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last of May, first of June Memery
Jun. 8th, 2023 09:13 pmLast of May!
29. Would you ever be interested in going scuba diving?
I hella would if I were physically capable of it. I love water, and I'd love to be able to swim deep underwater.
30. What posters did you have on your walls growing up?
Ones I remember -- anti-draft and anti-nuke painted protest signs I'd made myself. A HUGE poster of a 19th c. engraving of a steam train on a rickety chasm-crossing scaffolding bridge, halfway across with the bridge fallen -- the only words on that poster were "Oh, shit". A drawing based on "99 Luftballons" in crayon on a big piece of crappy art paper (aphasia has knocked the name out -- oh, yeah. Newsprint. I THINK) with attached political stickers on the door to my room. (Some of those, Sabotabby, were "Oui" stickers from the 1980 Referendum). I think a copy of the Warhol portrait of Che Guevara? (Not that I knew it was Andy Warhol's until literally this year... I should have TIL'd that information on FB). And a Cuban Communist Party colorful poster about July 26th, I think. Were there any posters that were just art? I am trying to remember. I ... don't think so? I did get my mother a huge art print (matted, which made me feel super sophisticated, almost adult) of Matisse's Still Life with Apples on Pink Cloth. But that was in the living room. I did not have any Tiger Beat posters up, but in my era, if I had, it would have been Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett. A friend had those. I am somewhat surprised I did not have a poster of Rosa Luxemburg up, now that I think of it.
31. What was the first video game you remember playing?
When I went to work for the Fourth International in 1988, translating French and Spanish to English, doing some interpreting, and managing subscriptions to International Viewpoint*, there was some weird funding connection to somebody who was an early programmer for Apple, and he'd donated some of those doorstop early Apple SEs. On it was installed this really cool game (honestly probably ALMOST the only game I have enjoyed, the others being Civ VI and Sims in most of its versions) I constantly forget the name of where your player character wakes up as an amnesiac boxer/detective who is being framed for something and goes around collecting clues to try to solve his own (poison) murder before it's final. Something like that. I loved that game, though it was buggy as hell and I could only play it once in a while, at work. I never solved it. Déja Vu, that was its name.
June
1. What are you most excited about?
Maybe using this summer to write? And to water walk?
2. What were your favorite mall stores when you were in high school?
I don't think I really went to malls before grad school. I don't remember any stores I like in malls even now, except (and these are shameful admissions) Barnes & Noble (aka Bunns & Noodle, in DTWOF**) and the Apple Store. In stores I remember fondly from high school that weren't in malls. one was a punk record (and make-up) store in Chicago called Wax Trax. It's not that I liked most punk music (I was wishy-washy, though I went to some underage shows... I liked the Dead Kennedys and the Clash honestly, and was willing to listen to Crass for the politics, and hated Industrial music like Throbbing Gristle) but that it was such a moment of the zeitgeist for rebellious youth in 1982. And the other store I remember well was a store that was sort of the non-corporate Cost Plus/World Market -- called The Mexican Shoppe, which had amazing jewelry and ethnic clothes from different places that almost never fit me and little tchotchkes that were adorable.
3. Have you ever accidentally caught something on fire?
Yes. A friend of mine who lived downstairs in our two-flat and I were playing some make-believe game where we were Chinese merchants selling candles up in the attic, largely because I had some Chinese cash coins, and also a probably Japanese old ratty kimono I now realize my mother's dad brought back after WWII. But we were demonstrating the candles on an old mattress, to our audience of younger sisters, one mine, one his. And we didn't realize that sparks that fell onto the mattress were not actually extinguished, once we couldn't see anything visibly on fire. So the whole thing smouldered away, and probably would have burnt our two-flat to the ground that night, except that Benji went back up to the attic for something he'd forgotten, maybe around 8 PM. Fucking terror. All the adults in the place pulled the mattress (luckily it hadn't spread, yet) to the alley and hacked it into tiny wet pieces. My parents ALMOST spanked me, and then didn't, since it was clear I knew exactly how fucked up and stupid that had been.
