Face Time

I’ve been working long hours this week, and have had scant leisure for thinking or writing. I hate to send you away empty-handed, though, after you’ve made the effort to check in, so here, courtesy of our friend The Stiletto, is an online test of your ability to remember names and faces.

I actually did rather well, to my surprise; it has seemed to me that my memory for such things has been slipping away in recent years, a decline I have probably done my fair share to accelerate.

There’s a rather tart saying about the loss of memory that attends old age:

“First you forget names; next you forget faces. Then you forget to pull up your zipper, and then you forget to pull down your zipper.”

For me, so far it’s mostly faces.

9 Comments

  1. I’ll skip the test if you don’t mind – too, too humiliating! Sometimes I find myself staring in the shaving mirror and muttering, “No, no, don’t tell me, I’ll get it in a minute!”

    Posted August 15, 2007 at 4:08 am | Permalink
  2. I was a lowly 86th percentile for facial recognition, and that was my best score. My other two scores were in the 50th-60th percentile range. Talk about humiliating.

    Kevin

    Posted August 16, 2007 at 2:26 pm | Permalink
  3. Malcolm says

    I was startled that I scored as well as I did, given my heavy burden of years, and the adventures of my youth.

    I’m sure a brisk transcontinental stroll will sharpen your wits.

    Posted August 16, 2007 at 2:41 pm | Permalink
  4. Malcolm says

    David,

    I was walking down the street a while back and a guy came up to me and said “I know you! You’re…”

    “Malcolm Pollack,” I said.

    He looked puzzled. “No, that’s not it…”

    Posted August 16, 2007 at 2:46 pm | Permalink
  5. Malcolm, that guy was thinking of the blue movie film star Malcum Poleaxe, whose name, of course, has nothing at all to do with your own. Also, the two of you don’t resemble each other in the least, so the encounter was sheer coincidence, a Jungian synchronicity signifying nothing.

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

    Posted August 16, 2007 at 3:05 pm | Permalink
  6. Malcolm says

    Hi Jeffery,

    Funny you should mention that: my son Nicholas and I occasionally play music together; he decided to name our little duo Poleaxe.

    Posted August 16, 2007 at 3:09 pm | Permalink
  7. Well, don’t let Malcum hear about it. He has no trouble maintaining Chaucerian Wut.

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

    Posted August 16, 2007 at 6:20 pm | Permalink
  8. Malcolm says

    A minimum qualification of his employment, one must imagine.

    Posted August 16, 2007 at 6:40 pm | Permalink
  9. Minimun to the max!

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

    Posted August 17, 2007 at 8:26 am | Permalink

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