2 AM

Insanity grows up in from your toes
And sprouts right out of your nose
It's nestled in me and nested in you
But where it goes, nobody knows

(Hannah P)

The Red Alarm-clock: a reflection on my childhood and The Yellow Wallpaper

I have a secret to tell, but you must keep it quiet, for I know not what punishment my clock might inflict if it found out that I said.

My clock mocks me. It laughs and the numbers swirl about, alternating shapes and patterns enough to drive me from my mind.

I haven’t actually seen it, but I know it’s true, for just looking at that red glow, I can feel the haughty electricity waiting for me to look away again.

You see, it will only change into this mode when I can’t see what it is doing and rights itself to that plain insulting composure when I look back.

My roommate saw it though. He told me, but it was too late for me to catch it, so I shoved him in my sock drawer and told him to stay there until he had thought about what he did. I haven’t seen him since.

But I digress. I’ve almost tricked the clock into slipping up so many times! I look away and turn back so quickly or I pretend to sleep… it’s always just a little quicker than I. Hours spent only to admire the device all the more.

Now these silly people are trying to drag me away from my clock, my precious clock. They claim to have my best in mind, but they just want to catch the clock before I do, and that shall not be!Tonight I take it apart and find its secrets. It must be tonight, so that I can free the people in the clock. I was the first and now must save them too. (Thomas Reher)

The Insanity of Holiness in Doestoevsky’s “The Idiot” (Warning: Spoilers)

Dostoevsky, as he puts it, was out to give us “a completely beautiful human being.” He was Prince Myshkin. He was unique. He was harmless and ever-beneficent. He was—all in all—an idiot. When one follows the chronicles of fictional Prince Myshkin’s life and times in 19th century Russian society, one’s vision of the line between the Prince’s unfortunate epilepsy and holy ethicality becomes blurred unto the point of seeing him only for his composite insanity. He is adored by his neighbors; he is despised by his neighbors. He is trusted; he is deceived. Against the startling magnitude of his innocence is harbored an equally startling variety of responses. His radically Christ-like respect toward the miserably dishonored young woman Nastasya Fillipovna winds up alienating himself from not only her; but from his friend, her infatuated suitor; from Myshkin’s only promising love interest, the young Aglaia Ivanovna; and from her family, try as they might to appreciate him. In his dedication to reasonably treating human beings with the grace he thought they ought to be shown, he became unreasonable in a graceless company of people. His humility, intelligence, and patience were his idiocy. Such a loving person was by his love determined unlovable, and beyond the bounds of stable human acceptance. On the last page, his relapse into epileptic stupefaction is but a picture of the ruin brought upon him by the world for his true dysfunction, i.e. his miraculous holiness. (Collin Duling)

Insanity, if it is the use of words that have no meaning, is possibly quite sane in meaning though others do not agree with you. I have heard it said that insanity is defined as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. As they all tell me: 'the fish is in the cradle of the silver spoon...on the way to the mouth of the baby so cute...it'll be spit up in an hour or two...and the elephant is in my shoe and eating my toes.' Yep, what is this insanity stuff anyway. I asked my good friend, let us call him Harvey. He informed me that though his ears were big, it was the feet that made him an outcast. When people disliked his big feet apparently he put an elephant in his shoe to nibble on his toes. It was very kind of him to lend it to me, don’t you think? Makes my feet much smaller and more appealing, though it stains the white carpet. Oh, and now Harvey is sleeping on the white cushions. He always gets the ceiling. Well, thanks for the call. I hope that next time they let me have the phone so I can really tell you what I want to say. I don’t like knowing that Harvey is listening in. I wish I could trade him in for a Horla. (Wiliam Starbuck)

A New Order

Insanity is blindly believing in the exponential transgressions that make America the great superpower that it conceivably is today. Capitalism, that avid beast that Americans have embraced so wholly, is what drives this grand contravention. As a society, American and global, we have superimposed natural selection. We have taken the natural cap off of our population controls-diseases and viruses, abortion, land placement (any jungle, Chicago, Mount Kilimanjaro), contraception, homosexuality, starvation, death by exposure, etc.-and because of this our survival is fixed only to the point where we can supply for ourselves. Third World countries are the only ones left that still abide by the natural order of life.

We have been supplied the basic necessities, even though some live so meagerly; and, through sequential actions, we have bastardized the concept of survival; a voluptuous man states, in a restaurant, that he is starving. We supply water, fruit, vegetables, paper to wipe an ass, shampoo, loofahs, meat and meat substitutes, antibiotics and band-aids, blankets, pillows, dolls for girls and trucks for boys, and a steady flow of cheap inebriating liquids, solids, and gases; cancer has become less of a problem and for the past fifty years no one is truly certain as to what consumption is.

Through these modern devices, the list stated, we can survive physically and emotionally. The boy plays with his truck and is happy; the girl plays with her doll and is happy: in order to make a sweeping generalization. We survive; we can survive; however, at all cost, in matters of politics and relationships, we have to learn to accept disgrace.

Now that these basic needs have been met and because we are human and we need to have goals and sets of needs, we have initiated a new model of survival. A Capitalistic version of survival.

What happens to the high school girl that can't fit into the standard 0 Hollister pants? What becomes the boy that isn't up to date on the latest color fad of Air Force Ones? Aren't they both, basically, surviving? What happens to the woman or man that can't pay for Atkins friendly foods? What emotive response comes from a dependency on food stamps?

