Memories are made of this

Last stop on our trip down Memory game lane: This 1968 Milton-Bradley version is the best I've encountered since it's basically a Midcentury Illustration's Greatest Hits, featuring work by Alice and Martin Provensen, Roger Duvoisin, Mary Blair, Eric Carle and of course, our beloved Eames House of Cards. How did all this great stuff end up in one game exactly? I dunno, but the box says "under license to Otto Maier Verlag, Ravensburger, Germany." Ravensburger is the German game and puzzle company founded by Otto back in the 19th century, and obviously the Germans know (and create) good design so somehow it must all be owing to their genius. So to them, I say, "Thanks!" And also to the members of the Bain family (the name scrawled on the box in a couple of places)—I bought this for two bucks at his/her/their estate sale and I've cherished it ever since.

One of the subjects/themes of this blog (apart from the overarching theme of I-am-cray-cray-and-need-to-stop-buying-so-much-stuff) is...why do we like what we like? Why do we buy what we buy? Aesthetically speaking, what attracts us to an object? I'm not given to philosophizing; I was an English major and, I'm not speaking for all English majors here, but personally I'm not capable of deep abstract thoughts. I once attempted to take a class on the philosophy of aesthetics but dropped out after the first week on the grounds that I did not understand a single word that the professor said. ’Twas definitely a roadblock to learning. Anyway, why do you like to look at what you look at? What makes it pleasing to your eye? I find it hard to divorce aesthetic appreciation from nostalgia. I like it because I've always liked it. I like it because I grew up with it. I like it because I remember it. I like it because it reminds me of another time and place that's still somehow this time and place cuz it lives on in my memory. Memory mixed with desire. Wasn't that T.S. Eliot? Okay, sorry, I'm going off the rails—deep thoughts, watch out!—but then again, maybe not. After all, "mixing memory and desire"—isn't that what the best purveyors of vintage do?

Dean Martin - Memories Are Made Of This by beautifulcynic

Pikku, the Finnish Memory game

As promised, this week I'm strolling down Memory game lane. I got this one on my storied trip to Finland back in 1975, and look how beautiful it is! You wouldn't expect anything less from a Finnish Memory game, would you now. I've talked about how I only had a few things with which to amuse myself on that three-week trip—complimentary puzzles and art supplies given to all kids on the Finnair flight, a farm-animal stencil kit, my Asterix books, my brother's Tintin books, a book about mammals entirely in Finnish... Well, suffice to say, I squeezed a lot of good times out of this game, on the trip and for many years after. Like the Eames House of Cards, its images are burned on my retinas, deposited for good in my memory bank, and see below—there's even at least one photograph from the House of Cards, the nails (or are they pins? I've never been sure).

Sometimes I let my kids play with this game, when I'm feeling very generous, but mostly it stays on a high shelf of treasures while they use their own, a 1980 version put out by Milton-Bradley, which I forgot to photograph but you can see all over etsy (like here, for example). It's cute, but not as cute as this one—nor is it a repository of my precious memories!

But the 1980 Memory is waay cuter than the current incarnation put out by Hasbro, which is seriously fugly. My kids have received several over the years as birthday presents, and I keep donating them or regifting them yet somehow there's always one in the game closet. Maybe it's like the proverbial single fruitcake being passed around the universe?

I think if you want a new Memory game that in any way rivals the vintage ones you have to make it yourself. As I was photographing these game cards a couple weeks ago, I suddenly realized how much their perfect squareness makes them resemble Instagram photos (really good Instagram photos, anyway, not so much the ones of your dinner or your latte). Naturally, I thought I'd hit on a great money-making idea—custom Memory games made out of your favorite Instagrams!—but a few seconds of googling confirmed that I was a little late to that particular party. But is anyone Instagramming images of vintage Memory games and turning them into Insta-Vintage Memory games? Hmmm... that might just be meta enough to work...

Scrabbled

I think I've sounded this theme often, but I'll reiterate in case you've not been taking notes: I don't like games. Board games are boring. I would always rather read. I might even prefer organizing Lindsay's recipes into clear plastic binders, or cleaning the birdcage. Anything else.

But if I must play a game, I always choose Scrabble. Not this Facebook phone stuff that Alec Baldwin seems to enjoy so much; I'm as baffled by that when I see it cluttering my FB feed as I am by those games about jewelry and farm animals. Don't try to tell me how great it is, how addictive if you're a wordsmithy-type person—cuz I'd be too busy reading novels on my phone.