4. Are you at all interested in fashion?
"I'm interested in fashion for the same reasons I'm interested in art generally--for what it says about the human nature and the artist and wearer. I don't understand most high-end fashion, and I'm not into brands, but I do love seeing clothes that flatter the person who's wearing them. I also love really well-made clothes, which is increasingly rare and not for the average person."
I like Microbie's answer and I cannot say anything much. I enjoy shows where people design fashion -- e.g. Project Runway, but actual fashion shows leave me cold. I do like it when people have access to and wear things that they look nice (and comfortable) in. I have loved three years of wearing pyjamas, especially wildly patterned pyjama bottoms and regular t-shirts and cardigans, AND I WANT TO WEAR THOSE THINGS TO REGULAR WORK NEXT YEAR. Why can't I???????
5. Where in your life do you feel disorganized?
I am pretty organized. Not quite painfully OCD, but pretty organized, with an underlayer of laziness.
*IV is only online now, but one thing that job fostered in me is an absolutely native ability not in French AS A WHOLE, though I sound very authentic and can fool people -- did, all that year in Paris, into thinking I am Québecois or Belgian, basically -- but natively fluent in left-wing POLITICAL French. If I listen to any of the podcasts or interviews from either the NPA (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) or others -- one has the delightful title of "Le Poing Hebdo du NPA" and it is completely comprehensible with no effort, and that is so nice.
**DID YOU KNOW that (I learned this from Alison Bechdel's LJ, which, yes, she still updates sometimes, even if I am not a fan of her goddamned healthy life skiing memoir) Dykes to Watch Out For has been made into a Podcast/novel with AMAZING casting, available on Audible? Jane Lynch is the narrator!! Roxane Gay is Jezanna! I've never heard of Carrie Brownstein, but I imagine she's good -- she's Mo. Oh, she's from Sleater-Kinney and Portlandia. And Roberta Colindrez (from the new A League of their Own, which I have to say I LOVED) is Lois. I have gotten it, but I haven't listened yet.
29. Would you ever be interested in going scuba diving?
I hella would if I were physically capable of it. I love water, and I'd love to be able to swim deep underwater.
30. What posters did you have on your walls growing up?
Ones I remember -- anti-draft and anti-nuke painted protest signs I'd made myself. A HUGE poster of a 19th c. engraving of a steam train on a rickety chasm-crossing scaffolding bridge, halfway across with the bridge fallen -- the only words on that poster were "Oh, shit". A drawing based on "99 Luftballons" in crayon on a big piece of crappy art paper (aphasia has knocked the name out -- oh, yeah. Newsprint. I THINK) with attached political stickers on the door to my room. (Some of those, Sabotabby, were "Oui" stickers from the 1980 Referendum). I think a copy of the Warhol portrait of Che Guevara? (Not that I knew it was Andy Warhol's until literally this year... I should have TIL'd that information on FB). And a Cuban Communist Party colorful poster about July 26th, I think. Were there any posters that were just art? I am trying to remember. I ... don't think so? I did get my mother a huge art print (matted, which made me feel super sophisticated, almost adult) of Matisse's Still Life with Apples on Pink Cloth. But that was in the living room. I did not have any Tiger Beat posters up, but in my era, if I had, it would have been Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett. A friend had those. I am somewhat surprised I did not have a poster of Rosa Luxemburg up, now that I think of it.
31. What was the first video game you remember playing?
When I went to work for the Fourth International in 1988, translating French and Spanish to English, doing some interpreting, and managing subscriptions to International Viewpoint*, there was some weird funding connection to somebody who was an early programmer for Apple, and he'd donated some of those doorstop early Apple SEs. On it was installed this really cool game (honestly probably ALMOST the only game I have enjoyed, the others being Civ VI and Sims in most of its versions) I constantly forget the name of where your player character wakes up as an amnesiac boxer/detective who is being framed for something and goes around collecting clues to try to solve his own (poison) murder before it's final. Something like that. I loved that game, though it was buggy as hell and I could only play it once in a while, at work. I never solved it. Déja Vu, that was its name.
