The Great Interview Experiment: Voix de Michèle

For the Great Interview Experiment, I’m very pleased to be share my interview with Michèle of Voix de Michèle. I am really glad that I got to meet Michèle, as she is a fantastic blogger: smart, interesting, and funny as hell! I really enjoyed poking around in her archives, and devising some devious questions to torment her.

I also had get over the urge to do an interview Chris Farley style. (Hey, remember when you started a blog? That was so cool.))

Anyhow, here are my questions and her answers:

1. You are involved in Improv. That is so cool! (Oh, right. That’s not a question.) So, how did you get involved in Improv? Has it affected aspects of your work as a teacher? Your writing? Your life? (Great, now that’s 4 questions.)

Oh, Alejna, you totally get me already. I love questions with layers. They’re like cake except they don’t make you fat. I got involved with Improv this past August after going to the Minnesota Fringe Festival. After watching a bunch of really amazing one-person performances, laughing a lot, and reading some great reviews, all I could think was: Why am I not doing that? So I signed up for a class. And I loved it so much, I haven’t stopped. Improv has pushed me to consider creative writing projects never previously imagined and has shaken up my brain in lots of other as-yet-to be determined ways. I write about these ripples a lot, but to summarize: Everything is changing. And I love clapping. (But that isn’t new information.)

2. You have been blogging a really long time–it looks like it will be 5 whole years in just about a week. What prompted you to start a blog? How has your blog evolved over the years?

I started blogging over Thanksgiving weekend five years ago because I was really lonely. It was the first year I didn’t have anyone to cook for in a long time and I didn’t want to drive to Chicago for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was new in my MFA – Creative Writing program and one of my profs had a blog, so I set one up and started talking about myself. I kept it up because I really liked the attention. Over the past five years, I’ve become less of a confessional/emotional catharsis writer and more a creative process/big picture vs. Michele writer. I think my blog is a little less interesting than it used to be and I don’t post as often, but I’m also not a needy insecure girl anymore, either. But I still really love talking about myself. I think I’m fascinating.

3. Are there topics that are taboo for your blog? Are there topics you consider too boring for your blog?

Since I have my full name on my blog and I’ve been blogging for so long, the Google Bots have made me very easy to find. Type Michele Campbell – I show up first. So my resourceful and curious high school students check out the blog sometimes, which means I can’t write about sex. My dad reads my blog, so I don’t swear much. Many of my friends on Facebook (and I’m friends with just about everyone I know) read my blog, so I don’t write about current relationships – especially if someone is annoying me or I feel bad about an interaction. In addition, I try to avoid complaining about stuff that I know my friends will call me on. Example: say I can’t figure out how to change the stupid f-ing light bulbs in my office. Say they scare me, because they’re flush mounted and you need to have knowing man hands to take them apart and figure out what kind of bulbs go into the fixture and not leave scary burn the house down wires hanging from the ceiling for too long. Say that I forgot to get married and don’t have a man around to do things like change scary light bulbs without burning the house down. If I write a blog post about how much I hate these stupid light fixtures and don’t know how to change the bulbs and I’m suffering in darkness, woe is me, I get 5 guy friends emailing me saying – MICHELE, you’re supposed to ASK FOR HELP, not COMPLAIN ON THE INTERNET. (Actually, they’re nice guys, and they probably wouldn’t even yell. But then they’d make me give them beer for reminding me that they’re awesome and I can ask for help even when I’m embarrassed for not knowing how to do house things. So I don’t write about that kind of stuff until it’s a really good example of how I have learned how to get over myself and not put all my problems on the Internet.

4. You wrote a couple of great posts on blogging (how to blog and blog etiquette) back in 2005. Now that several years have passed, would you change any of this advice? Would you add stuff?

I think those lists are pretty good, actually. Blogging has changed and I don’t write every day anymore. Otherwise, to that advice, I would add this: Only write and post what you wouldn’t mind seeing on every single computer in your school library (or other work place.) A great example: I had a super cute photo of myself at a birthday celebration – wearing a tiara, a pink boa, and doing a very large chocolate cake shot. Loved it. Posted it on my blog. Went to school. A student saw over my shoulder when I was checking my blog at my desk and said, “Madame is that you???” I said, “No, of course not.” Then I went in and deleted the photo as fast as I could before he could copy it and send it to all of his friends, show my boss that there are pictures of me drinking on the Internet, and get me homeless.

