(Can you believe it, yet another splinter?)
It would seem that much of what comprises the substance of one's mind is the accumulation of memories. These memories are the building blocks of associations. In the age of wiki and google we are free to find out quickly about the status of people or things that slide around on the tiles of our mind. (I wonder if that guy's still alive? is the header question of the blog.)
Both memory and associations are dynamic; every time you revisit a memory you are likely to alter it slightly, or shift its placement, so that it occupies a slightly new place in the giant mosaic of shifting tiles that make up the mind. Some of these fall away, never to be found, while others become glued in place, firmly fixed, requiring other bits to slide around them.
This painting is inspired by sliding puzzles, the type with one space free, but filled with a matrix of tiles that support each other, sometimes barely. Unlike the mind, the image lies on the surface. Yet sequence is important--perhaps more important than time itself.
The question now is: what will this sliding mosaic of tiles have as their image?
R, the other side of speculation on whether or not the guy's still alive, is the guy you know is dead, and the ensuing associations. A bit of family lore was that "Sergeant Carter," or the guy who played him on "Gomer Pyle," "gave himself a heart attack with his screaming," something that haunted me as a kid.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the Watts book anecdote regarding your Mom also -- I remember riding back with her on MAX a few times by chance, when I was going to school in the 90s! Watts himself has been gone a long time, come to think of it -- used to listen to reruns of his lectures on the radio, no doubt readily available online. J.
Sgt. Carter, He's a natural for research! Actually he is one of my very earliest memories from TV. Will definitely make a posting for him.
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