Living the Liminal

What’s memory? Memory’s the groove. It’s the all-stars laying down their groove, and it’s you dancing, chasing the desperations of the heart, chasing something that’s so gone, so ephemeral you know it only by its traces, how a certain plucked guitar string summons the thundering centuries, how a taste of fresh cherries calls up the indolent romancers on antebellum porches, all these stories rolling. Memory is the groove, the lie, the story you never get right, the better place. Memory is the bitch, the shame factory, the curse and the consolation. – Rick Moody, “The Albertine Notes”