While reading the memory palace chapter in Moonwalking With Einstein, I attempted to construct a memory palace of my own to house Ed's to-do list. Utilizing a house I spent a large portion of my childhood (the house was my grandparents, on the corner of 3rd and Olive), I was able to deposit the list fairly easily. Here is a walkthrough of The Palace.
-I begin in the garage, where the jar of
pickled garlic stands among the stockpiled
wood (I imagined
pickles and
garlic because I wasn't entirely sure what
pickled garlic really smelled/looked/tasted like)
-as I enter the house from the driveway, I notice a miniature tub of
cottage cheese with Claudia Schiffer swan diving from the edge (she is roughly an inch tall)
-up the stairs in the kitchen, Pete (a body builder with a birthmark on his face, also an old family friend) is
smoking a
salmon like a cigarette while leaning against the counter
-on the counter to his left are three bottles of
Riesling and three bottles of
Chardonnay (the only white wines I am familiar with) preparing to shank each other with corkscrews (replete with singing and greasy Italian mob hairdos)
-in the sink are the three pair of horribly
dirty,
smelly socks, awaiting a good scrubbing
-on the door handle hang the three
hula hoops which are made of
black licorice
-I notice that lying on the floor in the hallway to the dining room is a
bright
magenta snorkel with a
blue lens
-the dining room is filled with the
fog from the
dry ice machine sitting on the cushion of the seated bay window
-the image of the she-male e-mailing at a computer with Sophia Lauren was adequate for the e-mail Sophia portion of the to-do list (this just happens to be at the dining room table for some odd reason)
-next is my mother-in-law crawling through the
fog in a
skin toned cat suit (unfortunately, this is something she might actually wear)
-as I walk into the den, there is a dancing bottle of Paul Newman salad dressing on the television (my knowledge of his food line supplanted any film acquaintance)
-next there are
elk sausages with
buns,
ketchup, and
sauerkraut sitting in my grandfather's empty wheelchair (a whole slew of them to be exact)
-sitting in the director's chair is my paraplegic grandfather with his
fire engine red megaphone barking out commands at the bottle of Paul Newman salad dressing on the television (he's been known to yell at the t.v. without any props)
-for some reason there is a
rope and
harness sitting on the "
davenport" (not to be jumped on lest you be yelled at by a paraplegic with a
megaphone aimed directly at your ear)
-finally, the
green glass barometer hangs on the window behind the couch with a teeny tiny Al Roker giving the forecast from within (he seems a bit
steamy about being confined this way)
I think that's the entire list. I feel as though this memory palace could serve to provide a plethora of nooks and crannies in which to stow memories. Considering the house is 4 stories, has roughly 8 bedrooms, 4 kitchens, and a dank, dark basement, it may well house a large list of items. Curious to test its capacity and if I can remember enough details of its inner workings to make it useful.
