2007-07-10 - 10:45 a.m.
There are just some bands I want to love (The National, Interpol, Spoon, etc.) but can't dredge up more than a warm like of them. All I listen to these days are European female electro-pop singers (Siobhan Donaghy, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Robyn), a crime against music I'll pay dearly for in this life and be richly rewarded for in gay heaven.
The other day friends were over and I begged the question of what kind of wild, exotic animal you would live with if you were forced to co-habitate with one in your apartment/house. Group thoughts:
1) Renea initially said boa constrictor, a notion that Bob and I scoffed at being the probability of it choking you to death in the midst of sleep. Secretsleepdeath is not preferred with wild animals in your house.
2) Katie firmly decided on tiger, a shock to my sensibilities. I failed to mention that the wild animal could not remain in a cage or be restrained in any way. Instead you must co-exist with it as it would in the wild except in your apartment, much like Paulie Shore co-existing with Brendan Fraser in Encino Man. Immediately the ideas of boa constrictor and tiger are repealed.
3) Katie's second suggestion--and one worth considering seriously--was a tarantula or some kind of poisonous spider. The only thing that I take to task on this selection is the idea that you don't know where it could be at any given point in time. When living with a creature that could take your life, I would prefer to be able to have my eye on it at any given point in time. I want my mortality, or end of it, within visual range. (Which in turn begs the question, "Do you want to be aware that you're about to die?")
4) My suggestion in the discussion was warthog for the following reason: warthogs are mean, nasty creatures that could gore you to pieces. HOWEVER. They are short creatures and could be easily avoided by standing on tall, sturdy furniture.
After Liz suggests that they could destroy the furniture with their tusks while you try to escape them, Katie puts forth the idea of having a large pig instead of a warthog--danger without the tusks. I questioned the danger of a large pig but Katie argued that it could pin you to a wall. The idea that you die from a pig pinning you to a wall for weeks and weeks as you wither away from lack of food or water is enormously amusing to all parties.
5) Gorilla is quickly dismissed because of their violent tendencies, especially in the male population. Liz then brings up the idea of an animal that you can subjugate yourself to in order to reduce the danger, i.e. a wolf. Katie gets really really excited about the idea of a wolf and agrees very very vehemently.
6) I very impractically imagine that if we were able to live in an aquarium apartment, a blue whale wouldn't be bad at all. Very large, dangerous creatures that are docile. But we cannot breathe underwater and my idea is very swiftly squashed by biological impracticalities.
The conclusion we reached as a group (though I still say that warthog is not so terrible of an idea) is that to live in harmony with a wild animal, it has to be an animal that you can let be the "Alpha Sentient" in the house.
And you, Reader, what untamed and unleashed wild animal would you live with?
