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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsJust.incredible. Mary STEENBURGEN post-op developed musical talent. Has a song possibly Oscar.
It says this started ten years ago, but the first I've heard of it and gobsmacked me. All I've known about her is that she and Ted DANSON are friends of the CLINTONs. The song itself doesn't grab me exceptionally (I'm melody-driven, not lyrics/drama driven). It's the bizarre bursting of musicality that grabbed me in this news item. Just. bizarre.
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https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/insane-story-actress-mary-steenburgen-200948770.html
The bizarre odyssey of how Oscar-winning actress Mary Steenburgen came to co-write the euphoric power-ballad that Jessie Buckley performs at the end of Wild Rose easily the years best original movie song began 10 years ago, when the Melvin and Howard star woke up after a minor arm surgery feeling like her mind was on fire.
I felt strange as soon as the anesthesia started to wear off, Steenburgen said. The best way I can describe it is that it just felt like my brain was only music, and that everything anybody said to me became musical. All of my thoughts became musical. Every street sign became musical. I couldnt get my mind into any other mode.
Fun as that might sound in an Oliver Sacks kind of way the late neurologist wrote about similar, potentially stroke-inspired symptoms in his book Musicophilia Steenburgen wasnt thrilled about the sudden mental shift. The next two months were tough. I couldnt focus, I couldnt have acted, she said. I couldnt have learned any lines. My husband [actor Ted Danson] and I were kind of frightened about it.
Steenburgens son, filmmaker Charlie McDowell (The Discovery, The One I Love), also remembers it as a trying time. If your mom comes to you after surgery and says that her head is now full of music, I think its totally fair to think that shes gone crazy and has major psychological problems, he said. All of the sudden she was referencing these obscure indie bands and picking up random instruments Im not gonna lie, the accordion playing drives me nuts. McDowell laughed. When I say all this out loud it sounds insane. It was definitely a change. ....
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lunatica
(53,410 posts)I cant carry a tune if my life depended on it. People have asked me to stop singing!
UTUSN
(70,494 posts)ON EDIT: Why did this happen to somebody already talented, famous, and award winning, not to a schlup like me??????!1 I'd settle for winning more than $5 on a lotto scratch ticket once every six months!1
RobinA
(9,874 posts)The one time I had general anesthesia, all I got was depressed and stupid for the next three days.
FirstLight
(13,352 posts)I loved her as an actress and activist, now learning this is what she has been cultivating for the past years is so awesome.
The brain is such an amazing thing
Loved the song too... good stuff!
UTUSN
(70,494 posts)LunaSea
(2,892 posts)Truth is, we really don't know how it works.
https://www.livescience.com/33731-anesthesia-work.html
Despite their necessity in modern medicine, scientists aren't sure exactly how anesthetics work. The best theory suggests that they dissolve some of the fat present in brain cells, changing the cells activity. But, the precise mechanisms remain unknown.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-does-anesthesia-work/
although we know a great deal about the physiologic effects and macroscopic sites of action, we don't yet know the molecular mechanism(s) of action for general anesthetics.
UTUSN
(70,494 posts)to "within an inch of your life." Scary.
In one of my procedures, in the pre-op phase some totally *weird* dude ran past us in the hall running and yelling. Then when I was lying on the slab, STUNNINGLY the garage doors of the operating room BURST open and it was THAT guy, who turned out to be the anesthesiologist!1
I almost went into my own suspended state of "OH SHIT!1"
Then during the procedure, it was a semi-state "twilight" where I could hear everything and the surgeon and everybody else were chatting and laughing.
I never liked M.A.S.H. where the surgeons were wiseasses. Yeahyeah, I've heard the canard (my interpretation) that these medical people have to joke to cope with the yuk of surgery. I just don't want to be part of it.
In the pre-op, on the other side of the curtain, an elderly lady was telling the nurse, "I just want to go to sleep and wake up when it's over and don't want to know anything." Me, too.
betsuni
(25,122 posts)The church choir director who yearns to be a nightclub singer.
UTUSN
(70,494 posts)stopdiggin
(11,089 posts)or everyone would have a story. It's pure speculation on my part, but I'm guessing a brain injury (minor stroke?). Nonetheless -- very interesting story.
Orrex
(63,084 posts)sl8
(13,584 posts)People will be singing "Everything Comes Down to Poo" for years to come, I'm quite certain.
Aristus
(66,075 posts)"Time After Time" with Malcolm McDowell.
Charlie McDowell is her son with Malcom, her first husband. Charlie looks just like his father, but was raised in the US, so he speaks with an American accent. It's a little jarring.
blaze
(6,270 posts)Though I've read that synesthesia is thought to be genetic, not something that comes on suddenly.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia