This came to my attention while reading the essays collected in Tony Judt's book The Memory Chalet (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/feb/10/tony-ju

This came to my attention while reading the essays collected in Tony Judt's book The Memory Chalet (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/feb/10/tony-judt-distinctions/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/feb/10/tony-ju...). From the review: "Physically unable to write [because of ALS], but with a mind as sharp and active as ever, [Judt] plotted the twenty-five short essays that compose this book in his head, while he was alone at night, using a mnemonic device taken from accounts of the early modern “memory palace,” whereby elements of a narrative are associated with points in a visually remembered space; but instead of a palace, he used a small Swiss chalet that he had once stayed in on vacation as a boy, and that he could picture vividly and in detail. He was then able to dictate these feuilletons the next day from the resulting structure."