A Summation

First: rock, pen, bunny, moon, seashell

I have found these blogs to be helpful with my learning this semester.  I have always thought that the goal of college courses was not necessarily to learn rote lists of things but to develop my skills as a writer, reader, and thinker.  With this in mind, I have definitely improved my understanding of how my memory works although I should mention that this course also hints to new questions. 

I liked examining the different memory devices of Camillo, Bruno, Lull and Fludd, but I think their attempts to aid in remembering fall well short of their goals.  I would say that Camillo and later Fludd seem to have hit a chord with me being that their devices were based on individual interpretation of an environment.  I kept these designs in mind in choosing the Haufbrau for my musey-room, and I truly believe that knowledge of a physical space is just as important in shaping memories as mental space. But, what I hope to explain in my presentation is that there are fixed items to call memories in the physical space as well as moveable parts which would be the people who come and go from the physical space.  This allows for unlimited combinations of loci to store different information without putting all the emphasis on the memory on one specific item. 

I also liked the Ong text because it alowed me to draw conclusions from various articles of literary theory in terms of memory.  I took Lit 300 a few semesters ago, and I found it very interesting how Ong drew in the work of Derrida and the symbology of language.  My interpretation of this analysis lends not to individual symbols but the interaction between multiple pre-existing mental images and symbols for actual items.  While I like the image of the chinese boxes or russian dolls, I believe mental symbology exists in my mind more like a cooler door at the hauf plastered with bumper stickers.  All the information exists on one planar surface, and each piece is connected to every other piece through a series of movements around and through the other pieces.

I was very impressed with all the presentations this semester, and I think everyone should be commended on the success they exhibited in terms of their ability to remember a lot of information.  I liked how many of the musey-room presentations displayed not only reflections of actual places but drew inspiration from imagined sources. 

Musey-Room: Haufbrau edition

For my final presentation I chose to build a model of the Haufbrau, or atleast a partial one and try to explain how this space operates as my musey room.  I described in an earlier post how I organized the muses in this environment which was merely a spark of inspiration for my most recent project. 

In considering this project, I first thought I would make a make of the entire town and try to fill in parts of it that were significant to me.  Not only did this task seem extremely difficult to approach, but was also found to be time consuming, complex, to intricate to explain in ten minutes.  The Haufbrau proved similarly difficult because of the detail and abundance of information contained in the space. 

While the structure is real and tangible, the memories and information that it enlivens in my mind is almost inexplicable without being there and allowing me to slowly reveal.  Something as simple as playing a game of pool brings on waves of memories that require non-linear explination because of all the memorable games and conversations that surround that one spot in the bar.  For instance, I could tell you about how to shoot a certain shot by recalling previous games I played. Or, I could tell you about a conversation I had about fixing a car I had with Stillman. Or, about how to gamble at the game. I could even talk to you about music, and how I got a job one time by playing a guy on that table.

I can accomplish similar feats with just about any point in the bar.  For instance, if someone asked me what a palindrome is I will simple say, "rats live on no evil star," just as is written in the women bathroom stall.  In fact, there has been years of advice and information painted over in both bathrooms.  Same with the words carved in the table tops.

Every year they put out one new table and store the old one away somewhere.  The bar used to be the primary hangout for college kids and the graduating class of each year got a table.  Many of the old tables still hang on the ceiling and walls proudly displaying the names of ghosts.  It is always funny when some stranger comes in trying to find the name they etched years before.  The usual question to ask is how much the hauf has changed, and the answer is usually, "not much."  And, chances are if you ask who they knew there you can trace from then to now through about 2 or 3 people. 

The only problem I can see with this memory system might be that it doesn't only exist in the concrete environment of the physical world but as a semblance of individual consciousnesses.  Each person holds bits and pieces of the puzzle which comprise all of the knowledge in world.  In order to know everything, you must first meet and know everyone.

Modern Oral Tradition: A story of a story

I am a story teller.  Somehow over the ages that term has come to mean liar.  I do not agree unless you are a liar who also happens to tell good stories, at which point, who cares! I would much rather here an interesting, false story than a broing, true one.  Well... unless the story is actually meant to hurt someone.

