A Portrait of the Dumbass as an Old Man

Memory

I was thinking about the folk wisdom that we somewhere remember everything, and that we can recall it all under hypnosis. Seems to me to be definitely an old wive's tale. Short term memory is in the front of the brain, long term memories are formed in the back. It's well known that trauma can prevent the transfer from short to long term memory -- hence accident victims commonly don't remember much about their accidents. It also seems like we can't be remembering repetitive stuff, like the details of getting in the shower every morning, or, even worse, the activity of someone on an assembly line. Seems like the brain would reject the duplicate memory, or overlay or reinforce the preexisting one.

Finished my 5th library book (turned in 2 days overdue), Frederik Pohl's "The Boy Who Would Live Forever". It's a return to his Gateway/HeeChee stories, very meandering (new characters introduced over halfway through). I kind of like the meandering stuff, more realistic and life-like. I remember Bruce Sterling's "Schismatrix" was one of the 1st books that struck me that way.

Frederik Pohl has been producing nice works of sci-fi for decades now. I remember his novel "Jem" as being one of the most cynical novels I ever read.

My wife worked both days last weekend so I caught up on my comic book movies. Watched "Fantastic Four" and "Batman Begins". Both well done, #13 and #8 in box office last year (ain't the web great) so they will probably be back. Still, best comic book movies to date have been X-Men 2 and Spiderman 2 (and maybe Superman 2 -- hmm, maybe a pattern?)

Finally seem to have digested all the music I got late last year, ready for more. Downloaded "More Shine" by Si*Se, who was a iTunes free song. Listenable world beat (actually fairly western), 3 stars.

Cooking a pot of 15 bean soup, time to stir. Have to miss the blues jam tomorrow night for a business dinner. Only got to play around 1/2 hour last week. My chops are definitely getting better, the speed of both my hands is improving.