Simple questions often prompt interesting answers, so with this in mind I created a list of thirteen questions for a new interview series. Some of the questions I borrowed from the Proust and Pivot questionnaires, and others are my own. The questions are meant to be fun—for the interviewee and the reader—so I cut out the ones regarding NASCAR.
As you may have noticed, it's interview week here at Ashcan Rantings, and I'm closing the week with author/teacher Christopher Higgs. Leading a busy, artistic life, Christopher runs the web site Bright Stupid Confetti, writes book reviews and short pieces of fiction and teaches at The Ohio State University. Oh, and he eats pineapple pizza.
What is your favorite book?
My likes/dislikes vis-à-vis books, albums, and films seem to shift like costume changes in the theatre: what goes for great one moment will inevitably be usurped a moment later by something even more tantalizing. I think my brain is broken. It seems impossible to commit to these kinds of decisions, but I gave it a fighting chance…
My favorite book is any book that embraces John Hawkes's notion of "the totality of vision or structure," as opposed to those works concerned with conventional narrative techniques, i.e. plot, character, setting, theme.
That said, I am currently mesmerized by E.E. Cummings's ViVa, William Carlos Williams's Paterson and Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons.
A few years ago I might have told you my favorite book was Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but then I would have quickly revised that to include Richard Brautigan's In Watermelon Sugar, and Garcia-Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Nowadays, I am most likely to encourage friends, students, family members, and strangers to read texts by Derrida, Žižek, Deleuze & Guattari, as well as everything by Ben Marcus, David Markson, and Mark Danielewski—all three brilliant, and curiously all with some version of "mar" in their name.
What is your favorite album?
Could I live without Eric Satie's Gymnopedies & Gnossiennes? Maybe, but I wouldn't want to.
What is your favorite film?
At this moment, I am obsessed with Alain Resnais's Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959). Ten years ago, I would have told you my favorite film was Annie Hall (1977). Ten years before that, I probably would have said Goonies (1985). Scribbled at the top of the chalkboard listing my all-time favorites, there are two titles I recommend constantly: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001).
What is your biggest pet peeve?
Four-way tie: general stupidity; nationalism; the perpetuation of "universal truths"; irony.
What is your favorite place?
Geographically: the stretch of beach just north of the pier in Santa Monica, California.
Metaphysically: with my partner, Caitlin.
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
I would like to be a quantum physicist, so I could invent either a cure for death or else a fancy way around it.
What is your biggest indulgence?
The internet.
What is your favorite food?
Pineapple pizza.
What is your favorite word?
Discursive.
What is your least favorite word?
Wrong.
Who do you least respect?
The hegemony.
Who do you most respect?
Intellectuals.
When and where did you answer these questions?
Sitting at our dining room table, on a Sunday evening.
As you may have noticed, it's interview week here at Ashcan Rantings, and I'm closing the week with author/teacher Christopher Higgs. Leading a busy, artistic life, Christopher runs the web site Bright Stupid Confetti, writes book reviews and short pieces of fiction and teaches at The Ohio State University. Oh, and he eats pineapple pizza.
What is your favorite book?
My likes/dislikes vis-à-vis books, albums, and films seem to shift like costume changes in the theatre: what goes for great one moment will inevitably be usurped a moment later by something even more tantalizing. I think my brain is broken. It seems impossible to commit to these kinds of decisions, but I gave it a fighting chance…
My favorite book is any book that embraces John Hawkes's notion of "the totality of vision or structure," as opposed to those works concerned with conventional narrative techniques, i.e. plot, character, setting, theme.
That said, I am currently mesmerized by E.E. Cummings's ViVa, William Carlos Williams's Paterson and Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons.
A few years ago I might have told you my favorite book was Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but then I would have quickly revised that to include Richard Brautigan's In Watermelon Sugar, and Garcia-Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Nowadays, I am most likely to encourage friends, students, family members, and strangers to read texts by Derrida, Žižek, Deleuze & Guattari, as well as everything by Ben Marcus, David Markson, and Mark Danielewski—all three brilliant, and curiously all with some version of "mar" in their name.
What is your favorite album?
Could I live without Eric Satie's Gymnopedies & Gnossiennes? Maybe, but I wouldn't want to.
What is your favorite film?
At this moment, I am obsessed with Alain Resnais's Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959). Ten years ago, I would have told you my favorite film was Annie Hall (1977). Ten years before that, I probably would have said Goonies (1985). Scribbled at the top of the chalkboard listing my all-time favorites, there are two titles I recommend constantly: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001).
What is your biggest pet peeve?
Four-way tie: general stupidity; nationalism; the perpetuation of "universal truths"; irony.
What is your favorite place?
Geographically: the stretch of beach just north of the pier in Santa Monica, California.
Metaphysically: with my partner, Caitlin.
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
I would like to be a quantum physicist, so I could invent either a cure for death or else a fancy way around it.
What is your biggest indulgence?
The internet.
What is your favorite food?
Pineapple pizza.
What is your favorite word?
Discursive.
What is your least favorite word?
Wrong.
Who do you least respect?
The hegemony.
Who do you most respect?
Intellectuals.
When and where did you answer these questions?
Sitting at our dining room table, on a Sunday evening.
