Chuck Klosterman could never love me

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For whatever reason, I was thinking about that one quiz Chuck Klosterman put together in his 2003 book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto last night. And so since I’ve been on a roll creating and answering my own movie-related quizzes up in this site (I swear I will eventually get to that 2023 Movie Year Summary AND return to movie reviewing eventually, I just need to shake off my sudden blocks), I figured why not tackle one of these that’s just general interest, over 20 years after the fact. The questionnaire specifically has received the title of “23 Questions I Ask Everybody I Meet In Order To Decide If I Can Really Love Them” and I already know in fact that I am impossible to love, but it’s nice to have material proof of that.

  1. Let us assume you met a rudimentary magician. Let us assume he can do five simple tricks—he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he can make a coin disappear, he can turn the ace of spades into the Joker card, and two others in a similar vein. These are his only tricks and he can’t learn any more; he can only do these five. HOWEVER, it turns out he’s doing these five tricks with real magic. It’s not an illusion; he can actually conjure the bunny out of the ether and he can move the coin through space. He’s legitimately magical, but extremely limited in scope and influence. Would this person be more impressive than Albert Einstein?

Couldn’t tell you, I’ve never seen Albert Einstein do magic.

  1. Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume that—for some reason—every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots. Would you attempt to do this?

Absolutely not. Not to say that one horse is worthier than the sum of every political prisoner’s life on Earth, but I simply can not take it upon myself to take another life, let alone in such a vicious manner.

(This also reads like it could easily be feature film concept, somehow. Like a Tarr Béla film if that dude was still making movies. Ain’t this basically that Knock at the Cabin story except with a smaller scale?)

  1. Let us assume there are two boxes on a table. In one box, there is a relatively normal turtle; in the other, Adolf Hitler’s skull. You have to select one of these items for your home. If you select the turtle, you can’t give it away and you have to keep it alive for two years; if either of these parameters are not met, you will be fined $999 by the state. If you select Hitler’s skull, you are required to display it in a semi-prominent location in your living room for the same amount of time, although you will be paid a stipend of $120 per month for doing so. Display of the skull must be apolitical. Which option do you select?

I regret to say I’m so uncertain of my capability of taking care of a turtle for any amount of time that I’d likely use. Maybe with the stipend I can purchase the turtle and pay for its care elsewhere. There’s nothing in the question that suggests explaining the terms of Hitler’s skull inhabiting and being displayed in my home can’t be divulged to any guests I have, though I also am not a fella who has a lot of guests so I’m not sure that’s a worry.

  1. Genetic engineers at Johns Hopkins University announce that they have developed a so-called “super gorilla.” Though the animal cannot speak, it has a sign language lexicon of over twelve thousand words, an I.Q. of almost 85, and—most notably—a vague sense of self-awareness. Oddly, the creature (who weighs seven hundred pounds) becomes fascinated by football. The gorilla aspires to play the game at its highest level and quickly develops the rudimentary skills of a defensive end. ESPN analyst Tom Jackson speculates that this gorilla would be “borderline unblockable” and would likely average six sacks a game (although Jackson concedes the beast might be susceptible to counters and misdirection plays). Meanwhile, the gorilla has made it clear he would never intentionally injure any opponent. You are commissioner of the NFL: Would you allow this gorilla to sign with the Oakland Raiders?

Yes, because they are now the Vegas Raiders and Las Vegas is the natural habitat of every ape.

  1. You meet your soul mate. However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate’s collarbones with a Crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear—for the rest of your life—sound as if it’s being performed by the band Alice in Chains. When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it’s being played by Alice in Chains. If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it’s being covered by Alice in Chains. When you hear a commercial jingle on TV, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a capella (but it will only sound this way to you). Would you swallow the pill?

Holy shit, for the rest of my life? I used to love Alice in Chains and don’t have any ill thoughts towards Staley’s voice, but for the rest of my life? Fuck it, I guess I’d take the pill and get used to it. Maybe when I sing in the shower, I’ll keep it to “Bleed the Freak” or “Nutshell”, those are definitely my favorite songs by them.

