Catchy brand name for a alcoholic combination.
from today's New York Times newsletter . . .
My friend Daniel, frustrated with the way he and everyone he knows turn to their phones when they forget the name of a movie or book, created a rule: When you’re in a group of people, if it’s not essential to the progression of the conversation, don’t look it up.
It’s uncomfortable to sit with the name of that actor on the tip of your tongue, but you’ll get it eventually.
Let your memory do its thing. That “irritable reaching” is often for our devices, the source of all answers and all distraction.
****
This very scenario happened to me the other night while Pam, Bill and I were visiting in the living room.
We were talking about concerts and old people.
In Pam's case, she mentioned having a desire to attend concerts featuring famous names who are growing old like Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger before they die.
My contribution to the conversation involved the concert we attended in Dublin last fall. It featured a group Willie and Debbie had seen in Missoula.
There were many aspects of that evening that will always stand out, especially Bill becoming new best friends with the lead singer's dad as the two spent some time standing next to each other against the wall rather than sitting.
I sat the whole time after being thrilled to learn at the door that the concert in National Stadium was actually an indoor event.
And, since I sat in an upper area, I had time to scope out the crowd and eventually to conclude that I may have been the oldest attendee there.
The age span, however, did not detract from my enjoyment of the band.
It was at this very point in my story with Pam that I tried to grab from my brain the name of another rather famous band for comparison to this band called CAAMP.
The name was there but lost somewhere in some dark cavern of my brain.
I could even come up with the rhythm associated with sounding out the name but nothing tangible which would give Pam an idea of how the band sounded.
I did not cheat and go to my cell phone.
"Well, it's a really good British group," I said, finally giving in to the fact that the name was NOT going to slide off my tongue with ease during that particular conversation.
At times through the rest of our conversation, however, I could almost feel the name ready to leap out of my mouth but no luck that night.
The next morning, still trying in vain to come up with that name, I finally grabbed my phone and looked up British bands, thinking surely this one was good enough to make the main list.
I had to scroll a while past the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Queen and Pink Floyd, but in what appeared to be the second tier, I spotted the name.
Of course, how could anyone forget Mumford and Sons!!!
The next morning, while visiting with Pam at the kitchen island, I sensed a good spot to interject and without warning, announced "Mumford and Sons, that's the name of the band."
As I knew she would, Pam concurred that the band in Dublin must be good if they resembled Mumford and sons.
I guess I followed the correct protocol suggested above and did not pull out the phone. That's not to say that I did not use it as a reference a few other times in our visit.
These incidents of losing of vital information in our brains tied in with another problem that arose this morning when I began to transfer photos from my phone to my laptop computer.
"Not enough disc space," the window which popped onto the screen said. I tried again, and the photo went through.
So, of course, I knew it had to be a glitch. Well, that was not to be because after letting that one photo go on its way, the phone had put up a complete road block.
I looked at the my settings, and sure enough with the gazillions of photos I take, the disc was full and suggestions of how and what to delete showed up in the settings.
I was able to delete a few things and then get on with this morning's blog preparation, but it occurs to me that I may have to put in some time doing some major deleting to avoid such road blocks in the future.
That incident brought to mind the fact that our minds probably go through the same troubles as the disc space on our phones and computers.
And, so I'm wondering if, in addition to the DNA samples helping keep a cleaner environment, someone could come up with a good tool for us to just point at our heads and zap all the unnecessary stuff from our brain.
If that could be done, I bet I would not have had to use my iPhone to remember the name Mumford and Sons.
Something to think about---that is, if we've still got the space left in our minds to think.
On that note, my brain actually feels empty at the moment, so Happy Saturday.
