Hulver's site || Q&A: 'The Greatest'

Did you check under the hidden trapdoor?

2, 5, 7) Listen to "Story Core" in NPR. Morning Edition plays 'em around 8:20-8:40 AM. I hear them on my way to work, and damned if they aren't the best stories of love, friends, family, suffering. It will break your heart, inspire you, and make you cry.

t3h Internets.
When I asked my wife to marry me, she said yes.
Not sure this can have a relevant answer, as the meaning of "greatest" is circumstantial.
Missing a Yes concert (THE Yes concert of my lifetime) for being stubborn. Sometimes the greatest is also the worst.
dev trash's continued attempts at getting laid.
Real fear, or irrational fear? I was probably most afraid about two and a half years ago when I was in the midsts of a nervous breakdown. Felt like the world was closing in on me. I get really afraid every time my wife is out for a long time. I rarely worry for my own safety, but often for my wife and child.
The potential for the eradication of a large percentage of the human life on earth.

"I'm very responsive to certain stimuli, and pain is pretty much at the top of that list." - BadDoggie

1. What do you consider to be the greatest feat of human endeavour since the turn of the twentieth century (i.e. the last hundred and eight years)?

The advancement of physics. So I'm going back a bit further to 1897 for the discovery of the electron, but the advancements since then have been astonishing. The amount of understanding and discovery about the basics of matter and energy in the last 100 years or so is mind boggling. I lack to words to express my appreciation. We've only just begun to measure the depths of our ignorance in this subject.

Either that, or blogging. I can't make up my mind.

2. What's the greatest act of kindness / altruistic bravery you've seen or heard-of since you turned twenty-one?

I don't remember any that hasn't been turned into some cynical money grabbing opportunity by the press.

3. Which was / is the greatest sports team ever? Why? Any sport. Any era. Fancy Dan answers like 'The Romans' don't count. Try not to pick a team you support; choose one you hate if need be, but can't help respect.

This is a difficult one for me, because I don't really follow any sports, and I certainly don't support any teams. So I'll have to say "British Olympic Cycling team, ftw!"

4. What's the greatest musical experience you've had?

"Grendel". Aural orgasm.

5. In the last year, what is the one second-hand story which completely broke your heart? It can have been read or heard, fiction or fact, but it can't be personal. It must have happened to someone with whom you have little connection beyond humanity.

My heart is hardened by the cynical crap that's churned out on TV in the name of entertainment. There is a film that's affected me emotionally, and that's "The Orphanage". It tapped into some of my deepest fears that have only had an effect on me since I had children of my own. Before my kids were born I'd have just laughed at it and thought it was funny.

6. When have you been most afraid?

Right now, for reasons best left unsaid at the moment.

7. What is the greatest cause for optimism?

The more I deal with the general public, the less optimism I have. With each passing year I grow more cynical.
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smart, pretty, sane. pick two - georgeha

1. Landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to the earth.

2. What? Still 6 more questions to go? I've lost interest.

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<ni> komet: You are functionally illiterate as regards trashy erotica.

1) It's so hard to define "greatest" here. Hardest? Bravest? One that had the most effect? I think I'll go with "not blowing ourselves up".

2) That guy who stood in front of the tank holding his groceries.

3) The '72 Dolphins

4) Perhaps watching Blue Oyster Cult playing in a small club as "Soft White Underbelly", platered to the stage, within reaching distance of Buck Dharma's feet.

5)this.

6) When I was a teenager.

7) Dunno. Is there? Maybe (1). That, and the fact that I still have equity in the house.
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_{ウセーバラケダ}

I miss MisterQueue.

1.) What do you consider to be the greatest feat of human endeavour since the turn of the twentieth century (i.e. the last hundred and eight years)?

The space program, eradicating smallpox or the United Nations? I find the mere ideas inspiring (never mind where two of them fall short), but in general they represent a huge amount of human development. Pick one. Well, I'll go with the space program because I wanted to be an astronaut.

2.) What's the greatest act of kindness / altruistic bravery you've seen or heard-of since you turned twenty-one?

Does it have to have happened since I turned twenty-one? Or just that I've heard about it? If the latter, than the actions of Paul Rusesabagina during the Rwanda Genocide (though there are many other stories there). If the former, I don't know.

3.) Which was / is the greatest sports team ever? Why? Any sport. Any era.

I don't know enough about sports.

4.) What's the greatest musical experience you've had?

Probably the first time I heard La Plebe. Certainly that is the most recent experience. But I've had many good musical experiences over my life, so it's hard to say.

5.) In the last year, what is the one second-hand story which completely broke your heart? It can have been read or heard, fiction or fact, but it can't be personal. It must have happened to someone with whom you have little connection beyond humanity.