  1. At long last, someone invents “the dream VCR.” This machine allows you to tape an entire evening’s worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device of you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don’t agree to this, you can’t use the dream VCR. Would you still do this?

My dreams are mostly so innocuous (occasionally there’s absurd and uncomfortable violence – one of my clearest dreams was an uneasy dinner with the Cryptkeeper that ended with me stabbing his skull until it crushed under my first in a manner that looked exactly like Hugo Stiglitz stabbing the corpse of a Nazi in Inglourious Basterds – but strangely seldom any sex or nudity that I’d really feel awkward watching with my folks). I’m sure everyone would enjoy the one where I make a lifelong friendship with a walrus who saves my dream daughter and we heckle the shit out of a Three Doors Down concert (I don’t know why we were at TDD concert, they’re fucking garbage).

  1. Defying all expectation, a group of Scottish marine biologists capture a live Loch Ness Monster. In an almost unbelievable coincidence, a bear hunter in the Pacific Northwest shoots a Sasquatch in the thigh, thereby allowing zoologists to take the furry monster into captivity. These events happen on the same afternoon. That evening, the president announces he may have thyroid cancer and will undergo a biopsy later that week. You are the front page editor of The New York Times: What do you play as the biggest story?

President having thyroid cancer, if for no other reason than I’m sure my office would be drone-struck otherwise. I certainly find both of the cryptid stories more interesting, but by a landslide Nessie is the one I’d find most exciting and frankly making a NYT front page article out of a non-domestic event that isn’t either war breaking out, a head of state assassinated, or aliens landing would probably not slide.

  1. You meet the perfect person. Romantically, this person is ideal: You find them physically attractive, intellectually stimulating, consistently funny, and deeply compassionate. However, they have one quirk: This individual is obsessed with Jim Henson’s gothic puppet fantasy The Dark Crystal. Beyond watching it on DVD at least once a month, he/she peppers casual conversation with Dark Crystal references, uses Dark Crystal analogies to explain everyday events, and occasionally likes to talk intensely about the film’s “deeper philosophy.” Would this be enough to stop you from marrying this individual?

No. I love The Dark Crystal. Not to THIS degree (which would occasionally annoy me), but enough to wish it would have been a bigger hit than it is. Where was this person when I rewatched the movie in 70mm two summers ago?

  1. A novel titled Interior Mirror is released to mammoth commercial success (despite middling reviews). However, a curious social trend emerges: Though no one can prove a direct scientific link, it appears that almost 30 percent of the people who read this book immediately become homosexual. Many of these newfound homosexuals credit the book for helping them reach this conclusion about their orientation, despite the fact that Interior Mirror is ostensibly a crime novel with no homoerotic content (and was written by a straight man). Would this phenomenon increase (or decrease) the likelihood of you reading this book?

No material change, honestly. If I’m gay, I’m gay. If I’m not, I’m not. A book clarifying those things for me wouldn’t change my comfort with either of those conclusions. Only thing is that I have had less time to read for pleasure these days than I did earlier in my life.

  1. This is the opening line of Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City: “You are not the kind of guy who would be in a place like this at this time of the morning.” Think about that line in the context of the novel (assuming you’ve read it). Now go to your CD collection and find Heart’s Little Queen album (assuming you own it). Listen to the opening riff to “Barracuda.” Which of these two introductions is a higher form of art?

I have not read Bright Lights, Big City so maybe that affects my answer, but I immediately hear “Barracuda”‘s opening riff in my heart – not my ears, not my head, my heart – and know that’s the answer for me. Pumps me up.

  1. You are watching a movie in a crowded theater. Though the plot is mediocre, you find yourself dazzled by the special effects. But with twenty minutes left in the film, you are struck with an undeniable feeling of doom: You are suddenly certain your mother has just died. There is no logical reason for this to be true, but you are certain of it. You are overtaken with the irrational metaphysical sense that—somewhere—your mom has just perished. But this is only an intuitive, amorphous feeling; there is no evidence for this, and your mother has not been ill. Would you immediately exit the theater, or would you finish watching the movie?

