I had a hard time making the Palace more real until I drew out your description. A map helped solidify things.
I rearranged my palace to suit my quirks.
I prefer to flip the bookcases on the south wall, so art and music is next to literature and language (on the east), and technology adjacent to the sciences on the west wall.
I flipped the bookcases on the west wall. I prefer the hard sciences to be adjacent to the technology section on the south, and the life sciences to be adjacent to the health shelf on the north.
My math table is in the SW corner, next to the hard sciences and technology. I’ll fess up that part of my preference is that in a Dewey Decimal library, the 500s science section begins with math, then physical sciences, then life sciences. Also, a cool design table like that would support technology and innovation as well.
Where did you put the historical events table? I believe I moved that too, to the NE corner next to the history shelf. ( I don’t expect to re-enact any family history, the shelf on the North wall, but hey! if I do, it will be epic).
The globe hangs in mid-air. Below it, inlaid in the floor, is a compass rose with a big N to the north. Partly this is an indulgence, because I really like them. Partly it makes it easier to find North. In the absence of any other orientation points, I tend to assign North-ness to whatever part I see first or is most important. (E.g., “north” is what I see when I look out my front door. “North” is “up” on a mental map.) We kept beginning with East, East was taking on a north-y flavor.
Making the map reminded me of my library where I grew up. I have a much stronger spatial sense of that building, and I’m considering making a hybrid palace of memory from it. The drawback is I also have a strong recollection of its condition – poorly lit, stains on the carpet – and some of its layout was driven by the practical constraints of the space rather than best organization for material.
In the first couple visits, you described a lot of contents of the bookcases. Do you find that simply naming and labeling them is enough for your students to remember them?
Finally, your posts prompted me to read Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer’s exploration of the Memory Championships. Foer mentions two categories of memory from Ad Herrenium – memoria rerum, for things, and memoria verborum, for words. So far, the Palace seems well suited for things. Any insight on how to use it for verba? I need to memorize some programming syntax, which means recalling exact phrasing.
This seems like a good place to post feedback.
I had a hard time making the Palace more real until I drew out your description. A map helped solidify things.
I rearranged my palace to suit my quirks.
I prefer to flip the bookcases on the south wall, so art and music is next to literature and language (on the east), and technology adjacent to the sciences on the west wall.
I flipped the bookcases on the west wall. I prefer the hard sciences to be adjacent to the technology section on the south, and the life sciences to be adjacent to the health shelf on the north.
My math table is in the SW corner, next to the hard sciences and technology. I’ll fess up that part of my preference is that in a Dewey Decimal library, the 500s science section begins with math, then physical sciences, then life sciences. Also, a cool design table like that would support technology and innovation as well.
Where did you put the historical events table? I believe I moved that too, to the NE corner next to the history shelf. ( I don’t expect to re-enact any family history, the shelf on the North wall, but hey! if I do, it will be epic).
The globe hangs in mid-air. Below it, inlaid in the floor, is a compass rose with a big N to the north. Partly this is an indulgence, because I really like them. Partly it makes it easier to find North. In the absence of any other orientation points, I tend to assign North-ness to whatever part I see first or is most important. (E.g., “north” is what I see when I look out my front door. “North” is “up” on a mental map.) We kept beginning with East, East was taking on a north-y flavor.
Making the map reminded me of my library where I grew up. I have a much stronger spatial sense of that building, and I’m considering making a hybrid palace of memory from it. The drawback is I also have a strong recollection of its condition – poorly lit, stains on the carpet – and some of its layout was driven by the practical constraints of the space rather than best organization for material.
In the first couple visits, you described a lot of contents of the bookcases. Do you find that simply naming and labeling them is enough for your students to remember them?
Finally, your posts prompted me to read Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer’s exploration of the Memory Championships. Foer mentions two categories of memory from Ad Herrenium – memoria rerum, for things, and memoria verborum, for words. So far, the Palace seems well suited for things. Any insight on how to use it for verba? I need to memorize some programming syntax, which means recalling exact phrasing.