Matter of Fact

As a remedy for my creative lassitude, I started to watch Jeopardy on the recommendation of a smart friend.  It’s a good way to measure how much I don’t know, never knew or forgot. It is also an exercise which speaks to me of the irrelevance of facts, particularly in this age where the encyclopedic mind has been replaced by a Google click to Wikipedia. I also note that speed is valued over deliberation as if to mimic a computer itself. Then there is the difference between information and knowledge and dare I say, wisdom. The only wisdom I have is that it doesn’t have much to do with tidbits of who and what.

On the other hand, names and places can serve as a form of mental aerobics. It may keep the synapses from lapsing. There are certain names which I would gladly purge from my memory vault which have long since outlived their shelf-life yet still cling to my marrow. This is especially true of sports figures and movie factoids. Nomenclature from my years as a pharmacist still lingers for no good reason except to drop at a cocktail party when I have nothing else to say.

My friend Roger once told me of a question put to him during his naturalization proceeding. Who won the War of 1812, he was asked. His answer was, I don’t know. That’s correct, said the examiner, nobody knows. Roger was a step smarter than any contestant on Jeopardy. 

Here’s a question I would put to Jeopardy. What is the “o” doing in that word? It has to do with its derivation from the French jeu parti.

As I move into decrepitude with the threat of cognitive dissonance looming in the short term, I can imagine how Jeopardy might serve as a wake-up call to my grey matter. On rare occasions I blurt the right answer. Vasco de Gama, I yell, or Seneca Falls but it takes me a while to get up from the couch to take a bow.

There is something anachronistic about the game show. It harkens back to a radio program from the late 1930s called Information Please. However in that case the questioner, Clifton Fadiman, engaged in amusing repartee with guest panelers, headed by Oscar Levant. The questions became subordinated to the conversation. In those days we honored the range of intelligence; today it is more of a freak show.

In our dumbed-down current state we dismiss intellectuals as egghead elites or savants as if they are necessarily out of touch with the pulse of real folks. Polysyllabic words are suspect. Even delicatessen has been whittled down to deli. Just don’t try ordering blintzes in a trattoria. That might be a case of double jeopardy.