Interview meme

[rhu]

saxikath asks:

1. What's your favorite sort of puzzle, and why?
I like puzzles that make me laugh, or at least smile, and I like puzzles that play with form as well as content. My all-time favorite crossword puzzle is Patrick Merrill's "Ten Things...." In terms of traditional puzzle classifications, I'm quite fond of cryptics.

2. What do you think is most important for non-Jews like me to understand about Judaism?
That despite superficial similarities with Christianity, it's actually a quite different religious system: the emphasis is on deeds more than faith or prayer; these deeds include religiously influenced ways of doing even the most mundane and seemingly non-religious acts; and one performs these deeds motivated by love for God rather than to qualify for entrance into the next world.

3. What's your favorite G&S character, and why?
I think Don Alhambra del Bolero would be a lot of fun to play, with Roderic a close second. I admire Iolanthe's bravery and the strength of her love; she is (ironically) one of the most human characters Gilbert wrote. (And although you didn't ask this, I'll add that the show I most want to stage direct is Sorcerer; the show I most want to music direct is Gondoliers; and the show I most want to direct an animated film version of is Ruddigore.)

4. What's your idea of a great breakfast?
A mushroom, cheese, and scallion omelette; potato pancakes; stewed tomatoes; english muffins with orange marmalade; a glass of grapefruit-pineappple juice; and the Sunday Times.

5. Where would you most like to go on vacation, expenses and such notwithstanding?
I'll cheat and say a round-the-world trip, specifically: Great Britain, Israel, and Australia/New Zealand. We honeymooned in Great Britain; it's a delightful place and I'd love to go back. We really didn't get enough time in Edinburgh or Cardiff. We haven't been to Israel since '96; I would love to take the kids and show them around, and we have friends who have moved there whom I'd live to visit. I've never been to Australia or New Zealand and would love to see them; I have cousins in Australia whom I haven't seen since the big family reunion in the 1980s.

As I understand the rules, if any of you wants me to ask you five things, you're supposed to reply here.

Comments

[saxikath]

Turnabout's fair play, so feel free to ask.

Turandot's a fair play

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

1. Which hobby do you wish you could turn into a full-time job?
2. What's your favorite flat type, and why?
3. If someone were to write a song about your life, what would the title be, what key would it be in, and what would the tempo be?
4. If you could change one law, what would you change?
5. Pen or pencil? Paper or AcrossLite?

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Sure, ask me.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

1. Of the books you've read in the last year, which one would you recommend the most? Why?
2. With which of our classmates are you still in touch?
3. What does your daughter want to be when she grows up?
4. What's your favorite recipe?
5. What's the best live performance you've ever seen?

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Answering here because posting in my own journal is going glitchy and crashing my browser.

1) Hmm. This is slightly cheating, but I'll recommend a pair, one of which I read for the first time many years ago, but reread just recently when the second came out. _A Nervous Splendor_ and _Thunder at Twilight_. Both are by Frederic Morton and both do a terrific job of painting Vienna teetering on the edge of the fall of Empire. The first is set in 1888-1889, around the time of Prince Rudolf's death at Mayerling, the second in 1913-1914, surrounding the assassination of his successor at Sarajevo. A fascinating place and time, and one I didn't previously know much about at all.

2) I was never terribly close to most of our own year when I was in high school, and the only ones I'm in touch with now are those whom, like you and mabfan and rev69, I've reconnected with very recently. My close friends at Hunter were mainly a year or two older, and I've stayed in touch with several of those -- Jackie Nieves, Lisa Padol, Chris Quinones, Liz Reynolds (Stokes), plus of course the one I married. :) I'm also still friends with cyanblue, who was the year below us, as was my brother-in-law, whom I don't see half as often as I'd like but counts anyway. :)

3) I don't think she gets the idea of choosing a profession yet, even in pretend-game. She definitely talks about what she will do when she grows up, but it's along the lines of, "I will run FASTFASTFAST!" or "I will go to big kids school!" She knows that many grownups go to work, but I don't think she connects that with *her* someday choosing a kind of work.

4) I'm not much of a cook, but I've got a pretty good chicken in wine and margarine sauce over chicken-broth saturated rice. Mostly I prefer to cook and eat simple, recipeless things with good ingredients... first-class steak or salmon, with rice and vegetables.

5) Cirque du Soleil's _Mystere_.

[ricedog.livejournal.com]

New Zealand!

Twelve of us, several of whom you know, just got back from two weeks in New Zealand. It was very nice. We went on a whirlwind guided tour of the entire country, which was a bit exhausting.

[cellio]

I'd like some questions, please.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

1. How did you get involved in the SCA?
2. What is your favorite midrash?
3. Have you ever written filk? If so, of what song are you proudest?
4. What person or book has most changed the way you think?
5. What's the funniest thing you saw or heard on Purim this year?

[cellio]

Answered here.