Complementary colors.
“Colors which when combined result in white in additive mixtures and black in subtractive mixtures. In color circles the complementary colors are usually located opposite one another.”
—Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
Hue.
“The chromatic colors differ from the achromatic colors in that a color hue (brilliance, quality, saturaton) can be perceived in them.”
—Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
Every color is prayer
“On the top of the world
the birds have wings of silver
The sun shines
closer to your eyes
Every color is prayer
blowing in the sky”
—Jonathan Cott, quoting from On the Top of the World, a poem he wrote during a period of years which he has completely forgotten. From On the Sea of Memory: A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering, 2005.
the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe
“The brain, a walnut-surfaced, gelatinous, three-pound mass of protoplasm with the consistency of an overripe avocado, is the world of our being. More accurately and truly, the universe of our being. Containing approximately 100 billion neurons or nerve cellsmore than there are stars in our galaxyit has been called by James Watson (codiscoverer of DNAs double helix) the last and greatest biological frontier and the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.”
—Jonathan Cott, from On the Sea of Memory: A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering, 2005.
reflections in the gruel plate
“I am sitting on someones knee being fed with gruel. The plate is on a grey oilcloth with a red border, the enamel white, with blue flowers on it, and reflecting the sparse light from the window. By bending by head sideways and forwards, I try out various view points. As I move my head, the reflections in the gruel plate change and form new patterns. Suddenly, I vomit over everything. That is probably my very first memory.”
—Ingmar Bergman, from his autobiography, The Magic Lantern. As quoted by Jonathan Cott in On the Sea of Memory: A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering, 2005.
air crackling with blue light
“Then something beat down and took hold of me, and shook me like the end of the world. Whee-ee-ee it shrilled, through an air crackling with blue light, and with each flash a great jolt drubbed me till I thought my bones would break and the sap fly out of me like a split plant. I wondered what terrible thing it was that I had done.”
—Sylvia Plath, describing ECT, or electroconvulsive therapy, in The Bell Jar, 1963. As quoted by Jonathan Cott in On the Sea of Memory: A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering, 2005.
flashbulb memories
“Neuroscientists have confirmed tha strong emotions, which release adrenaline, which activates the brain, make for emotionally charged memories, often called flashbulb memories. One such memory for me is of the night in December 1994 when I found myself lost in the Sahara Desert in Niger and had to spend fourteen hours alone until I was found by my partys Tuareg guides.”
—Jonathan Cott, from On the Sea of Memory: A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering, 2005.
We who have Alzheimers
“Morris Friedell, who has Alzheimers disease . . . has written: We who have Alzheimers can appreciate clouds, leaves, flowers as we never did before.. . .
People who find themselves suffering with Alzheimers sometimes experience the freshness of life that can last for a while and, before they deteriorate to the next phase of the disease, can really be quite profound. The way it was expressed to me is that people would see the color of a beautiful flower and theyd look away and theyd see the flower again but it wouldnt be againit would be the experiencing of the initial beauty of that color and that natural form for the first time. And there is something profound about that type of experience as opposed to experiencing something for the thirtieth or fortieth or one hundredth time and have it become quite numbing and deadening. Habit sometimes smothers life. But when you experience this for the first time, it can be quite overwhelming and awesome.”
—Jonathan Cott, from On the Sea of Memory: A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering, 2005.
S.s irrepressible power of synesthesia
“In an astonishing and now-famous case study entitled The Mind of a Mnemonist, [the Russian neurologist A.R.] Luria writes of a man named Shereshevskii, whom he designates S. . . .
S.s irrepressible power of synesthesia . . . compelled him to see and even taste words, numbers, and sounds. According to Luria, Presented with a tone pitched at 250 cycles per second and having an amplitute of 64 decibels, S. saw a velvet cord with fibers jutting out on all sides. The cord was tinged with a delicate, pleasant, pink-orange hue. And each word and number elicited a graphic image. In S.s own words: When I hear the word green, a green flowerpot appears; with the word red I see a man in a red shirt coing toward me.”
—Jonathan Cott, from On the Sea of Memory: A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering, 2005.
light as a bird
“James Fernandez writes that after partaking of the eboka root, which is a hallucinogen, the initiate of the Bwiti cult escapes his corporeal reality, becomes light as a bird, sees his dead, and flies high above the crowds of those who have not had the fortune to know eboka. He goes beyond the village of the dead and passes great rivers or crossroads and sometimes changes color as he comes into contact with the great gods.”
—Jonathan Cott, from On the Sea of Memory: A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering, 2005.