The Interview Game

The Official rules of the Interview-Game
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying "interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person's will be different.
3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions
6. I will answer reasonable follow up questions if you leave a comment.


1) Where are you right now - city, state/province, country? room? in the room? Details, details.

I am in Kansas City, Kansas, in die Vereinigten Staaten. The living room of my friends Paula & Adam's apartment. I am sitting in their comfy computer chair by the bookcase. Adam is watching Equilibrium on television, and I am occasionally peering over the couch to catch an interesting tidbit. I have taken over Paula's piano bench behind me with my overnight stuff. I came up for the Modest Mouse concert without a buddy to go with, and Paula was great to go with me. I'm wearing my kelly green MM tee with a buffalo. My favorite song of theirs has the buffalo in it.

"in this place that i call home
my brain's the cliff, and my heart's the bitter buffalo"
--Heart Cooks Brain

2) Do you remember your first flight? Where did you go? Were you scared?

I believe my first flight was when I was a fetus. My parents took me to New Zealand. It was a lovely trip, quite warm and comfortable. I think I slept most of the time. I don't remember being scared. Heck, my brain wasn't fully developed, though, and that might have something to do with it. Wait, no, I think a koala jumped out at me... that was pretty scary.

3) What are you really passionate about doing with your life? What keeps you from doing it most often?

I am passionate about creating, whether it's music or an afghan or a ruckus. and reading. and coffee. I freakin love coffee.

There's a page in my scrapbook from my semester in Austria that is purposely left blank in memorium to the pictures I was too scared to take. I think fear is definitely what keeps me from doing the things I love to do. More specifically, fear that what I create will be deemed as unimportant, unartistic by someone else.

4) Does it matter whether or not dogs see in color or black&white?

I automatically put myself in the place of the dog in order to answer that question. So I instinctively change the question to "Does it matter whether or not I see in color or b&w?" In the movie Equilibrium that Adam is watching, World War III has come to an end only to find human beings taking liquid "sense suppressants" so that they feel nothing. There are soldiers whose duty it is simply to destroy all works of art. In one of the first scenes of the movie, Christian Bale (he's gonna be Batman!) torches the Mona Lisa, and there's a close-up of her mysterious smile as the edges flicker and curl until the smile is gone. Color and ornament are forbidden. You hear scientific formulas being rattled off as the soldiers train to be the statistical best that they can be.

In the first season of Alias, Sydney is sent on a mission to an asylum to befriend an assassin named Shepherd who has been brainwashed to kill. Much like the main character of the Manchurian Candidate, Shepherd has been programmed to forget his killing sprees, but he is beginning to remember anyway. Shepherd begins to tell Sydney of these dreams he has been having in black and white where he is doing horrible things. Sydney then explains to him that he has been programmed to see in b&w while in Hyde-mode to distance him from his own actions.

Color is used in advertising to evoke desirable feelings from the consuming populace. There are whole chapters of books, heck, there are whole books devoted to telling hotels not to use fire red for their highway signs. Human beings are emotional beings. Seeing color is an emotional experience. The gospel story, a very emotional one, was given to us in color. Petra taught me that in eight grade. "Red is the color of the blood that flowed from the face of Someone who loved us so..." One of my first exposures to the gospel was the color flip-book that kids still make in Sunday school. Yes, it is significant that I see color. There's something very humanizing and loving about color. God created a world for us that is not merely clinical and adequate but one that is surpassingly beautiful. A world to be celebrated and enjoyed.

But back to your question, eh-hem, about dogs not seeing color... Maybe I'm reading into it too much to say yes, but I say yes, it is significant. It might not be as significant as the difference between the old covenant and the new one, but it is an example of our separation from Maggies and Rovers. I can experience the grace that is denied angels, and I can experience the beauty that is denied animals. Another blessing of being an image-bearer.

5) Who's your favorite Beatle? Why?

Ringo. He's a drummer. I tend to have a thing for drummers.