In a recent Washington Post newsletter, he (Ron Charles) marveled at the actress Judi Dench’s astonishing ability to recite most of the lines from her long-ago parts in Shakespeare plays. He wrote:
“Such memorization is a lost art, and much substance was lost with it. In high school and college, I used to memorize hours of stage dialogue and long passages from the Bible, which were a great comfort to me in times of stress. These days, only the stress remains. Most nights, staring at the ceiling for hours, my mind is a tangle of bits of string, and all I can come up with is something like: ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Won’t you lay me down in the tall grass and let me do my stuff?’”
For those of you not fluent in Fleetwood Mac, that last sentence is a lyric from the song “Second Hand News.”
— Frank Bruni, from “The Love of Sentences” (NY Times, May 2, 2024)
Judi Dench… in my opinion an excellent actress. My mother and I watched many episodes of the sitcom “as time goes by” which ran from January 1992 through December 2005.
She sure is!!!
she is a treasure and I really get this, on my own level. while I can recite whole passages from an inane thing that I memorized many years ago, (not Shakespeare), I often cannot remember what was so important that I wanted to tell someone that I am on my way to visit.
Laughing. So good….
There is nothing about Judi Dench that I don’t love – be it her gargantuan talent, immediate recall of Shakespeare, her humor or her irascibility, There’s a documentary on Netflix (I think – it may be Prime) focused on the four great Dames as they spend an afternoon together…it’s cheeky and witty and warm
Susan watched it and recommended it to me Mimi. On my list.
Memorising is yoga for the brain. It seems to prevent dementia.
Judi Dench is a great actor
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Yoga for the Brain. Love that Klaus. Thanks.
I was thinking…. gee I read this! Of course (since, thanks to you, I subscribed to Frank Bruni). So good.
Teacher hack… you want a child to remember something…… put it to music. Think about it. Go ahead. ABC’s , Water Cycle, Mean-Median-Mode, Phases of the Moon.
Best advice?….Memorize the good parts and then walk the others along behind you with that invisible string.
Teacher hack…. if you want a student to remember something…. put it to music. Take a moment. Think back to elementary school. ABC’s, Water Cycle, Mean-Median-Mode, Phases of the Moon….Struggling to remember something….. focus on the most memorable/significant parts… piece the others together by “pulling” them behind you with an invisible string.
Fleetwood Mac… is that a band?
PS. This “no sleep thing”, is there an age that it kickstarts? Because I think I’ve arrived.
Teacher hack…. if you want a student to remember something, put it to music. Take a moment. Think back to elementary school. ABC’s, Water Cycle, Mean-Median-Mode, Phases of the Moon. Struggling to remember something? Focus of the most significant parts… piece the others together by “pulling” them behind you with an invisible string.
Fleetwood Mac…. is that a band?
P.S. This no sleep thing, is there an age that it kickstarts? Because I think I’ve arrived.
Good for you! Love the Hack!
Saying this “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” helps my brain to stop the monkey brain.
So impressive that this works for you Maria!
The power of faith and prayer.
I need to join this Bus.
You already are with your daily walk at the Cove. Just repeat this “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” over and over as a Mantra.
Thank you Maria.
So much to like in this post. Judi Dench, Fleetwood Mac/Bible mashup, relating to being able to remember so much back in the day. Thanks for the laugh it induced.
She is known as, Dame Judi Dench…an excellent, actress…such a treasure
She is!