A young woman can taste music
Swiss researchers are studying a young woman whose synaesthesia permits her to taste music!?! Musical intervals such as a minor 3rd or a perfect 5th are experienced as different flavors on her tongue. This is rather unusual; most cases report being able to see sounds.
I wish I could do that.
Exotic Delicacies
I was checking out Mutant Frog Travelogue and found a post about some fascinating Chinese delicacies: scorpion, starfish and seahorse snacks. Reading it made me simultaneously cringe and ponder, “What would that taste like?” I’ll have to find out for myself. This is one of those things I would be willing to do when I launch my “pay me to travel and blog” phase of this blog. Need some more pictures for proof? I found more references here | here | here | here | here
Further perusal of the web brought many other discoveries. Interested in some exotic alcohol? I’m not talking about the tequila worm. Edible.com features some provocative items for sale, including snake vodka, scorpion vodka, and BBQ worm crisps. My stomach growls with hungry excitement.
Do you enjoy coffee and tea? I certainly do. And I would enjoy it more if it was shat out the anus of some exotic kitty, that’s for sure. Check out civet coffee, weasel coffee (vomited by weasels), and monkey-picked tea.
Play that cowbell
Last night, after I played cowbell with the Static Chicken, some guy came up to me and started ranting to me about Christopher Walken. I raised my right eyebrow, as I had no idea what he was talking about. He then jogged my memory. Apparently, I reminded him of the infamous Saturday Night Live episode featuring Christopher Walken, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, Will Ferrell, Chris Parnell, and Horatio Sanz doing a skit of a Blue Öyster Cult recording session. Apparently I land among the stars, at least in this guys eyes. Thanks, dude, whatever your name is.
Dancing at the Jazz Estate
I was going to go to bed early last night, 10 pm or so, but in a burst of inspiration I decided to go to the Jazz Estate to see the Erotic Adventures of the Static Chicken band. Featuring Jesse Sheehan (sax, tablas), Chris Vos (guitars, vocals), Jeremy Kuzniar (drums), and Matt Turner (bass, yodel), the Static Chicken is by far my favorite tuesday night staple, especially if I’m in the mood for unpredictable, controlled chaos, with a hint of blues, gritty jazz, and deep funk. Yeow! Mama!
I was really not in the mood to be out, but I forced myself, and I’m glad I did. It made all the difference. I got there during their set-break, and once they started playing, Jeremy invited me up to play cowbell, muttering something about doing something Afrobeat influenced. I couldn’t say no. It was quite a pleasure and once I got into the groove I felt myself exploding with renewed vigor. Jeremy is such a blast to play with. He’s extremely intuitive, and not only has great feel, but an awesome personality. The jam lasted a good 10-15 minutes or more; I lost track of time. When it was over, I stepped down and started to dance. Suze and Amy were already tearing up the floor with their modern dance influenced gyrations, and I followed suit. Eventually, we started doing this contact improv thing similar to the other night. We wound up all over the floor, which was really fun (understatement of the evening).
I went to order a drink, and talked to Evan Christian for a while, and filled him in about my departure from One Drum. He was extremely sympathetic, and totally understood being burned out and needing to take time out from music for sanity’s sake. Observing the band, we agreed that Chris Vos rocked the house. Within minutes, Jesse Sheehan started channelling alien lifeforms through his saxophone. He seems to step away from his body at such points, and the music starts playing him. It’s unbelievable. I don’t think he realizes that it’s happening. Or maybe he does. Regardless, Jesse is a mean muddafucka of a sax player.
At this point, Ethan Keller was sitting in. I returned to the floor, and this time danced not only with Suze & Amy, but with Hadley as well. The band eventually stopped playing, but not before I had managed to slither, slide, and gesticulate wildly. It felt really good. I sat down, and talked to Eiton Eitan about how much fun it was playing one bass simultaneously at the party Saturday night. Honestly, I haven’t felt like that in years - I felt like I was in high school again, jamming with my good friends, the atmosphere was light, there was no heaviness, no overbearing egos or anything. It was just 2 people playing. Damn good. Thanks, Eiton Eitan.
Ahh, and Josie Jozi. She was there at the Estate, dancing and being herself. I still find her delicious. From the short conversation we had, she seems really insightful, sincere, confident, and won’t let her herself or her friends drive drunk. Very, very cool. And she remembers me playing in Mitchell Hall?!?! Astounding! Unthinkable! Hmmm….
I informed both Eiton Eitan & Josie Jozi that I had written about them in this very blog. I scrawled out the URL on some paper gleaned from a cigarette box. Hopefully they will visit and notice I wrote about them again!
As I lay on my bed writing this, I’m happy. I’m happy that I forced myself out of my house. I’ll be somewhat tired tomorrow, but life is simply too short to dwell on the trivial.
By the way, I fall asleep to the sound of the ocean at night. I found some great ocean wave sounds, and play them on my iPod all night long. It’s extremely relaxing rest.