Much ground traversed through discussion today. Among the points of importance was the note to watch out for clutter in our memory theatres--systematizing is necessary for the sake of precious memory space. House-keeping is essential, and when we note the associations that vast memory systems had with the sacred, it is surpisingly fitting to find that the closing passage of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible using a house as a metaphor for the human body and soul.

The notion of flyting(insulting in a very entertaining) is found to origins from the oral tradition(really colorful insults would possibly become incongruos if one tried to write them down) and continues on through the centuries, from Shakespeare(we used an example from King Lear of all plays) to Mickey-and-Judy MGM musicals to Abbot and Costello(and a host of other comedy pairs descending from the archetypal pairing of a 'straight man' and trickster) to rap contests. It all is about dissing.

The importance of the olefactory senses in unlocking the gateways to memory was brought up. This is something that is central to the construction of Marcel Proust's wopping novel In Search of Lost Time (also known as Remembrance of Things Past which is a blatant lifitng off of a line from Shakespeare's sonnet 130).

The use of a rhetorical style known as parataxis(stringing things together, linking them with "and") is a residual thing from oral culture as well. Which is way it can be seen as unsophisticated and simpleminded. But on the other hand this is how Hemingway wrote and he won the Nobel prize. So let us not be hasty in our judgements.

Today we harped more on the necessity of images for the memorization of things and events. And if it doesn't have a memorable image in and of itself, you create one for it: such as Mr. Sexson having green blood(Saint Patrick's Day is the day he can give blood again), or a ram's testicles(for a test).Because the word "testicle" and "testimony" and "test" are all interrealated. As evidenced by Dame Francis Yates in the story of the court-case she relates in chapter one of The Art of Memory. This book was much admired by Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials(of which I am a big fan), so much so that he has a character near the end of The Amber Spyglass, Dame Hana, who is specifcally modeled on Francis Yates.

We also learned today that the seven liberal arts are actually very similar to the nine Muses, and had images crafted to represent them by Hagad(sp?) a twelfth century prioress. Because of course folk would be more apt to remember them this way.

We've got the first nine items we have to form the group memory theatre in the class room: thermostat, chalkboard, screen, quiet desk, old desk, bulletin board, snowman, and the weird "F' symbol.(Mr. Sexson says it resembles a swastika. I actually thought it resembled a diagram of a cervix. Just to compliment the testicles; but never mind).

And Kane, who would point out that in the oral world it's all poetry. And the word curiosity derives from "cure" or "to care for". I did not know this previously.

Today both Sutter and Ty laid out their memory-palace technics for memorizing the nine Muses(Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Thalia, Terpsichore, Polyhemnia, Melpomone, Urania). Sutter used his home, Ty a synagogue. Both impressive in the description of the details. The same technic, yet idiosyncratic in their designs. Most memory systems are, but in this class the aim will be to try and have them work for everyone. Perhaps there is a way to have a memory system work for everyone, just as all memory systems are artificial. My method of remembering the Muses, it is somewhat embarrasing to say, is being helped along by hearing them recited in class by more skilled mnemotechnicians(sp?) then myself.


They also tend to, classically speaking, have an element of the sacred. Which means implementing them can be dangerous, as Giordano Bruno(a monk who developed a very provacative,vast memory system) found out the hard way; he was burned at the stake in 1600.

We also must begin constructing a communal Memory theatre from elements in the classroom, preferable those of a fixed position, such as the thermostat and chalkboard.

We were assigned our groups for the class today, who will make presentations on individual chapters in Wisdom of the Mythtellers after chapter 1. I am in group number 1, and we will be doing chapter 2 entitled Maps.

We ended up enlighting upon something that Ben blogged about; he always goes back to, and reconstructs, a cabin in Juno Alaska. Apparently, we all have 'cabins in Alaska'. There what would be called memory palaces, or memory theatres; places we go to in our minds to reconstruct or rediscovery what we remeber. And if we don't have one we'll be building one for the class.

In chapter four of his book Ong summarizes Plato's Phaedrus which is an impassioned attack on the newfangled thing called writing. Plato has Socrates say "writing is inhuman...it establishes outside the mind what should be in the mind." And once more, it destroys memory, because supposedly once you've written something down, you don't have to remeber it anymore. This stance(remarkably similar to the dismissal of computers in our age, as Ong notes) has been supplanted by a piety towards writing and reading in our day and age. Which I think is often a moot point more than anything else, but never mind.

