Final Product

                                                                      ©Patient Parker 
 
I absolutely enjoyed listening to and watching all the musyrooms act out in the reality of the physical world. I was so impressed by how intricately each system appeared, yet how simple the formulas were in that individuals mind. Every presentation deserved so much more time than the 10 minute slot allotted, but isn't that what invokes the mystery? We each entertained the class with a sneak peak into the locked-safe that has become of our minds. Instead of repeating someones name over and over with the hopes of being able to recall it hours later, I simply create a bazaar image and place it it one of the many nooks and crannies of my musyroom. As per requested by our fearless leader, here is the extended (yet not entire) trailer for my mussyroom:

The top floor as I mentioned included our TV room (dinosaurs representing the lack of technology), Brothers room (Car:symbolizing a interest), bathroom (beach themed) and my room (complete with paint samples and old sport memorabilia). My room also has distinct belongings that readily aid my memory system: a large mirror my father brought home from work that got bedazzled and leaned up against the wall adjacent from my bed, a desk that is warped at the bottom from a basement flood in a previous home, a sweet-pea poster from the Bozeman festival the year I was born, and a built in set of drawers next to my closet door. My closet itself is fairly large and always smells faintly of stinky shoes. My mother keeps most of her footwear in my closet (seeing as my parents room doesn't have storage space) and I can still smell the stench the space encapsulates. The socks hanging next to the TV room represent my little cousin who always stays in that room when she visits, as well as a "comfy" clothing item symbolizing the harmony of the room. 

The main floor includes the kitchen, dinning room (table complete with Thanksgiving dinner), living room (buses: represent vehicles of my past present and future and the people that have entered into my life and made an impact), parents room (glue represents the adhesion of our family unit, the necklaces representing my mothers jewelry collection that I often admired growing up), and the green room/computer room. The bathroom between my parents room and the green room have scissors associated with it because we entirely re-modeled the bathroom leaving nothing in the same place or condition. What used to be a carpeted brown disaster is now a bright, tiled walk in shower :)

In the basement there is a bathroom that I myself re-modeled and decorated, our pantry, a spare bedroom, walk in closet, game room and laundry room. The recorder in the spare bedroom represents my flute and all the nights I spent memorizing sheet music. The stapler and arts and crafts symbolizes my mothers art area where she works on projects and paintings. The fishing hook hanging from the closet where all our outdoor gear is stored represents a fishing vest my grandfather bought for me.

As demonstrated in class, when I am given information to memorize I simply link the object, event or person with a memory and a space in my mussy room and it stays with me---forever.

The End.


I just want to use this last blog entry to thank you for a fantastic semester. The material I will take from this class is practical and you caused my brain mental pushups everyday. I have enjoyed the class, my classmates and you, our fearless leader. Have a good summer.

Over and Out,
Tia of the Crawling Ants

Script for Tradition Presentation

Now when the roasts were cut, the
winebowls full,
A herad led the minstrel down the room
Amid the deference of the corwd, and
paused
to seat him neear a pillar in the center
]whereupon that resourceful man,
Odysseus,
Carved out a quarter from his chine of
pork,
Crisp with fat, and called the blind mans
guide:
Herald! Here, take this to Demodokos:
Let him feast and be merry, with my
compliments.
All men owe honor to the poets—honor
And awe, for they are dearest to the Muse
Who puts upon their lips the ways of life
Gentle Demodokos took the proffered gift
And inwardly rejoiced. When all were
served,
Every man’s hand went out upon the
banquet,
Repelling hunger and thirst, until at length
Odyssus spoke again to the blind minstrel:
Demodokos, accept my utmost praise.
The Muse, daughter of Zues in radiance,
Or else Appollo gave you skill to shape
With such great style your songs of the
Akhaians—
Their hard lot, how they fought and
suffered war.
You shared it, one would say, or heard it
all.
Now shift your theme, and sing that
wooden horse
Epeios built, insppird by Athena—
The ambuscade Odysseus filled with
frighters
And sent to take the inner town of Troy.
Sing only this for me, sing me this well,
And I shall say at once before the world
The grace of heaven has given us a song.
The minstrel stirred, murmuring to the
god, and soon
Clear words and notes came one by one, a
vision
Of the Akhains in their graceful ships
Drawing away from shore: the torches
flung
And shelters flaring: Argive soldiers
crouched
In the close dark around Odysseus: and
The horse, tall on the assembly ground of
Troy.
For when the Trojans pulled it in,
themselves,
Up to the citadel, they sat nearby
With long-drawn-out and hapless
argument—
Favoring, in the end, one course of three:
Either to stave the vault with brazen axs,
Or haul it to a cliff and pitch it down,
Or haul it to a cliff and pitch it down,
Or else to save it for the gods, a votive
glory—
The plan that could not but prevail.
For Troy must perish, as ordained, that day
She harbored the great horse of timber;
hidden
The flowr of Akhaia lay, and bore
Slaugter and death upon the men of Troy.
He sang, then, of the town sacked by
Akhaians
Pouring down from the horse’s hollow
cave,
Thi sway and that raping the steep city,
And how Odysseus came like Ares to
The door of Deiphobos, with MENELAOS,
AND BRAVED THE DESPERATE FIGHT
THERE—
CONQUERING ONCE MORE BY Athena’s
power.
The splendid minstrel sang it.
On the lost field where he has gone down
fighting
The day of wrath that came upon his
children.
At sight of the man panting and dying
there,
She slips down to enfold him, crying out;
Then feels the spears, prodding her back
and shoulders
And goes bound into slaverty and grief.
And odysseus
Let the bright molten tears run down his
cheeks,
Weeping the way a wife mourns for her
lord

