She sees music, in color, and then she paints it.
Until artist Melissa S. McCracken was 15, she thought everyone constantly saw colors like she did – in books, math formulas, at concerts. But when she finally asked her brother which color the letter C was, she realized “my mind wasn’t quite as normal as I had thought.”
“Basically, my brain is cross-wired. I experience the ‘wrong’ sensation to certain stimuli. Each letter and number is colored (‘C’ is canary yellow, by the way) and the days of the year circle around my body as if they had a set point in space.”
But the most wonderful ‘brain malfunction’ of all, she says, is seeing the music she hears. “It flows in a mixture of hues, textures, and movements, shifting as if it were a vital and intentional element of each song.”
Here is an example of what a famous song looks like in color.
“All The Love In The World”
“Having synesthesia isn’t distracting or disorienting. It adds a unique vibrance to the world I experience.”
See more of her paintings HERE
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22 Ways To Celebrate Banned Books Week
At Bustle, Alex Heimbach says that there are tons of great ideas on Twitter and Instagram.
“I’ve collected 22 of them. If you haven’t read these books, you should. There may come a day when you no longer can.”
Read all the suggestions HERE
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This amazing library display features a line-up of literary characters from books that have been banned at one point in time. Created by Rachel Moani of the Lacey Timberland Library in Washington state for Banned Book Week, it highlights a few of the reasons the books have been banned by either a school or community library:
Such as “The Wizard of Oz” for depicting women in strong leadership roles, and “The Diary of Anne Frank” for being too depressing.
Banned Books Week is an annual awareness campaign sponsored by the American Library Association and others in the book community every September to celebrate the freedom to read and expose the dangers of restricting access to books.
Read a tribute to Judy Blume, an outspoken advocate against censorship, at A Mighty Girl.
‘Protecting ‘The Books That Will Never Be Written” HERE
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Book Review
‘Rad American Women A-Z’
Attention, parents and teachers: This is an alphabet book with a difference. A is for Angela Davis, Z is for Zora Neale Hurston. In between are scientists, poets, pilots and others, half of whom are women of color, who have long been left out of children’s history books.
Read the whole review HERE
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Marie Curie’s Research Papers Are Still Radioactive 100+ Years Later
When researching a famous historical figure, access to their work and materials usually proves to be one of the biggest obstacles, Open Culture notes. But things are much more difficult for those writing about the life of Marie Curie, the scientist who, along her with husband Pierre, discovered polonium and radium and birthed the idea of particle physics. Her notebooks, her clothing, her furniture, pretty much everything surviving from her Parisian suburban house, is radioactive, and will be for 1,500 years or more.
Read the whole story HERE
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The woman who saved American children
Pharmaceutical representatives came to Washington in droves to drive Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey back from her stand at the FDA over a drug being pushed by a muscular company and the men who ran it, William Rivers Pitt reports at The Smirking Chimp.
She said the drug was dangerous, and had the data to prove it. She was, in the parlance of the times, “a woman in a man’s job” despite her bedrock-strong credentials as a doctor and researcher, and she stood her ground when those men tried to brush her aside.”
The drug was thalidomide, a substance that came to be one of the most dangerous drugs ever unleashed on the human population and thanks to Dr. Kelsey, American babies didn’t get born without arms and legs.
Read the whole story HERE
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THIS ‘n THAT
Last Library Catalog Card
Since information seekers now use computer catalogs and online search engines to access library collections around the world, OCLC has printed its last card.
Read the whole story HERE
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The Guardian’s Mars in literature – quiz
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Quote of the Day
It’s so annoying to be called a Luddite for liking print books ~ Bustle
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Alma Alexander My books Email me
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