But this is also an intriguing thing that comes up; what does make something memorable? As Yates says, sometimes we remeber things because they are terrible. They force themselve upon our memorys, just as traumatic events in history do(ie. September 11, the Kennedy assisination). But then very often we memorize things that are meaningless(I should now; my mind is a plethora of meaningless trivia). But maybe this is alright, because it forces one's little memory-muscles to exercise and prevents us from having a one-minute long-term memory, as some inverbrate creatures are supposed to have. I've actually met a few homo sapiens for whom this could be true, but that's beside the point.

We were assigned to blog about a passage from one of the books for the class. This following snippet from page 19 of The Art of Memory caught my eye. It trails off of a lengthy quotation from Cicero which I had no desire to double-quote.

"From these concluding words of Cicero's on the art of memory we learn that the objection to the classical art which was always raised throughout its subsequent history--and is still raised by everyone who is told of it--was voiced in antiquity. There were inert or lazy or unskilled people in Cicero's time who took the common sense view, to which, personally, I heartily subsribe--as explained earlier I am a historian only of the art, not a practioner of it--that all these places and images would only bury under a heap of rubble whatever little one does remember naturally."

I found this interesting, that Yates seems to be admitting that she doesn't really believe in the type of memory training she writes about. And yeah, we all wonder perhaps if it could be truly possible for someone to recite Virgil backwards without a mistake. Wouldn't the mind at some point in time just crap out on you? I suppose it was just the difference of tone that she has from ,say Kane, who appears to 'believe' thouroughly in the brand of human communication and storytelling he is writing about. But I could be jumping the gun here on Yates; we'll see how the rest of the book goes. And of course, most anything is possible, some things are just more common than others.

A great deal of material discussed today, with much of it revolving around the human tendency to, according to McCluan(sp?)whom Ong discusses at length, to interiorize and sentimentalize technology(not necessarily in that order). Meaning, we become so accostumed to certain modes of communication, such as letters and the telephone and email, that the just end up seeming completely natural and normal to us, whereas those who have absorbed past technological forms decry the new forms as unnatural. But of course McCluan also states that all technology(including language) is an extension of the body, and therefore interiorizing it becomes "natural".

Janna's blog quoted a great phrase from page 34 of Ong , about the need to "think memorable thoughts." This begs the question of what consitutes memorable thoughts. Francis Yates brings up in her book the notion that memory is helped, if not cemented by, associations that are flat-out grotesque and disturbing. This may be one of the reasons why art in the Middle Ages tended to focus on horrific things like the tortures of hell and formidable gargoyles and that sort of thing(this could lead into a whole other issue about the nature of the human imagination, and about how things that are horrific or threatningly horrific, like a hell of eternal torment, holds greater mnemotic sway than the possibilties of heaven. But never mind). This also reminds me a bit of a book I read during break called Enduring Love by Ian McEwan. Don't let the title fool you. It's very creepy.

I learned what the term luddism means today. It means being actively opposed to technology, and was named for a 19th century Englishman named Ludd who revolted against all technolgy. But of course, his contribution to chirographic(writing) and typographic(having to do with the world of print)worlds has being the coining of a word, which we write and discuss. Rather ironic really.

I can also add to the inexhaustable list of things to read Italo Calvino's Castle Across Destinies(awesome, no, epic title!). And we are to blog about a passage from Kane Yates or Ong.

The central point of discussion in today's class was the paradox to be found in the teaching of a class on oral traditions: we're learing about methods of storytelling and memorization by cultures with no writing system by reading books. Hence, a remembered conversation about emptying out a cooler by the window(or not, because there was nothing important in it) has different cadences when it is recounted verbally than when it is written down with a bunch tiny little marks called letters.

According to Ong(who was a Jesuit, and therefore already a scholar of some making), of the 3000 spoken languages in the world, only 78 have a writing system and therefore a form of literature. This is of course what is noted in his book which was published in the early 80's, but still, its a fascinating glimpse into the still far reaching expanse of orality, even in an intensely visualized culture as ours is or has become. Here we could probably move into lamentations about how technology is a vile thing, with how it is increasingly removing us from the world and the world's essence(and there would be some truth in this). But then, it was an observation made by Ong that language itself is a technology. So, we might want to watch trashing everything technological.

I close with the observation that I am now reassured: I'm not unique in being prone to fondle the covers of books in a creepily erotic way(those with tactile tendancies, appeal to the muse Eroto).

Day one of Oral Traditions class. We've been told to think of this as an elite class, unfit for the unwashed masses. Which may not take very much, since I know more than a few people who often can't remember what they had for breakfast, let alone the nooks and crannies of an unfrequented church(the location favored by Peter of Rivenia(sic?) for conducting exercises in memory, according to page 113 in Yates' the Art of Memory).
The two big things that help with memory are loci(or location) and image. I've been told and various times in my life that I have a good memory, but I have the sneaking suspicion that this class may end up challenging what vanity I have on that count.