The Memory Artists Part 34

33 NB's mistake here was crediting information supplied by NXB. I am not using chloral or chloral hydrate in any of my studies, either for amnesia or brain cancer. And although the drug was clearly from my lab, I am not the one who ordered it. It may have been part of NXB's "literary studies," as the highly addictive-and dangerous-drug was prescribed for insomnia in the nineteenth century. It hastened the mental collapse of Friedrich Nietzsche, gave paranoid hallucinations to Dante Rossetti and Evelyn Waugh, and destroyed Andre Gide's memory. NB's mistake here was crediting information supplied by NXB. I am not using chloral or chloral hydrate in any of my studies, either for amnesia or brain cancer. And although the drug was clearly from my lab, I am not the one who ordered it. It may have been part of NXB's "literary studies," as the highly addictive-and dangerous-drug was prescribed for insomnia in the nineteenth century. It hastened the mental collapse of Friedrich Nietzsche, gave paranoid hallucinations to Dante Rossetti and Evelyn Waugh, and destroyed Andre Gide's memory.

34 Coincidentally, Alois Alzheimer, who practised in Germany in the 1890s, took an interest in his own country's "Decadents," particularly Jakob Wa.s.sermann, Frank Wedekind and Hanns Heinz Ewers. He makes only pa.s.sing reference, however, to the earlier French Coincidentally, Alois Alzheimer, who practised in Germany in the 1890s, took an interest in his own country's "Decadents," particularly Jakob Wa.s.sermann, Frank Wedekind and Hanns Heinz Ewers. He makes only pa.s.sing reference, however, to the earlier French Decadents Decadents Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme and Huysmans; and none at all to the English Decadents of the "Yellow Nineties": Arthur Symons, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Dowson and Lionel Johnson. Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme and Huysmans; and none at all to the English Decadents of the "Yellow Nineties": Arthur Symons, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Dowson and Lionel Johnson.

35 Emily d.i.c.kinson, "Wild Nights," in Emily d.i.c.kinson, "Wild Nights," in Poems Poems (1890). (1890).

36 Art therapy is based on the premise that words can act as a barrier, preventing people from expressing what is on their minds, and that creating art can allow people to describe their feelings without words. Through creating art and talking about the process of art-making with an art therapist, patients can "increase awareness of self, cope with symptoms, stress, and traumatic experiences, enhance cognitive abilities, and enjoy the life-affirming pleasures of artistic creativity." I'm quoting from an Art Therapy of America pamphlet belonging to my wife, who took (expensive) courses in it. Some of this stuff is flaky at best, and most of it unproven. Art therapy is based on the premise that words can act as a barrier, preventing people from expressing what is on their minds, and that creating art can allow people to describe their feelings without words. Through creating art and talking about the process of art-making with an art therapist, patients can "increase awareness of self, cope with symptoms, stress, and traumatic experiences, enhance cognitive abilities, and enjoy the life-affirming pleasures of artistic creativity." I'm quoting from an Art Therapy of America pamphlet belonging to my wife, who took (expensive) courses in it. Some of this stuff is flaky at best, and most of it unproven.

Far more interesting are my experiments in transcranial magnetic stimulation, which will have applications for cognition, creativity and well-being. Using my own modified stimulator (VTMS) on research subject JJY, I enhanced his visual and spatial memory, along with his creative skills and pleasure quotient. I targeted an island of tissue in the human gyrus, near the left ear, which serves as a kind of booster rocket for creativity. Below are the results of an experiment in which I asked JJY to draw a picture of a cat four times, at different stages of his exposure to VTMS: [image]

I then asked him to rewrite a line from his novel The Right Chemistry The Right Chemistry:

Her blouse was a really loud red colour.

Her blouse was scarlet, like the scream of someone falling through a skylight.

1. Before 2. After

At the final stages of each of these tests, JJY had a broad grin on his face. Like s.e.x and eating, creating and experiencing art are pleasurable acts. Since the brain reinforces creative acts by rewarding brain cells with the neurotransmitter dopamine, creativity has an obvious role to play in our health and survival. Creative expression, in fact, may be the brain's natural method of protecting itself from disease. I play the xylophone, for instance, as a means of preventing neurodegeneration: compared to the general population, a much lower percentage of musicians get Alzheimer's disease. See my "Art Therapy and Alzheimer's: Why Researchers Have Been Wrong Until Now" in Psychology Tomorrow Psychology Tomorrow, winter 2001.

