...is ever going to end

As I figure it, this is the 82nd day from the end [or not] of the Groundhog Day Project. On the 82nd day from the beginning, I was talking a lot about love. Looking at that entry, I see a surprisingly amount of detail and seriousness, and a complicated structure--a parenthetical some 13 or so paragraphs long, for example. I was thinking of writing a sort of sequel to that entry, something I may do any of the remaining days if I do not have something planned, but I think that entry alone covers the topic of love and Groundhog Day pretty damn well. And, I've spent other days on that topic. I may be all loved out.

My son thinks I've run out of things to talk about. It is starting to be harder to find specific topics to tackle, but there are things left to cover. Some of what's left, though, involves planning ahead, watching extra stuff--there are some time loop movies left (Edge of Tomorrow coming out in theaters soon, for example), and I'm still considering sampling, say, Tru Calling--reading stuff (a book I've got on Groundhog Day (the holiday) provides a hell of a lot more detail than my Groundhog Day entry way back when but I also need to find the time to read the damn book, and I've also not gotten back to The Magic of Groundhog Day which I had finally started)... And recently, I have been toying with a new angle on what might be my Master's Thesis topic next year which may leave some of what I was avoiding on the topic of gender roles in the film free for use in this blog.

That's the thing, you see. While there are another 81 days after this one that I will be watching the film and writing about it, the work will not end there. By some angle or another, I will be working this blog into my thesis. The latest idea--and I will be vague because I might just share this prospectus itself after I complete it--deals with producing the blog itself so, for a year I will be writing about Groundhog Day and for another 9 months or so I will be writing about writing about Groundhog Day.

But, for now, I'm thinking of things that don't make it into the blog. I bookmark new things for this blog all the time but if they don't make in right away, they often get lost in the shuffle. In my Google Chrome bookmarks, there is a folder labeled "GDP" for Groundhog Day Project. In that folder are 38 subfolders and 148 unsorted bookmarks. Most of that has probably been referenced or used somewhere along the way in these 284 days. But, some stuff has not.

For example, one of the most recent bookmarks (sorted into the Bill Murray folder) is an article by Bradford Evans from Splitsider, 17 February 2011: "The Lost Roles of Bill Murray." It details roles that Bill Murray was considered for but either didn't take or ended up unavailable for. It's a nice article, not just listing the films/roles but also opining about whether it was good for the film, and whether it was good for Murray's career. For example, Evans suggests that while Murray not being in The Dead Zone was bad for Murray's career because "it would have established his diverse abilities early on and given him freedom to travel between genres" it was good for the film because Christopher Walken "gives a frightening, memorable performance." I bookmarked this article maybe five days ago and then tried to shoehorn it into a couple entries so far. The thing is, it would have just been a shoehorn. If I did an entire entry on the article, or rather on Murray's lost roles, I probably would have ended up simply rehashing what the article says, or likely just quoting it outright over and over. I think I actually agree with most of Evans' assessments, so there wouldn't have been a lot of room to critique. The most notable detail for me is probably that Murray was a possibility for Tom Hanks' roles in Splash and Forrest Gump because Tom Hanks was one of the options for Groundhog Day...

Now, I just bookmarked this article from the Telegraph from around the time of Harold Ramis' death. It went in the Harold Ramis subfolder. It might never get a mention again after this. I found it because I was trying to remember which article in the four binders (so far) full of Groundhog Day Project-related stuff mentioned the possible casting of Tom Hanks and suggested that he was wrong for the part because seeing him acting like a selfish ass early in the story, our kneejerk reaction would be to assume he would get better because Tom Hanks is inherently likable, whereas with Bill Murray, you can't be too sure. I thought I remembered what article it was, was wrong, and Googled it again to find, well, something.

This is how it goes sometimes. I've quoted the Dalai Lama's posts on Facebook more than once. I've probably bookmarked twice as many as I've managed to share here because whatever the specifics of what they said just didn't fit with what I happened to be writing about that day.

Another example: on the March 21st entry, I bookmarked a few things about equinoxes, including this bit about balancing eggs on end. But, then I ended up writing about stuff from Benesh (2011) while watching Meatballs because I was in a bad mood and that was easier. Afterward, I think I turned Groundhog Day on on my iPad and played Fallout: New Vegas on the Xbox.

Justin, one of my students, interviewed me today about my college experience. One of the questions was about how I keep my--was it my academic knife?--sharp. Something I mentioned was that I am always reading stuff, researching stuff, even when I'm not specifically working on a paper. For this blog as well, I am always on the lookout for Groundhog Day related stuff, always bookmarking things. But, there is so much out there that a) it probably won't all fit in the time I've set for this project and b) a lot of it (like that Harold Ramis piece linked above) is just repeating the same stuff said in numerous other sources I have used.

So, today's entry was about, well, today's entry. Tomorrow, I will try to do better.

Today's reason to repeat a day forever: to never repeat anything, to never forget anything, and really, to never remember anything either, whether I bookmark it or not.