      Anyway, so one day my dad decided he was going to clean the basement and "get rid of all the junk" (ha! yeah right).  Usually these projects involve him taking things down, looking through them all, putting them back where they were, and sweeping the floor.  Well, he had picked up a stereo from a friend of his so he could listen to his records while he worked on his cars (as if he ever had time for that) and since he stores all his cars in their daylight, 4 car-garage, basement he had to pull out all his records to see if the record player worked.  It didn't, but he re-discovered his old record player buried on a shelf and tried it out. It still worked! And, my dad got real excited when he found his favorite album from high school: Montrose by Montrose. 
      He was like a little kid as he dropped the needle on the song Bad Motor Scooter! Now, I have never seen my father dance, and I don't know if that's what you could call what I saw, but that's really the only way to describe it.  I just laughed and started upstairs and when I opened the door to the kitchen my mom stopped washing the dishes, stood stock still and said, "Montrose, Montrose, Bad Motor Scooter."
      I asked her, "What?"
      She said, "That song... Montrose, Montrose, Bad Motor Scooter," and then explained to me how when she and my dad were just out of high school they took a trip to the beach and the eight-track player jammed. They listened to that song on repeat for the 4 hours to the beach, the entire weekend they were there, and the 4 hour drive back. When my dad finally got it unjammed my mom took it and threw it away!
     After hearing this story, I knew exactly what I was getting my dad for christmas.

Song from childhood

Me and my band recently played an 80's tribute at the Filling Station.  We had a great time but the subject of this blog is about the selection of the songs we were going to play. 

Are group is rather interesting in age range and each of our tastes in music is surprising different from the others.  Dan is in his 30's, Eric is just 24, and I am coming up quick on 28.  This means we all experienced the 80's in different ways.  I remember rocking out to all the cheesey tunes in my mom's chevy corsica, Dan was in school, and Eric was a baby so his knowledge is all in retrospect.  We entertained playing a lot of different songs from Heuy Lewis and the News, the Police, The Ramones, and numerous others, but here is the list we settled on:

Melt with You by Modern English
Monkey Gone to Heaven by the Pixies
In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins
Tomorrow Wendy by Concrete Blonde
Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2
We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel

What surprised me the most about these songs is that I remembered the words to most of them and I haven't heard them in years.  Even weirder was all the other songs we looked at that I knew atleast partial words to, and I spent a considerable amount of time reminiscing about my childhood and other memories these songs triggered.

For instance, when I was seven I could not stop listening the album Invisible Touch by Genesis.  I started playing the songs from the album, as I got distracted, and found I knew almost every line of every song.  My mom had thrown the tape out when I was about 8 or 9 and I hadn't heard it since.

Immediately after listening to the album, my mind went back to when I was that age, just dancing around my parents house with my walkman tape-player full volume.  It reminds me of a story my mom told me one time which I will relate in my next blog.

My Bedroom: complications of moving

I recently moved into a new house and actually considered utilizing it for the final presentation of my musey-room until I decided it didn't hold enough meaning yet.  Anyway, I wanted to relate a few stories I have accrued so far which have tested my memory.

For starters, I am usually very good at remembering where I put things in bags and boxes, but what became puzzling was the why of where things ended up.  For instance, my toothpaste made it in with the dishes but my tooth brush got in with the other toiletries.  Why this differentiation for two things that are requisite of eachother? Well, I missed the toothpaste on the first pass, so I simply threw it in with an open box of dishes. Sounds pretty easy to explain. 

But, what if someone else would have had to unpack my stuff?  They may have been confused when they found socks and scissorrs in the same pocket of the luggage bag which contained my dress shirts and work boots.  I think it would be funny to watch someone try to navigate through all the boxes to re-assemble all my stuff to a logical order in a room. And the strangest part was that I didn't unpack for almost a week, and yet all the strange packing choices I made still stuck in my brain. Car care bled into library, and school and music got all mixed up being that they are used more than almost anything else.  The only items that retained a measurable amount of segregation in the move were those from the kitchen.

