Getting to Know You

What is your favorite breakfast meat?
I have to say that bacon is probably the tastiest, so it's my choice (good Jew that I am) if I'm cooking at home, but I typically find it unsatisfying at restaurants because the quantity is often underwhelming. Sausage strikes me as a better value.

I do love lox on a bagel, too, but I more often eat that as an entire meal, for lunch, say, rather than as part of breakfast. And I don't think I could ever get behind eating a steak so early. Other options, like bone-in ham and chorizo, can be tasty but don't qualify as favorites.

If you could eat only one animal's meat for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
I have to divide this answer into two parts that depend on the answer to a fundamental question: do fish fall into one category, or should they be divided by species? (The same goes for shellfish.)

Assuming fish are all lumped together, I'd probably make them my pick on the basis of the variety: not only are there a number of flavors to choose from (swordfish, anchovies and everything in between), there are several preparations as well – fry the fish, grill it, poach it, braise it, use it to make stock for a soup, eat it raw, or do any number of other things. (Shellfish would probably be in second or third on my list, with the same logic.) That may seem unfair to some, but I'd also argue it's not fair to restrict the choice to, say, salmon; whereas there are several cuts to animals like cows and pigs, with different tastes and textures, fish can mostly only be eaten filleted or whole.

If you don't buy that argument, I'll probably go with pork. A good beef steak is better than most pork products, and it'd be hard to give up hamburgers. I wouldn't turn down the occasional tartare or carpaccio, either, and I love roast beef and corned beef. But pork is so much more versatile. Chops. Ribs. Pulled pork. Sausages of all different kinds. Ham. Bacon. Tenderloin. And we're still just getting started. You can start getting creative, too, what with head cheese and trotters and whatever else.

Chicken is similarly versatile but not nearly as interesting. Turkey is among the best you can have for one meal, but over a lifetime? It seems too limited. The same goes for things like lamb and duck.

If you could have any one superpower solely for the purposes of your own amusement, what would it be?
I think the stereotypical answer here is flight, which strikes me as a pretty weak selection. I'd love to fly, too — don't get me wrong — but if you're choosing flight, you're making a choice based more on enjoying the experience of flying than on deriving many practical benefits; even if you're capable of supersonic speeds, a New York-Paris flight is still going to take you close to five hours. And I think that the novelty of flight will wear off at some point, probably sooner than we imagine, just as it did with driving.

I can think of two better answers — in my opinion, the two best answers — and both essentially contain the ability to fly. One is the ability to change into any animal, à la "Animorphs," although preferably without the time limit or the need to come into contact with the animal first. This power also has some element of the appeal of invisibility (you can literally be a fly on the wall), breathing underwater (you can literally swim like a fish) and super strength (you can literally be as strong as an ox). But there are perhaps some additional risks with this one: you have to worry about predators, hunters/poachers and, if you're in the form of an insect, sadistic children, not to mention the chances that some creature is going to try to mate with you. I haven't thought far enough ahead to decide whether species-specific diseases would apply.

In my mind, the best choice is teleportation, the sort Nightcrawler is capable of but with the additional ability to travel far distances. I say this with the idea that, when I get off work at 1 a.m., I could pop over to a stirring Paris or a bustling Seoul for a couple of hours. But if I'm being honest with myself, I know that, after I started to grow accustomed to the power, I'd probably just use it to cut down on my commute to the office.

The idea of being able to manipulate time is enticing, but having that power seems destined to cause some paradox or at least make my brain hurt from thinking too hard.

Saying you're inclined toward the aforementioned invisibility seems to me to indicate that you're either really, really interested in seeing unsuspecting people naked or really, really interested in gossip fodder. I honestly see no appeal in having X-ray vision unless you can essentially flip your vision back and forth among various depths or layers, in which case you're again just revealing yourself to be a peeping Tom.

Telepathy would probably help with my social anxiety, so it's tempting to pick that, but there's also the chance it could backfire, and send me into a spiral, if I found that people were silently mocking me all the time. And telekinesis? If you pick that, you're just communicating that you're among the world's laziest people.

Seeing the future would be nice if you had the restraint to use it only on occasion — otherwise it would take the excitement out of life, no? — but I don't think I'd have that restraint; on the rare occasions I've played anything like a role-playing game, I'm obsessed with making the right or optimal choice, often resorting to spoiler-filled tips online to ensure it.

Teleportation makes super speed seem pointless.

Choosing rapid healing suggests you have a pretty dire view of yourself and the kinds of things that you're going to get yourself into.

I find the idea of never having to sleep (and never feeling fatigue) appealing because it would double my free time. Then again, I sometimes have trouble filling the few hours of free time I already have.

