"If I looked at this pitted and pocked wall microscopically enough the visual data would fill my brain entirely."
— Richardson, James (b. 1950)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Keene, NY
Publisher
Ausable Press
Date
2001
Metaphor
"If I looked at this pitted and pocked wall microscopically enough the visual data would fill my brain entirely."
Metaphor in Context
277.
Memory's not infinite. If I looked at this pitted and pocked wall microscopically enough the visual data would fill my brain entirely. Against this, boredom and reflex generalization protect me. If I call up the wall in memory, some generic version will be made up--I never see nothing, I never see gaps or error messages where I have forgotten or mistaken. Same even with those cherished early memories: we call up a sketch, fill in the blanks, and store it again, changed. There is no virgin past. The mind is like those floating islands of vegetation whose roots grasp not the earth but each other.
(p. 59)
Memory's not infinite. If I looked at this pitted and pocked wall microscopically enough the visual data would fill my brain entirely. Against this, boredom and reflex generalization protect me. If I call up the wall in memory, some generic version will be made up--I never see nothing, I never see gaps or error messages where I have forgotten or mistaken. Same even with those cherished early memories: we call up a sketch, fill in the blanks, and store it again, changed. There is no virgin past. The mind is like those floating islands of vegetation whose roots grasp not the earth but each other.
(p. 59)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
James Richardson, Vectors: Aphorisms & Ten-Second Essays (Keene, NY: Ausable Press, 2001).
Date of Entry
06/03/2011
