Tag: memory

#13: The Ideal Hostage

In 1973, a bank robbery captivated Sweden and led to the conception of “Stockholm Syndrome.” In “The Ideal Hostage,” Kristin Enmark, the woman first diagnosed with “Stockholm Syndrome,” goes back to that bank to cast off the stigma of a syndrome that never made sense to her.

#11: Palimpsest

In the early 1950’s, renowned dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham produced a series of solo dances, one of which was called “Changeling.” Merce never taught it to any one else, and when the performances stopped less than ten years later, the dance disappeared. With the discovery of a video of the dance in 2014 by director Alla Kovgan, we explore, through the legacy of Merce Cunningham, how dance is particularly susceptible to decay, how it is remembered, and how to bring back work that wasn’t necessarily meant to be recreated.

#10: Not By Accident

To celebrate LGBT History Month, Terence interviewed Eric Marcus, author of “Making Gay History,” on why he’s revisiting old tapes from the late 1980’s and listening to voices from the past today.

#08: The Right to Oblivion – Part 2

If forgetting helps us forgive, how will the internet’s relentless memory impact our ability to accept other people’s past crimes and mistakes? In Right to Oblivion: Part 2, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger reveals what’s at stake when we undo forgetting, and Frank Ahearn shows us how the internet can forget our past if we’re willing to use deception.

#07: The Right to Oblivion – Part 1

There is a freedom that comes with faking a death. The idea of shedding one’s skin and starting over is a tempting thought. But is it actually possible in the digital age, where one’s information is out there?

Evan attempts to find the answer to this question by leaving his old life behind and adopting a new identity and presence online for a story with WIRED. Readers were notified of this and were challenged to find him. This experiment, full of suspenseful close calls, paranoia, discomfort makes for a curiously witty tale of discovery.

#06: The Wonder Years

The Wonder Years married the bewilderment of a child with the nostalgia of an adult; and for a generation, the TV show created by Carol Black and Neal Marlens is a time machine back to the sixties, youth and innocence. In today’s episode, we return to “The Wonder Years” with Carol Black and writer Titi Nguyen to reflect on childhood with the help of Kevin Arnold.

From the theme song to the super-eight home movies in the opening credits, The Wonder Years, is steeped in nostalgia. Through a wistful narrator, it takes the audience back inside the mind and heart of a pre-adolescent boy as he tries to make sense of how the sixties impact his family. We all live at the intersection of our personal lives and the historical events around us. We grow up focused on the personal until one day we realize how history shapes us. For Titi Nguyen, her birthplace, Vietnam, loomed in the background of her childhood, but since her parents never spoke of the place or the war they’d fled, Titi turned to the TV, specifically The Wonder Years, to make sense of her story.

#5.5: Extended Stay — The Bike Incident

For this Extended Stay*, “The Bike Incident,” we continue the discussion of law and memory from episode #05 — “Court of Memory” — with another story of eyewitness misidentification that steered Caroline Sarnoff’s criminal justice career toward reforming the system.

If law enforcement asked you to answer a few questions, you may not welcome the invitation with glee, but Caroline Sarnoff, as an aspiring criminologist in her first year of college, did. She thought she’d hit the lottery when campus police wanted to question her about a bike stolen in her dorm, but her initial excitement quickly vanished when they accused her of stealing the bike. In “The Bike Incident,” Caroline finds herself on the wrong end of what she would eventually study: a coercive plea bargain, a false confession, and an eyewitness misidentification. What started as an opportunity to observe law enforcement at work escalates in a way that she could never have anticipated. Now, Caroline Sarnoff works as the Assistant Director of Data Outreach for Measures for Justice, which allows the justice system to see what needs reform through aggregated data. “If you can see what the problem is,” Caroline says, “then you can change it.”

*An “Extended Stay” is Memory Motel’s version of bonus material, a chance to linger, to hear one more story, to stay with an idea, theme, memory or thought before traveling on to the next episode.

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