So Ya Wanna Know…
July 7, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Miscellany Functions : Trackback,
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I’m not a blog meme kind of guy. I usually rebuff ‘em because I’m busier than a one-legged man in a kiester-kicking contest. But in light of last Thursday’s post (and beyond what you might find in the “About” tab at the top of the blog), I thought I’d divulge a little bit more about myself.
Miscellaneous Facts about Dan
At 14, I was a national Boy Scout marksmanship champion. Could shoot the privates off a mosquito.
I once purposefully threw a spelling bee I could have won because it came down to me competing for the championship against a girl I was crazy about. When she missed her word, I knew what I had to do. Call me romantic.
I used to live in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. While attending college at Carnegie Mellon University, I lived in the dorm next to WQED, where Rogers taped his show. He lived a couple blocks down the street and walked to work every day. And no, he didn’t name the tiger puppet after me.
I’m not much of a world traveler. I’ve only been to Canada and France. Was scheduled to go to Hungary on a mission trip, but it was canceled. Same for the African safari trip to Tanzania with the Cincinnati Zoo.
The weirdest disconnect I ever experienced was on a housing renovation trip to Somerset, KY. I was rebuilding the roof on a house that was little more than a nice shack along a coal mining road. I took a break and went inside, only to be stunned by what I discovered. The old woman who lived there, as destitute as destitute could be, had original photographs by Matthew Brady, the famed Civil War photographer, hanging on her walls. They’d been in her family for more than a hundred years. I’d never seen those pics before (my Dad was a Civil War buff). I bet she owned more than a million dollars in Brady photos. She had no idea, either.
I had a drafting teacher in 8th grade who told me that in his 30 years of teaching, I was the best student he ever had. He said that if I didn’t go into architecture or drafting, I was missing my calling. I didn’t listen to him. Many times I wonder if he was right. (To this day, the design of buildings fascinates me.)
I really wanted to play a musical instrument in 4th grade. The poor music teacher went through every instrument; I failed at each because my underbite was so bad. She finally had me tap out some rhythms in hopes that I could play drums. Under ignoble circumstances, one boy latched on to at least one calling!
Some of us old people remember when they used to paddle kids in school. I got swats three times, each time for something I didn’t do. Talk about a lesson in life!
I nearly drowned in a canoeing accident the day after my senior prom. Ironically, today I hold a certificate from the Red Cross to teach canoeing (and wow, was that a tough test to pass).
People can locate me anywhere by my maniacal laugh. I’ve had more than one stranger come up to me and ask to record my laugh.
I really hate being in cities. Really, hate is the best word.
If I had a choice between worshiping God in a church or in a forest, I’d pick the forest every time. I taught outdoor education for years. (As if that’s any surprise from what you’ve read on this blog.)
While on our honeymoon in Paris in 1996, my wife and I spent $550 on a single dinner at one of the best restaurants in the city. Those were the days, let me tell you.
At my weightlifting prime, I could bench press over 400 pounds and do three fulls sets of 175-pound bicep curls per arm. And yes, among the myriad jobs I’ve had, I worked as a fitness instructor.
I scored a perfect score on the Test of Standard Written English on the SATs.
Back in my twenties, many people told me I was the happiest person they knew.
I’ve probably written over 200 hundred songs.
Double celebrity brush with greatness: Back in the 80s, while at a youth convention as a chaperon, I ordered a pizza for my guys. When the elevator opened to take me down to the lobby of the hotel, there was another guy inside. I got in and immediately realized I was sharing an elevator with Judd Hirsch (of Taxi fame), who was filming a movie in town at the time. Just me and Judd. I was too intimidated to speak. We got off, I got the pizza, then got back on. Some guy yelled for me to hold the elevator, and a pile of pirates clutching nearly-naked girls squeezed in. It was Adam Ant and his band, plus all their (very, very young) groupies. They’d just finished a concert and were heading back to their rooms. Trust me, that’s as weird as it gets for Columbus, Ohio.
I memorized Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” and love to perform it for kids. On a good day I can also do “The Walrus & the Carpenter.”
I proposed to my wife costumed as the romantic lead from one of her favorite TV shows, Beauty & the Beast. I dressed up as Vincent, complete with prosthetic makeup done by artists at The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Going all out, I even rented the Cincinnati Museum Center’s artificial cave network to simulate the caverns underneath New York City in the show. A backlit waterfall filled the main cave chamber where I proposed. She had no chance. 
A Dozen Favorite Movies:
Brazil
A Room with a View
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Usual Suspects
The Mission
Babette’s Feast
Citizen Kane
The Shawshank Redemption
A Fish Called Wanda
Young Frankenstein
The Matrix
12 Angry Men (original)
My film tastes are all over the map. I tend to gravitate toward strange or tragic films. Not many foreign films in there, though many percolate right under that cutoff of twelve, a lot of Merchant-Ivory, too.
A Dozen Favorite Novels/Series:
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
The Hitchhiker’s Trilogy by Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Man Plus by Fredrick Pohl
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
I’m mostly a fan of strange and tragic books, too. Probably even more so than films. Inexplicable stuff grabs me. One book stands out on this list, though. Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey is astonishingly good and doesn’t get read enough today. (Please stay far away from the terrible recent film version!)
A Trio of Favorite TV Shows:
The X-Files
The Bob Newhart Show
Law & Order
Nope, I don’t watch TV much. I was an X-Files maniac, though. I made the world revolve around X-Files broadcast times. I promised myself I would never get into another show like I did that one. Many good reasons why. Don’t ask me about the upcoming movie, either. Loved the original, semi-surreal Bob Newhart Show, too. The capper came at the end of his run on his later show, Newhart. Greatest finale ever.
And with that mention of a finale, I need to go to bed. It’s ridiculously late.
Some day, I’ll share more.
Thanks for reading a not-so-spiritual entry today.
Tags: Dan Edelen, Facts, Miscellany
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Comments
Sorry to see Second Hand Lions was not among your fav movies … not even Dennis the Menace … oh well, some people have just never lived!
John,
Two of the worst movies I have ever seen:
Hope Floats
Sphere
Just wondering, Dan:
Have you seen My Dinner With Andre, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Elizabeth Taylor/Paul Newman version), or High Noon?
Have you watched the TV comedy SCTV (Second City Television)?
Have you read the sci-fi novel The Left Hand of Darkness?
Just curious because they’d be in my top ten lists.