37 Cf. Ralph Waldo Emerson's line "The surest poison is time" in "Old Age," Cf. Ralph Waldo Emerson's line "The surest poison is time" in "Old Age," Society and Solitude Society and Solitude (1870). Memoryless and demented, Emerson died of Alzheimer's disease twelve years later. (1870). Memoryless and demented, Emerson died of Alzheimer's disease twelve years later.

38 It is not always possible to control the ambitions of one's subalterns, who clearly flirted with unprofessionalism in this regard. One of the experiments that NB refers to was conducted to see whether memory impairment occurred in synaesthetes after electrical stimulation, as it normally does with non-synaesthetes. Another was inspired by experiments conducted by the Montreal neurologist Dr. Wilder Penfield (who was once called "the greatest living Canadian," even though he was born and educated in the US). Penfield found that by stimulating the temporal lobes he could evoke memories incorporating sound, movement and colour, which were much more vivid than usual memory, and often about things unremembered under ordinary circ.u.mstances. In short, he made his patients relive the past as if it were the present. As Cytowic (1989) memorably describes it, "This was Proust on the operating table, an electrical It is not always possible to control the ambitions of one's subalterns, who clearly flirted with unprofessionalism in this regard. One of the experiments that NB refers to was conducted to see whether memory impairment occurred in synaesthetes after electrical stimulation, as it normally does with non-synaesthetes. Another was inspired by experiments conducted by the Montreal neurologist Dr. Wilder Penfield (who was once called "the greatest living Canadian," even though he was born and educated in the US). Penfield found that by stimulating the temporal lobes he could evoke memories incorporating sound, movement and colour, which were much more vivid than usual memory, and often about things unremembered under ordinary circ.u.mstances. In short, he made his patients relive the past as if it were the present. As Cytowic (1989) memorably describes it, "This was Proust on the operating table, an electrical recherche du temps perdu recherche du temps perdu." Patients were shocked (pardon the pun) to re-experience long-forgotten conversations, a kindergarten cla.s.sroom, a certain song, the view from a childhood window. They were convinced that what they experienced was real, even though they also knew they were on an operating table in Montreal. Now, the obvious next step is to open up the cranium of a synaesthete, stimulate the visual cortex and see whether the resulting experience resembles their experience of synaesthesia. Treading on thin deontological ice, you're thinking? Perhaps, but not with transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is what we used on NB. This gentler method of stimulating the cortex generates a magnetic impulse that pa.s.ses through the skull and causes nerve cells in the brain to "fire." In non-synaesthetes I have been able to elicit colour percepts, or chromatophenes, by stimulating the occipital lobes. My next step is to stimulate the same regions in a synaesthete, and compare the two "optical" events. Should they prove to be similar we might, all of us, experience the rainbow world of a synaesthete!

39 Speak, Memory Speak, Memory by name, wherein Nabokov-who spent the last eighteen years of his life in Switzerland-describes his synaesthesia: by name, wherein Nabokov-who spent the last eighteen years of his life in Switzerland-describes his synaesthesia: I present a fine case of coloured hearing. Perhaps "hearing" is not quite accurate, since the colour sensation seems to be produced by the very act of my orally forming a given letter while I imagine its outline. The long a a of the English alphabet has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French of the English alphabet has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French a a evokes polished ebony. This black group also includes hard evokes polished ebony. This black group also includes hard g g (vulcanised rubber) and (vulcanised rubber) and r r (a sooty rag being ripped). Oatmeal (a sooty rag being ripped). Oatmeal n n, noodle-limp, and the ivory-backed hand mirror of o o take care of the whites. take care of the whites.

(Speak, Memory, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967).

Nabokov's parents, wife and son, interestingly enough, were all synaesthetes.

