Einstein, Oliver Sacks, John Donne & Brett Michaels... and She's All States
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Have a listen to the mp3 while you read. The song is “She’s All States” from the K.I.A. CD “Sonorous Susurrus” (at iTunes "HERE":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=30919350&s=143441 ) Vocals are by Eugene Spanier and Patrick Duffy. FYI, the lyrics lift a line from John Donne's poem The Sun Rising: “She’s all states/and all princes I”)You can, apparently, tell a musician by the size of his corpus collosum. Now I know that for some of you-- the oversexed ones-- that phrase might seem like a euphemism for somethin' else, and like, may conjure images of Tommy Lee st/rutting around in spandex tryin' to get you drunk off of his man-mump, but xanax yourself-- the corpus callosum (now spelled correctly) is simply that tube part that connects the two hemispheres of the brain. Anyway, for musicians, the corpus callosum (and the cerebellum,) according to autopsies, are noticeably larger than for everyone else, including mathemeticians, scientists, etc. So even the dudes depicted below (Poison? Motley Crue? I ain't wastin' time googlin' hairmetal bands) will have a larger ones than Einstein-- in fact, maybe the mega-dos are to conceal their enlarged cerebellums?:
This fact, and other really interesting stuff on music and the brain, are covered in Oliver Sacks’ (of "Awakenings": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099077/ fame ) new book "Musicophillia":http://www.amazon.com/Musicophilia-Tales-Music-Oliver-Sacks/dp/1400040817/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8036624-0990242?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192379966&sr=8-1. In it, he describes what really sets us apart from animals: we can dance, they can’t. (So you better return Fido's Dance Dance Revolution birthday present.) Among other things, Sacks also relates a story about a man in New York who has seizures when he hears music, and now must wear earplugs all the time, because music is so ubiquitous. Now of course the book is sprinkled with lots of fascinating stories like the above, but in an interview in Wired magazine he really sums up the power of music, the making of and the listening to: “...One has the feeling of the muse, and the muses are heavenly beings. [One patient]felt that he was actually tuning in to the music of heaven — that he had God's phone number. I can't avoid that feeling myself when I listen to Mozart...”So, yeah, me too. Often, when listening to, or making, music, I feel like I'm wifi-ed to God. Read the full Wired interview "HERE":http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/15-10/ff_musicophilia
This fact, and other really interesting stuff on music and the brain, are covered in Oliver Sacks’ (of "Awakenings": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099077/ fame ) new book "Musicophillia":http://www.amazon.com/Musicophilia-Tales-Music-Oliver-Sacks/dp/1400040817/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8036624-0990242?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192379966&sr=8-1. In it, he describes what really sets us apart from animals: we can dance, they can’t. (So you better return Fido's Dance Dance Revolution birthday present.) Among other things, Sacks also relates a story about a man in New York who has seizures when he hears music, and now must wear earplugs all the time, because music is so ubiquitous. Now of course the book is sprinkled with lots of fascinating stories like the above, but in an interview in Wired magazine he really sums up the power of music, the making of and the listening to: “...One has the feeling of the muse, and the muses are heavenly beings. [One patient]felt that he was actually tuning in to the music of heaven — that he had God's phone number. I can't avoid that feeling myself when I listen to Mozart...”So, yeah, me too. Often, when listening to, or making, music, I feel like I'm wifi-ed to God. Read the full Wired interview "HERE":http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/15-10/ff_musicophilia
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