Musey Room

It was not until returning home after moving away for college that I realized the memories you leave behind remain stagnant in time, waiting to be revisited. This past weekend I was home for Easter and I couldn't help reminiscing on all the good (and bad) times I had had growing up. As I lay in bed that night, staring through the dark at my old room, I was overwhelmed with all of the familiar feelings, smells and sounds that rushed over me. On the wall across from my bed still remained the quote I painted on my wall during my sophomore year (I won't recite it here); on the ceiling and left adjacent wall the painted circles (all sizes and colors) remained untouched; against my bed, on the dark purple wall, hung my High School sport posters, metals and honors, as if I never left. I must have lay in my bed for hours recounting the personality of my room, trying to stow away the smallest of details to later extract from memory. I thought of all the mornings I had flown out of bed at the last second, wolfed down breakfast and rushed to school. I thought of all the sleepovers and laughter my room had witnessed. It was at some point in the early morning I realized how much I missed those times, those memories. I wouldn't want to go back and relive the memories, but just to travel back in time and watch those moments that change your life play out before your eyes, wouldn’t that be something. But of course, isn't that what memory palaces are for; a vehicle to take you back in time as if you were a bug on the wall, a witness to your future?

Ahhh I digress… here is the point:  

My mother and I pulled out an old scrap book and spent an entire night blubbering over the cute baby pictures, the crazy hair styles and the eccentric outfits. One picture in particular brought back the strangest rush of emotions; I was wearing a shirt that had a clip art polar bear above the word "CHILL." Immediately I could see a specific setting and I could feel .... I can't put my finger on it. The setting was not one I could describe but even as I write this I can see it clear as day. Strange.

 OF COURSE. It hit me. I knew what I wanted to present as my musey room....

I have decided to build a model of a house, or a combination of houses that will contain photographs of memories that evoke strong emotional responses. A musey room presentation presents a difficult challenge in the sense that no one can quite put a finger on their own imagination, their own memory palace. Presenting a musey room to the class is like trying to contain the vastness of the universe. Describing your life in five words or less would perhaps prove to be less challenging than building a physical representation of what our minds invent. But, through the power of images, photographs and memories, I will attempt to present a physical musy room based on my experiences. Let the creativity begin.

Quiz Review.

Quiz Questions.

1. How should we read and write?
Truthfully 

2.Writing transcends from the personal to the _______?
Trans-personal

3.Kane defines myth as:
The music made when the earth itself sings.  


4. With the Theatre, the art of memory has returned to its classical position as a part of __________?
Rhetoric (used by Cicero)


5. What are the differences in style between the interview in Camillo's Theatre and Bruno's dialogue?
Camillo is the polished Venetian orator presenting a memory system that is ordered and neoclassical in form. Bruno is an ex-friar, infinitely wild, passionate and unrestrained. 