40 My preliminary research points to three ways in which caffeine can protect against or reverse dementia-related changes in the brain: (1) it can stimulate brain cells to take in choline, needed to make acetylcholine, which is reduced in dementia; (2) it can interfere with another neurotransmitter called adenosine, a knock-on effect that may disrupt AD mechanisms; (3) it seems to tone down the activity of "housekeeping" cells called glia, which, although important in ridding the brain of dead and injured cells, can sometimes be overzealous and damage contiguous areas. My department is currently engaged in double-blind studies involving caffeinated and decaffeinated Maxwell House coffee. My preliminary research points to three ways in which caffeine can protect against or reverse dementia-related changes in the brain: (1) it can stimulate brain cells to take in choline, needed to make acetylcholine, which is reduced in dementia; (2) it can interfere with another neurotransmitter called adenosine, a knock-on effect that may disrupt AD mechanisms; (3) it seems to tone down the activity of "housekeeping" cells called glia, which, although important in ridding the brain of dead and injured cells, can sometimes be overzealous and damage contiguous areas. My department is currently engaged in double-blind studies involving caffeinated and decaffeinated Maxwell House coffee.

41 See note 15. See note 15.

42 Overleaf is KL's synaesthetic alphanumeric character set (this colour chart, and the one in note 1, account for this book being slightly more expensive than most): Overleaf is KL's synaesthetic alphanumeric character set (this colour chart, and the one in note 1, account for this book being slightly more expensive than most): [image]

43 In essence, this was "it" as it turned out: the pharmaceutical Cinderella, the magic bullet, the v.i.a.g.r.a for the Mind. I should perhaps take the time here to clarify my role in its discovery. (1) At least two of its ingredients (federally unapproved at that time) I personally obtained for NB, at considerable risk to my career and reputation, and at least one other was spagyrically tinctured by JJY, who was then working under my direction. (2) It is no secret that Henry Burun's notes served as a compa.s.s for his son's research. In the context of our professional relationship, Henry and I often discussed psychopharmacological issues relating to mnemonics and nootropics, as his lab books clearly indicate. (3) The Nepenthe-Amaranth-56 "memory pill" (later modified and named Amaranthine1001) has its roots in a discovery made by a former teacher of mine, the Montreal neuroscientist Wilder Penfield, who published a paper in 1955 that described the strange effects of applying electrical currents to the brain, including hallucinations, memory loss and, in one case, a woman who said she felt as if she had just left her body. The crude instruments of the era were unable to determine the specific area of the brain involved or to replicate the out-of-body effect, but in 2002 Swiss scientists identified the part of the brain involved: the In essence, this was "it" as it turned out: the pharmaceutical Cinderella, the magic bullet, the v.i.a.g.r.a for the Mind. I should perhaps take the time here to clarify my role in its discovery. (1) At least two of its ingredients (federally unapproved at that time) I personally obtained for NB, at considerable risk to my career and reputation, and at least one other was spagyrically tinctured by JJY, who was then working under my direction. (2) It is no secret that Henry Burun's notes served as a compa.s.s for his son's research. In the context of our professional relationship, Henry and I often discussed psychopharmacological issues relating to mnemonics and nootropics, as his lab books clearly indicate. (3) The Nepenthe-Amaranth-56 "memory pill" (later modified and named Amaranthine1001) has its roots in a discovery made by a former teacher of mine, the Montreal neuroscientist Wilder Penfield, who published a paper in 1955 that described the strange effects of applying electrical currents to the brain, including hallucinations, memory loss and, in one case, a woman who said she felt as if she had just left her body. The crude instruments of the era were unable to determine the specific area of the brain involved or to replicate the out-of-body effect, but in 2002 Swiss scientists identified the part of the brain involved: the right angular gyrus right angular gyrus, which sits about an inch above and behind the right ear. Although my genius was not, strictly speaking, of the same t.i.tan calibre as Dr. Penfield's, as a student-technician working under him I strongly suspected that this was the area involved, and I must have discussed this idea years later with Henry Burun. A disruption at the right angular gyrus-involved in processing information from the visual system, the balance system and the somatosensory system-creates an illusion of floating in which one's own body feels and looks distant. The phenomenon has inspired talk of a spiritual self that can roam free of the body and, after many accounts of patients "watching" themselves before pulling back from the verge of death, has been seen as evidence of an afterlife. I myself became interested in the topic when, as a student at the University of Basel, during an indescribable parlour game in which someone with scissors made an "animal sculpture" out of my beard, I underwent an intense outof-body experience, visiting Renoir's house at Cagne-sur-mer on the Cote d'Azur. To verify whether I had actually left my body, the following day I went up to the roof to see whether it bore the convex terracotta tiles I had seen while floating over my dorm. Shockingly, it did. But I digress. A-1001 is a benzoquinone-naphthoquinone-methaqualone-based compound with a dual mechanism of action: (a) it activates the right angular gyrus and hippocampus, improving brain metabolism and protecting the cell membranes against lipid peroxidation and dysregulated calcium; (b) it inhibits an enzyme that breaks down the chemical messenger acetylcholine, while acting on key receptors in the brain, which leads to the release of more acetylcholine. It is rooted in an important discovery: the "missing link" between plaques, tangles, and the death of acetylcholine-producing neurons. The connection between these three processes has eluded scientists for years. As sometimes happens in science, its discovery was a fluke; I searched independently for the link for years, methodically and pertinaciously, and finally the sorcerer's apprentice, NB, found it more or less by accident. (His conception was right, but he was a haphazard experimenter.) On which more in a future article.

