The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell Read Free Book Online

name it? Do you think in terms of salvation or redemption? Do you appreciate the color changes of leaves in the fall or is that spectacle a tad too popularly sentimental for you? Have you ever been catheterized? Is there a set number of rings you like a phone to ring before you pick up? Does the noise made by corduroy pants irritate you? Do you eat flan? Would you rather see a bay at high tide or low tide? If you could be instantly fluent in a language you do not now speak, what language would it be? Can you change a tire by yourself? Have you ever petted a vole or a shrew? Do you partake of syrups?
    Do you credit that a man seriously advanced “Cogito ergo sum” with a straight face? How many screwdrivers do you think is necessary for able-bodied normal household maintenance? If there were a service whereby everything in your apartment or housecould be made to disappear (called House Fire without Fire), without any mess or hassle or delay, and you would receive, in compensation, partial value of the material that disappeared, what partial value would be necessary for you to contract with this service? If you were to be executed and, by standard practice in executions, were offered anything you wanted as a last meal, and instead of ordering lobster or an impossibly thick Porterhouse steak or some peculiar fond dish like fish sticks and packaged macaroni, you said, “I want boiled kittens and puppies, and I want them boiled alive, like crabs,” do you think there would be amusement, and do you think they would comply? If you were to be executed and you ordered boiled kittens and puppies as your last meal and they were served you, would you eat the kittens and puppies? Do you think you would keep a stoic countenance throughout your execution or would you get bad cotton mouth and then get to trembling or puking or jabbering or sobbing or wetting yourself or anything else like that?
    Why do you think red became the dominant color for children’s wagons, to the extent that it is virtually eponymous, as in “little red wagon”? Wouldyou be interested in a rough safari up the Amazon? Do you know the different kinds of courses in which brick and block can be laid? Are you made a little more confident about things when you hear or use the term “hex-head”? Do you not think the next big disorder after chronic dehydration will be chronic asphyxiation? If you have a dog and you lie down beside him, do you prefer that he slap the floor gently once or twice with his tail in acknowledgment of your joining him, or that he lick you in the face and shovel his head into your neck and drive you off the floor with his boundless enthusiasm for you?
    What are the instances in your life when you have been seen naked that you did not wish to be seen naked? Do you understand exactly what malt is? Do you understand exactly what sorghum is? If you had to be struck by lightning or by a car, which would it be? Will you use the phrase “forever and a day,” and will you deal with someone who uses it? Does the word thumb impress you as somehow having a power or meaning beyond what it denotatively should have—I guess I mean, does it spook you a little, or sound totemic or talismanic, or maybe pornographic?
     
    DO YOU FIND THE phrase “the verdant selvage of Michigan” intriguing? Do you engage in any ritualistic behavior? Do you favor the toad over the frog? If someone asks you, “What on earth makes the least sense to you?” can you answer? Do you have a favorite dinosaur, and do you trust that the popular images of dinosaurs bear any resemblance to what they really looked like, and do you have any idea how dinosaur scientists think they know, from bones alone, what the damned things looked like?
    Do you enjoy taking cabs? Do you employ a maid, and, if you do not, would you like to? Would you name a child Jason? Do you know that the action of thirst or hunger is called “the mechanism” and that the mechanism of a pistol is called “the