it’s so sad that being introduced by
music is as close to being of
rock-and-roll stars I’ll ever get during
the break I got an email from a friend
to whom I told I was coming to this
thing and she said TEDx is that the
pornographic version of Ted so you’re
gonna be so disappointed yeah Kim
Cameron came kind of close with deviance
so I’m gonna be talking about myself
because that’s what I have expertise in
and I’m gonna be talking about my brain
because a few years ago I started to
worry about my brain first of all a lot
of my sentences started did anybody see
where I put my dot and then when I asked
my brain some no-brainer questions like
what’s the word for that thing that’s
like a harmonica but it looks more
stupid and it’s more annoying and it
looks like you could smoke pot out of it
I couldn’t answer or what’s that car
that’s not the Toyota Camry it’s a Honda
Accord or who’s that actor who’s not De
Niro he’s Al Pacino or what did I do
last night was a hard one I don’t even
know I dunno what I did or did that lady
say left or right I can’t remember or
how do I finish this sentence so this
began to worry me and then the day that
I looked for my phone while I was on my
phone I thought my my this is going to
be an easy transition to dementia
so I have a lot of friends and most of
them are my age and then a lot of them
were kind of worried too and this is the
kind of conversations we’d have no I am
really losing it
no you’re not losing it I am and we’re
all kind of competitive so we’re having
this race to see like who is worse off
and of course the winner is the loser
and the friend of mine who won was the
person who said have you ever put
toothpaste on your contact lenses so I
hadn’t done that but I don’t wear
contact lenses I don’t think if I do I’m
in really big trouble but anyway I mean
you know every time I would lose my keys
I would think you know it’s tomorrow I’m
gonna be found in the park at 2:00 in
the morning in my pajamas wandering
around so this is how I imagined my
brain I don’t know if you can see it but
you know just kind of like huh is it the
debt or the deficit where’s the thing
for the thing
this isn’t as you may have kind of
guessed entirely accurate because like
right in the middle this must be a laser
certainly a laser that’s the Memorial
Park of the dead brain cells from
NutraSweet that I consume and then
there’s probably like a big oh no I
don’t want that see how stupid I am and
then there’s a lot of like free space
that for you know rent and seriously
things like the Motown lyric what I
don’t want to go back no I don’t wanna
go back I’m not that confused now where
was I oh yeah there are some things I
never forget like you know the
combination to my high school locker and
in every single phone number I’ve ever
known
and what else and Motown lyrics so this
isn’t really my brain this is what my
brain really looks like no it’s chewing
gum this is what my brain really looks
like no it’s tomato no it’s dinner you
decant know what my brain really looks
like until I’m dead probably from that
NutraSweet but what my brain is about
the size of Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s fist I
hope I pronounced that right and it’s
the texture of flan and it weighs as
much as a two slice toaster and if you
are a plastic surgeon you would think
that my brain needed a brain lift
because it’d be very wrinkled and that’s
because so many neurons to fit in that
skull sort of the principle of the
suitcase it’s still too much and if you
ironed it out it would be the size of an
ironing board but if you took all the
ventricles and and connected them that
would go around the earth four times no
lecture is complete unless you tell
somebody how many times something would
go around the world that would be four
times or two times I can’t remember the
good thing about this topic is I can say
wrong things because I just proved my
point and my brain and no offense but
probably yours too piqued by many
measures at 22 and it’s been on a cruel
down slide since you were 24 by a lot of
measures you’re you’re kind of getting
slower you’re the attention department
you’re not doing so hot it or I’m not
but I never ever one of the reasons I’m
up here talking to you is because I’m
such a bad listener I’d prefer to talk
and I don’t even actually listen I’m
just kind of waiting for a pause so that
I can put my ball mo in
and there are certain things that you do
get from age your your vocabulary gets
better and what about that wisdom there
are some scientists who believe that
wisdom you know all those sublime
insights you have that you could only
get on embroidered pillows that that
comes from your brain slowing down and
you’re being less impulsive now see I
wrote this so I can totally look at my
