anyone you regard as a bona fide intellectual? Do you suppose that once a bird knows how to fly he pretty much can expect to fly without incident, more or less as, say, we walk about, or would you think bird flying to be fraught with aeronautical accident? How accurately can you shoot a rubber band? Have you ever been bitten by a horse? When you buy clothes, do you assiduously check the way they fit you, or do you just decide they fit or they don’t and be done with it?
Do you ever hold hands with anyone? If you do not, are there circumstances in which you might hold hands with anyone? If there were a gun case full of guns, yours or someone else’s, and one of the guns was dirty and fouled from use while the others were meticulously clean, would you want to see that the one gun got cleaned? If you were at a landfill and saw a large pile of girly magazines, which you do not customarily look at, beside a large pile of unopened tins of Skoal, which you have never used, would you go over there and take a pinch of snuff and have a lookat a magazine? Do buzzards give you the creeps? Have you ever constructed a sandbox? If you once owned a slide rule and do not have it now, do you know what happened to it?
When was the last time you saw an ostrich? In what kinds of weather do you most like to walk? Do you enjoy oiling things or is that best left to others? Do you know what comes after “Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man / bake me a cake as fast as you can”? Are you familiar with the sport of kite fighting? Do you think of there being a proper point in your debilitation as you age at which you should, if you can, kill yourself?
Do you have any experience with boils? When people are weeping and fretting about you, do you console or attempt to move away as politely as possible? Do you find Mary Martin in Peter Pan sexually stimulating? Have you ever had cockles? Does Ireland sound like your kind of place or like someone else’s kind of place? Have you ever been exposed to rigorous mathematical proofs, and if so, do you like them? Do you know the term for the kind of trowel, used in applying certain adhesives, that has teeth on its edge so that glue is laid down in fine rows instead of as a film?Does any confusion arise if you see or hear pinecone and cornpone together? Do you have any impulse to wish that everything you own could somehow without overmuch trauma be made to disappear? If you had to threaten someone with either “I’mone slap the taste out of your mouth” or “I’mone knock you into next week,” which colorful expression would you prefer? If someone threatened you with either of these utterances, would you rather reply “Well, pack your lunch” or “You and whose army?”
THESE SMALL BIRDS FLITTING about the top of the pine tree outside my window that I likened to fleas or lice on a large animal—may I say now more accurately that they look like gnats around the head and eyes of a tall creature? Did they get to the bottom of what has killed all the amphibians the world over? Do you think the heyday of hair spray was the 1960s, or has it lived on? Are Kotex still worn on belts? Were you ever familiar enough with gladiators that you preferred one style of combat over others—the net and trident, say, over the short sword? What sort of boat do you fancy best? Would you rather have todeal with a regulatory commission or a codes inspector? Do you have much patience for sanding wood? Have you come over time to think that you know more now than you did when young, know less now than when young, know now there is so much more to know than you knew there was to know when young that it is moot whether you think you knew more then than now or less, or do you now know that you never knew anything at all and never will and only the bluster of youth persuaded you that you did or would?
Do you keep a neat living place or a messy place? Is it better to work in a messy place and get a lot of work done or a
Do you ever hold hands with anyone? If you do not, are there circumstances in which you might hold hands with anyone? If there were a gun case full of guns, yours or someone else’s, and one of the guns was dirty and fouled from use while the others were meticulously clean, would you want to see that the one gun got cleaned? If you were at a landfill and saw a large pile of girly magazines, which you do not customarily look at, beside a large pile of unopened tins of Skoal, which you have never used, would you go over there and take a pinch of snuff and have a lookat a magazine? Do buzzards give you the creeps? Have you ever constructed a sandbox? If you once owned a slide rule and do not have it now, do you know what happened to it?
When was the last time you saw an ostrich? In what kinds of weather do you most like to walk? Do you enjoy oiling things or is that best left to others? Do you know what comes after “Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man / bake me a cake as fast as you can”? Are you familiar with the sport of kite fighting? Do you think of there being a proper point in your debilitation as you age at which you should, if you can, kill yourself?
Do you have any experience with boils? When people are weeping and fretting about you, do you console or attempt to move away as politely as possible? Do you find Mary Martin in Peter Pan sexually stimulating? Have you ever had cockles? Does Ireland sound like your kind of place or like someone else’s kind of place? Have you ever been exposed to rigorous mathematical proofs, and if so, do you like them? Do you know the term for the kind of trowel, used in applying certain adhesives, that has teeth on its edge so that glue is laid down in fine rows instead of as a film?Does any confusion arise if you see or hear pinecone and cornpone together? Do you have any impulse to wish that everything you own could somehow without overmuch trauma be made to disappear? If you had to threaten someone with either “I’mone slap the taste out of your mouth” or “I’mone knock you into next week,” which colorful expression would you prefer? If someone threatened you with either of these utterances, would you rather reply “Well, pack your lunch” or “You and whose army?”
THESE SMALL BIRDS FLITTING about the top of the pine tree outside my window that I likened to fleas or lice on a large animal—may I say now more accurately that they look like gnats around the head and eyes of a tall creature? Did they get to the bottom of what has killed all the amphibians the world over? Do you think the heyday of hair spray was the 1960s, or has it lived on? Are Kotex still worn on belts? Were you ever familiar enough with gladiators that you preferred one style of combat over others—the net and trident, say, over the short sword? What sort of boat do you fancy best? Would you rather have todeal with a regulatory commission or a codes inspector? Do you have much patience for sanding wood? Have you come over time to think that you know more now than you did when young, know less now than when young, know now there is so much more to know than you knew there was to know when young that it is moot whether you think you knew more then than now or less, or do you now know that you never knew anything at all and never will and only the bluster of youth persuaded you that you did or would?
Do you keep a neat living place or a messy place? Is it better to work in a messy place and get a lot of work done or a
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