6. What was Bruno's philosophy?
The Hermetic Philosophy: man is the great miracle, men is divine.

Unforgettable Memories

For some reason, my most memorable memories are those in which I am getting in trouble. Perhaps the moments I remember most vividly are those in which I was having the most fun J  Seeing as I now live in the very neighborhood I grew up in a mere 15-18 years ago (family graduate housing), I find myself having waves of deja vu quite frequently. I remember these moments with such detail that I can recall the tone changes in my mother’s exhausted voice as she reprehended me on this particular occasion. She had found me trying to start my own ant farm under the sheets of the bottom level of my bunk bed. I was in the living room, unaware of my mother’s whereabouts when I heard her shriek—followed by a loud and irritated “TIIIIIIIIAAA!” She rounded the corner and marched up the hallway entering into the living room. “Follow me young lady,” she managed to spit out as she whirled around, dragging me with her.

We entered my room, which at the time seemed a large enough playground (now I use this room as my office and it does not have nearly the footage I seem to remember). There was a big-bird toy on the ground that, when turned around, could house a book on tape if you removed the flap covering his rear end. Next to my bed stood a white painted desk my father had built for me and next to that my toy chest that had my birthday and name engraved into the wood (a birthday present from my grandfather).

My mother pulled down the sheets to my ruffled bed to expose my newest project: project ant farm. Intermixed with the dried dirt, worm and dandelion there were several ants scattering across my yellow sunflower printed sheets.

The funny thing about this memory is not what I remember, but rather what I don’t. For the life of me I cannot think of how my mother punished me or who had to clean up the mess, but I do remember the details leading up to the farm unveiling. Funny how our brain can selectively recall photos, videos, and short clips from the long documentary stored up there. How does it choose?

Travelers

Chinua Achebe’s profound revulsion to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness gave birth to his short critique titled An Image of Africa; in which Achebe examines the hidden breakdown acclaimed author(s), including Conrad, mistake as prestige works of literature despite the underlying tones of apparent racism. In his short critique Achebe is quoted saying: 

Indeed, travelers can be blind. 

This got me wondering, are we (as travelers of our own memories) blind to the capacity and complexity of our experiences? When we fail to think memorable thoughts are we subjecting our memories to blind coherence? As abstract memory champions of our own musyrooms we must strive to take off the blindfold that passively dismiss knowledge and reclaim our eyeglasses. Maintaining our vision, our memorable thoughts, will acknowledge the first action of reclamation--In every sense returning to an original state of nature: the complete retention of memory.    

Bruno's Mnemonic Wheel

In the first fixed ring the practitioner will assign a mythological or heroic figure to each letter. Bruno provides some examples : A Lycaon; B Deucalion; C Apollo; D Argos ... The letters of the second ring correspond to an action or a scene associated with each figure. The examples provided are: AA Lycaon at a banquet; BB Deucalion and pebbles; CC Apollo and Python; DD Argos and some cattle.Thus rotating the first inner ring operates permutations between the figures and their action. Further permutation occurs when the third wheel is set in motion. It contains attributes or enseignes which can be easily passed from one figure to another. Bruno provides only four examples and leaves the rest to the imagination of his reader. These are : AAA, Lycaon at a banquet with a chain; BBB, Deucalion and pebbles with a headband; CCC, Apollo and Python with a baldric; DDD, Argos and some cattle with a hood. This way the systems makes it possible to create combinations of letters representing words, acronyms or syllables to be remembered by means of animated images mixing the attributes and accustomed actions of familiar mythological figures.

 

BAA: B Deucalion A at a banquet A with a chain
MAD: M Perseus A at a banquet D with a hood
CAD: C Apollo A at a banquet D with a hood
COD: C Apollo O and Proserpina D with a hood  

How did the system work? By magic of course, by being based on the central power station of the … images of the stars, closer to reality than the images of things of the sublunar world, transmitter of the astral forces, the `shadows’ intermediary between the ideal world above the stars and the objects and events in the lower world.’ (The Art of Memory, p. 223)

This kind of memory palace reminds me of the mystery stories I used to read as a young child, the stories in which you could choose to read alternative endings. Memory systems as complex as Bruno's gives the author or memory constructor power over mere chance. I can construct my own Musyroom but after I present the construction to the class does it loose a sense of liberty?

Swerve

I recently picked my Uncle up from the airport. On the ride back to Bozeman he began asking me about my classes, what was interesting, what I was learning ext.. I began to tell him about Joshua Foer and Frances Yates nonfiction book The Art of Memory. My Uncle was fascinated so I continued to tell him about the method of loci, also called the memory palace. I explained how the mnemonic device introduced in ancient Roman rhetorical treatises that rely on memorized spatial relationships to establish order and recollect memorial content. My Uncle shared with me a book he recently read titled THE SWERVE: HOW THE WORLD BECAME MODERN by Stephen Greenblatt.

