The Anchorage Emporium: A Blueprint of the Memory Theatre

I don't know exactly in which direction to go, but I have a starting point in my front yard so here's where we begin to storyboard plot turns and foot prints.

The List

-2 items from MWE (cottage cheese, pickled garlic)

-2 muses (Terpsichore and Melpomene)

-4 epithets (MMM, AKP, TT, PP)

-12 tribes of Jacob (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Issachor, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph, Benjamin)

-Ong's 9 attributes of oral traditions (additive not subordinate, aggregative not analytic, empathetic, homeostatic, situated, agonistic, participatory, redundant, copious, conservative, conceptualized, with relativity to real world situations)

-Brother's epithets (Cookie and Grump)

---13 New Testament books after the Gospels (Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon)

-4 virtues (Prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance)

-5 challenging vocabulary words, putting a face to an abstract idea (TBD: possibilities--assiduous, magnanimity & pusillanimity, etc.)

-Rough Running Total: 51 (Cap: 75)

Maybe some, but not all

-15/17 items from MWE (salmon, 6 white wines, 3 pairs socks, 3 hula hoops, snorkel, elk sausage, dry ice machine, email, Sophia, Paul Newman film, megaphone, director's chair, harness, rope, barometer)

-Classes' epithets (TBD)

*extra credit? - forbidden words and phrases not allowed

(fail, epic, just, like, you know, awesome, cool, kind of, what's up, whatever)

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Speech

The State of the Union address has just concluded and it "will always be strong." Obama didn't make this decision on the spot. It's taken many meticulous years for him and his cabinet to feel so confident for a bright future, but it's like we as US citizens knew it was coming all along. You can't take politics seriously anymore because of the headline nature of the media unless you actually watch and listen, attend and witness, tune in and experience the entirety of what's being said by the Man of our country because, I'll tell ya, it's a lot. 'Change' was so four years ago, but it's all changing now and it has nothing to do with this years impending election. Now, enough with politics!

What I'm more interested in here is the presidents' method of memorizing and delivering an hour long speech. I could've told you the state of our union is strong, but I couldn't have explained it quite as clearly in-depth or as nearly informative as Mr. President. For lengthy, important, and widely distributed expositions there are many issues which one with such power and influence may choose to address, and how does he elaborate on the issues with such detail while upholding the strength of his poise? He doesn't just speak or write; it's a combination of both, something Walter Ong might call rhetoric. As people we first learned to speak, then we discovered and developed writing, and there are those who furthermore use the innovative technique of rhetoric. If writing is a perfection of spoken word then rhetoric is a perfection of writing. Although he, the prez, might have stuttered from time to time but he doesn't forget where he's going, which is always forward. The president doesn't just get up there and ad lib (although he probably could in an more informal setting) because it's easy to lose your way. He walks through his creation, his vision, his memory theatre and expounds upon the imprint that he sees. People aren't flawless speakers, but on a political stage you better make your words count. Understanding ideas vividly needs imaginative ideas along with an accessible channel to illuminate and recreate these thoughts later to be articulated. Anytime you turn on the television to a random channel there's always a story happening or a point being made, from re-runs to soaps to movies to commercials. That's what memory theatre is, a vivid story conjured by the mind which thrives on nonsense and fantasy and hyperbole.

The Class Task: Create a speech which will correspond and recall one-hundred items.

We've been giving a running list of random things which will eventually accumulate to one-hundred.

My list thus far: Who (How many)

People in class (25?)

MWE p. 93 list (15)

Jacob's brothers and 'tribes' (12?)

Muses (9)

Ong Ch. 3 (9)

Sibling with epithet (1)

something useful (1) Rough running total (72)

Below will be a running, rough script for my final speech. It will be copied into further blogs:

For my memory palace I've chosen my old Anchorage house. I haven't decided loci-wise where to start the story and speech, but it will probably have to be in the front yard where Terpsichore is doing a touchdown dance after having scored a touchdown. Boom! Claudia Shiffer is cheering on the winner from the dug-out gravel pit which has been replaced a large bowl of cottage cheese. She's trying to tug at the winner's dancing feet. Also on the polar opposite yard is Melpomene who is showing signs of melancholy after that TD (Terpsichore Dance). It's tragic so her mother (Megan tMotM) comes down from the front stairs wrapping around the southside of the yellow house to console her tearful daughter and welcome me. I hear two dogs barking nonstop from the large second-story window before the elevated porch conceals them. I assume the dogs want the football until there's an abrupt silence then a faint whimper. Megan says, "Don't worry that was just Ashley. Now come on up, I'll introduce you to everyone."

