The Memory Of Media

Overview

Someone asked me about some of my favorite media, and I started to compile a list in my head, but then I realized two things:

1. any answer I give will be misleading.
2. explaining why is an excellent opportunity to shine a light on what it’s like to have Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory.

All Answers Are Misleading

Picking favorite media, is at some level a matter of making subjective qualitative judgements about media you’ve consumed. You might immediately think of two or three movies you really enjoyed and compare memories of them in your head. I can’t do that. Movies are one of the things I remember best, but even with movies I’ve seen again and again it’s just a collection of frozen moments and an emotion.

When describing SDAM memory recall Sassy Smith said

The visual detail might be missing, the narrative thread might be gone, and the sense of who was there, what unfolded, what someone said, all of that might be inaccessible. Yet the emotion tied to that event, or the body sensation connected to it, might be present.

…Some of that is probably my own experience shaping the lens. I have aphantasia, SDAM and alexithymia, so the idea of re-experiencing an emotion from a past memory is genuinely foreign to me. I don’t step back into the moment. I don’t re-feel what I felt then, and when I’ve spoken with others who share similar experiences, that’s largely what I’ve heard reflected back.

My experience is very similar to hers, when I try and recall media I enjoyed, it’s mostly just an emotion, and one or two blurry frozen moments. I can tell you I loved Ender’s Game (the book) and that it hit me hard. I can’t tell you why. I remember the pivotal moment just before the end. I know that it was only as impactful as it was because of what came before it, but what came before it? I’m not sure. I know there was physical and mental training. I remember that Ender’s brother is a twisted man. I remember he had a sister who wasn’t. That’s it.

When I’m making a list of favorite media I’m comparing little balls of emotion. I’m picking things that effected me strongly at whatever point in my life I encountered them. Would they effect me similarly today? Probably not, because I’m a different person now, but I can’t bring back the memory of the thing to consider through more experienced eyes. I can only say “this movie evoked strong emotion”

Before I move on, I should mention one curious twist of SDAM as it plays out in my head. Looking back, a movie may just be an emotion and a sense of like or dislike, but re-watching that movie is different. Sometimes, the act of watching it is a series of specific pointers that trigger more normal memories: obscure facts about the actors, a future event in the film, a weird thing I noticed in the background in the scene they’re about to switch to. It depends on the film, and / or how many times I’ve seen it.

Favorite Media

As mentioned above, my memory of most of these is just a small detached emotion. Because of that, it’s not possible for me to rank any of these. They’re just things I consumed that effected me meaningfully. The lists are also inherently limited by what I can recall at the moment.

The thing you need to understand about the descriptions I’ve added by each: it is - in most cases - all I have. That’s the entire memory of the thing; that plus a little sense of emotion.

Movies

You would think that watching a movie many times would cause me to recall it better, but that’s not really the case. I’ve seen Batman (the Tim Burton, and Michael Keaton one) maybe hundreds of times when I was a teen. It was literally the only movie I owned. At one point I had the entire script memorized. Now? I remember almost none of it.

• The Incredibles I’ve watched it at least ten times. There’s something wholesome about this. Something about family.
• Beyond Rangoon This movie hit me hard in 1995. All I remember is that it’s about a white woman stumbling into political bullshit in Burma, and how badly it effects people.
• Léon: The Professional I remember flashes of the first five minutes or so, a couple moments later in the film, and that it hit me hard.
• The Big Blue I remember that it was about a competitive free diver who’d been hired for something. I remember that it left me unmoving, and unable to speak for a long time afterwards.
• The Fifth Element I adore this film, but the “I love you” bit at the end is cheap, and unearned, and completely undermines it. Unlike most films, I remember entire scenes from this. I have watched it many, many times.
• The City of Lost Children Weird in wonderful ways. Touching. Darkly funny. “Je suis l’original!” Trained fleas. A gentle giant. A little girl seeking her brother. A scientist trying to dream. A green mist. Trained fleas with a dark secret.
• Amélie Gods what a wonderful film: quirky, silly, intriguing, mischievous, kind. I can remember most of the characters, and many of the moments.
• Hackers It’s… a thing. Ridiculousness, seriousness, and naivete all mashed together in all the best ways. I’m not sure how much of my love of this movie is nostalgia and how much is the movie itself. I remember many scenes of this.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas In no small part because I love Danny Elfman’s music. I remember many moments from this, and have seen it many times.

