Crème de Sens

Tag: sense

  • Laurel or Yanny

    Laurel or Yanny

    I suddenly remembered that audio illusion — Laurel or Yanny. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this is the exact recording people have been arguing about for years over what they hear.

    I always hear Laurel. No matter how hard I try to hear it differently — I just can’t. And honestly, I don’t understand how anyone could hear something else. I mean, Yanny? That’s a completely different word. How is that even possible? So I went to read the comments and let my friends listen to it. And guess what…There really are people who hear Yanny. It’s kind of mind-blowing.

    It turns out there aren’t two different words in the recording. It’s the same sound, but it contains both low and high frequencies at the same time. Some ears are better at picking up higher frequencies — and then it sounds like “Yanny.” Others catch the lower ones more easily — and then it sounds like “Laurel.” 

    On top of that, headphones matter, volume matters, and even the moment when you listen matters. Your brain tries to recognize a familiar word and simply “chooses” the one that’s easier for it to hear. So people really do hear different things, even though the sound itself is exactly the same. I find that fascinating.

  • Strange Darling: Terribly Beautiful. Humidly Unsettling

    Strange Darling: Terribly Beautiful. Humidly Unsettling

    // not all who run are victims

    This movie had been sitting on my watchlist for a long time, and for some reason I kept postponing it, saving it for one of those moments when there’s absolutely nothing left to watch. And then, not long ago, I stumbled upon it during a flight and thought, fine, I’ll finally give it a go.

    And you know how there are movies that don’t just “entertain” you, but get under your skin and stay there, like a splinter you can’t ignore? Strange Darling is exactly that kind of movie.

    It was shot on real 35mm film, and you can feel it immediately. The image is gorgeous—warm, slightly vintage, like watching an old VHS tape from the ’90s. Muted colors, visible film grain, none of that clean digital sterility. Everything is intentionally old-fashioned, and it works incredibly well.

    What really hooked me is that the movie doesn’t move in a straight line. The storytelling is nonlinear—scenes are shuffled, like fragments of flashbacks. And it’s not done for style points. It genuinely heightens the tension. I kept revising my own judgment of what was happening. Who’s the victim? Who’s more dangerous? Or maybe nothing is what it seems? It feels like a Tarantino-style thriller, but without his trademark chaos. Here, everything is tense—almost stretched tight, like a wire about to snap. They take the classic “maniac and girl” setup and slowly, carefully turn it inside out.

    The music is almost a character of its own. Very atmospheric, old-school in spirit, but not cliché. The tracks are woven into the story rather than just playing in the background. The actors deserve a separate mention. The chemistry between them is palpable. And Kyle Gallner’s porn-stache alone could stop your heart—he’s dangerously bad-boy charming. After this movie, I immediately wanted to watch everything he’s ever been in.

    “Love… doesn’t have to be something that develops. The purest, most primal kind can hit you like a wave… in a moment … or over the course of one night.”

    — The Lady, Strange Darling

    I wouldn’t call the movie deep, but it definitely has its own temperature. Somewhere around a scorching car hood after a high-speed chase. The plot, for me, isn’t the main thing here. The feeling is. A mix of adrenaline, mild discomfort, and that lingering thought: damn, that was good.

    // WHAT IT AWAKENS

    ∙the urge to watch every movie with Kyle Gallner
    ∙ a soundtrack you didn’t expect to carry with you all week
    ∙ VHS-shaped nostalgia
    ∙ a quiet whisper in your head: “watch it again”
    ∙ the subtle desire to visit a small American town and just watch someone fix a car outside a motel

  • from craft to patty: doner in canada

    from craft to patty: doner in canada

    If you’re in Canada and decide to grab a doner kebab to relive the taste of Berlin, Istanbul, or at least a decent European Imbiss — prepare for disappointment. In 9 out of 10 cases, what you’ll get has nothing to do with a real doner except the word on the sign. The difference is like a real campfire versus a looping “fireplace” video on YouTube.

    A real doner is layers of meat, carefully marinated with spices, neatly stacked on a vertical spit and slowly roasted. It’s shaved off in thin, juicy slices. The fat drips, the spices bloom, the smell of smoke and roasted meat fills the street. And then it’s in your hands — hot, barely holding together flatbread, fresh vegetables, tomatoes, onions, a thick garlicky yogurt sauce, and actual meat. Not minced. Not some processed loaf. Real meat that roasted, sizzled, dripped fat, and smelled insanely good.

    And most importantly — a real doner isn’t made by just anyone. In Turkey, stacking the meat is a profession. There’s a doner ustası — a master whose hands have years of experience. He’s responsible for everything: choosing and cutting the meat, the marinade, the way the layers are built on the spit, controlling the heat and rotation speed, and slicing it perfectly thin right in front of you. It’s a craft. And trust me, you don’t just let some random guy off the street do this. Skill is passed down, and stacking the meat properly takes experience. One wrong layer and the whole spit can collapse or dry out.

