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All's quiet...
Nov. 4th, 2000 08:21 pmIt's finally quiet on this first day of a new era. Galina and Lee are on their way to Colorado, to check out the status of our house in Pagosa Springs and to visit Drew. With any luck, they should be back within a week. I have stayed behind to begin the process of transition on Monday, equipped with a new cell phone and an attitude.
Soon after reading Thomas Harris' book Hannibal (the subject of some musings some time ago), I was intrigued enough by the author's references to a couple of books to actually go out and get them.
Both books have to do with what may be called "the art of memory." Way back before paper was commonplace, people kept information stored in their heads. Systems were developed to help people remember vast quantities of information.
With the coming of the age of the printing press, mnemotechnics became less of a necessity. In recent times, so-called "educators" have deprecated the role of memorization in education, with the net result - as far as I can see - of producing citizens who theoretically can find out anything they want to know, but haven't enough of an educational basis to know that (a) that they need to know something, and (b) how to go about finding it. But, as usual, I digress...
Years ago, when I busied myself with close-up magic, I ran across a book on "mentalism" (magician-speak for mind-reading and similar effects). I was quite impressed with the explanations given for seemingly impossible feats of memorization. I picked up a copy of The Memory Book by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas, and actually developed a fairly good set of mnemotechniques.
But then I allowed myself to be seduced by the idea that memorization was passé in this modern age. I was quite capable of "finding the answer," thank you, and let those techniques get very, very rusty.
In any event, like it or not, reading Hannibal reawakened my interest in mnemotechniques. Harris refers to two books in his postscript, the first was The Art of Memory by Frances Yates, and the second was The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan Spence.
The Yates book is rather academic, and traces attitudes toward memorization through the ages. I've gotten through about one quarter of the book, and it's admittedly pretty dry reading. It's definitely not a how-to manual.
When I got the Spence book, I soon found that the copy I bought was an irregular edition. Specifically, signatures from another book (by Robertson Jeffers) were bound in the book in place of the ones that were supposed to be there. As this is not a book that is normally kept in stock, it's been a wait, but I finally have the book in hand. Ricci was a Jesuit priest who traveled to China as a missionary in the late 16th century.
Among his other accomplishments, Ricci wrote a book on the art of memory in Chinese that he circulated among members of the Ming dynasty. Even if Spence tells me nothing new about memorization techniques, the book promises to be an interesting exposition of the results of an important meeting of Ming China with Counter-Reformation Europe.
In any event, it's time to relax. Good night to all.
Cheers...
Soon after reading Thomas Harris' book Hannibal (the subject of some musings some time ago), I was intrigued enough by the author's references to a couple of books to actually go out and get them.
Both books have to do with what may be called "the art of memory." Way back before paper was commonplace, people kept information stored in their heads. Systems were developed to help people remember vast quantities of information.
With the coming of the age of the printing press, mnemotechnics became less of a necessity. In recent times, so-called "educators" have deprecated the role of memorization in education, with the net result - as far as I can see - of producing citizens who theoretically can find out anything they want to know, but haven't enough of an educational basis to know that (a) that they need to know something, and (b) how to go about finding it. But, as usual, I digress...
Years ago, when I busied myself with close-up magic, I ran across a book on "mentalism" (magician-speak for mind-reading and similar effects). I was quite impressed with the explanations given for seemingly impossible feats of memorization. I picked up a copy of The Memory Book by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas, and actually developed a fairly good set of mnemotechniques.
But then I allowed myself to be seduced by the idea that memorization was passé in this modern age. I was quite capable of "finding the answer," thank you, and let those techniques get very, very rusty.
In any event, like it or not, reading Hannibal reawakened my interest in mnemotechniques. Harris refers to two books in his postscript, the first was The Art of Memory by Frances Yates, and the second was The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan Spence.
The Yates book is rather academic, and traces attitudes toward memorization through the ages. I've gotten through about one quarter of the book, and it's admittedly pretty dry reading. It's definitely not a how-to manual.
When I got the Spence book, I soon found that the copy I bought was an irregular edition. Specifically, signatures from another book (by Robertson Jeffers) were bound in the book in place of the ones that were supposed to be there. As this is not a book that is normally kept in stock, it's been a wait, but I finally have the book in hand. Ricci was a Jesuit priest who traveled to China as a missionary in the late 16th century.
Among his other accomplishments, Ricci wrote a book on the art of memory in Chinese that he circulated among members of the Ming dynasty. Even if Spence tells me nothing new about memorization techniques, the book promises to be an interesting exposition of the results of an important meeting of Ming China with Counter-Reformation Europe.
In any event, it's time to relax. Good night to all.
Cheers...
