"One must have a rigid, easily retained order, with a definite beginning. Into this order one places the components of what one wishes to memorize and recall. As a money-changer ("nummularium") separates and classifies his coins by type in his money bag ("sacculum," "marsupium"), so the contents of wisdom's storehouse ("thesaurus," "archa"), which is the memory, must be classified according to a definite, orderly scheme."
O'Keefe and Nadel refer to "'the method of loci', an imaginal technique known to the ancient Greeks and Romans and described by Yates (1966) in her book The art of memory as well as by Luria (1969). In this technique the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of shops on a street, or any geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci. When desiring to remember a set of items the subject literally 'walks' through these loci and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item and any distinguishing feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking' through the loci, allowing the latter to activate the desired items. The efficacy of this technique has been well established (Ross and Lawrence 1968, Crovitz 1969, 1971, Briggs, Hawkins and Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975), as is the minimal interference seen with its use."
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A contemporary of Thomas Aquinas, Lull developed his memory system at a time when the mediaeval mneumonic techniques derived from rhetoric were at their height. Up to his time, mneumonics aimed solely at facilitating the immediate recall of data. Lull introduced a new dimension by making his Art, as he called it, a means to an end, the discovery of truth. This was possible, he claimed, because his Art was based upon the divine attributes (goodness, wisdom, and the like) and thus reflected the highest truth, the Trinity. Another feature of his system is the use of letter notation rather than corporeal images, then customary in memory systems, to designate concepts. Finally, Lull introduced the use of movement into mneumonics. The most important instance of this is the combinatory wheel, made up of moving concentric circles marked with figures. By revolving the wheels mentally, various combinations of the concepts represented by the figures were possible.
http://library.wustl.edu/Units/Spec/rarebooks/semeiology/memory.html
By itself, outside of the context of the club, DJ mixes usually remind me of that endlessly repeated description of Asian food -- one that I certainly do not share! -- that "it doesn't fill you up." I can appreciate the ingenuity of their construction but find myself wanting a little more foreground. The fact that this is not the case with Anti-Theft Device is a testament to the record's complexity. Like all masterworks -- and Anti-Theft Device is surely a masterwork of its genre -- it only gets better the more you listen to it, revealing the intricacy of what German cultural critic Walter Benjamin -- himself a master of the cut-and-paste job -- would have called a "Passagenwerk," meaning both a work made out of passages from other works and a work which reveals passageways between those works.
What's the link between the retro farce Austin Powers and the mass suicide at the Heaven's Gate compound? There isn't one, on the surface. But the more you listen to Anti-Theft Device, with its ingenious sampling of both the spacey ranting of the Heaven's Gate cult leader and Dr. Evil's marble-mouthed "Welcome to my underground lair," the more you perceive a connection between them. Both testify, although in radically different ways, to the promise and peril of hat most American of dreams, the idea that you can leave your past behind and start over somewhere else, whether underground or in outer space.
I don't know how much intention lies behind this particular connection -- it's the nature of any work, particularly a Passagenwerk, to make connections of which its creator is unaware -- but it sure seems like a self-reflexive commentary on Mixmaster Mike's own situation as someone who, while not turning his back on the DJ underground where he got his start, has not been afraid to crawl out into the light, both with this solo effort and as a member of the Beastie Boys' team.
* Keter (supernal crown, representing above-conscious will)
* Chochmah (The highest potential of thought)
* Binah (the understanding of the potential)
* Daat (intellect of knowledge)
* Chesed (sometimes referred to as Gedolah-greatness) (loving-kindness)
* Gevurah (sometimes referred to as Din-justice or Pachad-fear) (severity/strength)
* Rachamim also known as Tiphereth (Mercy)
* Netzach (victory/eternity)
* Hod (glory/splendour)
* Yesod (foundation)
* Malkuth (kingdom)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria
the walk to Asja's place
http://www.thelemming.com/lemming/dissertation-web/home/constellations.html
"στην αναζήτηση της σοφίας
το πρώτο στάδιο είναι η σιωπή
το δεύτερο να αφουγκράζεσαι
το τρίτο να θυμάσαι
το τέταρτο να εξασκείσαι
το πέμπτο να διδάσκεις"
Σ.Γκαμπιρόλ
http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/not-drop-left
The discussion seems to be expanding, with the essential motifs of the Passagen converging in it. This is due both to the nature of the subject and to the fact that this chapter, conceived as one of the central chapters of the book, has ended up being written first instead. In conversations with Teddie [Adorno] I already foresaw this tendency of the Baudelaire to configure itself as a sort of model in miniature (Miniaturmodell) of the book. Since San Remo this has proved more the case than I thought... Mr [Friedrich] Pollock asked me to let you know, because you would at first have expected a normal-size manuscript. I knew that, but I thought it would be better if for once one of my essays became a work of a certain substance. Still today I hope you don't have any decisive objections; I wouldn't really know how to discuss the fundamental aspects of the matter in 30 or 40 pages. Instead I imagine something bigger: in terms of the number of pages in the manuscript, three times as many or around twice at least. (GB, vi, pp. 64-65).
"In this way the stage that classical rhetoric called dispositio (between inventio or documentation and elocutio or presentation, drafting; called rerum inventarum in ordinem distributio by Cicero) comes to the fore in Benjamin's creative process: in singular contrast to the privileging of presentation by the moderns, but with such particular characteristics that it's reasonable to speak of a 'dialectical-Benjaminian disposition [disposizione].'[12]"
Not to find one's way around a library does not mean much.But to lose one's way in a library, as one loses one's way to a forest, requires some schooling. Book names must speak to the literary wanderer like the snapping of dry twigs, and chapters in the heart of the library must reflect the times of day, for him, as clearly as a mountain valley.This art I acquired rather late in life, it fulfilled a dream, of which the first traces were labyrinths on the blotting papers in my school notebooks.
Robert Lepage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKU-36XHcVo
Hiddleston, J.A., Baudelaire and the Art of Memory 1999
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