I did like most of the stories, I think it was not only the content but the way they narrated the story that made it interesting. The fluctuations in tones keeps the audience interested and helps them follow along feeling the mood of the stories and how the characters are experiencing it. They weren’t as short as I expected them to be, but I think the story telling was done so well that one hour per episode seemed to go by pretty fast. Sometimes they used different sounds to make the story come to life. Most of the stories are told in a very structured way, the beginning then the climax and then the falling action. We can story-tell by structuring our tale in a similar format with a good hook to keep readers or listeners in this case, interested. The memories are recounted by the story tellers exploring their stories that happened in the past. They’ve had time to reflect on it, so they add present tense commentary. Its not in the moment which is why it can be told in a structured way with a beginning, middle and end.
I think This American Life had better narrations in comparison to Radiolab, but the difference isn’t that great, they are both very well done. It might have been because The American Life had longer narrations so they could go more into detail because they had more time. They also added more background music that went with the mood of the story. Especially in Obsession. Not only that, but the story was told through poetry which added to this eerie feel. Perhaps it was also because Memory and Forgetting wasn’t really focused on narratives but more on the psychology and science behind the concept of Memory. In Remember Me, there is also background music but the voices of the characters really help evoke the mood, it makes the story more personal and it feels as though the character is telling us about their experiences one on one. The American Life podcasts just seemed a little more personal, perhaps it was due to the podcasts I chose.
Memory and Forgetting
Notes
Historical Amnesia
Add a memory back into the brain (implant a false memory)
Elizabeth Loftus (Plant entirely false memories into people: when you were 5 or 6 years old you lost your mom in a shopping mall and you were rescued by an elderly person and given back to your parents.) (Interviewed about the past, talked to the parents, tell people the truth about their past and slip in the lie/suggestion and adopted it as their own memory)
People take an image of an actual shopping center and images of their family members and construct these completely new memories, making them believe it happened to them.
Kremnater (suppose you witness a crime, and a police asks “did you see a red camiro leave the scene,” “are you sure?” The red camiro that is now in your head feels real. Back in the 80’s people started showing their repressed memories and Elizabeth Loftus questioned it which got her into a lot of trouble.
Memory is malleable
Story
Joe – painter
He used to get high in the evening
Trip and contemplate the universe
Joe drifted backwards into his adolescence
He had one show and then another one
Painted deserted landscapes
He started painting girls coming out of dark spaces
Reflecting that the girl looks the same in all paintings
16 year old in 1972 (Kay, first love, oval face, almond eyes)
He cheated on her, in front of somebody she knew
She moved away to Minnesota
She called him one day and they went out dancing and drank beer
She invited him and he said he had to see another girl
She lit a cigerrette and slammed the door
She died in a fire that night
Post traumatic pleasure syndrome
That story is self sustaining and whole
Story
Klive Wearin
Written by Oliver Sacks (Musicophilia)
Pioneer of music
Deborah is his wife
Music the gift of God
Suddenly March 1985, he became ill
Started off with headaches that never went away
Doctors said it was a very bad flu bug
5th day of the headache he became out of it
He couldn’t remember his wife’s name
Most severe amnesia ever documented
He would forget something at the blink of an eye
He couldn’t retain anything before a blink
Every blink was a new waking moment
Encouraged Klive to write a journal
Put the time from his watch (10:06 awake first time, 10:07 truly awake first time)
Line by line succession of astonished awakening
No difference between day and night
Survived total amnesia for 20 years long (Just like death)
Somehow he has sustained his love for Deborah (Can’t remember his children’s names, but he gasps with relief and excitement, hugs and kisses her with a lot of passion)
He could still read music and sing
Music is so richly organized, you can feel whats been and whats supposed to be
When the music stops, he falls out of time. Music gives him a time to exist.
Who Am I
Notes
Measuring adrenaline (flat line interrupted by 6 spikes when he made jokes)
Jolt of adrenaline when he made a joke
He wrote a book about the brain
Where is the inner real me?
Everything about a normal healthy person is flux
However theres still this one constant
Right hemisphere you see yourself in the morph of you and Bill Clinton
Story
Hannah Palins mom brain “explosion” aneurism
Headaches went away when she went to aerobics class
After being taken to the hospital
That was the last thing she remembered in 4 months
She was hooked up to a lot of machines
She squeezed her daughters hand realizing that her only daughter was in the room
She died that night
She was a shell of a person
Couldn’t walk/ go to the bathroom/
Slowly, very slowly a different person started to emerge
She never used to sing and she starts to belt out now all the time
She got a tattoo and loved wendy burgers from being a proper woman
Time stops and normal disappears
Story
We are just a car crash away from being a different person
Extended self is a story of whats happened to your body over time
When we fall asleep we lose grip of our brains
The dream (hoards of little people, come up and just keep looking at me, they were aware of me)
Stevenson (19th century, saw the little people who manage a persons theatre/always refers to himself as third person)
Where do dreams come from?
He started training his little people, pre bed ritual, wanting them to tell him a story.
Obsession
Notes
Rituals that get out of control
These people are imprisoned by certain actions
Story
Jillian – obsessive over the number 2
If she dropped the key once, she would drop it again and then pick it up.
Becomes an obligation,
Says something and then repeats it to herself
Assigned numbers to colors/days of the weeks/
As powerful as a physical condition that doesn’t bother her, gives her order in her life.
Obsessions can take the place of religion. Things will be orderly if you follow those rules.
Story
Black Swans – Lauren
Starts off with superstitious beliefs
Lots of poetry
Prozac stops working for Lauren
Didn’t believe in prayers; simplistic chemical cause
Remember Me
Notes
Benjamin Franklin – cheerful disregard for the truth
“prettied things up” so they can be remembered
Not so easy to control how people will see you in a couple of years
Story
In a lot of the club pictures for Yearbook there was one kid that appeared over and over again.
It wasn’t a big deal for that to happen^ has a story/adds character
Story
Hotel ghosts
The ghosts are connected to how they died
Walter the ghost, doesn’t even have a motive
^Nobody knows why he stuck around
What could he have done that was so bad which caused him to stay around.
Fate is out of your hands
If you’re lucky your legacy will be remembered
Walter got blamed wrongly. The real Walter is being remembered and forgotten at the same time.