cutriver

Been kind of distracted recently by work (Kafka, Borges), by the absurd project of going to the cinema 14 times in 14 days (don't try this at home kids) and by my impossible imponderable decision (repeat after me: the first decision was the right decision the first decision was the right decision the first decision was the right decision), so not finding much time for SG.

In the meantime, here's a questionnaire. Everyone loves a questionnaire, right? This one I found in the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles, devised by Sophie Calle and Grgoire Bouiller, translated by my own fair hand. It's kinda long and takes some thinking about, but consider it your homework for the next week or so. I want answers.

1. When was the last time you died?
- When I failed to speak to Jacques Rivette even though he was standing right in front of me.
2. What gets you up in the morning?
- The terror or mortality and the horror of routine.
3. What has become of your childhood dreams?
- Well I'm a writer, just not the right kind. I never got very far as a stuntman.
4. What distinguishes you from other people?
- An unbridgeable distance.
5. Do you believe anyone can be an artist?
- Anyone, but not everyone.
6. Where are you from?
- The English middle class, for whom mobility is a virtue. When Ian Brown or Liam Gallagher, or whichever Mancunian it was, declared 'It ain't where you're from, it's where you're at', I doubt whether he realised just what a middle-class slogan this was. For the working classes, on the contrary, it has always been, and always remains, about where you're from.
7. Do you consider your destiny to be a desirable one?
- Only when seen from the outside. You oughta try living it.
8. What have you given up?
- Television. It was easy.
9. What do you do with your money?
- Spend most of it on books, records and movies. And booze.
10. What household chore do you find most offputting?
- Pretty much all of them, but especially vacuuming and dusting. I don't believe I have ever dusted.
11. What are you favourite pleasures?
- A margarita just the right side of sour; a guitar solo just the right side of pompous; a love story just the right side of sentimental.
12. What would you like for your birthday?
- Sex. Let's not, ahem, beat about the bush.
13. Name three living artists you hate.
- Charlie Kaufman, Bjrk, Christopher Walken. (This is a perfectly glib response: I am jealous of Charlie Kaufman; I have 'nothing but respect' for Bjrk; Christopher Walken has been in some great movies. The truth is, I could never hate an artist, and if I hate them, they're not artists.)
14. What do you defend?
- The right to change one's mind.
15. What are you able to refuse?
- Cannabis. It refuses me.
16. Which part of your body is the most fragile?
- Knees.
17. What have you ever done for love?
- Learned how to drink all day without passing out.
18. What do people reproach you for?
- Not smiling enough.
19. What is art for?
- Making life bearable.
20. Write your own epitaph.
'He tried to understand.'
21. What would you like to come back as?
- A female.

Thanks for all your long replies to this foolhardy questionnaire. It'll probably take me a while to digest them all and get back to you, but I promise I will. I'll be temporarily back in the UK next week with proper internet access so probably more amenable then.