44 Rossetti's "Without Her" (1881) begins: Rossetti's "Without Her" (1881) begins: What of her gla.s.s without her? The blank greyThere where the pool is blind of the moon's face.Her dress without her? The tossed empty s.p.a.ceOf cloud-rack whence the moon has pa.s.sed away ...Her pillowed place without her?Tears, ah me! for love's good graceAnd cold forgetfulness of night or day ...

Ernest Dowson's over-quoted 1891 poem "Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae" ("I am not what I was under the reign of good Cynara") ends: I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;But I was desolate and sick of an old pa.s.sion,Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.I cried for madder music and stronger wine,But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;And I am desolate and sick of an old pa.s.sion,Yea hungry for the lips of my desire:I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

45 See note 15. See note 15.

46 I am pleased to see that my mock-romantic "lampoon," a parody of the Greek poet Anacreon, hit its mark. I am pleased to see that my mock-romantic "lampoon," a parody of the Greek poet Anacreon, hit its mark.

47 Can 5' 8 Can 5' 812" be considered "dwarfish"?

48 There was only one other writer involved, who was dismissed not because he told the truth, but because his translations did not convey the tenor of my endnotes. The workmanship, in other words, fell short of the material. Regarding NXB's other insinuations (product-placement, miserliness, quackery, etc.), see note 9. There was only one other writer involved, who was dismissed not because he told the truth, but because his translations did not convey the tenor of my endnotes. The workmanship, in other words, fell short of the material. Regarding NXB's other insinuations (product-placement, miserliness, quackery, etc.), see note 9.

As for the "chapter of Norval's novel" alluded to earlier, it is reproduced in Chapter 18 below. Norval may have refused permission, but his publishing house did not. My industry connections and name had something to do with that. See note 52.

The reader may wonder at this point why I run my own house (which NXB described, through ignorance, as a "vanity press"). The answer is quite simple: people are often blind to new ideas. Especially scientists. I have not always managed to get my complex research understood or appreciated by some of the more "famous" scientific journals and publishers. And I am far from being the only genius, in the annals of science, to have had this problem! Although I attempted, repeatedly, to explain this to my wife, and to account for the many long evenings devoted to publishing matters, she remained unyieldingly sceptical, portraying me in one English newspaper as a "vain, condescending, name-dropping, spotlightseeking, philandering monomaniac." Because her English is unfluent, I can only a.s.sume these epithets came from her feminist attorney.

49 See note 9. See note 9.

50 See note 9. For the record, our department director, a supremely skilled administrator, is not "cross-eyed." She has a gla.s.s eye. See note 9. For the record, our department director, a supremely skilled administrator, is not "cross-eyed." She has a gla.s.s eye.

