4/29/2023

Most puzzling.

For a couple of weeks I've had the lyrics of As Time Goes By stuck in my head. An earworm, as the kids like to say. The version is the one performed by Dooley Wilson in Casablanca. I always figure earworms are a manifestation of one's subconscious or the right hemisphere of the brain.
Like dreams, it speaks in riddles rather than being direct and overt like the wakeful and rational left hemisphere with its capacity for language, e.g. Wernicke's Area, Broca's Area among other speech-related structures in the brain. The right hemisphere, on the other hand, appears to lack mirror analogues to the aforementioned areas and conventional wisdom argues the right hemisphere is focused on the big picture, emotion, vision, and art than details, logic, and language. So when the right hemisphere needs to convey something urgently to its counterpart, it will convey the message through symbols.
For example a few years ago I was in a rush to attend an important event where I needed to be dressed up then found myself humming, "I'm getting married in the morning" which conveyed my urgency and the importance of my date. Once I "solved" the puzzle, the earworm ended presumably because the right hemisphere was satisfied at being heard at long last.
There ought to be something behind the earworm. First and foremost I think of Bugs Bunny preparing for some deviltry and he's singing 🎵 Hearts full of passion, jealous and hate 🎵. Either in Hare Force or The Unruly Hare. Song also came to mind because of a recent podcast episode, 99% Invisible if I remember correctly, talking about musicians going on strike between 1942 and 1944. With the popularity of Casablanca Dooley Wilson got a raw deal because his performance couldn't be distributed so older, previously-recorded versions made the rounds instead.
Full disclosure: I have absolutely no romantic prospects. Not even side-piece prospeccts. It's sad.
Maybe my right brain is trying to tell me that time is passing me by, or running out?