Bread, Song, Scary Animals, What Happens When You Die
Your Answers, my friends — to the Stephen Colbert interview therapy session.
Earlier this week I suggested we fête Stephen Colbert by taking a deep-therapy dive on his famous interview questions.
I’ve loved reading your answers! You tunas have good taste.
Care to cast your answers? Here you go, it’s a five minute frolic:
My answers are: here.
Let’s begin, my little French dips:
Your Favorite Sandwich?
The oft-repeated of your sandwich faves were: The BLT, and the mythical, must-be-made-right, Reuben. Someone said, “Minsky’s” and I knew what they meant.
“I am a vegetarian of many years, and I still dream of the Reuben.”
When to comes to every sandwich, the qualities you emphasized are the fresh bread, the perfect tomato, and the mayo.
There were a few rare sandwiches that deserve publicity, because I intend to recreate all of them! Thank you, international comrades. These include:
“A place in Auckland, New Zealand, called The Federal, make a chicken sandwich with a generous ramekin of best chicken gravy to dip that is too good...”
“Broodje Kaas: Brown Bread with Old Dutch Cheese.” Oh man, I had this every day when I visited the Netherlands. Great bread and transcendent cheese.
“The Francesinha, from Porto, Portugal. It is a BOMB.” The beer + secret ingredients are in this recipe.
The Autograph Book
The most intriguing answers were to this question, “Have you ever asked for an autograph?”
It’s become a quaint question, but everyone still knows and remembers the autograph experience.
“Leonard Bernstein signed my copy of his score for The Chichester Psalms when I performed it under his baton as a child, but I hadn’t asked him to. He just did it.”
“Mike Mullane, who wrote Riding Rockets, the best book ever on being an astronaut.”
“Sylvia Earle, the world famous undersea diver. She won the Humanist Award with you, Susie.”
“Only once. (Pauses, considers lying). As a reporter, I had to cover an appearance by Cajun comedian Justin Wilson. My parents loved him.
“I asked Ricky Nelson for his autograph when I was 19, working the county fair. I thought sure he’d have some good drugs but he didn’t offer me or my girlfriends any. We were disappointed.”
“Guy Lafleur who was a superstar hockey player with my hometown Montreal Canadiens in my childhood.”
“When living in Prague, I saw a widespread graffiti of a smily-face and wondered who was behind it. At a party, I saw someone with a t-shirt of the same graffiti and found out it was collective that worked with homeless people in the city. They each signed my arm!”
Apples Vs. Oranges?
Oranges only got a third of the vote.
I’d like to speak on behalf of the garden crowd. I have an apple tree and an orange tree, both sweet and beloved.
However, the orange tree gets picked clean, every fruit squeezed or devoured— while the apples get a brief hurrah and then people move on.
The Scariest Animal?
Homo Sapiens won the vote, by far.
Followed by: Spiders.
Interesting; I love the spider. I’m the Charlotte’s Web type.
The weirdest reply from your answers is an animal I have NOT met: “Tasmanian devil with Devil Facial Tumor Disease.” Do tell more.
What Do You Think Happens When We Die?
Our readers are half Atheist; the other half being Everything Else.
“You cum, get ecstatic, and instantly forget everything.”
“Like the movie The Parrots of Telegraph Hill— while we are alive, we are like the droplets of a waterfall, before we rejoin the rush of the river when we die.”
“Our life and our spirit cease. There may be a brief period of transition, along the lines of a falling dream, but then it’s lights out forever.”
“We just . . . get it.”
“I hope we just make a big dust pile.”
“Yes, I do talk to dead people. All the fucking time.”
“When we get there, we’ll know.”
Favorite Action Movie
The most repeated of your answers: “I don’t like’em.”
I didn’t like much action cinema until I became a film critic and I was on assignment. Then I began to consider the genre was complicated, like porn.
The single choice of an action film you listed more than once, was the Oscar-winning Alien. I’m sure it would pop on up best-science-fiction, best-heroine, best-art-film, too. Best cat.
Special Note: One of you mentioned the 1974 subway heist film The Taking of Pelham 123, starring Walter Matthau.
It’s a character and location-driven study, an ensemble masterpiece.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the audiobook of the same title is superb, where actor Mark Bramhall captures dialects and characters of New York who simply aren’t alive anymore.