51 Niobe has a special resonance in my own life. In Greek mythology she is the prototype of the bereaved mother, weeping for the loss of her children. She was turned into a rock on Mount Sipylus, which continues to weep when the snow melts above it. Her story conjures up memories of a holiday my wife and I took to Turkey in 1996. It was to be our last. We hiked to the top of the legendary mountain (Yamanlar Dag, northeast of Izmir), and saw Niobe in stone. " Niobe has a special resonance in my own life. In Greek mythology she is the prototype of the bereaved mother, weeping for the loss of her children. She was turned into a rock on Mount Sipylus, which continues to weep when the snow melts above it. Her story conjures up memories of a holiday my wife and I took to Turkey in 1996. It was to be our last. We hiked to the top of the legendary mountain (Yamanlar Dag, northeast of Izmir), and saw Niobe in stone. "Du hast mich betrogen," my wife said calmly in the failing light. I remember I was wearing Tyrollean lederhosen and an alpine hat with bersaglieri feathers. When we arrived back in Montreal, my wife and daughter moved out of our nineteenth-century (and now echoingly empty) mountainside home, never to return.

Yes, I was unfaithful-I will admit it here for the first time. I am a man of vigour, I won't deny it. Women in the lab threw themselves at me, knelt before me. With a wife who deprived me of what are considered conjugal rights, and with my ongoing studies of v.i.a.g.r.a (of the blue-green colour blindness a.s.sociated with the drug), who can blame me for the odd indiscretion? Does this signify, to quote a Montreal tabloid, that I am "suffering from satyriasis"? Do I deserve to be bracketed with a swine like NXB? (See note 26.) 52 This chapter, except for the last two sections, is taken directly from Norval Blaquiere's autobiographical novel This chapter, except for the last two sections, is taken directly from Norval Blaquiere's autobiographical novel Unmotivated Steps Unmotivated Steps (London: Faber, 1992), with one modification: real names have been subst.i.tuted for the fictional. (London: Faber, 1992), with one modification: real names have been subst.i.tuted for the fictional.

53 Florence Crandall obviously suffers from mysophobia, a dread of dirt or contamination. More famous mysophobes include Jonathan Swift, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, George S. Kaufman, Alexander Scriabin and Charles Baudelaire. (The Goncourt brothers described Baudelaire's hands as "washed, scoured, cared for like the hands of a woman"; Rimsky-Korsakov described Scriabin, who perpetually wore gloves, as "half out of his mind"; Kaufman washed his hands forty times a day.) For an exhaustive account of the condition as it relates to literature, see Chapter 7 of my Florence Crandall obviously suffers from mysophobia, a dread of dirt or contamination. More famous mysophobes include Jonathan Swift, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, George S. Kaufman, Alexander Scriabin and Charles Baudelaire. (The Goncourt brothers described Baudelaire's hands as "washed, scoured, cared for like the hands of a woman"; Rimsky-Korsakov described Scriabin, who perpetually wore gloves, as "half out of his mind"; Kaufman washed his hands forty times a day.) For an exhaustive account of the condition as it relates to literature, see Chapter 7 of my Art et Neuropathologie Art et Neuropathologie (op. cit.). (op. cit.).

54 From here the novel descends into bathetic implausibility and stock literary referentiality: the lovers find each other again, and eventually walk hand in hand into Byron's lake at Newstead Abbey in an act of From here the novel descends into bathetic implausibility and stock literary referentiality: the lovers find each other again, and eventually walk hand in hand into Byron's lake at Newstead Abbey in an act of liebestod liebestod! A modern-day Hero and Leander! Or Tristan and Isolde or Rosmer and Rebecca! (Or, in real life, Heinrich Kleist and Henriette Vogel, Stefan Zweig and his wife Lotte, Arthur Koestler and his wife Cynthia, et al.) Here is what I suspect occurred, based on NXB's second recurring dream, various drug-induced hallucinations, and medical records from Queen's Hospital in Nottingham. When Miss Teresa Crandall was nineteen, doctors found a marble-sized lump in her breast, which a biopsy showed was cancerous. Subsequent tests revealed that the cancer had spread to her spine and liver, which meant that surgery could not fully remove it. She was referred to Dr. Evelyn Nichols at Queen's for chemotherapy. Tests on the tumour showed that it was insensitive to hormones-which ruled out the blocker Tamoxifen. A scan showed that three tumorous deposits had spread from the breast to the bones in the neck, and four to the liver. With aggressive chemotherapy, it was possible to shrink these metastatic deposits, but no amount of radiation would destroy every cancer cell in her body. The prognosis was dire, in other words. The treatment would be palliative; at most, she had two years to live.