Another test of my memory in my new environment came when I miss placed my coffee for about 20 minutes.  I made the coffee, took two sips and set it down.  Then I walked away to get ready to run to school.  (incidently, this is why I have been consistantly late for everything lately)  Inevitably, I walked out of my room and realized I had to change over my laundry, and then it was back to my room to find my sunglasses.  Then, it became, "Where the hell is my coffee! I just had it?" So, it was back to the coffee maker, open the fridge for milk, check the bathroom (no i didn't go in there), living room (don't see it from where I'm standing), back to the kitchen, laundry?... nope. humm... (insert appropriate curse word) Check the time and now I'm late. (explitive) Time? Oh yeah! I had checked the time when I was sitting in my recliner in the living room and I set my coffee on the floor so it wouldn't spill on my computer while I checked today's weather.  Bob's your Uncle, grab the joe, and out the door.

a question

If it is possible to remember everything and everything is a merely a reflection of things that have already occured, aren't we just trying to remember all the different names and re-orderings of the same things? 

A ramble of thoughts:
Humans can only exist in an extremely specific situation. For instance, there are millions of degrees of temperature possible in the universe and we can only survive more than a short duration in a range of about a 100. Everything we do is subject to phenomena of the universe such as gravity. Species may change and evolve on earth randomly, but this whole world is such a delicate balance I don't know how humans ever made it this far.  If you throw on top of that the developement of consciousness, I am surprised I can even remember my name.

Why kids climb trees

I was just thinking about a theory I have about human beings as children and why they have a prevailing desire to climb trees.  I promise there is a relevant point in here somewhere.

A few years ago I started thinking about how kids always seem to be climbing things, and I think it is a hold over from our recent eveolutionary ancestors.  If you think about it, chimpanzees sleep in trees and use elevation to escape from predators.  I believe the desire to climb, especially as a child, is inbourne and necessary to a child's natural ability to survive.  Human legs take longer to develope than their arms, so naturally climbing seems a more resonable response to the threat of predation than running. 

However, and here's my point, even before we can climb we can cry.  While climbing may appear to be the first line of defence, it's not.  We come out screaming.  Crying is therefore the first form of communication humans are equipt with, and strangely wailing is a completely unconscious behavior.  As a child all one has do to communicate a desire is cry.  "I'm hungry. I'm tired. etc." Cry, cry, cry. But when does physical and cognitive ability kick in and make desire of and being given the desired not enough?

As far as I know, science still can't explain how humans develope in terms of speech formation.  There are theories as far as cognitive function being a product of emulation, but the maze that is our brain starts the process of langauge formation unconsciously.  Incidently, some of what Dr. Sexon has been saying is finally sinking in, because to learn we must remember and that means we are remembering things before we are conscious of it.  The pursuit of memories we made before those in our present consciounsess allows us to remember seems interesting, but I think in order to remember those things we would have to de-evolve our brains back to the state of the lost memories.  I think there is probably a connection somewhere that we all have, and that once connected won't allow us to regress. I would guess the key connection resides somewhere between all the senses and the unconscious. 

I just want to add what an older friend of mine told me about drinking alcohol.  He said that people unconsciously desire to be children again, and that drinking basically reduces your cognitive ability to that of a six year old.  I think he may have been on to something...

Cliche

I was just reviewing some of Ong's book and I got hung up on a passage yet again.  Ong states that, "There was no use denying the now known fact that the Homeric poems valued and somehow made capital of what later readers had been trained in principle to disvalue, anamely, the set phrase, the formula, the expected qualifier - to put it more bluntly, the cliche" (23).  I find this statement n accurate critique of modern literature study as well as confusing in terms of popular culture. 

For starters, how is it that music is elevated for it's "catchiness" and "cliche" while literature is broken-down for it's utilizaton of similar devices?  Are literary persons just supposed to be more inventive than to use what affects the reader?  Doesn't the absence of easily accessible terms to the ear of the reader distance author from audience? 

