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.