LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF BROWN
I've learned something. No, not the usual profoundly unsettling, earthshaking something that I suspected all along--this bit of learning was quite ordinary and may explain everything.
It came during the Cubs game on Sunday. Vince Scully mentioned how amazing it was that Burt Hooton could pitch such a good game at night and be completely off during the day. Hooton made me think of hoot-owl which made me think of eyes which made me think of seeing which made me think of Rachmaninoff. With me, the direct route of thinking about things always includes Rachmaninoff. He once said that the note F# (sharp) was a sunny day. I thought he was wrong about that. F# is clearly a great grey nor'easter. I didn't realize until I was thumbing through Psychology Today at the same time as Vince was commenting on Hooton, that Rachmaninoff and I are on the same side, included in a rather small crazed group known as synesthetes. I've resisted being put in crazed groups but there it is in black and white. Rachmaninoff and I hear in color. I thought everybody did. The importance of F# is not that we disagree as to what color it is but that we hear it as a color at all.
I can blame a lot on color hearing. It's called synesthesia and it's what makes a three syllable word, for me, brilliant blue and what a five letter word its touch of umber.
I've always had a penchant for changing people's names. I never analyzed it; I just did it because I liked to. I've been going over some of the ones I've changed, what I changed them to, and the ones I've left alone. A pattern is emerging. Is it conditioning that causes me to avoid the name Liz and forces me call Ross nothing but Ross? Or is it that "Ross" has bunches of green and "Liz" has streaks of black and yellow? Will there never be a Liz I can like? Is Cey a sure winner because "Cey" is red, white, and blue? Is Brunswick all that I think or is she illusion--silvery purple Brunswick? Did Smith become popular because it's so creamy beige?
Synesthesia would explain why I have a near mania for certain words like "foolish" with its tiny sprinkles of lavender and "kilometer." I was pleased when I read the country might go metric. "Kilometer" is a worthwhile import; it brings pink peppermint stripes and orange California poppies to all the highways of America.
According to the article in Psychology Today, this crossing of the senses is found in many children and lost to a lot of adults. Maybe that's why I find adults dreary. Maybe that's why I'm delighted when I find somebody who knows what in Corona I'm talking about. One of the examples of synesthetic authors given was Kipling with his "The dawn came up like thunder." One of my favorites!
This is all leading me to reappraise some of my likings. It's an interesting avenue of investigation but one I'm not going to ponder at length. Or, at least, not now. It's a foggy, stormy afternoon here in Manhattan Beach. I'd rather be playing a little Rachmaninoff. Something in F# to match the day.
this only serves to prove that the color of f# is in the eyes of the beholder - for me, one who is 1/2 color-blind, it is a dull gray, and kilometer is pronounced KILometer, not kilOMeter; but, who is to say, be it pink or gray? that's enough from me, on this first day in may c will
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