notes because I’ve proved my point
so what am i up to all right
I have no idea why I have this note
written down but there are I just gonna
skip that and go right on to there is a
really great thing about that I that I
read a study that said Millennials no
I’m gonna go back see I can do these
things there is this III I did read a
study that said that it is not that when
we get older our brain forgets to
remember it’s that and this is even more
depressing really it’s that we actually
perceive less we feel less we take in
less visually and we hear less and that
a the average 60 year old takes in
three-quarters of what a child does and
a 80 year old world is half so but on
the other hand Millennials forget their
keys and don’t know what day of the week
it is more than 50 and older ‘s but
probably because they don’t have keys
and they don’t care what day of the what
day of the week it is
so I’ll just look at this anyway I’m I’m
sort of making jokes about this but it
is kind of scary to think that like in a
little while you know your caregiver is
gonna find your butter the butter dish
in your night side table so I decided
I’m gonna do something about this where
I’m gonna find out what’s wrong with me
if anything’s wrong with me and
I can do about it and decades ago
scientists thought that your brain was
pretty fully formed when you’re born and
that it was you had sort of a certain
number of neurons and it was like
traveler’s checks that you kind of spent
them and then the vacations over and you
know it’s all over and of course we all
fought to that drinking really killed
the brain cells faster the good and one
good news is that alcohol does not
really kill your brain cells unless you
drink so much that you’re dead and then
your brain cells are the least of your
problems it does kill the network so
that’s sort of like the internet goes
down but anyway it turns out that not
only does your brain create new neurons
but more importantly it connects it
makes more connections and you know
connections and networking is what it’s
all about so you have about I’m just
saying this because I remember I said
yeah a hundred billion billion neurons
which is about one neuron for every
human being that ever bead and each
neuron can make about 10,000 connections
and that’s about a hundred and hundred
trillion connections which is like more
popular than face that like even more
than Facebook and so it’s all about
making you can you can make connections
any the brains all is the brains plastic
everybody knows the brains plastic now
and it’s always being rewired and
there’s a concept called cognitive
reserve which is that that you can
actually affect the long-term resilience
of your brain by having experiences in
learning so you so I decided to make a
list of everything that scientists and
entrepreneurs said might help you slow
down cognitive decline or stop it even
and that list is crazy that list
includes things like buying artwork that
vexes you turning the photos on your
desk
upside down writing with your
non-dominant hand not eating tofu that
anybody who studied anything has found
that for every study of course there’s a
study that refutes it so there was like
and I meant to I meant to figure out how
to pronounce this word but I’m gonna
take a stab at it there’s some people
say gingo below bill how do you say it
that biloba helps you and some people
say it does it hurts you so that was
kind of actually encouraging that um if
you find a study you don’t like you can
keep reading and you can find a study
that you don’t like so I’m probably up
for another other slide and like so
anyway I decided that I would do as much
as I could for four months do
everything that that anybody had ever
said helped and before I did that I
would take an IQ test and I would have
my brain imaged
so the first IQ test I took was online
but this IQ test and I’m thinking whoa I
am so smart I am really smart of course
the questions were things like dog is
too cat as woof is too you know but
anyway I thought my mother was right I
am a genius so then I click to find out
what my IQ is and it’s 74 which is like
it’s a miracle I got dressed this
morning well it turns out that the
directions which I never read directions
I said you have 20 minutes because I
took all day long to do this I had lunch
I voted for the mayor I did a little
emailing so ever so you could say I
really deserve the 74 and then I had my
brain imaged and the technician said you
have beautiful ventricles nothing to
worry about there which like I was
worrying about my ventricles and I
thought I’ve been worrying about
everything and then I embark upon my get
smart program for four months I swear it
must be time for a slide but I think
it’s not so I learned piano scales and I
