The memory palace I have created for the 51 item assignment seems strange to me because it is not a real place. 

I was watching t.v. at a bar and they had highlights from the 1995 baseball season, and I couldn't remember if that was the year the Atlanta Braves (the team I follow) won the World Series. I was kinda disapointed that I didn't know that immediately.  So, for this assignment I have placed the entire roaster into a memory palace of sorts along with catchy slogans to remember them all, plus I memorized (this word doesn't seem to mean the same thing it used to) the coaches, the starts and their position, the teams regular season record, who they beat in the playoffs, and the amount of games it took them to win each of the three post-season series.


-The journey into my mind starts by imagining a t.v. and then see and infomercial.
-I hear someone say, "Only 19.95." and see an ariel image of my memory palace which looks sort of like a baseball staduim with some modification. 1
-So, its 19.95 for the box and my mind goes to the manager- Bobby Cox. 1
-Then I ask myself how he won and answer from the bench and go to the dugout.
-Here I have a little story that walks me through both my memory palace around the baseball stadium and also the coaches.  To be a good winner you need to corral your joneses in a maze from willing jesters. = Beauchamp (bench), Corrales (1st), Jones (hitting), Mazzone (pitching), Williams (3rd), Yost (bullpen) 12

-Then its the pitchers since they start with the ball.  Here it gets a little tricky because the pitcher's mound transports me to a bar setting where I am trying to order a pitcher. So the slogan goes, A very bed-ridden bourbon clerk trains klutzy clowns glad for wine, Mad Max made St. Michiael's mercy meeker the more he saw, cut, nick stick pinata schtick, schmidt, take a shot your stomach smolders stamped on head outside see a run down bum, hobo toby wears hip-waders and woolrich shirts, wool rich wool poor woodpile wood all. = Avery, Bedrosian, Borbon, Clark, Clontz, Glavin, Maddux, May, McMichael, Mercker, Murray, Nichols, Pena, Schmidt, Smoltz, Stanton, Thobe, Wade, Wohlers, Woodall. 20


-Logically the pitcher pitches the ball to the catcher of which there are only 3 so I just use the acronym CLOP for Catchers: Lopez, O'Brien, and Perez. I see an Irish flag for some reason I am not sure yet. 3

-Then if there is a hit it has to go through the infield first so I move there next. For this I visualize the Van Gogh painting Starry Night to start it off. Enfield bells, blast short blasts, of geometric worldly viola, chirping 3 times, "Let me two be", gruff, mortalities, oily, sharpness. = Belliard, Blauser (starting short stop), Geovinola, Chipper Jones (starting 3rd base), Lemke (starting second base), Fred McGriff (starting first base), Mordecai, Olsen, Sharperson. 13

- If the ball gets past them then it goes into the outfield, and for this I see Van Gogh's crows in a field of wheat. Devilish rows, center on grizzly, justice's right tight, tell of kelly's, classic (also the player's name here is out of nowhere), co-op co-waltz, polish noses, on black anvils. = Devereaux, Grissom (starting center-field), Justice (starting right-field), Kelly, Klesko (starting left-field), Kowitz, Polsnia, Smith. 11

- Then I remember also, but I won't get into how since I have rambled on here and I am up to 61 items, that the Braves regular season record 90 - 54, in the divisional round of the playoffs they beat the Colorado Rockies in 4 games 3 - 1, in the NL championship they beat the Cinncinati Reds in four games 4 - 0, and in the World Series they beat the Cleveland Indians in six games 4 - 2. I guess that would be either 8 or 11 more depending if you count remembering team names and cities as separate items.

-So the total I have is approximately 70 items.

Saying VS. Writing: What You Mean?

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and got on the subject of the oral tradition.  Well, it started off as a conversation about Greek history and we got lost somewhere.  Anyway, we agreed that communicating through a written language is exceedingly more difficult than through speech. 

This made me think of the comedian Arj Barker.  I recently watched his stand-up special, and he has a bit about text messaging.  I recommend checking it out, but what he suggests is that since the largest problem with text communication is the inability to conceptualize context (interpret underlying meaning such as sarcasm) we should have different fonts like 'sarcastica' and 'good times new roman'.  An interesting idea...

We often discuss how the English language is constantly changing in spoken form yet I know I don't spend much time thinking about it is changing compositionally.  It seems to me that writing more often makes it more difficult for me to convey what I mean to say.  I don't believe writing is more difficult because it is more governed.  I think it is more difficult because of the lack of inflection, accurate portrayal of pause, and where one may dialectually skip words or mash them and a listener will fill in the blanks when writing one is not afforded such an oppotunity.

Flyting

I was thinking about this flyting thing and was wondering if contests where speakers try to one up eachother count?  The intention here would not be to outright criticize an opponent, instead the objective would be to diminish their person by revealing how the speaker was superior.  I am reminded of the case of Arthur's knights of the round table who would sit around telling stories of grand adventure trying to out-do one another.




Also, could there be second party flyting?  I am thinking of the old playground discourse, "My dad could beat-up your dad."  If this is flyting, then isn't flyting present in every competitive sport? For instance, if I were to tell a friend of mine how inferior his favorite sports team was in comparison to another team would that be a flyting remark?  I don't know who is going to win the Superbowl. But, I have a friend who is a Patriots fan, and it sure is funny watching him get riled up when I say the Giants are going to win.

Kubla Khan set to chords:

This post explains what I did with the Kubla Khan poem to turn it into a song.  I figure I have about five hours wrapped up in it right now.  This process has been interesting for me because I usually come up with a few lyrics, then figure out the pacing and chords, and then organize the parts (verse, chorus, etc.).  But, for this project I had to work in an unfamiliar order to my process.  I started with all the words (which had to be verbatum- usually my words change from the beginning to the end in accordance with what will fit), then I had to organize all the lines into something resembling a structure of the parts, and then I could finally come up with the chords.

