Let’s play random catch-up! Here’s a quick rundown of where I am these days:
I’m actually excited for the NCAA Championship game tonight! I don’t really care who wins, but I hope it’s almost as good a game as the UCLA/Gonzaga Final Four matchup was. It’s been a weird season (thanks, Covid…) but it’s definitely had its moments, and games like that one that reminded me exactly why I love college basketball.
Don’t bury your love of something just because grief (or whatever) enters the picture, y’all. I stopped watching basketball when my grandfather died in 2017 (it was something we did together), and had myself just about convinced to lump it in with all of the other “sportsball” I don’t keep track of. Why do we do that to ourselves? The only way out of pain is always straight through. It doesn’t hurt to watch basketball; it makes me feel close to my granddad and I’m sure he’s laughing his ass off at me still fussing at the screen like we always did. And it’s fun to watch games with other people who enjoy the same things, even if we’re all tucked away in our own houses.
Life is for the living. So…live.
For anyone who doesn’t know, I’ve started a series of alcohol ink paintings that are chromesthetic (sound-color synesthesia) representations of various songs. I have a long list to paint but feel free to comment (or reach out on social media) and add songs to my list! They don’t have to be super-popular or from any genre in particular.
Here is Chopin’s Nocturne Op.9 No.1 as it appears in my head when I listen:
And here is Sting’s “Fields Of Gold”:
Somewhat related: I’ve been doing some reading into synesthesia, autism, and whether things like serotonergic hyperactivity could explain the presence of synesthesia — and various ‘savant’ abilities — in at least some people. There’s a lot of solid research out there, though still not as much as I’d like, and I have some theories/musings I’ve yet to see represented by large/repeatable studies. I’ll hold most of those thoughts for another post but let’s just say there are some…”interesting” explanations for the higher incidence of synesthesia in autistic people.
What’s new/good in your neck of the woods?
melstery.com 