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May 28, 2006
Penguins can't juggle
The phone rings and a voice says "hello", and sort of guess who this is, and I get it in one. Haven't spoken to him for years, yet I recognise his voice instantly. Our ears are keen, or rather our audio memory is sharp.
They say, on the frozen ice of the Antarctic, a returning penguin can pick out the squealing of their particular baby penguin amidst a colony of thousands of squealing baby penguins, and hell, one squealing baby penguin must sound like all the others. Well I knew it was Alan, straight away, partly because he doesn't sound anything remotely like a baby penguin, and partly because he is an amazing man with a distinctive soft voice.
I bet a penguin couldn't tell us apart though. It's what your used to I guess. Apparently our brains hold all the information we've ever received, it's just accessing it that's tricky. Our brains are designed to discard most information as useless and unnecessary to our continued survival.
An artist has to tune in to some of this useless information to give them a head start. Alan has a wonderful mind that sees the world in a particularly interesting way - he can't juggle though, but then neither can penguins.
Posted by john at May 28, 2006 11:32 AM