Barbelith Underground > Conversation > The New 5 Questions Thread

Spyder, Interrogator Extraordinaire, asks, and I answer.

1.)You’ve just been granted the Power Cosmic by Galactus, Devourer of Worlds. Sure, you can never see your homeworld or significant other ever again, but you did just save your entire species, which is good. So, now you have to find places for your big purple-tuning-fork loving master to quite literally eat. A decent enough job I guess, and since he eats freaking planets, he only has to do it once every six months or so. What do you do with all your excess amounts of both free time and cosmic power?

My initial thought, for some reason, was that I would use all of my power in an attempt to make the best cup of tea ever (“EVAR!!1!”). I like tea but I’ve moved to coffee recently, which I drink black, partly because I enjoy it that way but also partly for the ‘what the hell is wrong with you?’ reactions that I get from most of my friends.

I dunno- there’re a ton of things which I wish I was good at, so I’d probably take some time to learn those. All the talk about juggling on here has reminded me that I never did learn to do four balls very well, and I’ve always wanted to learn martial arts, and how to swing dance. That last would be difficult if I couldn’t have contact with any of my species, but maybe big G would be willing to partner up with me while I learned the ropes. Who knows- maybe it would mellow him out a little bit, too, and he’d chill out with the whole ‘eating inhabited planets’ thing.

I’d like to say that eventually I would rebel against him and all that, but really, I’d probably be having too much fun, plus I’m lazy.

I also would like to see the inside of a black hole or star, although I doubt the experience would be as interesting as I hope.

2.)What’s your favorite play by Marlowe or Shakespeare, and why?

Somewhat regrettably I haven’t read or seen any Marlowe; I feel bad about this because I actually know the man. It was with some surprise a few years ago that I- I, who has had zero contact with any famous people, ever- discovered that I was friends with his reincarnation. Shocking enough to find out that Mr. Marlowe had been reincarnated in the first place; even more shocking indeed to find that he had been reborn as one of my friends, S.

The way we found out was this: another friend of ours, D, was making a documentary for a film class, on a group who met regularly to discuss UFO abductions and their beliefs about the impending end of the world and various government conspiracies. This group involved the organizer (G; not Galactus) and his girlfriend, as well as a few other people, and took place in a new-age bookstore located in the middle of an industrial park. Anyway, S and I were wandering around the bookstore and ran across a book positing that Shakespeare had in reality been Francis Bacon, who had really been the immortal Comte de St. Germaine. G came over and started talking about it with us. S defended Shakespeare as a real person, at which point G told him he was Christopher Marlowe reborn, and that he was nobly trying to defend his fellow playwright. S appeared to take this in stride.

The whole thing was a really bizarre experience, totally unlike anything I’d ever been to before. I wasn’t entirely sure how to approach the meeting; D and S were clearly coming at it from a position of amused skepticism. I’m a skeptic and it’s easy to laugh about it in retrospect, but at the same time I felt guilty because this seemed an important part of how the people in the group made sense of the world (G’s girlfriend in particular), and also because they were all really, really nice to us. We went out for ice cream with them afterwards.

So yeah, haven’t read any Marlowe. My favorite Shakespeare play- I’m going to be boring and go with Hamlet, although Much Ado About Nothing gets props because Branagh’s version had Keanu Reaves in it. Does Complt Wrks count? Because that was funny.

3.)Since you seem to have fun with a variety of phobias, which phobias is your personal favorite, why, and tell us of any personal experiences regarding this phobia (if it’s not overly personal, of course).

Yesterday, watching the Bastogne episode of Band of Brothers, I was reminded of my intense dislike of needles, which actually isn’t much fun at all, and has made doctors appointments pure hell in the past. I think an association between needles and hard drugs is a large part of why I’ll never do anything harder than pot, maybe shrooms. Heroin’s pretty much out of the question. Thinking about needles hurts my collarbones, for some reason. It’s odd.

The weirdest one I can think of: there are certain words which I flat-out can’t say. Even thinking about them now makes me agitated. Some of them are pretty random but thematically, a lot of them are linked, and relate to a very specific and totally ridiculous hang-up I have over something that is completely, utterly innocuous, which I can’t even write down because it’s so agitating. Even writing that just now made me wince and clench my hands a few times. It’s odd because context seems to make all the difference: I can handle the sound of the words if it is a part of a larger word, and I have no problem with some of them which are part of, say, phrases or place names which in context change their meanings. There’s one word in particular which I can tell you with near-total confidence I have never said in my life, except as part of a specific phrase which changes the word’s meaning.

