Somewhere Different Now

For this entry, I am going to resurrect a meme that I did quite some time ago.

Choose fifteen characters. Then put your playlist on shuffle. Your first song with lyrics is your first character, and so on. For each song, choose lyrics that resonate with the corresponding character.

Last time some of the matches were pretty hilariously bad, while one or two were spot on.  Let's see how many novelty songs or environmentalist protest songs we get this time!

Character list:
1.  Steve Rogers (MCU)
2.  Mary Morstan (BBC Sherlock)
3.  The Doctor (Doctor Who)
4.  Alec Hardison (Leverage)
5.  Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel comics)
6.  Peggy Carter (Agent Carter/MCU)
7.  Martha Jones (Doctor Who/Torchwood)
8.  October "Toby" Daye (Seanan McGuire's October Daye novels)
9.  Eliot Spencer (Leverage)
10.  Doreen Green (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comics)
11.  Melinda May (Agents of SHIELD)
12.  Rose Tyler (Doctor Who)
13.  Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
14.  Molly Hooper (Sherlock)
15.  Mr. Spock (Star Trek, I may do either TOS or AOS movies depending on the song)

Now for the songs.

( Songs and attempted justifications under cut )

Meme time!  This one is swiped from the_redjay:  at the moment, what songs remind you of your OTPs? Since usually one of the first signs that I'm going to intensely ship a couple is that I start mentally compiling a playlist, I couldn't resist this meme.  I'm forcing myself to stick to one song per ship.  Links go to some way to listen to the song, either on YouTube or a website with streaming player.  For each, I'm including some lyrics that exemplify why I think this song suits this ship.

Doctor Who

Doctor/Rose/Jack-"Forces of the Unseen," Cloud Cult.  (This song is begging for a "Parting of the Ways"-centric fanvid.)Sherlock

Sherlock/John/Mary- "Little Talks," Of Monsters and Men (This song even mentions an empty house.)

Here's a meme I picked up from lost_spook.

Choose fifteen characters. Then put your playlist on shuffle. Your first song with lyrics is your first character, and so on. For each song, choose lyrics that resonate with the corresponding character.

I thought this was an intriguing concept because you have to work with shuffle gives you, so you could end up with lots of artists like Florence + the Machine that are often easy to apply to fandom, or you could end up with all sea shanties and novelty songs (or whatever oddness is in your music collection.)  Let's see how it played out for me.

Character list:

1.  Rose Tyler (Doctor Who)
2.  John Watson (BBC Sherlock)
3.  Joan Watson (Elementary)
4.  Abbie Mills (Sleepy Hollow)
5.  Eowyn (Lord of the Rings)
6.  Captain Jack Harkness (Doctor Who/Torchwood)
7.  Natasha/Black Widow (Avengers/Marvel Cinematic Universe)
8.  Daenerys Targaryen (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones)
9.  Molly Hooper (BBC Sherlock)
10.  Sierra (Dollhouse)
11.  Elizabeth Bennet (Pride & Prejudice)
12.  Samwise Gamgee (Lord of the Rings)
13.  Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
14.  Kaylee Frye (Firefly)
15.  The TARDIS (Doctor Who)

Now, results!

( Meme results! )

It's time for a meme!  This comes from ladymercury_10.  I apologize for being a trifle long-winded.

Comment on this post with the word SPARTACUS and I will choose six interests from your profile. You will then explain what they mean/why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

1. florence + the machine
Florence + the Machine are currently one of my favorite bands/musicians. I love the intelligent dark romanticism of the lyrics, Florence Welch's unique vocals, and the fascinating instrumentation.  (How many other rock bands have a harp?)  The very first time I heart them was when I saw this excellent Master & Doctor fanvid set to "Drumming Song."  I was struck by how cool the song was as well as how perfect it was for the Master in New Who, but I didn't immediately seek out anything else.  Then I downloaded an Adelle Dewitt (of Dollhouse) fanmix that included "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" and fell utterly in love.  (I don't know if the DL links are still live, but that fanmix was A+++; it was also my introduction to Mumford & Sons.)  I love both of F+tM's full albums that I have with a passion. Mostly I don't listen to music on repeat, but I can loop either Ceremonials or Lungs pretty much endlessly without tiring of them.  If anyone out there is living under a rock and doesn't know them, here's the video for "Shake It Out."



