dotinthesky | Entries tagged with ask

The questionaire below is taken from Vanity Fair's interview with Margaret Atwood. These are my answers:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
80s dance floor with coffee, bread and butter on a nearby table

What is your greatest fear?
Having to live through a Mad Max world in my old age

Which living person do you most admire?
Arundhati Roy

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Wearing trousers that are too short

What is your greatest extravagance?
Buying Suede's re-mastered first album.

What is your favorite journey?
Eurostar to Paris

On what occasion do you lie?
Either when I'm dealing with a nutnut or when I think the truth might hurt the other person.

Which living person do you most despise?
I generally despise people who put profits over people and the environment but I can't zero in on anyone that's worse than the others.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"So", "right"

What is your greatest regret?
Not having come out when I was a teenager

When and where were you happiest?
I'm very happy right now

What is your current state of mind?
Happily stressed with work; looking forward to home time

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My voice would be the male equivalent of Whitney Houston/Leona Lewis

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Taking down the whole of LJ by simply posting some Arcade Fire lyrics

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
A quartz cave under the sea

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
An unputdownable book

What is your most treasured possession?
My VHS tape of the Best of the Smiths

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Only the happy can afford to enjoy misery

Where would you like to live?
By the sea

What is your favorite occupation?
Getting paid to go to poetry readings and art shows!

What is your most marked characteristic?
Everyone who meets me works their way to asking where my accent is from

What is the quality you most like in a man?
Finely shaped calves

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Measured words

Who are your favorite writers?
Barbara Kingsolver (new addition), Margaret Atwood, Alan Hollinghurst, Zadie Smith (as a speaker), Toni Morrison (never read a word of hers though), Agatha Christie, Ursula K Le Guin, Morrissey, Shakespeare, David Mitchell... where are my brasilian writers?

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Siddhartha

Who are your heroes in real life?
Arundhati Roy and all those other people speaking up

What is it that you most dislike?
People who wear slightly too short trousers

How would you like to die?
By surprise

What is your motto?
"He said I had the luck of a son
With all the love and poison of London" - Suede

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: Mile End, London
Current Music: David Bowie - The Bewlay Brothers | Powered by Last.fm

james macavoy
Originally uploaded by kirsti191

Cloud Atlas, one of my favourite reads from these last ten years, is being turned into a film. Director Tom Tykwer (who did the excellent Run Lola, Run and the poor Perfume) is apparently behind it and aiming for some big names: Tom Hanks (really bad idea), Halle Berry (okaish idea), James McAvoy (brilliant idea) and Sir Ian McKellen (pretty good idea). It's being produced by the Wachowski Brothers,
the pair behind the Matrix trilogy (oh dear!) and Natalie Portman (phew!) is rumoured to have already signed on. Source: NME

wink_martindale sent me a link yesterday to an Independent article on literary journals/zines. Some really good ideas of places to submit fiction, poetry, reviews and so forth. Here are two publications they don't mention and which are worth checking out: Penumbra Magazine and the Los Angeles Review.

Can you recommend any publications seeking writers?

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Holborn, London

Now that Livejournal is working with Google's AdSense, does that mean we'll soon be able to use Analytics on our journals?

I still don't understand why that feature hasn't been given to us. Would make things here a lot more interesting if we knew what exactly people typed into search engines to find us.

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Mile End, London
Current Music: Už Jsme Doma - Conclusion | Powered by Last.fm

A few questions for anyone reading this that exercises regularly (whether at a gym or outdoors): do you take any supplements? If yes, which ones and why? If not, then why not?

And what do you think about creatine, whey protein shakes, etc?

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Hackney, London

Some of my user icons have disappeared since Livejournal's servers moved. Has this happened to anyone else? I wonder if some old posts have gone down the tube too...

Should I be patient and wait for a while, or should I complain? (Can you see the icon for this post?)