learned a language because bilinguals
the average age of onset of the onset of
dementia for bilinguals is about four
years later than for monolingual z’ so I
learned I learned Cherokee I did I can
say that because I pretty sure nobody in
this room knows Turkey the reason I
decided to learn turkey was that I
thought it was Navajo and I just
confused it and I thought Navajo was
really cool because it was the coat that
they
the cryptographers used it in World War
two to study to decode things they did
study jerky little so I did Cherokee I
did Lumosity the brain exercises I did
them so I cheated actually I did them so
much that my mother called me one day
and I thought I can’t talk I’m doing the
luminosity exercises and she said it’s
your brain gonna snap and I thought I
don’t think your brain snaps I did what
else I did I tried to meditate I hope
this is it
yes this is inside Patti’s mindful mind
there are like so many kinds of
meditation there more than like Heinz
varieties but I chose mindfulness
because I thought I could use some more
mind I really was bad at meditation I I
mean everybody in the world meditates
all I could think of I went to a group
meditation session and all I could think
of was I wish these people would put
their shoes back on and then I was
tutored by a woman and she handed me a
raisin and she said study this raisin
and if you can understand the raisin you
can understand mindfulness and I thought
that is a big if so I didn’t really do
very well on that and but but you all
should probably meditate Oh scientists
are really rah-rah about meditation and
I could tell you why but you know I
could but then I only have 18 minutes
although I’m probably gonna be the one
who’s gonna be fewer than 18 minutes so
the lucky person next to me can go like
23 minutes if he or she wants to and
what else
let me see I don’t know what the next
slide is gonna be let’s just guess yes I
did cranial electrospinning this was a
Fisher Wallace device and that thing
that looks like a garage door opener is
I think not a garage door opener and you
see there two little sponges one on each
ear that are dripping water down me and
they’re connected to the garage door
opener
and you zap electricity into your brain
I would I before I tried it under the
reverse women and child principal I made
my boyfriend use it first and he got a
headache which I thought was a good sign
because I thought at least it’s working
at least it’s doing something even if
it’s a headache
it did nothing for me that was all just
me being funny
it did really nothing though it does
I read stop horse cribbing and what else
did I do so I ate blueberries because
blueberries are good for everything and
it has something to do with radical free
radicals but you just sound like a
political movement
I hate dark chocolate because who
wouldn’t eat dark chocolate I listen to
Mozart and I listen to a little choked
Chopin although it might in the elevator
it might have been the girl from Ipanema
I’m not really sure or Chopin and then I
I got I got I got really pretty good at
everything
I did like Lumosity I could really like
get the penguin back to its igloo
but the controversial thing one of many
controversial things in neuroscience
about brain exercises is do they trance
do they transfer well let’s find out
I mean do that because if you can get
the penguin home does that mean you’re
gonna be your IQ is gonna go up so I had
my brain imaged again that’s what it
looks like can you find the Finger Lakes
they’re right there and the technician
told me your brain got 33% bigger so
that made me very happy and I told my
boyfriend that and he’s a scientist and
he said if that were true it would be
using out of your nose and your ears and
your eyes and see it’s not and
he gave me a study to read about and
this is kind of well about dead salmon
that were put in an MRI machine and
these dead salmon were shown pictures of
human being faces and the dead salmon
were asked what expressions are being
conveyed by these faces and once you
know the salmon had an opinion about
this so next time you eat lox
you know smoked salmon just think about
that so then I went and I had my IQ
taken professionally as I did before
after that I didn’t had so did so badly
on the online thing and um like you went
down after all that so that was bad news
really but then I read a really some
good news about the bad news
which is there are some scientists who
believe that the reason we get so stupid
as we get older is that we know too much
there are all sorts of unbelievable
numbers like we read the equivalent of a
hundred and seventy four newspapers
which is five times what we read in 1986
now I don’t by the way read 174
newspapers anyway by any stretch but
some people do maybe you all do and
