And even the ghastliest tragedies fade from the memory.
My recollections of the one execution I attended amount to memories of a ghastly, surrealistic encounter with justice.
On January 2nd the PPP lost its majority in parliament when the second-biggest party in the government coalition, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), walked out.The PPP has been rocked by Mr Taseer's murder, which brings back memories of the ghastly assassination by extremists of the party's leader, Benazir Bhutto, in 2007.
At the halfway point of the tournament journey, there are memories of turning points, ghastly injuries, bitter controversies, stirring comebacks and even sentimental scenes, like the ovation that fans and both teams gave to Montreal goalie José Théodore on Monday night.
The most frequently heard objection to name-changing is that it smacks of Stalinist rewriting of history, but these are not people attempting to erase the collective memories of their own ghastly deeds; they are pro-democracy activists affronted by reminders of 30 years of brutal dictatorship.
Generally, dark lighting is associated with tragedy and bright lighting with romance or comedy, but overlighting gives ghastly or unearthly effects, as in the memory sequence at the beginning of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's Gycklarnas afton (1953; Sawdust and Tinsel, also called The Naked Night).
The brutality of this, and the ghastly Sixties buildings which huddle around it, is emphasised by the memory of the medieval university it replaced.
Some ghastly but well-known episodes recede; others emerge from the shadows.Sometimes the memories are faded because so few were left to remember.
Instead of being suddenly confronted with these ghastly old masterpieces, there are some very nice Dutch portraits, charming.' He beams at the memory and distributes a packet of McVitie's half-coated digestives.
