Search Results for: memory

[Fiction] A family prepares for their father’s business trip:

Their Da was going away again, that’s all it was. Both boys had said nothing about it, but were awake at five and thumping downstairs and straight out to the garden, Jimbo still wearing pajamas and Shawn in yesterday’s clothes, probably no underpants—some objection he had at the moment to them, as if they were practically nappies and grownups never wore them. The first fight began as soon as they left the house: she has a memory of dozing through whole cycles of shouts and squealing and that odd, flat roar Shawn has started to produce whenever he truly loses himself and just rages. No tantrums for Shawn, not anymore. He is seven now. He has the real thing. He has rage.

“Wasps.” — A.L. Kennedy, New Yorker

See more fiction

Wasps

Longreads Pick

[Fiction] A family prepares for their father’s business trip:

“Their Da was going away again, that’s all it was. Both boys had said nothing about it, but were awake at five and thumping downstairs and straight out to the garden, Jimbo still wearing pajamas and Shawn in yesterday’s clothes, probably no underpants—some objection he had at the moment to them, as if they were practically nappies and grownups never wore them. The first fight began as soon as they left the house: she has a memory of dozing through whole cycles of shouts and squealing and that odd, flat roar Shawn has started to produce whenever he truly loses himself and just rages. No tantrums for Shawn, not anymore. He is seven now. He has the real thing. He has rage.”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jul 30, 2007
Length: 12 minutes (3,055 words)

In 1982, 250 men, women and children were massacred in the village of Dos Erres in Guatemala. Two little boys were spared, and were the keys to an investigation into the coverup and subsequent fallout:

In the summer of 2000, Oscar was living near Boston when he received a perplexing letter.

A cousin in Zacapa sent him a copy of an article published in a Guatemala City newspaper. It described Romero’s search for two young boys who had survived the massacre and had been raised by military families.

‘AG Looks for Abducted of Dos Erres,’ the headline declared. ‘They Survived The Massacre.’

The story went on to explain that prosecutors had identified both young men. Prosecutors believed that one of them, Oscar Ramírez Castañeda, was living somewhere in the United States. It was quite possible that he had been too young to remember anything about the massacre or his abduction by the lieutenant, the prosecutors said.

The newspaper ran a family photo showing Oscar as an 8-year-old.

“Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory and Justice in Guatemala.” — Sebastian Rotella, Ana Arana, ProPublica, Fundación MEPI

More from ProPublica

A woman watched her husband’s behavior change dramatically—so much so she even considered divorce. He was eventually diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a rare and frequently misdiagnosed brain disease that affects personality and language skills:

Looking back, Mrs. French, who is 66 and lives in Manhattan, recalled episodes of odd behavior over the years and realized that her husband’s mind had probably begun to slip while he was in his 50s, at least a decade before the disease was diagnosed. He had always changed jobs a lot. At the time she took it as a sign of a stubborn personality, not of illness — and it is still not clear which it was. He always wanted to do things his own way, and that did not sit well with some bosses.

‘I thought it was just Michael being Michael,’ she said.

A friend described Mr. French as being unable to read the tea leaves, oblivious of corporate politics. At one point Mrs. French even bought him a self-help book. But he never changed.

“When Illness Makes a Spouse a Stranger.” — Denise Grady, New York Times

More #longreads on memories

How George Hotz, a teenager from New Jersey, kicked off a hacker war that pitted Sony against Anonymous and the group LulzSec:

That year, someone mailed Hotz a PlayStation 3 video-game system, challenging him to be the first in the world to crack it. Hotz posted his announcement online and once again set about finding the part of the system that he could manipulate into doing what he wanted. Hotz focussed on the ‘hypervisor,’ powerful software that controls what programs run on the machine.

To reach the hypervisor, he had to get past two chips called the Cell and the Cell Memory. He knew how he was going to scramble them: by connecting a wire to the memory and shooting it with pulses of voltage, just as he had when he hacked his iPhone.