As a three-year-old, I also had acute largescaryanimateddinosaurophobia. I distinctly remember looking away from the TV and calling for my mom when this bundle of terror appeared:

Lest I give the impression that I am a non-functional mass of quivering gelatinous fear, I assure you that is not the case. These are all pretty minor and don’t impair my functionality except in a few instances (one specific instance, and my frustration with it, is the source of my current ficsuit, by the way). Mostly they’re just an annoyance; it helps to laugh at them.

4.)Train A is westbound, at a velocity of 75 mph. Train B is heading south, but the track curls to be going eastward about 30 miles after Train B leaves. Train B is going steadily at 60 mph. Both trains left at the same time. And some moron has managed to get both trains to be on the same track. Asshole. So, 45 minutes after each train departs, they collide. My question for you is this: what was the relative distance that train A traveled before it became a casualty of one of the greatest train related accidents of the decade?

A train disaster, you say? When faced with these sorts of tragedies I immediately think of this poem.

I read it aloud in English class once and totally cracked up at this part:

I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses

I try to live my life by these simple words of wisdom.

5.)Tell us about your favorite type of cheese.

Action movies made in the 1980s. Aside from the highest ratio of hilarious one-liners to actual script, the utterly ridiculous plots, the wooden acting, and the horrible dialogue, I love the political and sexual subtext and how contradictory the two are. The movies are breathtakingly, wonderfully homoerotic, wrapped in a hilarious package of political conservatism and attempts to construct an ideal masculinity. In general I equate ‘conservative’ with ‘homophobic’ (which I readily admit may be problematic) and supportive of traditional sexual roles, and so I find the juxtaposition extremely amusing.

My other favorite type of cheese is a havarti which I ate with a loaf of cheese-and-onion bread while in Canada two summers ago. Delicious.

The Falcon

17:12 / 11.04.06

Here's my interview from Boboss, which I've taken a few days to get round to, but given it took him in excess of a year to compose (?) I'm sure we still cool.

> Hi Duncs, here's my long promised 5 questions for the quiz thread.
>
> 1. You've been posting here for a good few years now, what's the attraction?

Ah, it's fairly simple, I guess. Habit (I'm really bad for becoming habituated on the 'net in particular. I go round my favourites folder, and not much else. I'm always really grateful of a good link.) and a blend of culture and intellect that I can totally identify with, to some extent, and admire, to another. I mean, I came because of the comics, but scooting round the other fora when I lurked, just before an open membership period back in 2002, there was articulate, illuminating chat on Philip K. Dick, the Neptunes and Wu-Tang, etc. To me, that's pretty much ideal - along with Grant Morrison comics, the aforementioned three comprised pretty much the entirety of my major 21st century obsessions. So, 'cultural identity'; funnily, I was doing a bit on Computer-Mediated Communication for my postgrad, and the 'Britishness' of the site came out my mouth as another reason why I was down. This is not intended as a slight on the commentators we have from other countries, but I was I think initially drawn to, in particular, Glasgow and Brighton posters as kindred spirits.

I'm down with the politics and that, too, but it maybe was a bit of a surprise - the militancy - when I first came on given how unused to that I was. But it was, you know, right for the most part. On occasions, and this was a surprise given I consider myself a pretty strong personality, I found my identity did become subsumed to a degree; I mean, ethically now, I do think in a much more 'Barbelith' way, e.g. casual homophobia leads to a rash, where perhaps growing up in the wilds of NE Scotland, it'd've originally slid past with nary a mention. I think this constitiutes an improvement in myself, though. So, that's the 'admiration' part, I guess.

> 2. Misanthropy is..?

Misanthropy is hating people. How does it work, you mean? I guess, when I think of it, I think of smallish parochial groupings sharing an identity which precludes others whether it's (somewhat more seriously) the BNP or (less so) a group of stoners from my hometown, who me and pals were tangentially connected with, but whom we ultimately had to dub as 'The Family'. It's an attitude I've (kind of) formerly held myself, too, that "me + circle of friends = brilliant, clever, etc. Everyone else = useless dicks". I guess the dynamic can alter to centre around family, skin colour, hometown, etc. or if you have no friends; the notion of a true misanthrope, hated by (if they gave a shit) and hating absolutely everyone kind of fascinates me. I don't know if I've met any of those people.

> 3. What do you daydream about?

Ah, comics to a ridiculous extent, probably. Ideas & characters that I never write down, cosmologies of existent characters and writers oeuvres. My girlfriend. Prime numbers are a kind of annoying fascination. (My dad's a maths teacher, which may explain the last one, but they're so annoying/interesting; no discernable pattern.)

> 4. "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" is Optimus Prime's motto, what's yours?