I have the sinking suspicion that if we really examine every work, since they are all rehashings of older works, that everything could be called a cliche.  I can appreciate that as literature students we should push the bounds and scope of the literature we read, but the fact that we still much work inside a system reveals a very Derridian conclusion: nothing is every truly outside the system and specifically the works that profess to do so.  Therefore, I have determined that cliche is nothing if not essential to all human communication and especially communtication which relates memory.  Instead of diminishing cliche devices or phrasing, I personally think there should be some oppurtunity to study the cliche.  Every colloquialism, every introduction or epithet can be interpretted as cliche, and I believe that it is through this seemingly universal relatability that communication is even possible.  If we didn't have anchors to the world and some form of collective unconscious (i.e. brains that functioned similarly while interpreting) it would impossible to relate to eachother.  Cliche seems to tell us more of the foundations or first (historically as well as in terms of conversation starting) thoughts which humans function on to communicate. 

Group Presentation: MAPS

The idea behind our project, atleast in my mind, was to not only relay information from the chapter but to give you guys possible representations of the story.  This class has made me realize that as humans we are constantly trying to gain understanding of the world around us, but the process of relating our findings and interpretations of our understanding are extremely difficult given our limited resources.  These tools of communication are speech, art, and literature and as the various material for the our course have demonstrated they often fall short.  To reiterate my favorite passage from Ong, words are always symbolic of a larger picture that they can never fully express.

The chapter of Maps is important in that it highlights several elements of myth telling which attempt to help shorten the gaps between humans as conscious beings bent on answer finding and the world we live in.  It seems strange to me that the main pursuit of knowledge is to essentially make the universe seem smaller.  However, this chapter highlights, in my mind, the notion that our seeming predispotion toward problem solving creates more issues that need further interpretation.  For instance, my section on the wisdom of plants gives explaination for the seasons and some of the various problems that arise in agrarian society.  These mythological theories for existence combine elements of the physical world with elements of religion or that of a vague, alternative consciousness.  Since there is no definite proof in regards to the other side of consciousness (death, god's grand design) various people's have created characters to interpret this alternate reality such as the crow who can transverse the boundaries between worlds.

It seems strange that by mapping the universe people invariably create, and instead of filling in space cultures invariably create more blank space that needs filled in with more stories.  In the oral tradition, with a lack of physical evidence or concrete preservation, the emphasis is not on the literal interpretation of the universe but what one might call the consciousness of the human experience.  Mapping is representative of but not specifically dependant on actuality. 

Hamlet Production

This post is reserved for my experience acting this semester in a group production of Hamlet for my Shakespeare Lit class.

I will discuss line memorization, public speaking, actor to actor repsonse, as well as character developement.  All of this will center around information from this class and how the memory techniques we discussed have impacted this project. 

A quick note: it is interesting that in this class we speak so much about remembering words but not movements.

The most important thing I learned from this production was that memorizing lines is just like constructing a musey-room.  But, instead of having to imagine all the props in your head, you get to build them and put them in your hands or within eye sight.  I found that the stage directions and set for each scene had a huge impact on my ability to remember my lines.  Interestingly, in the absence of props I had to imagine them in order to remember some lines, and in other instances I had to have the previous characters line in order to remember my next line.

While I was impressed with my ability to remember everything in the play, I find it problematic that there existed a rigid structure or sequence that was necessary for my memory to function effectively.  I further endeavor to examine if this is a commonality in memory or if there is a more flexible strategy for memorization.

traumatic events

I am going to come back and fix all these posts up in the next week or so, but I figured it would be a good idea to get some ideas down first.

We were talking in class about how retelling stories that are painful can diminish the power those memories hold over us.  I got hit by a car when I was 15 but it still seems like I get into a funk after everytime I think about it.  Sure, the memory is not as harsh as it used to be, but I couldn't say if that is a product of exposure or simply a result of the increasing distance between now and then.  I got hit while walking by a car going 35-40 mph and I darn near had panic attachs for about 5 years afterward when trying to cross the street.  I have always thought that by having a memory that could elicite such a physical response was a good thing because it lessened the distance between the brains ability to percieve information, mentally project images (memories), and physically respond.  Sort of a classical conditioning inducing higher function and shortened reaction-recall.  Basically, I would like to find that instant where I realized I was going to get hit with actually knowing it or being hit and tune that in.

