Inhaling

Bonnie Marranca in her preface to a collection of food writing entitled A Slice of Life offers this anecdote.

[T]wo summers ago in Nova Scotia, we stopped by the side of the road to have a picnic lunch with our traveling companions, a couple from Sardinia. The sea and air and sun were glorious. After we had eaten, everyone looked forward to a cup of coffee, even though there was only a jar of instant with us. But not a drop of water was to be had anywhere. Our friends were so desperate that they simply opened the coffee jar and took a deep breath, temporarily satisfying themselves with the aroma of memory.

One remove from a Barmecide feast.

And so for day 808
28.02.2009

Modes of forgetfulness

Anne Galloway author of Purse Lips Square Jaw rifts on the fashioning of forgetfulness. (And I forget in which entry or at what date)

When I was at UbiComp, surrounded by examples of ubiquitous and merciless memory, I again wondered about the differences between dementia (as forced forgetfulness), nostalgia (as voluntary forgetfulness) and hope (as necessary forgetfulness).

The strength of the truism becomes apparent if you substitute "memory" for "forgetfulness": memories forcing themselves through the body in dementia; memories picked through at will in the sad movements of nostalgia and the necessary memory that connects the sad and the mad with the gay.

And so for day 216
18.07.2007