Animal communication would entail being constantly bombarded by "FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD." Animal control could be fun, but unless you really like screwing with your friends, the chances to use it could be slim. Similarly, heat vision or freeze vision or some such ability to control fire or ice should appeal to only one type of person (in this case, psychopaths). I can, however, think of situations in which elasticity could be useful. ...

What is your favorite type of terrain?
I find mountains most pleasing aesthetically, but I don't ski or snowboard, so I think I'd be wasting one of the main appeals of mountains. I'll be more specific: a lake in the mountains. That way I could still swim (as I would if I chose the beach) or even boat, and I'd have a terrific view on top of it.

What is your favorite flag?
Other flags that I enjoy have more interesting designs (e.g., the Isle of Man's), but I ultimately prefer Estonia's, and partly for just that reason: it is aesthetically interesting without any creative design. There are theories about what the colors represent, but I like to think of them solely as colors because, in my interpretation, the Estonians took an idea that had become a standard (the triband) and subverted it (with a unique set of colors).

Name your favorite of the following fruits, taken as a group: those from trees, those from vines or those from bushes.
It pains me to say this because I always preferred berries while I was growing up (berries in layman's terms, not by the botanical definition), but I have to go with tree fruits. Over the last few years, peaches have grown to be perhaps my favorite fruit, and nectarines have risen with them. I recently reconnected with grapes, and cherries (Rainier, please) are delectable. Limes are wonderful, too, and I would be sad to give up grapefruit juice. (Which reminds me. ...) Additionally, avocados may now be my favorite unsweet (or nonsweet?) fruit.

In an earlier post on this blog, I lumped bananas and plantains in with tree fruits because I needed a place to put them (because I love them) and didn't have a group for herbs. (I guess I could give them their own category, and I'm tempted to to get peanuts in the mix, but fuck papayas.) If they do indeed get classified as tree fruits for the purposes of this analysis, then tree fruits may win in a landslide.

I would also like to say that people who immediately dismiss vine fruits may not realize what they're giving up: grapes (and wine), kiwis, watermelon, pumpkins (and pumpkin pie!), honeydew, tomatoes (not my thing, but people seem into them) and passion fruit (same thing), among others.

If you could have any exotic animal as a pet, what would it be?
My favorite animal when I was a child was the gibbon; I even had a stuffed-animal gibbon that I think I got at the St. Louis Zoo. I think, though, that it would be too impractical to have a gibbon as a pet: I wouldn't want a sad pet, so I'd need a mate (gibbons display pair bonding) and probably other gibbons (they're social animals) as well as a large area for them to hang out in, with plenty of trees and stuff to swing on. And in that situation, my gibbon wouldn't seem like much of a pet at all.

Within the last few years, I've grown quite fond of walruses. I wouldn't mind moving to the shore with one as a pet.

If you could suddenly know how to play an instrument, which instrument would you choose?
Tenor saxophone has been my answer for a long time, but really, it depends on the level of ability we're talking about.

If I had only a basic knowledge of the instrument, I'd probably pick ukulele; it seems like you can get by just knowing chords, and it's an instrument that lends itself to strumming and singing along, which don't require the most technical skill. (See: my guitar playing.) On the opposite end of the spectrum, at the level of a virtuoso, I'd probably choose mandolin.

I'd also like to know how to play electric bass. I gained an appreciation for it when my brother learned to play it, and the love grew deeper over the subsequent years. Now I often find myself listening for the bass line in songs more than the guitar line.

Let's say you have to engage in a threesome with a celebrity of each sex, but you get to choose who they are. Your picks?
I'll restrict this to celebrities as they appear now and rule out some of my crushes through history (Claudia Cardinale, Claudine Auger, Grace Kelly, Katharine Ross, etc.). I think Zoe Saldana is beyond beautiful, so she's probably my choice.

As hard as it is for me, as a straight man, to pick a woman, picking a man is probably even more difficult. There are so many things to consider. First, I wouldn't want to feel dwarfed, either in size or, you know, size. (Fassbender, you're out.) And I'd probably want the other guy to be good-looking — I want Zoe to have a good time — but not too good-looking, again to prevent any feelings of shame on my part. The most important criterion, however, may be that the other guy needs to be pretty easygoing, with a good sense of humor. I realize it sounds like I'm placing a personal ad here, but what I'm getting at is that I imagine there is the potential for things to be extremely awkward going forward after a three-way (I have no experience; I'm just speculating), and I'd prefer to be involved with someone who would minimize the discomfort and not look at me forever as someone to avoid at all costs: we could move past the experience. I think Paul Rudd may fit that bill.