Ask the Author: Mindy Hung

Mindy Hung’s The View From Below appears in the April issue and she talks with us about archetypes, dream jobs, and the burdens of a bad haircut.

1. What would you kill to start fresh in your life?

Killing my plants wouldn’t do me much good. I like my husband and, for the most part, I don’t wish him any harm. What I would like to quash are some of my own urges and desires, which sounds terribly earnest and Buddhist of me, but isn’t really.

2. Are hipsters so skinny in order to fit in their natural environment, which is the bar? What would Darwin say?

I once saw a bunch of hipsters jumping around in a mud field in McCarren Park in Williamsburg. A few of them had brass instruments and they played some fun klezmer music. But the self-conscious, pseudo-exuberance of the mud-stomping dance spoiled it for me (although it probably explains the hipster skinniness).

I’m a member of a pudgy, lesser species. Maybe I’m envious of the jackrabbit metabolisms of hipsters? Darwin would probably fit right in, with his sideburns and extensive world travel.

3. What is the worst haircut you’ve ever had?

Right now, the coif is not so good. It’s growing out, as they say, so it’s like an adolescent: awkward and laden down with a bad attitude.

4. What archetype do you play in your gaggle of girls?

I wish I still had a gaggle. In recent years, my people have moved to, like, Nicaragua and Manila and frickin’ Minneapolis, and I am too old to be the Eager Beaver Newcomer in any group. So maybe I am Grumpy Woman Who Shakes Her Stick at Everyone.

5. What job would you like to have, even if it doesn’t exist?

I’d like to be the person who knows a lot of stuff, but doesn’t go into it too deeply. Like The Human Almanac, or The Dabbler. Taken to extremes, I’d be a superhero who overpowers enemies by annoying them to death.