Forgotten Movie Quotes

I am what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker - a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten.

I liked Lost in Space,” Stefan said. “The movie or the TV series?” “The movie? Right. I had forgotten about the movie,” he said soberly. “It was better that way.

Life pressed forward with a burning velocity that left all of the beautifully-pressed details quickly forgotten.

It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.

John knew the best love stories were the ones that were never told. For no medium—no book, no poem, no play or movie—could ever tell a love story in its entirety, its full span and depth, from the exhilarating beginning to the tragic ending of all love stories. He didn’t mind if his life was forgotten—it had never occurred to him to want to be remembered—as long as he had truly lived, and to live life without experiencing one great love story was to not live at all.

He looks pretty broken up about the fact he won't see me tonight." "Absolutely crushed," Sarah agreed with a nod. "We were supposed to rent a movie together, you know." Sarah shrugged. "It must be terrible to be forgotten so easily." Miles laughed. He was smitten about her, no doubt about it.

Hollywood's Studio Era was part of a Golden Age because it didn't need profanity (unlike reality-television today)

I will admit it sometimes felt strange to me to make the confession to someone and later catch them laughing, or flirting, or eating a sandwich, instead of tearing at the injustice of it all or sitting quietly at the center of a grand and monstrous grief. The disaster of my life might be only the worst thing another person heard that afternoon; they might have forgotten by dinnertime; they might have been more heartbroken by watching certain movies.

Does John Green have a Hollywood Star? A John Green does but he is not me. He was a composer who won five Academy Awards for scoring such movies as An American in Paris and West Side Story. Although today he is mostly forgotten which is a nice reminder that no matter what you do the tides of time will wash away your sandcastles. So there's no sense in reaching for some foolhardy notion of immortality when there is real work to be done with real people, right now.

What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips’s new album is ravishing and I’ve listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who’s up and who’s down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say. Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

Reality Television is the 'Howard Stern-ation' of all that is bad with our media today

Everyone had forgotten her. But that's the way Penny was-- so quiet and unimportant that you could look right at her and never see her. Esther had no idea why Penny always showed up at Grandma's house on Sunday afternoons when they came to visit. She was just one of those nosy neighbors with no life of her own, who watched other people's lives as if watching a movie.

I had a lot of memories of Will from the summer he’d lived with us while working for Dad: sitting on the couch with him and Jensen while we watched a movie, passing him in the hallway at night wearing nothing more than a towel around his hips, inhaling dinner at the kitchen table after a long day at the lab. But only from the evil influence of dark magic could I have forgotten about the tattoos.

The world is full of books, movies and stories about how the loss of a loved one, or a change in fortune, or a severe illness or another tragedy of such magnitude catapulted someone to reset their lives and chase long-forgotten dreams. I’m thinking of Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail solo after the unexpected and heartbreaking death of her mother, and Elizabeth Gilbert, who embarked on a year-long journey around the world after a painful divorce and depression. I admire their grit to pick themselves up and do something extraordinary in the face of tragedy. But what about the tragedy of a mundane, average, unfulfilling life?

I picture a heart lying down on the floor of the torso, pulling up the blankets over its head, thinking this pain will go on forever (even though it won’t). The heart is watching Lifetime movies and wishing, and missing all the good parts of her that she has forgotten. The heart is so tired of beating herself up, she wants to stop it still, but also she wants the blood to return, wants to bring in the thrill and wind of the ride, the fast pull of life driving underneath her.

Just as sometimes I wondered if Grandpa had ever existed, sometimes I wondered if I truly existed myself. As I was running, I could see myself from outside myself: a skinny girl with the flapping shorts and too- big a T-shirt, always watching the other girls at school, a girl in a pink bedroom sitting with a book propped on her knees, the words she was reading entering her mind, some sticking like gluey never to be forgotten, others disappearing instantly, I could remember everything and remember nothing. I would watch a movie and recall every scene as if I had written the script, then watch another movie another day and be unable to recall it at all.

I know I overthink too much, like my mind is the sky and it explodes and rains stardust. I know I can be insecure, like I am always staring in the mirror and seeing another. But I will love you wholly. I will think of you often. I will make you feel like the sun, never ever forgotten. She said her favorite color was purple, and now I haven’t seen purple the same since. I see lavender and think of her, I see her bedroom walls and dream of her, I wear purple t-shirts to feel her around me, I write love letters in purple crayon, because she makes my heart wild and carefree. I know life doesn’t play out like the movies. But I want a happy ending with you.

I came to Los Angeles to bring back love. All great movies are about love. Love lost, found, destroyed, regained, bought, sold, dying, and being born. I love movies, but they've forgotten what they're about. Explosions, effects, that wasn't what it meant when I first got here. It was about lighting cigarette smoke so it looked like heavenly fire and lighting women so they looked like angels. I came here to bring true love back from the dead.

First, any term applied to God is only ana analogy; when this is forgotten, any God-defining term is sacrilegious.

The past was an empty space, a blurry movie in which they had played the parts, on their own, of other people they’d forgotten.

Once again, off this skinny prick of a copper went. BANG! SLAP! PUNCH! It was more like a Batman movie! He could hit me all night, but it wouldn’t make any difference.

Actually, I'm what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker—a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either.

In a time when people have forgotten how to be neighbors, simply sharing a meal or a movie together is a political act.

Jason summoned his golden lance. He brandished it over his head and yelled, “Giant!” Which sounded pretty good, and a lot more confident than Leo could’ve managed. He was thinking more along the lines of, “We are pathetic ants! Don’t kill us!” Enceladus stopped chanting at the flames. He turned toward them and grinned, revealing fangs like a saber-toothed tiger’s. “Well,” the giant rumbled. “What a nice surprise.” Leo didn’t like the sound of that. His hand closed on his windup gadget. He stepped sideways, edging his way toward the bulldozer. Coach Hedge shouted, “Let the movie star go, you big ugly cupcake! Or I’m gonna plant my hoof right up your—” “Coach,” Jason said. “Shut up.” Enceladus roared with laughter. “I’ve forgotten how funny satyrs are. When we rule the world, I think I’ll keep your kind around. You can entertain me while I eat all the other mortals.” “Is that a compliment?” Hedge frowned at Leo. “I don’t think that was a compliment.

Childhood isn’t just something we “get through.” It’s a big journey, and it’s one we’ve all taken. Most likely, though, we’ve forgotten how much we had to learn along the way about ourselves and others.

It so happens I am sick of being a man. And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes. The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs. The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool. The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens, no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators. It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails and my hair and my shadow. It so happens I am sick of being a man. Still it would be marvelous to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily, or kill a nun with a blow on the ear. It would be great to go through the streets with a green knife letting out yells until I died of the cold. I don't want to go on being a root in the dark, insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep, going on down, into the moist guts of the earth, taking in and thinking, eating every day. I don't want so much misery. I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb, alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses, half frozen, dying of grief. That's why Monday, when it sees me coming with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline, and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel, and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night. And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses, into hospitals where the bones fly out the window, into shoeshops that smell like vinegar, and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin. There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines hanging over the doors of houses that I hate, and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot, there are mirrors that ought to have wept from shame and terror, there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords. I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes, my rage, forgetting everything, I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops, and courtyards with washing hanging from the line: underwear, towels and shirts from which slow dirty tears are falling

Life pressed forward with a burning velocity that left all of the beautifully-pressed details quickly forgotten. They'd fade into the past before I even had a chance to notice, and there would be no getting them back.

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyone’s had enough of me to last a month. Actually, I’m what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker—a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either. I hate having to tell you this, but why shouldn’t I admit it when I know it’s true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne—to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why. I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “lighthearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, she’s disappeared. So the nice Anne is never seen in company. She’s never made a single appearance, though she almost always takes the stage when I’m alone. I know exactly how I’d like to be, how I am … on the inside. But unfortunately I’m only like that with myself. And perhaps that’s why—no, I’m sure that’s the reason why—I think of myself as happy on the inside and other people think I’m happy on the outside. I’m guided by the pure Anne within, but on the outside I’m nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether. As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I’m always up against a more powerful enemy. A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.” Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world. Yours, Anne M. Frank ANNE’S DIARY ENDS HERE.