    And in Canada? You look at the spit and it’s just one giant patty. A smooth, sad cylinder of pressed minced meat. These things are made in advance, frozen, and shipped all over the country. Probably because it’s fast, cheap, and there’s no risk someone forgets to marinate the meat.

    They slice it — and you get crumbs or dry chunks, with none of that juiciness or layered texture. The aroma? If you’re lucky, it just smells like meat. More often, it smells like reheated fast food. The sauce is either sickly sweet (hello, Canadian donair sauce made with condensed milk) or some mayo-ketchup mix. You eat it and honestly don’t understand what you’re eating. Meat? Soy protein? What is this even? Flavor — zero. Smoke — none. Crispy edges…only in your imagination.

    And maybe it’s not about bad doner at all, but about how entire cultures get reduced to something simple, convenient and completely tasteless.

  • numéro: every page like a gallery

    numéro: every page like a gallery

    Numéro is one of the most iconic fashion magazines in the world. But for me, Numéro isn’t really a magazine. It’s a perfectly legal way to get a hit of visual pleasure. It inspires even without reading, just by flipping through. I know a lot of people genuinely don’t get why anyone would spend money on paper in 2026 when everything exists digitally. All I can do is shrug and say: sometimes you just need to zone out like this and feel that the world can still be insanely beautiful.

    So what’s the actual pleasure of a physical magazine for me? First of all, it’s not scrolling. You’re holding a heavy glossy object. You feel the paper, the weight, the smell of fresh print. And you’re instantly pulled in. The photos are huge, often full-bleed spreads, with impeccable print quality. The light in them makes you want to touch it — sharp shadows, hard highlights that feel like they’re hitting you straight in the face. Models stand in poses that literally take your breath away: sometimes uncomfortably close, sometimes cold and distant. Skin shines. Clothes cling or hang dramatically. Black is everywhere — deep, matte, glossy, all at once.

    And the way the text lives on the page. Sometimes massive letters cover half the image. Sometimes tiny type hides in a corner. It’s both aggressive and elegant at the same time. The empty space around everything feels heavy — it forces you to stop and stay with the image longer. The spreads are their own trip: one page black-and-white, the other in color, the transition so abrupt it clicks somewhere inside you.

    Every time I stumble on an image that hits especially hard — a radically mutated silhouette, or a body bent into something alien — I feel an actual wave go through my body. Warmth, goosebumps, that full-body reaction. Not sexual — purely visual. Like the brain just drowns in beauty and everything else shuts off.

    I can sit for hours, flipping back and forth, returning to the same page again and again. The smell of paper, the weight in my hands, the soft sound of turning pages — all of it matters. Moments like this make it very clear why glossy magazines still exist. They’re not about information. They exist so you can get lost in images where every detail is intentional — from the model’s posture to the way the shadow falls.

    You flip through and get pure visual pleasure: black-and-white silhouettes, dramatic lighting, leather, edge, mutated silhouettes. For me, this is a magazine for people who value fashion not as clothes, but as a statement — as art and atmosphere.

    And yes, after that you open other glossy magazines and think, well… this just isn’t it. A classic that still holds the bar very high.

    // What it awakens

    a desire to wear black and not explain
    a craving for leather, light, shadows, and edge
    a fascination with imagery as art
    feeling fashion as a mood, not a trend

  • red bottle

    red bottle

    Have you ever had that feeling when you can’t remember what something looks like — its shape, its color, even its name — but if you ever see it again, you’ll know immediately that yes, that’s it? Like a melody you can’t hum and don’t know where it came from, but the moment it starts playing somewhere in the background, you recognize it within seconds.

    A long time ago I had a perfume. Probably ten years ago, maybe more. I didn’t remember the name, what the bottle looked like, or even how it smelled. But I knew for sure that I loved it. Loved it enough that sometimes, completely out of nowhere, it would just surface in my mind, and every time I’d think — damn, it’s such a pity I don’t remember what that perfume was. The only tiny clue left in my memory was a vague image of a red bottle. Over the years, I honestly gave a chance to every red bottle I ever came across.

    And then one day, during a random trip to Winners, I was walking past the fragrance section when my eye caught on one particular box. I googled the name right there and saw that exact bottle. Next thing I knew I was already opening the package, not even leaving the checkout area, spraying it on myself and… The feeling was strange. It was hard to separate the joy of the scent itself from the joy of actually having found it at all. It felt like thinking you missed your train — and then finding out it was delayed.

    This perfume is one of those I can actually feel on myself throughout the day. It doesn’t disappear after a few minutes. I can forget about it, and then suddenly catch the scent on myself again — and every single time it brings an aesthetic frisson.

    Honestly, I don’t know whether it was really that good back then, or whether memory just made it special. But the fact is, I “lost” it — and then by pure chance found it again. And it’s still one of the most pleasant accidents I’ve had in recent years.

    Amor Amor
    Cacharel