Yesterday, in the midst of a weekly acid trip (synesthetic exploration), the idea somehow got in me to write on this here blog. Let me state this clearly: what I wrote was no more than the ramblings of a sick misogynistic “zombie,” the musings of a castrated passion, of a thoroughly shit drenched, bile infused fiend exuding nothing more than unfounded loathing and fear. Indeed, this post was so complex, so insane and hilarious, so achingly stupid, that rather than delete it, I have decided to use it as fodder—to use it as an opportunity to praise womankind, and everything she has done for the synesthetic experience. Let me say it loudly, in case previous posts have not made it clear: the carnal intertwining that woman inaugurates with man—that is something that no synesthetic experience, save for sexual synesthesia of a sort involving woman and man, could ever undermine, nor surpass in its beauty.
So, to my readers, know this: I am not a misogynistic man, nor have I ever been one.
Departing from my central concern, from the familiar (as should be done, and will be, on a regular basis), I want to talk to you today about an oft overlooked social currency: sex. And particularly, the way that females have manipulated sex, the way females yield their sexuality to enslave mankind—and, indeed, have been doing so since the dawn of humanity.
Their tactic was subtle, brilliant: the reversal. First and foremost, the issue had to be confused; rather than enslaving men, females made themselves the subject of enslavement. Their seduction (the females) was so thorough, so profound, that mankind never had a chance. From the Renaissance through to the Victorian era, men have thought they were on top, but unbeknownst to them, females had enslaved themselves as a tactic of survival. They weren’t the ones working—men were! Men were the truly enslaved: the tyranny of capitalism was the final coup de grace. With the 70 hour work week thrust upon them, men became drenched in their enslavement, utter zombies.
And, when man finally awoke, upon finally realizing his despicable enslavement, females confused the issue further: the inauguration of contemporary feminist theory. Before man could respond, he was enslaved further—he was punished for an enslavement of the female that the female, in all her subtlety, had inflicted upon herself. Hence, man was forever doomed to servitude. Yes, the female did relinquish certain things: she began to work. But with this work, she introduced a weapon far more powerful than any man had laid eyes upon before: her raw sexuality.
The conclusion to be made is blindingly obvious, so obvious in fact, that it is no wonder it has escaped us for so long: the female is a shameless vampire, relentlessly raping and sucking man dry; and man, as a result, is a zombie, a blind servant to the every whimsy of his female counterpart.
You may wonder, why should we (mankind) even care? Is it not obvious? The female has sullied synesthesia through a sensual enslavement—with no other purpose than to ensure that her sexuality was our only sensual experience. Indeed, the female has castrated us, sensually, synesthetically. We must overcome her control, if we ever hope to return to our true state, to a synesthetic world, a world teeming with sensuality.
Let us assume that synesthesia is any involuntary crossing of the senses.
In some sense, then, all music goes beyond the mere ear, all music a kind of synesthetic caress. Think about it: as you listen you are always already seeing, feeling, smelling—you perceive a network of sense, each sense perception an affective force continually working over your body, your mind, your emotions, all inaugurating intricate networks in and of themselves! But sensory affect does not move according to a single chain of action; rather, the meetings of these various networks fold sense into complex configurations, configurations that bleed into other senses.
Listen to Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony. This indeed proffers sense-networks meeting emotion-mind-networks with an affective force to be reckoned with, a magnum opus of sense.
The work itself operates as an intricate musical network: at first, a traditional classical symphony, its thematic development, as musicologist Lajos Zeke showed us in his classes on the symphony, becomes a five-part counterpoint. A classical-baroque architecture interacting in impossible modes of movement, collisions and speeds, pure intensities, fluxes and flows—as Kierkegaard would say, this is the musical erotic, the ultimate sensual experience.
Indeed, this symphony choreographs our bodies (and perceptions) in new and unfamiliar ways each and every listening. Seeing and feeling, for instance, while listening to Mozart, is not the same as seeing while listening to, say, The Beatles. What changes? Affect, that is to say, music doesn’t just go in your ears—it works over your emotional state. And as your emotions drift, perception drifts; every sense thus is inflecting every other sense, always. The role of emotion, then, takes on a greater significance: where before it was passive, it now plays an active role in shaping sensory experience.
It seems, then, that synesthesia, by token of the way emotional networks meet sensory networks, is intimately intertwined with emotion; and hearing—inseparable from emotion, from some affect—, to some degree, is experienced synesthetically. But it is not just hearing: every sense exhibits synesthetic tendencies; our perception, from the womb, is synesthetic. Think about that—we are all synesthetes.
Is seeing separate from touching, or hearing from tasting? And what about seeing seeing? Or to hear hearing, taste tasting, smell smelling, feel feeling? Despite these possibilities—and yet, precisely in and of the possible—it seems seeing, and seeing alone, is privileged. Why, and what space can such occupy? Let’s try to, um, see.
Look at the person next to you and into her eyes. What do you see? It’s not just her eyes. You see her seeing you. And stranger, you see her eyes seeing you seeing her. Eyes, then, perform multiply: they are at once seer and seen, at once consuming the world just as they are playing the world back. But, alas, seeing is not alone—touching inaugurates a similar experience. Try touching her: a carnal intertwining at once a touching and feeling, at once changing the world and changed by it.
Now turn away from her and look at a work of art, a portrait if you will. You may see two eyes peering out at you, but they are not seeing you per se: paintings and photographs and film, then, remove you from your space. Or not so much remove you as enfold you into their visual fabric with an alien posture and gait, a thoroughly foreign mode of seeing. What is this seeing of seeing? It is an alien seeing, and it is because seeing alone is framed, is closed and bounded, that seeing can be alien, that seeing can see seeing. That is to say, you can see another person seeing and see through another person’s very seeing as if it were your own.
But just as in The Matrix, when Neo opens his eyes for the first time, he is blinded by the light, learning to see seeing hurts, it blinds till you emerge a whole new seer. To persevere, to finally open your eyes, however, explodes the world. Representational art becomes the norm, a mere replication of your familiar world. But so-called non-representational art, abstract art: ah, here we have the inauguration of whole new modes of seeing, whole new worlds to explore, to sense and create and become with.
May I say, though? The notion of privileging sight above the other senses, still, seems odd. Perhaps it is a symptom of language? Perhaps, just as we can see seeing, we can see sounds, see palpably, even see palatably? But I wonder, what about synesthesia? Can we see synesthesia itself? What would such an undertaking entail? Such will be the focus of this blog: to explore this strange space, and perhaps look at a film or three, analyze acid-induced synesthesia, and occasionally just wonder at the beauty of such a multiply single sensation.