June
1. What are you most excited about?
Maybe using this summer to write? And to water walk?
2. What were your favorite mall stores when you were in high school?
I don't think I really went to malls before grad school. I don't remember any stores I like in malls even now, except (and these are shameful admissions) Barnes & Noble (aka Bunns & Noodle, in DTWOF**) and the Apple Store. In stores I remember fondly from high school that weren't in malls. one was a punk record (and make-up) store in Chicago called Wax Trax. It's not that I liked most punk music (I was wishy-washy, though I went to some underage shows... I liked the Dead Kennedys and the Clash honestly, and was willing to listen to Crass for the politics, and hated Industrial music like Throbbing Gristle) but that it was such a moment of the zeitgeist for rebellious youth in 1982. And the other store I remember well was a store that was sort of the non-corporate Cost Plus/World Market -- called The Mexican Shoppe, which had amazing jewelry and ethnic clothes from different places that almost never fit me and little tchotchkes that were adorable.
3. Have you ever accidentally caught something on fire?
Yes. A friend of mine who lived downstairs in our two-flat and I were playing some make-believe game where we were Chinese merchants selling candles up in the attic, largely because I had some Chinese cash coins, and also a probably Japanese old ratty kimono I now realize my mother's dad brought back after WWII. But we were demonstrating the candles on an old mattress, to our audience of younger sisters, one mine, one his. And we didn't realize that sparks that fell onto the mattress were not actually extinguished, once we couldn't see anything visibly on fire. So the whole thing smouldered away, and probably would have burnt our two-flat to the ground that night, except that Benji went back up to the attic for something he'd forgotten, maybe around 8 PM. Fucking terror. All the adults in the place pulled the mattress (luckily it hadn't spread, yet) to the alley and hacked it into tiny wet pieces. My parents ALMOST spanked me, and then didn't, since it was clear I knew exactly how fucked up and stupid that had been.
4. Are you at all interested in fashion?
"I'm interested in fashion for the same reasons I'm interested in art generally--for what it says about the human nature and the artist and wearer. I don't understand most high-end fashion, and I'm not into brands, but I do love seeing clothes that flatter the person who's wearing them. I also love really well-made clothes, which is increasingly rare and not for the average person."
I like Microbie's answer and I cannot say anything much. I enjoy shows where people design fashion -- e.g. Project Runway, but actual fashion shows leave me cold. I do like it when people have access to and wear things that they look nice (and comfortable) in. I have loved three years of wearing pyjamas, especially wildly patterned pyjama bottoms and regular t-shirts and cardigans, AND I WANT TO WEAR THOSE THINGS TO REGULAR WORK NEXT YEAR. Why can't I???????
5. Where in your life do you feel disorganized?
I am pretty organized. Not quite painfully OCD, but pretty organized, with an underlayer of laziness.
*IV is only online now, but one thing that job fostered in me is an absolutely native ability not in French AS A WHOLE, though I sound very authentic and can fool people -- did, all that year in Paris, into thinking I am Québecois or Belgian, basically -- but natively fluent in left-wing POLITICAL French. If I listen to any of the podcasts or interviews from either the NPA (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) or others -- one has the delightful title of "Le Poing Hebdo du NPA" and it is completely comprehensible with no effort, and that is so nice.
**DID YOU KNOW that (I learned this from Alison Bechdel's LJ, which, yes, she still updates sometimes, even if I am not a fan of her goddamned healthy life skiing memoir) Dykes to Watch Out For has been made into a Podcast/novel with AMAZING casting, available on Audible? Jane Lynch is the narrator!! Roxane Gay is Jezanna! I've never heard of Carrie Brownstein, but I imagine she's good -- she's Mo. Oh, she's from Sleater-Kinney and Portlandia. And Roberta Colindrez (from the new A League of their Own, which I have to say I LOVED) is Lois. I have gotten it, but I haven't listened yet.