I don't let things break my heart -- I cry and move on (though marriage -- not so much). That said, maybe Love in the Time of Cholera? If you extend it more than a year, it would have, of course, been stories from the Rwanda Genocide.

6.) When have you been most afraid?

When I am most cynical about the future. Yes, that's vague.

7.) What is the greatest cause for optimism?

The persistence of hope.

Rachael

"There will be time, there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet." -- Eliot

Not destroying ourselves.
I cannot recall any particularly remarkable acts of kindness or altruistic bravery. This is not to say that I have not witnessed them, simply that they have not remained in my memory, either due to them not being that remarkable to begin with, or due to shortcomings of my memory.
Portugal National Soccer team. Because their logo rocks.
Having my sound composition for an art installation be played at the art school I dropped out of, as a guest of honor. Having former instructors kiss my ass.
The gentleman who executed his own kids, wife, and then himself, likely because he owed the IRS.
I was most afraid when I was very, very young.
404.

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You can build the most elegant fountain in the world, but eventually a winged rat will be using it as a drinking bowl.

1) The eradication of smallpox. Landing on the moon seems the only thing that could compare, but even that is a distant second. That said, both of these, and countless other things, are things that I am sure I would have been confident would never have happened if asked 20 years before they did. They're incredibly, inspiring demonstrations of our ability.

2,5) I'm not sure these are the greatest, but then, I'm not sure anyone answering this is really aiming for the greatest. And you anticipated that in your lead-in, after all, and more obscure answers are probably preferable to common place ones anyway. Besides, a less generic answer for either of these would be a bit more revealing than I'm up for. Having broken that rule, I might as well break a second: I will vote for a mixture of three answers instead of one. To offset this somewhat, I'll make them applicable to two questions, giving me a 3/2 answer/question ratio -- not so far off from the desired 1/1.

I cast my vote for the lives of Violette Szabo, Noor Inayat Khan and F.F.E. Yeo-Thomas as recorded in Leo Marks' Between Silk and Cyanide.

I'm amazed that people are actually answering this. You guys are way cooler with the kimono jumping jacks than I am.
The success of the modern city. It seems profoundly unintuitive to me (at least in my darker moments) that squeezing a huge number of people with hugely different backgrounds and beliefs into a tiny space can produce something magical and inspiring. Cities not only fail to dissolve into post-apocalyptic alleys of carnage, but they are, for at least some people, preferable to living far away from others. This seems to me to be a powerful claim against cynicism about "human nature."

"These days it seems like sometimes dreams of Italian hyper-gonadism are all a man's got to keep him going." -- CRwM

1.) The Burj Dubai - bigger is always better.
2.) The invasion of Iraq. Stupid and evil, but altruistic and brave nonetheless.
3.) The '86 Celtics. Fuck them, fuck Boston, and fuck their racist asshole fans.
4.) A private performance by Bowie in the early '80s
5.) The end of monarchy and institution of democracy in Bhutan.
6.) Any time I'm sober.
7.) The mortality of my liver

the toronto argonauts, circa 1997

having the honor of working with someone so talented that they could actually take my atonal growl and turn it into something that i actually enjoyed listening to

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2007/02/wounded_marine_.html

after the ninth drink, but before the tenth

waking up
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_{I don't think anyone's ever really died from smoking. --ni}

1.)greatest feat of human endeavour since the turn of the twentieth century

Shakleton's Transarctic [sic] expedition.

2.) What's the greatest act of kindness

A person I had only known for two hours lent me her life savings to use as down payment on my house.

3.) Which was / is the greatest sports team ever? Why?

1976 Romanian women Olympics gymnastics team. Nadia Comeneci's performance was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. It certainly was astounding and breathtaking. The rest of the team was superb also. USA men's Olympic hockey team 1980 of course goes up there someplace. 1927 Yankees; they defined modern baseball. 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. 2004 Red Sox. Etc, etc, etc.

4.) What's the greatest musical experience you've had?

Human Sexual Response in concert, 1988 & 1989.

5.) In the last year, what is the one second-hand story which completely broke your heart?

Astrid Kircherr being interviewed on NPR's "All Things Considered" talking about the death of Stu Sutcliff. Also, it was kind of heartbreaking that she gave up photography after getting tepid response to her work in the sixties. I was yelling at the raido, "Astrid! Your Beatles photos defined their whole aesthetic and set loose the talent locked inside them! Astrid! Take up your camera again, the world still needs your vision!" I'm sure I heard plenty of sadder things, but that stuck with me.

6.) When have you been most afraid?

