I am still alive!
June 30, 2007
But really, really busy. Regular stuff shall resume shortly!
Hi-ho, hi-ho . . .
June 18, 2007
On Wednesday it’s off to Canada I go.
See you all on the other side.
Why do so many people still not own this lost classic?
June 13, 2007
Rectify, immediately!
Four Sixes!!!
June 12, 2007
Now let’s never speak of this again.
All quiet on the western front.
June 11, 2007
No new music has really infuriated me in the last couple weeks, possibly because I’ve been far too busy working on my own to notice. So instead I will recommend everyone watch this wonderful video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG_ssOWKq74
Abobo’s revenge!
June 7, 2007
(For an introduction, see part 1)
Months of the year
This is a lot trickier than anything explained so far, as there are two different things in effect here – the synesthesia of the word itself (ie, the word “February”), and then also regular seasonal visualisation that pretty much everyone understands (ie – spring is green, autumn is brown etc) – but I’ll try as best I can to explain.
The months are organised in a vertical ladder, each month occupying a letterboxed horizontal strip (as opposed to the days of the week, which are vertical orientated rectangles on a horizontal plane), with January at the top. Despite having two of the shortest names, June and July have much wider strips than any other month.
Unlike letters or numbers, the months loop round – that is, I can see a new January immediately below December, whereas there is no new letter “A” after “Z” in the alphabet. (the days of the week do sort of loop, but in a lot fuzzier and less distinct manner)
January - The strip is mostly white, with a fuzzy red part at the far right hand side where it “becomes” February. There is a smaller, very thin rectangle at the top of the strip. As best as I can think right now, the word January itself is nowhere to be seen.
February – A wavy green melting into white. Sort of like if it were white icing poured over a green cake. If I think about specific days (yes, days of the year are not exempt from Synesthesia!), as Febraury goes on the days turn from a light pink to a fairly deep blood red. The word February is also quite pink.
March – Very green, as you may expect. A lot of dark brown vertical shapes in there as well (trees? possibly, though that seems rather too upfront compared to most synesthesia connections). For some reason the 14th of March is a really dark brown and is slightly lower than the other days in vertical sense, as if it weighs a lot and is sagging the line. The 28th also does this.
April – Lighter green than March, and much more indistinct in form compared to March’s solid shapes and colours. The rectangular strip is completely split at the 10th by a line, but the colour is the same on both sides.
May – A very short strip (only three letters in the name, but then June and July are HUGE), a sort of reddish/pink, the colours bleed away to clear as it approaches June. Several days are a really dark blue colour. Typing up May has also reminded me that the phrase “Bank Holiday” is a REALLY bizarre multi-limbed outline shape in a rectangular box that i can’t possible begin to explain.
June – absolutely MASSIVE width to the strip, almost to the point of not being able to “see” the sides. Very smooth and a lot more tangible compared to the lightweight May. Colour is hard to pin down, there are oranges and pinks but they aren’t “connected” to the strip itself, they are just sort of there.
July – Pretty much identical to June, though the strip is even longer. Colour is slightly darker, and much more connected. The strip gets very rough and dark at the right hand side.
August – Very strange. Pretty much every individual day has it’s own vertical division, like with April the 10th. Colour is mostly the same blue as some of the days in May. Turns a very radioactive orange towards the 23th onwards.
September – Brown. Lots of brown. The strip seems like it has very little depth, and you can almost see through it in places. Also has a inexplicable “damp” sensation.
October – Almost identical to January. But shinier and a bit shorter in length. The strip is a little bit taller than the other months also. If January has the texture of snow, October is the snow under a pane of glass. October 31st moves side to side like a solitary Space Invader character and is made of a really shiny wire.
November – A really really dark blue, almost black. A wooden texture. You may be disappointed to know that November the 5th is not an explosion of colour, but instead a large yellow star on a blue background.
December - Very hard to explain. Sort of like a wireframe version of November. The early days have a very raised shape, like braille lettering, the 15th is the only day with colour (greenish), and the 20th to the 30th are completely see-through. The 31st can only be described as white cream in tall rectangular form.
This afternoon I was wasting time on the internet and came to the conclusion that there appears to be no good websites on Synesthesia that go any further than boring medical definitions. These explanations are all well and good, but I suspect someone without Synesthesia can’t possibly comprehend what they mean.
So, in the interests of science, here is a list of what colour, texture and shape certain words/numbers/things are to me.
Days of the week
Monday – Muted greys with a slight touch of red. A tall shape that starts off rough at the bottom but smooths out and gains more colour vertically.
Tuesday -Doesn’t appear to have any colour, but isn’t transparent either. Very hard to explain. Possibly like a pane of glass that has cracked but not shattered.
Wednesday – Golden, broken in the middle.
Thursday – Slightly green, and vertically smooth.
Friday – White with whisps of grey. Comprised of little upside-down reversed L shapes.
Saturday – Saturday morning is a hollow shape with the middle missing. Mostly black and gold. Afternoon and night is a very neat tall structure like a full Tetris well.
Sunday – Very similar to Tuesday, but the concept of Sunday night has some solid black colour.
The alphabet
Hmm, this is very complex to actually sit down and think about. The following observations can be made when thinking about A to Z laid out
A to P are arranged horizontally, then Q to Z slowly arc in a downward direction. From around U or V it is completely vertical downwards.
The early letters are mostly reddish and on top of a black background.
F is a turning point in colour and background. From F to around K or L the background is much lighter and the letters are of no specific colour (except H, which is always brown).
Around L, M, O and P the background is brilliant white and the letters seem much less tangible than the earthy early letters.
Once things start going downwards from Q, the background gets darker again, but a completely different kind of dark from A to F. The letter X is a very grey plastic structure, much different to all the other letters around it, V is similar.
Z is the end of the line, but you get the feeling that the number 0 starts not long after it somewhere to the right in a void of spatial emptiness.
I am actually quite mentally exhausted having spent the last half an hour thinking about this and writing it all down. I will return some other time to explain the months of the year, decades, and – gulp – numbers from 1 to 100.
EDIT – In fact, could anyone else who reads this and has even the most incredibly mild synesthesia (I suspect everyone probably has it to some extent even if it’s not as powerful in most as it is in others) leave a message as to what the days of the week are to you? I have a psychological experiment in mind. Cheers!
Songs you can’t listen to . . .
June 5, 2007
. . . as they are mentally connected in some way to a person/event/time that you don’t like to think about it. An incomplete list:
Belle and Sebastian – Another Sunny Day.
Cooper Temple Clause – See This Through And Leave. The whole album.
Radiohead – The Bends. The whole album
The Shins – Australia.
Stone Roses – Elephant Stone (only the version on the Complete Stone Roses, for some reason the full-length vinyl version with the long drum intro is exempt).
Eels – Blinking lights and other Revelations. Most of the album.
Sigur Ros – Track 8 on ( ).
Ian Brown – Dolphins Were Monkeys (single version).
Muse – The first two-thirds of Absolution (a particular shame, as it is such a cracking album).
Zwan – Zwan. Actually, I think it’s just that this album is so powerfully shit I can’t bear to think I spent money on it.
