Hallucinatory Sensory Remix

    Sometimes I feel dysphoria. Not in my gender, gender expression, sex, or sexuality but in the way my preferred atmosphere conflicts with the realities of daily life. It's not a huge deal, I'm not a "noise is violence" type snowflake but I've recently had a few pretty terrible episodes of it that induce panic attacks. Mr brain moves very fast sometimes and it feels like my body can't keep up with it, this can be especially noticable if a person is speaking to me about something I don't care about or especially when they speak slow. This worst of this anxiety producing dysphoria was brought on while trying to learn another language, realizing I wanted to learn a different language and saw that it would be nearly impossible to do so without interacting with a person or persons for that specific purpose. I am a software engineer. I don't enjoy software engineering, I enjoy philosophy. At this point droning on about this further just feels like complaining to me so lets get to the thing I made.

    I often heard a myth growing up, that if one was to somehow synchronize Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon to Victor Fleming's film The Wizard of Oz, they achieve some kind of transformative high through their synchronicity. Not being a fan of Pink Floyd nor The Wizard of OZ, I never thought it worth the effort to embark on such a meaningless journey. You can read about the opportunity if you are so inclined, the experience has been dubbed The Dark Side of The Rainbow.

    I do however like vampires. The metaphors infinite since they had been immortalized by Bram Stoker's Dracula. I find a vampire with suicidal ideations especially compelling, though my favorite depiction is John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let the Right One In. I waver on whether the Swedish film or American film is better, but I usually land in Sweden.

    I had put together a playlist on Spotify, not exactly vampire themed but gets me in a vampiric mood. I had been experimenting with syncing audio that I enjoy with different media, on different mediums. In a moment of boredom and frustration, I decided to just let the playlist run while watching Only Lover's Left Alive. For fun, not for money. The outcome is actually thoroughly enjoyable.

    It was just an experiment, so the audio quality isn't quite what I'd like. While the initial experience was exhilarating, upon review, it kind of requires the original audio for the desired effect. I plan on ripping the playlist and re-dubbing the video. I'd also like to add the option to include the lyrics to the songs and a way to navigate the video by song.

    I had initially posted this to Youtube but it was DMCA'd into oblivion so I put here. My website's prettier than Youtube anyway and there are no ads. I hope you enjoy!

Inspiration for Sensory Re-imagining

    Being bored and alone, as I so often find myself despite my actual best efforts, I decided to try something that I learned from the trans community. I left for the theater, alone, in the back of an Uber listening to a Witchouse playlist I found by searching an old T.a.t.u pop song, All The Things She Said prepended to the genre as the artists' intentionally obscure their names to prevent them from gaining noteriety. Art for arts sake and it's fucking beautiful.

    The group of young black adults sitting in an empty chair to the left of me seemed nice enough. They had fun, laughed, and joked. I would have loved to laugh along with them and participate in their conversations had I actually known them. This is of course, an impossibility and having already watched this movie before it came out, at home on my couch, on my television, sat directly on the hardwood floor, I thought it a perfect opportunity to try something new.

    While it's not quite reading emotions, it's more like rewriting intentions. There are times where the film perfectly synchronizes with the music, where emotions play off of each other as more of a dance. It adds intensity to the movie without withdrawing any of it's B movie slasher humor, which personally, I find grotesque and uninteresting. The first time I arose to use the lavatory, I did so keeping the noise-cancelation technology provided by my Airpods switched on because I am perfectly capable of using my eyes to navigate a half-filled AMC theater on Broad Street in North Philadelphia, without the aid of the sounds we all make at such an event.

    The synthetic leather, couch-like seats, recline giving us the option of enjoying from multiple angles; or sleeping if need be. I could see a pair of legs jutting out of the flashing tunnel, guiding my way and at least two recliners open. Brushing past this, without interupting anyones movie viewing experience, for too long, usually comes quite naturally to me. Thus I did so effortlessly. Taking my airpods out when at the bottom of the steps, I realized I was making a transition not only into light, but around a corner.

    Airpods in the theater might appear somewhat strange, and I loathe to be gawked at when I'm unable to explain the purpose of what I'm doing. Explaining the purpose of what I'm doing ruins the experience altogether.

    I maintained my balance. I walked an empty hallway, dimly lit but not so dim as the theater during the previews, and not as bright as a halogen lit megastore. A young theater employee was speaking to his friend. Needing to pass between them, and due to their proximity, to remain natural, I needed to at least acknowledge them. Swivel-head-double-nod, was out of the question. I chose the one on my left, the theater employee of about my approximate height. I spat out the worst "sup" I have ever heard, followed by a mistimed head nod and kept it moving.