Words: fall short vs. speak volumes

I have been thinking a lot about the Ong quotes I have found so far, and the one that seems to stick in my mind the best is:

"Spoken words are always modifications of a total situation which is more than verbal."

This quote gets my mind racing.  I start thinking about foreign languages and how there are some aspects of culture that can't transcend language.  I start thinking about mentally picturing directions as people give them to me.  But, I also think about the comparison of spoken language and written language visualization. 

Last Friday we were discussing how kids acquire langauge skills (well... a little bit, I was thinking about and visualizing my childhood more than anything).  When I was 3 I had everyone in my family convinced I could read for about a day or so.  It was because of one book by a Dr. Seuss called Hop on Pop.  I had had people read it to me so often that I had memorized every word page by page, and since the drawings were depicting the words I had easy cues for recollection.  It took a while but I eventually messed up and was found out.  I find it funny in retrospect that everyone seemed so disappointed that I hadn't actually learned how to read when they could have been equally as impressed that I could memorize all that material.

I still remember a Shel Silverstein poem I had to memorize in 3rd grade too:

"My mother said if just once more
she'd hear me slam that old screen-door,
She'd tear out her hair she'd dive in the stove,
I shut the door and in she dove."

line for line

Ong:

"When, however, (singers') purported verbatim renditions are recorded and compared, they turn out to be never the same, though the songs are recognizable versions of the same story. 'Word for word and line for line', as Lord interprets, is simply an emphatic way of saying 'like'. 'Line' is obviously a text-based concept, and even the concept of a 'word' as a discrete entity apart from a flow of speech seems somewhat text-based" (60).

As someone who sings often, I find it incredible how much I can remember but equally important to realize how each performance changes.  The lines are never exactly the same, and the best I can do is to try to interpret for an audience the emotion or message of a song.  This message, however, seems to change from performance to performance too depending on what I am feeling.  It becomes a sort of reminiscient interpretation of conrete lines mixed with how I feel that day and therefore how those lines make me feel at the moment I sing them.  For instance, if I am upset because I just lost my job I might deliver some lines more agressively or hang some notes longer than usual.  I have always considered music as therapy.  It allows me the unique oppurtunity to let an audience know how I feel without saying any actual words that I would usually use.  Like, instead of saying I feel upset about a particular relationship issue I am having, I would say I am having said problem, but I might play some passionate songs about women who screwed over the protagonist of the song.

Derrida

Ong quote:

"Jacques Derrida has made the point that 'there is no linguistic sign before writing'. But neither is there linguistic 'sign' after writing if the oral reference of the written text is adverted to. Though it releases unheard-of potentials of the word, a textual, visual representation of a word is not a real word, but a 'secondary modeling system'. Thought is nested in speech, not in texts, all of which have their meanings through reference of the visible symbol to the world of sound. What the reader is seeing on this page are not real words but coded symbols whereby a properly informed human being can evoke in his or her consciousness real words, in actual or imagined sound. It is impossible for script to be more than marks on a surface unless it is used by a conscious human being as a cue to sounded words, real or imagined, directly or indirectly" (74-5).

context-free language

Ong quote:

"Writing establishes what has been called 'context-free' langauge or 'autonomous' discourse, discourse which cannot be directly questioned or contested as oral speech can be because written discourse has been detatched from its author" (77).

I find it interguing that the written word, as is Ong's contention, is absent of contestability.  A question to discusses may be why is the written uncontestable? 

I would argue that written text is completely contestable in that discourse can be directed to specific audience.  However, i do believe that written communication often falls short because it doesn't carry inflection.  It is easier to make judgements reliability and accuracy of information if it is communicated vocally or visually through action, but I think Ong descibes perfectly why directions for assembling new products are often found to be frustrating or insufficient.

Context of the word and of the world

The difference between literature and speech is perhaps best described in literature by the inability to add tone to the written word.  Sarcasm, for instance, is not detectable in the written word.  Anyone who has ever gotten in trouble with a girlfriend because of something they texted as a joke knows what I am talking about.  For all the words that have been recorded, I find it interesting that it is only when they are written that there is necessity to define them.  If I am talking with someone and I don't know a word I can rely on the context to gain meaning. Ong states:

"Spoken words are always modifications of a total situation which is more than verbal. They never occur alone, in a context simply of words" (100).