The last adult I played Scrabble with was Lindsay. We were rusticating in Tobago, in a very austere cottage with lots of interesting insects and not a lot of intact mosquito netting. There was no nightlife to speak of; or at least not where a couple of Americans would feel welcome some six months after 9/11. We dined on the same fish special at the only restaurant in town every night. The service was grudging, if not hostile. When we revealed ourselves to be New Yorkers, we were grilled on our 9/11 experiences and informed that the whole thing was an American conspiracy, if it had even happened it all, which we assured everyone it did, since we were eyewitnesses, but they weren't impressed. (Later we'd learn that Hugo Chavez had found refuge in Tobago after a brief coup at the same time we were there. Like I said, Americans weren't too popular then—I wonder if anything's changed.)

Given the circumstances, then, what choice did we have but to hang out in our cabin each evening, with a couple of genial stray dogs for company, drink gin and tonics and play game after game of Scrabble while tropical rain pelted the rooftop? A lovely Scrabble memory, except that maybe Lindsay vowed never to play with me again because I was "too cutthroat" and a "sore loser." Or something like that.

So I didn't play until my kids got old enough to string some letters together and call it a word, and then to string some words together and call it a sentence. Have you ever seen the Scrabble Sentence Game for Juniors? Well, like most games made in 1973, it's pretty awesome (and there's plenty available on eBay for around 10 bucks). Like Scrabble for Juniors, the board has an easy side and an advanced side: The easy side just requires simple matching (good for learning sight words) and the hard side encourages the drolleries of fledgling Becketts, as you can craft all manner of absurd one-liners. If there's a scrabbulous or words-for-friends-like app for that, I might actually consider getting it for my kids.

M*A*S*H up

Once upon a time, I watched M*A*S*H three times a day; four times on Mondays. It aired at 3pm when I came home from school; it was on from 7 to 8pm after dinner, and on Monday nights a new episode aired on CBS at 8 or 9. It goes without saying that M*A*S*H was my favorite show, and a formative influence on my sense of humor, such as it is/isn't, right up there with various BBC comedy series (Fawlty Towers, Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin) and Howard Stern.

I know from Grape Nehis and stills, Toledo Mudhens and meatball surgery. I know that the M*A*S*H theme song was entitled "Suicide is Painless," because, along with "You Light Up My Life," it was the song I most enjoyed playing on my flute. I made a pilgrimage to see the M*A*S*H set at the Smithsonian. I went to see age-inappropriate movies like The Four Seasons and The Seduction of Joe Tynan just because I was such an Alan Alda fan.

I have definite M*A*S*H opinions, some of which don't jibe with the popular view. BJ over Trapper John. Henry Blake over Colonel Potter. Frank Burns WAY over Charles. Frank Burns was probably my favorite character; "Frank Burns eats worms" my favorite line in the whole series (it still slays me). I slightly preferred Klinger to Radar but could've easily done without both of them. Colonel Flagg was my favorite recurring guest character, but I also liked Dr. Sidney Freedman (and by high school his stock shot up when I discovered he was a photographer once married to Diane Arbus). I was glad that Hawkeye and Hot Lips never got together; I hated that episode when they kinda sorta did. Barf. I liked it when Hawkeye was with that nurse who went on to star in the Polaroid commercials with James Garner. I never saw the original M*A*S*H movie, and yes, I know it's Altman and it's so much better and darker, and I don't care. I hated the series finale, like most people, but maybe that's just because I didn't want it to be over, or because I was over it. I'm not sure which. It was 1983. I was 15, and already deep into Cheers, which had premiered the year prior. And like most TV series of that era (any era?), M*A*S*H didn't exactly get better with age.

I can't really watch M*A*S*H now, though I'll happily sit through back-to-back episodes of The Odd Couple, Hogan's Heroes or Mister Ed. Its earnestness can make me queasy; the laugh track hurts my brain. And I have a hard time refraining from reciting all the dialogue I've memorized, which can be annoying if I'm with someone and sad/weird if I'm watching alone.

Anyway, it stands to reason that I should kick sargent-major ass on these Golden Trivia M*A*S*H cards, which came out in 1984, the year after the series ended. I bought these at an estate sale earlier this summer, when I knew my brother and fellow M*A*S*H couch potato would be visiting. I wasn't as good as I'd expected to be, but over cocktails, we both managed to horrify our respective spouses with our M*A*S*H knowledge. I mean, seriously, who doesn't know Frank Burns's blood type?