Do you have trouble remembering names and faces, or where you put your keys? Neurologist Dr. Charan Ranganath talks about the latest research into memory. His book is called Why We Remember. Alf Clausen, the Emmy-winning composer, arranger and orchestrator behind the music and song parodies on The Simpsons, died at 84. He spoke with Terry Gross in 1997.And Justin Chang reviews the new film The Life of Chuck, based on a novella by Stephen King. TV critic David Bianculli recommends an upcoming live TV production of George Clooney's Broadway hit, Good Night, and Good Luck.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is memory and why do we forget?
And in fact, I don't care because my phone has a photographic memory. Literally, I don't need to do that.
I want to ask you about social media because so many people are constantly like jumping from one post to another, from one screen to another. And, you know, attention spans on screens are getting shorter and shorter. How does it affect your memory of what you've seen on social media if you just keep scrolling? And does that have an impact on your general ability to remember?
Like if your attention is constantly getting diverted from one thing to another, one thing to another, does that have a sustained effect?
Yes. I think that the technology in and of itself doesn't necessarily cause these changes. It's more how we interact with the technology. And what I mean by that is that if we are switching between one thing and another and we're so in the habit of being responsive to everything, what happens is that you have two problems with this.
So one is that your attention actually gets grabbed every time you switch. You actually have a little bit of a cost in your prefrontal cortex. Just to simplify, it has to work a little bit harder just to get you caught up and back on the program, right? So I'm Right now, I'm doing a social media post, but then I'm Instagramming my time at this cafe, and then I'm going back and talking to my wife.
Every time I switch back and forth, my brain uses some resources just to get on task. So I'm already behind schedule once I switch over. And as a result, I'm a little bit more – I'm even stressed.
I'm behind and I'm having trouble focusing in a way that allows me to get these sharp memories because the memories that stick around are going to be the ones where we have a lot of rich information about the sights and the sounds and just they're more the immersive sensory details that can really make this moment unique relative to all these other moments.
And so other things that we do with social media and the way we interact with it, like taking pictures, for instance, sort of the rise of Instagram walls everywhere, you can see now how much that has changed people's experience of places.
And as a result, what I think sometimes happens is that people get into a mode of mindlessly taking pictures in a way that doesn't focus them on the details of their surroundings. And what do you do? You post it. You get a lot of these pictures. You over-document, and then you post them. and either never go back to them, or in the worst case, they disappear, right?
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Chapter 2: How can we improve our memory?
Last day on the calendar. And the very first human beings on Earth made their debut around 10.30 p.m.
Even as everything around them crumbles, Marty and Felicia notice something strange. Wherever they look, they see an image of a man named Charles Krantz, on billboards, TV screens, and even windows, accompanied by the words, 39 great years. Thanks, Chuck. It's a surreal and unnerving sight. No one seems to have any idea who this Chuck guy is. But as the first act winds to a close, we meet Chuck.
He's played by Tom Hiddleston, and he's dying of cancer. What's going on here? An answer begins to emerge in the second act, which takes place several months before the first one. The world isn't ending yet. Everything seems fine. Chuck, an accountant who looks reasonably healthy, is out walking in a busy town square, where he encounters a busker, played by the drummer, the Pocket Queen.
An impromptu dance number follows, in which Chuck shows off some serious moves, while a crowd looks on in amazement. It's great to watch Hiddleston cut loose, and Flanagan directs the scene with real verve. From there, the third and final act rewinds further back to Chuck's childhood and teenage years, during which he's raised in a quiet suburb by his grandparents.
Mia Sara plays Chuck's loving grandmother, who taught him how to dance, and Mark Hamill plays his soulful but practical-minded grandfather. There's a lot going on in this chapter. It's a coming-of-age drama, with elements of a haunted house thriller, too. It's also a solution to a mystery, as the connections between Chuck's life and the end of the world become clear.
Without revealing too much, let's just say that King wants us to reflect on the idea that every human life is a universe unto itself. It's no coincidence that, at the beginning of the movie, Marty is teaching his class the poem Song of Myself, in which Walt Whitman declared, I contain multitudes.
Throughout the movie, Flanagan makes clever use of recurring images, like a door at the top of a dim staircase, that help us piece the puzzle together in a uniquely cinematic way. In most other respects, though, the life of Chuck feels hobbled by its extreme faithfulness to King's novella, and its ultimately life-affirming message comes together in a surprisingly lifeless way.
At times, the film does feel like an audiobook – as Offerman's narrator keeps dumping exposition in scene after scene. For a story that seems to urge us to dance like no one's watching, The Life of Chuck itself doesn't have much in the way of spontaneity. The movie doesn't ultimately contain multitudes. It just has a multitude of ways to keep hitting the same beat.
Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed The Life of Chuck. After a break, we remember Alf Clausen, the composer and arranger behind so many of the song parodies on The Simpsons, died last week at age 84. This is Fresh Air. The familiar theme song to the long-running animated TV series The Simpsons was written by Danny Elfman.
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Chapter 3: What is the tip of the tongue phenomenon?
Then I'll crush all opposition to me. And I'll make Ted Kennedy pay. If he fights back, I'll say that he's gay. Good news, Amendment. They ratified you. You're in the U.S. Constitution. Oh, yeah. Doors open, boys. Yeah!
When you're writing a song parody, you're trying to write it as if it were serious, as if it were really a Broadway show or really a movie theme.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm very, very serious about this. And I hearken back to another phrase that an old trumpet player friend of mine told me a long, long time ago. You can't vaudeville vaudeville. meaning that if something is funny already, if you try to put something funny on top of it, it will dull the issue rather than enhance it.
Therefore, not only in creating the songs, but in creating the underscore music for The Simpsons and trying to give credence to the emotional content of what the characters are saying. I'm always extremely serious.
And I think what happens is that the listener and observer gets pulled into the situation more effectively once the music is serious so that when the gag finally comes, the gag then becomes twice as funny.
Alf Klassen, longtime composer, arranger, and orchestrator for The Simpsons, speaking with Terry Gross in 1997. He died last week at age 84. Coming up, I discuss George Clooney's Broadway hit Good Night and Good Luck, which CNN is televising live Saturday night. This is Fresh Air.
This Saturday, CNN is presenting a live telecast directly from Broadway featuring George Clooney as pioneering CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow in the stage drama Good Night and Good Luck. CNN is promoting the telecast as unprecedented. That's somewhat debatable. But what isn't debatable is that it's the TV event of the season and not to be missed.
a cnn special event on june 7th a landmark television event for the first time ever broadway goes live on television george clooney and the five-time tony nominated good night and good luck one night only live on cnn and streaming live on max cnn's claim that for the first time ever broadway goes live on television technically is accurate but it's somewhat arguable
Live TV broadcasts of stage dramas, comedies, and musicals are as old as television itself. That's not an exaggeration. A musical written expressly for TV called The Boys from Boise was broadcast by New York's Dumont Station in 1944, back when television still was considered experimental. In 1955, NBC presented a live-staged version of Peter Pan, a musical starring Mary Martin.
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