Questions from Cereta...

[tzikeh]

1. Name one book, play, song, or anything similar that you consider a "hidden treasue," something you know about or appreciate that few other people do.

Oh, man, you asked for it. The Golden Apple is a musical from 1954. It's widely considered the best musical ever to flop; it got nothing but raves when it opened off-Broadway; it was the first-ever off-Broadway show to get Best Musical from the New York Drama Critics Circle. Why did it flop? Too intelligent, too complex, too literate - it's often known as the the only musical which was failed by its audience, rather than the other way around.

The music is by Jerome Moross, known for his work in film and tv Western scores, notably Big Country and Gunsmoke. The lyrics are by John Latouche, one of the lyricists of Bernstein's Candide and solo lyricist of Cabin in the Sky and the opera The Ballad of Baby Doe.

The Golden Apple transplants The Iliad and The Odyssey to turn-of-the-century America, specifically Angel's Roost, Washington, directly after the Spanish-American War. It is a sung-through musical; there is no dialog and very little recitative - it is song after song after song in a variety of American styles: ballads, cakewalks, vaudeville music-hall spoofs, soft-shoes, marches, and homages to both Rogers & Hammerstein and Aaron Copland. The lyrics are nothing short of brilliant.

I could go in to *intricate* detail about the entire show if you have any interest -- it's freaking amazing. The Act I / Act II character transformations are hilarious and ingenious, the updating of Ulysses' trials and the disappearance, one by one, of Ulysses' men as they traipse through Rhododendron ("The Big City") after rescuing Helen and sending her back to Angel's Roost are at turns snickeringly wise and horrific, and the music is ... the very, very best of what music can and should do for an audience.

Do not buy the commercial cd; it is nothing but highlights recorded at accelerated tempi to get them all on one LP, with crappy rhyming narration to bridge the gaps - it's a disaster. Someday, someone will do a full-out recording of the whole show. I await that day eagerly.

2. If you could strike one word or phrase from the fannish vocabulary, what would it be?

Um. Only one? "Ficcies."

3. Say there's someone like, oh, me, who's never really learned to appreciate vids. I ask you to make me a tape of 5-10 vids that will hook me into the art form (or at least, if they won't, nothing will). What do you send me?

That's a difficult question, because it's not just a matter of sending great vids; I'd also want to include notes or a hand-out of some sort talking about each vid in detail. Or, you know, sit next to you while you watch them. ;) It would also depend on which fandoms you were into and knew well. But, okay, I'll give it a shot:

Dante's Prayer, by Killa
Kryptonite, by Seah & Margie
Solsbury Hill, by Shalott
Full of Grace, by Justine Bennett
When I'm Up, by Jill and Kay
The Impossible Dream, by Judy Chien
The Man Song, by the Cannibals
Closer, by Sisabet
History Repeating, by Luminosity
You Do What You Have to Do, by Gwyn

4. Adapted from ratcreature: if you could enact one major retcon in the West Wing universe, change or undo one storyline, what would it be?

Oh, man. Well, I don't know that there is a storyline I would undo or change - not really. I'm happy to follow as it goes. What I would do is go back in time, collar Aaron Sorkin, and say "Writer's Bible. Make one. Notecards in a box, big write-on/wipe-off board, I don't care. But keep track of what you have these people SAYING ABOUT THEMSELVES, so that they don't wind up looking scatterbrained, or worse, like big liars, in later seasons. Okay? Okay."

So I guess, really, I'd make sure that when Leo testitifed before Congress as to how long he'd known Jed Bartlet, he gave the answer he gave in the PILOT, and not another answer entirely, off by eleven years.

5. Llamas?

LLAMAS!!!

Next up will be Melina!