Here is the Google book description: In this book the author transports readers to the dawn of the Renaissance and chronicles the life of an intrepid book lover who rescued the Roman philosophical text On the Nature of Things from certain oblivion. In this work he has crafted both a work of history and a story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it. Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius, a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions. The copying and translation of this ancient book, the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age, fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.

This book brings in the same themes such as Botticelli and Giordano Bruno- the translation of the ancient book in Swerve reminds me of the translation of a tradition we have focused soly on: the translation of the oral tradition into written tradition. In Chapter XIV, The Art of Memory and Cruno's Italian Dialogues, Yates defines Bruno's idea of the art of memory as inseparable from thought and religion. He continues by saying "the magical view of nature is the philosphy which makes possible the magical power of the imagination to make contact with it, and the art of memory as transormed by Bruno was the instrument for making this contact through the imagination (308)."

This exert from Yates caused me to reflect on the “magical” sense of our musyrooms. The more “magical” our imaginations become the more advanced and prestige our memories become. Memories as an object reflect a time or place stagnant in space. We can manipulate our mind to construct memories that defy nature or the scientific sense of gravity and somehow we can retain this “memory,” this object. Language too can be seen as an object in the sense that when spoken, can be deemed as controversial, communicative and many times outright wrong. Not unlike Bruno’s ideas on heliocentricity, his expedition through the streets and waterways of London often seen in the same light. Was his journey just a memory system in which Bruno remembers vivid imagry as means of a loci.  



Yates Chapter 6

“When discussing the rule that memory loci are to be formed in quiet places he says that the best type of building to use is an unfrequented church. He describes how he goes round the church he has chosen three or four times, committing the places in it to memory. He chooses his first place near the door; the next, five or six feet further in; and so on. As a young man he started with one hundred thousand memorized places, but he has added many more since then. “

Pg. 134 (Yates)

As I began reading, I couldn't help but acknowledge the truth behind solitary study tactics. I sometimes kid myself and try to multi task, whether that be television or radio, yet in the end I have to turn off all distractions in order to solely focus on the task at hand. Even as I was studying for the 51 memorized "things" with music playing softly from my computer, I soon found myself distracted and unable to find memorable loci with the dull roar of Matt and Kim in the background.

However, I wasn’t to focus on the latter half of the Yates' quote. As a young man Peter of Ravenna had memorized how many places? ONE HUNDERED THOUSAND?! How realistic is this?

Yates goes on to say:

“[Peter] can repeat from memory the whole of the canon law, text and gloss (he was a jurist trained at Padua); two hundred speeches or sayings of Cicero; three hundred sayings of the philosophers; twenty thousand legal points.”

I am so impressed. I am struggling with my 500 page LSAT study book/guide and here Mr. Peter of Ravenna is recreating architectural brilliance through mnemonic loci. Last summer I traveled to Europe and made my rounds to several historical landmarks. If you asked me to recall these places (sistine chapel, colosseum ext.) in detail-- I wouldn't be able to without the help of snapped photographs.

However, I was just telling Megan Mother of the Muses, (I think) my memory is improving! I find it takes less time for me to assign loci to events, names or school material. Pretty cool stuff. . .

Multiple Choice Question

Expertise is vast amounts of knowledge, pattern-based retrieval, and planning mechanisms acquired over many years of experience in the associated domain.Joshua Foer identifies this term as a memorization technique key to remembering and learning better: 
A. Association
B. Linking 
C. Chunking  
D. Memory Expansionism

52 things.

My memory theater consists of the Resident Halls on campus (Hapner, Hannon, Roskie, South, North, Freshman Apartments, and Langford) more specifically outlining my path between each hall. I have been an RA for two years and, unfortunately, these buildings are ingrained into my memory. I have split up my 52 (I memorized one extra as if to atone for presumed error) words into groups, each inhabiting a resident hall or my journey to and from. I use somewhat obscure areas of these buildings to remember the 52 words, sometimes using only the entrance of the buildings in my memory theater. The different word groups are assigned colors that signify a characteristic specific to the hall. Hapner is Pink (all female), Hannon is Orange (the paneling used in the hallway), Roskie is Yellow (Bob Marley color), South is Green (lobby wall color), North is Blue (clean), Freshman Apartments are Red (brick buildings), and Langford is Purple.  I choose to designate color-groups because I rely inherently on visualization while recalling information.  

