Tag: me

Cell Block Chacha asks:

So between your experience in New Zealand and what you’ve got so far here in America, which place would you say is more LGBT friendly? Just asking out of curiosity as a gay American myself.

Eh.  I don’t think I’m really the best person to ask.  Like, I come from New Zealand’s biggest city, so I grew up in an environment that was quite socially progressive even by our standards, and now I live in Ohio, which is… probably not the very best America has to offer on that front?  But on the other hand, most of the people I actually have anything to do with are academics like me, and academics pretty much everywhere are overwhelmingly liberal and have no patience for discrimination (my department has… at the moment, I think like seven or eight openly gay or bi graduate students, including me?).  I don’t really get out much, and since I don’t have a boyfriend there’s really no reason a stranger would know I’m gay unless I choose to tell them, so it just doesn’t come up.  That’s… that’s probably not a very good answer.  In strictly legal terms New Zealand is certainly very progressive as far as that goes, more so than most parts of the United States, but I don’t actually know how we’d compare to somewhere like California or Massachusetts.

As an academic-in-training, what pokemon do you think you would benefit most from befriending in real life and why?

Well, I’ve been asked a couple of times which Pokémon I would most like to have in real life, and my usual answer – Claydol – was chosen at least partially because I think it’d be really handy to have on an archaeological dig.  I think Claydol would still be my first choice, but since you asked, and that’s a bit of a cop-out, let’s pick another one.  Hmm.  How about Xatu?  I pick Xatu solely for her ability to see into the past.  This would almost certainly not work as advertised, and would be far more complicated and fallible than one might hope, even assuming Xatu is able to communicate her visions effectively to humans.  On the other hand, she can see into the past.  It almost doesn’t even matter what conditions there are on that ability; it’s still a totally new perspective from which to derive information about past people and cultures.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s a win, even if it takes decades to figure out a way to ensure the information’s reliability.

Wo haben Sie Deutsch gelernt? Sind Sie je in Deutschland? Was ist Ihre Lieblingsdeutschpokemonname?

Eh… ich spreche nicht so gut, aber ich muss für mein Promotionsstudium manchmal Deutsch lesen (mit einem Wörterbuch), weil viele wichtige Archäologen in Deutsch schreiben und veröffentlichen.  Ich bin noch nie nach Deutschland gegangen, aber ich würde gerne!

Soweit, mein Lieblingsdeutschpokemonname ist Schluppuck!  Es ist so wunderbar onomatopoetisch!

What are my orders supreme overlord.

The moon is dark, my brother.  Ptolemy has failed us, and the swallow has taken flight.  You must find the hidden bishop and take the last of the salt flowers.  Our eyes are closed against the north wind, so do not tempt the serpent until daybreak.

Remember – the white goat stalks the plains in summer.

it’s a completely senseless question in itself, but how’d you get the self-interlocutor idea to make an analysis so pleasant to read? www i’m just reading through some of your stuff right now, but you definitely have a thing for captivating eloquence. great analysis too! ah, i don’t where i’m getting with this though. anyway, great job!

Well, it kinda just ‘happens.’  The ‘Rivals’ series is the product of actual Skype conversations between me and my best friend, Jim the Editor (with the exception of the second one, on Barry, Lucas and Dawn, which happened when we were both home for Christmas and just went for a walk together instead).  Obviously they’re not a transcript – I polish them up quite a bit; our actual conversations include far more pointless tangents and indecipherable inside jokes – but I type up notes as we’re talking, and those form the skeleton of what I write, so the finished entries follow the path of the original conversation, and there are usually several lines of our exact words, if I can remember them.  It was Jim’s idea, actually.  Sort of an experiment in a different writing style.  I’m glad you think it’s working!

If you were to have one Pokemon to be brought here in the real world, what would it be? (in terms of usefulness in real life, battling, and other mortal stuff)

Just one?  Hmm.  Well, I dimly recall someone asked me to bring an entire team into the real world once, and I honestly have trouble going past one of the Pokémon I picked then – Claydol.  The combination of Ground- and Psychic-type abilities means it could be taught to move the earth subtly, not just as part of an attack form, and it could sense things beneath the ground without having to dig them up.  I’m an archaeologist in real life; with enough training to refine them, powers like that would be a godsend!  Claydol’s no slouch in battle either, if need be, and it can even Teleport you from place to place.

If you could have dinner with 5 other people, (they could be anyone, living, historical or even ficticious) who would you invite and what would you serve?

Ehhhhhrg, this is hard, because part of me kinda just wants to invite, like, five random Mycenaeans from different levels of society and ask them all kinds of cheating questions about their civilisation.  And serve them modern Greek cuisine just for the hell of it, ‘cause I can make a damn good baklava.  On the other hand I could do the whole ‘selection of your favourite famous historical figures thing’ and go for… hmm… well, Pliny the Elder has to be in there because he is just so many kinds of ridiculous… I kinda want Galileo Galilei because there just aren’t many bigger names in science than him… Cleopatra VII, partly because of her historical importance but also because she’s supposed to have been a scintillating conversationalist, which I feel would be important for a thing like this, and tremendously knowledgeable… Hone Heke Pokai, whom you’ve probably never heard of if you’re not from New Zealand but you should totally look him up because he was a crazy badass… and… hmm… we’ve got a scholar, a scientist, a queen and a warrior… I feel like we need an artist or poet, so what the hell, let’s throw in Sappho, the poetess of Lesbos.  She’d be fun.  And she’d totally flirt with Cleopatra which would be hilarious.  I’ll make them little meat pastries, because I can do a whole lot of different fillings with vegetables and spices and so on; it’s just a nice versatile way of doing really any sort of food you like.  And custard tart for dessert because, again, I make a damn good custard tart.