What song makes you rock the karaoke mic?
Submitted by Ann.
"get it together" by the beastie boys, despite the fact that it is not on anyone's karaoke playlist. i know all the words and any time it is played, i have to sing along. "check two-one-two, keep it on!"
Are you a morning person or a night owl?
i am totally a morning person. which sucks, because no one else i know is a morning person, they are night owls. as someone told me the other day, "it's nice to try to be a morning person because it means you have so much more free time in your day. or maybe that's just me trying to justify the fact i'm getting old and just can't stay out til 2am like i used to." truer wrods were never spoken. however, i am that rare breed who was pretty much born a morning person and i've always struggled with staying out late. unless it's to wait outside a venue to meet radiohead. or wait outside a venue to get tickets to see radiohead..... ;)
What's your favorite vacation destination?
the way this question is phrased makes it sound like i shoul dhave a favorite place that i go to over and over again. or maybe they just want to know the one place i went that i liked the best out of everywhere i've been? dunno. i'm gonna go with the best place i've ever been on vacation. that was probably paros, greece. best little island ever. the food was good, the people were nice and the beaches were beautiful.
If you could watch any movie on the big screen right at this moment, what would it be?
hollywoodland! i want to see it in the cinerama dome before it leaves on friday morning.
What are your personal memories of September 11th?
there was a big thunderstorm the night of the 10th, but the 11th was a beautiful sunny day. which made it odd when i heard a burst of thunder. i looked out the window, but the sky was clear. i went to the window and looked down, thinking it was a car crash. but everyone on the street was looking up. so i followed their gaze and that's when i saw it. my first thought was, "how are they gonna put that fire out?" and then i grabbed my camera. i snapped a picture and ran to my computer to post an lj entry about what had just happened. bizarrely, i felt the need to turn on the television to find out what the hell was going on. after 30 second of "we don't know what's going on either" news, i decided i needed to go to class. after all, it was just a fire. they'd put it out. sure, there'd be a big hole in the towers, but they fix 'em up and they'd be good as new in no time.
so i went to class. and as i walked, i was listening to the first soul coughing album. (i was on a huge m.doughty kick at the time.) and the song that played as i walked the two blocks to the main bulding--er--silverstein building, was, perversely, "is chicago, is not chicago," a song that has each verse starting with the line, "a man/drives a plane/into the/chrystler building." and i remember thinking how wrong it was to be listening to that song at such a time, yet i could not bring myself to skip to the next track.
as i walked, i was struck by the number of people who seemed frozen in place, their eyes dumbly fixed on the towers to the south. walking further down university place, i saw complete strangers hugging each other, showing unexpected compassion and genuine warmth. it felt like new york city had magically been transformed into main street, usa, where everyone was one big family, in it together. as i made y way to class, i felt like i was the only one moving. which was weird because on any other day, on a street in the village at 9am, i'd be one in a million of throngs of people pushing to get started on their day. and yet i felt like i was the only one focused on the task at hand--get to class or my strict as hell professor would mark me down for tardiness.
so i made it to class in record time. when i opened the door to my classroom (after hopping right on an elevator i'd normally wait in line 5 to 10 minutes to board) i saw there was only one other person there. it was then that i realized how i had completely underestimated the severity of the situation. not knowing what else to do, my classmate and i made some small talk about the towers and then about our homework assingment. eventually other classmates started straggling in. around 9:30, our professor finally arrived. apparently they'd shut down the subways and she'd had to evacuate in the tunnel and walk the rest of the way to class. she then said that she didn't feel safe and wanted us all to go home.
but of course, instead of going home, we went out into washington square park, stood by the fountain and stared dumbly with everyone else at the spectacle of it all. after a few minutes, someone came over and said, "did you hear? they got the pentagon, too! we're under attack!" and i laughed. inappropriate response, i know. but at the time, i couldn't help myself. it seemed so implausible and conspiracy-theory-esque. it was then that my classmate and dear friend jen invited me back to her place to check out if this pentagon story was for real. so we walked back to her room at third north.
when we got to her building, we saw that they were letting everyone eat for free in the dining hall, so we joined the line for some salad. the tvs were on and everyone was staring. it struck me as odd that we'd be watching this unfold on television when it was only a mile away. and yet there we were, transfixed by the televison. there was lots of smoke. i kept staring at the screen expecting the smoke to clear, for the station to show a different angle, so i could get a better look at the towers. i was panicking because i couldn't see the towers. i tugged on jen's shirt and asked her if i was crazy or if the towers weren't there anymore. and then the station re-aired the footage of the towers collapsing. they'd both fallen when we were walking back from washington square. gone. poof. i remember regretting i hadn't stayed in the park long enough to see it happen with my own eyes.
What's the nerdiest thing about you?
hmmmm...nerdiest? hmmmm. i dunno. i got lots of good grades in school. is that nerdy? i wear glasses. is that nerdy? i guess that can't really be nerdy, though, since my glasses are damn hot and i always get lots of compliments on them. so hmmmm...nerdy. oh! i know! when i was 13 or 14, i went to not one, but two, count 'em two (!) x-files conventions. yeah, that's pretty nerdy. i looooved that show. i stopped watching after the third or fourth season, though. ah, days gone by......
i want this for my birthday, OK?
If you had a band, what would you call yourselves?
Question submitted by Zoot.
sidereal, the innominates or my waning youth...
What is your favorite cover song?
Question submitted by Ray.
i love radiohead's versions of "nobody does it better" and "rhinestone cowboy." scissor sisters' "comfortably numb" is also freakin' sweet. (thank you, DYFL). the editors do a mean version of "feel good, inc." by gorillaz. but if i have to pick just one, i'd say it's radiohead's "nobody does it better." because, really, nobody does. ;)