Hal in V.R. 6 (Wave Bye-Bye to the Bureaucrat) (p. 688)
Ogilvie’d once lectured for a whole period on this kid’s character as an instance of the difference between an antagonist and a deuteragonist in moral drama; he’d mentioned the child-actor’s name over and over. Hal tries whacking himself just over the right eye several times, to dislodge the name. […] Hal doesn’t remember who played the bureaucrat, either, but it’s the kid’s name that’s driving him bats.
Context
The block escalates from mental game to physical percussion — Hal literally hitting his own head to shake a name loose. The cruelty of the detail: he has heard the name "over and over," in a classroom; the data is in there, and the faculty that never before failed him won't surrender it.