Books

• Ender’s Game An emotional gut punch. A twisted brother. A sister who was good, but I’m not sure why. An incredible twist. Yes, I’m aware the author is very problematic, but unlike JKR he’s not using the sales of his creations to fund a genocide.
• The Harmony of Falling Snow This book is my cozy place. I’ve read it maybe four times in the past year. I remember more of it than most any other media at the moment. Partially because I keep reading it. Partially because our world sucks, and I so desperately want to escape to theirs.
• The Magic And The Healing I’ve read this many times, although it may have been a decade since I last did. I remember many moments from it, but not how the moments connect to each other. Like The Harmony of Falling Snow, it’s a world I wanted to escape to. I think it would be more meaningful to the me of my 20s than the me of my 50s, but it’s still an excellent book. I remember that it’s sequel was ok, but not as good.
• The Summer Tree I think I was still a teen when I read this. I remember thinking that this was so much more deserving of love and adoration than The Hobbit. This was the fantasy series people should have been making movies of. Now, I don’t remember much. I remember a man sacrificing himself on a tree in some way that went beyond the flesh. I remember a cliff. A long ride on horseback. Characters that were a thousand times more fleshed out and meaningful than anything Tolkien wrote.
• Catnip This is light popcorn fare, without the emotional impact of the others on this list, but I keep coming back to it. A little bit because it’s a polyamorous trans story. A little bit because it’s just cozy and hopeful. The audiobook is really good too.

Music

Music is… difficult for me to recommend. My relationship to it is very autistic, and for a while I was working very hard to be a professional studio musician. I relate to it, and use it in different ways. I’ll take a song and put it on repeat for a month on two as I work on a project. I couldn’t play a song from memory, but the moment any of the songs / albums below start playing I know exactly where it’s going.

Albums

I’ve listened to all of these hundreds, of times.

• Zap Mamma: Adventures in Afropea 1 There never was a 2, and I think the band broke up leaving only one person to continue making music under this name afterwards. The other albums aren’t terrible, but they aren’t even remotely the same, or as good.
• Bad Brains: I against I Much more mainstream, and less punk than their other albums.
• Pop Will Eat Itself: Cure For Sanity So many good songs on this album: “X, Y, & Zee”, “92° F (The 3rd Degree)”, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” Everything on this album is burned into my synapses.
• Orbital: Orbital 2 I still remember “Halcyon + On + On” playing over the intro to Hackers.
• Ani Difranco: Ani Difranco I like all of her stuff, but this is the album I listened to the most. Like her, I’m not as frustrated and angry as I was when this album came out. But it’s still an incredible album.
• The Suitcase Junket: Dying Star Saw him doing his one-man-band thing on the side of the road during a town festival in Cambridge MA. Bought two CDs on the spot. This was one of them.
• The Dave Brubek Quartet: Time Out Recorded in 1959 and still as amazing as ever. “Take Five” is - of course - my favorite.
• Metallica: Master of Puppets I rarely listen to Metallica anymore, but this album has a special place in my heart. At one point I knew it so well that I could isolate the instruments in my head and listen to any one of them individually in my head.

Recent additions, not so firmly entrenched in my brain.

• Sofi Tukker: Soft Animals I like a lot of their stuff, but this is the album I’ve listened to the most.

Songs

• Estelle: American Boy Without exaggeration, I’ve listened to this thousands of times.
• WING: Dopamine
• Hiss, WING: Object
• Jain: Makeba
• The Dead South: In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company
• Childish Gambino: This is America Not because I listen to it often, or because I particularly love it, but because I think it and its accompanying video are more relevant with every passing day.

Art

• Auguste Rodin No sculpture has ever moved me like his can.
• Pablo Picasso A master of the line, but also someone I have a personal connection to.
• Ansel Adams How can you not love what he saw?
• Robert Mapelthorpe Some of his stuff I don’t care about. Some hit me hard when I first encountered it.
• Pierre-August Renoir I don’t want a picture of his hanging on my wall, but there’s something beautiful about his work.
• Nancy Angell / Angell-Rickenbacker My mom. Incredibly talented. Sadly unknown, despite having a few pieces in museums.