I’ve still been obsessively looking at Dark Academia and loving every moment of it. In the process, I ran across a Dark Academia Book Tag and decided it would be fun to do. I can’t find the blog I first saw it on, I’m really sorry, but I remember that person said they saw it first on YouTube. I don’t have any officially Dark Academic friends to tag, so I’m “tagging” anyone who feels an interest.

Favorite Dark Academic book and movie?

I don’t know if it counts, but I really loved Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson. It’s definitely dark and set at a college so I think it should count, and it stayed with me a long time after I read it. As for movies, I think I’ll go with The Ninth Gate, a horror movie about a rare book dealer who gets caught up in an occult conspiracy as he tries to track down a rare text. Roman Polanski is the director and I know people have strong (and justified) opinions about him as a person, but I still really enjoyed this movie.

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A dead poet you’d like to have a drink with

Dorothy Parker. I don’t even know her writing that well, but she’s always talked about as being sharp and funny, and she named her poetry books things like “Death and Taxes” and “Enough Rope,” which are awesomely dark book titles. There are poets whose work I like better but she seems like the most fun to hang out with.

Your favorite painting or sculpture

New York Movie by Edward Hopper. That or Tamara de Lempicka’s bugatti self-portrait. Something about that art deco period of bold colors, simplified lines, and serious lonely people just really gets to me.

Your favorite architectural marvel

The Taj Mahal. I love Mughal architecture in general, and the Taj Mahal is the most well known and probably the most beautiful example. There’s such harmony between the thick, solid structure and the soft curves and delicate details. It’s just so satisfying. The deep sense of grandeur and antiquity doesn’t hurt either.

The Shakespeare play you’d want to be the lead in

I’d want to say Othello, but having a white lady play one of the few black leads in British literature would be weird. The play is tragic and huge the way all Shakespeare’s tragedies are, but Othello’s insecurities are really relatable. So I’ll leave Othello to someone else and choose Lady MacBeth. Her frustrated ambition and stained conscience would be interesting to explore.

Languages you speak and languages you’d like to learn

I’m a native English speaker. I know enough Spanish to follow basic movie plots and muddle my way through a short story or magazine article, though I’m much better at reading than speaking it. I’d like to learn enough Latin to understand tomb inscriptions and the quotations that Victorian writers pepper into their works. Same with French–the pronunciation is a mystery to me, but I’d like to be able to read the French bits of European novels without asking Google.

Your favorite quote (from poetry, prose, plays, etc.)

From MacBeth:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Or this one from Allan Ginsberg’s Sunflower Sutra:

You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a sunflower!   
And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me not!
So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter,
and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack’s soul too, and anyone who’ll listen,
—We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not dread bleak dusty imageless locomotives, we’re golden sunflowers inside, blessed by our own seed & hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our own eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision.

Which fictional character’s death is your ideal way to go?

I don’t know. Carmilla’s, maybe? Dorian Gray’s? If I couldn’t die peacefully of old age I’d like to live a supernaturally long life and go out in a rush like they did.

University or college you’d most like to attend?

Saint John’s College. They follow a “great books” curriculum where you just study Western or Eastern classics as directly as possible, which has always sounded heavenly to me. I couldn’t afford to go there, not even a little bit, when I was younger but I always wanted to. They have a campus in Santa Fe, where we’re hoping to move, so maybe someday I’ll look into their graduate programs and finally live my nerdy “great books” dream.

If you had to do a PhD, what would you do it on?

At one time I really considered this, but watching my older siblings do PhD programs changed my mind. If I had to, though, I think I’d concentrate on repopularizing the Victorian female novelists. There are so many who were popular and admired in their lifetimes and did really exciting stuff. Then men “discovered” the novel in the 20th century and sort of pushed all these really great women aside. It’s a real shame.

Mythology you’d most want to be a part of

I have the most affinity for ancient Greek mythology, probably because I grew up on Greek myths. I wouldn’t mind being part of an Irish fairy story, though. Those are pretty earthy and adventurous.

A fictional character you would die for

I . . . honestly have no idea. I can’t think of even one. I might sacrifice myself for a tragic child character but I can’t think of any specific one.

Rapid Fire: Pick One

Leather or Cloth bound books: either one. I guess I have more cloth bound, but I have no major objections to used leather.

Dog-earing pages or highlighting: highlighting. I’ll dog-ear when I’m really desperate but I try not to. With old books, dog-ears don’t tell you much about previous readers. Maybe they really loved that page, maybe that’s when they had to stop for dinner. Highlights tell you more about what previous readers were thinking when they read, and I do enjoy flipping through my own old books and seeing if I agree with my younger self’s highlights and notes.

Sculptures or paintings: paintings. I love color and shading, and I love that each painting is its own little world inside the frame. I do enjoy really huge public statues, though, the kind that tower over you.

Piano or violin: I can’t play a lick of either, but I’ll listen to both. I slightly prefer the mellow richness of violins and cellos, though.

Films or theater: films. Theater actors have to exaggerate and project everything so they can be understood all the way in the back of the room, while film allows for a much more subtle and naturalistic acting style that works better for me.

Poetry or prose: prose. It’s always been prose for me.

Museums or bookshops: Ooh, tough, but I choose museums. I grew up going to the Smithsonian museums every summer and their grandness and variety have a special place in my heart, but I also love tiny quirky museums like the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum or the Provo Pioneer Village.

Smell of books, coffee, or tea: Coffee. While reading a book, of course.

Fountain pen or typewriter: I actually have frustrating memories of both. I’m a lefty, so learning to use a pen without smearing has been a process. I also went through college just as computers were taking over the earth and wrote many papers on an electric typewriter. The typing was just fine, but correcting mistakes was an ordeal. I choose fountain pen, because now that I’ve mastered the tricks I enjoy writing cursive by hand, but I’ll never go back to typing without a handy delete button again.

New or used books: I like to buy used when I can, but scouring a bookstore for E.M. Braddon or Charlotte Dacre makes you really appreciate e-books and new editions of old titles, even if they don’t have the feel or smell of a good used volume.

EDIT: I can’t believe it, I accidentally skipped a question.

Last one (well, now it is, anyway):

What is your murder weapon or murder method of choice?

Slow poison or a quick shove off a cliff. Depends on the circumstance.

I often threaten to murder my kids and bury them in the back yard but that’s just a joke. I actually think they’re awesome, mostly, and would never ever murder them.