Proust Questionnaire

The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Perfect happiness is laying on the sofa in the dark beside my wife after a long, productive day listening to something moving and beautiful and not having to be or wanting to be anywhere but there in those sublime moments engulfed in music.

What does your ideal day look like?
Fire in the wood stove, coffee, quiet, calm, sitting in the semi-darkness meditating, then moving to my desk to write, going for a walk later, sharing supper with my wife, reading, listening to music.

What is your greatest extravagance?
I collect music. Everything from classical to jazz, blues to gospel, funk to R&B, country to soul, rock ‘n’ roll to reggae. There can never be too much music.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
My passion for writing..

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My feet. I could handle having more elegant feet instead of my broad, flat Ojibway feet that look like brown paddles when I wear sandals.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
That Snoopy will one day get shot down by the Red Baron.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
I take comfort in dark jeans and light opera, dark roast coffee and light cream cheese, dark humor and light conversation, dark sunglasses and light from a distant star, dark horses in a contest and light banter at a hockey game…

Do you remember your dreams?
No. I never seem to be awake when they happen.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
I have a phenomenal memory and can recall the smallest details of the smallest things even years, decades after.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

 
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
The dragon of ambition is finally slayed!

What does your ideal day look like?
Getting up early (say 10:30 am) writing without thought or self-consciousness, nice lunch, the movies, a humble salute to the chakras, in bed early (say 2:30 am) with a cup of water. Like anybody, I suppose.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Writing.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
My favourite childhood toy: a portly stuffed Dalmatian named ‘Spot’.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
That  continual, low-level, enervating feeling that everything about me needs changing.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
Closets, elevators, forests, bats, bridges, antique car horns, the Amish, black forest cake, accordions, Hercules beetles, woodchucks, ball-peen hammers, radiator steam, crustaceans, soggy aprons, yodeling, hyenas, tile grout, lassitude, maté straws, the state of Illinois, saddle shoes, lederhosen, riding apparel, parking meters, Venus fly-traps, that empty feeling you get when you realize that after one second is gone  the next will be gone too, and the next, and the next, and the one after that, and then the one after that god dammit…

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
Neither … I like that brief period when light is becoming dark. Really, during those twenty minutes of dusk I’m at my peak.

Do you remember your dreams?
What?! Some people don’t? I want that!

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
I repeat them a hundred times until they’re drummed into my subconscious. Then I will myself to forget them.  It’s an actor’s technique.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

 
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Absorption. Whenever I’m lost in anything—a book, a conversation, a piece of music—and can’t even remember who I am, I know I must be in the right place, ecstatic. 

What does your ideal day look like?
More or less, the days I’ve crafted for myself in my home in rural Japan. I wake up, write, take long walks around the neighborhood, sit out on our tiny terrace in the sun, nibbling at sweet tangerines and reading long fiction, and then play furious games of ping-pong with the local grandmas (and sometimes their husbands) before spending the evening with my wife, after she’s back from work.

We have no car, no bicycle, no magazines or newspapers, no printer, no television I can understand and almost no Internet—only two small rooms in the whole place--and the day seems to last a thousand years.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Books.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
Self-possession.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My over-ripe sense of duty.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
I’ve never been fond of crocodiles.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
I have such a love of light that I’ve worked really hard to try to look at the dark. I do believe that one can find light pretty much anywhere—especially in the dark—if one’s eyes are wide awake.

Do you remember your dreams?
I’ve recorded my dreams at times, as soon as I woke up (sometimes even before), but I found that doing so meant that I was too tired to record anything else the rest of the day. So now I let them just settle somewhere half-hidden beneath my other thoughts and color my writing invisibly.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
I have a wonderful piece of high-technology: a tiny notepad that fits in my pocket, and an aged Pilot black pen. Ever since I was eighteen or so, I’ve trained myself to scribble down every last thought or sentence that comes to me—because I know it will never come again.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A sunny fall day—late afternoon, long shadows—walking in the woods with a few good dogs. There might be a crow in the top of a Douglas Fir, making chortling sounds.

What does your ideal day look like?
I think I just described it. You expected writing to figure into it, didn’t you?

What is your greatest extravagance?
I asked my partner. He said: “dogfood.” This might be true.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
My faculties. I’m in possession of them right now, but I’m terrified of losing them. But would I know enough to be heartbroken?

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I’ll never tell.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
The fear of looking foolish. The fear of losing my faculties came much later.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
Is this a trick question?

Do you remember your dreams?
In a whispy sort of way. The good ones involve dogs and forest walks; for information on the bad ones, see”childhood fear” question.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
Not trusting my faculties, I write them down on small pieces of paper. Then, if I’m smart, I transcribe them into a “miscellaneous ideas” file on my computer, because an hour after I handwrite anything, I can’t decipher it.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
I think I’m not much interested in perfect anything.  It is really life’s troubles and often raw inflections that make it involving and a challenge.  I don’t think my DNA has “perfect” in its code.  I come from chancers which means there had to be obstacles and hazards in their lives, danger and mistakes and of course good music, good food and card games, lots of dancing.

