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Mr. Benny The Ball
1. What does your fictionsuit connote to you? Is it a command to 'benny' the place where people dance? Is it "Which Benny? The round one." And why?
For me 'Benny' falls into one of those names like 'Joey' with conotations of slight retardedness, thanks to the Crossroads character with the woolen hat. So for a while, Benny the Ball felt like a clumsy, slightly dumb version of myself - caught somewhere in the child-like innocence of say Lenny in Of Mice and Men, wandering the board and asking folk to tell him about the rabbits. The Ball is Barbelith, or at least the Grant Morrison depiction of Barbelith as a red globe. I opted for it for two reasons - 1. I felt that my first few posts on the board were completely misguided and close to being downright rude and annoying, so wanted a new start and 2. wanted to have a softer sounding name. I have said in another post (a nightshift, I think) that Benny the Ball, the Top Cat character, does not resemble me too much. So it means, to present one's self in a harmless and childlike manner to the board.
2. What brought you to Barbelith, what keeps you here, and what threatens to send you away?
A google search brought me here. I'm kept here by the little goals (like wanting to break the 2000 posts mark) and mainly the DC Universe Surgery. I'm not much for saying that the standard has slipped, as I am still relatively new to the board (April 2004 I think?) and that I'm leaving because someone told me I was wrong about something. I think the eventual thing that will keep me away rather than send me away is that I just won't have the time to visit as often as I would like. Another thing that keeps me around is just wanting to see people reply to a thread, it's amazing the draw of that, that sense of nurturing something and hoping that it'll work.
3. What is it like to know you have created life, and what do you plan to do now that you have? That is, are you tempted to get all insane creator god, do you have special plans for the rearing of the young'un, or a secret way of getting hir to listen to you?
I was a little confused by this question, as to whether you meant the ficsuit, or if you believed that I was expecting kids (which as far as I know I'm not). If a) then I have moments of gleeful meglomaniacal puppet-mastery, should I mess up Benny just for something to do? Should I look after the little fellow, simple as he is, and make sure that he gets onto the front page of the top Barbelith posters safely? If you mean b) I haven't yet, but I get very very broody. I guess that I just hope that I don't try to live my life through my child, and force them to do what I would have liked to do.
4, lifted from TIm Powers: Describe for me please, in as much detail as you're able, the best Breakfast, the best Lunch, and the best Dinner you've experienced.
Breakfast - I was around ten or eleven and had fallen ill. I am a notorius non-sleeper, have been since I was extremely young, and to this day, I rarely sleep and never lay in bed past a certain hour. Anyway, I was feverous, and just couldn't lift myself up to standing, I remember having to crawl to the toilet and that my head was pounding away. I couldn't eat anything, and the last time that I had tried to drink the magical fix-anything remedy of Lucozade, I had promptly brought the whole thing back up in seconds. I finally crawled into bed, after a failed attempt to watch 'Big Trouble in Little China' on a pirate video, and decided that maybe I should try sleeping (this was at around nine at night). Once in bed, I feel asleep instantly, into one of those perfect, black, dreamless, near death sleeps. When I woke up the next day, it was around midday, the longest I have ever slept in my life, and I felt fantastic. I made myself some ready break and a cup of tea, and sprinkled sugar over the top of the runny ready break, and that was the best breakfast I have eaten, knowing that I could eat again safely, and that I had slept for so long that I felt better than ever.
Lunch - Lucky Sevens in westbourne Park or grove or whatever. I had a lunchtime meeting there with a friend, ordered a banana milkshake and a cheese burger. The meeting was about our future, our plans for the next stage in our careers. The food was okay, but the meeting was what was important. We decided there and then to branch out, start our own joint venture and buy a load of sound equipment, me mixing, him booming, our trainee would be found at a later date. I would go and have a sit down with our mentor, a man that had done so much to train us, to help us and to keep us in work for the last few years, and tell him our plans (this time over a pizza express in Sheen) and lay our plans down on the line. Both these lunches have done more to help me get the confidence I needed to make the move up to running our own sound department. Less than a year down the line, I've mixed my first feature film (starting the second in september) at a time when films are rare to come by in this country, and we have a great sound kit in terms of the equipment. To have a lunch and feel like at the end of it, you're looking at the future and moving into something that you've wanted to do for a while, but have been worried about, and now found that you have help and backing, is a fantastic thing.
Dinner - A late indian meal with Mrs the Ball in LA. Music was being played in the Electric Lotus, and the place looked busy, but we were given a private little table, curtained off and in a spot where we could peak out and watch the world, or hide away and make out like a couple of teens. It was the most fun that I've had eating Indian food, and it's an amazing thing to be surrounded by the buzz and noise of a busy place, but to feel like you and you loved one are completely alone together.
5. You have said that you "... thought about Paradise lost, and felt a little saddened by the central image of lucifer or satan being pulled back towards hell or being trapped by something - his own pride?" Do you think Satan was on the right track with his whole "Better to reign in hell" idea, or did he squander the opportunity of being the first being capable of turning towards god?
Satan is all about pride, so everything he says, for me, is kind of loaded with a tint of sadness, of the inability to be honest with himself. The idea of pigheadedly ruling a place that you hate, and that the most wonderful position ever is readily available to you if you just ask forgiveness, but that you are too stubborn to do so, is kind of tragic. However, without him, there'd be no us. I think he just needs to see a really good therapist, and let it all out, that and a hug. |
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