“Machine Politics.” — David Kushner, The New Yorker

More #longreads from Kushner

Machine Politics

Longreads Pick

How George Hotz, a teenager from New Jersey, kicked off a hacker war that pitted Sony against Anonymous and the group LulzSec:

“That year, someone mailed Hotz a PlayStation 3 video-game system, challenging him to be the first in the world to crack it. Hotz posted his announcement online and once again set about finding the part of the system that he could manipulate into doing what he wanted. Hotz focussed on the ‘hypervisor,’ powerful software that controls what programs run on the machine.

“To reach the hypervisor, he had to get past two chips called the Cell and the Cell Memory. He knew how he was going to scramble them: by connecting a wire to the memory and shooting it with pulses of voltage, just as he had when he hacked his iPhone.”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Apr 30, 2012
Length: 23 minutes (5,890 words)

[National Magazine Awards Finalist] [Fiction] A tattoo artist meets a middle-aged mom:

The woman stood in the doorway, twisting her head at odd angles like a goddamn owl to see our designs on the walls, before walking up to the counter.

‘Sure you’re in the right place?,’ I asked. ‘This ain’t no nail salon.’

‘Is Nate here?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘what’s up?’

‘Marion,’ she said, reaching her hand over the counter. I took it and shook. ‘You came highly recommended by my niece, Janice. You tattooed a rose on her hip.’

She looked at me like she expected me to remember. Shit, if I could remember every rose I tattooed on some girl’s hip, I’d be in the Guinness World Records for the best fuckin’ memory.

“Scars.” — Sarah Turcotte, The Atlantic

See more ASME finalists

Scars

Longreads Pick

[National Magazine Awards Finalist] [Fiction] A tattoo artist meets a middle-aged mom:

“The woman stood in the doorway, twisting her head at odd angles like a goddamn owl to see our designs on the walls, before walking up to the counter.

“‘Sure you’re in the right place?,’ I asked. ‘This ain’t no nail salon.’

“‘Is Nate here?’

“‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘what’s up?’

“‘Marion,’ she said, reaching her hand over the counter. I took it and shook. ‘You came highly recommended by my niece, Janice. You tattooed a rose on her hip.’

“She looked at me like she expected me to remember. Shit, if I could remember every rose I tattooed on some girl’s hip, I’d be in the Guinness World Records for the best fuckin’ memory.”

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Aug 1, 2011
Length: 19 minutes (4,759 words)

The story of Dan Marlowe, a pulp writer who suffered from amnesia, befriended an ex-con, and later inspired writers like Stephen King:

Physicians thought the amnesia was psychosomatic, brought on by stress and money troubles, but there were hints of physical problems too. Before his brain emptied out, Marlowe had been laid low by crushing migraines, and there was evidence he’d had similar problems during his youth. In time, Marlowe would tell people the memory loss resulted from a stroke, and the symptoms he described (weakness on his left side, for instance) seemed to bear that out.

In any case, his creative-writing ability vanished, and his life fast-reversed 20 years. He was trapped in a noir plot eerily similar to that of Never Live Twice, the 1964 Marlowe thriller in which amnesia blanks out the mind of government operative Jackrabbit Smith, who has to fight his way back to his old life, blasting bad guys and spanking a woman psychologist along the way.

“The Wrong Marlowe.” — Charles Kelly, Los Angeles Review of Books

See also: “Writers in Hollywood.” — Raymond Chandler, The Atlantic, Nov. 1, 1945

The Wrong Marlowe

Longreads Pick

The story of Dan Marlowe, a pulp writer who suffered from amnesia, befriended an ex-con, and later inspired writers like Stephen King:

“Physicians thought the amnesia was psychosomatic, brought on by stress and money troubles, but there were hints of physical problems too. Before his brain emptied out, Marlowe had been laid low by crushing migraines, and there was evidence he’d had similar problems during his youth. In time, Marlowe would tell people the memory loss resulted from a stroke, and the symptoms he described (weakness on his left side, for instance) seemed to bear that out.

“In any case, his creative-writing ability vanished, and his life fast-reversed 20 years. He was trapped in a noir plot eerily similar to that of Never Live Twice, the 1964 Marlowe thriller in which amnesia blanks out the mind of government operative Jackrabbit Smith, who has to fight his way back to his old life, blasting bad guys and spanking a woman psychologist along the way.”

Published: Mar 10, 2012
Length: 12 minutes (3,170 words)