ninety percent of all data that’s ever
been produced has been produced in the
last two years and what else and more
information has been produced since I
forget but a lot just a lot so so anyway
so that’s kind of hopeful and I decided
if I know too much that maybe what I
should do is unlearn some things so I
this is what you no longer need to know
you never you don’t really need well
this is gonna really offend this speaker
that had something to do with space but
really you don’t have to know about
Pluto I guess you do okay you don’t need
to know about you know I do I know every
phone number but you don’t need to know
about phone numbers anymore
the food pyramid out the window who shot
junior look it up you don’t need to know
that spelling we have we have a machine
that auto corrects and makes my spelling
mistakes for us you don’t need to know
the floor plan of the Brady Bunch house
anymore how to fold a map Paris Hilton
arithmetic you don’t need to know that
how to program the VCR and you can
unremember everything you learned in
school sentence diagramming no longer
using a slide rule dissecting a frog
mitosis or meiosis don’t need to know
the difference of that something about
crop rotation and I learned in school or
strip farming I don’t know what the
difference is now I don’t even know if
there’s another slide this some
presidents you can forget Zachary Taylor
Martin Van Buren John Tyler Millard
Seymour Phil til more I already forgot
him and William Henry ho-hum Harrison
anyway after after doing all that what
did I learn I learned I really did get a
little less worried I thought well
whatever happens happens but my big fear
is the day after I get Alzheimer’s it
incidentally one little factoid I
learned that was fun to use at cocktail
parties is that human beings seem to be
the only species that gets Alzheimer’s
with the possible exceptions of caps
which would make cat owners as dotty as
their cats but what was I saying
oh yeah my fear is that the DES ass
I get Al’s lemurs of dementia that they
discover the cure for it and then the
day after I die they they cure
immortality that’s my big fear but
anyway I think that the solution to
getting older and cognitive decline is
that everybody should wear name tags and
that if someone asks you something and
you can’t remember the answer right away
you just say how soon do you have to know I
music is as close to being of
rock-and-roll stars I’ll ever get during
the break I got an email from a friend
to whom I told I was coming to this
thing and she said TEDx is that the
pornographic version of Ted so you’re
gonna be so disappointed yeah Kim
Cameron came kind of close with deviance
so I’m gonna be talking about myself
because that’s what I have expertise in
and I’m gonna be talking about my brain
because a few years ago I started to
worry about my brain first of all a lot
of my sentences started did anybody see
where I put my dot and then when I asked
my brain some no-brainer questions like
what’s the word for that thing that’s
like a harmonica but it looks more
stupid and it’s more annoying and it
looks like you could smoke pot out of it
I couldn’t answer or what’s that car
that’s not the Toyota Camry it’s a Honda
Accord or who’s that actor who’s not De
Niro he’s Al Pacino or what did I do
last night was a hard one I don’t even
know I dunno what I did or did that lady
say left or right I can’t remember or
how do I finish this sentence so this
began to worry me and then the day that
I looked for my phone while I was on my
phone I thought my my this is going to
be an easy transition to dementia
so I have a lot of friends and most of
them are my age and then a lot of them
were kind of worried too and this is the
kind of conversations we’d have no I am
really losing it
no you’re not losing it I am and we’re
all kind of competitive so we’re having
this race to see like who is worse off
and of course the winner is the loser
and the friend of mine who won was the
person who said have you ever put
toothpaste on your contact lenses so I
hadn’t done that but I don’t wear
contact lenses I don’t think if I do I’m
in really big trouble but anyway I mean
you know every time I would lose my keys
I would think you know it’s tomorrow I’m
gonna be found in the park at 2:00 in
the morning in my pajamas wandering
around so this is how I imagined my
brain I don’t know if you can see it but
you know just kind of like huh is it the
debt or the deficit where’s the thing
for the thing
this isn’t as you may have kind of
guessed entirely accurate because like
right in the middle this must be a laser
certainly a laser that’s the Memorial
Park of the dead brain cells from
NutraSweet that I consume and then
there’s probably like a big oh no I
don’t want that see how stupid I am and
