Oh, Those Succulent Clams

A little update for you regularly confused:

I've returned from yonder (Toronto) with a job in hand (internship, actually) that will begin on January 17, 2007, at The Walrus Magazine on Duncan St. (essentially a block or so directly north from the CBC building).

I am excited, in part, because:

A. The Walrus is really something to aspire to; a thinking publication, and by far the most decorated magazine in Canada at the last few National Magazine Awards;
B. The internship itself pays enough to make eating every day a distinct possibility; and
C. The winning "essay" I submitted, written as per the editors' instructions on the topic of "Walruses" (but not The Walrus), was this:

Are You The Walrus?

A Self-Assessment Test™ for the Concerned, Curious, and Condemned

(Subtitle: Facts About Walruses Cleverly Disguised as a Questionnaire)

Instructions:
Please read each question before answering. We recommend a 2 HB pencil or equivalent.

Do not worry about filling in the bubbles entirely. This is not an automated test, and you will be asked to score yourself when the test is complete.

If you have trouble gripping a pencil for any reason — deformity, lack of opposable digits, slippery skin — please ask an aide for help.

Take no longer than one hour to fill out the questionnaire. When you are done, please turn to the back of the questionnaire booklet for scoring instructions.

Please note: if at any point during the questionnaire you feel a sudden and inexplicable urge to dive into cold water or consume shelled objects of any kind, at present or in the future, rate this urge on a scale of 1-10 (1 being “mild” and 10 being “uncontrollable”) and make a note of the number you have chosen at the bottom of your answer sheet. This number will be used in scoring.

Thank you, and good luck!


SECTION 1:
GASTRONOMY
Subtitle: What Walruses Like To Eat, Suck, and Digest

Please rank the following items from 1-4, with 1 representing your least preferred culinary item and 4 representing your most preferred. Do not repeat the same number twice. In the event that you prefer two items equally, stagger your rank (3,4; 2,3; etc.). In the event that you do not prefer any items, imagine that you are being forced to consume them.

Breakfast
1. Two Eggs
2. Grits (boiled)
3. Cigarette
4. Salt Water, preferably cold, w/ option of Mollusk and side of Sea Cucumber

Lunch
1. Salad (assorted greens)
2. Salad (assorted greens w/ option of Russian or Blue Cheese dressing)
3. Soup de Jour
4. Anything on a menu in Savoonga, Alaska

Dinner
1. Easy Mac
2. 12oz New York Strip Loin, prepared Medium Rare, with side of Fries and Salad
3. Guinness-brazed Lamb Shank with Onion-Roasted Shrimp Tails, Foie Gras (confit de canard), and Smoked Head of Canary (display only)
4. Clams, raw or otherwise


SECTION 2:
LEIZURE, ACTIVITY, AND EXCERCISE
Subtitle: What Walruses Sometimes Choose to Do With Themselves

Please rank the following items from 1-4, following the same guidelines as Section 1, but this time applying the ranking to each item individually.

1. Swimming
2. Sex
3. Sex, w/ option of cigarettes
4. Alcoholism
5. Watching Canadian Idol
6. Basking on rocks
7. Eating clams
8. Eating clams, w/ option of alcoholism
9. Watching videos on YouTube
10. Watching videos of seals, seagulls, or other wildlife on YouTube
11. Enjoying a good novel
12. Fighting over mates
13. Updating http://www.myspace.com/walruslover4life/
14. Visiting the dentist
15. Debating the circular logic presented by Descartes’ fifth and third meditations in Meditations on First Philosophy using only sentences that can be formed as questions
16. Protecting the pack, presumably as a result of No. 12, 11, 2 through 4, or in abstinence of 6.


SECTION 3:
SELF-ESTEEM
Subtitle: Facts about Walrus Behaviour and Walrus Depictions in Popular Culture

Please review the following statements and mark whether you “strongly agree,” “somewhat agree,” “somewhat disagree,” or “strongly disagree” with the statement. For each answer score yourself 1-4, with “strongly agree” being 4 and “strongly disagree” being 1.

1. I have, in the past or the present, desired to kill and eat a seagull, just to see what it would taste like.
1b. This has caused problems in my marriage.
2. I am an admirer of John Lennon.*
3. My name, or the name of one of my blood relatives, is Wally.
4. I often find myself unable to do things that my friends/colleagues/family can do with their hands, such as open a jar or write a note.
4b. I find this depressing.
5. I find it easy to defeat my friends/colleagues/family in competitions that require body pinning, deep diving, tusks, or sitting still.
5b. I find this depressing, too.
6. I am English soccer manager Sam Allardyce.
7. I enjoy the company of carpenters.
8. If I were disfigured and had (for example) flippers instead of hands, I would hang out with other people with similar malformations.
8b. I might be inclined to call these groups “packs.”
9. I often fight over females by brandishing my teeth. (This gets me nowhere in bars.)
10. I have an inexplicable aversion to ivory.
11. I have an inexplicable hatred for Marvel Comics.
12. The phrase “coo coo ca-choo” is not inexplicable, but I must keep this meaning secret from others.
13. I have met Woody Woodpecker.
14. I hate him.

*If you are John Lennon, please answer “strongly agree.”

SECTION 4:
FINAL QUESTIONS
Subtitle: Facts about Walrus Physiology, Blubber, and the United Nations

Please answer “yes,” “no,” or “N/A” to the following, scoring yourself 1 for “yes” and 0 for “no” or “N/A”:

1. Do you enjoy swimming, diving to depths of up to 90 metres, or spending about half of your time submersed in salty sub-arctic to arctic-arctic water?
2. Do you find pleasure in the thought of urinating through your skin?
3. Do you become irritated when others underestimate the length of your bones?
4. Would you, hypothetically, swim in near-to or sub-zero temperatures?
5. If surrounded in several tons of heat-preserving, blubbery fat, would you answer “yes” to question 4?
6. Do you think you look fat?
7. Do you think you look fat in the order of 1,600 to 1,800 kilograms?
8. If your friends/colleagues/family accuse you of being thick-skinned, do you take this to mean that your skin is literally thick?
9. Have you ever been mistaken for U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton?**
10. Are you fond of blubber?
11. Do you despise friends/colleagues/family who are fond of blubber, or show any interest at all in the 1851 Herman Melville novel Moby Dick?
12. Was Zacharias Kunuk’s The Fast Runner one of the most disturbing motion pictures you have ever seen?
Finally,
13. Are you a regular reader of The Walrus?

**If you are U.S. Ambassador the UN John Bolton, please answer “N/A.”

Please add up your score and write to: Walrus Self-Assessment Test™, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B4A 3N9. We will get back to you regarding your Walrus status as soon as we can.

That's all for now. Posts coming soon...