This began in 2017 as a Failing Memory? blog post that grew and grew for a couple of years. In 2020 I added a Stuff I Forget: The Sequel with notes from 2018-2020. Occasionally I noted the day when I when I was trying to remember.
Part III here consists of notes from 2021 and 2022.
I find this Un-Memory Book mildly amusing, but also intriguing and therapeutic. The stuff I can’t remember and strain to recall, or finally look up, doesn’t get forgotten again.
* = I had to look it up. Generally it was through internet search, but in some cases I had had to dig into old books and newspapers.
71. The expensive cupcake store? (*Magnolia)
72. The Less Than Zero guy. (Brad Easton Ellis)
73. Author of Little Women. (Louisa May Alcott)
74. Semitranny from Toronto that G. Eugene Pichler was hot after. (*Nina Arsenault. This took a bit of looking, first with image search, and then I forgot it again so came up with a mnemonic: Gore Vidal’s mother [Nina] has her head sticking out of the Central Park Arsenal.)
75. The Redmond lady, clinical psych, writes about bipolar and lithium? (*Kay Redfield Jameson, not Redmond. An Unquiet Mind was the book.)
76. Willowy Icelandic guy, long blond hair, was with CPTC for a while, running coach, may have worked for Jerry Macari at Urban Athletics. (Toby Tanser. Suddenly came to me after a few weeks.)
77. The Harvard institution up on the hill overlooking DC, where something was founded during WW2. (*Dumbarton Oaks.)
78. The Daily Themes guy. E R or Edward something. (*E. J. Gordon. Found a 2″ obit in the New York Times.)
79. I am confusing La Fontaine and Charles Perrault…one did fables and the other wrote the fairy tales. (*Looked them up.)
80. The jew harmonicist in The Singing Marine, later whined about Red blacklist, comeback on cable TV in the 1980s. (*Larry Adler.)
81. The sports broadcaster who became an anti-Bill O’Reilly political pundit on MSNBC and had a career meltdown, finally coming back with YouTube rants where he sat at an Ikea folding table and pretended he was back on TV. (Keith Olbermann…took a couple minutes.)
82. Who wrote The First Crusade? The GOOD one. Orwell knew him or his son. (*Stephen Runciman.)
83. Who is our junior senator, the blonde lady? Kristin? Went to Dartmouth? (Kirsten Gillibrand. Think I asked Michael for that one.)
84. The other 90s actress not Drew Barrymore. Freeway. Legally Blond. (Reese Witherspoon.)
85. General in Vietnam…northern county in England…(Westmoreland.)
86. Uncle to TR, head of Confederate intelligence. (*James Dunwody Bulloch.)
87. Murdered actress, married Roman Polanski. (Sharon Tate.)
88. Jazz pianist, Take Five. (Dave Brubeck.)
89. Spanish-named twin-tower hi-rise at 90th and CPW. (Eldorado.)
90. The controversial misreport that someone received a very costly set of jewelry. From whom, Baruch? And who received it? And what’s the French word? Paroir? (*Louise Macy, married Harry Hopkins, 1942. Gift from Lord Beaverbrook, sent in diplomatic pouch.It wasn’t a paroir, but jeweled clips from Beaverbrook’s mother. This required extensive search through 1943 news stories. Roald Dahl book mentioned the gift, I believe. It was Walter Trohan who spread the malicious tale.)
91. Those square waxy crayons, usually in black or brick red, made by Caran d’Ache. (Conté crayons.)
92. The type of sound technology in film that became standard in the 30s, with the imprinting of recorded optical lines next to the frames…? (Ah, optical sound.)
93. Redheaded Italian guy on SNL who got old and fat. (Joe Piscopo.)
94. Blonde in Octopussy and LA Confidential. (Kim Basinger.)
95. What you call emplacements of cannons in a fortress? (*Casemates.)
96. What was 1964 Rat Pack Chicago prohibition comedy? (Robin and the 7 Hoods.)
97. Movie in which aria from La Wally figures. (*Diva. Really had to squeeze my brain and hunt for this. The ‘Ebben’ aria is beautiful but the source was treated as something of a joke, since the opera was rather obscure, it’s the only one the composer ever did, and the name sounded silly. Film was flop in France, big splash in America in 1982 but I haven’t thought of it since, except perhaps for the garlic-bread scene, which I couldn’t identify.)
98. Campy interview writer whom NatLamp once listed as a Great Disappointment. (Dotson Rader.)