Questions for Me!

Jaquandor has kindly offered to provide tailored questions for interested bloggers. Always a whore for free content, I happily signed up! Jaq's 5 questions for me:

1. Name your single favorite Rick-and-Lily moment from Once and Again. (Define this as both of them on screen at the same time.)
Small moment category: Second season episode, when Rick and Lily decide to move in together. The way they slyly grab hands in a quiet celebration of victory after deliberately egging the four kids on in a successful attempt to get the mixed brood to bond together as a mutual front against the parents. I love how the moment cements Rick and Lily's ability to work together as parents and to recognize that managing four kids under one roof will take some real strategizing. It's the moment when i believed they could work as parents of four.

Big moment category: Second season episode, when Rick bottoms out after losing his reputation and business in the wake of the Drentell meltdown. The way Lily refuses to let Rick push her away, and the way she insists to him that she loves him, not in spite of his faults, but because of him, because she loves the whole package. When he breaks down in her arms . . . how Campbell never won an Emmy I'll never know.

2. How bad is the Jersey Turnpike, anyway?
Not too. Up North, where it runs into 78, by Jersey City Elizabeth, et al, it's very industrial, with lots of foul-smelling factories surrounding it, and not pleasant at all to drive. But in Central and South Jersey it's just another big highway, with lots of sound barriers, rest stops, and odd bits of scenery. I always get the impression that folks think all of the Turnpike - and by extension all of New Jersey - is like the 20-mile or so stretch of industrial dourness they have in their heads. It's not.

3. You get a paid weekend trip to someplace of your choice, as long as it's within a three-hour drive of your home. Where do you go? (For our purposes, NYC is out!)
Three hours knocks my favorite place to go, the White Mountains region of New Hampshire, out of the running. So I may just turn to Cape May whose gorgeous Victorian bed and breakfasts are typically out of our price range. Great shopping, beautiful streets for walking, a gorgeous, quiet beach, big old-fashioned hotels, and fabulous outside dining. Yes, that would do just fine.

4. If you and your wife have some kind of "renewal of the vows" thing with a "reception" after, what song will be your new "first dance"?
New? Why new? I strongly suspect we'd stick to what got us here in the first place - the lushly romantic and silky Nat King Cole version of Gershwin's "Our Love Is Here to Stay."

5. You may have written on this before, but I don't recall, so what's your take on Andrew Lloyd Weber? Great Broadway artist, or peddler of annoying spectacle?
I haven't, and it's a good question. My answer is neither. I adore early Lloyd Weber, and count Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita as landmark scores. The man's remarkable gift for melody is simply undeniable, and I think discounted far too easily and often. That being said, he has a weakness for sloppy lyricists (when that sloppy lyricist is also gifted and imaginative, as is the case with Tim Rice, the sloppiness can be somewhat forgiven; when he's a mushy hack (hi Don Black!), not so much), and going for the big, sweeping sentimental gesture more often than is wise. And his later work (or, at least what I'm familiar with) can be too digestible for its own good. But he has had an indelible impact on musical theater, both good (Les Miserables, Chess) and bad (Lestat, Jekyll and Hyde).

That was fun! Jaq, if you'd care for 5 questions back, just stick a request in the comments!

Until Whenever