Future Jeopardy™ an Interview with Cookie Gallow
- Eileen Maxson -
Editor’s note: Eileen Maxson was the recipient of the inaugural Arthouse Texas Prize (2005), an award established by Arthouse at the Jones Center in Austin designed to foster the career of a promising, Texas-based artist who has produced a significant body of work but not yet had a solo exhibition at a major institution. With the announcement of the second Arthouse Texas Prize looming (the five finalists this round are Dawolu Jabari Anderson, Justin Boyd, Margarita Cabrera, Bill Davenport and Katrina Moorhead), I asked Maxson to create a piece that encompassed not only her own experience of competing for and winning the inaugural prize and what it has enabled her to accomplish, but her projections about how each finalist might be feeling at this moment. In keeping with her practice, Maxson created a character—a thinking, feeling metaphor for the anachronistic situation at hand. In a cheeky act of self-reflexivity, the artist then “interviewed” this character (herself) in an attempt to convey, as she put it, a persona “caught in the nostalgia of the past and the optimism of the future.” I believe Maxson has accomplished this in an innovative, unconventional and wholly original manner—qualities mirrored in the work of each of this year’s finalists.
Cookie is my first cousin once removed on my father’s side. As a kid I came to know her through a handful of summer visits—the likely outcome of being separated by six states or so. My most vivid memory is of her house, a hide-and-go-seek free-for-all, bulging with books and other printed things (travel brochures, long outdated planners, lost pet posters) wedged to the ceiling.
During those infrequent visits, days were spent intermittently destroying and reordering chaotic piles into forts and room-sized mazes. In the evenings, though, Cookie would round us up—grownups and kids—and pass out yellow legal pads and pencils. The family would wrap itself around the television, taking up the entirety of her big blue sectional. It was time for Jeopardy.
For the most part, we spent the half hour marveling at Cookie—at how many answers she knew and how quickly she delivered them. She chatted back to Alex Trebek like an old friend and flitted in and out of the living room, making lemonade during commercials. It was lighthearted, but she was a serious player.
Everyone, including my parents, who are more or less practical adults, begged her to audition for the show. Us kids would chime in excitedly, “Yeah, you could be famous!” and “We could be rich!” She never seemed all that interested. This year though, something changed. Cookie decided, finally, to take the test.
Now she’s caught in a waiting pool with scores of other qualified applicants. “What they tell you now,” she says, “is keep practicing.” They might call tomorrow; they might never call. They don’t make any promises. This summer, I interviewed Cookie about her possible television network debut.
Eileen: What made you finally decide to apply to Jeopardy? It seems like people have been bugging you about it for a long time.
Cookie: You know, I wish I had an answer for that. I’m not really sure. I guess it didn’t seem all that important. The highlight of my week is game night with my friends, and I doubt that Alex Trebek can make a very good casserole.
Eileen: But something must have changed because now you’re interested?
Cookie: Did I tell you about the “anecdote” section of the application? That I did at the regional tryouts?
Eileen: No, what’s that?
Cookie: Well, you know how there’s the part of the show where Alex goes to each of the contestants and chitchats with them? Gets them to tell some amusing tidbit? A kid from the college tournament yesterday told a story about how he experienced the same hurricane twice: first, flying out of Florida and then hitting the tail end when he landed in Tennessee.
Eileen: Oh, yeah. Okay.
Cookie: Well, I said that instead of a husband, I sleep next to a stack of romance novels. I don’t have any cats, so I thought it would be a new twist on the spinster joke.
Eileen: Ha! Did they laugh?
Cookie: Some, but I think they thought it was at my expense. Maybe it was, a little. But I’ve decided to embrace the lunatic old maid thing.
Eileen: Seems like the right thing to do…?
Cookie: Sure, there’s no turning back now. Yesterday I was cleaning up one of the rooms in my house and found an old newspaper. Printed huge across the front page was a quote from George H. Bush saying, “War Behind Us.” It practically knocked me out. For a half second, I thought it was real and happening now…well, no. I didn’t think it was real, I knew it was from 1991, but…I don’t know. It was a funny feeling.
After that I started to think about writing that phrase as my answer in “Final Jeopardy.” It has to be in the form of a question though, so maybe it will be, “Is the war behind us?”
Eileen: Really? You would throw the race? What about the money? As long as you had enough of a lead I suppose you wouldn’t be risking anything.
Cookie: I didn’t think that far ahead, but I would probably try and bully the other two people into doing the same thing. Maybe we could all agree to lose equally. If we tied, then we could all say whatever we wanted to say—go off the script.
Eileen: What do they do when there’s a tie?
Cookie: Technically, if we all continued to tie, we would all continue to be on the show. It could go on forever.
Eileen: How long do you think Alex would put up with you guys?
Cookie: I’m sure they’d find a way to get rid of us, but it would be fun while it lasted.
Eileen: In the meantime, are you preparing for the show? Do you practice or study?
Cookie: Nothing out of the ordinary. Some friends gave me a truckload of those Dummies books. One of the big winners swears by them. What I should be concentrating on is my stage fright. Really, the one thing that I can’t get over is that millions of people will be watching me. I can’t think of when I’ve ever seen a million of anything.
Eileen: When you put it that way, it sounds pretty terrifying. At least you won’t technically have to look them in the eye.
Cookie: Sure it’s terrifying, but that’s also a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s not like anyone is expecting me to do anything more amazing than know geography, but what the hell?
Eileen: I hate to be the naysayer, but what if you don’t get on the show? What if it ends less spectacularly than you envision?
Cookie: I still wake up every morning hoping I’ll find a man where I left a stack of books. Don’t kill it for me.
The Texas Prize finalists’ work will be on display at Arthouse at the Jones Center from September 8–November 11, 2007, in an exhibition curated by the institution’s new curator, Elizabeth Dunbar. The recipient of the $30,000 Arthouse Texas Prize will be announced at Arthouse’s annual gala on November 2, 2007.