Might have been when I got knifed, or one of a couple of couple of other similar tense situations I've been in, but probably it was when I surfed Hurricane Agnes in 1972. When I got mugged, etc, everything happened quickly. When I was surfing, in between sets I was just sitting out there in the lineup, terrified, waiting for some giant wall of water to rise up on the horizon and obliterate the sun and crush me under a million tons of water. When I actually took off on the first wave was probably the most afraid I've ever been.

7.) What is the greatest cause for optimism?

MNS and johnny are friendly to each other.
Buy my books, dammit!

1.) What do you consider to be the greatest feat of human endeavour since the turn of the twentieth century?

Hm. Either space exploration or the trend towards universal suffrage.

2.) What's the greatest act of kindness / altruistic bravery you've seen or heard-of since you turned twenty-one?

I really can't think of any. I know they exist but due to the prevalence of a certain kind of media coverage of these kinds of things, and overuse of the term 'hero' I'm afraid I stop listening. I found what that Japanese guy was doing, abandoning money in random places to be found quite intriguing, even though it 'backfired' as people handed the money in to the police. Lots of small acts of honesty rather than a big heartstrings story I'm afraid.

3.) Which was / is the greatest sports team ever? Why?

Um. I don't really do sport. How about the 1936 US Olympics team for a)deciding not to boycott the games which permitted b)Jesse Owens to give the Aryan programme the middle finger. Politics does have a place in sport, anyone who says otherwise is still taking a political stance.

4.) What's the greatest musical experience you've had?

Coming home late one night as a student, turning on the TV (No Disco was the name of the show) and catching the video of Street Spirit for the first time and just standing there, frozen, coat half off, breathing as quietly as possible until it finished.

5.) In the last year, what is the one second-hand story which completely broke your heart?

The D case. Just outside the year boundary but it is things like this that make me hate the country in which I was born.

6.) When have you been most afraid?

Cold intellectual fear - First Iraqi war in the early 90s. I was genuinely convinced the world would end in a nuclear holocaust.
Adrenaline fuelled fear - being caught in an unadvertised current in a swimming pool fun park (can't swim).

7.) What is the greatest cause for optimism?

The possibility for humans to change for the better.

1.) What do you consider to be the greatest feat of human endeavour since the turn of the twentieth century (i.e. the last hundred and eight years)?

Undoubtedly instantaneous distance agnostic communications. The phone network, then the internet. If you meant a single act or institution, then I'd be a bit more stuck. The international criminal court springs to mind.

2.) What's the greatest act of kindness / altruistic bravery you've seen or heard-of since you turned twenty-one?

I can't recall any right now. Doubtless my own fault. I will endeavour to find one.

3.) Which was / is the greatest sports team ever? Why? Any sport. Any era. Fancy Dan answers like 'The Romans' don't count. Try not to pick a team you support; choose one you hate if need be, but can't help respect. As I've said, there are no correct answers [Actually, for this one, there is, but we can argue about that later].

No, I can't call any of those to mind either.

4.) What's the greatest musical experience you've had?

During Bruckner's 9th Symphony at the Symphony Hall, Birmingham, I was in my usual listening-to-classical-music reverie, sitting in the uppermost balcony, and one phrase just struck me in its beauty, crossed all the synaesthetic boundaries, and I floated in it. Vertiginously, as the orchestra was somewhat below me.

5.) In the last year, what is the one second-hand story which completely broke your heart? It can have been read or heard, fiction or fact, but it can't be personal. It must have happened to someone with whom you have little connection beyond humanity.

Oh, bollocks, can't remember any details, either. I know I've been moved close to tears by something within the last few years, too.

6.) When have you been most afraid?

Somewhat personal, this one, but the occasion was when, in front of 30 people, a group of a few, executed their plan to repay me for all the successful work I'd done for an organisation by completely removing me from it. All the while ensuring that token efforts were made to show openness, in a Manufacturing Consent style.

So yeah, I had to get a lift with someone else, ostensibly because there wasn't much parking in the field in question, and sit in the middle of this field with no props to hide behind, secure in the knowledge that ridicule would ensue if I said what I wanted.

The ridicule and ostracising did turn out to occur, so I guess the fear was warranted. And the pain lasts.

There's also the night before I was due to have an operation that, in the words of the surgeon, stopped him getting to sleep at night. Luckily, the condition rectified itself during the night.

7.) What is the greatest cause for optimism?

The fact that the Malthusian crisis has not yet occurred, so maybe we'll find a way to avert it once again.

4) singing motets in St. Stephens (Vienna).
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if de-virgination results in me being able to birth hammerhead sharks, SIGN ME UP!!! --misslake


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