JITOTM09: Deja Vu (All Over Again)

It's the question that gets asked over and over again: what is the deal with deja vu? Everywhere Jay goes, people want to know, and he's pretty sure he's not just getting that funny feeling he's heard the question before.

We take our title this week from Yankees catcher Yogi Berra's famously bungled phrase, "It was deja vu all over again," starting with a little lesson in semantics for those immune to ironic appropriations of the cliche... and a nod to a US president who rivals Berra in making memorable malapropisms.

Then it's off on a romp through mutliple theories about what might cause deja vu, (along with its cousins jamais vu and semantic satiation), via reel-to-reel tape decks and the movie The Matrix. The ghost of Sigmund Freud takes a ribbing, the audience is asked to contribute, the Quote of the Week is strangely familiar, and the Song of the Week echoes the matters of the mind that matter most to us...

Get an earful of all this, and much more in Episode 9 of Jay Ingram's Theatre of the Mind, Deja Vu (All Over Again, of course).

Behind the Curtain

• Can't get enough of those crazy phrases? Yogi Berra's greatest hits are compiled here
  
  
• What about Bushisms? The current US President is rapidly becoming Yogi's rival...
  
  
• Slightly more to the point, what about Freud? This bio sums him up neatly.
  
  
• Ask the Audience: Send us your jamais vu stories, please. We'd love to hear from you.
  
  
• Song of the Week: Living in Grey by Yael Wand.

As always, we welcome your comments and feedback. Drop us a line!

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