Why is it, I wonder

Why is it, I wonder, that lately I have had a spate of forgetting VERY specific things, over & over, even after renewing my memory of it. This is not old timers short-term memory loss, though there's a touch of that in the noggin from time to time, this is something different. For a period of several months I could NOT remember then name of the chairman of our board of selectmen, though he's a neighbor and we used to see him & ux on Saturday nights at the defunct Hampstead Station eatery. I'm now again fully in possession of his name (possibly as a result of trading emails with him over the state of a dangerous curve by our house as a result of snowbanks carelessly piled). I have it now, I doubt if I'll forget it again. But I couldn't keep hold of it for a while - I'd look it up, say "Oh yeah of course" and a few hours later it'd be gonzo.

Now it's The Radetzky March, which is one of my favorite marches, have known & loved it for years, but lately (few months) it keeps blanking out in the memory banks, and I got to YouTube and look it up at one of the Vienna new year concerts, and go "oh yeah..." and I have it for a while. Yadda-dum-yadda-dum-yaddaDUMDADA

I think I'm losing some little grey cells.

I sat down aimlessly in front of the tube last night

and there was Tommy Lee Jones, looking the tiniest bit skid-row, but speaking articulately. And there was a similarly aged black guy, speaking articulately but not in the same educated vein as was TLJ. After a beat or two it dawned on me that it was Samuel L. Jackson, whereupon it dawned on me that I had lucked into The Sunset Limited, about which I had heard on NPR the other day (interview with Jones). It's Jones's take on the two-character play by Cormac McCarthy. From the interview on the radio it had sounded interesting, I'm always up for TLJ (SLJ not quite as much but I respect his talent & much of his work), but since it was on HBO I hadn't figured I'd likely see it (I didn't even know we GET HBO). It took less than 90 seconds to lock me in place, and I did not move for the next 80 minutes or so (I had missed the first few minutes). And nothing happens - nothing in terms of what we'd call "action" - it's a jam-packed 90 minutes of dialogue between two very different characters, approaching The Big Question (What it Means To Be A Human Being) from diametrically opposed perspectives and points of view. It's a little like "My Dinner With Andre" only with real substance. There are a couple of places where Jones's directorial sense falters a little, he lets himself use a couple of sight gags that are cheap, IMO. But the words and the ideas they convey are riveting, and the delivery is stunning and superb. As I said, I did not move from my place for the duration. Marvelous, and if you have the opportunity to see it, do so.