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, just fill out the form below, happy to send it out for free. International orders are ok! If the embedded form is a problem, here’s a direct link to the order form.