Elsewhat

This is the first in a short series of abstract videos I’ve been working on for a future project.

Taken May 30, 2023. I’ve been trying to properly capture this metro station in a photo for weeks. This is my best so far.

Friend of Elsewhat Jay Smooth (and by friend I mean someone I met at a picnic 17 years ago) has a new podcast coming up all about making the myth that is Michael Jackson.

My favorite is the Super Bowl performance in ’93…A few people were like “It’s Michael Jackson at the Super Bowl in 1993 where he came out, stood there like a statue and didn’t say a word for more than a minute while the entire arena exploded in applause.” We learned this incredible fact from people who worked on that Super Bowl halftime show that the people at the football game were actually confused about what was going on and thought there had been a technical malfunction. It had been awkward in the arena, but the way the producers fixed the situation was by pumping in artificial crowd noise to make it seem like the whole arena was going nuts for Michael. For me, that kind of detail just opens the world — it shows you how a legend gets constructed and the reality we all take for granted isn’t always what it seems.

Audible-only to start, but hopefully it should be coming to regular podcast places soon.

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Synesthesia is a blending of senses, where sounds are sensed as shapes, words as physical sensations, or some other combination of cross-wiring. It is a super power of sorts which some creative brains can tap into, and which I can sometimes experience in some secondary way through art. Synesthetic art, like the album 808s & Heartbreak by the otherwise deplorable rapper I won’t name, or a Van Gogh painting, generally have some sort of internal logic which they borrow from their partner sense. I don’t get the crossing of senses myself, but I can sometimes tell when a creative work is tapping into this cross-blending of senses, and like to try and tap into those feelings.

Arthur Rimbaud, a synesthetic poet once wrote of how he sees letters in his poem Vowels, the first line being:

A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue : vowels,
I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins…

The above image is cropped from the latest New Yorker by artist Masha Titova, which has been created as an interactive piece where each shape has a corresponding sound. Visit, click on shapes, and try to tap into synesthesia.

Visit →

Been listening to Braids new album Euphoric Recall on repeat the last few days.

Taken May 26, 2023

Montreal author Heather O’Neill has just launched a serialized, 50-part mystery story set in one of my favourite places, the Montréal Metro. Launched in partnership with the Montreal Gazette, where you can read more about the project.

Read the First Chapter →

Scientists think a traumatized orca initiated the assault on boats after a “critical moment of agony” and that the behavior is spreading among the population through social learning.

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Via One Foot Tsunami

That one-two punch from El Niño and climate change is expected to “push global temperatures into uncharted territory,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a press release today. “This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment. We need to be prepared.”

Read More at The Verge →