Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Getting to know me

Dear Reader, do you think you know me, Nigel Tewksbury, Recluse/Aesthete? Are you so bold? Have you read all my mad ramblings? Still, I dare say, you know me not. It is not all opium and absinthe, you know--I put my bespoke trousers on one leg at a time like the rest of you. But just for fun let us here put down a virtual interview for I am feeling rather madcap. Perhaps the questions will sound familiar. They were originally used by Bernard Pivot who semi-derived them from that memory-obsessed man Marcel Proust. I have heard that some fat American has adapted them for a television show in which he interviews celebrities--how positively dreary! Let us for a moment pretend that Americans don't pervert everything good and true and get on with the questions, shall we?

(To make this even more fun, let us imagine that the interviewer is Shakespeare's puck, Robin Goodfellow).

RG: What is your favorite word?
NT: Juvenillia. Always I have wanted to be a great author with a tenured position at Cambridge. At the end of the day, I would say to my students, "Now go home and work on your juvenillia, while I work on my masterpiece."
RG: Hahaha. You are quite the wit!

RG: What is your least favorite word?
NT: Syphilis.


RG: What is your favorite drug?
NT: Oh, that is like asking me my favourite child... And the answer to both is, Opium.
RG: Oh my!

RG: What sound or noise do you love?
NT: Moaning.

RG: What sound or noise do you hate?
NT: It is a tie between the chewing of gum and the death rattle. Both are awful, yet oddly if a gum-chewer were to suddenly switch to a death rattle, I could not help but smile. Puck where did you go?
RG: I'm over here... (throws voice). Over here! ( throws voice). Over here!
NT: Gasp!

RG: What is your favorite curse word?
NT: Oh, you're back. The answer is "shit." I love the toilet and how it perns in a gyre.
RG: Ah, a Yeats fan?
NT: Indeed. He wrote some cracking verse. I'll often read him in the loo.

RG: Who would you like to see on a new banknote?
NT: I despise the idea of money as art, so no one I respect. Oh, what the hell, let's use Spongebob, for he is as nonsensical and beloved as money to both lowbrows and middlebrows.

RG: What profession other than your own would you not like to attempt?
NT: Profession!? Perish the thought. All of them are so... vacuous!
RG: Tell me about it! Oberon and Titania won't let me rest.
NT: Hahaha. Oh, Robin, you are an imp.

RG: If you were reincarnated as some other plant or animal, what would it be?
NT: Titania's animal lover, of course.

RG: If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

NT: "Tewksbury, you make for a fucking gorgeous corpse." And I would say, "But I'm a damn ugly ghost, I'm afraid."
RG: Oh Nigel, you don't even give God the best lines!
NT: Yes, well wit was never really His thing. I have Him pegged as a bit of a moralizer.

4 comments:

Queer Femme Mum said...

Happily I see your blog did not disappoint. I am intrigued by who you might be. And also, I must say, that there is nothing so wonderful in a man, as a range of Shakespeare references. Hearing about you I am drawn to recall:
"thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,
else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheeks"
And yes, there is no sweeter sound than a moan.

Queer Femme Mum said...

Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you

varsity aesthete said...

"Oh Nigel, you don't even give God the best lines!" hehehehehe...terrific

specialdelia said...

Yes, my favourite is also opium.What a drug.