national memory

White, an all-American-looking 35-year-old with strawberry-blond hair, blue eyes and dimples, had traveled to Australia to deliver a speech on memory, and, as usual, he dedicated his free time to becoming the No. 1 memorizer in the United States. He put on his mask and snorkel, breathed in and out a few times and grabbed the deck of plastic playing cards from the side of the pool. He started his stopwatch and submerged himself. If he could memorize the order of this deck in close to two minutes underwater, he had it made. Trying to keep his breathing steady without letting it distract him, he flipped through the cards. Each one evoked an image in his mind: the king of hearts was his mother, the jack of hearts was Madonna singing, the five of spades was a friend named Sally whispering into a flip chart.