52 commonly used words on the LSAT:

As I advance into Hapner I become aggravated (aggregate) because of all the ambiguous posters. There are an ample amount of them hanging on the windows next to the front desk and each in the shape of an apple. This strikes me as an anomaly because no one hangs posters on windows! The posters are dark green and have a picture of T-Rex taking up 3/4^th of the frame with a caption below reading “antecedent.” I am so horrified by this I assert (assertion) my opinion to the desk clerk and she replies in a calm voice, “you have been betrayed (betray).”

Furious I storm out of Hapner and walk over to Hannon.

I imagine the outdoor entry into Hannon paved by a half-circle shaped vent (circumvent). While walking across I trip and fall. Laying face down in the entry, I open my eyes to see the grey lines between the rust-colored tiles and concentrate on the small grains of sand that cohere (coherent) together to form the cement. To my surprise the grains of sand start to speak to me and inform me they used to live on the beach but they got in trouble for telling the truth which consequently (consequent) led to their punishment consisting (consistent) of their transformation into concrete. Their punishment was contingent (contingency) on the need for concrete and the correlation between apple-cores acting as counter examples for the Egyptians. The correlation presented seemed very cryptic, but I believed the grains of sand because everyone knows grains of sand don’t lie.

I pick myself up from the floor, dust of my knees and continue on my way to Roskie.

As I approach Roskie I derive the building looks eccentric compared to Hapner and Hannon. I walk into the building and get in the elevator. Above the panel of floor-buttons, some freshman has kindly taken the time to endorse his name followed by a list entailing (entail) his fine attributes. I assumed this young gentleman had written a fake name or a name of his friend, equivocating (equivocate) his own actions. As the elevator doors were closing a young girl slid through the metal doors. Just as she was reaching in front of me to push her floor button she pulled back her hand to cover a sneeze (to eschew her germs all over me).  But rather than wipe her hand on her own pant leg she reached over and wiped her hand all over my shirt. Astounded I thought to myself, “this girl has many flaws (flaw); -- in the foreseeable future I am sure to become sick.”

Disgusted I exited the elevator and the building and made my way over to South.

As I entered the back doors to South I thought to myself, “surely I am guaranteed (guarantee) to have a better experience in South.” Many residents think south is dirty however this is merely a generalization of the building—hearsay, if you will. As an impetus to rid South of its inconsistent reputation, the resident director changed the nickname “dirty south” into “sexy south.”  Even though the residents now call their hall “sexy South”, the culture indigenous to South still remains somewhat “dirty” which is ironic (irony). Because I am interested in jurisprudence (I remember it as a jury dressed like prunes) I understand the liability that comes from residents residing in a “dirty” living environment.

Therefore, I left the building wanting nothing to do with the unsanitary living conditions.

Instead of walking outdoors, I went through Miller Dining Hall to get to North (the words in the next group start with M, N, O).  When I walk into North I see a man in a dress (manifest) playing the piano. The song he is playing doesn’t sound mundane nor special but I feel obliged (oblige) to clap for him.

I suddenly remember I have to pee (all the words from the next group start with the letter “p”) and I hate using public restrooms so I rush out the back doors of North and jog home (to the Freshman Apartments).

As I jog home I run past a pair of Dotson (paradox) dogs floating levitating above the lawn! What a phenomenon! I suddenly fear the placebo my doctor prescribed is actually filled with a hallucinogen deposit (posit). I reach into my pocket and dispose (predispose) all of my pills onto the ground. I then validate the conclusion “all pills are bad” using true premises (premise).  I am nearly to my apartment when I see my principle (principal) from high school sitting on the entry to the veranda. He has a prominent hair line and his belly is disproportionate (proportion) to his lack of height. He is always telling bad jokes and is considered to be an expert at it (pundit).

Wanting to avoid my old principle I cut between two apartment complexes’ and jog over to Langford.

When I reach Langford I overhear two men discussing the “qualifications” (qualify) of the perfect woman. The first man insists a woman must be smart while the second man rebuttals the first, stating “smart women” refute men’s opinions and he would rather have an unintelligent woman who would subsequently agree with his own unwarranted opinions.

