Videos I Never Made
I store all of my video ideas and outlines on the handy outlining app Workflowy, and one of the most satisfying feelings is marking a video as complete and watching it gray out.
But then there are these assholes:
“On Hold” hides a multitude of excuses, so I figured it’d be fun to revisit why these videos haven’t happened and calculate some probabilities that they still have a chance. I TAed an undergrad stats class, so these probabilities are like super legit.
Review: Red Sparrow
I was actually pretty excited for this video, so excited that there are two incomplete scripts for it. I love spy movies and looking at how adaptations take on the source material, and I was super ready to get into how this book and movie find different, non-creative ways to undermine the agency of their main female character (Russian spy Dominika Egorova). I was going to get to snark about Joss Whedon’s fetishistic paternalism towards Black Widow in Avengers, and any opportunity to snark on Joss Whedon is a welcome one for me. But it’s bad enough to discuss a book that’s aggressively mediocre, throwing in a movie that’s also just bland and forgettable makes it even harder.
Probability it happens: 9%. It’ll probably only happen if I’m on a plane that’s showing Red Sparrow.
How I Review Books
This video is probably exactly what it sounds like. Straight from my draft: “I love process, and I love knowing other people’s process.” I cite some of my favorite reviewers, but honestly it ended up being mostly a lot of gushing about the legendary makeup blogger Temptalia. It probably never happened because I felt kind of self-conscious about acting like my reviews are worth dissecting.
Probability it ends up getting made: 66%. It’s one of those “videos for when I’m not sure what I want to make” things.
Recent Science Reads: A Guide to the CRISPR Babies
I’ve only made one Recent Science Reads video, but I liked how it went and have been wanting to revisit it. What better opportunity than the irresponsible and terrible science that went into deciding to editing the genomes of human embryos that would be carried to term? I figured I would compile the articles that best summarized the science and what makes this experiment so reckless, but it just ended up feeling more like click-bait. I also get a little paranoid about what kind of audience beyond my usual one is going to be attracted to certain types of videos, and sometimes you just don’t feel like arguing with people who are pro-CRISPR baby. But the articles I meant to link to were great, so here there are:
- 15 Worrying Things About the CRISPR Baby, by Ed Yong
- Claim of CRISPR’d baby girls stuns genome editing summit, by Sharon Begley
Probability it ends up getting made: 3%. But I am planning to return to Recent Science Reads on my channel as well as in this newsletter (see below).
Not My Thesis: Academic Publishing, A Guide
This one is embarrassing because I actually have made this video. Or at least I’ve filmed it. But I don’t feel like editing it. I’ve still got too much academic publishing angst to trudge back through watching myself talk about the system as if it meets its own ideas.
Probability it ends up getting made: 70%. Ranting is self-care, right?
Stuff I Made
- The Booktube Real Talk Tag - Talking all things Booktube, Guru Gossip, and being a small channel.
- This newsletter! I’ve been wanting to start a newsletter for a while, and this is me finally sitting down and doing it, so thank you for subscribing and reading!
Recent Science Reads
- Rare Book Collection: Printing Techniques for Scientific Illustrations, American Museum of Natural History - Okay, this is more of a watch than a read, but since I’m sure this section will end up featuring other multimedia, let’s treat “reads” as more of a suggestion anyway. If you love science history or art, this is a super cool video on the different methods (including woodcutting and lithography) to share new discoveries in nature.
- Celebrity-backed shows make bold pitches to health care companies — and charge big bucks. But the experiences don’t always deliver, by Megan Thielking - I really appreciated the insight this article gave into all those sleek medical programs you might see on TV, and it made me think about the different (and sometimes unsettling) ways PR works in medicine.
My Week in Read/Watch/Listen
TV
- Game of Thrones (episode 5? I guess? How does this season feel like it’s been going on forever?): I gave up on this show seasons ago, only to be sucked back in last season. I don’t know why I did that to myself.
- Vanderpump Rules (Reunion, Pt 1): The reunion feels like everything I’ve been yelling at the TV all season. I’m so glad my growing affection for Raquel has finally been justified.
Podcasts
- Sexy Unique Podcast (episode 74): My go-to podcast for all things Vanderpump Rules. This season of the podcast has been rough because the show has been rough, but this episode (like the reunion) was a bright spot in part because it features Ronnie Karam (host of my go-to podcast for all things Bravo: Watch What Crappens).
Books
- Figuring, by Maria Popova: This book has been a slow read that alternates between super fascinating insights into science history and frustrating, distracting asides that make the book hard to pin down. I also have to return it to the library in two days, and there’s almost no chance I’m going to finish it by then, so my whole week is in crisis for now.