Salvador Dalí's Persistence of Memory is one of my favorite paintings. It is one of the most instantly recognizable examples of surrealism. It depicts a strange world of melting clocks and faces and... well, check out the picture and see for yourself. I love this work.It's been reproduced and reprinted in every conceivable visual medium. If you ever get a chance, though, go see the original. It's at the MoMA in New York.
Anyway, I've been thinking lately about how we form the strangest memory associations. Silly little things remind us of people in our lives or experiences we've had. (Well, at least that's what I've observed about myself.) While thinking about this, I thought that this work of Dalí's was apropos -- weird painting, strange visuals, referring to memory in its title. So there!
What am I talking about, exactly? It's how we sometimes have seemingly insignificant things trigger memories of people and events. Sort of like someone remembering his wedding everytime he sees chicken kiev, instead of everytime he hears his wedding song played on thee radio. Something like that. Anyway, here are a few examples. The associations will be completely lost on most people, perhaps even on those of whom I am reminded. But you'll see how silly my little "memory jogs" are.
- The Golden Girls, especially Bea Arthur, reminds me of my friend April. Out of all of us high school friends, April liked that show the most. Miami is nice, so I'll say it twice...
- If I read or hear about chateaubriand anywhere, anytime, I will invariably be reminded of my friend Winnie. Years ago in Manila she had us over for dinner at her house and she served chateaubriand.
- Whenever I see one of those medium-sized Coleman coolers I remember one time when Bill and I went out to Shoreline Park for a picnic, because intsead of a picnic basket he brought one of those.
- Chicken Little (the recent Disney version of him, anyway) reminds me of my old online buddy Art. For the record I've never seen the movie, so I REALLY don't know why my brain made this association.
- The Gigi D'Agostino hit from a few years back, "I'll Fly With You", reminds me of my friend and former coworker Gavin. I heard this song play on the radio once, when he and I were going out for lunch. Ever since then the association stuck.
- Mountain Dew in a big plastic 32-ounce cup reminds me of the summer of 1991, when I was "living at home" while on break from school in Manila. My brother and I would drive to Taco Bell almost every night and get 18 tacos at a time. Nine for him, nine for me. *burp*
- The term "pica pica" (which I believe means finger food in the Philippines) reminds me of my childhood friend and neighbor, Ernie, and all the fun adventures and misadventures we had growing up. Why? Because Ernie liked to use that term, and it always used to bug me.
- If I'm stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a rainy evening, I'm transported back to my college days in Manila. I can see myself lusting after a Nissan Maxima, and wishing I carpooled with Raffy Ladao (hahaha). And I can almost hear the music from City Lights 88.3, even though we don't have any radio stations quite like that here in the Bay Area.