The movie Mr. Nobody examines the core belief that we can find happiness if we make the right choices in life. We can’t; it’s impossible. But the belief that we have real choices that can bring us what we want is cherished by the ego because it keeps us locked into a never-ending quest of looking for happiness where it can’t be found. Mr. Nobody demonstrates that all the choices of this world are made because we have forgotten God and therefore believe in an illusory world of duality. None of our choices are real because they are a choice between the images of this made-up world; that is, a choice between illusions. They are nothing more than hypotheticals, which serve as meaningless distractions.

I’m afraid that soon Halloween will follow the path of the forgotten!  Now we have Christmas in July!  We have Christmas movies available year round!  First VHS, then DVD, and now internet streaming has made Christmas movies a year round

His heart quickened and he fisted his hands.There was nothing for it. When he saw the tip of Seth's tongue lick his lips and felt a hardening beneath him that mirrored his own, movie and tree forgotten, he lunged, closing the distance between their mouths.

Security ... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut? Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes? Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences. As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

It was getting late, but sleep was the furthest thing from my racing mind. Apparently that was not the case for Mr. Sugar Buns. He lay back, closed his eyes, and threw an arm over his forehead, his favorite sleeping position. I could hardly have that. So, I crawled on top of him and started chest compressions. It seemed like the right thing to do. "What are you doing?" he asked without removing his arm. "Giving you CPR." I pressed into his chest, trying not to lose count. Wearing a red-and-black football jersey and boxers that read, DRIVERS WANTED. SEE INSIDE FOR DETAILS, I'd straddled him and now worked furiously to save his life, my focus like that of a seasoned trauma nurse. Or a seasoned pot roast. It was hard to say. "I'm not sure I'm in the market," he said, his voice smooth and filled with a humor I found appalling. He clearly didn't appreciate my dedication. "Damn it, man! I'm trying to save your life! Don't interrupt." A sensuous grin slid across his face. He tucked his arms behind his head while I worked. I finished my count, leaned down, put my lips on his, and blew. He laughed softly, the sound rumbling from his chest, deep and sexy, as he took my breath into his lungs. That part down, I went back to counting chest compressions. "Don't you die on me!" And praying. After another round, he asked, "Am I going to make it?" "It's touch-and-go. I'm going to have to bring out the defibrillator." "We have a defibrillator?" he asked, quirking a brow, clearly impressed. I reached for my phone. "I have an app. Hold on." As I punched buttons, I realized a major flaw in my plan. I needed a second phone. I could hardly shock him with only one paddle. I reached over and grabbed his phone as well. Started punching buttons. Rolled my eyes. "You don't have the app," I said from between clenched teeth. "I had no idea smartphones were so versatile." "I'll just have to download it. It'll just take a sec." "Do I have that long?" Humor sparkled in his eyes as he waited for me to find the app. I'd forgotten the name of it, so I had to go back to my phone, then back to his, then do a search, then download, then install it, all while my patient lay dying. Did no one understand that seconds counted? "Got it!" I said at last. I pressed one phone to his chest and one to the side of his rib cage like they did in the movies, and yelled, "Clear!" Granted, I didn't get off him or anything as the electrical charge riddled his body, slammed his heart into action, and probably scorched his skin. Or that was my hope, anyway. He handled it well. One corner of his mouth twitched, but that was about it. He was such a trouper. After two more jolts of electricity--it had to be done--I leaned forward and pressed my fingertips to his throat. "Well?" he asked after a tense moment. I released a ragged sigh of relief,and my shoulders fell forward in exhaustion. "You're going to be okay, Mr. Farrow." Without warning, my patient pulled me into his arms and rolled me over, pinning me to the bed with his considerable weight and burying his face in my hair. It was a miracle!

From the surface of the Earth the Sun would have seemed to be flickering, as in a time-lapse movie. So there was a time when sunlight first broke through the dust pall, when the Sun, Moon and stars could first be noticed had there been anyone there to see them. There was a first sunrise and a first nightfall.

The sad truth is that, within the public sphere, within the collective consciousness of the general populace, most of the history of Indians in North America has been forgotten, and what we are left with is a series of historical artifacts and, more importantly, a series of entertainments. As a series of artifacts, Native history is somewhat akin to a fossil hunt in which we find a skull in Almo, Idaho, a thigh bone on the Montana plains, a tooth near the site of Powhatan’s village in Virginia, and then, assuming that all the parts are from the same animal, we guess at the size and shape of the beast. As a series of entertainments, Native history is an imaginative cobbling together of fears and loathings, romances and reverences, facts and fantasies into a cycle of creative performances, in Technicolor and 3-D, with accompanying soft drinks, candy, and popcorn. In the end, who really needs the whole of Native history when we can watch the movie?

Modern man is exposed to an almost unceasing “noise,” the noise of the radio, television, headlines, advertising, the movies, most of which do not enlighten our minds but stultify them. We are exposed to rationalizing lies which masquerade as truths, to plain nonsense which masquerades as common sense or as the higher wisdom of the specialist, of double talk, intellectual laziness, or dishonesty which speaks in the name of “honor” or “realism”, as the case may be. We feel superior to the superstitions of former generations and so-called primitive cultures, and we are constantly hammered at by the very same kind of superstitious beliefs that set themselves up as the latest discoveries of science.

My mother showed her gratitude for her life in exile by alluding to India’s modernity: the expansive railway network; the Bollywood movies she came to love for their tumultuous stories which ultimately conceded to the cardinal guidelines she held in her own life- love, family and duty. Still, it was Tibet’s antiquity that anchored her in exile. It was phayul she longed for when her skin was scorched by the summer heat of India’s plains. When she drank milk she compared it to the milk of her childhood for such sweetness and creaminess was not easily forgotten, and when she felt nauseous riding the buses that weaved their way around curvaceous mountain roads she spoke of the horses she had loved to ride.

They've forgotten about beds, and I understand, because once you set sail on a movie, you are out of touch with ordinary land. Movie-makers between movies seem like you and me; they go to parties, they shop, they swim. But they're just treading water, waiting for another injection, another ship to come take them away in film. And money has nothing to do with it.

I decided to ask eight Vietnam combat veterans if they would be willing to take a standard pain test while they watched scenes from a number of movies. The first clip we showed was from Oliver Stone’s graphically violent Platoon (1986), and while it ran we measured how long the veterans could keep their right hands in a bucket of ice water. We then repeated this process with a peaceful (and long-forgotten) movie clip. Seven of the eight veterans kept their hands in the painfully cold water 30 percent longer during Platoon. We then calculated that the amount of analgesia produced by watching fifteen minutes of a combat movie was equivalent to that produced by being injected with eight milligrams of morphine, about the same dose a person would receive in an emergency room for crushing chest pain.

I didn't understand why he had brought his foot on mine. Was it a pass, or a well-meaning gesture of solidarity and comradeship, like his chummy hug-massage, a lighthearted nudge between lovers who are no longer sleeping together but have decided to remain friends and occasionally go to the movies? Did it mean, I haven't forgotten, it'll always remain between us, even though nothing will come of it?,

Ravi buys all four of our tickets, which Peter is really impressed by. “Such a classy move,” he whispers to me as we sit down. Peter deftly maneuvers it so we’re sitting me, Peter, Ravi, Margot, so he can keep talking to him about soccer. Or football, as Ravi says. Margot gives me an amused look over their heads, and I can tell all the unpleasantness from before is forgotten. After the movie, Peter suggests we go for frozen custards. “Have you ever had frozen custard before?” he asks Ravi. “Never,” Ravi says. “It’s the best, Rav,” he says. “They make it homemade.” “Brilliant,” Ravi says. When the boys are in line, Margot says to me, “I think Peter’s in love--with my boyfriend,” and we both giggle. We’re still laughing when they get back to our table. Peter hands me my pralines and cream. “What’s so funny?” I just shake my head and dip my spoon into the custard.