NXB's second recurring dream, and several of his hallucinations, contain a powerful sequence of him running away from a building, sometimes a church, sometimes a town hall. During one hallucination, induced by phencyclidine, the once-lionised actor and author scrawled the following words on the laboratory floor: Mr. and Mrs. Galahad Santlal are obliged to recall their invitation to the marriage of their daughter Teresa Crandall to Norval Blaquiere as the latter is a vile, black-hearted b.a.s.t.a.r.d According to my researchers, the Registrar of Camden Town Hall is certain that NXB did not show up for the wedding ceremony, and equally certain that Miss Crandall did. After her tests at the hospital, she boarded the train to London as promised. NXB was doubtless hiding in a bar, or brothel. He cravenly backed out of his own wedding, in other words. And when he reconsidered, and returned to Hucknall unannounced a year later, it was too late. A week before he arrived, Teresa Crandall took her own life.

NXB's inability to commit is thus not related to his mother's betrayal, as NB conjectures, or to a girlfriend's, as SD believes. It relates to his own betrayal.

55 NXB was about to say "Claude Jutras" (see note 14). By a grim coincidence, Alois Alzheimer discovered the disease exactly one century ago, after performing an autopsy on the brain of the once-fair "Augusta D," a woman in her fifty-sixth year from Frankfurt. NXB was about to say "Claude Jutras" (see note 14). By a grim coincidence, Alois Alzheimer discovered the disease exactly one century ago, after performing an autopsy on the brain of the once-fair "Augusta D," a woman in her fifty-sixth year from Frankfurt.

56 See note 9. As indicated in the Foreword, I am leaving this and other instances of calumny intact, as they enrich the psychological portrait of NXB. With regard to his earlier comments on Lord Byron, I should point out that NXB suffers from "created dramatic ident.i.ty syndrome," a form of schizophrenia, modelling his behaviour on, or a.s.suming the ident.i.ty of, certain historical or fictional figures. He has moved, for example, from Asterix, Baudelaire and Poe in his childhood to fin-de-siecle Decadents in his twenties, to Regency rakes in his thirties. See my See note 9. As indicated in the Foreword, I am leaving this and other instances of calumny intact, as they enrich the psychological portrait of NXB. With regard to his earlier comments on Lord Byron, I should point out that NXB suffers from "created dramatic ident.i.ty syndrome," a form of schizophrenia, modelling his behaviour on, or a.s.suming the ident.i.ty of, certain historical or fictional figures. He has moved, for example, from Asterix, Baudelaire and Poe in his childhood to fin-de-siecle Decadents in his twenties, to Regency rakes in his thirties. See my Le Double psychologique en art: de Cervantes a Cocteau Le Double psychologique en art: de Cervantes a Cocteau (Memento Vivere, 2000), in which, en pa.s.sant, I compare NXB with Rameau's nephew, whom Diderot describes as "... [ (Memento Vivere, 2000), in which, en pa.s.sant, I compare NXB with Rameau's nephew, whom Diderot describes as "... [quelqu'un] compose de hauteur et de ba.s.sesse, de bon sens et de deraison. compose de hauteur et de ba.s.sesse, de bon sens et de deraison."

This may be a good time to point out the extent to which NXB's overrated novel Unmotivated Steps Unmotivated Steps ransacks Proust's ransacks Proust's Remembrance of Things Past Remembrance of Things Past. Compare, for instance, the following pa.s.sages from Proust and Blaquiere respectively: (1)Memory nourishes the heart, and grief abates: Memory feeds the heart, and starves sorrow. Memory feeds the heart, and starves sorrow.

(2)Our memory is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand to a soothing drug, or dangerous poison: Love is a drugstore, where hazard guides our hand to a painkiller or poison. Love is a drugstore, where hazard guides our hand to a painkiller or poison.