I was so inspired by Bramhall’s performance, I asked him to narrate Christ in Concrete when I was producing at Audible— the Italian American novel that defined a generational Italian experience before The Godfather.
Favorite Aroma, and The Worst Smell Ever
Awww . . . many of you said your favorite scent is your lover’s body, their hair, under their arms, their bedclothes.
Also, babies’ heads.
I remember holding onto my godmother Sally’s sheets for a long time, never washing them, because I wanted to bury my face in her memory.
The most singular scent any of you suggested, is one I had to look up: Petrichor. Wow! “The earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil.” I have been in the desert when that happened, and you’re right, it’s incomparable. I’ve never known it had a name.
Also, I liked this reframing:
Vanilla. “Vanilla” has become shorthand for “boring and ordinary,” but it isn’t! It’s deep and mysterious.
As for bad smells, we’ve had a few. Vomit led your list. Rotten food, next.
Here’s a few I never considered carefully:
Burning Brake Pads
Wintergreen
Datura leaves
The Song You Could Listen to Forever
Well, this was fun. I made a YouTube playlist of all your picks, so far. It’s been a great morning listening to them as I compose this post.
I’ve grouped the classical selections at the beginning, and then the rest.
If you have others to add, let me know.
Some Down and Dirty Blog Business - Behind the Scenes
Thank you— tight hug— to my (paying) subscribers who’ve hung in there the last several weeks since the “Strait of Hormuz” tanked all our fortunes— Such as they were, right?
The cost and availability of gas, food, (and everything else) is challenging for most people, even for those who thought they were managing before.
Artists are up against the wall as many of our friends/fans say: “I’m sorry, hon, but I need to save— all pleasurable expenses are kaput.”
I get it. I am walking, not driving, to the grocery store, to buy my parcel of dried beans.
But I would die if I couldn’t read, and couldn’t connect with all of you. So here’s the deal.
If you have the do-re-mi, as Woody Guthrie wrote, to support a couple of your favorite independent writers, musicians, theater folk— you are metaphorically saving the whales.
Still . . . let’s say you’re not up to the year-long subscription expense. No problem, Subscribe for a month or two! —Then shut it off! Get all the good stuff behind the velvet rope.
If I had 100 people who occasionally subscribed to me for a month, I’d be writing with a sense of, “We can do this.”
But, let’s say you’re in the same dried-bean category as me. You’d love to help, but it’s impossible. Here’s a helpful no-cash lift: Recommend your favorite writer publicly, on Substack. Or, better, by email to a couple friends. Grab a post of mine (or anyone’s you love) and repost it with a comment by yourself, so it’s personal. Credibility these days is strictly word of mouth.
Some of you have asked about buying my books as helpful notion, or the books of authors you want to support. That’s good for our reputation. But.
Publishing is so bad right now, book/movie/record sales are not enough royalty income to buy even ONE bean, let alone a bag.
The only thing working now for indie artists1 are direct-subscriber sites, like Stack, Patreon, Bandcamp. OnlyFans, for that matter.
Also, those with a little extra, can “upgrade” and pay for a Founding subscription (in my case, it’s my video teaching room, Seminars).
We artist-whores hate passing the hat; we really do. I remember when the most common way to read “Susie Bright” or any writer in the world, was because you were sitting in a diner and there was a newspaper or magazine left on the table, and that’s how you found my latest story. I didn’t have to toot my horn, ugh. You found your favorite journalists and authors in periodicals that you saw everywhere, for pennies, for free. Paperbacks for dimes. Authors liked that era much better, when we weren’t busking like Oliver Twist.
All this is to say: I realize most of you who subscribe to my journal get this, and you’ve felt moved by what happens on the page here.
That is why I thank you so deeply. You remember what we’ve been through together. You’re sharing your beans with me. We’ll make it, somehow!
Susie
And the number of writers, et al, who are being supported by corporate largesse, are few enough to fit on a lifeboat.
This was so much fun, Susie! Thanks for curating all our answers to the Stephen Colbert challenge. I learned that I have a lot in common with people I don't know . . . at least the people subscribed to your Substack! Now, I'm going to listen to "our" playlist and pray that none of us is ever doomed to listen to only one song forever.