He was worried about his country. Something was rotting from the inside—a slow decay of what was right and wrong. It was as if hundreds of cynical little rats were chewing at its very fiber, gnawing away year by year, until it was collapsing into a vat of gray slime and self-loathing. It had oozed under the doors of the classrooms, the newscasts, and in the movies and television shows and had slowly changed the national dialogue until it was now a travesty to be proud of your country, foolish to be patriotic, and insensitive to even suggest that people take care of themselves. History was being rewritten by the hour, heroes pulled down to please the political correctors. We were living in a country where there was freedom of speech for some, but not all. What was it going to take to get America back on track? Would everything they had fought for be forgotten? He was so glad he and Norma had grown up when they had. They had come of age in such an innocent time, when people wanted to work and better themselves. Now the land of the free meant an entirely different thing. Each generation had become a weaker version of the last, until we were fast becoming a nation of whiners and people looking for a free ride—even expecting it. Hell, kids wouldn’t even leave home anymore. He felt like everything was going downhill.

What’s your dad doing for his bachelor party?” I laugh. “Have you met my dad? He’s the last person who would ever have a bachelor party. He doesn’t even have any guy friends to have a party with!” I stop and consider this. “Well, I guess Josh is the closest thing he has. We haven’t seen much of him since he went to school, but he and my dad still e-mail every so often.” “I don’t get what your family sees in that guy,” Peter says sourly. “What’s so great about him?” It’s a touchy subject. Peter’s paranoid my dad likes Josh better than him, and I try to tell him it’s not a contest--which it definitely isn’t. Daddy’s known Josh since he was a kid. They trade comic books, for Pete’s sake. So, no contest. Obviously my dad likes Josh better. But only because he knows him better. And only because they’re more alike: Neither of them is cool. And Peter’s definitely cool. My dad is bewildered by cool. “Josh loves my dad’s cooking.” “So do I!” “They have the same taste in movies.” Peter throws in, “And Josh was never in a hot tub video with one of his daughters.” “Oh my God, let it go already! My dad’s forgotten about that.” “Forgotten” might be too strong of a word. Maybe more like he’s never brought it up again and he hopefully never will. “I find that hard to believe.” “Well, believe it. My dad is a very forgiving, very forgetful man.

Every person has a secret inventory of "things". I call them objects of attachment - things that refuse to be forgotten. Perhaps it's a place, a smell, a business card. Whatever it is, they refuse to go unnoticed. These objects are enchanted, taking us back to another time or another place, where things are very different from the way they are now. They make us nostalgic. Playing back memories like old black and white movies, flickering with shimmer and warmth. They are hard to avoid - popping up when your mind is distracted. And regardless of what you threw away, or donated to charity, that is where you find yourself - staring at the game of Scrabble, wondering exactly how each piece used to fit. While I know my inventory and have studied it well, I often wonder which objects I am attached to. And I find myself hoping that one day you find me, unexpectedly tucked away in the back of your closet, or a messy desk drawer - and remember exactly what we once were.

You forgot the straws,” I told him. He ripped the plastic off of the Twizzler box and bit the ends off of two Twizzlers. Then he put them in the cup. He grinned broadly. He looked so proud of himself. I’d forgotten all about our Twizzler straws. We used to do it all the time. We sipped out of the straws at the same time, like in a 1950s Coke commercial—heads bent, foreheads almost touching. I wondered if people thought we were on a date. Jeremiah looked at me, and he smiled in this familiar way, and suddenly I had this crazy thought. I thought, Jeremiah Fisher wants to kiss me. Which, was crazy. This was Jeremiah. He’d never looked at me like that, and as for me, Conrad was the one I liked, even when he was moody and inaccessible the way he was now. It had always been Conrad. I’d never seriously considered Jeremiah, not with Conrad standing there. And of course Jeremiah had never looked at me that way before either. I was his pal. His movie-watching partner, the girl he shared a bathroom with, shared secrets with. I wasn’t the girl he kissed.

on their target about now. Six on one, overwhelming force, or so they thought. Puller was a first-rate, superbly trained close-quarters fighter. But he was not Superman. This was not a movie where he could Matrix his way to victory. It would be fearful men fighting, making mistakes but certainly landing some blows. Puller tipped the scales at well over two hundred pounds. The men he would be facing tonight collectively weighed about a thousand pounds. They had twelve fists and a dozen legs to his two and two. Six against one, hand-to-hand, no matter how good you were or how inept the six were, would likely result in defeat. Puller could take out three or four rather quickly. But the remaining two or three men would probably get in a lucky shot and possibly knock him down. And then it would be over. Bats and bars would rain down on him and then a gunshot would end it all. If one had a choice—and sometimes one did—a truly superb close-quarters fighter only fought when the conditions favored him. He didn’t have much time, because they would quickly determine that he was not in the room. Then they would do one of two things: leave and come back, or set a trap and wait for him. And a trap would involve a perimeter. At least he was counting on that, because a perimeter meant that the six men would have

If you are not playing your A-game, what game are you playing? Are you waiting for the sun to come out? Do you need an umbrella? This is not a B-Movie for B-listers. Is there anything worse, anything more sickening, than people not giving it their all? Get off your fucking knees, get off your fucking asses, get off your fucking bellies, and fucking do something with your lives. What the fuck are you waiting for? This is not a dress rehearsal. This is fucking it. Right here, right now. Well? Have you forgotten your lines? If you’re not going to show up when it matters, fuck off. Get with the fucking program. If you’re not ready to perform, get off the fucking stage.

I don’t like stories. I like moments. I like night better than day, moon better than sun, and here-and-now better than any sometime-later. I also like birds, mushrooms, the blues, peacock feathers, black cats, blue-eyed people, heraldry, astrology, criminal stories with lots of blood, and ancient epic poems where human heads can hold conversations with former friends and generally have a great time for years after they’ve been cut off. I like good food and good drink, sitting in a hot bath and lounging in a snowbank, wearing everything I own at once, and having everything I need close at hand. I like speed and that special ache in the pit of the stomach when you accelerate to the point of no return. I like to frighten and to be frightened, to amuse and to confound. I like writing on the walls so that no one can guess who did it, and drawing so that no one can guess what it is. I like doing my writing using a ladder or not using it, with a spray can or squeezing the paint from a tube. I like painting with a brush, with a sponge, and with my fingers. I like drawing the outline first and then filling it in completely, so that there’s no empty space left. I like letters as big as myself, but I like very small ones as well. I like directing those who read them here and there by means of arrows, to other places where I also wrote something, but I also like to leave false trails and false signs. I like to tell fortunes with runes, bones, beans, lentils, and I Ching. Hot climates I like in the books and movies; in real life, rain and wind. Generally rain is what I like most of all. Spring rain, summer rain, autumn rain. Any rain, anytime. I like rereading things I’ve read a hundred times over. I like the sound of the harmonica, provided I’m the one playing it. I like lots of pockets, and clothes so worn that they become a kind of second skin instead of something that can be taken off. I like guardian amulets, but specific ones, so that each is responsible for something separate, not the all-inclusive kind. I like drying nettles and garlic and then adding them to anything and everything. I like covering my fingers with rubber cement and then peeling it off in front of everybody. I like sunglasses. Masks, umbrellas, old carved furniture, copper basins, checkered tablecloths, walnut shells, walnuts themselves, wicker chairs, yellowed postcards, gramophones, beads, the faces on triceratopses, yellow dandelions that are orange in the middle, melting snowmen whose carrot noses have fallen off, secret passages, fire-evacuation-route placards; I like fretting when in line at the doctor’s office, and screaming all of a sudden so that everyone around feels bad, and putting my arm or leg on someone when asleep, and scratching mosquito bites, and predicting the weather, keeping small objects behind my ears, receiving letters, playing solitaire, smoking someone else’s cigarettes, and rummaging in old papers and photographs. I like finding something lost so long ago that I’ve forgotten why I needed it in the first place. I like being really loved and being everyone’s last hope, I like my own hands—they are beautiful, I like driving somewhere in the dark using a flashlight, and turning something into something completely different, gluing and attaching things to each other and then being amazed that it actually worked. I like preparing things both edible and not, mixing drinks, tastes, and scents, curing friends of the hiccups by scaring them. There’s an awful lot of stuff I like.

... the scent emanating from her skin not only because she was born with a glandular constitution suited to giving off that scent but also because of everything she has eaten in her life and the brands of soap she has used, in other words because of what is called, in quotes, culture, and also her way of walking and of sitting down which comes to her from the way she has moved among those who move in the cities and houses and streets where she's lived, all this but also the things she has in her memory, after having seen them perhaps just once and perhaps at the movies, and also the forgotten things which still remain recorded somewhere in the back of the neurons like all the psychic trauma a person has to swallow from infancy on.

