June 4, 1989 - Tiananmen Square, Beijing, People's Republic of China

( 14 years ago... )

"Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

Da Interview

Questions courtesy of dietbubba

1. If you were stranded on an island and could only have one comic book with you, what would it be?

Well, I'm assuming that graphic novels count, but not whole series. It's a tough call, but I'd have to say Watchmen. Along with the Dark Knight Returns, one of the two seminal works of comic book literature of the 1980s, and one of Alan Moore's finest works. The ending is a bit lame, as is usually Moore's weakness, but memorable nontheless for just that scene of Rorschach demanding that Dr. Manhattan kill him. Watchmen is a book with layers, and one of the few truly mature looks at the super-hero genre and what it implies about the people and what effects it might have on history. You always manage to come up with something new from it, and that's the mark of a great piece of literature.

2. What formed your interest in the American Civil War?

The movie Gettysburg triggered it off. I'd been interested in the Napoleonic Wars, due to the Horatio Hornblower and Richard Sharpe novels, and the mass tactics of the time period. In all the books on military history that I read, the American Civil War was commented on as the transitional period between the mass tactics of previous wars and the more dispersed, squad-based tactics of the next wars. Trying to understand this, I decided to watch Gettysburg, as it had been praised as being relatively true to history. By the end of the movie, I was in tears at the story, and the human motivations behind the war as much as the mechanics of it all. Considering that the Civil War is one of the best documented wars ever, due to letters and diaries and records, there is a wealth of information for the reader trying to understand the times and the people. Basically, I'd found the Great American Novel, and it was a damned good story.

3. What event, over the last 50 years, do you think has had the greatest impact on the world?

The Cold War. I'd have said the invention of the atomic bomb, but we just missed it in 1945. The Cold War technically began then, too, but it continued for 40 years, so I think that qualifies. It basically drew battlelines between two gigantic superpowers, and began a clash of ideologies that continues to this day, even though capitalism always had more or less the upper hand. It changed the face of the world into East and West. America's victory in the Cold War has brought it to the position it holds today, an arrogant sonofabitch who bullies to get his way and to hell with everyone else. America should be more gracious in victory.

4. How did you get started in filk?

Blindpew from TIM. I've always been good at parodies, but one day Blindpew approached me on TIM and asked me about a Cthulhu-based filk named "The Lair of Great Cthulhu", which I knew the lyrics of. I told him, and then he said he and his friend were working on a Cthulhu filk based on ABBA, and gave me two lines of the chorus. I took these two lines and came up with "Do You Hear The Pipes, Cthulhu?" and performed it to a small group during Worldcon 1999 in Melbourne Australia. One of the group, an American woman named Kathleen Sloan, persuaded me to show up in Chicago for 2000's World. In the interim year, I starting posting on rec.music.filk, and I was an instant hit, both with that and other songs. In 2000 I went to Chicago and did my first concert and was an even bigger hit once people found out I could actually sing. And the rest is history.

5. Just how excited are you to be coming to the US to go to school?

Beyond measure. Even more excited than I was at losing my virginity, and that's saying something. I've been waiting to stay in the US for an extended period of time for work, play, study, whatever, for more years than I care to relate, and I'm very much afraid that once I've done so, I'll never want to leave. But afraid in a good way.

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If you want me to interview you--post a comment that simply says, 'Interview me.' I'll respond with questions for you to take back to your own journal and answer as a post. Of course, they'll be different for each person since this is an interview and not a general survey. At the bottom of your post, after answering the Interviewer's questions, you ask if anyone wants to be interviewed. So it becomes your turn-- in the comments, you ask them any questions you have for them to take back to their journals and answer. And so it becomes the circle.

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