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Strange Associations

Saveloy

12:33 / 05.02.03

Burt Lancaster makes me think of wet crayons (brown ones). From: possibly a childhood memory of my cat sicking up over my crayons, which subsequently melted

The word moustache makes me think of ice lollies (aka popsicles). From: the sound made when you bite into an ice lolly

What unusual images or sensations are conjured up for you, dear reader, by certain words, images or - well, let's not muck about - things?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:43 / 05.02.03

Not quite the same thing but when I'm reading I'm often simultaneously imagining that I'm drifting around various locales, favourite ones being my previous schools, university, places of work or the back roads around the village where I grew up.

Paint and carpet shops (not at the same time) are childhood evoking smells, which is odd because although my Dad used to do the odd bit of DIY and we did go into carpet shops when I was young they weren't regular or traumatic enough occasions to become signifiers.

rizla mission

13:21 / 05.02.03

I know I've got a whole bunch of similar strange associations buried in my head waiting to leap out at me, but I can't remember them at present..

Smoothly

13:23 / 05.02.03

I never would have brought this up without a prompt like yours Saveloy, but the word Husband brings to mind a row of those copper bedwarming pans with the long mahogany handles, and the word Daughter conjurs tortoise shell.
I can only think that this is because 'Husband' sounds a bit like 'Saucepan' (which those bedwarming pans resemble) and 'Daughter's a little bit like 'Tortoise'.
But why only those two nouns, and why those particular sound-alike associations rather than any of many others, I do not know.

Mourne Kransky

13:44 / 05.02.03

The Netherlands has always made me think of a woman ironing in a damp kitchen. I have other images too now to sit beside that one, more usual associations with the name, but that image persists.

It has some connection to something I saw on television in my youth but I can't remember what it was, although Dixon of Dock Green pops into my head, don't know why.

Whenever the Netherlands crops up in a news story, as when Fortuyn was shot, I see this poor perpetually ironing woman cock an ear to the radio and carry on ironing. Damnably strange.

Papess

13:47 / 05.02.03

The word rude always reminds me of deers.

I think it is because of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.

Saveloy

09:26 / 27.03.03

Meant to say earlier, these are great. I especially like Smoothly Weaving's "husband" and Xoc's "Netherlands".

Arthur Askey = ice cream wafers. The obvious explanation for this one is pretty dull, but I reckon it's reinforced by the fact that Arthur Askey was one of those breezy, strolling-along-a-pier-in-a-stripey-blazer kinda entertainers, ie the sort that would appeal most to someone enjoying a wafer-borne ice cream.

Actually, looking at that Askeys site, I notice that the Twin Top makes me think "science fiction and fantasy" for some bizarre reason. 'ow queer, ladies and gentlemen!

Icicle

09:30 / 27.03.03

every time I used to go into a public toilets say in a bar or something I'd get this line from a tori amos song in my head, that goes 'getting off getting off while they're all downstairs...' etc. and I've just realised that the songs' called 'icicle'! bizzare.

captain piss

09:55 / 27.03.03

Not quite the same thing but when I'm reading I'm often simultaneously imagining that I'm drifting around various locales, favourite ones being my previous schools, university, places of work or the back roads around the village where I grew up.

Yeah, I get that when I'm concentrating on tasks- mainly the neighbourhood I grew up in. Recently I was doing a telephone interview, though, and felt myself drifting around the landscape in the game Grand Theft Auto, which was off-putting.
Whenever, I need to distinguish left and right I often picture myself sitting beside my mum in the car, from when I was younger, looking out the windscreen at a school and a shop, which she was using as markers to introduce me to the idea.

Kit-Cat Club

10:16 / 27.03.03

[off-topic]
Why is it so hard to distinguish between left and right? I can never get it right.
[/off-topic]

gingerbop

17:26 / 27.03.03

I cant do left and right either. Very annoying when in dance classes, and they say, "everyone go RIGHT" and ur standin there for a few seconds thinking 'now, i write with this hand, so thats... erm... my right hand'

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

18:14 / 27.03.03

i still associate left and right with the old game Contra for the first nintendo

the code to get 30 lives was "up up down dow left right left right B A start"

so i find myself thinking "up up down down left...okay, thats left"

strange...

Olulabelle

19:48 / 27.03.03

(Still off topic) Kit Kat, Gingerbop, are you left handed? Apparently south paws have a bigger problem distinguishing between left and right. I am a lefty, and I always make mistakes if I have to make a quick decision. If you put both hands up in front of you with your thumbs at right angles, you can see that the left hand makes an L, for left. You look a bit of an idiot doing it though ;-)

Eloi Tsabaoth

19:55 / 27.03.03

The word raccoon makes me think of smoke rings. A link probably created by the Disney version of Robin Hood.

Kit-Cat Club

20:01 / 27.03.03

{o-t, sorry Saveloy]

No, I'm right-handed - just, er, 'spatially incompetent' (i.e. clumsy and poorly co-ordinated - I can, however, find my way out of a paper bag). I think my inability to distinguish between left and right is part of the same process which causes me to utter sentences slong these lines: 'can you pass me the, er, thing, on top of the whatsit... the the the er thing...'

[/o-t]

I do it with smells rather than with words, does that count? Lemon barley water makes me think of my aunt Betty and crochet rugs.

_pin

20:31 / 27.03.03

Damn!

Until I actually, you know... read the actual words, I could have sworn you were caliming that you could utter the sentence can you pass me the, er, thing, on top of the whatsit... the the the er thing... IN PURE SMELL FORM.

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:53 / 27.03.03

The smell of gas makes me think of big, silvery fishes.

Baz Auckland

22:01 / 27.03.03

Elijah! I still have that code stuck in my head too! I find myself repeating it on other controllers to this day, my violin.. it's become a general tapping pattern in my brain! Why?!

up up down down b a select start

Olulabelle

23:04 / 27.03.03

The smell of gas makes *me* think of chips...

Saveloy

11:56 / 15.10.03

Courtney and Walker = cream soda. Comes from a kid at school with an impressively wavey blond barnett. He walked around with a french horn all the time. Said horn was ported about in a case with 'Courtney & Walker' emblazoned on the side. Hair resembled a thick dollop of ice cream that had been expertly - lovingly - sculpted by an Italian vendor using the convex side of a spoon. I haven't seen anything to match it since. Perhaps his dad did a Mister Whippy on him with the tongs every morning.

Dunno where the soda bit comes in - perhaps there used to be an old fashioned fizzy pop manufacturer with a name similar to, or reminiscent of, 'Courtney & Walker'. Hartridges? R Whites?

Potguns

17:58 / 15.10.03

up up down down b a select start
Wasn't this the code for all Konami games???? I also remember one with a lotta sholder buttons involved....

Lea-side

14:51 / 16.10.03

whenever i play a specific sequence of notes on my bass guitar, i ALWAYS think about the bass player from 80s Matchbox B-line Disaster. I have no idea why. the song is nothing like them, and its only 3 particular notes in one song.

Lea-side

14:53 / 16.10.03

actually, thinking about it, im reminded particularly of a polka-dot shirt he often wears. very odd.

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