Six horses died in a tractor-trailer fire. There. That's the hard part. I wanted to tell you straight away so we could grieve together. So many sad things, that's just one on a long recent list that loops and elongates in the chest, in the diaphragm, in the alveoli. What is it they say, heartsick or downhearted? I picture a heart lying down on the floor of the torso, pulling up the blankets over its head, thinking the pain will go on forever (even though it won't). The heart is watching Lifetime movies and wishing, and missing all the good parts of her that she has forgotten. The heart is so tired of beating herself up, she wants to stop it still, but also she wants the blood to return, wants to bring in the thrill and wind of the ride, the fast pull of life driving underneath her. What the heart wants? The heart wants her horses back.

Why don't you ask me up for a drink?" "A drink? There's not much of a variety, but you're welcome." "It's nice to be asked occasionally." Before he could tuck his hand safely in his pocket, she took it, threaded their fingers together. "You have free time now and again yourself," she said easily. "I wonder if you've heard of the concept of dates. Dinner, movies, drives?" "I've some experience with them," He glanced at his pickup as they turned his quarters. "It you've a yen for a drive, you can climb up into the lorry, but I'd need to shovel it out first." She huffed out a breath. "That, Donnelly, wasn't the most romantic of invitations." "Secondhand lorries aren't particularly romantic, and I've forgotten where I parked my glass coach." "If that's another princess crack-" She broke off,set her teeth. Patience, she reminded herself. She wasn't going to spoil things with an argument. "Never mind.We'll forget the drive." She opened the door herself. "And move straight to dinner.

If talking pictures could be said to have a father, it was Lee De Forest, a brilliant but erratic inventor of electrical devices of all types. (He had 216 patents.) In 1907, while searching for ways to boost telephone signals, De Forest invented something called the thermionic triode detector. De Forest’s patent described it as “a System for Amplifying Feeble Electric Currents” and it would play a pivotal role in the development of broadcast radio and much else involving the delivery of sound, but the real developments would come from others. De Forest, unfortunately, was forever distracted by business problems. Several companies he founded went bankrupt, twice he was swindled by his backers, and constantly he was in court fighting over money or patents. For these reasons, he didn’t follow through on his invention. Meanwhile, other hopeful inventors demonstrated various sound-and-image systems—Cinematophone, Cameraphone, Synchroscope—but in every case the only really original thing about them was their name. All produced sounds that were faint or muddy, or required impossibly perfect timing on the part of the projectionist. Getting a projector and sound system to run in perfect tandem was basically impossible. Moving pictures were filmed with hand-cranked cameras, which introduced a slight variability in speed that no sound system could adjust to. Projectionists also commonly repaired damaged film by cutting out a few frames and resplicing what remained, which clearly would throw out any recording. Even perfect film sometimes skipped or momentarily stuttered in the projector. All these things confounded synchronization. De Forest came up with the idea of imprinting the sound directly onto the film. That meant that no matter what happened with the film, sound and image would always be perfectly aligned. Failing to find backers in America, he moved to Berlin in the early 1920s and there developed a system that he called Phonofilm. De Forest made his first Phonofilm movie in 1921 and by 1923 he was back in America giving public demonstrations. He filmed Calvin Coolidge making a speech, Eddie Cantor singing, George Bernard Shaw pontificating, and DeWolf Hopper reciting “Casey at the Bat.” By any measure, these were the first talking pictures. However, no Hollywood studio would invest in them. The sound quality still wasn’t ideal, and the recording system couldn’t quite cope with multiple voices and movement of a type necessary for any meaningful dramatic presentation. One invention De Forest couldn’t make use of was his own triode detector tube, because the patents now resided with Western Electric, a subsidiary of AT&T. Western Electric had been using the triode to develop public address systems for conveying speeches to large crowds or announcements to fans at baseball stadiums and the like. But in the 1920s it occurred to some forgotten engineer at the company that the triode detector could be used to project sound in theaters as well. The upshot was that in 1925 Warner Bros. bought the system from Western Electric and dubbed it Vitaphone. By the time of The Jazz Singer, it had already featured in theatrical presentations several times. Indeed, the Roxy on its opening night in March 1927 played a Vitaphone feature of songs from Carmen sung by Giovanni Martinelli. “His voice burst from the screen with splendid synchronization with the movements of his lips,” marveled the critic Mordaunt Hall in the Times. “It rang through the great theatre as if he had himself been on the stage.

Why did I obsess over people like this? Was it normal to fixate on strangers in this particular vivid, fevered way? I don't think so. It was impossible to imagine some random passer-by on the street forming quite such interest in me. And yet it was the main reason I'd gone in those houses with Tom: I was fascinated by strangers, wanted to know what food they ate and what dishes they ate from, what movies they watched and what music they listened to, wanted to look under their beds and in their secret drawers and night tables and inside the pockets of their coats. Often I saw interesting-looking people on the street and thought about them restlessly for days, imagining their lives, making up stories about them the subway or the crosstown bus. Years had passed, and I still hadn't stopped thinking about the dark-haired children in Catholic school uniforms - brother and sister - I'd seen in Grand Central, literally trying to pull their father out the door of a seedy bar by the sleeves of his suit jacket. Nor had I forgotten the frail, gypsyish girl in a wheelchair out in front of the Carlyle Hotel, talking breathlessly in Italian to the fluffy dog in her lap while a sharp character in sunglasses (father? bodyguard?) stood behind her chair, apparently conducting some sort of business deal on his phone. For years, I'd turned those strangers over in my mind, wondering who they were and what their lives were like, and I knew I would go home and wonder about this girl and her grandfather the same way.

Tick-tock appeared to have forgotten all about both Brandon and the woman who had literally laughed herself to death. His brilliant green eyes had fixed on something which interested him much more than the dead woman. "Come here, cully," he said. "I want a better look at you." Gasher gave him a shove. Jake stumbled forward. He would have fallen if Tick-Tock's strong hands hadn't caught him by the shoulders. Then, when he was sure Jake had his balance again, Tick-Tock grasped the boy's left wrist and raised it. It was Jake's Seiko which had drawn his interest. "If this here's what I think it is, it's an omen for sure and true," Tick-Tock said. "Talk to me, boy--what's this sigul you wear?" Jake, who hadn't the slightest idea what a sigul was, could only hope for the best. "It's a watch. But it doesn't work, Mr. Tick-Tock." Hoots chuckled at that, then clapped both hands over his mouth when the Tick-Tock Man turned to look at him. After a moment, Tick-Tock looked back at Jake, and a sunny smile replaced the frown. Looking at that smile almost made you forget that it was a dead woman and not a movie Mexican taking a siesta against the wall of an adobe over there. Looking at it almost made you forget that these people were crazy, and the Tick-Tock Man was likely the craziest inmate in the whole asylum. "Watch," Tick-Tock said, nodding. "Ar, a likely enough name for such; after all, what does a person want with a timepiece but to watch it once in a while? Ar, Brandon? Ar, Tilly? Ar, Gasher?" They responded with eager affirmatives. The Tick-Tock Man favored them with his winning smile, then turned back to Jake again. Now Jake noticed that the smile, winning or not, stopped well short of the Tick-Tock Man's green eyes. They were as they had been throughout: cool, cruel, and curious.