5. If you were a dessert topping, what sort of blog would you write? And wouldn’t you have trouble typing? I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t be writing these questions late at night. I get a little goofy. How about this question instead: if you were a fairy godmother, what gift would you bestow on your godchild? (Or do you prefer the dessert topping question?)

I like them both. If I were a dessert topping, I would be Nutella. I would write about how much I love to spread myself over the spongy and crunchy goodness of baguettes, how I make a fantastic sandwich with peanut butter and bananas, how I can be devoured on crêpes, and how I am awesome melted over ice cream.

If I were a fairy godmother, I would give all of my godchildren flexible spending cards so they could get all the psychotherapy they needed to become self-sufficient, productive, and motivated members of the community. Which is not to say that my godchildren need therapy. But you never know, you know? I’m just sayin.

6. If you were going to put together a movie about you, what would some of the songs on the soundtrack be? (Aside from Punk Rock Girl, of course. That is a most excellent song, by the way.)

Here’s what I’ve been singing in the car:

World Spins Madly On – The Weepies
As Is – Ani DiFranco
Only Makes Me Laugh – Danny Elfman/Oingo Boingo
Bizarre Love Triangle – New Order
Girlfriend in a Coma – The Smiths
Dairy Queen – Indigo Girls
Angry Anymore – Ani DiFranco
Sénégal Fast Food – Amadou et Miriam
Je t’aimais, je t’aime, et je t’aimerai – Francis Cabrel
( I could keep going, but you get the general idea)

7. I see that you are a fan of the Bulwer-Lytton contest for really really bad opening lines. Have you written any such bad lines yourself? Could you write one for us here?

Oh dear heavens, no. I’m not any good at those. That is why I post them!

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Thanks for your very entertaining answers, Michele!

Be sure to check out some of the other interviews from the Great Interview Experiment, as well. Michele herself has one up. And Neil (of Citizen of the Month) will be posting links to participants each week. (I see he has a new list up already.)

rushing by in a blur

Time has been running away from me again. I’m rather in denial that it’s already November, that Thanksgiving is a week away. In my mind, Summer has barely ended. Theo just had his birthday, and we just got back from Spain a few days ago. The calendar tells a different story, though, and the trees with their bare branches conspire.

The days and months rush by in a blur.

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I took this series of photos last month (was it really already a month ago?) while heading home from some family excursion. (I wasn’t driving, mind you. I let Phoebe take the wheel so I could take pictures.)

rural advertising opportunities

Out here in the country, we don’t have those high-falutin’ “billboards” you city people have.

This space available for your ad.

(If anyone else has a caption for this, please leave it in the comments. Or write it on a piece of paper, tape it to a farm animal, and walk it over here for me to read.)

and furthermore

As luck would have it, this is a busy month for me work-wise. My research group is submitting things to two different conferences this month, plus we’ve been ramping up on some other aspects of our projects with impending deadlines. So this is perhaps not the ideal time for me to have committed to blogging every day for a month. And yet somehow, the compulsions compels.

Further, I have further committed myself even further to furthering my blogging obsession: I have signed on to the Great Interview Experiment, the brainchild of Neil of Citizen of the Month. (Well, he claims it as his brainchild, but we have yet to see the results of the paternity test.)

In this project, bloggers sign up to interview one another by leaving a comment on the announcement post. Who interviews whom is determined by the order of the comments. It’s a fantabulous way to get to know some bloggers you might otherwise not meet. I get to interview Michèle of Voix de Michèle, and I am being interviewed by Becky/Ms. Batman of Welcome to My Life. I’m very excited about both interviews, so I need to get my act together and answer the questions.

And look! Here’s a cute baby!

a chance for pants

    Every time I have the chance
    While some may think it’s whack
    I’ll write a post involving pants

    Let the kitchen swarm with ants
    Leave the laundry on the rack
    Every time I have the chance

    I give my work a sideways glance
    I may catch a lot of flak
    I’ll write a post involving pants

    Humming lines from Safety Dance
    I’ll type away upon my Mac
    Every time I have the chance

    I’ll not read a bad romance
    Nor journal papers in their stack
    I’ll write a post involving pants

    Though others look at me askance
    I swear I’m not on crack
    Every time I have the chance
    I’ll write a post involving pants

—————

These pants are dedicated, in loving memory, to my friend Elizabeth, whose claim that pants was the funniest word in the English language first introduced me to the humorous powers of pants. Your pants will never be forgotten, dear friend.