2. unicorns
When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with unicorns.  I pretended to be a unicorn on the school playground with my friends.  In third grade I planned to write a novel about unicorns, going so far as to inform my parents that they were going to need a bigger mailbox because of all the fan mail I would soon be receiving.  (I no longer remember what the plot was going to be beyond lots of unicorns.  I wrote maybe four pages of it before quitting.)  I had a ridiculous amount of unicorn-themed stuff.  In middle school I mentally escaped from horrible PE classes by daydreaming of unicorns invading the gym to take me away.  I am significantly less obsessed now than I was then, but I still have way more un-ironic love for unicorns than most adults do.  I like that they are magical creatures that are powerful without being violent.

3. folk music
I listen to a ton of folk music.  I enjoy lots of different types of folk:  traditional music (especially from the British Isles and US), classics of the 60s folk revival, indie folk, folk rock, country folk, bluesy folk, filk, and pretty much any other subgenre that can reasonably claim to be part of folk.  I like folk music with a blatant political message and folk music about nothing of consequence.  I like electric folk, folk with big acoustic bands, and folk that's just one person and a guitar.  I have a particular love for multi-part harmony contemporary folk with pop, rock, or alternative influences, including groups like Girlyman, the Wailin' Jennys, and my all-time favorite band the Indigo Girls.  I appreciate the focus a lot of folk has on lyrics and instrumental ability rather than post-production effects.  Listing my other favorite folk musicians would take way too long, so instead here is a link to an awesome folk-centric internet radio station, Folk Alley.

4. science writing
I adore books that do a good job of writing about science for laypeople.  Science is absolutely fascinating, but sometimes the concepts are complex enough that it isn't possible for everyone to get the sense of wonder without some background info.  Some science writing involves a great sense of adventure as the authors travel to exotic places and follow scientists who do strange/dangerous things in the quest for knowledge.  It can be tremendously funny, because let's face it, there's a lot about the universe that's pretty weird and hilarious.  It can be moving or important, especially when it's about the science of politically relevant issues like climate change.  Some of my favorite science writing books include The Song of the Dodo by David Quammen, The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, Stiff by Mary Roach (or any of Mary Roach's hilarious and informative books), and Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation by Olivia Judson.

5. molly hooper
Molly Hooper is a character whose role seems small at first, but she is both important within the story and surprisingly richly drawn.  She has a morbid job cutting up corpses, but she loves cutesy things like cats and cherry-print cardigans.  She's deeply socially awkward, but she is also such an astute reader of people that she sees things about Sherlock even John doesn't spot.  She has a crush on Sherlock that she can't quite get over even when she realizes it will never be reciprocated (maybe not admirable, but how many of us have been in that same boat?).  Still, she has been known to call Sherlock out when he is being an asshole strongly enough that he actually apologizes.  She's got terrible tastes in fonts on her website.  Still, you know she must be fiercely competent at her job because she is consistently the morgue technician Sherlock chooses to work with.  Also, she's a total BAMF.  As a macro I saw on tumblr pointed out, she dated London's most notorious criminal mastermind, then dumped his ass.  Then there's the little detail that she appears to have been the key to Sherlock's survival, and she is possibly the only person (aside from maybe some people in his homeless network?) who knows that he is alive.  Molly keeps her secrets.  She's always counted.

Molly-centric fic recs, to share the Hooper Trooper fun:
Advanced Surveillance by spastasmagoria (Molly poses as Sherlock's date for a case.  Hilarious and sexy.)
The Mourning Woman by M_Leigh (post-Reichenbach, lovely)
The Anatomist by rosa_acicularis (Mollyarty, now thoroughly jossed by s2, but still essential reading for those who like a touch of the dark with their awesome Molly)
The Breeze Deep on the Inside by seren_ccd (Molly/Lestrade, great characterizations).  Further Molly recs very welcome!

6. dar williams
Dar Williams is a folk-pop singer-songwriter whose work I've loved since high school.  I don't recall how I first heard of her, but I know the first album of hers that I owned was Mortal City.  I listened to the title song of that album on repeat my freshman year of college, when I was lonely, homesick, and very cold.  Her songs are smart but also often catchy.  While some of her songs are really funny ("I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono"), she has also written about depression in ways I find deeply resonant ("After All").  She also writes a damn good political song.  I got to see her live back in 2006, when she played at a music festival near Tallahasse, where I lived then.  She puts on a great live show.