then there’s a lot of like free space
that for you know rent and seriously
things like the Motown lyric what I
don’t want to go back no I don’t wanna
go back I’m not that confused now where
was I oh yeah there are some things I
never forget like you know the
combination to my high school locker and
in every single phone number I’ve ever
known
and what else and Motown lyrics so this
isn’t really my brain this is what my
brain really looks like no it’s chewing
gum this is what my brain really looks
like no it’s tomato no it’s dinner you
decant know what my brain really looks
like until I’m dead probably from that
NutraSweet but what my brain is about
the size of Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s fist I
hope I pronounced that right and it’s
the texture of flan and it weighs as
much as a two slice toaster and if you
are a plastic surgeon you would think
that my brain needed a brain lift
because it’d be very wrinkled and that’s
because so many neurons to fit in that
skull sort of the principle of the
suitcase it’s still too much and if you
ironed it out it would be the size of an
ironing board but if you took all the
ventricles and and connected them that
would go around the earth four times no
lecture is complete unless you tell
somebody how many times something would
go around the world that would be four
times or two times I can’t remember the
good thing about this topic is I can say
wrong things because I just proved my
point and my brain and no offense but
probably yours too piqued by many
measures at 22 and it’s been on a cruel
down slide since you were 24 by a lot of
measures you’re you’re kind of getting
slower you’re the attention department
you’re not doing so hot it or I’m not
but I never ever one of the reasons I’m
up here talking to you is because I’m
such a bad listener I’d prefer to talk
and I don’t even actually listen I’m
just kind of waiting for a pause so that
I can put my ball mo in
and there are certain things that you do
get from age your your vocabulary gets
better and what about that wisdom there
are some scientists who believe that
wisdom you know all those sublime
insights you have that you could only
get on embroidered pillows that that
comes from your brain slowing down and
you’re being less impulsive now see I
wrote this so I can totally look at my
notes because I’ve proved my point
so what am i up to all right
I have no idea why I have this note
written down but there are I just gonna
skip that and go right on to there is a
really great thing about that I that I
read a study that said Millennials no
I’m gonna go back see I can do these
things there is this III I did read a
study that said that it is not that when
we get older our brain forgets to
remember it’s that and this is even more
depressing really it’s that we actually
perceive less we feel less we take in
less visually and we hear less and that
a the average 60 year old takes in
three-quarters of what a child does and
a 80 year old world is half so but on
the other hand Millennials forget their
keys and don’t know what day of the week
it is more than 50 and older ‘s but
probably because they don’t have keys
and they don’t care what day of the what
day of the week it is
so I’ll just look at this anyway I’m I’m
sort of making jokes about this but it
is kind of scary to think that like in a
little while you know your caregiver is
gonna find your butter the butter dish
in your night side table so I decided
I’m gonna do something about this where
I’m gonna find out what’s wrong with me
if anything’s wrong with me and
I can do about it and decades ago
scientists thought that your brain was
pretty fully formed when you’re born and
that it was you had sort of a certain
number of neurons and it was like
traveler’s checks that you kind of spent
them and then the vacations over and you
know it’s all over and of course we all
fought to that drinking really killed
the brain cells faster the good and one
good news is that alcohol does not
really kill your brain cells unless you
drink so much that you’re dead and then
your brain cells are the least of your
problems it does kill the network so
that’s sort of like the internet goes
down but anyway it turns out that not
only does your brain create new neurons
but more importantly it connects it
makes more connections and you know
connections and networking is what it’s
all about so you have about I’m just
saying this because I remember I said
yeah a hundred billion billion neurons
which is about one neuron for every
human being that ever bead and each
neuron can make about 10,000 connections
and that’s about a hundred and hundred
trillion connections which is like more
popular than face that like even more
than Facebook and so it’s all about