What the hell do you want, Bettinger?” I asked, already bored of him. “I wanted to let you know I haven’t forgotten about what you did.” “What I did?” I kept my voice even, almost conversational. I lifted my eyebrows. “And what was that?” He stepped closer, a snarl marring his pretty-boy features. “Payback’s a bitch,” he said low. “Is that a threat?” All the muscles in my body tightened. My eyes narrowed on his face. Braeden appeared beside me, planting his feet into the floor and mirroring my position. His arms folded across his chest as he glared at Zach. But he spoke to me. “What’s going on, Rome? Trouble in the neighborhood?” “Nothing I can’t handle.” I stared directly into Zach’s eyes when I replied. “I don’t make threats,” Zach replied, looking back at me. “I make promises.” I couldn’t help it. I grinned. “What the fuck is this?” I asked. “Some cheesy after school movie?” A couple snickers floated through the store around us, and Zach stiffened. “Get the hell out of here, man,” Braeden said. “Before you embarrass yourself more.” After another long, charged stare from Zach, he turned. “See ya later, Rimmel,” Zach called, making the muscles between my shoulder blades squeeze together. Braeden put a hand in the center of my chest like he knew I was seconds away from grabbing that bastard by the scruff of his neck and face-planting him into the closest hard surface. “Forget him,” Braeden said low. I grunted and turned back to Rimmel. She gave me and then Braeden a withering look. “What the hell was that all about?” Braeden whistled under his breath. “Tutor girl gets pissy.” Rimmel narrowed her eyes. Braeden spoke quickly. “Gotta jet. Hot girl is holding my place in line.” He slapped me on the shoulder and left. “Coward,” I muttered after him, and he laughed.

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyone’s had enough of me to last a month. Actually, I’m what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker—a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either. I hate having to tell you this, but why shouldn’t I admit it when I know it’s true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne—to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why. I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “lighthearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, she’s disappeared. So the nice Anne is never seen in company. She’s never made a single appearance, though she almost always takes the stage when I’m alone. I know exactly how I’d like to be, how I am … on the inside. But unfortunately I’m only like that with myself. And perhaps that’s why—no, I’m sure that’s the reason why—I think of myself as happy on the inside and other people think I’m happy on the outside. I’m guided by the pure Anne within, but on the outside I’m nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether. As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I’m always up against a more powerful enemy. A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.” Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world.

We came to the city because we wished to live haphazardly, to reach for only the least realistic of our desires, and to see if we could not learn what our failures had to teach, and not, when we came to live, discover that we had never died. We wanted to dig deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to be overworked and reduced to our last wit. And if our bosses proved mean, why then we’d evoke their whole and genuine meanness afterward over vodka cranberries and small batch bourbons. And if our drinking companions proved to be sublime then we would stagger home at dawn over the Old City cobblestones, into hot showers and clean shirts, and press onward until dusk fell again. For the rest of the world, it seemed to us, had somewhat hastily concluded that it was the chief end of man to thank God it was Friday and pray that Netflix would never forsake them. Still we lived frantically, like hummingbirds; though our HR departments told us that our commitments were valuable and our feedback was appreciated, our raises would be held back another year. Like gnats we pestered Management— who didn’t know how to use the Internet, whose only use for us was to set up Facebook accounts so they could spy on their children, or to sync their iPhones to their Outlooks, or to explain what tweets were and more importantly, why— which even we didn’t know. Retire! we wanted to shout. We ha Get out of the way with your big thumbs and your senior moments and your nostalgia for 1976! We hated them; we wanted them to love us. We wanted to be them; we wanted to never, ever become them. Complexity, complexity, complexity! We said let our affairs be endless and convoluted; let our bank accounts be overdrawn and our benefits be reduced. Take our Social Security contributions and let it go bankrupt. We’d been bankrupt since we’d left home: we’d secure our own society. Retirement was an afterlife we didn’t believe in and that we expected yesterday. Instead of three meals a day, we’d drink coffee for breakfast and scavenge from empty conference rooms for lunch. We had plans for dinner. We’d go out and buy gummy pad thai and throat-scorching chicken vindaloo and bento boxes in chintzy, dark restaurants that were always about to go out of business. Those who were a little flush would cover those who were a little short, and we would promise them coffees in repayment. We still owed someone for a movie ticket last summer; they hadn’t forgotten. Complexity, complexity. In holiday seasons we gave each other spider plants in badly decoupaged pots and scarves we’d just learned how to knit and cuff links purchased with employee discounts. We followed the instructions on food and wine Web sites, but our soufflés sank and our baked bries burned and our basil ice creams froze solid. We called our mothers to get recipes for old favorites, but they never came out the same. We missed our families; we were sad to be rid of them. Why shouldn’t we live with such hurry and waste of life? We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to decrypt our neighbors’ Wi-Fi passwords and to never turn on the air-conditioning. We vowed to fall in love: headboard-clutching, desperate-texting, hearts-in-esophagi love. On the subways and at the park and on our fire escapes and in the break rooms, we turned pages, resolved to get to the ends of whatever we were reading. A couple of minutes were the day’s most valuable commodity. If only we could make more time, more money, more patience; have better sex, better coffee, boots that didn’t leak, umbrellas that didn’t involute at the slightest gust of wind. We were determined to make stupid bets. We were determined to be promoted or else to set the building on fire on our way out. We were determined to be out of our minds.

One question.” I managed to gather the two words as his struggling breath entangled in my hair. “This isn’t fair. There is so much I want to know.” He laced his fingers into mine as he dipped his head down to my ear. “I want to know how you like your coffee, and what your favorite song is. I want to know what annoys you, and the worst thing you’ve ever done. I want to know your greatest fear, and whether or not you talk in your sleep. If you prefer chocolate over vanilla, and if you cried watching The Notebook … if you’ve ever seen The Notebook, or like movies at all. What gives you the greatest high, and what can take all the pain away …” Ollie drew in a deep breath, and at the same time, my heart skipped in my chest. “But what I need to know is … are you willing to open yourself up to me so I can find out?” “Is that your question?” I stammered, lost in all his words. “Yes.” He exhaled. “That’s my final question.” Turning to face him, his eyes filled with hope and wonder, but his absent smile expected the inescapable truth. We both knew there wasn’t anything inside me to open up, an empty shell. So, what exactly did I have to lose? And, so, it was there, in the middle of the romance section of the maze-like library at Dolor University outside of Guildford in the United Kingdom where I decided I was willing to show him I was nothing more than a hollow soul. “I will only disappoint you.” “I doubt it.” “And I’m difficult,” I warned. “Good.” Ollie grinned. “I wasn’t expecting anything less, Mia. I’m only asking you to knock down a wall. Not even a wall—fuck, carve me out a door. I only want to know you.” He grabbed my hand, and a calmness washed over me. I didn’t have the tools to destroy a wall, let alone carve out a door. The barriers had endured ten years. Tough and sturdy and placed for a reason. Each one had a purpose, and even though I’d forgotten why they stood there in the first place, I was scared what would happen if I started carving out holes. The walls became my friends—they were safe. But I nodded, anyway, because the small glimmer of hope in his eyes spread like an infection. “And to clarify, no, I’ve never seen The Notebook, and I don’t plan on it, either.” Ollie threw his head back and a raspy laugh echoed in our maze. A laugh I had quickly grown to adore.

Hypnotherapy You may have seen scenes on television in which hypnotists make people act like chickens or take off their clothes. In reality, hypnotherapy is nothing like that. You actually might experience a hypnotic state many times every week, or possibly every day. It is essentially no different than being engrossed in a book or movie, or being in the meditative state you may reach while exercising. During hypnosis you are highly focused and are not distracted by random thoughts. At the same time, you are aware of outside events, such as the telephone ringing or a door slamming. When you see a hypnotherapist, he or she is simply a guide helping you reach a deeply relaxed state. The therapist may begin by having you picture a pleasant and safe environment. Or, he or she might ask you to focus on an object in your line of vision until your eyes become heavy. Once you are in the hypnotized state, it is easier to focus on your anxiety. You can talk about past experiences, can work on your self-esteem, and can prepare for upcoming social events. You won’t have distracting thoughts or be monitoring everything you say. You may remember events you had forgotten, or may come up with new ways to help yourself cope with the symptoms of anxiety. Adriana was really nervous when her therapist suggested they use hypnosis to work on her fear of meeting new people, but she decided to try it. First, the therapist asked her to visualize a quiet place where she felt completely relaxed and comfortable. When Adriana’s body felt heavy and warm, the therapist asked her to describe how she feels when she speaks with strangers. Adriana discussed how she feels embarrassed and worried, how her face gets red and hot, and how her mind is distracted by negative thoughts. Next, the therapist asked Adriana to visualize being introduced to a stranger. She imagined herself feeling calm and relaxed and looking the person in the eyes. She rehearsed what she would say about herself and said it over and over, sounding more confident each time. The therapist then asked her to think of three things that could help her in those situations. Adriana decided to try relaxing, making sure she is breathing properly, and focusing on the other person instead of on her negative thoughts. Later that week, she dined with a friend and his cousin, whom she had never met before. She was able to take deep breaths and remain relaxed. Once initial introductions went well, Adriana felt more confident and was able to maintain conversations for the entire evening.

