The Life Experience ~ Fall '10

[bloodyrosemccoy]

What I Learned Since The Autumn Equinox

• The song played at Bilbo’s birthday in Fellowship of the Ring has a name: “Flaming Red Hair”
• The Sea Organ is a concrete construction on the beach in Zadar, Croatia, as a way to mitigate mess made on the coast during World War II. It’s got a resonance chamber under its marble steps and a Series Of Tubes. Thus, when the wind and the waves move through it, it makes music!
• While I kew about the tragic story of Judith Barsi, the voice of Duckie in The Land Before Time, I did not know she had a marker saying “Yep, Yep, Yep!” That makes me feel slightly better.
• There is a nifty food co-op in Salt Lake City!
• The best kind of pie is cheese-and-mushroom.
• Verjuice, an acidic juice made by pressing unripe green grapes, was a condiment widely used in the Middle Ages.
• You no longer need assistance for red paint at those pottery-painting studios.
• Anything is possible when you smell like a monster and know the word “on.”
• My synesthesia still applies to music notation. Not to musical notes themselves, but to reading music—the notes are the same colors as their corresponding letters.
• Wearing a wrist brace actually can make your whole arm feel better.
• The Na’vi language nerds are doing double-time to catch up to the Klingon language nerds. Paul Frommer has a blog and a posse!
• People have a tough time keeping promises when those promises go against obsessive thoughts.
• The Australian sleepy lizard is monogamous, and will return to its mate every year for 20+ years. It will also hold several-day vigils if their mate dies.
• When you drain blisters, you’re better off inserting the needle along the side.
• Satin is evil when you’re sewing. There’s a reason it’s only one letter away from “Satan.”
• Ringo Starr has a Christmas album!
• It takes a while for agents to respond when they’re reading a sample chapter of your novel.  And the suspense is No Fun At All.

Comments

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I am in search of the album "The Singing Saw at Christmastime". Christmas songs played entirely on musical saw! It will go well with Sy Mann's "Switched On Santa" (analog synths, the name is a play on Wendy Carlos's "Switched On Bach"), Los Straitjackets' "'Tis the Season for Los Straitjackets" (surf guitar), Esquivel's "Merry Christmas from the Space Age Bachelor Pad" ('50s-'60s hi-fi lounge), etc.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

My favorite "alternate" Christmas album is We Wish You a Metal Christmas (And a Headbanging New Year). Highlights include Black Sabbath doing God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, and Queensrÿche's Silver Bells.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Oh hell...now I need that too...

[piccolo-pirate.livejournal.com]

My synesthesia still applies to music notation. Not to musical notes themselves, but to reading music—the notes are the same colors as their corresponding letters.

Mine too! The musical sound doesn't trigger it, but when I look at music notes, they're the same color as their letter name. :)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Well, my synesthesia does respond strongly to music, but I've never been able to recognize the notes themselves--they have no distinguishing characteristics. I seem to have synesthesia for everything musical but the pitch--I respond to timbre especially, and to duration. I just couldn't tell you if the golden sphere or vurgundy line in my head is a C or an F#. Talk about tone-deaf.

[piccolo-pirate.livejournal.com]

Ahh. Mine is generally limited to letters and numbers (and, by extension, words). Musical notes are an amusing exception to that rule.

Hurrah for idiosyncratic brain wiring!

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

I know three new things now.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

People have a tough time keeping promises when those promises go against obsessive thoughts.

I have also discovered this.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

I always learn the most interesting things from you!