I do try to make an arena for my writing, clear time and lift the worries of what others require of me so I can do my own work. In 1981 I built myself a retreat which I shared with the Raymond Carver,  the great short story writer. I called this retreat Sky House as I designed it with many windows and sits overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington State.  I am very happy there with my notebooks, library and two dogs.  Also for four years I have had a little cottage in the deep countryside of Ireland in a place I have been going to for forty some years in County Sligo near Lough Arrow. I am quite content there beside an open fire with my companion, the painter and storyteller Josie Gray. Happiness for a writer must probably include some evolved way of clearing time and place for the work itself. But also companionship that stimulates, yet doesn’t yank the table cloth from under the meal.

What does your ideal day look like?
Every day for me that I am allowed to smile, see the wonders, especially birds and mountains and the sea, hear a friend’s troubles, address some of my own, write a poem, sing a song to my dogs, bake bread, walk in the snow—I don’t wait for an ideal day: each day is mine to discover what is ideal there within it.  That changes as I change and as the world around me modifies.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Probably my frequent trips to Ireland. 

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
If I lost my two dogs, I think I would be bereft.  Although I must travel a lot in my poet’s vagabond life, they are steadfast.  They give me a sense of what is possible. One of them is blind and deaf and so valiant.  She teaches me every day.  The other is a street dog who came through many things I don’t even know except in echo, and by how grateful he seems to be with me.  His enthusiasm for life is such a gift.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
It would be nice to know everything I know now and be about twenty-five. But then I wouldn’t get to make all my wonderful “mistakes”! It would just be nice to be a bit more streamlined and know more what one wants and doesn’t want.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
My spirit became nomadic in adulthood and I think this came from being allowed to roam on horseback and explore and be alone on the thousand acre farm of my grandparents.  I think it was such a large gift to me that it also put a fear in me of any confinement—why I love poetry because it allows me all that sweep of the imagination.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
See my poem “Yes” in Moon Crossing Bridge which indicates that one needs both light and darkenss.  I try to stay out of dichotomies since they lead to untruths.  No darkness then you can’t shine a light.  No light no way to carry your shadow.

Do you remember your dreams?
Yes, and they often enter my poems.  I tell them to my artist friend Jeffree who is a fellow dreamer.  That keeps them from dissipating too quickly.  Raymond Carver seldom dreamed so he always loved it when I would tell him my dreams.  My best place for dreaming is in my cottage in Ireland.  For some reason the velvet darkness and the proximity to a lake and a graveyard seem to make it ideal.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
I have small notebooks.  Also I jot on any scrap of paper I can find if I don’t have a notebook at hand.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked 2012 Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
An original thought.

What does your ideal day look like?
I have no idea, since it would have to be utterly unpredictable.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Seeds.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
My life, the only thing that is truly mine.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would be able to quote great authors at length.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
Bats.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
Ah, darkness. No, wait! Light!

Do you remember your dreams?
Only those that pierce the heart.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
On a flat surface—napkin, the inside of a wrist—with a writing implement—chalk, pen, bobby pin.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked 2011 Festival authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
To be rid of old vendettas and peevish, competitive impulses.

What does your ideal day look like?
Sitting on the porch with my son and then going out to dinner with my wife.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Eating nightly in restaurants.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
My office at U of T.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Irrational hatreds and a desire for revenge.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
Bad smells and depressing sounds.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
Darkness

Do you remember your dreams?
Yes

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?Usually they come in the shower or the bathroom with the sound of running water so I try and keep paper nearby.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked 2011 Festival authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
The ocean within walking distance.

What does your ideal day look like?
Balanced--a little bit of creative work, a little bit of domestic puttering, a little bit of exercise, getting a couple of tedious chores accomplished so I can feel virtuous, bike ride, a bit of mental stimulation via books or (yes) TV, a good dinner at the end of the day, maybe some sex somewhere in there.

What is your greatest extravagance?
I pay good money for good bras.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
My wedding ring.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
A kneejerk avoidance of conflict.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
Scary dolls with the secret potential to come alive.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
Light.

Do you remember your dreams?
Vividly.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
They mostly just sit fermenting in my head and pop up when I have need of them.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked 2011 Festival authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

 What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A day full of minor happy moments: toast for breakfast, winning a wager, a nice glass of bourbon, a nice dinner, seeing friends, reading a good chapter of a book, cycling on a summer night.  Lately, I have been perfectly happy except for my gambling.

 What does your ideal day look like?
My ideal day would include doing some work so I don’t feel lazy, some internet dawdling.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Right now, it’s gadgetry.  I have three laptops.  Two years ago, it was a racehorse.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
I can’t think of anything.  I try not to own anything that I’d be afraid to lose.

 If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I’d probably be taller.  More realistically, I’d like to be more fearless in life and my work.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
I find the idea of touching a live fish terrifying.  I still haven’t overcome that. 

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
Darkness.  I generally wake up between ten and 11 in the morning.  When I need to be awake any earlier, the day feels endless.

Do you remember your dreams?
Mostly I don’t.  I have a pet peeve about people relating their dreams.  That could be because my dream life is remarkably quotidian: the other day I dreamed I had to wash dirty dishes in six sinks all over a gigantic house.  I didn’t really need to wash the dishes, but still felt the urge to do so.  Oh shit, now I just told you about a dream… I have become what I hate!

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly
I have a draft e-mail in Gmail account that I type random ideas for stories and articles in in point form.  I hope that e-mail never gets out!

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