#276 Mnemonics- Kurt Vonnegut
This is just a small story about Alfred Moorehead, a new
man. He has learned to unlock a gift for memory. His career has taken off and
his life is almost perfect, but there is always one thing that stops us from
being happy.
“Now since he has attended the company’s two-day Memory
Clinic, names, facts, and numbers clung to his memory like burdocks to an
Airdale. The clinic had, in fact, indirectly cleared up just about every major
problem in his uncomplicated life, save one—his inability to break the ice with
his secretary, Ellen, whom he had silently adored for two years.”
His mnemonic prowess was due to his ability to attach a fact
or a figure in his head to the image of a beautiful movie star. This talent was
put to the test one day by a long list of things to remember, and when he had
to use the image of Ellen as well as the famous starlets, his fondness for her
finally slips.
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