He’s too serious. Every reaction is slowly, carefully thought out. You can’t just ask a question and get a straight, simple answer. Even ‘How’d you like the movie?’ requires that he cogitate and mull. By the time he comes up with an answer, I’ve lost interest, even forgotten my question.” —Sondra, Ithaca, NY

Look at this. Do you know what this says?” “Travis and Etty, surrounded by little glittery hearts?” he answers. “No, it says we are safe. We need to do something that is unsafe.” The frown on Travis’s face makes me think he isn’t getting it. “The best love stories have action… adventure!” I argue. Also, action usually raises tension. And tension usually equals a good argument. So, that’s it. That’s my answer. We go to the Congo; we stumble upon some drug lords and bam− if that’s not conflict I don’t know what is. Except, I can’t go the Congo because I have to work tomorrow. But the theory is still valid. “I would suggest skydiving, but I know because of the height issue that’s out,” I put my finger to my mouth in concentration. “Because that’s the only reason why that wouldn’t be a good idea,” Travis says. “Should we go to the casino and bet it all on red?” I ask. “Have you forgotten you’re still taking overtime shifts to pay off the inflatable day of fun?” Travis argues. “I’ve got it!” I exclaim, shooting my arms up in victory. “Let’s go drive down to the docks and see if we can witness a crime.” “Where are ‘the docks’?” Travis says, smiling indulgently at my new idea. “I’ve heard people say that in movies,” I say, shrugging. “I was hoping you would know where it is.

Zen doesn’t ask you to believe in anything you cannot confirm for yourself. It does not ask you to memorize any sacred words. It doesn’t require you to worship any particular thing or revere any particular person. It doesn’t offer any rules to obey. It doesn’t give you any hierarchy of learned men whose profound teachings you must follow to the letter. It doesn’t ask you to conform to any code of dress. It doesn’t ask you to allow anyone else to choose what is right for you and what is wrong. Zen is the complete absence of belief. Zen is the complete lack of authority. Zen tears away every false refuge in which you might hide from the truth and forces you to sit naked before what is real. That’s real refuge. Reality will announce itself to you in utterly unmistakable ways once you learn to listen. Learning to listen to reality, though, ain’t so easy. You’re so used to shouting reality down, drowning it out completely with your own opinions and views, that you might not even be able to recognize reality’s voice anymore. It’s a funny thing, though, because reality is the single most glaringly obvious thing there is. As the woman said in those old Palmolive commercials, “You’re soaking in it!” Yet we’ve forgotten how to recognize it.

A very long time ago, I dreamed that I met a cat. When I awoke, I had returned to being a high school student, and the dream quickly passed from my memory. But as an adult, reading Jennie again, I realized that I had never forgotten the experience of that dream, not even for an instant. Now, as always, I carry Jennie’s meme inside myself. And so, when I declared at the beginning of this essay that I had never had a cat, I was wrong. I had Jennie.

First, there is a difference between true intimacy and physical affection. Unfortunately, most of us have forgotten that, because everything from movies and TV to our peers sells us sex and makes us think that’s all you need to have in a relationship—and if you aren’t having it, something is wrong with you. But having a real relationship means putting in a lot of hard work. We have lost the art of courtship in our culture.

When he came back, he had a large soda and a pack of Twizzlers. I reached for the soda to take a sip, but there were no straws. “You forgot the straws,” I told him. He ripped the plastic off of the Twizzler box and bit the ends off of two Twizzlers. Then he put them in the cup. He grinned broadly. He looked so proud of himself. I’d forgotten all about our Twizzler straws. We used to do it all the time. We sipped out of the straws at the same time, like in a 1950s Coke commercial—heads bent, foreheads almost touching. I wondered if people thought we were on a date. Jeremiah looked at me, and he smiled in this familiar way, and suddenly I had this crazy thought. I thought, Jeremiah Fisher wants to kiss me. Which, was crazy. This was Jeremiah. He’d never looked at me like that, and as for me, Conrad was the one I liked, even when he was moody and inaccessible the way he was now. It had always been Conrad. I’d never seriously considered Jeremiah, not with Conrad standing there. And of course Jeremiah had never looked at me that way before either. I was his pal. His movie-watching partner, the girl he shared a bathroom with, shared secrets with. I wasn’t the girl he kissed.

Like many diseases, syphilis has become steadily less potent with time, since venereal diseases spread more readily when their carriers do not look like something from a horror movie; carriers with less virulent strains proved with time to be the more effective vectors.

I cleared my throat. I hated ruining the night’s vibes with talk of college. Talk of next year always left me feeling devastated because I knew firsthand how fast everything changed. Life pressed forward with a burning velocity that left all of the beautifully-pressed details quickly forgotten.

Our holidays began here in Catania, this loud, bustling city pulsing with memories. I know these scenes, like a movie once adored and now almost forgotten. I know the large square lava-stone pavers that line the footpaths. I can smell salty, fishy air coming from the fish market I think is just down the far end of the square. I remember this intense heat, the sea breeze flowing like water between the buildings, down the alleyways, never quite cooling enough.

We tend to understand our world through labels and through stories. Well, I love a good story. You know that. But... sometimes... I see folks getting themselves all twisted up over stories. I mean the stories we apply to ourselves. The story of our identities. Younger folks, older folks too, get anxious because they feel like their story hasn’t actually begun. That they are in a play and they’ve missed their cues and forgotten their lines. Or, they turn into literary critics of life and criticize their own character, looking for steady growth and rising action. A satisfying plot tying events together. Here’s the thing. Lives aren’t stories. They aren’t written to be tidy or to hang tight to a central theme or conflict. We consume a lot of carefully constructed stories and it can be easy to forget that life is not one of them. You aren’t headed toward a thoughtful climax and, so, you can’t be off track within your own narrative. Life doesn’t work that way. We live and then we don’t. That’s the simple truth of it. Our stories are happening now and if we get preoccupied looking for satisfying character arcs or a steady build toward some conclusion, well we miss what’s here in the moment and we will always fall short of our expectations. We can’t judge ourselves like we judge the protagonist in a book or movie. Life isn’t failing you because it isn’t delivering a cohesive story. You aren’t failing because you haven’t stuck to a clear and explainable hero’s path. Stories are a great way to understand the world, but they are paper thin compared to actual life. You, in contrast, are complicated. Make room for that truth and love yourself in all your messy complexity. (The Cryptonaturalist episode 39: Bittersweet)

I did, however, watch the movie I had made in the universal language of Esperanto, Incubus. I’d made it just before we started filming Star Trek, and by the time it was released, I had already forgotten how to speak the language, so like the few people who actually saw this film, I didn’t understand it either.

...a tall, fragile woman with pale blond hair and a face of such beauty that it seemed veiled by distance, as if the artist had been merely able to suggest it, not to make it quite real...she was Kay Ludlow, the movie star who, once seen, could never be forgotten; the star who had retired and vanished five years ago, to be replaced by girls of indistinguishable names and interchangeable faces...she felt that the glass cafeteria was a cleaner use for Kay Ludlow’s beauty than a role in a picture glorifying the commonplace for possessing no glory.

It’s interesting that wealth tends to skip a generation. Overwhelming abundance often leads to a lackadaisical mentality, which brings about a sedentary lifestyle. Children of the wealthy are especially susceptible. They weren’t the ones who developed the discipline and character to create the wealth in the first place, so it makes sense that they may not have the same sense of value for wealth or understand what’s necessary to keep it. We frequently see this entitlement mentality in children of royalty, movie stars, and corporate executives—and to a lesser degree, in children and adults everywhere. As a nation, our entire populace seems to have lost appreciation for the value of a strong work ethic. We’ve had two, if not three, generations of Americans who have known great prosperity, wealth, and ease. Our expectations of what it really takes to create lasting success—things like grit, hard work, and fortitude—aren’t alluring, and thus have been mostly forgotten. We’ve lost respect for the strife and struggle of our forefathers. The massive effort they put forth instilled discipline, chiseled their character, and stoked the spirit to brave new frontiers. The truth is, complacency has impacted all great empires, including, but not limited to, the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English. Why? Because nothing fails like success. Once-dominant empires have failed for this very reason. People get to a certain level of success and get too comfortable.

