• Tim Kreider’s new essay, “I’ll Always Remember”:
    • “You probably already know, intuitively, that you alter a memory each time you retrieve it, which is why your stories slowly morph over time until you’re no longer sure whether you remember the original moment, or only the story. […] My neuroscientist neighbor’s personal policy, in light of these findings, is to try never to remember the things that are most important to her, lest she alter them by recall, so that she’ll be able to take them out of cold storage in her old age in mint condition.”
    • That’s why I’ve always tried not to listen to the albums that mean the most to me. The ones from my childhood, like Summerteeth. I’ve loosened up on that in recent years with the idea that it’s more important to enjoy that music while I can than it is to preserve some misty feeling of those records as I heard them as a toddler, a feeling which is bound to evolve anyway. And there are new pleasures (and pains!) to be had from listening to those records as an adult and noticing new things.