Literary Discussions

Now, in my early 60's, I look back over the utterly amazing number of things that I committed to memory for some exam only to completely forget it after only a few months. Only certain things that you care about or use regularly become 2nd nature. I was in a deli where the many dishes are under a plastic protective hood and you fill up your container and pay by weight. Many tourists from Europe are there. A fellow approached me and anxiously asked "How much is a pound" and I pointed to the sign that it was $4.50 (or whatever it was back then). He said "No, HOW much IS a pound." Suddenly I remembered that 454.54 grams is one pound and that is a little less than half a kilo so I said "a little less than half a kilo" and he was pleased and relieved. I still remember that an electron weights .00054 atomic mass units. In high school I was intrigued by "the dielectric constant of space" simply because it sounded so mystical and transcendent.  But the greatest change in my life came with the Internet. I remember asking my 13 year old step son some obscure question and he sneered at me and said "why dont you GOOGLE, that's what it's FOR."  Now we had AOL dial-up and I used it every day for enjoyment AND I was aware of Google but it never sunk into my head until that moment that it was better than any encyclopedia. My point is that now with calculators in our pocket that can do every conceivable function plus Google (or Bing if you prefer) in our pocket, brute memorization is no longer of much value.  Some University in the South has a motto above its doors saying that half of all knowledge is knowing what to look for.  I have become somewhat skilled in digging for things in Google. The 81 year old talent agent that I assist wanted to know the casting director for that Gotti film "Dapper Don" with Travolta.  I found the film, found the a list of actors, found producers, found the company headquarters and as I found each new layer of names and googled on it, I finally found an obscure article in Variety that mentioned the director of casting AND his AOL email address.  Back when I was in high school I assumed that brute memorization was non-different from education and was the principle goal.  Now I feel that first and foremost is a love or a desire to apprehend/comprehend and such a love is best nurtured by fellowship one-on-one with a scholar or practitioner. And the best test of one's mastery is to write frequently on the topic or engage in extemporaneous discourse in depth. Sunday, walking back from Chinatown I saw some lost tourists and paused to help. Two were from France and two were Americans. I quoted the one line of Baudelaire I remember (Sois sage..) and I mentioned that when Sartre died there were 80,000 people in his funeral procession. So one man asked me if I knew the difference between Sartre and Camus. Well, I thought his question was serious so I began to speak for about 10 minutes and they started filming me with a video. It turned out that he wanted to lead into that joke I posted: Sartre - you are what you do; Camus - you do what you are; Sinatra - do be do be do.