The form of this post is a villanelle, a style of poetry, and the assignment of today’s Monday Mission. Please pay a visit to Painted Maypole to see who else has chosen to accept this mission. Painted herself has told me that she has a poem up, also with the theme of pants. (Painted penned a poem of pants.)

Today also marks the third anniversary of this blog. It seemed only fitting that it should wear plenty of pants today.

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musical scales (PhotoHunt)

The theme for this week’s PhotoHunt is “music.”

These are photos I took of a dragon at the folk music festival in Lowell, Massachusetts.
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In case you’re wondering why the dragon is “musical” (aside from being at a music festival), take a closer look at the dragon’s scales.
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For more people’s interpretative dances to this week’s PhotoHunt music, stop by tnchick.

This Week in Pants

The web is abuzz with pants. With so many people writing about pants these days, I’d be letting them down if I didn’t put up a post about it.

I bring to you: This Week¹ in Pants.

First, I’m pleased to report that the “in my pants” music meme is alive and well (and not just in my pants). Dee of On the Curb is the latest to report in:

You, too, can have music in your pants.

And wearing pants elsewhere…

And would you believe that the realm of pants extends even beyond the blogosphere? I scoured the headlines for news of pants around the world. Here are some of the top pants headlines:

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¹ Okay, fine, so many of these posts are older than a week. But “This Fortnight or So in Pants” isn’t nearly as catchy as “This Week in Pants.” I mean, just check out the acronym: TWIP.

the swine flew

“Thinking again?” the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin.
“I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried.
“Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly….”
— Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 9.

Everyone knows that pigs can’t fly.

Except, of course, when they do. And fly they do, in all sorts of lore and literature, song and show, and even in a few airborne vessels. This ThThTh list is hog-wild for the swine of the skies.

A list of flying pigs

  • when pigs fly: an expression by which a speaker can convey the opinion that a given event will never happen. As in “this blog will be awarded a Pulitzer when pigs fly.”
  • when pigs grow wings: an expression that means “when pigs fly”
  • Pigs Have Wings, by P.G. Wodehouse. A book by the author of the Jeeves and Wooster series.
  • Flying Pig: a character on Kids in the Hall, portrayed by Bruce McCulluch. He is a winged pig who flies and “entertains people at bank-machines and other of life’s many lineups.” (See him in flight on YouTube.)

    flying pig kith

  • Pigasus: various references to winged pigs. The name plays on Pegasus (a winged horse)
  • Cincinnati: this city has adopted a winged pig as a mascot. The city has a Flying Pig Marathon.
    • pb125575
    A flying pig mug I bought at the Cincinatti airport.
  • references to flying pigs are used in many different business such as restaurants and art galleries . I’ve bought bread adorned with a winged pig from a bakery called When Pigs Fly. There’s evenFlying Pig Eyewear.

    • logo 111 flyingpig f

  • winged pigs have become so ubiquitous as to be commonly used for decoration, such as adorning weathervanes
  • “Pigs on the Wing”, a song by Pink Floyd
  • The first recorded pig flight took place in England in 1909. (source)

    The first historically recorded flight of a pig took place on British soil, at Leysdown in Kent in 1909. The pig was carried aloft by J.T.C. Moore-Brabazon, later the First Lord Brabazon of Tara, in his personal French-built Voisin aero plane.

    The pig was placed into a wicker basket, which was in turn strapped to a wing strut of the aero plane. A hand-lettered sign attached to the basket read: ‘I am the first pig to fly.’ Brabazon purposefully carried the pig aloft, thereby disproving the long help opinion that ‘pigs can not fly.’

  • More recently another flying pig made the news after a flight on a commercial airline

    • piscrew pigs in spaceship

  • Pigs in Space: these pigs from the Muppet Show have mastered not just flight, but space flight.

  • ad astra per alia porci: Steinbeck’s motto “To the stars on the wings of a pig” (found via the blog On Pig’s Wings, taking its name “from Steinbeck, whose motto, described his status as a ‘lumbering soul but trying to fly.'” )
  • Can’t get enough flying pigs? Lots more about them can be found at Porkopolis, a website devoted to all things porcine. Be sure to check posts in the category “flight,” and the informative post A Brief History of Pigs and Flight. Flying pigs have their own Wiki page, too.