11 February 2012

Blogging as a preparation for dementia

I believe I started "rating" or assigning "grades" to books and movies about 30 years ago, as I was reading my way through the Agatha Christie canon.

In the era before the internet, I was cruising the used-book stores in Lexington, Kentucky trying to obtain paperback copies of all the Agatha Christie murder mysteries (I eventually found all 66).  As I read my way through the series, I realized that while some were outstanding (Roger Ackroyd, obviously) and would be worth a reread in later years after I had forgotten the details, others were eminently forgettable (think "Tommy and Tuppence").  So, I kept a list, rating each book on a scale from 4+ (outstanding) down to 1+ (poor).  My plan was that when I was old and retired and had more leisure time, I would reread these, starting with the 4+ and working down from there.

I then extended this scheme to the books of the Time Reading Program series; I couldn't find some of the more obscure issues until the internet was created, but I finally read them all, and kept only the dozen or so that have "4+" pencilled inside the cover.  From there it spread to all the books I was reading, so I now have "Books Read" lists as far back as 1988.

Finally, in 2006, I decided to use the ratings for movies.  It's not hard to do; the system is crude but effective:
4+   Excellent, worth watching/reading again someday.
3+   Very good.  o.k. to recommend, but don't watch until finishing the 4+s.
2+   So-so.  Don't recommend and don't rewatch.
1+   Terrible.  Advise friends to avoid if they ask.
I've been doing this with movies for six years now, almost all of them viewed on cable channels or from library DVDs, rather than in theaters.  Of the 600+ on the list so far, there are about 50 rated 4+, about 200 rated 3+, about 250 rated 2+, and about 100 rated 1+.

In the 1980s, I thought doing all this was a way to get ready for a leisurely retirement, but now that I'm actually in my retirement, I find myself still reading new books and watching new movies and not using the ratings -- yet.  It was just in this past year that I've realized what the lists are really good for:  they will help me tolerate dementia if/when it happens.

This past year I've spent increasing amounts of time helping my mother cope with the new onset of dementia, manifested primarily as a loss of short-term memory.  She's 93 years old, so it's not presenile Alzheimer's, and presumably not hereditary, but the experience has keyed me in toward thinking more about my future several decades from now (should I be fortunate enough to live that long).

I've noticed that my mom can get great enjoyment out of reading a book, then will put it on a shelf or table, and perhaps a week later when I ask if I can take the book back to the library, she'll ask "What book is that?" "It's the one about pioneer settlement in the Midwest."  "Oh, that sounds good.  Can you leave it here while I read it?"  "Ummm, sure..."  And she'll get great enjoyment out of it again.

So now I have my lists, and I'm ready, if/when dementia starts to develop, to begin re-reading and re-watching my favorite books and movies.

But now there's one more consideration:  TYWKIWDBI.  For the last 4+ years I've been storing stuff here I thought was interesting.  Later this year the archive will reach 10,000 posts.  A lot of them now have dead links, and lots of the YouTube videos have been pulled.  Others are no longer of interest because the material was political or economic or dependent on a situation that no longer exists.  And some, frankly, just don't interest me any more.  But there's lots of good stuff.

So here's my plan:  If/when I start to sense the beginnings of dementia (or when my wife tells me it has started), I'm going to stop writing, and go through this blog to select out perhaps a thousand posts and reblog them into "The Best of TWYKIWDBI."  That would be reading material for about a month.  I'll read through that blog every month, again selecting the best stuff - perhaps a hundred - and when the situation warrants, I'll assemble them into a third blog of "the very best" material which I can then look at every week, thinking I'm seeing new material.

I just hope I never have to distill that last group down into the best dozen posts, to be looked at every day...


