Whatever Happened To Just Plain Crazy?

Friday April 12, 2024

(Happy Birthday Tiny Tim, Vince Gil, David Cassidy, Tom Clancy, David Letterman)

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• Our Cape Cod talk titled “Drawn To Music, The Art of Synesthesia” will be held tomorrow, Saturday April 13, at 3 pm (with a 2 pm reception) at the South Harwich Meeting House. If you’d like to read more about it, the Cape Cod Times article is here: https://tinyurl.com/mvxyjnht                             And tickets can be purchased here: https://www.southharwichmeetinghouse.com

Wayne and I hope to see you there!

 

 

• I have a new 1-minute short posted on Planet-Lennie YouTube, this time with the complete collection of Frida Kahlo self portraits (and, while you’re there, why not subscribe? Huh?).

 

 

Frida’s portraits are a brilliant representation of her tumultuous (and pain-ridden) life, lived to the fullest as an Artist and independent woman way ahead of her time.

If you like Frida, you’ll enjoy this video. If you don’t like Frida, close your browser now and finish your ice cream. Cuz we can’t be friends :/

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WmiCOXgK3xs

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Whatever Happened To Just Plain Crazy?

 Okay, it’s time to talk Synesthesia. And…

…Hollywood

 There’s a new film out called “Música” starring (and directed by) Rudy Manusco.

The promo says: “…Música is a coming-of-age love story that follows an aspiring creator with synesthesia, who must come to terms with an uncertain future…”

 

 

The movie is getting decent reviews from reviewer types (I dunno, maybe AI types).

I haven’t seen it yet but, of course, will just because of the hype it’s giving to Synesthesia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCMNlTCOkbg

There’s a problem I found just watching the trailer, though: Rudy’s issues seem more to do with “association” as opposed to Synesthesia.

  “Association” is defined by the psychiatric community as “a mental connection between concepts, events, or mental states that usually stems from specific experiences.”

To be honest, this is something VERY few trained (and aware) musicians can actually avoid; hearing the rhythms and pitches of virtually everything in their surroundings, from the pitch of a vacuum cleaner to the rhythm of a jack hammer, and associating them to musical references.

 In defense (or support) of the actual neurological definition of Synesthesia, I hope the film is more than that. I promise to check it out soon and with an open mind. I will give it a couple of views and share my thoughts here. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime (and I’ll write about this soon as well), if you want the REAL deal of what Synesthesia means, watch (or re-watch) the opening sequence to the 1940 film “Fantasia”. Of all the films and documentaries I’ve seen to date trying to sum up the phenomenon, this segment nails it: https://tinyurl.com/264xkyuf

 

 

“The Number 11 Tastes Like Toast”

 Synesthesia, basically, is defined as “the crossing of two or more of the five senses in an unusual way,” the keyword being “unusual”. Not just a memory association to a sound or rhythm with  similar sound or rhythm.

 For instance, my art is a result of the shapes I see when I listen to music. Some synesthetes (people who have synesthesia) associate numbers with colors, others letters with flavors or smells, some associate music with colors, some with days of the week and textures, etc. There are many types.

I “see” music in shapes.

  

 

 

"The Gate" (pen, brush and ink on paper) after Mussorgsky's "Pictures At An Exhibition, The Great Gate of Kiev" 

After a talk last year, an audience member came to me without a hello or introduction, shook my and hand, said, “The number 11 tastes like toast to me.”

Instant friendship. 

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Sh*t

I gave a gallery talk about improvisation and synesthesia a couple of years ago and Samantha seated in the back row of the audience of around 70-ish people.

 I open my programs by defining, in very general terms, how my art comes about:

“I put on some music to listen to, place my pen or brush on the paper or canvas, and let my hand go according to the shapes I see and hear in the music. ‘Seeing’ the music and interpreting it onto the canvas.”


The young woman seated in front of Samantha, obviously new to my work, turned to her companion and said, “Is this sh*t real?”

