If you like getting things in your email or RSS, then I feel I should point out that the serialisation of The Audacity Gambit is still going for two months.

Despite what many people I have worked with think, I have a poor memory. Mind you, I have a great memory for very specific things. The texture of the vinyl finger puppet toys that came in a Happy Meal, the array of things that papier-mâché was used for during its height as a popular material in the 18th century, how to make a sewing pattern, whatever. Other things, like the name of a band or song I like, where exactly I read a specific story and by who, if I was the one who filled my water bottle ten minutes ago, all those different type of specifics are like bingo balls rattling around my mind cage with the same odds of being called up.

What I have, rather than a sharp memory, is a System. Or maybe a method. I may not remember the specifics of something but I know where to find it. Or where to start looking to find it. An object? Well, if it's such-and-such shape or use then it will be in this or that container (which has been labeled). A story, or passage, or reference? If I can remember holding it then it is going to be on this shelf or that carton, and I probably remember the texture of the page or spine so that helps narrow it down. If I read it on a screen then we get to do my favourite thing which is a little bit of flexing the ol' search skills. Basically anything else? Well, let us hope I wrote it down.

I love a sticky note. And notes in general. How nice to outsource the part of my brain that does not retain certain things to a piece of paper.

ID: A snapshot of a densely layered series of sticky notes and small slips of paper stuck to a small cork board, the bottom edge of a laptop screen below. Only the centre of the image is in focus and it is headed "NEWSLETTER" and lists below it the components of the very newsletter you are reading. End ID.

I know I 100% picked this up from Romancing The Stone. In the really lovingly choreographed opening, we watch Joan Wilder wander through her (impeccably set-dressed, truly wow we learn so much about her here) apartment, looking for tissue. Both her bathroom mirror and another mirror by the kitchen are covered in written reminders and story ideas--including one to buy more tissue. What a mood.

ID: A screenshot from Romancing The Stone, directed by Robert Zemeckis. Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is pinning a note to an already reminder-layered cork board below a mirror. The mirror has a note taped to it at eye height reading "buy tissue" below a red "DON'T FORGET" heading. End ID.

It's neat what we remember about something and what we don't. Sometimes it reminds me of getting a cat or a toddler a present and they're more interested in the packaging than the item itself. Like yeah, it's great to remember some notable experience, but it can also be fun to riffle through the little memories.

What was the cover of one of your favorite books as a kid? Maybe you can't bring it up exactly but you'd know it if you see it (Better World Books is my go-to for finding specific old copies of paperbacks, btw). Or your fingers remember the particular crinkle of the waxy paper packaging on a specific supermarket snack? Some memories get lost but can be found again, in a rush of surprise when you open a new book from a small printer and that exact smell, or something close like it, was the smell of a newly opened pack of baseball cards or pogs, or some other brightly printed delight. Mimeograph ink, the waxy paper of a print from the microfiche machine, when you printed out a photo from the computer and used most of the ink in the printer to do it and the image sat heavy and wet on the page.

Big memories are great and important but the small ones can have a staying power, they can fall into the cracks of everyday life and shine suddenly at the most unexpected moments (for better or worse). It's good to take out the soft ones, the little joys, every once in a while and reinforce them so they stick around. Believe me, it's surprising what you can forget. But it can be just as surprising what you can remember.

Links go to the Storygraph entries for each title, a great place to check out content warnings and find ways to read them.

• Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino ended up in my library holds in a way that I didn't remember why I'd added it and wasn't convinced it was the right choice when I read the blurb, but once in it I was glad past me had thrown it into my queue. It's about observation and identity and alienation but also including one's own self when people watching.
• The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia , I'm always going to fall for Moreno-Garcia's books, but here she had to go an make something that braided together three POV's, one of which is framed as interviews for a documentary. It's a little noir, a little tragedy, a little epic, a lot playing with the plasticity of truth and memory and history.
• The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken will either hit for you or won't. It's epistolary (you know I love it), a collection of memos and transcribed interviews of a spaceship crew who have brought aboard a strange collection of objects.

Late autumn/early winter plants, including two trees I track snapshot memories of.

ID: A photograph taken pointing up, so the narrow golden leaves still crowding the thin, dark branches of a tree reach from the top of the image to nearly the bottom, contrasting against a clear blue sky. End ID.

ID: A photograph taken straight down into a semi-succulent looking ground cover plant with pink stems that have fat needles of leaves feathering off of them. The base of the plant is buried in a light mound of snow, and a dusty evergreen, herbaceous looking thing fills the corners of the image. End ID.

ID: Ornamentally crooked tree branches sketch up from the right side of the image, branching off into thinner and thinner twigs, at the ends of which are frost-covered feathery tips, white against a cold blue sky. End ID.

And now for links! Lots about language in this batch.

• I recently learned about Protactile, via Against Access by John Lee Clark. It's a tactile language developed by DeafBlind people that is cool as hell and, like all languages, influences and expands how one "views" the world. This short doc from American Masters is a great accompaniment to the article.
• Language and memory can shape things, and The Golden Tooth: A Solo Show by Orion Cabrera by William Alexander in Uncanny Magazine is a dark delight and a vivid example of it.
• You know about Borges' Library of Babel right? Did you know there's a wild online version of it? You can read more about it (and the story) at this post on Open Culture. Give the search a try and see what you find (answer: everything, anything).
• Family Cooking by AnaMaria Curtis in Uncanny Magazine is a story about family and feelings and food, which feels appropriate here, at the start of December.

If you've thought of donating eSims, this guide was very helpful, and Crips for eSims for Gaza is a good option if you can't easily manage topping them up. There are also more traditional donation targets like the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, UNRWA, and Doctors Without Borders. If you prefer giving directly to families, Gaza Funds is a nice resource that facilitates finding campaigns.