Synaptic Sparks, Part 1

Thanks to my friend Sue, I now have the expression "synaptic sparks" when I want to blog about the experience of one art form jumping to another. In my March 17 post entitled "What Do You Call This?" I asked for help naming this phenomenon and Sue came to my rescue.

While driving today I was listening to a Jackson Browne song from 1986 called "In The Shape of a Heart". As I was pulled into the mournful lyric, the loss Browne describes brought me magically to the story of "Cutting For Stone", a sprawling novel from 2009 by Abraham Verghese I finished a few months ago. Although songs and novels about loss are fairly common both this song and novel are anything but. "In The Shape Of A Heart" simply must be on the soundtrack when "Cutting For Stone" is made into a film.

OK, your turn. What's been an experience you've had with synaptic sparks? Remember, any art form is fair game:  film, literature, music, architecture, photography, any of the visual arts, etc. The only requirement is that something from one art form must leap to a different form unbidden, e.g. you're looking at a painting and presto....a song won't leave you alone. Or, you're reading a poem and presto....a building comes into your mind's eye. What prompted the spark? If you have just 5 minutes, see if you can remain unmoved when Jackson Browne speaks about loss. If you've got a lot more time and/or you're looking for a book that explores that subject in depth, try "Cutting For Stone". Today, sparks flew for me between the two.