(3)Memories are enclosed, as it were, in a thousand sealed jars, each filled with things of an absolutely different colour, odour and temperature: Memories are stored in a million vessels, each with a different scent, colour, texture, and each in a different state of decomposition. Memories are stored in a million vessels, each with a different scent, colour, texture, and each in a different state of decomposition.

This may also be a good time to mention an incident that occurred recently at a federal penitentiary in Donnacona, a maximum-security facility west of Quebec City. It appears that someone has been shooting drug-filled arrows into the prison's recreational yard from a nearby forest. The drugs, including certain hallucinogens, were packed into straws and then squeezed into the hollow shafts of the arrows. Why do I mention this? Because I happen to know that NXB made at least two trips to Quebec City around that time. Coincidence? Perhaps.

57 NXB should know: he twice volunteered for double-blind, placebocontrolled studies involving nicotine, which indicated that smoking a cigarette immediately before presentation of a fifty-word list improves recall after intervals of ten and forty-five minutes. Highernicotine brands are more effective than low. There are many good reasons for not smoking, but memory loss is not one of them: under laboratory conditions, I have demonstrated that nicotine can enhance factual recall. NXB should know: he twice volunteered for double-blind, placebocontrolled studies involving nicotine, which indicated that smoking a cigarette immediately before presentation of a fifty-word list improves recall after intervals of ten and forty-five minutes. Highernicotine brands are more effective than low. There are many good reasons for not smoking, but memory loss is not one of them: under laboratory conditions, I have demonstrated that nicotine can enhance factual recall.

Regarding alcohol and memory, my studies have shown that alcoholics like NXB, when sober, have trouble finding things they have hidden while intoxicated; when they drink again, the memory tasks become much easier. See my "Understanding the Rise of Memory Loss: Two Factors that Explain It and Ten that Don't" in Scientific Canadian Scientific Canadian, 83, pp. 10417.

As for cigarettes and Alzheimer's, NXB hasn't the faintest idea of what he is talking about.

58 Byron, Byron, Don Juan Don Juan, II, cciii.

59 NB recorded this quiz-show episode in his diary as a dream, or rather a hyperrealist "nightmare" (May 14, 2002), but it was neither, because he was not asleep. As is well known by now, it stems from an experiment I conducted with a modified transcranial magnetic stimulator (VTMS NB recorded this quiz-show episode in his diary as a dream, or rather a hyperrealist "nightmare" (May 14, 2002), but it was neither, because he was not asleep. As is well known by now, it stems from an experiment I conducted with a modified transcranial magnetic stimulator (VTMS), in which I altered NB's cortex by electromagnetic pulse, neuropharmaceuticals and verbal cues, generating this complex "memory" of an event that never occurred. I call it a "memory" as it was stored in NB's hippocampus, amidst genuine memories. The implications of this experiment boggle the mind. On which more in a future article.

60 The above note was Dr. Vorta's last. After being anaesthetized for routine eye surgery, he lapsed into a coma from which he never awoke. His wife Anna Sautter-Vorta requested that the story be published by another press, unaltered, save for three concluding chapters and this final endnote. The above note was Dr. Vorta's last. After being anaesthetized for routine eye surgery, he lapsed into a coma from which he never awoke. His wife Anna Sautter-Vorta requested that the story be published by another press, unaltered, save for three concluding chapters and this final endnote.

Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank Helen and Laura for their encouragement and faith, and Sean for his advice, some of which was followed properly. For my research on synaesthesia, the following works were treasure troves: John Harrison's Synaesthesia: The Strangest Thing Synaesthesia: The Strangest Thing; A. R. Luria's The Mind of a Mnemonist The Mind of a Mnemonist; Richard E. Cytowic's Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses and and The Man Who Tasted Shapes The Man Who Tasted Shapes. The chemical magic was inspired by both Oliver Sacks and my father-a chemist, drug salesman and child at heart who helped me make nitrogen iodide and other dangerous things. Information on Alzheimer's was gathered from various sources, including the Canadian Alzheimer's Society, the New York Memory & Healthy Aging Services, The American Journal of Alzheimer's Care & Related Disorders, and my parents Robert and Barbara Moore, both of whom were victims of the disease.