Addendum:  I wasn't going to list my 4+ movies in this post, because my ratings are totally arbitrary and dependent on personal interests and biases, and because my opinion might have been influenced by variable degrees of intoxication during viewing.  But... as I was proofreading this post I looked for my list of ratings for the Agatha Christies, and to my utter dismay - I can't find it!  And many of the books don't have ratings pencilled inside.  I'll keep searching, but for the moment this reminds me that everything important in life needs to be backed up, so I'll store my list of 4+ movies here for now.  You're welcome to browse.
84 Charing Cross Road, All the Kings Men (2006), An Affair to Remember, As Good as it Gets, Brief Encounter, Brother Can You Spare a Dime, Cinema Paradiso, Da Vinci Code, Das Leben der Anderen, Dirty Pretty Things, Everest (Beck Weathers interview), Face/Off, Fahrenheit 911, Fair Game (2010), Girl Interrupted, God Grew Tired of Us, Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, Hot Shots, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Juno, Million Dollar Baby, Miss Potter, Nanking, Never Let Me Go, No Way Out, Once Upon a Time in the West, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pay It Forward, Peter and the Wolf (Templeton), Planet Earth series, Stardust, State of Play (BBC miniseries), Storm over Everest, Sunshine, Temple Grandin, Tender Mercies, The Bourne Identity, The CCC [Amer. Experience], The Civil War (Ken Burns), The Cove, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Departed, The English Patient, The Fall,The Kite Runner, The New World [Pocohontas], The Pat Tillman Story, The Polar Express,The Pursuit of Happyness, The Shawshank Redemption, The Turning Point, The U.S. vs. John Lennon, The Usual Suspects, The White Countess, Up, Why We Fight.

20 comments:

  1. I do hope it never happens but I'd think keeping a blog would help a lot with memory. My Grandma I think has dementia or Alzheimer though not that severe and she has started keeping a diary to remember her days and it has helped. I'm 20 in two weeks and I've been badly keeping a diary for about a 1 1/2 years and it's really helped my memory so I'm guessing that when I'm older it would be even more beneficial.

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  2. I use Goodreads to write reviews of books I've read. Sometimes, I just don't feel like taking the time to choose how many stars to give something and write a review, but when I want to review what I've been reading over the last year or few years or whatever, I'm always glad I did. Partially because I read so much, that sometimes I lose track of what I've actually read, and also because it's interesting to see how my tastes change over the years. For example, I used to adore A Prayer for Owen Meany, but the last time I read it, it just felt a little too Prayer-y for my tastes. And it is fun to disagree with others about this sort of thing, and see trends of what folks are reading.

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  3. I've recently been going through all of my goodreads books in order to categorize them, mainly because I'm interested in trying to read a more international selection of books, and make an effort to more evenly balance male/female authors. In doing so, I made a must-re-read category. I hadn't thought of this as a dementia list (perhaps because I'm only 31) but that's a really good idea.

    In going through every book I've ever read, I was startled at how much I've forgotten of plots and characters (even of my five-star-rated book!), whereas I often have a photographic memory of places.

    Thanks for the movie list. All of them I either haven't seen, or would also give 4+ ratings to. So you have good taste! And now I have a list of movies I need to watch.

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  4. GREAT post.

    The only problem I can see is if the dementia sets in fast enough for you to not remember the blog, or the best of...etc. Eek!

    I'm a fan of collecting vinyl records. (still can't bring myself to call myself "a collector" but i suppose it's true.) A few years ago, my collection/habit got to the point where i found i was buying doubles of things because i wasn't keeping good track of what I already have.
    I created a Google spreadsheet to keep track of it all. Now, whenever I get new mail, or get back from the record store, I sit down and enter a few at a time.

    In case you're not familiar, Google docs is accessible anywhere you can get online and log into a Google account (ie, laptop in Starbucks, smartphone, etc). It's very helpful when travelling, to make sure I don't have something that I would have otherwise bought. I've also networked with lots of friends from all over the world, and it's simple enough to give them read-only access, so they can see if I'm missing something they have, or have access to.

    I love the idea of rating movies for later viewing. I was using Netflix to keep track of this for me, but have since cancelled that service.

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  5. I like Cindy Crawford too, but giving Fair Game 4 stars seems a little over the top.

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    1. Until I read your comment, I didn't realize there have been five different movies entitled "Fair Game." The one I saw and liked was the 2010 one with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn (the Valerie Plame story).

      I've clarified the post; tx for the heads-up.