Room

My room is like a valley surrounded by mounds--I mean mountains--of stuff--from valuables and commonplace belongings to random shit and garbage. If we enter from the southwest corner then we may proceed to the unoccupied center if the door opens wide enough, there might be a rather large pile of dirty laundry hiding behind the door barring a clean entrance. Under the pile lies an old Christmas box filled with the books I've kept and completed. Farther north on the west wall there are three stacked tubs for general storage purposes (filing, supplies, clutter control). Adjacent to these tubs on the north wall is another book shelf, consisting of books which I've not began. The books that I've not finished are on my desk along with a collection of other things such as a printer, my new computer box, my old broken computer, vitamins, random books (from a Spanish dictionary to old class texts), The Wire, and many other things which have accumulated into these mounds over time. Further east on the north wall are my hats, each having its own tack, which are probably the most organized thing in the room. On the floor below is my bedside table. Think of a downsized desk in terms of both actual size and clutter-wise. Then we come to the bed hugging the east wall, merely a mattress with several pillows, a comforter and single sheet. Below the bed's foot is the clean clothes pile, directly in front of the closet having plenty of unused clothes hangers. Those clothes yearning to be hung up are more likely to find the west wall mound first. There are a couple things hanging on each wall; movie posters, band posters, sports paraphernalia, etc. The room is so messy that my words aren't quite justifying the severity of the situation.

Whenever I enter my room it's like the valley is hit with a wind storm which further complicates its already messy conditions. I live in the valley because I'm tedious to explore the mountains of things. Oh the things I would find.

Oops that was dumb

Landing in Bozeman around noon was a bonus because the rest of the day was left to sleep, with a lethargic prelude of unpacking my bags. It wasn't until Dave tells me, "So we're having people over for turkey around six-thirty, seven, or so." Fantastic, a home cooked meal considerably more authentic than Pasta-Roni! Wait, shit, there's already a ton on my plate. I haven't slept. I haven't eaten. I haven't unpacked! That's what I think.

"Sweet," is what I say.

"There'll probably be around ten people here. We're feasting tonight!" I understand. Us students must gather and feed and energize before the impending school semester. Our friends remind me of a cross-country ski team. Back home they have spaghetti feeds one or two nights before big races.

I'm back home now. Now The Last Frontier quite literally is the last, it has to be in the back of my memory. Alaska was my home, but you're out of there for good this time and you'll get to feast with an emphatic portion of what you have here in Montana.

Just had to get that out of my system. It reminds me of my malfunky memory. If I get anxious in any way then my memory loses it's edge. I'm not as sharp, dazed I suppose. I can't wrap my head around the matter.

Which brings me to my point.

Around one or two in the afternoon I was unpacking my bags which seemed larger than when I packed them up last in this apartment. Possibly, what I'll call, the Christmas-accumulation Effect was, well if I may reiterate, in effect; Consumerism will get'cha. Anyways, I was given a pair of gloves over the holiday which I thought would come in handy that evening, but when I was unpacking I set them down instinctively and five minutes later I couldn't even remember which pile I put them in. Five minutes, now come on Spencer you just had them!

I gave up, I found another pair but was disappointed that I couldn't break in the new mitts. We had our turkey dinner and enjoyed the company all that evening until the group vacated the our apartment. That was Sunday. Then--as Keith Urban says--"days go by."

Tonight, a Wednesday, I've found a four-day old memory. I found the gloves, right where I would've put them! There's several places I could've put them but I didn't think about it. I went with instinct and found the gloves. My instincts must conflict my anxieties, and conquer them in due time...hah, oops.

Three-to-four days forgotten? That's a pretty bad memory.

What about five-to-six months? Let's see what we come up with. I read Moonwalking with Einstein over the summer and memorized the 'to-do list' in the middle part of the text. I memorized it in less then twenty minutes after reading it using the technique Joshua Foer specifies. Yet, that was July or August. I get the feeling like those twelve-to-fourteen items aren't going to found to be stuck, but let's see what happens. A note, I'm buying the book tomorrow so I can't reference the list, so this is just for fun.

Foer's To-Do List (Or: Roughly what I remember from my mental images)

-cat suits

-megaphone

-something large in the driveway

-cottage cheese

-salmon

-elk sausage

-paul newman

-computer

Oh, rough. What's interesting is that I created that journey in an unfamiliar house (a house that our family toured in Houston at the beginning of the summer). I believe Foer indicates that you should know the 'places' or 'houses' where you place your memories rather well. I think that might be why I forgot the list's 'journey' or memory palace or narrative or what-have-you so easily, let alone the five minutes with those gloves, or three days, or was it four.

I'll try to recreate the house when I see the list again.