My Memory Palace

You pull off a winding two lane road onto a smaller gravel lane to the left. All around you the verdant green forest breathes and sighes in the sumemr night. The gravel lane rises and the drops down and to the right, opening into a small parking area, still gravel and rock. A path at the edge of the parking area is illuminated with soft outdoor lights. It is made of smooth grey and green cobble stones and leads down and around a corner, dissappearing into the wooded night. Before you leave the pad you look straight out and can see a large, calm lake through the treetops. Moonlight dances on it's waters.

You take the path into the forest and after several feet you come to a clearing. At the back of the clearing, ontop of a small hill, you can see the house. It seems to be made of wood and stands two stories tall, the second story set further back from the front of the house than the first. You follow the path up the hill towards the house when you begin to hear the sound of trickling water ahead of you. A few feet more and you can see a small wooden bridge, spanning a stream. On the other side of the bridge, you can see the path which has widened into a large cobblestone paddock lit on both sides by gas torches and beyond that, the front porch of the house.

You cross the bridge and glance down at the waters that flow and burble over grey and white rocks. To your left, you follow the water upstream and see that it goes up the hill and around towards the back of the house. To your left, you see that the stream continues to travel downhill, heading into the lake which you now have a very clear view of. As you cross the bridge onto the gaslit cobblestone path, the rich, heady scent of honeysuckle overtakes you. As the wind, a soft breeze, ebbs and flows from the woods around you, the sweet smells of the forest rises and falls.

Facing the house, you can see the seven steps that lead from the cobblestone paddock to the front porch. The steps are made of a rough, worn grey stone that dont become slick in the rain.  Enlaid in each step is the kanji for numbers one through seven, one being at the center of the bottom step and seven being enlaid on the top step.  As you walk towards the steps, you can see the porch wraps around the house on both sides and helps to account for how much bigger the first floor appears to be compared to the second.  The wood is a honey brown color, the grain clearly visible and smoothed as it the entire porch had be carved out of one collosal tree.  Along the outer wall of the house, at the back of the porch, you spy several wooden benches, each softly lit by an outdoor lamp sitting on a wooden end table.  The benches are simple in shape and design and look sturdy and heavy.  Directly in front of you is a double sliding glass door and behind that you can make out a double shoji door.  To the right side of the doorway you spy a windchime of beaten metal, it's largest tube bigger than your arm.  To the left you can see a tall, thin wicker basket holding several black and green umbrellas.  The door is closed but unlocked and you can hear music inside.

Welcome to my Memory Palace.

 

Are you Wondering 'What the hell did I just read?'

A memory palace is a kind of mnemonic device employed to help people remember places and things and lists by associating them with a specific place or location within a house or a building.  Based on the Method of Loci, remembering certain events stored in your palace is as easy as walking to that place in the palace that the memory is stored and looking at the object that it is attatched to.  Cicero believes that the Greek Poet Simonides invented it after he escaped a disaster that destroyed a building where he was having dinner with some dignitaries.  He was able to name the victims by remembering where they had been seated.  It takes lots of practice and patience but I thought it'd be cool to do as a sort of mental project becuase I HATE the fact that I can't recall detail as well as I'd like.  It's all stored up there in the noggin.  I just cant get it out...  So for the next couple of blogs, I'll be constructing my memory palace.  If you want to look it up, I'll post some links later so you can make your own or try to find out how to get burned at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition for Heresy and Witchcraft...Thats what they did to Giordano Bruno in 1600 for his Child-friendly book Shadow of Ideas.  But hey, to each his or her own....

 

Dave Chappelle found God?  Good for him...not so good for us?

I heard a rumor this morning that Dave Chappelle has found God and Allah is what Dave calls him.  Dave apparently has become Muslim.  Muslim?  Really!  How interesting.  I know he needed some time off from his show and if this is true, then I am happy for him.  There really isn't anything better than getting closer to ones creator.  But there is some speculation that this is all just a big hoax/stunt to usher his 3rd season in with a bang and boost his DVD sales.  If it is, I'd not be surprised.  Dissapointed but not surprised.

 

Sometimes it's good to leave old friends behind...

One of my Fiance's old friends came through and unloaded a ton of dirt about their old gang.  It was really sad to me to hear how some of the friendships that seemed so solid before, have been corrupted and destroyed by greed and jealousy and bad judgement.  My Mielita used to hang with them but they stopped calling her and she stopped hanging with them some time ago.  All of the drama that's been going on recently with them has nothing to do with my Fiance and I am so grateful to know that my baby isn't caught up in it all.  Sometimes it's better to let old friends go, than letting them hang out to you cause, as my grandpa used to say 'When folks is doing wrong, they caint stand to see folks do right'.  Of course I never knew my grandfather but it seems like something he might say...maybe....anyways

 

Episode 3: Revenge of Lucas

I call it revenge of Lucas because despite the misgivings of Legions of Die-Hard Starwars fans, we all went to see that craptacular film and dutifully gave that man our hard earned cash.  He's laughing all the way to the bank.  I've finally come to realize that he doesnt care that his fans  feel like he betrayed the very pop-culture icons and fantasy world that he created, or that the movies he's making are so bad, they're almost unwatchable from a strickly good-film sense.  He has his VISION and he's sticking to it, damn the world!  If you haven't seen it, I'd say keep your cash and download that bitch off the net.  If you have seen it and liked it, well, Im sorry for you AND your mama.  But if you feel how I feel then you know what I mean when I tell you that the vision of Darth Vader standing there, screaming out like a little bitch as the emperor tells him he killed Padme curdled my stomach in horror for all the WRONG REASONS.

I also blame my hatred of the film on two other things.  Watching the Firefly DVD and watching the Clone Wars Cartoon by Genndy Tartakovsky(sp).  Firefly is a great show that was canceled by Fox a couple of years ago.  If you havent heard of it, it's a show by Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel Fame.  It mixes space opera and the old west with a little chinese overtone for flavor.  It's hard to describe but it's a great show with snappy dialogue and truly interesting characters.  After watching how good writing can make the most unseeming of plots and stories and charaters flow like sweet sweet honey, Watching EpIII was almost an offense to the senses.  Hold me like you did on Naboo....Bitch, please....

The clone wars is a cartoon series done by the same guy who does Samurai Jack and Power Puff Girls and Dexters Lab.  IT basically details the story of star wars BETWEEN episode II and III.  So if you HAVEN'T seen Clone wars and saw Episode 3 and were wondering why General Greivous was coughing like he had taken  a bad toke of the ganja the entire time he was onscreen, Clone wars explains it.  It goes through how he captured the emperor and details why Mace Windu is such an unmitigated badass.  I wont ruin it for you if you want to see it, but it will make some things in Episode III clearer, including your growing dislike for George Lucas and his incompetence and pride.

 

Anyways, I gotta run...Big weekend ahead.  My best friend leaves for japan next week and we just barely got through closing on the House with our finances in tact.  Now we only have to buy the wedding rings, Pay for the wedding (which we have to do in Jamaica), pay all the bills for this month, keep some spending cash for in Jamaica, and do all the other little things that homes and life demand.  Wish me luck.

Benticore