Pretty soon after we start talking with a white person, that white person will bring up Indians, sure as anything.” “It's true, Nerburn,” Grover chimed in. Dan kept on. “They might talk about some other Indian they knew or they might talk about some movie or something to do with Indians. Probably it's to show us how much they claim to like Indians. But you sure know that they're going to bring up Indians. It's like that's the biggest thing when they meet me. I could be the president or have a cure for cancer, but before anyone could talk about it, they'd have to say something about Indians. “Black people have told me it's the same for them, too. You white people just seem to see race first, no matter what. “Then the really funny thing is that you pretend you don't see race. Like the other night, I was sitting with Grover. We were watching a boxing match on TV.” He turned toward Grover for confirmation. “You remember that?” “Sure do. Lousy fight.” “Anyway, the announcer kept talking about the one guy in black trunks with a white stripe and the other guy in black trunks with a gold stripe. Hell, I couldn't even see the difference. But that was how he kept talking about them. And you know what? One guy was white and the other guy was black! But the announcer couldn't say, ‘the white guy’ and ‘the black guy’ because you're not supposed to see that. It was the damndest thing I ever saw.

In April, 1954, March published The Bad Seed, a novel about a sociopathic, homicidal eight-year-old girl. It became a phenomenal success, a bestseller that would be adapted for the stage by the renowned playwright Maxwell Anderson, and later made into a movie—twice.

I AM NOT about making movies that would be forgotten. I want to make ONLY timeless classics. I don't care if it takes me ten years

Ahem,” he said carefully. “Since we’re all here, um. So anyway.” He nodded at Deborah. “Morgan,” he said, and he looked at me. “And, uh—Morgan.” He frowned, as if I had insulted him by choosing a name for myself that he’d already said, and the beautiful woman snickered in the silence. Captain Matthews actually blushed, which was almost certainly something he hadn’t done since high school, and he cleared his throat one more time. “All right,” he said, with massive authority and a sidelong glance at the woman. He nodded at the man in the impressive suit. “Mr., ah, Eissen here represents, um, BTN. Big Ticket Network.” The man nodded back at Matthews with a very deliberate display of patient contempt. “And, um. They’re here, in town. In Miami,” he added, in case we’d forgotten what town we lived in. “They want to shoot a movie. A, um, TV show, you know.” The man in the sunglasses spoke up for the first time. “A pilot,” he said, without moving his face, parting his lips only enough to reveal a blinding set of perfect teeth. “It’s called a pilot.” The beautiful woman rolled her eyes and looked at me, shaking her head, and I found myself smiling eagerly back at her, without any conscious decision to do so.

Marina leaned her head against him and sniffled. It was common in this day and age, when waiting someplace, to look around at your involuntary companions and imagine you were trapped with them someplace more dire: a hostage situation or a building on fire, something requiring teamwork and survival. Could you build the camaraderie promised in movies about such times, or would you fall apart? Phil Needle looked around and realized, quietly but sharply, that he and his wife would not survive this. Gwen's disappearance would slaughter them. YOU WANT IT WHEN? was the caption on the poster. It was talking about office work, and the sad fact, true at the time, that people want things right away and that other people don't care about that. The poster reminded people that it didn't matter what you wanted. Where was she? Where did somebody put her? Where were those ragged thumbs of hers, and her odd, tiny earlobes? Was he about to become one of those guys, clutching a photograph of Gwen, on the news every year in support of an extreme new crime law? Were they becoming one of those families used as a murmured example of the wickedness of the world, as a worst-case scenario to comfort those whose daughter was merely pregnant or paralyzed? Would there be a funeral, everyone sweating in black clothes in the summer and squinting in sunglasses? Oh God, would there be a hasty peer-group shrine, wherever she was found, with cheap flowers and crappy poetry melting in the rain? Would her college fund sit forgotten for a while in the bank, like a tumor thought benign, and then be emptied impulsively on some toy to cheer himself up? He had seen in a magazine a handsome automobile some months ago, shiny as clean water.

...you look out at the clear blue sky and for an instant you see that you are everything. You want to say something, but none of the words you have will stick at all; nothing will come except for a wide, wide smile that crosses all of space at time---and the moment is utterly forgotten

Dreams are the canvases of the soul, movies of forgotten thoughts...and that nightmares were the echoes of the heart's pain

Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or Forgotten.

Does the new idea lead anywhere? Does it inspire others to produce useful science or important art? Does it become part of a worldview? Clearly Einstein’s relativity theory and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon satisfy all of these criteria. Their creative drives became inspirations and their personas the stuff of which movies are made and novels written. Their great works, spun during the most intensely creative period of their lives, were at first spurned, then accorded accolades, then incorporated into the intellectual milieu that they themselves had spawned, and finally superseded. But they cannot ever be forgotten, because they are now part of the very rock on which all of science and art will be forever built.

[We] pushed our crying ahead of us like a lantern, searching out new and forgotten sadnesses, ones that had died politely years ago but in fact had not died, and came to life with a little water. We had loved people we really shouldn't have loved and then married other people in order to forget our impossible loves, or we had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond. Always running and always wanting to go back but always being farther and farther away until, finally, it was just a scene in a movie where a girl says hello into the cauldron of the world and you are just a woman watching the movie with her husband on the couch and his legs are across your lap and you have to go to the bathroom. There were things of this general scale to cry about. But the biggest reason to cry was to drench the air in front of our faces. It was romance. Not the falling-in-love kind but the sharing of air between our shoulders and chests and thighs. There was so much air to share. Gradually, we slowed, then stopped, and after a long, still pause - goodbye - we broke apart.

Chocolate is a girl's best friend.' 'Consequently, I am going to polish off this entire chocolate pie, as well as sit here and cry, yes just sitting in my white tank top, and light pink comfy old short shorts, with the black drawstring in the fronts, tied, into a big floppy bow.' 'I sit looking at the TV, hugging my teddy bear. Tonight's movie lineup is 'Shawshank,' 'Misery,' 'The Notebook,' and 'A Walk to Remember.' While my black mascara from the day runs down my cheeks.' 'Life is not a fairytale, so maybe I can go next year. I know the prom is not going to happen either, yet I want to go at least once in my life. Yet, some get to go to prom, and dance for five years running. They go all four high school years.' 'Plus, they get asked for their date, which is still in school after they're out, even though they have gone many times before.' 'Then someone like me never gets the chance; that is not fair! I am not jealous; I just want to have the same opportunities, the photos, and the involvements.' 'I could envision in my mind the couples swaying to the music.' 'I could picture the bodies pressed against one another. With their hands laced with desire, all the girls having their poofy dresses pushed down by their partner's closeness, as they look so in love.' 'I know is just dumb dances, but I want to go. Why am I such a hopeless romantic? I could visualize the passionate kissing.' 'I can see the room and how it would be decorated, but all I have is the vision of it. That is all I have! Yeah, I think I know how Carrie White feels too, well maybe not like that, but close. I might get through that one tonight too because I am not going to sleep anywise.' 'So why not be scared shitless! Ha, that reminds me of another one, he- he.' 'I am sure that this night, which they had, would never be forgotten about! I will not forget it either. It must have- been an amazing night which is shared, with that one special person.' 'That singular someone, who only wants to be with you! I think about all the photographs I will never have. All the memories that can never be completed and all the time lost that can never be regained.' 'The next morning, I have to go through the same repetition over again. Something's changed slightly but not much; I must ride on the yellow wagon of pain and misery. Yet do I want to today?' 'I do not want to go after the night that I put in. I was feeling vulnerable, moody, and a little twitchy.' 'I do not feel like listening to the ramblings of my educators. Yet knowing if I do not show up at the hellhole doors, I would be asked a million questions, like why I did not show up, the next day I arrived there.

