20 Questions with Malene Arpe

Malene Arpe is an import from Denmark who snarks about celebrity and pop culture in the Toronto Star’s Sunday Stargazing pages and on her blog at www.thestar.blogs.com/stargazing. We couldn’t be bigger fans of her column, and we read it bleary-eyed and hung over every weekend at brunch. Read her 20Qs and join us as an inaugural member of the Malene fan club.

1. What is your dream of happiness?
A good book and the time to read it. My sweetie. Rain against the window. A bloody steak. A Stella. An undiscovered episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My cats frolicking. A chair made entirely of gold.

2. Blonde or Brunette?
Lately? Gray-ish.

3. What is the quality you like most in a man?
Can you make me laugh? Can you?

4. What do you fear most?
Global warming. Lice. Getting fat. Tom Cruise.

5. 808s or 909s?
I like Levi’s 501s and I like 222s when nothing else will do for a particularly awful headache. I have no frakking idea what you’re talking about.

6. What’s your biggest regret?
Not going to university. It’s left me kinda stupid.

7. What’s your fave bar or club in the world?
I still, pathetically, lament the late great BamBoo. But I like the Cadillac Lounge and The Dakota.

8. What’s the one thing you can’t you live without?
I understand that bad things start happening to your body after three weeks without food, so I’m going to with food. Food and America’s Funniest Home Videos. Without the irony, you Philistine.

9. Who are the 3 musicians dead or alive you’d like to see perform?
Miles Davis. Johnny Cash. The Clash. Guess I’m shit out of luck.

10. What is your favourite decade in music?
Any decade in which Bob Dylan has put out an album. Any decade in which Heidi Montag has not. It’s beginning to not look good for this particular decade.

11. If you had to choose, would you rather go blind or deaf and why?
Deaf. Not being able to read would drive me mad. Also, David Beckham without his shirt on is so very pretty. I would however try really hard to negotiate for a finger or a toe, if someone was really set on maiming me.

12. How old is too old?
33 is definitely too old to begin considering a career in pro-baseball.

13. Where do you see yourself in 15 years?
In a small farmhouse somewhere remote, barricaded with my shotgun and my sweetie, ready to take on anyone trying to steal my chickens. You think I’m joking? Come visit 15 years from now and I’ll shoot you right in the knee.

14. Who’s your hero?
This is where I have to choose a firefighter or Gandhi or some doctor who invented a life-saving procedure, right? Okay. Sarah Silverman. She owns my soul.

15. What’s your favourite colour?
Turquoise. And purple. I love them equally and if I choose one over the other they will fight in my brain.

16. What song could you live without ever hearing again?
“Seasons in the Sun” is without a doubt the worst song ever written. I hate it more than “Mandy” and “Feelings” and everything by Bjork put together. Fortunately it’s not played much any more. But just now, just because you asked, I started thinking about it and now it’s going to be stuck in my head for days. Thank you very much.

17. Metallica or Madonna?
Metallica. They’re great in the background when you’re cleaning because they make you angry with the dirt.

18. What’s your most hated vice?
People can do whatever they want as long as they keep far off my lawn.

19. Who is the most tragic figure in history?
Easy. Darth Vader.

20. What are the top three live shows you’ve seen in your life?
Bob Dylan (too many times to remember exactly how many), Lucinda Williams (too many times to remember exactly how many), Leonard Cohen. Holy crap, I’m old.