The strange workings of our minds

My wife has read many Janet Evanovich novels.  She mentioned that the story line used to be clever and tight but has become just raunchy.  She said the main character, Stephanie Plum, was a bounty hunter, but at the moment she had the wrong idea of a bounty hunter, thinking mostly about animals.  In bits and pieces I pulled out of my own mind that a bounty hunter was a person who tracked down those who jump bail.  They are hired by bondsmen but have to get a receipt of the capture from the police.

I said I had seen a movie about this, I remember the bondsman kept his money in his socks and the bounty hunter was played by Robert DeNiro.  Then it came to me that the movie was "Midnight Run".  I checked Google and one of the top entries was the Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Run.

The movie was produced in 1988 and I probably watched it on VHS in the early '90s.  I didn't remember all the details given in the Wikipedia synopsis, but I did remember that the bail jumper got away (or was let go) and that DeNiro's competitor had gotten DeNiro's credit card cancelled.

I don't claim any particular genius in remembering these long-ago details; most of us have these same capabilities.  They are just so hit and miss.  We can't remember the name of somebody we met yesterday, but we remember the name of somebody we haven't seen in decades.

I think David Eagleman got it right with "Incognito: The Hidden Lives of the Brain".  There are so many processes going on in our brains of which we are not aware.  See "Memory and coincidence".

Memory and coincidence

Last Thursday I listened to a "To the Best of Our Knowledge" podcast from 2012-06-17.  One of the segments was on the brain.  It was rebroadcast of an interview with David Eagleman, author of "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain".  One of his points was how we push problems to our sub-conscious and an answer may just pop into our heads later, like after a good night's sleep.

I've often felt this, but one incident after the show really emphasized the truth of this.

I was trying to remember the name of a singer we hosted years ago when she gave a concert in Duluth.  I could even picture one of her albums that we have.  Nada!

Friday night we were on Skype with our son and he was talking about his July visit to Minnesota.  He mentioned that he wanted to attend a concert of his friends, the duo Patchouli.  Bingo! Claudia Schmidt!  She's still performing.

I should reconnect our record player and run through an LP or two of hers.