Rolling Stone's Top 50

I chose to memorize the Rolling Stone Top 50 for a couple basic reasons: I love music and I thought it'd be easy. And I was right, it was easy. My memory theater was setup at my workplace this time, each artist designated as a foodstuff, topographical feature, or appliance. David Bowie was a blender. I especially liked that one.

As with the first time, I did not really begin the process until the day it was due. Now, part of this is attributable to the fact that I had no time, but I was also curious to see if something could be memorized so quickly. Undoubtedly the experience would be different with a story or poem, but this list only took me 3 tries to go through smoothly. Here's my process:

1. Attach loci to each item. Set aside until 2-3 hours before presentation.
2. Read over, and then hand to a friend or colleague.
3. Recite the list through, pausing for cues when the answer is elusive.
4. Recite the list through again, hopefully this time with fewer cues (Neil Young and the yogurt machine gave me a lot of trouble)
5. Recite the list through in reverse order
6. Have your partner pick, randomly, a loci and then continue from that point through the cycle.

This has worked really well for me. I only spent half as long on this recitation as I did for the MSU Top 100- which makes sense really...- but I think part of that was just having a good system.