Trust me. My hatred for Jim Carrey knows only one bound: he was flat-out incredible in Eternal Sunshine, mostly by playing neutral-damaged.

OMG, Corwood, Pike is almost like Frank Sobotka...clinging to his dream and his past on the docks way past its day...trying to do the wrong things for the right reasons... Ok, that's enough boring Wirehead epiphany.

I don't know. I think Sobotka is ten times the man that Pike was. For instance, Sobotka was rarely selfish in his choices (sure, he was a thief, but only for the good of the union), whereas Pike mostly used his "when you side with a man, you stay with a man" speech to deflect criticism for his cold-blooded murder of several of the Bunch in his rush to save his own hide. He's more of an analog of Stringer Bell, I think, unable to bring all that intelligence to bear on escaping from the trap he's set for himself.

I was loving it and then it ended and the end was kind of, I don't know. Disappointing, except I wasn't exactly expecting anything of the ending. It was just not the ending that the rest of the movie had prepared me for, somehow. And I don't know how.

I was a bit disappointed the first time I saw it, too. The second time, though, left me in tears. I mean, they're stupid and petty and mean to each other, and they'll probably fight and break up all over again, but, y'know, they love each other, too, and that little possibility of redemption is really enough reason to go through it all. Man. That's more romantic than anything with Meg Ryan would ever dare.

It did make me think that there aren't any portrayals of tinkering with memory in fiction that I can think of in which it's a good idea.

Jonathan Lethem edited a lovely anthology of amnesia fiction called, uh (looking up on Amazon), the Vintage Book of Amnesia Fiction. Check it out. I especially love Dennis Potter's contribution.

It did make me think that there aren't any portrayals of tinkering with memory in fiction that I can think of in which it's a good idea.

There's a fair amount of sci-fi where having some kind of memory chip implant is on par with having a credit card -- everyone does it, and the technology works fine most of the time. (Of course, the main character usually has his memory hacked and spends the rest of the book trying to get his life back, but it's not presented as generally a bad idea so much as technology that will help you until someone figures out how to use it to fuck you over.)

There's a fair amount of sci-fi where having some kind of memory chip implant is on par with having a credit card

Is there much where it's neutral (ie, not the conflict) or where removing memory isn't bad? It makes me wonder if there's some sort of conspiracy to keep us afeared of the prospect. By a group of people we no longer remember.

Yeah...you know, there was something Stringerish about that. I just feel like I owe my man Frank for being better than Willy Loman at helping me get that "tragic figure" thing, finally. Also, as illustrated in my previous post, "Sobatka" is my new word for a certain class of working guy with dirt under his nails...I forget and use it offline sometimes, and the looks I get!. Ie. "What did the crowd look like?" Students, retirees and some Sobatkas on their lunch hours." Chris Bauer played the hell out of that. I don't know when a single actor has impressed me so, and I don't mean porn.

There's a memory-chip plotline in Bujold's book (titled, appropriately enough, Memory) where a character's chip gets messed up, and starts dumping random memories into his head. So one moment he's talking to you about the day's schedule, and the next minute he's asking for updates on the war that he was in 20 years ago. Removing the chip is a problem in that the character is head of security, and the chip held a lot of the information that let him do his job. On the upside, the chip also recorded decades of lousy movies, boring conversations, violent deaths, bad smells, etc. so in losing the chip the character also lost a lot of stuff he was happy to do without. The book's exploration of memory issues is pretty good.

Nothing springs to mind where losing memories is a good thing, no.

It makes me wonder if there's some sort of conspiracy to keep us afeared of the prospect. By a group of people we no longer remember.

t gets out the tinfoil

"Sobatka" is my new word for a certain class of working guy with dirt under his nails

I like that. And yeah, Sobotka was the most tragic figure I've seen on TV in this short lifetime. Are you watching Deadwood, too? Have I asked you this already?

Also, Strega, do you know if TWOP is ever going to recap The Wire?

The end of Gun, With Occasional Music, but more as an act of self-annhiliation than a benefit...the hero takes some "Forgetall" That was Lethem, too, of course. I sense a preoccupation. ETA: We talked about it, but I was all "Ew. Like horses and shit? No way...John Wayne bit my sister, dude." But I admit it, yo, I was a punk-ass bitch of a genre snob. I'll give it a shot, one day. Just to make up for my embolism over " But I don't like cop shows." People have made the Deadwood: horse opera is to :H:LOTS: cops and robbers analogy enough now.

That was Lethem, too, of course. I sense a preoccupation.

Probably something about the first five letters of his name.