New York City is packed. 8.5 million people. I’m a recent addition to this tally which means I introduce myself a lot. It reminded me of a plan I thought up in college to help remember names. It’s fraught with problems and would never work, ever, but when I explain it to people they seem to enjoy it’s clarity, as did a friend last weekend. It’s gender specific. It’s very simple. You will get the concept VERY quickly. It goes like like this: When I meet another male I make sure he volunteers his name first (”hey, so….what’s your name?” I think would work). He gives name. To this I respond: “HEY! That’s my name too.” So now, whenever I pass him on the street etc. and he says “hey BLANK!” I can know his name and can return the greeting, with confidence. That’s it. I’m providing an artist’s rendering I had commissioned that captures the gestalt of my idea. An idea that will never work. I’m drawn to these. Roz Chast, brilliant cartoonist for the New York (Brooklyn native) is drawn to these too and then she draws them. She has a cartoon that features Nice Ideas That Never Caught On. Round Books. Clothes that talked– A dress asks the girl wearing it: ” Do you like cheese?” This letter of the alphabet — (visualize crazy looking letter). Ideas that don’t work, do. In ways not intended.
