the fifth respectable short story club weekly meeting minutes

January 17, 2010

Attendance list
Elvin Priyadi
Laurentia Dhanio (Riri)
Ulma Nurriva Haryanto

On this fifth meeting, the club had to read a short story by Nathan Nolan, Memento Mori. The story inspired the movie Memento, directed by the author's brother, Christopher Nolan. For those who haven't seen the movie, you should!! (yes yes i've been relentingly promoting the movie to the girls.. i just cant help it :p)

The meeting actually started off with us discussing the culture of bribing and corrupt police system in Indonesia, this was following a recent inspection by a judicial taskforce in Jakarta which found luxurious cells in a penitentiary in East Jakarta.

Then we talked a bit about the situation in Asia's prison.. Elvin referred to a show on National Geographic called 'Locked Up Abroad', which had an episode with Indonesian prisons in Malang and Bali.

We moved on to this video in YouTube in which Riri expressed a very evident dislike :p the video was the one showing a canadian (?) tourist riding a motorbike, without proper license, was stopped by a police, then the police asked for a payment in order to let him pass.. Sure, as an Indonesian u'd b ashamed of the police's behaviour.. and concerened about the world's opinion of our beloved country after seeing that video. It's not a way of educating the people, that video, but the guy who made it never meant to educate anyway.. It was made to flaunt the country's embarassing reality to youtube viewers..

so...we believe that the problem might lie on the institution that spawns these policemen. it's an open secret that to enter the academy you're gonna need money, and/or related or know someone important. there's the need for total reform.. of mindset, of the institution itself.. we also sometimes enable the behavior because we are impatient, we want things to be instant, or a misplaced sympathy.. "Poor low-paid policeman/civil servants, here.. have some extra"

Before we could finally focus on the story, elvin pointed out that those in Holland had to be more careful when downloading movies with copyrighted content. things hv gone more strict.

So, the short story..

riri loved the theme, since it resonates with the thing she feared the most: memory-loss. The character was told to have a malfunctioned brain, he suffered from backwards amnesia or anterograde amnesia. his memory only spans for 10 minutes, before it goes blank and he had to start all-over again.

he filled his room, his body with instructions. a bell was inside his backpocket all the time. Two dates were engraved, one was his birth date, and one he eventually forgot (we suspect its either his wedding/the death of his wife, which he repeatedly include in his notes to make sure he would not forget).

so in every 10-minutes earl (the guy) read the instructions he made before, try to remember, n then in 'moments of clarity' write instructions of what he's supposed to do next before his medial temporal lobe refreshed itself again.

So what is this 'moments of clarity'? Quoting from the story:

...for a few minutes of every day, every man becomes a genius. Moments of clarity, insight, whatever you want to call them...everything becomes obvious...For a few moments, the secrets of the universe are opened to us.

But the problem is, we are not always that 'smart'.

But then the genius, the savant, has to hand over the controls to the next guy down the pike, most likely the guy who just wants to eat potato chips, and insight and brilliance and salvation are all entrusted to a moron or a hedonist or a narcoleptic.

And so, the only way out of this mess, according to the story, "is to take steps to ensure that you control the idiots that you become. To take your chain gang, hand in hand, and lead them. The best way to do this is with a list."

of course! how genius!

The other things in our lives made us failed to graps these moments of clarity: other priorities/constrains, moodswings. moments of clarity can take many forms, one of it is desperation..
elvin believed that desperation can be a way to solve a problem, especially when it involves whining. Because by whining you wish for someone to come and rescue the day :p

and so.. the meeting was concluded with blocking creeps and weirdos from our contact list :)))

Until the next meeting.. adieu!

p.s. for previous meeting minutes do click here and here . oh and Riri, don't be surprised by the precision of this minute, coz there is this feature in Yahoo! Messenger called 'Message Archive' ;))