Parrots as external memory

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Shades of Humboldt’s Parrot (damn, that’s an old post!): “Widow Asks Public For Help Finding Missing Parrot That Speaks In Late Husband’s Voice” *

A San Juan Capistrano woman is asking the public for help finding her beloved African gray parrot.

Karen McIntyre said the bird’s absence is like losing a member of the family, in part because he spoke in her late husband’s voice.

“My husband passed away three years ago, and he still uses my husband’s voice to tell the dogs to be quiet, and he calls my son Patrick, or he calls my daughter Erin,” said McIntyre.”He picks up the phone and makes telephone calls in my husband’s voice.”

Donald Richie 1924-2013

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Donald Richie died last Tuesday. I was already planning to go to the Music Hall Tuesday night for their presentation of Ran; it seemed an excellent way to honor Mr. Richie’s memory, and so I raised a glass to him on my way to the theater. I learned of Mr. Richie’s work very recently – at a dinner at a brilliant friend’s place, I started talking Kurosawa with another brilliant friend (I’d just watched The Seven Samurai again and was full of enthusiasm). She pointed me at Richie’s book on the director as well as a bio of Kurosawa and Mifune by Stuart Galbraith IV and a fantastic novel, The Last Samurai, that uses The Seven Samurai as both an element in the characters lives and as an organizing theme.

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