Memorize it

As I walk mushrooms jr. to school each day, and try to stuff the times table into his protesting brain (last week the 4 times table was stumping him; this week it's the 6), I think about the lost art of memorizing. Teachers always say, "Oh you can work on that at home," Er, thanks. When I was a kid, we were always memorizing things. I've still got the "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech in my head, as well as the balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet". And decades after I got out of elementary school, and had kids of my own, lo and behold, the times table (up to 12 -- woo, woo!) appeared in the front of my brain when I needed it to drill children on.

So here's to memorizing. We should all memorize something today. Speaking of Shakespeare, how about that great old-love-is-good-love, anti-self-improvement sonnet 130?


My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

(So much for romance, eh?)

Also, think of how much better that poor Leonard Shelby in "Memento" would have done, if he could memorize ANYTHING at all.