As I finish writing I realize I did not use characters as much as I used the words in a story. This will be considerably more difficult to remember. Ugh, I am not very good at mastering Joshua Foer’s version of a memory theater. I had the intention of creating characters, but as I wrote I quickly diverged from his suggestions. Honestly, I know I started studying for this oral exam later than I should have, which in hindsight left less time for me to properly construct a memory theater. I guess we will find out on Friday how well I was able to retain my 52 words. 

Stupid Questions

Last weekend while skiing Big Sky I shared a chair with a very successful man from California. He used to be an economist for Fortune 500 companies but has since retired and now spends his time writing research novels. He has written over five novels (only publishing one) while vacationing in various tropical islands. He happened to be in Big Sky Montana, riding the same lift as me due to a pact he made with his two friends (one a lawyer the other an Architect) to travel around the world riding different ski resorts each year (I should add this man was 75).We had a fascinating conversation while riding the lift up to the bowl, but one piece of advice he gave me continues to reside in my mind. When I asked him what led to his overall success he turned to me and very seriously said, “I asked the stupid questions. The stupid only get stupider. You have to ask the stupid questions.” I nodded like this was common knowledge, but later as I skied down the snow filled landscape taking in the sun I wondered to myself how much knowledge I had let pass me by simply because I had been afraid to ask the stupid question.
Here we are reading written accounts from "self-declared question askers'," people whom I regard as exceedingly intelligent individuals. What if Joshua Foer never explored the Memory Competitions or picked Ed's brain? Foer's novel Moonwalking with Einstein acts as testimonial to his success and did he ask stupid questions? YOU BET. What if he would have just accepted his role as journalist and settled with the "OK Plateau?" Should he have reached that place we all get to where we just stop getting better at something he never would have found himself smack dab in the middle of a US Memory Championship. The more I learn about memory the more I realize you have to push yourself past where you are comfortable, you have to watch yourself fail and learn from the "stupid questions." That's how Joshua Foer improved his memory and how I will too (http://joshuafoer.com/moonwalking-with-einstein/faq/).

Other contemporary devices developed to improve a system or network of systems never would have came into being if an individual somewhere, sometime didn't ask the question why; like why an exclusive social network for college students didn't exist (Mark Zuckerberg), or why people forget where their car keys are (Joshua Foer), or why apples fall from a tree (Sir Isaac Newton), or why litteracy had to be hand written rather than mass produced (Johannes Gutenberg), you get my point. Stupid questions have led to innovation and products/services that change the way our world communicates. Facebook, for example has thrown away tools marketing companies used 5 years ago and replaced school texbooks with new age advertising possibilities. The universal expansion of the internet has led to a new generation of musy rooms. Before wide-spread use of the internet mental images were being recalled from photographs or memories only accesable to   the one trying to remember (the individual who was part of the memory). Now, a panda sneezes thousands of miles away and I can see for myself the funny noise it makes simply by logging onto YOUTUBE. My memory is now full of events, pictures and videos that I didn't experiance first hand- but rather discovered on the internet. A new "fad" within the viral-social-shairing-network is a new .com phonomonon known as "pinterest."


Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

YATES: The art of memory was a creator of imagery which must surely have flowed out into creative works of art and literature (91).

This is the perfect example to describe our generations "sharing of information." Now, as if status updates and comments were too much written literacy (I cringe as I compare status updates to written literacy), Pinterest introduces a social network consisting primarily of images.




I could make two lists right now. One consisting of everything I learned in my logic class last week and one listing all the fun DIY craft idea's I "pinned" to my pinterest account. I can assure you with confidence the pinterest column would almost triple my logic class. Why? As Ong wrote on page 82, "Technologies are artificial but artificiality is natural to human beings." I have grown up in a world surrounded by images and my memory reacts to a mental image I can pull out of my musy room rather than a formula my professor wrote on the board (surrounded by other formulas). Now if I turned a formula into a dancing Alligator eating in Orlando (A-->E--->I--->O) I will be more likely to recall the rules of testing for Validity. While pinterest is an easy memory recollection, I must push myself to recall Logic lectures. 

My Logic Professor often assists the class with handouts that require "mental push-ups." Mental Push-ups, as she says, will strengthen the brain and retain the necessary information. She might as well be reading straight out of Yates Chapter Four when he discusses the formation of imagery and the medieval memory saying, "the artificial memory begins to appear as a lay devotional discipline, fostered and recommended by the friars (91)." Discipline. Endurance. Strengthen. I might as well be headed into the mental gym every time I dive deeper into the realm of mental exhaustion Yates and Ong demand. 

