know, is to take the numerical value of Hebrew letters in words from the Hebrew Bible and to try to find patterns in them, since Hebrew letters are also used as numbers. Greek letters are also used as numbers, so this book was doing the same thing with the New Testament, and one of the things I recall was that if you added up the numerical values of the word “Satan,” you got 276.
That little factoid stuck with me through all these years for some crazy reason.
We’ll have to ask John Entwistle about it when we get to the other side, Bryan.
Sorry, Sheila, it was a gut reaction on my part, and I probably should’ve known better.
We all knew it was the devil’s music ;)
Mine’s here
http://www.livejournal.com/users/wutzizname/16414.html
wutzizname: Love it.
“If you are holding up traffic, as far as I’m concerned, you’re repressing an ambulance, and should be punished.”
heh heh heh
And dammit. Where the hell is Bin Laden?
Dave J – Apology accepted. It is the gut-reaction feel of most political commentary on blogs these days that make blogs unreadable to me. Half the blogs on my blog-roll I no longer visit regularly – because of this. Or I just read the posts and ignore the comments.
Just1Beth–when’s the pool party?…i’ll mix up the dirty martinis!!!!! I’ll be in RI this summer with Circus Smirkus…at Colt State Park…im up for a rocking RI time!
Mitchell and Beth:
Beth? We need to have a date at your house this summer when Mitchell’s circus is in town. (I can’t believe I just said that sentence.)
Mitchell, wait until you see how Beth and Tom set up the little outdoor bar by their pool. Stylistics, lobster bibs, and a hot summer night? Please. Life can’t get better.
“Baby cried the day the circus came to town…cause she didn’t want the parade to pass right by her… don’t cry out LOUD-oo-owd…” hahahahhahaha!!! You guys name the time, I’ll be there!! Of course, there are 3 damn inches of snow on the ground today, and school is delayed for an hour….grrrrr….