Here's "The Mercy of the Fallen," perhaps my favorite of Dar's songs.  (You can tell I really love it because I titled a fanfic after it.)

I've done this meme before, but isiscaughey just did it again.  I thought it might be fun to play again.

1. Open up your music player. Hit shuffle.
2. Record the first few lines of the first 25 songs that come up that do not give away the name of the song. Skip instrumentals, but don't skip the embarrassing ones.
3. Make hapless LJ/DW denizens guess the song names and artists. Google is cheating. For musical songs, the name of the musical is acceptable in place of the artist.
4. Cross out the songs that have been guessed.
5. Pass it along.

( Clues under the cut )

I grabbed this one from eponymous_rose.  Let's play!

1. Open up your music player. Hit shuffle.
2. Record the first few lines of the first thirty songs that come up that do not give away the name of the song. Skip instrumentals, but don't skip the embarrassing ones.
3. Make hapless LJ denizens guess the song names and artists. Google is cheating. For musical songs, the name of the musical is acceptable in place of the artist.
4. Least hapless LJ denizen wins admiration. That's right, just like a lobbyist in budget season, the points don't matter.

ETA: 17 guessed, 13 to go! Some of the remaining ones are pretty obscure or hard to guess from lyrics alone, but there's a few I bet someone out there knows.

( Do you hear my iTunes sing? )

At a concert Friday night (Red Skunk Jipzee Swing Band), I started thinking about musical instruments and how many of them have distinct personality types stereotypically associated with them.  Of course there's plenty of exceptions to these stereotypes–I've known shy trumpet players and smart drummers, and one of the most macho guys in my high school played the flute–but they aren't entirely without basis in fact.  After all, people sometimes choose an instrument because it speaks to some aspect of their personalities.  Then my mind drifted into fandom.  Now I've got a question for y'all.

Which characters do you think play or used to play an instrument, and which instrument?  Sherlock plays the violin, of course, and John says he learned the clarinet (though there's no evidence he's kept it up).  The Doctor has been observed playing the recorder (as Two) and the organ (as Ten in The Lazarus Experiment).  I'd love to hear more canonical examples, but even more than that, dear flist, I want your speculation.  (My examples below are from Doctor Who and Sherlock fandoms, since that's where I mainly hang out, but if you feel like discussing something else, go for it!) 

Does Lestrade spend his off-hours playing electric guitar in a band with some of his mates from the Yard?  Did Amy Pond decide to rub her Scottishness in the faces of the people of Leadworth by learning the bagpipes?  Does Eleven play the banjo, because banjos are cool?  Does Captain Jack like to blow a trumpet?  Does Anthea get the finger dexterity for that Blackberry from playing the piano, or does she let off steam playing bass in an all-woman punk band?  Does Anderson enjoy how his trombone sounds like he's always imagined the call of the noble Parasaurolophus? 

For the record, I played the French horn from fifth grade until I graduated high school.  If any of y'all play(ed) instruments, feel free to share that too. 

Last night, I had the late night urge to combine my new muffin pan with the blueberries I'd bought at the previous week's farmers' market. Blueberry cinnamon muffins happened.  Yum!  I am the Evil Midnight Muffin Maker What Makes Muffins at Midnight. (Anyone who gets that The Tick reference gets +5 points.)

Today, I did a nice hike up Bishop's Peak, ran some errands, bought more produce at the big Farmers' Market/street fair in SLO, and settled in at Linnaea's Cafe to try to accomplish a bit of work on the Jack/Doctor fic I'm writing.  It turned out that there was going to be live music, a fairly common occurrence at the cafe, and generally a welcome one.  The woman onstage tonight had a lovely voice and a "folk funk" (her description) sound that I was really digging.  Then, a few songs in, she announced, "this song is about River Tam."

