Feature Contributor: |
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Ian Shoebridge |
Ian Shoebridge lives a paradoxical existence as a chocolate-addicted recluse in Sydney, Australia. He vaguely maintains a page about his writing at myspace.com/aninfinitespiral. You can read his story "Love as a Shattered Kaleidoscope" here.
SM: Why do you write?
IS: I loved reading, but I could never find enough books written the way I wanted them written. Writing afforded me an unlimited budget for sets and special effects, and I didn't have to feed the actors.
SM: What/who is your biggest influence outside the literary world?
IS: Mountains. I like that they have a point, but not necessarily a purpose. And their misty, other-worldly atmosphere. Mysterious and inspiring, like a zen riddle or a Max Ernst painting.
SM: If an illness or disorder were named after for you, what would it be
called? What are its symptoms?
IS: Penegrot's Malady: a philosophical muddle characterised by excessive empathy with inanimate objects, persistent feelings of deja vu, and conviction that mental states are directly precipitated by invisible factors in the immediate environment (such as poor feng shui).
SM: What story or novel do you wish you'd written? Why?
IS: I wish I'd written the Dictionary. I want the last say in arguments about word meanings, origins and pronunciation.
SM: If a person dropped an eight-pound bowling ball off a boat over the
Mariana Trench (approximately 6.8 miles deep), how long would it take
for the bowling ball to hit the ocean floor?
IS: Subjective time is measured by events, inner and outer. Although I am not privy to the inner world of a bowling ball, my own experiments with sensory deprivation suggest that once the bowling ball reached the lightless "aphotic zone" much of its (hypothetical) thoughts would be concerned with composing imaginary TV shows. Assuming even an imaginary show has difficulty lasting more than two seasons, I measure the entire descent at about three days (even allowing for a short-lived spin-off series).