Podcast for 3/2

Host Jessie Thorn explains a comedy skit where two comedians perform a duo skit involving a song and dance where Kristen Shaal dances like a horse and Kurt Braunohler sings a song. On first performance the audience laughs, but then they repeat it again and again. The audience doesn’t laugh. They duo keeps doing the same act over and over again, and eventually, the audience begins to laugh again, even though they have seen the same act so many times already. The next story is about Christine Campbell, whose mom, Mary Sue, is in a loop in her own mind that is very strange and confusing. Mary Sue had Transient Global Amnesia and it is defined as “a sudden, temporary episode of memory loss that can’t be attributed to a more common neurological condition, such as epilepsy or stroke.” And during an “episode of transient global amnesia, your recall of recent events simply vanishes, so you can’t remember where you are or how you got there.” Doctors began to think that our brain takes away control from our actions and we’re left prisoners to our own brain.

Upon first hearing about Mary Sue, I thought about the movie The Notebook. Everyone always talks about how it’s a great movie and it’s a “must see”. Eventually I told my mom I had never seen it and I wanted to watch it with her when it was just us and the rest of my big family was busy. I didn’t expect much because it is just another rom-com. I bawled my eyes out. The movie is so freaking sad. *SPOILERS**** Below is the scene where Noah visits his aging wife Allie in the house he built for her which is now an elderly home, and he reads her the story of how they fell in love. At the end of the movie, Allie finally remembers that the story this man is reading her is her husband Noah, and it’s about her. One of the saddest moments is Allie says “how long do we have” and Noah tells her that last time it was only “about five minutes” meaning he’s done this multiple times. The look on his face when she forgets who he is and he loses the love of his life once more is heartbreaking, and the harsh reality for family of people with Alzheimer’s, how they forget their family and can’t do anything about it.

When I first heard about Mary Sue, I thought it might be Alzheimer’s, a disease that progressively makes your memory worse over time, which is what Allie from the Notebook has. Doctors still can’t do much about Alzheimer’s, and you pretty much just have to suffer through it. Our brains are very strong, and even though they are our own consciousnesses, we still can’t quite control them. When repeating information over and over, there have been multiple studies showing how our brain skips over information and we don’t quite work correctly.