The Captain lent me his copy of On the Sea of Memory, by Jonathan Cott, the story of Cott's permanent loss of memory after electroshock treatments, followed by a series of interviews with people expert in various aspects of memory-related fields -- or fields in which memory of different kinds play a strong role. You only think you might not be interested, until you open the book and then can't tear your eyes away from the page.
This is a superb book on its own merits, but its list of the other books by Cott also intrigued me. I was in the middle of a project to learn more about the great pianist Glenn Gould, and I saw listed among Cott's other books these titles: Conversations with Glenn Gould; and Forever Young, a series of conversations with (among others) Glenn Gould, Maurice Sendak, Stephane Grappelli.
That book in turn gave me some insights into the scope and depth of Cott's earlier career as a writer, part of which has been lost for him with his memory loss. He's an astoundingly gifted writer (note the present tense) and interviewer. One test for of the skill of an interviewer is that the person being interviewed thinks the questions being asked are good ones. We find this over and over in Cott's work. Besides being skillful and intelligent, he's compelling reading, both then and now.
Get hold of On the Sea of Memory (I've now got my own copy) and some of his other books as well, and enjoy them -- and yourself. Read him and weep, while wishing that you could write so well; read him and smile, as he unlocks the sophisticated ideas and personalities he interviews; read him and -- most importantly -- be intelligently engaged.
8:23:16 AM 
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