These people are surviving. They have enough to eat. They have clothing and shelter. They just need to fit into the new concept of survival that has been so aptly provided by American Capitalism. --Justin Weber--

The Final Scroll

The mouse wheel came to a screeching halt and an eerie silence loomed. The light emanated from the screen casting a dim gray shadow about the room. The gray light smashed into a contorted face stretched beyond its normal bounds under the burden of consciousness. It had failed to receive the release of slumber. The eyes became swelled rivers of blood, bulging from the blunt bludgeon of worry. The bags underneath the eyes dropped like a waterfall crashing to the face, yet after the initial plunge existed only a billow, silently lolling down the creased cheek. Stale sweat stuck to the face, suffocating the wrinkles, a spawn from the sludge of vexation. The hands quivered beneath the annoyance of the venomous coffee, uncontrollably shaking. In the future, only a glimmer could be seen, only a faint voice could be heard. Once again immersed in only silence. The typing became faster and the words blurred like a long serpent slithering into an enigmatic realm one could merely dream about. It was no longer an attempt to finish; there was no chance to stop. Consciousness wavered, duty forgotten. Memories became juxtaposed in a phantasmagoric nightmare. Slightly, ever so slightly, the being slumped and rested upon the keyboard, shaking, shivering in the dark, devoid of thought, feeling, and emotion. The symbiotic relationship of mankind and machine faded into a façade. Machine was the parasite and mankind the host. It remained motionless beneath the screen; forever a part of the machine, nothing more, there is no less. (Andrew Sippie)

A Review for “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden”

Joanne Greenberg (writing under the pen-name Hannah Green) writes this novel based on her own experiences as a diagnosed schizophrenic. The novel is immediately valuable for the insight provided into the mind of the protagonist, 16 year old Deborah Blau and her therapist, Dr. Fried (based on the true-to-life Frieda Fromm-Reichmann). The two, collectively and indvidually, encourage the reader to re-define the notion of insanity and to appreciate the profound compassion it demands; equally thought provoking is the insight given into practical psychology and, moreover, the seldom-considered sociological situation within Deborah’s family and in the asylum.
The true beauty of the novel, however, lies in the enticing mystery of Deborah’s private realm, the world of Yr. It is a breath-taking land of many gods, the collect, (including Anterrabae, the fiery falling god and Lactaemon the black god on a black horse), with a language of it’s own, where Imorh means sleep, death or insanity, and where Deborah, bird-one, changes forms at will to fly over mountains and valleys. It is a cruel world, too, where inhabitants greet each other, “Suffer, victim” and the Censor, marking the boundaries between Yr and the real world, toys ruthlessly with Deborah’s senses and perception—this is the prison from which Dr. Fried patiently works to rescue Deborah. In short, this work is a moving, enriching masterpiece that demonstrates the great depths of the human mind and the human heart, guaranteed to touch the reader in a way unique to much of literature. (David Reher)

"So they tell me to write about insanity. Ha! This white page laughs at my face and tries to rip my pen apart. They want insanity. They wish to marvel at the Paranormal. They want amazing.

You want to know amazing? Look at what you are reading. An entire publication dedicated to insanity. Your fingers are gripping the writings of wise-fools. That's insane." (Kristen Weber)

Sv. Sv.

Sv, sv
Second sentence.

I am always more physical, when I am like this. You can tell—I am pacing. My voice is low.
You can also tell that I wrote the title after I wrote the fist two/three lines. I could not conceive that on my own, Or in that order.

S. s.
If I had added the second capitol first, the first one would have become automatically. But I did the first one first. I need to stop thinking automatically in order.
But what are the S’s? These strange subjects? You and I are subject. To what?
Whom will you tell this to?
I must pace.

Pace in peace, in chaos. Isn’t that what grammatical puzzles are? Reasons because some one made them into ordered chaos?
Is that why words love me so?
And then I thought—Woah. It’s an essay! I’ll send it to David! Is it non insane enough?
I wish I could have written it in the International Phonetic Alphabet!!


InSanity is what every on e lse IS doing. Subject Verb.
(Verb Away “exunt”)

Why did I do that! I would never be so bold and odd otherwise!! Goad am I odd.! A god, god+ A= gaod. Great! Another linguistic code out of a typo.
Breaking ground again.
Authors are somehow separated from society—they write about such events continually.
100 notable books a year: of a year: of the year: me? 100 of us?
An interesting exercise- separate the oil men and water women- but not by sex. By reason, pattern and subject (and verb to while you’re at it). Verb may have the most interesting undecidability.

So there is this much more on this trip, on quest for grammatical perfection.
I must create words. New words, new worlds.
The trick is to D.o whA.t you waN.t, after you have done what you MUST do.
Your must then becomes your want. Only someone who is educated can conceive of the concepts of someone who is educated. That is why those who do not read do not read. And those who do may look down on those who do. I’m here. You can tell—I am pacing. (Hannah C.)

Note from the Editor

Insanity has long been a curious subject for humanity. It is a term we use for those who have true mental illness, but also those who are the first to see what is, in reality, sane. With it, we justify the unfathomable actions of other, yet also the bizarre quirks in ourselves. Governments have used it to control; artists have used it to liberate. One need only consider the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Cervantes, or Shakespeare to see its prevalence in art. Perhaps part of the intrigue is the light it sheds on what we consider sane. Additionally, there’s the link between insanity and the artist. Historically, of course, many artists have been afflicted by some psychosis; many more have surely wondered as much, being on the margins of society, yet unable to deny their art, or the cracks they see in the lens of reality. Here, then, accepting one’s personal ‘madness’ becomes a struggle for individuality.