making you can you can make connections
any the brains all is the brains plastic
everybody knows the brains plastic now
and it’s always being rewired and
there’s a concept called cognitive
reserve which is that that you can
actually affect the long-term resilience
of your brain by having experiences in
learning so you so I decided to make a
list of everything that scientists and
entrepreneurs said might help you slow
down cognitive decline or stop it even
and that list is crazy that list
includes things like buying artwork that
vexes you turning the photos on your
desk
upside down writing with your
non-dominant hand not eating tofu that
anybody who studied anything has found
that for every study of course there’s a
study that refutes it so there was like
and I meant to I meant to figure out how
to pronounce this word but I’m gonna
take a stab at it there’s some people
say gingo below bill how do you say it
that biloba helps you and some people
say it does it hurts you so that was
kind of actually encouraging that um if
you find a study you don’t like you can
keep reading and you can find a study
that you don’t like so I’m probably up
for another other slide and like so
anyway I decided that I would do as much
as I could for four months do
everything that that anybody had ever
said helped and before I did that I
would take an IQ test and I would have
my brain imaged
so the first IQ test I took was online
but this IQ test and I’m thinking whoa I
am so smart I am really smart of course
the questions were things like dog is
too cat as woof is too you know but
anyway I thought my mother was right I
am a genius so then I click to find out
what my IQ is and it’s 74 which is like
it’s a miracle I got dressed this
morning well it turns out that the
directions which I never read directions
I said you have 20 minutes because I
took all day long to do this I had lunch
I voted for the mayor I did a little
emailing so ever so you could say I
really deserve the 74 and then I had my
brain imaged and the technician said you
have beautiful ventricles nothing to
worry about there which like I was
worrying about my ventricles and I
thought I’ve been worrying about
everything and then I embark upon my get
smart program for four months I swear it
must be time for a slide but I think
it’s not so I learned piano scales and I
learned a language because bilinguals
the average age of onset of the onset of
dementia for bilinguals is about four
years later than for monolingual z’ so I
learned I learned Cherokee I did I can
say that because I pretty sure nobody in
this room knows Turkey the reason I
decided to learn turkey was that I
thought it was Navajo and I just
confused it and I thought Navajo was
really cool because it was the coat that
they
the cryptographers used it in World War
two to study to decode things they did
study jerky little so I did Cherokee I
did Lumosity the brain exercises I did
them so I cheated actually I did them so
much that my mother called me one day
and I thought I can’t talk I’m doing the
luminosity exercises and she said it’s
your brain gonna snap and I thought I
don’t think your brain snaps I did what
else I did I tried to meditate I hope
this is it
yes this is inside Patti’s mindful mind
there are like so many kinds of
meditation there more than like Heinz
varieties but I chose mindfulness
because I thought I could use some more
mind I really was bad at meditation I I
mean everybody in the world meditates
all I could think of I went to a group
meditation session and all I could think
of was I wish these people would put
their shoes back on and then I was
tutored by a woman and she handed me a
raisin and she said study this raisin
and if you can understand the raisin you
can understand mindfulness and I thought
that is a big if so I didn’t really do
very well on that and but but you all
should probably meditate Oh scientists
are really rah-rah about meditation and
I could tell you why but you know I
could but then I only have 18 minutes
although I’m probably gonna be the one
who’s gonna be fewer than 18 minutes so
the lucky person next to me can go like
23 minutes if he or she wants to and
what else
let me see I don’t know what the next
slide is gonna be let’s just guess yes I
did cranial electrospinning this was a
Fisher Wallace device and that thing
that looks like a garage door opener is
I think not a garage door opener and you
see there two little sponges one on each
ear that are dripping water down me and
they’re connected to the garage door
opener
and you zap electricity into your brain
I would I before I tried it under the
reverse women and child principal I made
my boyfriend use it first and he got a
headache which I thought was a good sign
because I thought at least it’s working