God, I don't have one prepared. Optimus Prime is enormously important to me as a moral exemplar, and his was always my favourite Transformer motto. It's so awesome that they all have them. I'm totally checking tech spec sites now, for one to crib. Megatron's is 'Peace through tyranny.', fyi. Hum, it's all a bit onerous; I'm torn between Spinger's 'Strength is more than physical' and Scattershot's 'Decepticons are like rust spots - they're ugly and they can pop up anywhere.'

> 5. Okay so you're on Desert Island Discs, what makes it onto your list?

Had to check the rules for this one also. Eight pieces of music, and I know you hate lists.

So.

First up, I'd have 'X-French Tee Shirt' by Shudder to Think. This is all gonna be kinda stuck in the 90's, I fear, when the music I listened to was absolutely integral to my sense of self. It's quite a simple song, but Craig Wedren's falsetto is amazing, builds up and then the breathless' Holdbacktheroadthatgoessothattheothersmaydothatyouletmeinjusttopourmedowntheirmouths' buildy bit that is the culmination (2/3 of the song, actually) is just the bomb. STT were a funny band, always cited as being very influenced by Queen, despite also being part of the Washington DC post-punk scene with the likes of Fugazi. I don't especially like Queen. They did have a lot of time changes and funny, baroque song structures, kinda stream of thought lyrics. Anyway, this is my favourite song by my favourite rock band off my favourite album, so yes. That.

Now, as mentioned, I've got to have some Wu, but it's very difficult to pick a favourite. I want one of the centrepieces off 'Rza as Bobby Digital in Stereo', and listening to it now, I'ma go for 'Terrorist' which is a bit of a departure, really dub-heavy, breakbeat drum patterning and the oft-dismissed Black Knights dropping verses fast as fuuuck. One's called Holocaust, and that makes me think of the dystopian Age of Apocalypse era X-Men character; no bad thing. Rza's my favourite. I always like the leaders best*; Optimus Prime, Cyclops, etc.

*I am aware that technically if the Wu form like Voltron, Gza is the head, but Rza does nearly all the music and is de facto boss in my book.

Thereafter, in order to make it look like i know something about electronic music/have some variety, I'd go for 'Style' by Orbital from the 'Middle of Nowhere' album. I just like the bubbly bleeps best on this song. It reminds me of ecstasy summers, after-parties and that too. It's got that good cumulative thing they always talk about in the dance music context, more stuff gets chucked into the mix, stripped away, put back and it reaches a sweet crescendo. 'Now I'm aching for you' is the lyric and that'd segue into the love song next up...

I'd have 'No Turning Back' by Kelis off her 'Kaleidoscope' album. This is probably my favourite Neptunes production, it's a shame they've gone a wee bit shit, because for a while it seemed as if all black pop ever was going to be written by them and be great. This's got the archetypal kick-drum, juicy bass allied with Kelis perfumed, multi-tracked vocals and it's just about love. It's a total triumph of production, and features one-time mancrush Pharrell on background vocals. In the context of the album, which I could honestly select about half of, it makes me think of space-stations and psychedelia too.

I'd also pop for 'Salton City' by Hot Sankes off their 'Automatic Midnight' album, which is imo the greatest rock song ever recorded. I'm not even that much of a fan of the rest of the rest of the album, in comparison, or lead singer Speedo's oeuvre (Rocket From The Crypt, Drive like Jehu) but this. It's pretty dark shit ('But I read up on Bergen, Belsen...',) seguing into some sexy drums, the best, heaviest riff ever and a female vocal intoning repeatedly 'Give us a kiss'. It is a loud, smoky club and hard liquor and various other cliches. Gasoline. Snouts. I grew up a metal kid, a mosher; I can't help it.

After that, I'd have, ahh... this is getting difficult. I'd have 'Delorean' by El-P from 'Fantastic Damage', because there's a lot of lyrics I've still to absorb from it, it's built around a blazing sirenal loop, has wacked-out time changes, and is generally fucking awesome. Bonus points for the Back to the Future referent.

There's quite a lot left to choose from, and i'm leaving out the whole of Greg Dulli's back catalogue, Come, Girls Against Boys and various other 90's rock favourites for these last two, which have the bonus of having been recently heard on their side. The first is 'My Favourite Mutiny' by the Coup which features my favourite couplet ever: 'Death to the pigs is my basic statement/I spit street stories 'til I taste the pavement' and is the newest slice of their revolutionary, incendiary rap I'm aware of.

Lastly, I'm opting for Helium's 'Silver Strings' from their 'No Guitars' e.p. which may well be quite old, but I only got hold of recently. Helium, fronted by Mary Timony, are particularly evocative of the mid-90's to me, I remember seeing them on Beavis and Butthead, just that collegiate rock sound, probably reading oddball poetry, wonky time-sigs (again; here, slide guitar to riffology.) This has a particularly nice drum machine bit too.

*Phew* That's probably my longest post ever, hope someone reads it.