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    2. I didn't really think you liked the Cindy Crawford movie - for God's sake, William Baldwin's in it.

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  6. Given your evident fascination with Everest, can I recommend "Into The Silence" by Wade Davis? It's a terrific read...

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    1. I read his Serpent and the Rainbow many many years ago and was fascinated by it. I'm not really an Everest enthusiast - but I am an old friend of Beck Weathers, which pretty much explains my rating on that movie.

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  7. If you get dementia who says you'll remember you had a blog? Also,taste in books and movies is objective so why presume a book/movie you dislike will be disliked by a friend? My mother had dementia before she passed away and half the time she couldn't remember her own name.Good luck with your 'plan'.

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  8. Minnesotastan, this is a very interesting concept; one I've never given much thought to. I believe I'm likely a generation behind you, but old enough so that computers aren't my "first nature". Unlike today's younger generations, I can remember a world, in fact a majority of my lifespan, without computers, cell phones, the Internet, satellite TV and radio, etc. The internet has truly been a game-changer, but I never gave thought to how it might shape our advancing years.

    I hope things work out the way you plan. It's a good, solid plan in my opinion, and even Alzheimer's disease, until its most advanced stages, offers sporadic moments of lucidity during which one could presumably remember one had a blog, or a list, of topics that mean something.

    My grandmother is now 86 years old, and her memory is fading. I put together one of those digital picture frames for Christmas with photos old and new, of people and places that are meaningful to her. It serves as a memory jog, and as a source of pleasant times in her life. I suspect the blogs and lists will do the same for you.

    May we all go (fairly) gentle into that good night. Perhaps our words that we have put into cyberspace over the years is our form of "raging against the dying of the light". Only time will tell.

    P.S. Your list is most intriguing. I am very pleasantly surprised at the inclusion of "Invasion of the Body Snatcher", 1978 version. That is one of my cultish favorites as well. Impressive! Might I also humbly suggest the inclusion of "Grand Illusion" from 1939 by director Jean Renoir? I sincerely love that film. Never has a more beautiful film been made about war and the quality of the human spirit and mercy. If you've never seen it before (and I suspect you have), please give it a watch. It would definitely be on my list. Have a good one, sir.

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    1. Requested from the library; thanks for the suggestion, Sugar Magnolia.

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  9. I appreciate your movie recommendations. I don't watch much TV, but when I do I want it to be good and there is a lot of crap out there.

    They say you're much less likely to get Alzheimers if you keep your mind active. If that is true, I'd say you are a very unlikely candidate. Either way though, I think that someday, when you are in need of a fix of the familiar, you will enjoy re-reading and re-watching old favourites.

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  10. I am a non-American but I rate Ken Burns' The Civil War as one of the most outstanding and poignant pieces of television I have ever watched. The Ashokan Farewell is equally poignant and, paired with the reading of Sullivan Ballou's letter, unutterably heart-wrenching.

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    1. The Civil War was riveting television. I, too, was touched by Ballou's letter. When we moved to Rhode Island, I had forgotten about it, mostly, and was surprised to find that he's buried here, in Swan Point Cemetery. He also has a portion of the Central Falls library named after him (http://www.iheartrhody.com/2010/05/libraries-adams-memorial-library.html), as the library was used as a meeting room for his regiment after the war.

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  11. I love your simple system for rating movies and books, and will have to implement it for myself. It appears we'd have several in common.

    ~I {heart} Rhody
    aka boliyou of "endomental"

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    1. In practice it becomes less simple because I can't resist recording something as 3.75, or sometimes even 4.1. Doing that below 3 is silly because I'll probably never watch those again, but I still do it.

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  12. Let me recommend another BBC miniseries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards

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  13. The first movie that came to mind (admittedly, during middle of the night reading of older blog entries) was Baraka. Have you seen it? I would also want to re-watch The Princess Bride ... and the series The Day The Universe Changed.

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    1. You haven't read back far enough yet. I recommended the movie in 2008 -

      http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2008/06/recommended-movie-baraka.html

      The YouTube link is dead now, but of course you won't need it.

      :.)

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