Read Watch Listen: Intro

I can only remember my father writing two things: notes, both to himself and others, and a list of every movie he has ever seen.

His notes were mostly reminders, both to himself and others. Notes of things to tell my mom, Hilda. Notes to me to do this or that. If he didn’t write it down, he would forget, remember days later and proceeding to tell my mom some story she had already heard elsewhere.

The list was extensive, covering several notebooks. Every time my dad saw a film, whether in the theatre or on video or after happening across it on television, he would make careful note of the date. He kept the notebook in my parent’s bedroom and would pull it out and bring it to the kitchen table in the breakfast nook, the breakfast nook that also served as the lunch nook, dinner nook, homework nook, and snack nook. Ballpoint in hand, he would clearly write (no small feat, given his cramped handwriting) what he had seen and when. I remember watching him hesitate to put down a film me and him planned to see in a few days on our annual family vacation. He left it blank, saying that he couldn’t put it down until he saw it, but really, I think he liked pulling the book out, flipping through until he found his current page, taking the time to write, however briefly, about what picture he had seen, for no other posterity than his own. I remember asking him, from time to time, as I got older, if he had seen this film or that film. He’d say, “I can’t quite remember. I’ll have to check my records later tonight.” And sure enough, I’d see him that evening, thumbing through one book or the other at the kitchen table, until he found it. He would come find me and fill me in, telling me everything he could remember. “Let’s see, I saw it in March 1972, so that would have been…Athens? No, no, I think it was in Valdosta, with your mother. I went to see her for the weekend. That’s right, that’s right.” Then he would put the notebook up, back where he kept it, until the next time he needed to consult it.

I inherited my dad’s love of cinema, along with his bad memory. I’m twenty-five now, but one day I won’t be. I spent most of my middle school years buried in book after book, but I can’t remember half of them now. With this in my mind, I’m starting a blog titled Read Watch Listen, writing about the things that I read or watch or listen to. I tend to go through a lot of various media, some texts more eclectic than others and I’d like to have a record of it, perhaps a little more detailed than my dad’s notebook. One day, it might be nice to consult it and see what I saw all those/these years ago.