Klosterman: 23 of 23

Consider this possibility:

A) Think about deceased TV star John Ritter.

B) Now, pretend Ritter had never become famous. Pretend he was never affected by the trappings of fame, and try to imagine what his personality would have been like.

C) Now, imagine that this person—the unfamous John Ritter—is a character in a situation comedy.

D) Now, you are also a character in this sitcom, and the unfamous John Ritter character is your sitcom father.

E) However, this sitcom is actually your real life. In other words, you are living inside a sitcom: Everything about our life is a construction, featuring the unfamous John Ritter playing himself (in the role of your TV father). But this is not a sitcom. This is your real life.

How would you feel about this?

Klosterman: 22 of 23

You work in an office. Generally, you are popular
with your coworkers. However, you discover that there are currently two
rumors circulating the office gossip mill, and both involve you. The
first rumor is that you got drunk at the office holiday party and had
sex with one of your married coworkers. This rumor is completely true,
but most people don’t believe it. The second rumor is that you have been
stealing hundreds of dollars of office supplies (and then selling them
to cover a gambling debt). This rumor is completely false, but virtually
everyone assumes it is factual. Which of these two rumors is most troubling to you?

Klosterman: 21 of 23

Imagine you could go back to the age of five and
relive the rest of your life, knowing everything that you know now. You
will re-experience your entire adolescence with both the cognitive
ability of an adult and the memories of everything you’ve learned form
having lived your life previously. Would you lose your virginity earlier or later than you did the first time around (and by how many years)?

Klosterman: 20 of 23

For whatever the reason, two unauthorized movies
are made about your life. The first is an independently released
documentary, primarily comprised of interviews with people who know you
and bootleg footage from your actual life. Critics are describing the
documentary as “brutally honest and relentlessly fair.” Meanwhile,
Columbia Tri-Star has produced a big-budget biopic of your life, casting
major Hollywood stars as you and all your acquaintances; though the
movie is based on actual events, screenwriters have taken some liberties
with the facts. Critics are split on the artistic merits of this
fictionalized account, but audiences love it. Which film would you be most interested in seeing?