As earplugs. As a blindfold. As a nasal clothespin. As loose fitting gloves. Or, probably truest to omitted context, memory as a buzzkill:

Banality depends on memory, as do irony and abstraction and boredom, three other defenses the educated mind deploys against experience so that it can get through the day without being continually, exhaustingly astonished.

Thank you Michael Pollan.