"In a text even the words that are there lack their full phonetic qualities. In oral speech, a word must have one or another intonation or tone of voice - lively, excited, quiet, incensed, resigned, or whatever. It is impossible to speak a word orally without any intonation... Literate tradition, adopted and adapted by critcs, can also supply some extratextual clues for intonations, but not complete ones" (100).

Instead of passing on language directly from one person to another, we now rely on written records of words to tell us the meanings of those words.  The language is becoming fixed and governed.  This system limits the capacities of words.  It seems to me that defining a word takes some of the life out of it and that contextual definitions allow for a word's possible scope of usage to expand.  The word "cool", for instance, has changed significantly within the last few decades to reflect core values of our society. Slang, for sure, but significant. (I might get ripped on for a fragmented sentence like that in my writting but not when I say it.  Probably because of all the implied nouns and verbs.) Ong states:


What I like about this course is that we are learning how to detatch the meaning of words through visual imagery.  I was just standing outside trying to conceptualize what it would be like to live in the world if I lacked the capacity to rationalize everything through language.  How does a dog classify and remember things in the world around them? They don't have words for "tree" or "mailbox", but they can recognize and differentiate between the two.  If I walk somewhere I am not constanly thinking about what I see, yet almost everything my eyes see can rationalized whether I choose to consciously recognize it or not.

There have been plenty of times where someone will ask where something is like a buisiness or an item in a store and I can recall where it is without ever having tried to remember its location.  So, I guess I might ask about what this all means in terms of the relationship between cognitive function, memory, experience, interpretation, spacial conceptualization, and reality.

Memorable Memories

       In class today, I started considering how these musey-rooms are actually supposed to operate.  Before class I was reading Ong and tried to think of what really qualified the differentiation between literature and orality.  I say qualified at not quantified because as the quantification is the record itself.  The record becomes not just a series of scratches or symbols, but it is an interpretable message not requisite of a human being to induce relatability.  However, literature seems to fall short as a genuine form of communication for it lack in portraying the human condition.  There is no sarcasm in text messaging.  And, equally a frustrating, similar texts cannot possible encapsilate the subtle nuance of inflection.  What literate culture does provide is a record, for however accurate, of events, theories, names, dates and other impersonal data.  Since the written word is never present situation but rather relative past, the oral tradition lies at the core of the human experience.  Therefore, good literature today might be generally classified as material that evokes an emotional response in the reader.

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.

Memory

What exactly is a memory?  I find it interesting that what we are talking about in class is the process of how to remember and specifically what a memory is.  I guess this might lead discussion toward a more philosophical and rhetorical end, but I still find the subject note-worthy. 

Is a memory simple a stored image of items and events one has experienced in the past? An echo of what has happened to the individual retained in the inner space of conscious thought?  That works I suppose, but what about the excercises we are working with in this class?

Here, we are being asked to remember lists of words and not actual events or entities.  In this case, I think Ferdinand de Saussure comes in handy to explain my issue.  Saussure would argue that a word (a symbol) in print is not and can never be the same as the thing it represents.  The word 'apple' for instance does not indicate a specific apple, but as Professor Agruss has explained, "Represents the essence of appleness."  What happens is that the word 'apple' causes a reaction in the mind where all the images stored in the brain which are associated with the printed word are recalled so the thinker can mentally project an image of 'appleness'.

With this process, one can thereby train their mind to associatively recall other visual images when presented with words/symbols. For instance, if someone said 'golf club' the visualization of a pitching-wedge might pop in your head, or maybe a broken golf club from a frustrating round, or perhaps well maicured grass surrounding a stately building.  For me I see an image of my grandfather right-off because he taught me how to play the game.  Still, having not read 'Moonwalking' yet, I get the idea that what we are looking at when we learn memory stragegy is simply the recategorization of the symbols for items and the associated mental projections they incite.