I LOVE that because “For real??” was my reaction when I found out most people DON’T see shapes when they hear music. I spent my whole life thinking this music-translates-to-shapes thing happened to everyone.

The answer is, borrowing from Seinfeld, “It’s real and it’s spectacular.”

 

 “I Just Play The Radio.” (my Mom)

 I was exposed to a lot of music very early on in life and in lots of varieties.

There was always music playing in the house; my Dad’s taste as a trumpet player and audiophile ranged from the likes of John Philip Sousa, Mahler, Beethoven, Ives, Holst, anything conducted by Eugene Ormandy, The Boston Pops, Oscar Peterson, and Erroll Garner and many more.

My Mom’s leanings were Cat Stevens, Neil Diamond, lots of Simon and Garfunkel, some classical piano and a lot of comedy, especially Carol Burnett and Flip Wilson records. And my sisters’ vinyls, of course, covered The Beatles, The Stones, The Animals, The Beach Boys, The Byrds and beyond.

 If the living room stereo wasn’t on, the kitchen radio was. If the radio wasn’t playing music, we were. From the age of 5, my two older sisters and I were required by our parents to take piano lessons and then, in 4th grade, to switch to another instrument of our own choosing in the school band program.

 There was always music playing and/or being played. Even my grandparents on my Mom’s side had a piano at their house. It seems like someone was always playing and singing.

But I Never Did Get The Whole Easter Bunny Thing

Until the age of about 12, I thought all this was normal; that every kid had this going on. I also believed in Santa Claus up until about a month ago so... there’s that.

 This all leads to the next thing I thought was normal: getting sick and hearing massive symphonies in your head. Like this, But with a giant choir added:

 

Yep.

Ever since I can remember (5 years old maybe?), whenever I have been very sick with a bad fever, I’ve heard music in my head. It happens to this day. I was really sick with a bad fever just last April and this phenomenon was brutal.

 I’m not talking earworms or cute little musical ditties that become annoying after the 100th time playing over and over in your brain. Or even the ever-annoying Kars for Kids jingle stuck in your head:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8UV7SAhvG4

(it wasn’t in your head. But now it is. Sorry).

 I’m talking an experience that is straight out of the final scene of Amadeus.

I’m talking original music played by a 200-piece orchestra and choir that is Beethoven, Mahler, Wagner, and John Williams on steroids. And, at the same time, there are shapes and colors going by. Yes, even the hallucinations become synesthetic.  And these are not drug induced, prescription or otherwise. And long before I saw Fantasia, by the way.

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 “SUPPAH!” (to be yelled in a New England accent)

Back when I was a youngster I didn’t know how to write music or even describe this stuff. Now that I’m actually able to transcribe and write that music out, I’m always too sick to get out of bed to do so. And, like a dream, I can barely remember it when I do recover. It’s very unfortunate because that music is massive and amazing, wherever it’s coming from.

Why did it take me so long to figure all of this out? As a 7 year-old kid, you don’t really ask your neighborhood blue-collar-families and 7 year-old pals, “Hey, what kind of symphonies do you hear in your head when you have a fever?”

My neighborhood blue-collar-families and 7 year-old pals would have dropped me like a Tonka truck at their Moms’ 5 o’clock call for supper.

 I finally saw Fantasia when I was in my teens (I have no idea why that took so long either. I guess I was…busy) and thought, “Hey, that’s cool. Disney is showing what happens inside everybody’s head when they listen to music.” 

It was until MUCH later that I realized it wasn’t “everybody” at all.

Branded

 I know now that my childhood fever-induced hallucinations that mixed this crazy music with visuals are the foundation of what the psychiatric community labels as “synesthesia.”

It's nice, I suppose, to have your condition labeled and authenticated by the scientists. But, in the words of the great Chris Rock, “Whatever happened to just plain crazy?”

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Thanks for reading, see you next time!

Lennie

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