    I should have left the airpods in. The bathroom was empty. I wanted an actual photo representation of myself to display for the world to see, yes the world. I thought of how depressing it is to take a selfie in the restroom of a theater alone again, and how there's not a single person in NA who wants do anything but hang out with their families, fuck, or go to NA related events, and how the person I had made plans with refused to provide an alternative to my current situation.

    One single fucking suggestion of what this person wants to do with their time other than get high and my plans become unimportant to me, as they were to begin with. If you want to sit down on a fucking street corner and talk then let's do that. If you want to eat in a fancy restaurant, let's do that. If you want to eat at the worst restaraunt this city has to offer, then point it out and let's do that. If you want to make music, guess what, I can do that too, let's talk about it. What are you running from, my door is open, my phone answered, my text messages responded to. You do not even need to tell me where you spend your time; fucking lie to me, do something other than whatever the fuck this is.

    The second time I needed to use the restroom, the path was exactly the same, with in my estimation, the same pair of legs jutting out. I again attempted to weave between the legs on the recliner, and the Schrodinger's box of refreshments littering the ground, where the cat's life is whether or not you are enjoying them enough to consume them or share them with the person next to you. I guess the first time, I sort of just hopped over these obstacles. On this attempt however, after hitting their shoes with my shin, I loudly and forcefully ejaculated "SORRY" and while I have a practiced control of my voice, I could not recite with any authority how loud I was and how startled they truly were.

    It was an embarassing situation for me but not once did I feel anger, just a mild annoyance. I stumbled my way back down the steps and regained my composure. The empty hallway felt different as I questioned how much of a disturbance I had actually made during a movie where a dead women sexually gratifies herself while a mime brutally murders every person he comes into contact with. At one point, during just the second or so pause, before the song unseemlessly transitions, I heard the guy next to me say "I hope they get married." and I really do too, soulmates in that regard.

    The hallway was empty this time and quiet, sadder only owing to my misjudged leap and the walk to the restroom slower. I should have kept the music on. Bathroom selfies are a delicate thing to manage in the men's restroom. You rarely, if ever catch one in progress. The process is such. You briefly scan the restroom for signs of life, glancing down the line of urinals. A single person restroom makes this infinitely easier but not always. If there is no one there, you listen for signs of a person shitting, grunting, coughing, writhing in agony, whatever. You guage how close they are to completion by listening for toilet paper rustling, then try to measure if you can make it to the sink by the time they finish.

    If you've made it to the sink before they open the door, you've basically won. First you wash your hands, because if you don't, you will not want to be caught dead taking a selfie in the same bathroom. If your phone is already out of your pocket by the time he crests your peripheral vision just go for it, smile with your fucked up hair and try to keep your mind off of perfection until you examine the damage digitally. Smile, look down, and shake your head knowlingly and return to your seat.

    Had you not heard paper rustling, or had you been spiritually molested by a movie-goer similarly eager to return to his viewing pleasure, then you have the chance to actually look at yourself. You can brush the popcorn kernels off of your Peace Valley Recovery hoodie, appreciate your Haculla gemstone embroided fang skinny pants, and brush away any dermititis that may have littered your beard. You can neatly tuck your hair you haven't cut in 4 years behind both ears, the left more tightly than right and work on your stance.

    In doing this, you'll find it quite difficult to keep the phone out of your face if you are of a certain proportion. Any extension of the arm too far creates not only a boxy appearance but puffs the chest out too far to seem disaffected. Glancing back and forth between the screen and the mirror a few times you may become disinterested in the prospect of your photograph being taken altogether, but that's when you know you'll get a good one. Just cock your hip to the side a bit, look up, and smile. Unfortunately, I was accosted by a kindly, quiet, older gentleman who took up the sink beside me at exactly the same time and while I could have taken an unusually long time to wash my hands, muttering about covid, or the quality of the liquid butter substance which now, in some measure, graces the shaft of my dick. This display may have only bought me another three seconds before my window of opportunity comes crashing down. Twice that, should he run out to warn the next onlooker that I'm having issues.

    I make the walk back to my seat to the turned backs of two usher hallway guards, thrilled about their Saturday night too, I'm sure. On the undistracted walk up the stairs I prepared myself to face the consequences of tripping over an unknown foot, hovering over an unknown pile of food by attempting to take lighter steps up the incline and scanning each faceless row until I could see the top. I round the corner half-expecting to see the recliners lowered but there were no feet this time.

    I'm glad I kept the music off. I crept by what I now know to be the parents, of a scared little girl, who pleaded "sorry" in a way that only parents can make a child plea. A little scared of what my reaction would be but mostly embarassed. I was emabrassed for her, but mostly shocked as I was expecting anger or ridicule, and I wish I could have sat down and met the parents who brought their 6 year old daughter to watch Terrifier 2 in a whole ass movie theater on Christmas break.