I used to read both Esquire and Vanity Fair magazines with regularity. Esquire I would read for 11 months waiting for their Dubious Distinction issue each January. Vanity Fair I would read for the interviews. Both included a questionnaire.
Esquire's was a "What I've Learned" interview with a celebrity. Vanity Fair's was the "Proust Questionnaire", so-named for one that Marcel Proust was asked to take twice as a child. I always found it insightful. And I'm a French major. And I wonder what I've learned in almost two months of therapy. So suffer. Here's the questionnaire and my answers.
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Forcing a smile when I'd rather commit hari-kari.
Where would you like to live?
Greece, but only after learning the language. And only if I could look as good as I look in my mind when I imagine myself ogling the coast from atop my apartment there.
What is your idea of earthly happiness?
To have enough money to survive, to have enough sanity to appreciate survival, and to recognize love when it presents itself.
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Poor nutrition, anger, and resentment.
Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
Oliver Twist, Arnold (Torch Song Trilogy), Mrs. Madrigal (Tales of the City)
Who are your favorite characters in history?
King David, JFK, Harvey Milk
Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
Ellen DeGeneneres, Professor Christine Fogliasso, Grandma The Good, Oprah, Sen. Diane Feinstein
Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Mrs. Madrigal, Scarlett O'Hara, Idgie Threadgoode
Your favorite painter?
Claude Monet
Your favorite musician?
Barry Manilow
The quality you most admire in a man?
Strength
The quality you most admire in a woman?
Intelligent compassion.
Your favorite virtue?
Integrity
Your favorite occupation?
Conversation
Who would you have liked to be?
Harry Hay
What is your most marked characteristic?
Talking, if not eloquence.
What do you most value in your friends?
Willingness to tell me the truth about me.
What is your principle defect?
I doubt everything.
What is your dream of happiness?
A man to love, a bungalow, a dog and time to exhaust all three.
What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
Death.
What would you like to be?
More physically desirable and a better judge of character.
What is your favorite color?
Red
What is your favorite flower?
Magnolias
What is your favorite bird?
Eagle
Who are your favorite prose writers?
Rita Mae Brown, Armistead Maupin, James Patterson
Who are your favorite poets?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Frost, Ntozake Shange
What are your favorite names?
Noah, Josiah, Brent, Catherine
What is it you most dislike?
Someone speaking for me.
What historical figures do you most despise?
Ronald Reagan, any Bush, Adolph Hitler, Sen. Joseph McCarthy
What event in military history do you most admire?
Each truce.
What reform do you most admire?
The abolition of sodomy laws, although that's self-serving. Also, Civil Rights reform, Women's Suffrage, all of the common-sense things that were too uncommon.
What natural gift would you most like to possess?
Beauty
How would you like to die?
As the last person ever to have done so. I aspire to immortality or the closest thing to it.
What is your present state of mind?
Beleaguered.
What is your motto?
What kind of creep actually has a motto? "Flattery will get you everywhere," comes close.
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