Suspect Reviews

Flight or Invisibility—If you could choose a super power, what would it be?  This is a great question to use to start conversations at parties.

John Hodgeman recorded a radio spot on this subject for This American Life, a radio show on Public Radio International.  I heard it on a CD set called Crimebusters + Crossed Wires.  It’s a great set of stories for a long road trip.  (More for adults than kids.)

Or you could, as you drive across country, ask your co-travelers to choose either flight or invisibility.  If you would be the only one in the world with a super power, which would you choose?  It’s “one simple question that reveals everything about yourself that you don’t want anyone to know.” 

I never had the classic dream about flying or falling…until a few years ago, when I started swimming more, and doing flips under water.  Then I had some wonderful dreams about pushing off from the ground and launching above the house.  Flying feels like a combination of swimming, and of pumping your legs to make the swing go higher.  Try it sometime—it’s great!  Arthur Dent would tell you that flying is simply a matter of falling, but at the last minute, distracting yourself, so you forget to land.*

Like I said, I only thought about flying recently.  On the other hand, I have always wanted to be invisible, ever since I heard these radio show words:

“Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Heart of Man?  

THE SHADOW KNOWS!”

Anyways…John Hodgeman has asked the Flight or Invisibility question so many times, he has noticed the answer-er goes through Five Stages Of Choosing Your Superpower.  Listen to his recording.  It’s very… i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g. 

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*Don’t Panic.  Learn this and many other secrets about life, the universe and everything in Douglas Adams’ trilogy(+) of Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 

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