The Memoryfest Rundown
Things I have learned during this project:
- Posts about
sexy high school teachers get more comments than posts about
sexy German actors.- Danish schools don't make children cut along dotted lines in
one unbroken series of snips.-
michelle_nine is
getting married!- We all have a hell of a lot in common, even if the details differ.
Things I have not learned during this project:
- How not to talk about myself all the time
-
What is a baby turkey called? Some random things we have discussed:
- The liberating effect of
prosthetic noses on professional actors
- The ability of children to preserve social caste systems even with
school uniforms- The joy of
dissecting and eating animals-
The importance of imagination in our lives and our amazement at people who don't understand that
-
Near-death experiences and
recollections of grief- The spectrum of
teachers and mentors- The brilliant casting of
David Bowie as Andy Warhol in "Basquiat"
- If geography or culture dictates whether you judge people based on
nation, religion or ethnicity; if an assimilated group is ever really assimilated; and whether a religion needs a country of its own to be trusted
Some not-so-random things we have discussed:
- The
magnification of emotion we experience and the simplification of language we use when recalling an early memory
- The differences and similarities of
dream-memory and real-memory- The strong connection of music and memory (
here and
here)
Miscellaneous profundity:
-
"Not everything in the imaginary world is imagined."-
"Life is more fun with a little magic, whatever form we may see it in." Memoryfest Prizes:
Perfect Attendance:
kabaleMost Beautifully-Written Contributions:
pynelyfBest Post on Non-Recollections:
synnStrongest Comeback:
catilinarianWackiest Comments:
michelle_nineMost Erudite Quoting of Secondary Sources:
maddy_harriganMost Deserving of a Nepotism Award:
musicisbelievngBest One-time-only Appearance:
crazypalefreak Seriously, though, I've enjoyed this month enormously, and I hope you have too. It's hard to say what I liked best: learning these private, personal things about each of you; exploring storytelling in this straightforward style, both for the way in which the memories shaped themselves into stories and for the reactions, both expected and unexpected, they brought out in us when we read them; the connection to the past that sprang up again and again as I chose and wrote about these memories; or the alternately silly and thought-provoking diversions we found ourselves in along the way.