Wednesday, November 19, 2003
THE VAGRANCY OF MEMORY: For those of you just joining us on the trivia train...
Yeah, I know...GAH, A PICTURE, but the crux of it is that I scored 122 points. Considering that my listening habits in the 80s leaned towards album rock and British Invasion (coughcoughBEATLEScough), it's a startingly high score. I mentioned in a message board post how every time I say I have a bad memory, something like this comes along to remind me that I have a great memory, it's just not geared in the right direction. Instead of higher math and my mother's birthday, things which would actually come in handy, my brain box yields up endless song lyrics and REM interviews.
When I think of the bent magic of the mind, I think of Marcel Proust. He's a guy that more people have read about more often than they've actually read. Rememberance of Things Past is definitely on my list, although as long as it is, it'd take quite a while from start to finish, but Proust the man is fascinating, too. As a man coming from money, he never had to work a day in his life, and circulated around the Parisian intelligensia most of the time. Health conditions forced him into a cork lined, vapor filled room, where he spent most of his later life. In these conditions, he hammered out his formidable six volume work on the nature of time and rememberance.
What the hell does this have to do with a goofy trivia quiz? Proust believed that since we were constantly reliving the past in our heads, comparing it with what is in front of us now and coloring our perceptions, that the only way to truly understand a moment is a complete evocation of the past. Only then can we even begin to approximate any moment in time. This isn't as hard as it would appear for those of us who lived in any part of the last half of the 20th century, since thanks to endless recycling, we're never allowed to forget anything like the taste of a Twinkie, the smoothness of the filling as it compares to the grainy texture of the less popular knockoffs, the sponginess of the mouth feel. Likewise, with very little prompting, you can probably remember every lyric of the Eagles' "Hotel California", since the classic rock station you hear it on every day hasn't changed a single song on their playlist since 1988. Of course, that triggers memories of drinking parties in high school, the girl you were with, and so on. When the radio gets people into that state, it's easier to sell you water park passes and herbal Viagra replacements. Get you weak, then knock your pins out; it's marketing at its most brutally effective.
Okay, out of the ramble, back into the bramble... If Proust had come of age in the 1980s, his books would be filled with run-on sentences about the colors of his cousin's leg warmers that last three pages. Either that, or instead of traditional publishing, he'd be writing the most heartbreakingly intricate blog on the face of the earth. Most likely, everybody would be ragging him out as an "emo fag", which, looking at his bio again, would be at least half right.
(Oh yeah, I blame Scott Keith for pointing the quiz out...of course, I got more mileage out of it than he did...)
Yeah, I know...GAH, A PICTURE, but the crux of it is that I scored 122 points. Considering that my listening habits in the 80s leaned towards album rock and British Invasion (coughcoughBEATLEScough), it's a startingly high score. I mentioned in a message board post how every time I say I have a bad memory, something like this comes along to remind me that I have a great memory, it's just not geared in the right direction. Instead of higher math and my mother's birthday, things which would actually come in handy, my brain box yields up endless song lyrics and REM interviews.
When I think of the bent magic of the mind, I think of Marcel Proust. He's a guy that more people have read about more often than they've actually read. Rememberance of Things Past is definitely on my list, although as long as it is, it'd take quite a while from start to finish, but Proust the man is fascinating, too. As a man coming from money, he never had to work a day in his life, and circulated around the Parisian intelligensia most of the time. Health conditions forced him into a cork lined, vapor filled room, where he spent most of his later life. In these conditions, he hammered out his formidable six volume work on the nature of time and rememberance.
What the hell does this have to do with a goofy trivia quiz? Proust believed that since we were constantly reliving the past in our heads, comparing it with what is in front of us now and coloring our perceptions, that the only way to truly understand a moment is a complete evocation of the past. Only then can we even begin to approximate any moment in time. This isn't as hard as it would appear for those of us who lived in any part of the last half of the 20th century, since thanks to endless recycling, we're never allowed to forget anything like the taste of a Twinkie, the smoothness of the filling as it compares to the grainy texture of the less popular knockoffs, the sponginess of the mouth feel. Likewise, with very little prompting, you can probably remember every lyric of the Eagles' "Hotel California", since the classic rock station you hear it on every day hasn't changed a single song on their playlist since 1988. Of course, that triggers memories of drinking parties in high school, the girl you were with, and so on. When the radio gets people into that state, it's easier to sell you water park passes and herbal Viagra replacements. Get you weak, then knock your pins out; it's marketing at its most brutally effective.
Okay, out of the ramble, back into the bramble... If Proust had come of age in the 1980s, his books would be filled with run-on sentences about the colors of his cousin's leg warmers that last three pages. Either that, or instead of traditional publishing, he'd be writing the most heartbreakingly intricate blog on the face of the earth. Most likely, everybody would be ragging him out as an "emo fag", which, looking at his bio again, would be at least half right.
(Oh yeah, I blame Scott Keith for pointing the quiz out...of course, I got more mileage out of it than he did...)
|| Eric 2:01 PM#
