The Questionnaire: John Durham Peters

By The QuestionnaireMarch 26, 2012

How do you get up in the morning?


I look for Jupiter or Saturn or setting Procyon out my window.


 


Do you succumb to nostalgia? 


Only for old, unhappy, far-off things.


 


Best piece of advice you ever received?


If it looks like horsepuckey, it probably is.


 


Are you okay with blood?


I depend upon it every second.  


 


What country would you want to be exiled in?


Norway for comfort, Russia for disappearing completely.


 


What's your favorite negative emotion?


Kenosis.


 


Is your study neat, or, like John Muir's, is your desk and floor covered in "lateral, medial, and terminal moraines"?


It's a collision of plate tectonics.  


 


What's your poison?


Popsicles


 


How long can you go without putting paw to keyboard?


24 hours


 


Do you require a high thread count?


Only for my fast-twitch muscles.  


 


Who reads you first?  


The other guy who follows me around.


 


Sexy and dangerous, or brilliant and kind?


Unquestionably the latter.

LARB Contributor

The Questionnaire is, as her name suggests, a multifarious and mysterious interlocutor. Chameleon-like, her questions change their color as they approach each new interviewee.

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