Orange Pterodactyls : A Case Study of Colored Letters and Gendered Numbers is a 24-page quarter-size zine all about synesthesia. I write about the experience of my synesthetic spouse and recommend some books to learn more!

cover of the Orange Pterodactyl zine, with the image of a plastic toy pterodactyl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two pages of text from pages 10 and 11 of the zine. The text reads: If there are two words describing a concept, it gets the color of the first letter in the first word. So the state of South Dakota is black, because S is a black letter.When the initial letter is silent, that can lead to some confusion. For example, the word pterodactyl is orange, which he describes as “weird,” since the color P is yellow and T is red. (Maybe his brain is mixing those colors together!) He says the word knight doesn’t have a color. The word wrinkle is yellow, which is consistent with the letter W being yellow. A fun thing for me is that Chris has always associated the letter V with the color purple. Since my name is Violet, that makes a nice little correlation with the color represented by my name. I asked him what would’ve happened if V wasn’t purple, if that would’ve been disconcerting, and he said that “there’s a pleasing consistency that V is purple, but it wouldn’t disturb me if that wasn’t the case.”".
sample page (click to embiggen)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To order, make any amount of a donation to the fundraiser I’m running for my friend who just lost his job.

Then fill out the form below. If the embedded form is a problem, here’s a direct link to the order form.