This set of chain questions is new to me. It’s been passed to me by my EsteemedBrother over at Lovesettlement. Apparently The Pink Bee started this particular set of questions. Who that is I have no idea but she lives in Kentucky. I have a fondness for Kentucky because Nizzibet had some good times there. (Bad times too but we won’t get into that right now.) There’s no explanation what The Stick is. I’m assuming this refers to passing a talking stick because, despite what is said about assuming things, it’s automatic to assume an explanation for something that seems obvious.

the Stick: You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

Skook: Confession time. I’ve never read Fahrenheit 451. Never seen the movie or the play. Being culturally literate I do understand the question. My first choices all seem obvious, books or stories that someone else would already have chosen. And being a graphic novel is too problematic. The Word For World is Forest perhaps? Maybe the Little Fuzzy trilogy.

the Stick: Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Skook: All the time. Modesty Blaise. Mrs. Peel. The heroine of MFK Fisher’s Not Now But Now. Dorothy Gale. Mrs. Darling. Like all crushes they pass and are replaced by new ones.

the Stick: The last book you bought is:

Skook: It’s been a while. Mostly I buy movies. Because Rain City Video is constantly selling off their VHS tapes at a price lower than rental and because Nizzibet and I can share a movie more easily than a book. And I’m trying to reduce my book collection ever so slightly. I think the last book was Changes by Matt Howarth. Off ebay.

the Stick: The last book you read:

Skook: The Golem’s Mighty Swing by James Sturm. Checked it out from the library with a bagful of other graphic novels.

the Stick: What are you currently reading?

Skook: The Illuminatus Trilogy. I haven’t picked it up in a few months but, since I intend to get back to it “one of these days”, I tell myself I’m still reading it.

the Stick: Five books you would take to a deserted island:

Skook: I do like the first part of Luvset’s response – “One wonders whether one is marooned, thus these five would be the only books one will ever have resort to, or whether it’s just a nice island where there’s nothing to do but read.

If the former I’d start with a book of matches.”

I’m not really good at having favorites. I like so much. And it changes. The favorites don’t go away so much as gain the companions of new favorites. For the marooned island I’d like a blank book of a thousand pages to draw and write in. Two really useful survivalist manuals. A book on boat building.

For the pleasant island I’d have to look around. How long am I supposed to be there?

the Stick: Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons)? And Why?

Skook:
Schuyler, because I never answer her letters
Jenn, because I never write her
Nick, because I need to finish drawing that story