Today's headline is a quote from the widely-reviled "Spock's Brain" episode of good old original Star Trek (Relevant nine-second excerpt here.) And my further inspiration is Dave Barry's recent substacked essay: My Brain.
A recent embarrassing incident has led me to believe my brain is full. It was bound to happen. My brain has been storing things since the Truman administration, hanging on to information that it apparently believes I will need to know at some future point, such as the theme song for the 1955-1960 TV series Robin Hood, which goes (I quote from memory):
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen!
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men!
Feared by the bad! Loved by the good!
Robin Hood! Robin Hood! Robin Hood!
Dave's brain is accurate, as you can verify here.
He goes on to justify his claim of full-brain syndrome. It's a fine, funny article, and I recommend it to you. Also, subscribing, because Dave deserves your support. Also check out Monty Python's Dennis Moore sketch, if you need further chuckles.
But Dave got me thinking (with my brain). I'm not quite as old, but I'm always alert to signs of brain failure. Which happen far too often these days. ("Why did I walk into this room?")
But the news from my self-reflection is more often good than bad. I do 13 crossword puzzles a week—seven from the New York Times, six from the Wall Street Journal—usually without Google-cheating. I also hit the NYT's daily Wordle and Connection puzzles. And, not to boast, but I've been on a hot streak working out the WSJ's Friday "Crossword Contest" meta-puzzle.
And of course, Jeopardy!. I'm not at contestant-level, if I ever was, but I still can cough up correct responses often enough, shouting them out … to my cat, who has the good manners to ignore me.
So I'm happy about that, but I'm really impressed with something I (and probably you) take for granted too often: my brain's ability to easily dredge up factoids that I haven't thought about in years, or even decades. And to do that within a fraction of a second! (Today's NYT 36-Across clue: "Emmy-winning actor Ray"; ah, that's "LIOTTA"! Spelled correctly, too!)
How does that work? And, even more navel-gazingly: why does it work? As a result, allegedly, of a few billion years of evolution, what is the species-survival value of me remembering Ray's last name, how it's spelled, and (for that matter) most of the plot of GoodFellas?
Which brings me to one more self-reporting anecdote, also movie-related. I watched the 1964 Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night the other evening. I saw it back then, over sixty years ago, but not since. Cute in spots, but (to be honest) doesn't hold up that well.
And I found myself speaking this line, uttered in the movie by George Harrison, about a second before he does:
He's right, you know.
Certainly not in anyone's list of "greatest movie quotes". And yet, it just popped out. How did you do that, brain? And why?
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