Pop Quiz

Last month I mentioned preparing to interview an author and my theory: we can know all we need about someone else from the ordinary choices they make. Think of it as Malcom Gladwell (Blink) Goes Speed Dating. Thanks to Indigo and Paula O for their contributions. Feel free to add to the list of potential questions by email or comments to this post. If anyone wants to collaborate in developing a full-blown interactive quiz delivering results with graphics, do let me know. All I can imagine are the the old "Authors" card game. So here's the Snobs and Slobs Quiz to distinguish between literary and commercial writers. (That's just a joke, folks!) The writer MUST make a snap decision between the two offerings. No waffling, no substitutions. Because there's only your Writer Mom here, I'm calling it:

Mom and Pop Author's Quiz

Dr. Hawking or Dr. Science?
Martha Stewart or Erma Bombeck?
Jim Carey or Jim Varney?

Peanuts or Cashews?
Budweiser or Coors?
Hot dog or hamburger?

Star Trek or Star Wars?
Foundation or Dune?
LA Times or NY Times?

Domestic or foreign?
High Test or Regular?
Paper or Plastic?

Yahoo or Google?
Firefox or Internet Explorer?
Paper notepad or PDA?

Here or To Go?
Male or Female?

If I took the quiz, my profile would look like the following.

Selections: Hawking/Bombeck/Varney/Cashews/Coors/Hot Dog/Star Trek/Dune/NY Times/Foreign/Regular/Paper/Google/IE/Paper/Here/Female

Results: You're a confused, lazy tree-hugging gal-Trekie with pretensions.

Lazy, because you use the browser that came with the PC, but not Yahoo which preceded Google (confused), have time to spend eating in restaurants, and feel it's too hard to learn how to program and use a PDA. "Gal" because that's the kind of woman who would eat hot dogs, prefer Erma Bombeck and Jim Varney, and buy regular gasoline; the woman you find in commercial fiction, especially the old pulps (you mentioned paper twice). Pretensions for all the rest of the selections. Talks like a snob, acts like the rest of us.

Well, I AM an old pulp! The only problem with this analysis is that my interests in Hawking, the NY Times, drinking Coors, and buying foreign goods have more practical bases in quality than affectatious snob appeal. People are complex. None were hurt in the course of this experiment. [Tectag: quiz authors]

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