at least it’s doing something even if
it’s a headache
it did nothing for me that was all just
me being funny
it did really nothing though it does
I read stop horse cribbing and what else
did I do so I ate blueberries because
blueberries are good for everything and
it has something to do with radical free
radicals but you just sound like a
political movement
I hate dark chocolate because who
wouldn’t eat dark chocolate I listen to
Mozart and I listen to a little choked
Chopin although it might in the elevator
it might have been the girl from Ipanema
I’m not really sure or Chopin and then I
I got I got I got really pretty good at
everything
I did like Lumosity I could really like
get the penguin back to its igloo
but the controversial thing one of many
controversial things in neuroscience
about brain exercises is do they trance
do they transfer well let’s find out
I mean do that because if you can get
the penguin home does that mean you’re
gonna be your IQ is gonna go up so I had
my brain imaged again that’s what it
looks like can you find the Finger Lakes
they’re right there and the technician
told me your brain got 33% bigger so
that made me very happy and I told my
boyfriend that and he’s a scientist and
he said if that were true it would be
using out of your nose and your ears and
your eyes and see it’s not and
he gave me a study to read about and
this is kind of well about dead salmon
that were put in an MRI machine and
these dead salmon were shown pictures of
human being faces and the dead salmon
were asked what expressions are being
conveyed by these faces and once you
know the salmon had an opinion about
this so next time you eat lox
you know smoked salmon just think about
that so then I went and I had my IQ
taken professionally as I did before
after that I didn’t had so did so badly
on the online thing and um like you went
down after all that so that was bad news
really but then I read a really some
good news about the bad news
which is there are some scientists who
believe that the reason we get so stupid
as we get older is that we know too much
there are all sorts of unbelievable
numbers like we read the equivalent of a
hundred and seventy four newspapers
which is five times what we read in 1986
now I don’t by the way read 174
newspapers anyway by any stretch but
some people do maybe you all do and
ninety percent of all data that’s ever
been produced has been produced in the
last two years and what else and more
information has been produced since I
forget but a lot just a lot so so anyway
so that’s kind of hopeful and I decided
if I know too much that maybe what I
should do is unlearn some things so I
this is what you no longer need to know
you never you don’t really need well
this is gonna really offend this speaker
that had something to do with space but
really you don’t have to know about
Pluto I guess you do okay you don’t need
to know about you know I do I know every
phone number but you don’t need to know
about phone numbers anymore
the food pyramid out the window who shot
junior look it up you don’t need to know
that spelling we have we have a machine
that auto corrects and makes my spelling
mistakes for us you don’t need to know
the floor plan of the Brady Bunch house
anymore how to fold a map Paris Hilton
arithmetic you don’t need to know that
how to program the VCR and you can
unremember everything you learned in
school sentence diagramming no longer
using a slide rule dissecting a frog
mitosis or meiosis don’t need to know
the difference of that something about
crop rotation and I learned in school or
strip farming I don’t know what the
difference is now I don’t even know if
there’s another slide this some
presidents you can forget Zachary Taylor
Martin Van Buren John Tyler Millard
Seymour Phil til more I already forgot
him and William Henry ho-hum Harrison
anyway after after doing all that what
did I learn I learned I really did get a
little less worried I thought well
whatever happens happens but my big fear
is the day after I get Alzheimer’s it
incidentally one little factoid I
learned that was fun to use at cocktail
parties is that human beings seem to be
the only species that gets Alzheimer’s
with the possible exceptions of caps
which would make cat owners as dotty as
their cats but what was I saying
oh yeah my fear is that the DES ass
I get Al’s lemurs of dementia that they
discover the cure for it and then the
day after I die they they cure
immortality that’s my big fear but
anyway I think that the solution to
getting older and cognitive decline is
that everybody should wear name tags and
that if someone asks you something and
you can’t remember the answer right away
you just say how soon do you have to know I
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