s n a p p e r h e a d

AULDLANGSYNE's Mailbox

other holiday art:

Santa Claus' Mailbox
ÔSTARA's Mailbox
Sommerzeit's Mailbox
Avril Poisson's Mailbox
Serling's Mailbox

some image excerpts by Chad Abromovich at Obscure Vermont and by Jamie Wheeler

CHASMS (In 2020 Vision)

Calmly we stand upon our respective arêtes and wonder about the goings-on behind the mind of the other. Unless we seldom-ever do.
Hubris suspects Einfühlung breathed its soupçon of influence under what’re you thinkin about—just in case I’d fallen back to sleep.
Abstruse thoughts were influencing my contrivance engine: wondering if a meta poem might-could be real painful going in.
Speech skullduggery; lexicon and vernacular slight-of-hand (eg: arêtes looks like a ridge and Einfühlung breathed).
Mistakes—when 2 cells become 37.2 trillion and 2 parent’s fuck-up for decades—make us great-different people.
Some chasms are unbreachable, some help define where to begin viaduct construction. Unless we never do.

- In 2020 Vision by Veach Glines

additional poems with accompanying art images:

personal values in a poetic vocabulary lesson

hey there below | moiaq aiayf hau
waod poem

💥 Tingle Power - Memory Tool

The test for successfully placing something into long-term memory requires:

A flexible imagination
A strong desire to succeed (practice)
Awareness of the ‘tingle power’ test
An elapse of time (amount will vary)
A memory-recall trigger
Answer key (to check your answers)

Do you have a flexible imagination? Most children, artists, and everyone who enjoys reading fiction do. (If you don’t, you can develop a flexible imagination – and a strong memory – with practice.) You either want to be able to memorize or you don’t. If you do, you’ll practice – and – if you don’t you won’t.

Tingle Power:

Safety Finish Alligator Snowflake X-ray Sunglasses Call Push Ottoman Surface I Heart Balance Cassette Picnic Tingle Power Shadow Explosion Ephemeral

          These 20 example words consist of unrelated nouns, verbs, adjectives, and a pronoun; some are simple to visualize (alligator, sunglasses) others are difficult (ephemeral—something which disappears quickly isn’t easy to picture in your imagination).

          First you need to form a chain of images related to each word. The more exaggerated and unusual each image is, the easier it will be for your memory to recall.

Now, in your mind, explain the links until the chain is complete:

          A huge safety pin, with a checkered finish-line flag attached to it, is piercing thru a white alligator which is in-turn biting into a massive snowflake, which fades into the x-ray body of a woman wearing a pair of sunglasses for a bra; in one hand she’s making a call on an old phone while she pushes the safety pin with the other. Her head is a square ottoman; on every surface of the ottoman there are drawings of eyes on top of hearts. Above the ottoman is a balanced large music cassette. On top of the cassette is a picnic table. The surface of the picnic table is covered with the words Tingle Power in a funky font, as well as the sharp-edged shadow of a nearby explosion which has caused a ring of ephemeral smoke to appear.

          Repeat the mental image from beginning to end. Focus on the actual words you want to memorize instead of the stand-in words you decided to use in the story (finish-line flag = finish; pushes = push; eyes = I; balanced = balance; picnic table = picnic; ephemeral smoke = ephemeral). Now—list the words; not the linking story. Can you do it in reverse? Having difficulty remembering some words?...maybe one (like surface) isn’t unusual enough; if so, draw attention to how weird-odd that word is (you should think about surface as her-face—her face’s surface.)

          The memory recall trigger can be the first image or (as in the example) the only written words: Tingle Power.

          Wait a few minutes or hours. Test yourself and determine if you can recall the mental images in order. Ask someone to help you check your list as you say the words aloud. Repeat this process in a week. Do it again in a month.

Are you accomplished at remembering a chain of single words? Now try the intermediate level: Memory Tool (62 song titles, released between 1959 and 2020).

Other essays relating to memory:

Re-collecting Memories (Chapters 1 thru 4)

When You Ponder Why You're Who You Are, What Happens?
Neither Overwhelmed Nor Underwhelmed

Design Fault

Decide

if you can aesthetically abide

my deconstruction of this visual brew (for which I will-do—epistemically—be your guide).

First nucleotide -

split in two I will systematically divide

form follows function isn’t always true; as Duchamp’s R. Mutt drew and empirically descried.

This collage is comprised:

amid stickers few, one which dramatically belied

outdoor electric box-junction if circuit blew (and FAULT INDICATOR threw) was, fatalistically, inside.

Unity-service artist (oft chastized),

broad-nib scrawl indigo-blue DESIGN drips “accidentally” applied

required only, was the introduction of eyes askew - then - with no hullaballoo, to end climactically and subside.

aesthetic: a branch of philosophy focused on the nature of beauty, art, as well as subjective tastes and the creation, understanding, and appreciation of beauty.

abide: to bear-with patiently, to tolerate or withstand.

deconstruct: to examine in order to reveal the foundation or composition.

will-do (slang): informal way of saying ‘plan to accomplish’.

epistemic: of or relating to knowledge (or to validate the degree of one’s knowledge).

nucleotides form the basic structural unit of nucleic acids such as DNA.

Sullivan's famous axiom, “form follows function” (purpose should be the starting point for design) can be a touchstone for architects, artists and designers.

true (visual definition): possess ‘correct or proper alignment’.

The artist, Marcel Duchamp, is credited with coining the term ‘found art’ after submitting Fountain to an art exhibition in 1917. He signed the readymade art R. Mutt.

empirical knowledge is based on observation or experience and not on theory or logical reasoning.

descried: published, proclaimed.

belied: disguised, contradicted, a failure to give a true notion or impression.

fatalistic doctrine: all events are fixed in advance and humans are powerless to change them.

chastized: punished/ridiculed for misbehavior.

“accidentally” (usage of quotation marks): to suggest sarcasm, special insight, or imply that the opposite could be true.

askew: turned or twisted to one side, slightly off-balance.

hullaballoo: a loud, continued noise, ruckus, mixture of noises, din or cacophony of sound.

climactically: related to the end or completion, climax (with three letter Cs).

subside: settling toward the bottom, to become quiet.