Proust Questionnaire: Rebecca Bird

January 17th, 2011 by Dan Nadel

Rebecca Bird takes on The Questionnaire:

Your favorite virtue: Constance. Um, compassion.

Your favorite qualities in a man: Sense of humor.  Big eyes.  Kindness.

Your favorite qualities in a woman: I am drawn to women that seem to be doing something else than anyone else is doing (generally or in a specific situation).  Also really like pretty people.

Your chief characteristic: Persistence.

What you appreciate the most in your friends: If they suggest something I would not have thought of, if they surprise me.

Your main fault: I am shy beyond anything reasonable.

Your favourite occupation: Drawing.  Reading.  Drawing.  Reading.

Your idea of happiness:  Working all the time on something challenging.

Your idea of misery: Being trapped in a boring situation, not making progress, no good food.

If not yourself, who would you be? Probably it is not okay to say David Bowie? It seems like fun to be David Bowie.  Maybe not.

Where would you like to live? Paris

Your favorite color and flower: Green.  Columbine.

Your favorite prose authors: Bruno Schultz.  Robert Walser.  Flann O’Brian.  Thomas Pynchon.  Haruki Murakami.  Orhan Pamuk.  John Crowley.  Michel Taussig.

Your favorite heroes in fiction: Most of the books I like have really passive main characters.  I have however had a pretty serious thing for Lord Peter Whimsey since I was about 10.  Thomas Moore comes off well in Wolf Hall.

Your favorite heroines in fiction: Madame Bovary.  The Snark.

Your favorite painters and composers: I like a lot of old European painters, like Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Fra Angelico and Bruegel.  Really like Holbein, anything with precise accurate observation.  Hokusai made amazing paintings, also Jakuchu Ito, I like old Chinese paintings and Persian miniatures and manuscript illuminations.  I like Luc Tuymans a lot, my friend Jack Barth, Horst Jansson, Violet Hopkins is a really nice watercolorist.  Vija Celmins is one of my favorite painters. It’s hard to divide how I feel about paintings into like or dislike, I find most paintings pretty interesting.   Mozart.

Your heroes in real life: My grandfather, he can describe how any machine works and how to shoe horses, and reads a lot about new physics.  He is endlessly curious and always encouraged me to learn as much as I could.

Your favorite heroines in real life: When I was a kid my aunt Chris was the only woman I knew who had a career.  It might not have occurred to me as a possibility if she hadn’t done it.

What characters in history do you most dislike: St. Paul.  Lot of other people were jerks, but I feel kind of personal about him.

Your heroines in World history: Queen Dido.  Joan of Arc.  that woman who became pope, except I think they killed her pretty quickly.

Your favorite food and drink: Sushi.  Cold white wine?  Not together.

Your favorite names: Rollo.  Mabel.  Arthur.  Jillian.  Constance.  Rachel.  Alice.

What I hate the most: Unnecessary suffering.  Mayonnaise.

The natural talent I’d like to be gifted with: Polyglotism?  Musical ability?  A spectacular outgoing personality?  Really, would take any of these.

How I wish to die: Unafraid and undaunted.

What is your present state of mind: Amnesia.

For what fault have you most toleration?  Silliness.  Complete and total silliness.

Your favorite motto: Als ich kan.  The best weapon is the weapon at hand.  I know I have one, just have to remember.