IT WORKS!

This Friday I had a test on Ovid, Book 1-10 for my Mythologies class. Looking for an opportunity to expand my Memory Palace to include over 30 new Greek Gods and Godesses, I accepted the challenge. I started by creating a visual landscape using notecards. I am a very visual learner and creating location using ordered structure stuck in my mind. Can memory palaces look like this?----------->

I was joined by Alex Miller and Ethan Davis and together we created  bazzar stories and references to comit to memory the spelling and stories of Ovid's characters.

My memory now contains:

Apollo                   
Daphne
Semele
Jove
Juno
Bacchus
Actaeon
Echo
Narcissus
Tiresias
Phaehon
Pyramus
Thisbe
Perseus
Atlas
Philomela
Procne
Tereus
Itys
Cyane
Ceres
Proserpina
Biblis
Caunus
Scylla
Minos
Theseus
The Minotaur
Daedalus
Icarus
Medea
Jason
Orpheus
Eurudice
Myrrna
Cinyras
Adonis
Venus

I have been thinking alot about this "transformation" I must undergo to change the way I learn and memorize information. This whole process was so fufilling. I took the test earlier today and successfully answered every question correctly.

51 Things

With over 306,554 iPhone apps available I guess I should have been less surprised to find the perfect App that would determine the 51 “things” I chose to memorize. I have started studying for the LSAT (blah) and realized the memory presentation could act as duel credit. After some research I found experts suggest the same vocabulary is regurgitated every year, therefore I have chosen to memorize 26 of the most frequently used LSAT vocabulary words (and their definitions- it will add up to 52). As I began to search for a memory bank that would provide me with such a list I stumbled upon the “LSAT Vocabulary” App that contains more than 115 of the most common LSAT Vocabulary words. The App quizzes the user under time constrains and reports on frequently missed words. I was able to download the app onto my phone for a small fee and am on my way to LSAT Vocabulary comprehension.

 Aggregate

2.       Altruistic

3.       Ample

4.       Assumption

5.       Compel

6.       Confirming

7.       Constitute

8.       Contingency

9.       Correlation

10.   Counterexample

11.   Equivocate

12.   Eschew

13.   Impediment

14.   Impertubable

15.   Indigenous

16.   Nor

17.   Placebo

18.   Posit

19.   Predispose

20.   Principle

21.   Pundit

22.   Qualify

23.   Rebuttle

24.   Refute

25.   Unequivocal

26.   Viable

This is a running list I have compiled as I “play” with the App. The list is subject to change, but for now I like what I have.

Should I desire --I may expand my list to encompass a extended range of vocabulary words.

Spencer the Soft Spoken Shaker knocked my socks off...

Spencer the Soft Spoken Shaker's blog (say that ten times fast) jumped out at me.

YOUKNOWWHATI'MSAYING

At first I couldn't decide if he had a formatting error or if he was trying to train my brain to decode. After re-reading the first sentence a few times I began to enjoy interpreting his encryption. Reading his blog gave me a sense of  liberty as I begun to unriddle and translate his words into my own. I felt as if I had the freedom to give his ideas my own meaning. The first paragraph from Spencer the Soft Spoken Shaker's blog made more of an impact on my memory than the whole first chapter from the Walter Ong reading; almost as if the act of working hard to translate Spencer's message reaped greater rewards. Rather than passively allowing my eyes to track word after word, sentence after sentence, I had to mentally dissect every sentence to find the individual fragments and then from there find the individual words. This proved to be rewarding. 

The second paragraph brought greater deception. It was not until the second sentence I noticed the clear mixed up word structure. My brain is trained to read and interpret at optimum speeds such that I was able to comprehend words that were not spelled correctly and moreover words that were mirrored. My auto-correct button seems to work just fine as I am sure many of yours do as well. The fact that I was able to read: 

ATFER RADENIG CAPTEHR SVEEN ONE OF MY BDUDEIS SOWEHD ME AOHETNR GCIIMMK WIHCH OUR BARNIS TNED TO SLEF CROCRET. 

without catching the pattern until the word "gimmick," fascinates me. I have seen other tests like this and it always amazes me the work my brain does without me even knowing.