Amarcord is the title of my favorite film by my favorite filmmaker, Federico Fellini. It is an Italian word that, loosely translated, means “I remember.” But that is not all there is to it.

The word describes something ineffable. I have not found a sentence that completely wraps around it. So it is with this book.

There are books that keep meticulous and well-researched timelines on their subject. This is not one of them. This is not to say there is fiction here. I am committed to the facts as I know them, but I am aware that I remember them only one way.

I accept that although my memories seem to come from the past, in reality they don’t. They come from the present, remembered not as they were but as they are.

Each remembrance here marks a place where a band formed—a band of colleagues, a band of players, a band of thieves, a band of ideas—ephemeral, burning bright, then dispersing as unpredictably as it had formed. In these fleeting moments, lives changed, ideas were conceived, far horizons brought into view.

A band breaks up, but the gathering exists forever in its effect and becomes foundational. Seen through the altitude of mind, these bands, these gatherings, these bouquets are both the footprints and constellations of our lives.

Even though the spheres of remembrance tend to keep the meanings of these connections separate and distinct, they are not. One can see from a certain height the universe as a world of ideas that are interconnected in ways that are hard to explain directly.

My hope is that this book opens a door into the present and that you will laugh a lot—even though this is not meant primarily to be a funny book. From these threads, perhaps one may see how to weave their own fabric, to recollect and gaze at their own tapestry.