Liebstered! Nailed It In Only 7 Days!

Now I can slack off again and go back to being The Guy Who Sets Up the Microphone and Rides Tania’s Coattails (or GWSUMRTC (not the catchiest acronym) ). Nah. Just kidding. I will continue to endeavour to be worthy of this honour. Big thanks to Rick at Another Book Blog for the nomination. I’m just that chuffed. Male book bloggers gettin’ each others backs: “We few, we happy few.”

Tania has already explained the award and its requirements, so I’ll just go on ahead and get started.

11 Facts About Me

1. I am mostly water.
2. I am hardly ever serious (even when I am serious).
3. I am terrified of being struck by lightning. My reptile brain is convinced that this is the lottery that I will win.
4. I have super-human hearing and healing abilities. Useless abilities for a career as a crime fighter, though, lacking the speed and strength to back them up.
5. I am a Highly Sensitive Person.
6. I can tell if I like or dislike someone within the first five minutes of meeting them, with a 95% success rate (probably as a result of Fact #5).
7. When I was twenty-eight years old I resolved to participate in the recording of a full-length music album before I turned thirty. The eponymous The Kirt Callahan Travesty was recorded in June of 2004 (my thirtieth birthday). The album is available for purchase nowhere. I am quite proud of it, though.
8. I have never ridden a mechanical bull.
9. When I dislike something I say that it is “for babies” (ie: “Want to go miniature golfing, Kirt?” “No. Miniature golf is for babies.” (thanks to Rianne Nicolai for coining this phrase)).
10. I can sing almost all of the Buffy musical “Once More With Feeling” by heart.
11. I have read every single published word written by Ernest Hemingway.

11 Questions Answered

1. Why are you a book blogger? What is it you truly want to get out of this?      It was never my intention to be a book blogger. We just needed a platform for our podcast. It soon became clear that we’d have to become book bloggers in order to get people to listen to the podcast.
2. Rank these in order of preference: reading, listening to music, watching TV & movies. It totally depends upon my mood. I love them all equally.
3. What’s your favourite genre of book? Why do you think that’s the case? I don’t really have a favourite genre. This is probably due to having a very diverse set of reading influences when I was young, and a deep mistrust of anything that comes close to zealotry. If I had to go with one branch of “genre fiction”, I guess I would go with Science Fiction.
4. If you had to lose one of these senses, which would it be and why: sight, taste, hearing, speech. I think that taste is the one I could live without (being a smoker, I already have a “taste” of what this would be like). Having to learn braille would suck and the world is too beautiful not to see. I would miss music way too much. Having an audio podcast would be difficult.
5. What qualities do you typically look for in a book? Good ones: Depth, intelligence, some humour (but not necessarily), wordsmithing, good dialogue, complex characters, a sense of movement and flow to the plot (even if it isn’t a complicated plot (see Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (possibly my favourite novel))).
6. What qualities do you typically look for in a friend? Intelligence, conversation skills, broad ranging interests, and a sense of humour.
7. If you had the time (and energy) to write a blog about any other thing, what would it be and why? I had a blog at one point. I wrote about whatever happened to interest me. I abandoned it when Facebook came along. I started the blog to write about the issue of student debt, so I guess I’d write about that (although, I’m pretty tired of that subject).
8. What’s the worst book you’ve read in the last two years? I’m not sure if it was in the last two years, but the one that immediately comes to mind is Ship of Rome by John Stack. I stopped reading after three chapters of amateurish, clunky prose. The one that disappointed me the most, but wasn’t the worst book I’ve read, was The Far Side of the Sky.
9. If you suddenly had 50 million dollars, do you think you’d read more or less? WAY more!
10. How much practical use have you gotten from your college degree? (if you have one). That’s a tough one. I have a Master’s degree in English and I work in a book store. It’s certainly degree related, but I don’t know if the time and expense is justified. I do feel that I am richer for my education, though. It does make me a better book seller, and, I hope, a better book blogger/podcaster/writer/thinker.
11. If you had to go back to college, with the condition that you could only take a different major, what would it be? I really enjoyed my Comparative Religion courses. There’s a lot of storytelling involved in that discipline, so I guess I wouldn’t be going too far afield.

My Nominations

My only nominee is Nat at The Wandering Bibliophile. I think Tania nominated all of the other ones that I would nominate, and I’d rather not create some kind of “hall of mirrors” effect, so I’ll let those nominees stand. They can answer my questions if they want to, but I won’t impose it upon them.

My 11 Questions

1. What travel destination have you visited that rated as close to 10 out of 10 as possible?
2. What author has most let you down with a sub-par novel?
3. What singer/musician has written a novel that blew your socks off?
4. Are you now, or have you ever been, a communist?
5. Superman or Batman?
6. What worries you more: neck strain from constantly shaking your head and muttering, “Idiot”, or cheek muscle fatigue from smiling at the charming foibles of humanity?
7. What is the longest novel you have read and enjoyed?
8. Do you recall a song from elementary school that seemed wildly inappropriate for children? One that, even as a child, made you think, “What the heck am I singing about?”
9. If you could go on a road trip with a famous person (living or dead), who would it be?
10. Feet: gross or sexy?
11. What does the fox say? Is there a final word on that?