Visuals!

I don't know how well I retain images: I think I've long been text-based, tied to words, remembering names better than faces, place names better than places. I've sat through 18 innings of baseball and left the park without any visual memory, though I hang onto the scorecard and have a head for statistics.

That said, I've certainly held onto images from some things--especially when I've looked at them over and over again. Here's an example: I have probably seen the movie _Casablanca_ over twenty times in my life, though not in years. And while I certainly remember certain shots better than others, including the most dramatic and famous ones--Bogart's first look at Bergman, Henried and Bogart watching the plane take off into the fog--for some reason the happier moments, told in flashback, when Bergman and Bogart (Ilse and Rick) are happy, in love, back in Paris, are the ones I generally think of first (so what does that tell you about me? that I think of love BEFORE it has been lost?). Here's one of those images:



That image LIVES in my head, stands in for the entire backstory of Rick and Ilse, lost in love even as the Nazis prepare to march into Paris and send the couple apart, nearly forever.

Here's another (love that rear projection!): http://www.casalinx.com/images/slideshow/phpslideshow.php?directory=.¤tPic=18

What visuals hold such a place for you?