(no subject)

Paul Newman's retiring from acting, after one voiceover for Disney and one for a video game. One sees his point, and politely regards Empire Falls as his true valedictory.

He's my favorite actor, unless that's Burt Lancaster or Harriet Andersson. Well, so far as I remember. I'm having a harder time determining what my favorite anything is, given life's extensive datasets, now that my memory isn't what it was. In memory, I'm starting to realize it was kind of astonishing. Not for exact quotes, I'm no Swinburne or Bloom (though I think I was excellent at locating passages in a text), and I always had that academic-style absentmindedness toward things I didn't particularly care about. I think I was, and remain though fallen, strongest with physical arrangements. I barely glanced at maps before my late twenties, and if I ever lost anything it was because someone had actually taken it. Excuse the retrospective narcissism, I'm just suddenly marveling at how stuffed with wasted talent youth can be.

I think I'll follow Newman's lead and announce my retirement from remembering.