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: Hackney, London
Current Music: Thompson Twins - Get That Love

I belong to a bookclub-for-two and the questions below have to do with the novel The Manikin (up until the book's half point). They are for

rag_and_bone but feel free to answer the questions if you have read the book! (Looking at you

goldmund, if you feel like it.) Just make sure not to give anything away from the second half because we haven't finished it yet!

( The Manikin )

Current Mood: better
Current Location: Mile End, London
Current Music: Tears for Fears - Shout

( Twenty Seven Livejournal Friends )

Current Mood: peckish
Current Location: Mile End, London
Current Music: random shoegazer music

IMG_5333
Originally uploaded by andrew collings

There's that Dolce & Gabbana ad with a boat floating in Capri's deep blue water, and a young couple lying around just in their white bathing suits. They are quintessentially italian-looking. The camera picks his eyes as being blue like the water. He stands up and leans over her, giving her a kiss. The song playing is Mario Lanza's "Parlami D'Amore Mariu".

Mario Lanza was the tenor that the two girls in Heavenly Creatures were obsessed with. They were just like hundreds of thousands of teeny boppers in the 50s. Will there ever be another tenor that drives girls wild? I'm kinda obessed with him right now. A box set with dozens of his songs is only 4 quid on Amazon. It would be a crime not to buy it.

It's not sunny in London, but it's muggy and warm-ish. I suppose it will have to do. Last night I walked across Bethnal Green with Kevin, on a mission to attend Le Gun's "The Family" exhibition and 4th edition launch. On the way, we stopped at The Star of Bethnal Green to sip on a nerve-quenching pint of lager and appraise the newly opened club/pub/music venue. They have an 80s night, but it's apparently badly attended (according to a source who kept texting me throughout the night with tips on where to go clubbing and what's best at KFC... not that I'd ever eat at KFC!)

Le Gun's party was attended by the East End's fashionista/artista core. Lots of muddy ballerina slippers, big hairs, moustaches, skinny jeans and shy smiles. Lots of cute boys and lovely-looking girls. Lots of people with styles studied to the last button - an exercise in what can go wrong when you try to impress too much. Lots of art school graduates and old timers hoping for a break. Lots of second-hand clothes. The beautiful illustrations on the wall - including a marvellous room made out entirely of cardboard - were almost a second thought.

On the way home from work today, an old woman on a wheel chair, hair growing all over her gaunt face, shook her twisted arm in my direction and said "excuse me..." An old man sitting beside her on a bench, stooped shoulders and defeated face (missing many teeth) took a drag from his cigarette and looked at me with zero hope. I braced myself for the can-I-have-some-money question.

"Do you have the time?" she mumbled quietly. I stopped, turned around, fished out my mobile phone and told them it was 5.11pm. They said thank you about five times and then, just as I was walking away, she apologised in her weak voice for disturbing me.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Mile End, London
Current Music: All Opera Music on iTunes

via

vilia64

What's your opinion on Twitter? Do you read them on your friends' list? Do you like using it? What's the point? (That's what I'd like to know.)

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Mile End, London
Current Music: The Blue Aeroplanes - Jacket Hangs

( Questions for Bones and Rags )

Current Mood: ill
Current Location: Mile End, London
Current Music: Elastica - Waking Up

Do you have any tips for someone who is applying for a job and has been asked to write a cover letter or a personal statement? If you were that person, would you keep the letter brief and to the point, or long and descriptive? Would you try to mention all the skills and qualities they want or would you go for a more general description of your talents (as long as it covers what they are mainly looking for?) Formal or slightly informal (friendly)? Does it depend on the field you work in (as in my case, the Arts?) Do you think a person's age matters and therefore should be left out if possible?

Any tips would be very welcome! Thanks in advance.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Whistle-Central, London

I think of Paris Hilton as the human equivalent of a Black Hole. Most people who get close to her seem to have their lives derailed, either developing anorexia, drug addiction or psychosis. Or maybe those problems were already there and P. Hilton simply sweats them out. She brings out the extreme in people.