I did a double-take.  Yes, she meant Firefly's River Tam.  I had serendipitously shown up at a geek concert in a non-convention venue, as another audience member more prepared than me soon proved by donning a Jayne hat.  The concert included several more songs, maybe a third of the ones she played, vaguely or not-so-vaguely referencing Firefly mixed in with the more standard singer-songwriter fare.  The non-filk songs often had a humorous touch ("You're like an avocado, baby.  You're only really good for one day.")  She also played an anthem about being a geek, featuring percussion played on a manual typewriter.  I repeat:  manual typewriter percussion. 

Her name is Marian Call, and you should check her out!  You can listen to some of her music streaming on her website.

The concert must have helped with the fannish brainwaves, because even though my fic only had half my attention, I finally managed to write a version I like of a scene that had been giving me trouble.  Hooray!

Bonus geek moment of the week:  I wandered into a local bead store a few days ago, just to see what was in there (answer:  beads).  The woman behind the counter became the first stranger to ever speak in recognition of the small TARDIS pin on my purse.  

I don't know what the folks at Huffington Post are on, but I suggest that they keep at it.  They posted an article on which US politicians ought to be cast as the Doctor.  If you're not going WTF?, you're not paying attention.  The article is moderately amusing for their explanations of why certain politicians are like the Doctor, though mostly I can't possibly conceive of these people in the role (even aside from the fact that they are American politicians).  Hillary Clinton might have regenerated her public persona, but, meaning no disrespect, none of those personas have been very Doctor-ish. 

However, the article did propose one Doctor and companion pairing that won the Internet forever:

Doctor:  Barack Obama
Companion:  Lady Gaga

WORLDS OF YES!  I WOULD PAY IN CASH AND POSSIBLY BODY PARTS TO SEE THIS.  Obama has Nine's ears, Ten's geekiness, and the general Doctorish commitment to hope and idealism with a steely underlayer.  A depressingly large number of Americans are already convinced that he wasn't born in the US anyway...why not Gallifrey? 

The true genius of this, though, is the companion casting.  Obama!Doctor's intellectual calm with side of dorkiness would be well (and hilariously) balanced out by Lady Gaga's total out-there in your face personality.  Anybody who goes out on stage wearing those insane heels she sometimes sports is brave enough to be a companion (though let's hope she takes it down to only two- or three-inch heels when she has to run).  If they wanted to have a companion who wasn't from 21st century earth, viewers could easily believe that she's from the future and/or alien.  (Heck, I like the idea of Michelle Obama as the relatable human companion and Lady Gaga as a second, alien companion, or possibly a personification of the TARDIS or something.)   Cosplayers would be overjoyed at her distinctive outfits.  Every episode could have a musical number. 

Heck, even without Barack Obama, I would be endlessly amused to have Lady Gaga on Doctor Who.  Kylie Minogue was a singer who appeared as a co-star, so there's precedent.  Amy Pond is already pioneering the territory of how to be a companion without trousers.  Lady Gaga could take over the Daleks so instead of shouting "Exterminate!  Exterminate!" they shouted "Puh-puh-puh-poker face!  Puh-puh poker face!"  Who's with me?

While looking at local newspaper's event listings in search of some excuse to get out of the house, I saw that Common Rotation was playing in SLO.  Though I hadn't previously  heard any of their music, I'd heard of this band, both because people have recommended their music to me and because one of the band members, Adam Busch, played Warren on BtVS.  After hearing them, I am now quite smitten with their indie folk-pop harmonies.  They put on an excellent show!  There are several songs available on the website linked above, and many more live recordings, works in progress, etc archived at theunionmaid.com, including a live version of "Bitter Honey" with Amber Benson (Tara!) and Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls.  (How much fun am I having discovering this?  A lot!) 

The concert was in an art gallery/coffee shop with only about two dozen people in the audience.  Somewhat bizarrely, the audience consisted mostly of San Luis Obispo's two major demographic groups, college students and retirees, but with substantially more of the latter.  I expect to see the old folks when I see concerts by people playing things like bluegrass, but I hadn't expected to see quite so many of them here.  Is this these particular senior citizens' usual sort of music?   Were they Buffy fans?

I was dealing with some cognitive dissonance from watching the guy who shot Tara playing harmonica and singing pretty harmonies.  You can be 100% grounded in the reality that actors are not their parts, but it's still kind of odd to see a face you only know as a villain doing something so different and wholesome.  I'm glad there were no robots (that I know of!), world domination attempts, or flayings during the concert.  Hooray!