Just.incredible. Mary STEENBURGEN post-op developed musical talent. Has a song possibly Oscar.

[UTUSN]

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.

**********QUOTE******

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/insane-story-actress-mary-steenburgen-200948770.html

How Actress Mary Steenburgen Suddenly Became a Great Songwriter

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 year’s 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 couldn’t 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 wasn’t thrilled about the sudden mental shift. The next two months were tough. “I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t have acted,” she said. “I couldn’t have learned any lines. My husband [actor Ted Danson] and I were kind of frightened about it.”

Steenburgen’s 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 it’s totally fair to think that she’s 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 — I’m 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.” ....

*********UNQUOTE*******

[lunatica]

1. That would drive me crazy

I can’t carry a tune if my life depended on it. People have asked me to stop singing!

[UTUSN]

2. Apparently you (and I) can have this happen if the synapses snap the right way!1

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]

14. Ya Got That Right

The one time I had general anesthesia, all I got was depressed and stupid for the next three days.

[FirstLight]

3. How amazingly cool!

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]

4. *My* brain is having trouble processing it, so amazing!1

[LunaSea]

5. How general anesthesia works...

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]

6. "dissolve the fat" sounds good for me!1 What has stuck with me is that it brings you

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]

7. I immediately think of her character in "The Butcher's Wife."

The church choir director who yearns to be a nightclub singer.

[UTUSN]

8. So, as the news says, she had a musical bent *before* the bizarre development...

[stopdiggin]

9. obviously this is not a COMMON aftereffect of anesthesia

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]

10. How will this affect her relationship with Gilbert?

[sl8]

11. 'Scrubs' had an episode involving a similar affliction:

People will be singing "Everything Comes Down to Poo" for years to come, I'm quite certain.

[Aristus]

12. Great story. I've loved Mary Steenburgen since I first saw her in

"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]

13. Her description made me think of the condition called synesthesia

Though I've read that synesthesia is thought to be genetic, not something that comes on suddenly.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia