To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

Query: Since three is sacred to the Minbari, does that mean they really, really like waltzes? (Someone should write that fic.)

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Ideas for two vids are poking me, but they would require rewatches of the entire runs of BSG and the X-Files. Since both are on Netflix Instant, this is in theory not completely impractical, as I could figure out which episodes I need clips from and then just have those discs sent to me to rip from, but that is a LOT of TV, even if I just do one of the vids.

The first is a Six- and Baltar-centric BSG vid to "Calling," by Leona Naess. I think of it as a Six-and-Baltar vid largely because of the second half of the chorus, because both could be such unpredictable characters at times. (Also, of course, there's the line about angels, and, well...) I can see it in my head; in addition to maybe fading to white with each transition in the second half of the chorus, I would make sharp cuts to highlight the emphasized beats that come right before the last syllable of each line of the chorus's first half, and I think it would look really cool.

The second is a Scully vid to Hem's "Leave Me Here," because she is really just so tragic sometimes, and has kind of a horrible life, but remains still so very, very strong. I can't see it as well in my mind as I can the first one, but I think it could be pretty. It's just that there are NINE SEASONS of the show to wade through if I ever make the vid.

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Someone has written CSI fic set...at my undergraduate institution. I...um. Somehow, these two things just do not co-exist in my head. I've never watched CSI, but I'm reading these fics where the characters are running along the Gap Trail and see the old steam engine, or go to the butterfly garden at the BFEC and then haul themselves up the hill to campus to visit the market, and my head is kind of exploding. I've read, like, X-Files fic where Moose & Squirrel come to Nashville and not had this kind of reaction. I think here it's perhaps because Gambier and Kenyon are so small and off the beaten path that it's hard to imagine people who are not me and my friends there. Lower Broad or Centennial Park--eh, hundreds of thousands of people pass through there every year. It's easy to see fandom characters there. Middle Path, NOT SO MUCH.

(Also, oh god, I just did a search at FFN, and there are like five Twilight fics set there. I don't even want to know.)

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And in non-fandom-but-related-to-that-last-bit things: Allison Janney and Josh Radnor, both Kenyon alumni, are starring in a movie about a liberal arts college, to be filmed at Kenyon. The plot sounds like unwatchable hipster tripe of the highest order, but hell. I think I have to Netflix this when it comes out.

Aaaaaiiiieeee, I just scheduled my defense/exam. Morning of April 5th. I NEED TO START BREATHING AGAIN BUT I'M NOT QUITE SURE HOW.

(One of my committee members is a sweet and lovely woman who responds to my e-mails with things like, "Let's rock!" which at least makes me feel a little better. I'm sort of hoping that if I freak out enough now, then I will have reached my limit of freaking-out-ness by April and will thus be preternaturally calm when I'm actually in there doing the oral. We'll see if this theory works out for me.)

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Since deadlines mean I likely won't be doing another round of music recs for a while, have two that I've been listening to lately, and some musings.

Terminal Star by Karine Polwart. I hadn't listened to this one when I made my last round of recs, but now that I have, I have to, because I have to share some love for a girl who can get her science on in a folk song. It's a song about a star. Literally. I mean, yes, there's probably some kind of veiled metaphor, blah blah blah, but it's about an honest-to-goodness star that died a long time ago but whose light is only reaching Earth now. And you have to admire that. Even more so because the music is nice as well.

Belated Promise Ring by Iron & Wine. (Bonus points for the girl sharing my name. Uh, not totally sure that's flattering, but anyway.) My plan, someday, when I don't have deadlines hanging over my head (so...May, pretty much), is to make a screwball comedy vid to this song. I was originally thinking a single-source vid (likely Bringing Up Baby), but then I thought about how many great ones that would leave out, and I think when I make this vid, it'll use footage from multiple movies. I'm leaning towards something like framing it with clips from Moonlighting, and then doing a kind of retrospective, here-are-interpretations-of-the-archetype deal. The lyrics don't support a typical screwball plot (they don't really have a plot at all), but they evoke the feeling and energy of the two character types in an impressionistic sort of way. The trick would be conveying the zany, rapid-fire movement of the dialogue via physical motion.

Anyway, at the moment I'm thinking of Bringing Up Baby, It Happened One Night, Carefree, and Ball of Fire (a Barbara Stanwyck film from 1940 I watched for my film comedy/romantic comedy class at Exeter...seems to have been overlooked by many, but I really enjoyed it). I know there are several I haven't seen, but they're in my Netflix queue. Actually, maybe it's a good thing I won't have time to do this until May; it might take me that long to figure out what sources to use!