Several requests to repost landed over th weekend. So, here tis, redux. gs Editors, THE COMMONS, Benn. Col., 11/98 G. SCHROCK ANSWERS OUR QUESTIONS (A LA VANITY FAIR) DO YOU HUNT AND KILL YOUR OWN FOOD? — No. I only kill it. Especially broccoli. I’ve killed thousands. I intend to keep on killing ‘em...until totalitarian vegan PC guilt turns on itself and outlaws even that. HOW FAST CAN YOU ROLL A CIGARETTE? —About what it takes to husk eight ears of field corn, I reckon. Or gut two sow codfish. YOU HAVE SAID THAT DOING SHAKESPEARE SHOULD BE “MORE LIKE GETTING DRUNK AND STEALING CHICKENS.” WHAT EXACTLY DID YOU MEAN BY THAT? —Self-evident. One is better served by eruptive piss & vinegar than (say) bloodless constrictive questions having the word ‘exactly’ in them. DO YOU THINK DEREK (Acting Prof.) WOULD AGREE? —Certainly. In fact it was Derek who first used the phrase. He and I were in a Duluth pub some years back, slam-dancing & raising hell. Celebrating the death of Spiro Agnew. IF YOU AND BILL (Dean of Faculty) WERE TO FIGHT, WHO WOULD WIN? —Nobody. We’d all lose. We’d be a campus without a Dean. And I, without his friendship. DO YOU THINK YOU COULD TAKE ON BOTH Bill AND PAUL RENZI WITH ONE HAND TIED BEHIND YOUR BACK? —Let it be here recorded that this questionnaire was handed to me by a woman. These ain’t the sort of fantasies I entertain. Or any man I know. No doubt I’m woefully sheltered. But I know an itch towards inductive femme predation when I see it. WHY ALL THE REFERENCES TO TRUDY (head of Psyche Services)? —Trudy and I are close friends, going way back. Spent years together in the Peace Corps. In Machu Picchu. Developing new strains of brooder ducks. It’s where the idea of Field Work Term came from. DO YOU THINK YOU COULD BUILD ALL OF THE NEW STUDENT HOUSES WITH YOUR BARE HANDS? —I doubt it. In cold weather I’d need to wear gloves. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A CHAIN SAW? —I tend not to spend time gazing into chain saws. Human nature is another matter. (There may be a connection there that I’ve missed. I’ll mull it further...) DO YOU KNOW HOW BAD-ASS YOU ARE? —No idea what that means. I’m the sort of un-hip coot who, when he hears the word ‘word’, thinks first of the Book of Genesis. WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT? —Riding a bike without brakes after a triple-hernia operation at age nine, into a lilac bush. Memorable stupidity. WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF PERFECT HAPPINESS? —Same as my idea of a perfect love: the silly cant of perfect fools. WHICH TALENT WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO HAVE? —That which would make full use of those others given me. WHAT IS YOUR MOST IMPRESSIVE CHARACTERISTIC? —Perhaps that I have no interest whatsoever in the answer to that kind of question. WHAT IS IT THAT YOU MOST DISLIKE? —Triangulating gossip. An odious trait especially peculiar to Academia and which, like the Bubonic Plague, needs a rat to carry it forward. (Also: cheap cynicism: the protective condom of a Shaken Romantic). WHICH HISTORICAL FIGURE DO YOU MOST IDENTIFY WITH? —Albert Schweitzer. Except that I murder gnats & black flies and don’t much fool around with organs in public. WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST EXTRAVAGANCE? —Poverty. (Patience, too, to a fault….a close second.) WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE JOURNEY? —The one shared by all, coursing between our flanking great mysteries, Birth and Death. WHAT DO YOU REGARD AS THE LOWEST DEPTH OF MISERY? —Dreams deferred… with time running out. WHICH LIVING PERSON DO YOU MOST ADMIRE? —Wendell Barry. Or maybe Dave Barry. Depends on my mood. Definitely not Barry Manilow. ON WHAT OCCASION DO YOU LIE? —This one. WHAT IS THE QUALITY YOU MOST LIKE IN A WOMAN? —That she be neither victim nor tyrant...yet knoweth who she be, and is at peace with it. (And asks the same of me, and of thee.) WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE THE MOST OVERRATED VIRTUE? —Chronic PC amiability, couched in a supercilious voice. It invariably masks a vile agenda: insidious New Age psycho-panhandling. WHO ARE YOUR FAVORITE WRITERS? —Isaac Babel. Chekhov. Gide’s journals. And: the sky-writing Ripley Brothers from Rye, N.Y. They had a biplane. One notable campaign: they hawked Filberts Shepherd’s Pie aloft in a series of sky-scripted limericks. Died in ‘89. Engine stalled while dotting an ‘i’ in the word ‘illative’. IF YOU WERE TO DIE AND COME BACK AS A PERSON OR THING, WHAT DO YOU THINK IT WOULD BE? —A 200 yr-old barn. Full of singing Mennonites. - - - - -
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 02:50:36 +0000
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