Lacuna Matata Means….Oh, I Forget

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

-Alexander Pope (and not Pope Alexander)

I listened to the most interesting episode of Radio Lab on WAMU the other night. The topic of the show was memory and forgetting. What is a memory? Can we “fake” memories, either in ourselves or in others? Are our memories inviolable, or are they as subject to the ravages of time as their owners? One of the more interesting theories regarding memory suggested that the purest memories are those we don’t access. The more a person interacts with a memory, the greater the degree to which the memory is distorted because the memory revolves more around the individual doing the remembering than about the incident or person being recalled. The purest memories would be those of the amnesiac.

This brought to mind the rather creepy story about Gordon Bell of Microsoft Labs and his quest to offload all his memories. The various segments of the episode discuss researchers destroying memories in rats (in much the same way Joel erased Clementine in ESotSM), a researcher at Cal Irvine who can distort or even create memories, and a painter capturing long-lost memories on canvas. Vignettes include a reading from fellow New Orleanian (by way of Romania) Andrei Codrescu, and an interview with famed neurologist Oliver Sacks.

In the vein of memory and forgetfulness, we shouldn’t forget the rescue workers, many volunteers, who placed themselves in harm’s way working in the rubble of the Twin Towers in the weeks and months after 9/11. The plights of a few of the rescue workers are highlighted in Michael Moore’s Sicko. I received an email notifying me that my review of the movie had attracted a comment from someone other than the 6 regular readers of this blog. Reggie Cervantes, one of the WTC volunteers featured in Sicko, had read my review of the movie and commented on the post. She posted a link to the Fealgood Foundation, a non-profit set up to assist first responders and spread awareness of their plight.

On to the next stop of the Non-Sequitur Express. What is this Cloverfield? Just another monster movie? A Lovecraftian epic? Whatever the hell it is, it’s viral marketing at its very best. One untitled trailer and a number of sites that may or may not be related to the movie.