She went straight to bed. She hadn’t told her family, but she had been dreaming of the Bellweather every single night for months. The reason she’d ceased to wake herself up, shaking and crying, was that she’d become too tired to fight; the fear had won. She had accepted that, in her dreams, she would always be afraid. Then The Shining—and no other movie would have done for this first, critical dosing—inoculated her. She had been exposed to the fear that was eating her, slowly but surely, in the light of day; she had confronted it in her waking hours and was rewarded with a night of black, dreamless peace. When she woke up the next morning, a kind of rested she’d forgotten she could feel, Minnie at last knew how to train herself to survive in the world. She would spend the rest of her life pouring the fear out of her dreams and into scary movies.

In 1917, Milton Hershey began work on a sugar mill town outside the city of Santa Cruz, Cuba, which he named Hershey and which, when finished, included American-style bungalows, luxurious houses for staff, schools, a hospital, a baseball diamond, and a number of movie theaters. At the height of the banana boom of the 1920s, one could tour Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, Cuba, and Colombia and not for a moment leave United Fruit Company property, traveling on its trains and ships, passing through its ports, staying in its many towns, with their tree-lined streets and modern amenities, in a company hotel or guest house, playing golf on its links, taking in a Hollywood movie in one of its theaters, and being tended to in its hospital if sick.

The farm, unlike the highway, was a community, with the only intimation that it might not survive coming in the arrival of a college-educated daughter, “smart, well-dressed, confident, blooming with health and energy, . . . a breath of air from another world.” It seemed unlikely that she would wind up on the farm: the city, “at once so menacing and so promising,” had claimed her for its own. George saw the future himself when he spent the next night in a college town where the streets were empty except for automobiles, each containing a couple or two “bent on pleasure—usually vicarious pleasure—in the form of a movie or a dance or a petting party.” Anyone unlucky enough not to be among these “private, mathematically correct companies” would be alone. “There was no place where strangers would come together freely—as in a Bavarian beer hall or a Russian amusement park—for the mere purpose of being together and enjoying new acquaintances. Even the saloons were nearly empty.” All of this convinced George that the technology industrialization had made possible—automobiles, movies, radio, mass-circulation magazines, the advertising that paid for them—was creating an exaggerated desire for privacy. It was making an English upper-class evil a vice of American society. This was the sad climax of individualism, the blind-alley of a generation which had forgotten how to think or live collectively, of a people whose private lives were so brittle, so insecure that they dared not subject them to the slightest social contact with the casual stranger, of people who felt neither curiosity nor responsibility for the mass of those who shared their community life and their community problems. Americans

That little voice—that’s the voice of someone once burnt and twice shy. So, you could say, very carefully, “Really. I might not do it very well, and I might not be great company, but I will do something nice for you. I promise.” A little careful kindness goes a long way, and judicious reward is a powerful motivator. Then you could take that small bit of yourself by the hand and do the damn dishes. And then you better not go clean the bathroom and forget about the coffee or the movie or the beer or it will be even harder to call those forgotten parts of yourself forth from the nooks and crannies of the underworld.

Right-wing TV networks did not exist in 1917, but in that year was born a presidential tool even more powerful, a lavishly financed government propaganda agency that operated in every medium of the day: films, books, posters, newspaper articles, and a corps of 75,000 speakers who gave more than seven million talks everywhere from movie houses to revival tents. In addition, the federal government also attacked the press, both during and well after the First World War.

There’s this space in our lives that we attempt to fill with more space and the nothingness grows larger while our lives get smaller, a fact we can’t seem to accept very well. So, we take walks and we work and we go to movies and basketball games and church and we Exist in our nothing lives and when we die a speech is made and we are forgotten once again, only more permanently this time.

Were Beecher’s observations relevant to people with PTSD? Mark Greenberg, Roger Pitman, Scott Orr, and I decided to ask eight Vietnam combat veterans if they would be willing to take a standard pain test while they watched scenes from a number of movies. The first clip we showed was from Oliver Stone’s graphically violent Platoon (1986), and while it ran we measured how long the veterans could keep their right hands in a bucket of ice water. We then repeated this process with a peaceful (and long-forgotten) movie clip. Seven of the eight veterans kept their hands in the painfully cold water 30 percent longer during Platoon. We then calculated that the amount of analgesia produced by watching fifteen minutes of a combat movie was equivalent to that produced by being injected with eight milligrams of morphine, about the same dose a person would receive in an emergency room for crushing chest pain. We concluded that Beecher’s speculation that “strong emotions can block pain” was the result of the release of morphinelike substances manufactured in the brain. This suggested that for many traumatized people, reexposure to stress might provide a similar relief from anxiety.17 It was an interesting experiment, but it did not fully explain why Julia kept going back to her violent pimp.

actually

He thought about doing more reading. It seemed the most comforting activity to do, except for one issue. Unlike a new movie, there was no one to immediately turn and talk to about a book. All books are strays. Books were read at the same time they were unknown at the same time they were revived at the same time they were forgotten. There was no agreed-upon trend of a novel. People found them on their own and all at different stages of life. This was why it was special to have the same favorite authors as a stranger, since both souls were in need of and privately searching for the same thing. A chapter could mean so much. But because Andrei could not share his excitement with anyone without misunderstanding or respectfully feigned interest, he ruled out reading as an activity. And it takes too long to find someone who lived for the same page as you.

Students, naturally, wanted to know what movie and he told them Andersonville. “Were you a star?” asked Mr. Eyelashes. “An extra,” said Mr. Owens. “Last year, I offered fifty points to any student who could find me in the movie. I knew all the scenes I was in but couldn't ever find myself. If it was in wide screen, you would have seen me but, on TV, I was cut off. Last year, a student fmally found me.

They’ve forgotten about beds, and I understand, because once you set sail on a movie, you are out of touch with ordinary land. Movie-makers between movies seem like you and me; they go to parties, they shop, they swim. But they’re just treading water, waiting for another injection, another ship to come take them away in film. And money has nothing to do with it. “Gabrielle

Yet here the pilots were in England, fêted and pampered by the upper echelons of society, glamorized in movies and the press, enjoying themselves in spite of any guilt they may have felt. And here were their hosts and hostesses, with their very British insouciance, acting as if there would always be an England. In one context, this attitude was infuriating; in another, it was one of Britain’s greatest strengths.

After thirty minutes, he began to wonder if Annie had simply forgotten about him, returned to the house after the movie, and got drunk on vodka tonics. “Come get me,” Buster whispered, hoping to create a psychic link to his sister.

Self-Righteous Script Readers What makes movie stars’ opinions so important, anyway? These are people with a bloated sense of self-worth, little accountability, and practically no original thought. Without a Hollywood scriptwriter, most of them couldn’t talk their way out of a telemarketing call. When they shoot a scene for a movie, they get twenty-one takes to get it right. How many takes do you get in your life? Real people get one shot. If we make a mistake, we must live with it. Not so for the stars. They get pass after pass and then send their assistants to fetch grande lattes for them. My own daughter Kiki took acting lessons for almost a decade—singing, dancing, theater. When she was sixteen, she told me she didn’t want to act anymore. Stunned, I asked her why. “I want the words that come out of my mouth to be mine,” she said. That from a sixteen-year-old! So, to all the actors and fellow haters out there: get a life. Real people—not actors, not ideologues—elected Donald Trump president. Real people. The forgotten men and women who live normal, hardworking lives and who, by the way, buy the movie tickets that pay for your pampered, cushy lives. All of this would be bad enough if the product they were putting out was any good, but it’s not. Hollywood is dead. If it’s not dead, it’s on a respirator. Look at the numbers.

As he puts it in the Course, you are “reviewing mentally what has gone by.”16 By the way, could there be a better definition of watching a movie? It’s already been filmed, and it’s already over and done with. And now you’re watching it. And part of what you’re watching is your own body! Your body is just a part of the same projection as all those other bodies you see.

Students, naturally, wanted to know what movie and he told them Andersonville. “Were you a star?” asked Mr. Eyelashes. “An extra,” said Mr. Owens. “Last year, I offered fifty points to any student who could find me in the movie.

As Bond would find out for himself, there was much more to hardhat diving than tramping along the ocean floor like an undersea gladiator, as might be inferred from the movies. The Mark V helmet alone weighed some fifty pounds, the lead-soled boots twenty pounds each. Together with the rubber-lined canvas suit and a belt of lead weights held up by leather suspenders, the hardhat diver wore nearly two hundred pounds of gear. On dry land he could hardly walk.