Step out to call and check, for sure. I can always come back and finish the movie later.

(This does feel sadly reminiscent of the time a friend of mine exited a Cannes screening of Mr. Turner I attended with him and learned immediately after that his mother had in fact passed away.)

  1. You meet a wizard in downtown Chicago. The wizard tells you he can make you more attractive if you pay him money. When you ask how this process works, the wizard points to a random person on the street. You look at this random stranger. The wizard says, “I will now make them a dollar more attractive.” He waves his magic wand. Ostensibly, this person does not change at all; as far as you can tell, nothing is different. But—somehow—this person is suddenly a little more appealing. The tangible difference is invisible to the naked eye, but you can’t deny that this person is vaguely sexier. This wizard has a weird rule, though—you can only pay him once. You can’t keep giving him money until you’re satisfied. You can only pay him one lump sum up front. How much cash do you give the wizard?

I guess 20 bucks. I don’t know that I give a shit overall about being more attractive. If I did, I’d probably get my shit together.

  1. Every person you have ever slept with is invited to a banquet where you are the guest of honor. No one will be in attendance except you, the collection of your former lovers, and the catering service. After the meal, you are asked to give a fifteen-minute speech to the assembly. What do you talk about?

Declaring to all of them that they are all super cool with or without their clothes on and maybe wondering out loud how they ever put up with me.

  1. For reasons that cannot be explained, cats can suddenly read at a twelfth-grade level. They can’t talk and they can’t write, but they can read silently and understand the text. Many cats love this new skill, because they now have something to do all day while they lay around the house; however, a few cats become depressed, because reading forces them to realize the limitations of their existence (not to mention the utter frustration of being unable to express themselves). This being the case, do you think the average cat would enjoy Garfield, or would cats find this cartoon to be an insulting caricature?

Honestly, if the average human can enjoy pop culture that makes us look like idiots all the time, I don’t see why a cat couldn’t do the same.

15. You have a brain tumor. Though there is no discomfort at the moment, this tumor would unquestionably kill you in six months. However, your life can (and will) be saved by an operation; the only downside is that there will be a brutal incision to your frontal lobe. After the surgery, you will be significantly less intelligent. You will still be a fully functioning adult, but you will be less logical, you will have a terrible memory, and you will have little ability to understand complex concepts or difficult ideas. The surgery is in two weeks. How do you spend the next fourteen days?

Re-reading either Pale Fire or Ulysses (I suspect Finnegans Wake would be MORE effective with this incision to one’s lobe, hahaha) and listening to a whole lot of progressive rock. Definitely wouldn’t stop the operation, but I’d probably be internally rooting for it to go wrong, not gonna lie.

  1. Someone builds and optical portal that allows you to see a vision of your own life in the future (it’s essentially a crystal ball that shows a randomly selected image of what your life will be like in twenty years). You can only see into this portal for thirty seconds. When you finally peer into the crystal, you see yourself in a living room, two decades older than you are today. You are watching a Canadian football game, and you are extremely happy. You are wearing a CFL jersey. Your chair is surrounded by books and magazines that promote the Canadian Football League, and there are CFL pennants covering your walls. You are alone in the room, but you are gleefully muttering about historical moments in Canadian football history. It becomes clear that—for some unknown reason—you have become obsessed with Canadian football. And this future is static and absolute; no matter what you do, this future will happen. The optical portal is never wrong. This destiny cannot be changed. The next day, you are flipping through television channels and randomly come across a pre-season CFL game between the Toronto Argonauts and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Knowing your inevitable future, do you now watch it?

No, I’ll get to it when I get to it. I’m sure I’m destined to give a shit eventually.

