Diablevert

Confidential to H. Banaenae

My cousin posted a list of questions---her metal flotsam---in her semi-private online diary. In a move that I anticipate will amuse myself alone, I'm answering them here. If anyone wants to Jeopardy-style the questions to these answers, feel free to avail yourself of the comments.

1. You were cursed by Gypsies as a small child. Did no one tell you?

2. In the last place you will look for them.

3. Sheer ineptitude----excuse me, I mean sheer endearing ineptitude.

4. Karma

5. Becasue you are not an the descendant of an ancient line of African priestesses, all of whom have white hair, blue eyes, and the potential to wield magic. It's a well-known requirement.

6. The day before the civil war starts.

7. It is one of the very qualities which defnies the class; e.g., why can a dog bark? Because if it couldn't it wouldn't be a dog...

8. You can, you're just being a pussy. But, we love you anyway.

9. Steve Martin (13 times)

10. You hated it.

11. If you don't know, I can't tell you.

12. 4,850 miles (7,805 km). Or as close as the nearest Getz/Gilberto CD

14. Why don't you ask Sam instead of the internet, eh?

15. Probably not, but it's difficult to say. See also: Occam's Razor, the Problem of Evil, Pascal's Wager, and Rev. Lovejoy: "Short answer, yes with an if, long answer, no with a but."

16. Maybe he's turning into Rick Bayless.

17. Well, where were you when you woke up this morning? You started there, did some stuff, and there you are.

18. Yes.

19. Because Clear Channel is the devil.

20. You could try here, but probably your best bet is Ebay.

21. Because if there's no way it will work in the first place you don't have to tell them you like them and risk hearing that they don't like you back. At least, that's why I do it.

22. See above. Also, Rio is a lovely background for idle daydreams.

23. Personally, my bet is not much. If worst comes to worst, I'll be right.

24. Pablo Neruda and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are usually throwing heavy elbows for top spot in this dog fight, with some people plumping for Auden as the dark horse, and Shakespear's had his number retired, but for myself, I think I'd choose "Elegy," by Jorge Luis Borges, (though some might think it doesn't qualify). Illegally reproduced below:

Elegy
Oh destiny of Borges
to have sailed across the diverse seas of the world
or across that single and solitary sea of diverse names,
to have been a part of Edinburgh, of Zurich, of the two Cordobas,
of Colombia and of Texas,
to have returned at the end of changing generations
to the ancient lands of his forebears,
to Andalucia, to Portugal and to those counties
where the Saxon warred with the Dane and they mixed their blood,
to have wandered through the red and tranquil labyrinth of London,
to have grown old in so many mirrors,
to have sought in vain the marble gaze of the statues,
to have questioned lithographs, encyclopedias, atlases,
to have seen the things that men see,
death, the sluggish dawn, the plains,
and the delicate stars,
and to have seen nothing, or almost nothing
except the face of a girl from Buenos Aires
a face that does not want you to remember it.
Oh destiny of Borges,
perhaps no stranger than your own.

25. My favorite is Lolita; I first read it when I was fifteen and have never read another that caused me to stop and lift my head from the page to pause in sheer stupified wonder so many times. However, the best is probably Madame Bovary. I knew the end before I read it; if you don't, read it now before somebody ruins it for you.

26. At one time I thought it was The Princess Bride; I might plump for Ninotchka now, or Aresenic and Old Lace, or The Thin Man.

27. Too many to pick, as you should well know. For saddest I'd say Nina Simone singing Ne Me Quitte Pas.

28. Fuckin' Mormans, I'm telling you. They go young.

29. 2.5 square miles.

Incidentally, I know this limerick....What? It's about a bucket.

30. I dunno. But don't worry about it overmuch. See: Roald Dahl's Matilda, or Stephen King's Firestarter. (I hear Drew Barrymore is delightfully kitschy.)

31. Yes, only they suck.

32. First of all: Imdb, foo. Learn it, live it, love it. Second: David Ogden Stiers, best known as the pompous know-it-all Winchester in the T.V. version of M*A*S*H.

33. Because the third act needs a ballad and a tragic death, and you can't have the pretty-boy hero die. What do you think this is, opera?

34. Yes.

35. Apathy, buddism, drinking enough to see the monkey. There are many methods. They all imply a necessary acceptance of imperfection.

36. Yeah, probably, but the Republicans were afraid we'd elect Roosevelt Presidente-for-life if given half a chance, thus the 22nd ammendment.

37. No. People confuse goodness with idealism, herosim, beauty --- the usual fizzy ingredients in the martrydom cocktail. But given human nature, emitting a lifetime's worth of low-wattage kindness and compassion is a lot more difficult than a few years of blazing intergrity, but it certianly occurs.

Plus we like them better when they leave but one pretty memory to fit on the postage stamp, viz. James Dean. Fat Elvis never had a chance.

Unless ...you don't mean the song? Do you? I assume you do not. Because---and I say this knowing that Sull is going to get on a plane and come over here and beat me because of it----Billy Joel blows donkey balls.

38. There are two ways of looking at this. One---and this goes for both you and the freshman stoners who debated this through every fifth-period art class back in 1997---the motherfucker was shot four times. It's over. He daid. I'm handing out the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, and if you don't shut up, I'm going to make you read it.

Two: Not so long as Death Row and his momma keep on squeezin'. Can you say, "Tribute Albumn Remix: The Anniversary Edition"?

39. No. Respoding to it without posting the refernces, comme moi, is way, way more annoying. And I used French. Who wins the bigger asshole prize? Me, me, me.

40. I second Sull's motion.

41. The fact that you are wondering about this demonstrates that you are truly a Bostonian at heart.

42. Most people prefer free will; lottery winners don't care much either way. But perhaps it would be better to think of it this way: if you end up a homeless person, would you rather believe that it was your fault that you're a homeless person or that you were destined from birth to be a homeless person?

43. Mutual respect and open communication, shared interests. Frequent laughter. Tenderness.

44. If you mean the type of thing I think you mean, perhaps in some extremely limited circumstances. See: Edgar Allen Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."

45. Probably not; boys are dumb.

46. Because he had long desired to become a minor demi-god in the church of bad poetry, whose worshippers are legion. His apostles are even now laying another row of tiled mosic in the alcove of their icon, thier flowing purple robes stained with laquer and dusted in gold flake.

Just as Che Guevara's ambition was for his pretty face to sell a lot of t-shirts, the weft of which is cotton but the warp irony (resulting in a poly-cotton blend, machine washable, but not too warm or the colors will run).

47. Depends whether you want to be dead at thirty or a hundred.

48. Now or never.