Padgett Powell - The Interrogative Mood

Are there times when you are not motivated to do anything at all? Are you fond of pinball? Is good amateur theater oxymoronic? Have you ever been eye to eye with an owl that did not fly away? Had you the opportunity, would you become a worm farmer? Why is so little heard now of Tallulah Bankhead? What do you think the chances are that a man encouraging five-year-olds to wear their birthday-party hats as codpieces instead of on their heads would be reported to authorities by parents picking up these children from the party? Are you familiar with cultures that build their houses and heat their houses with bricks of manure? Have you ever seen a village idiot run from a dog? If your mind were in the gutter, would you pick it up or leave it there? Have you ever thought you saw a doll move? Do you know that part of the field examination for head injury is called the doll’s-eye test? Have you ever been injured badly enough that your clothes were cut off you with those offset blunt scissors? Why do you think the hole in 45 rpm records was so large and the hole in the much larger 33 rpm record was so small? Do you support any kind of restitution to American Indians? If you could emigrate to any country in the world and support yourself there, which country would it be? If family is coming over, is it in general a good thing or not a good thing?

Are sports for you something to do, to watch, or to ignore altogether? Are you aware that there is a fine durable black wirelike filament inside the large gray soft strands of what is mistakenly called Spanish moss, and that this fiber was the principal material in automobile and other upholstery into the 1940s and perhaps beyond, and that moss was harvested from trees by poor laborers with long poles with nails in the end of them? Is there a particular odor or situation guaranteed to nauseate you? Did you have a grandmother who called the culmination of nausea “upchucking”? Among your relatives, is there one who is regarded as preternaturally sweet and one who is regarded as un-redeemably vicious? If you had the opportunity to have a two-headed pet, would you seize it? Will you wear pants with elastic waists? Do you have any experience with chemical indicators such as phenylthalein? If you see something on the horizon you cannot identify, do you wish to go see what it is or to stay right where you are? When was the last time you heard someone say, “Who licked the red off your candy?” Have you ever started a grass fire? Are you pro blue jay or anti blue jay? Are you familiar with the viscosities of the various common oils and greases? Have you ever used a torque wrench? Do you have any friends?

How much will you spend for a haircut? Do you recall the last time you wept? Is there merit in carpet or is it pretty much a bad idea all around in your view? Do you grasp epoxy? Do you understand exactly who profits, and how, from the use of credit cards? Will you answer your phone without knowing who is calling? Will you invest in a fast car because it is fast? Doesn’t it seem as if the heyday of hemorrhoid-cream advertising is over? Do you prefer to watch a bad game show or a good documentary? Do you recall ever helping someone locate a lost puppy? Are you familiar with the phenomenon of children completely terrified by clowns? Faced with an inflatable mattress of large size, do you attempt to induce a partner to inflate it, look for a mechanical blower, or get right to huffing? Do you believe in justice? When, in geometry, it is said “Let X be a right angle,” are you okay with that or have you a frisson of doubt regarding this having to be said, and then regarding the entire enterprise of geometry itself? For good furniture, what is your wood of choice? Can I sell you on walnut? For industrial hand cleaner, are you Gojo or Goop? Do you have the time?

Are you aware that a chicken egg on its long axis will allegedly bear the weight of a person and that there are persons who can attest to this? Have you ever seen a commercial 1:24 scale slot-car track? Should the imminent extinction of a plant or animal be fought against or should it be regarded as an evolutionary punch that must be rolled with? Do you trade in commercial greeting cards? Would you rather receive a very good pair of shoes or a very good suitcase? Maybe I have asked you this already, but are you much disturbed by the prospect of putting a bird feather in your mouth? Do you think there is a constant percentage of people who are clinically insane, or is this a figure that changes over time according to immediate local conditions and according to larger historical forces? Is it surprising to you that more people do not lose it, or are you surprised at how many have already lost it?

Do you regard yourself a responsible person or an irresponsible person, and would you elect to be the other if you could? Does life insurance strike you as practical or as absurd, if not dishonest? Do you know anyone on whom you can drop in unannounced and in whose kitchen you might then sit and talk pleasantly? Are you engaged in a fight against clutter? Do you have in your mind an ideal color scheme for the inside of a house and for the outside? Do you like a forest of pines or mixed hardwoods? Have you ever seen a large game animal up close in the wild? Do you have trouble throwing things away? If so, do you ever retrieve them after a period of anxiety over the throwing away? Is it then easier or more difficult than the first time to throw the thing away a second time? Do you have a limit for this kind of behavior? Would you, if you could, be an altogether different person than the one you are? Given this choice, do you think many people would elect for a change or would they hold the cards they were dealt, as it were? If you contracted a disease that ate away your eyelids, would you shoot yourself?

Could you live on a boat? If a person split his time between Memphis, Tennessee, and Memphis, Egypt, or claimed he did, do you think that existence would be thrilling or crummy? When you are in charge of satisfying children at Christmas, how serious are you about stuffing the stockings? If you were told to draw straws (short losing), and the straws were a green pine needle, a yellow pine needle, and a brown pine needle, which one would you draw? If I told you that I am made depressed by a completely still tree but that I am relatively cheered by a tree with a little wind in it whose leaves flutter or whose branches sway, even a little, would you think me strange? If you could choose between a long stay in the hospital not knowing if you would survive it and a long stay in jail knowing you would be released, which would you take? Do you belong to a health club? Have you ever baked cookies that tasted like fish? Do you get all the work done that you should in life? Is it important to you that it be done? Is your life and what you are doing with it important? What percentage of people would you say believe their lives important and what percentage admit they are not?

Are you familiar with Trafalgar Square? Do you have it straight whether one can or cannot smell ozone? Will you readily neuter an animal? Do you find teachers of math dangerously seductive? Does a package wrapped in red ribbon bode better than one in blue? Will you wear polyester? Is it time I go? Are we done here? Have you had as good a time as I? Will you sing with me now: Oh let us be heroes, let us have emotions pure or not pure, be men or not men, let us buzz and rumble the hill and dale of daily insignificance just as confidently, just as threateningly, just as humbly in its cute red velour as does the velvet ant?

IF YOU WERE PART of a couple living in a three-story wooden Victorian house with a bad paint job outside and a shabby interior, to the extent that some of your rooms were lit by bare lightbulbs on swinging cords effecting heavy glare on the beadboard walls, wouldn’t you consider it an appropriate diversion for the two of you to play Norman Bates and his mother at least sometimes? Do you take pleasure in cleaning and repacking wheel bearings? Did you ever wear a pair of Corfam wingtips? Would you be apprehensive about riding and handling a camel vis-à-vis riding and handling a horse? Is a camel related to a horse, and these to an elephant, and some or all of them to a rabbit? Does this sound like a tasty breakfast to you now: Atomic Fireballs, Bar-B-Q Fritos, and Coke?