THE CORRECT TEMPORAL ORDER

Saw The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the other day. Like everyone else in the known universe I thought it was fantastic. I’m beginning to worry about my increasing tendency to like the same things that other people like. This is just not right, what happened to the old contrary me? Anyway, I’ve had series of good experiences with cultural product that has been recommended to me. As a public service, I’m going to pass on some of these recommendations:

Jarhead : Anthony Swofford (memoir of marine from the first gulf war)
Prague : Arthur Phillips (fun but not as much fun as the Russian Debutante’s Handbook)

Turn on the Bright Lights : Interpol (ok, so I jump a bandwagon 1 year later)
Transatlanticism : Death Cab for Cutie (ditto)
Chutes too Narrow : The Shins
Team Boo : Mates of State
Our Endless Numbered Days : Iron and Wine (soundtrack for this post)

As good as Eternal Sunshine is, I worry about the unending supply of movies dealing with memory loss. It just doesn’t seem to be worth so much attention (total retrograde memory loss is very rare). As we left the cinema Jeremy said:

“I want people to experience their memories in sequential order and I want them to enjoy them.”

Absolutely! Of course, within a day of heartily agreeing with Jeremy I had finished Prague and moved on to another book. What book? Time’s Arrow of course. So, now I’m reading a book narrated by a homunculus trapped and powerless inside the brain of a doctor living his entire life backwards through time.

. . .

For the surfers, Oscar sent me this link (the photo is from Tasmania). We’re headed to Rhode Island again tomorrow; there’s a decent swell running but I don’t think we’ll encounter any waves quite like that.