But Stephen Hawking: Master of the Universe, on TV just now, has greatly expanded my understanding of Black Holes. They are actually centres of activity in our universe; positive particles shoot from them when they are separated from the negative particles weighed down by the holes; solar systems are born; they are bundles of activity. Why do Black Holes take into themselves the Britneys, Lohans and Nicoles of the Universe? Don't know. Where do they go? Don't ask. What does it all mean? Who can say. Are the solar systems created around Paris Hilton the media jobs that feed off her image, the CD manufactures pumping out copies of her debut album? Or should we feel more hopeful about our culture and expect new life forms in the coming years? It looks promising.

Question to any astrophysicians and philosophers reading this: if we manage to simulate the creation of a black hole on Earth, how long do I have before we are destroyed? (or are we destroyed?) Will I have time to write my last Livejournal post, or will I be caught off guard on the No. 8 bus?

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Mile End, London

Questions I'd like answered today:

Why do so many powerful men prefer brasilian lovers? Recent examples: Peter Mandelson, Judge Mohammed Ilyas Khan and various top brass at Volkswagen.
Why do they keep finding headless bodies in the Thames?
Why is Jarvis Cocker's line up for this year's Meltdown Festival so disappointing?
Why doesn't Livejournal give us the power to remove people from our "friend of" list? (It would certainly bring back much needed Drama to Livejournal.)
Why is everyone joining Facebook? Haven't they learnt anything from Friendster a few years back?

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Waterloo, London

I'm still alive and still at the beach. Blah Blah Blah... I leave for Sao Paulo tomorrow. Dont know if I'll ever have the chance to catch up with everyone's journal, so I hope everyone is doing fine.

Strange incident yesterday:

My brother and I went to the same part of the Pitinga Beach as previous times. We sat by the sea, covered by a giant umbrella, and spent our day there. The guy that I mentioned in a previous post, the man who talked to us about foreigners destroying this place, was our waiter.

At one point, while my brother was swimming in the sea, the waiter approached me and asked if we had found any girlfriends in Arraial. I said my brother had already a girlfriend. And what about you, he asked. I said I didn't have one. He sat down beside me and said in a whisper "you look like you don't enjoy girls. Am I right." I was so surprised that I could only confirm. He then made a gesture with his hands, as if he were measuring a dick between them, and asked me if that was what I liked. Once again, I said yes.

Conversation proceeded with him asking me what I did when girls in Londrina showed interest in me. "They become my friends" I answered. (hahaha!) He then kept repeating the word Londrina to himself, and he showed some suprise when I told him Martin was my brother. Later, when I told my brother this, he said the guy had earlier described himself as "a very curious Aries". I don't know about you, but I think that's a little too much curiosity. But, since things in Bahia are not like anywhere else in Brasil, I can only assume that all the men here are quite curious about gay people, and very accepting too. Also, Arraial D'Ajuda seems to have a decent amount of gay couples strolling about.

Anyways, sun beckons outside. Just wanted to drop a line and say hello. Muitos beijos com protetor 50 para todos.

Current Mood: hot

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Page Summary

Questions
Cloud of Words
Makes Sense
Curiously Weedy
Disappearing Act
The Manikin
Unanswered Questions
Le Gun in The Family
Tweety Birds, Say Hello to Sylvester
Mary Swann
Help Me Get a Job
Don't Look into the Abyss
Ask
Still in Arraial, plus strange encounter with waiter

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Picos Gemeos

"Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it. Don't wait for it. Just let it happen." - Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks

Entries tagged with ask

Questions

Cloud of Words

Makes Sense

Curiously Weedy

Disappearing Act

The Manikin

Unanswered Questions

Le Gun in The Family

Tweety Birds, Say Hello to Sylvester

Mary Swann

Help Me Get a Job

Don't Look into the Abyss

Ask

Still in Arraial, plus strange encounter with waiter