  1. You are sitting in an empty bar (in a town you’ve never before visited), drinking Bacardi with a soft-spoken acquaintance you barely know. After an hour, a third individual walks into the tavern and sits by himself, and you ask your acquaintance who the new man is. “Be careful of that guy,” you are told. “He is a man with a past.” A few minutes later, a fourth person enters the bar; he also sits alone. You ask your acquaintance who this new individual is. “Be careful of that guy, too,” he says. “He is a man with no past.” Which of these two people do you trust less?

Guy with no past can probably slip more surprises. Can’t trust it.

  1. You have won a prize. The prize has two options, and you can choose either (but not both). The first option is a year in Europe with a monthly stipend of $2,000. The second option is ten minutes on the moon. Which option do you select?

Ten minutes on the moon. In a heartbeat. I can to Europe any other time, but I think being on the moon must be a genuinely soul-crushing and lonely experience.

  1. Your best friend is taking a nap on the floor of your living room. Suddenly, you are faced with a bizarre existential problem: This friend is going to die unless you kick them (as hard as you can) in the rib cage. If you don’t kick them while they slumber, they will never wake up. However, you can never explain this to your friend; if you later inform them that you did this to save their life, they will also die from that. So you have to kick a sleeping friend in the ribs, and you can’t tell them why. Since you cannot tell your friend the truth, what excuse will you fabricate to explain this (seemingly inexplicable) attack?

They had a spider climbing on their ribs. Simple enough. This question also feels like a cruel gotcha after that “kick a horse to death” question.

  1. For whatever the reason, two unauthorized movies are made about your life. The first is an independently released documentary, primarily comprised of interviews with people who know you and bootleg footage from your actual life. Critics are describing the documentary as “brutally honest and relentlessly fair.” Meanwhile, Columbia Tri-Star has produced a big-budget biopic of your life, casting major Hollywood stars as you and all your acquaintances; though the movie is based on actual events, screenwriters have taken some liberties with the facts. Critics are split on the artistic merits of this fictionalized account, but audiences love it. Which film would you be most interested in seeing?

These both sound like garbage movies. I’m generally disinclined to documentaries, but I think there’d be more value to the brutally honest one, especially with the mixed reception of that narrative feature. Doesn’t help that if I think one of the liberties taken with the narrative feature turns out to be really cool or badass, I may be inclined in my insecurity to pretend that’s the true story and that’s a wack thing to do. Gun to my head: the documentary.

  1. Imagine you could go back to the age of five and relive the rest of your life, knowing everything that you know now. You will re-experience your entire adolescence with both the cognitive ability of an adult and the memories of everything you’ve learned form having lived your life previously. Would you lose your virginity earlier or later than you did the first time around (and by how many years)?

Probably about the same time, but if earlier, no more than a year or two. I frankly can’t think of any material gain in my life that came from losing my virginity that couldn’t wait for later. Man, that sounds psychotic.

  1. You work in an office. Generally, you are popular with your coworkers. However, you discover that there are currently two rumors circulating the office gossip mill, and both involve you. The first rumor is that you got drunk at the office holiday party and had sex with one of your married coworkers. This rumor is completely true, but most people don’t believe it. The second rumor is that you have been stealing hundreds of dollars of office supplies (and then selling them to cover a gambling debt). This rumor is completely false, but virtually everyone assumes it is factual. Which of these two rumors is most troubling to you?

The true one, specifically because it involves the personal life of another. It’s my own damn fault to begin with, but I’d be way concerned with how the coworker feels about this being out in the open.

  1. Consider this possibility: Think about deceased TV star John Ritter. Now, pretend Ritter had never become famous. Pretend he was never affected by the trappings of fame, and try to imagine what his personality would have been like. Now, imagine that this person—the unfamous John Ritter—is a character in a situation comedy. Now, you are also a character in this sitcom, and the unfamous John Ritter character is your sitcom father. However, this sitcom is actually your real life. In other words, you are living inside a sitcom: Everything about our life is a construction, featuring the unfamous John Ritter playing himself (in the role of your TV father). But this is not a sitcom. This is your real life. How would you feel about this?

I’d almost certainly end up killing myself.

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