So, I started by writing out all the lines by the rhyme scheme while organizing them as best as I could by what might work as parts. This is the first of three pages I wrote out:

(Sorry I couldn't figure out how to rotate the image)

I annoted down the left margin the parts with either a (, [, <, or { to differentiate the different song sections.  So, ( became equivalent to a line of introduction, [ became the verse, < became a pre-chorus, and { became the chorus. Then I chose the chords to correspond to the parts while trying to construct a flow so the song would tell a story not just with the words but also with the musical changes.  I picked out the first 12 lines to preform because of the practice time constraints, and they are also a good representation of all four parts.

Then I wrote out the 12 lines with the corresponding chords and practiced it.

This process was really tricky for several reasons. First, these aren't my words so the story is hard to remember. Although, in these twelve lines you get the character Kubla Khan (line of intro), then the first verse describing what and where he wants to build (first verse), next he starts building (pre-chorus- builds up the song as well as turns the fertile ground into an enclosed space), and finally the majesty of the kingdom created is revealed (the chorus). 

All in all, I think it came out ok.  The rhyme scheme was probably the toughest thing to figure out.  The whole poem can be broken down to follow the parts I came up with, but the organization of the parts does not itself compose an orderly pattern in my estimation.  Still, I am optimistic that it will make sense as I work through the rest of the song. There is one particular section toward the end of the song where the rhyme scheme seems to break down which could be a really sweet bridge... I think.

I have been playing with a couple guys for about a year now, and I think that where I am getting caught-up right now in trying make the whole song interesting would probably be best sorted out by orchestration between the three of us. I am probably going to try and introduce it to the other guys over spring break, so I can let everyone know when we will perform it live if your interested.



The Muses:

To start off, I got that mneumonic CCUTETEMP stuck in my brain. "I see cuteness only temporarily."  I got the names down that way, but I have two issues: first I need to place them in a memory palace, and secondly I can't remember how to spell them. So, here is what I have so far...

I am using the Haufbrau as my palace-  I walk in the door and move right.  In the first booth Calliope (my friends are standing in for the visual images of the muses' faces; this is Carly) is sitting in the first booth with a thick, blue phone-book open to a page that says HOPE on it.  Sitting with her, is Clio (Chelsey) is carving date 1-10 into the table with a knife.  Looking left, Urania (Kaila) is laying on her back on the high-top staring at the ceiling telling me about the astrological signs. Then Terpsichore (Jill) is dancing with a bunch of turtles (choir of terps) while Euterpe (Meg) plays the flute on stage for the turles; she is the Pied Piper of turtles. Everyone laughs, but I have been here a while and am thirsty so I got to the register and by the pole I see Thalia (Tia) holdin on to the blue post by the register.  She looks funny because the floor is slanted.  I get a drink, take a big gulp (its good and I can feel it cooling my throat) and when I look back at the music I see the poster of Erato (actual picture of Venus/ Aphrodite goddess of love) behind Euterpe. But Euterpe's song has gotten sad and I hear someone crying over by the bathroom.  I go to see who it is since I have to pee from the beer anyway, and I see Melpomene ('Poor Mel with Pomme' or 'Potatoe') has lost a game of pool.  The pool-table is covered with potatoes instead of pool-balls and Polyhymnia (Amy) is making crosses out of the pool-cues in the glow of the cigarette machine.

I think that'll work.
  

To whom it may concern:

    I am changing my epithet.  I am not satisfied with Ski Captain because I don't think it really suits me. I haven't been much of a skiier for years now and I don't think it really represents my goals or intentions for this semester, so I have decided to go with Kyle the "Taut Bard".  This is a reference to tautology, the goal of structure I have for myself, that I wish to be a storyteller, and it works off the "bard" suggestion Rio had the other day.

So, I have been doing some thinking about these first memory excercises and here is what I have come up with.

For the list of items from "Moonwalking" I decided to take a cue from Foer and put them in my parent's house. I started as he suggests with the Pickled Garlic in the driveway and the move to the front door where there is a kiddie pool full of Cottage Cheese.  Then I walk in the house.
-enter living room-
Peat Smoked Salmon: on a cherry table a Salmon smoking a peat cigar
Six Bottles of White Wine: on the white couch opposite (singing drunkenly)
Socks (3x): hanging on the lamp wet and smelling as they warm
-move to the next room-
Three Hula-Hoops (spare?): being tossed at a...
Snorkel: the first two hoops shatter like glass so the third is a spare
-next room-
Dry Ice Machine: There is an old, wood icebox in the corner already
E-mail Sophia: this one is tough but as long as I see the soap bubbles coming out of the ice machine and look right (there is a picture of my hometowns street layout on the wall) I think I got it.
Skin-tonned cat suit: on top of the ice box is a stereo playing 'Cat Scratch fever' while a girl in costume dances on the pool table (left)
-look past the pool table-
Find Paul Newman film- Somebody Up There Likes Me: the tv on a shelf above the bar has the Movie 'Hud' playing on it.
Elk Sausages??: on the wall next to the tv is a hanging elk antler which reminds me that I am hungry so I walk around the pool table but before I can go behind the bar to check in the fridge my nephew...
Megaphone and Director's Chair: is yelling at me incoherently into his empty cup while...
Harness and Ropes: my other nephew gets drug through the kitchen behind my parents dog who bar-ks and the temperature drops
Barometer.

I will post my muses when I get out of class today.