Hello Chista,
I am so excited, and I just can’t hide it. I’m about to lose control and I think I like it. That’s right–It’s your Apostrophecast interview.
Only the questions you do not answer will be included.
1) Have you ever read a book you were embarrassed to be seen reading? What was it? Who caught you?
Yes. A tie between some VC Andrews novel as a pretten and The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook a few years ago. With the first, I was caught by an absolutely aghast nerdy book club friend, and with the second, by a few normal people at a mall food court.
2) Do you own any items that were previously owned by celebrities? If so, what are these items and can you tell us how you got them and who they used to belong to?
?!
3) What is a Zoroastrian and are you one?
Kinda. My grandfather “converted to it” (Zoroastrians don’t really allow this and Muslims are not supposed to do this, so quotes there for many reasons) and my dad considers himself one and so I was raised with it–though not totally init, if that makes sense. My family was pretty irreligious in a day-to-day way but we did go to Zoroastrain temples. But nowadays I don’t think about religion much or practice anything–the material world keeps my hands pretty full.
4) Is it easier to write about being sad or being angry?
Not sure. Let me try it. [I freewrite sadly and then angrily for about 30 seconds.] Okay, I just tried both modes, and I found anger easier, mostly because of the words “fuck” and “shit.” The vocabulary of sadness–my vocabulary at least–has more tricky gradations and additional syllables, like “distraught,” “hopeless,”melancholy,” etc., which have nothing on compact potency of “fuck” and “shit.” (I once ended a paper in high school that involved a topic like this with a grandiose sentence about how I’d pick “fire” if Frost held me at gunpoint, but now I think I’ve always misunderstood that poem).
5) What/how old is/was the oldest pet you’ve ever had?
Kingsley, my greyhound, turns 13 next month. That is not just 91 in dog years, but, like 169 in greyhound years. He does not live with me, but is in the care of wonderful people in my hometown of Pasadena who take him on fancy skiing trips and buy him sessions with magical healers.
6) Name one thing it is impossible to do with the written word.
Earn a living, of course.
7) Who is the most important author you’ve never read? Why haven’t you? Will you ever?
George Elliot. I cannot make it through Middlemarch even though all the people I love the most seem to think it is the best book ever. Her prose and my brain do not mix, I realize time and time again as I keep trying. I have also only made it through the first 30 pages or so–and also multiple times–of Nabokov’s Ada, or Ardor, Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood, and Proust’s Swann’s Way. And yet they are all books I wish I could have “under my belt.” Except Eliot–I am pretty much done caring.
8) What book should someone read if they have just lost their job?
Hmmm. Well, I had a very nice cop in the last writing workshop I taught and he was really into “motivational lit.” In one class, he mentioned some book by a guy with the first name Napoleon that I had never heard of. On the last day of class he brought it for me as a goodbye gift. Think and Grow Rich now sits on my bookshelf. I think about reading it sometimes. It can’t hurt. Although I don’t know for sure, perhaps it would be of use to the unemployed. Otherwise . . . something by Lorrie Moore?
9) What do you think of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad?
Although this is my favorite question ever–and a popular one–it is a sensitive one that can get me in trouble. Ahmadinejad is a blogger, after all. I will say that my feelings are not quite unique. And I am very fascinated by the comments that appear on the sidebar of his blog. And I am mostly pro his shabby chic.
10) Do you prefer New York to Los Angeles?
This is the age-old debate–you lose no matter what, I think. Only sometimes, I guess. But I prefer Brooklyn to Pasadena often.
Thanks ever so,
GBB
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