VIRGINIA WOOLF
"The word 'time' split its husk; poured its riches over him; and from his lips fell like shells, like shavings from a plane, without his making them, hard, white, imperishable words, and flew to attach themselves to their places in an ode to Time; an immortal ode to Time."
"She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on... far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day."
(Mrs Dalloway)
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
EDITORIAL
GREETINGS.
Creativity is an inherently human gift. Everyone has it within themselves- the ability to create, out of their own ingenuity, a visual, musical or other form of interpretation of something. It is an important part in recalling our history, studying our psyche, observing our world, and exploring new ideas. Mental illness, or madness, has for a long time been connected with creativity; ‘creatives’ such as writers and visual artists, especially, are often expected to have some degree of madness.
There are many reasons for this; and it’s a subject I’ve been thinking about for a long time. So, when our project in year 12 Media was set for the semester, I decided to make PSYCHONIGHTMARE: a zine looking at this subject, and exploring the history of it, and what people think of it. The process of making a zine is quite tedious- and so I thank everyone who’s helped me in the process (see a list on the end page).
So welcome to PSYCHONIGHTMARE, Issue One; prepare yourself to explore the unknown….
CATHERINE CLAESSENS
Creativity is an inherently human gift. Everyone has it within themselves- the ability to create, out of their own ingenuity, a visual, musical or other form of interpretation of something. It is an important part in recalling our history, studying our psyche, observing our world, and exploring new ideas. Mental illness, or madness, has for a long time been connected with creativity; ‘creatives’ such as writers and visual artists, especially, are often expected to have some degree of madness.
There are many reasons for this; and it’s a subject I’ve been thinking about for a long time. So, when our project in year 12 Media was set for the semester, I decided to make PSYCHONIGHTMARE: a zine looking at this subject, and exploring the history of it, and what people think of it. The process of making a zine is quite tedious- and so I thank everyone who’s helped me in the process (see a list on the end page).
So welcome to PSYCHONIGHTMARE, Issue One; prepare yourself to explore the unknown….
CATHERINE CLAESSENS
Saturday, November 13, 2010
NEW INTERVIEW: Lithana
1. Greetings.
My name is Lit, my game is groovy and I have no clue what a Canberra haunt is.
2. I’m not sure about a direct relation, sure there are stories of great artists being mentally unstable but there are just as many with no history of mental illness. I do think creative output would be a tad bit different though due to some differences in mental boundaries.
3. Creative expression occupies 70% of my free time; I play various musical instruments, write songs and lyrics. It’s a beautiful way to release yourself, so is exercise. I wish I could draw.
4. In primary school I knew one fellow with slight autism, he shunned all traditional forms of creativity but his mind was brilliant. He was smart, no other way to say it. His brain could process things really quickly but due to his autism he never really talked to anybody. He had a worker with him at all times and he never did anything but math.
5. I don’t know, if people are interested enough in the subject I think they should go for it. Independent study with good funding can go a long way.
6. No one really comes to mind. Never really thought about this before. Never had much experience with this personally so I don’t consider myself an authority on it either.
7. As I said before, I see creative expression as a release. When an artist experiences something that affects them on a personal level, the output is going to be more unique and heartfelt. I think they’d have to do something during these episodes.
8. There is. The unknown is scary to people, that’s just how we are. I myself don’t know enough about mental illnesses therefore I don’t know how to act. There have been times where I just go about my business and people think me insensitive and if I avoid people with a clear mental illness then I am just one of many people. It’s the uncertainty that makes people uncomfortable.
9. Fo shizzle.
My name is Lit, my game is groovy and I have no clue what a Canberra haunt is.
2. I’m not sure about a direct relation, sure there are stories of great artists being mentally unstable but there are just as many with no history of mental illness. I do think creative output would be a tad bit different though due to some differences in mental boundaries.
3. Creative expression occupies 70% of my free time; I play various musical instruments, write songs and lyrics. It’s a beautiful way to release yourself, so is exercise. I wish I could draw.
4. In primary school I knew one fellow with slight autism, he shunned all traditional forms of creativity but his mind was brilliant. He was smart, no other way to say it. His brain could process things really quickly but due to his autism he never really talked to anybody. He had a worker with him at all times and he never did anything but math.
5. I don’t know, if people are interested enough in the subject I think they should go for it. Independent study with good funding can go a long way.
6. No one really comes to mind. Never really thought about this before. Never had much experience with this personally so I don’t consider myself an authority on it either.
7. As I said before, I see creative expression as a release. When an artist experiences something that affects them on a personal level, the output is going to be more unique and heartfelt. I think they’d have to do something during these episodes.
8. There is. The unknown is scary to people, that’s just how we are. I myself don’t know enough about mental illnesses therefore I don’t know how to act. There have been times where I just go about my business and people think me insensitive and if I avoid people with a clear mental illness then I am just one of many people. It’s the uncertainty that makes people uncomfortable.
9. Fo shizzle.
QUOTES to include/use
“The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact.” - Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
'Highly intelligent and educated people have written arguments against treating such people, saying they need to be “free” to create. Madness, sickness, is romanticized as a muse. I have seen the reality. There is no freedom in mental illness or addiction. There is only deterioration, extreme emotional pain and, often, premature death. I have seen brilliant people go off medication and commit suicide, relapse in addiction and lose everything, including life. There is nothing romantic about it. It is only a sad, futile loss.' - Paul A. Hood, MS, LPC
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/creativity_and_madness
'Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence-whether much that is glorious-whether all that is profound-does not spring from disease of thought-from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their grey vision they obtain glimpses of eternity.... They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the "light affable."' (Edgar Allan Poe, cited in Galloway, 1986, p. 243)
"No great genius was without a mixture of insanity" (Aristotle)
"Everything great in the world is created by neurotics. They have composed our masterpieces, but we don't consider what they have cost their creators in sleepless nights, and worst of all, fear of death." (Marcel Proust)
"Poetry led me by the hand out of madness" (Anne Sexton)
EXPLANATION FOR BIPOLAR BEING A DRIVING FORCE IN CREATIVITY (Healthy or not): "The expansive quality of the mood is characterized by unceasing and indiscriminate enthusiasm for interpersonal, sexual, or occupational interactions" (APA, 1994, p. 328).
"There is thus a thin but definite borderline between the most advanced and healthy type of thinking - creative thinking - and the most impoverished and pathological types of thinking - psychotic processes" (Albert Rothenberg)
"Two aspects of thinking in particular are pronounced in both creative and hypomanic thought: fluency, rapidity, and flexibility of thought on the one hand, and the ability to combine ideas or categories of thought in order to form new and original connections on the other" (Kay Jamison, 1993, p. 105).
I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it..., but mostly you need ordeal...My idea is this: The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business. Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing. (John Berryman, Poet)
'Highly intelligent and educated people have written arguments against treating such people, saying they need to be “free” to create. Madness, sickness, is romanticized as a muse. I have seen the reality. There is no freedom in mental illness or addiction. There is only deterioration, extreme emotional pain and, often, premature death. I have seen brilliant people go off medication and commit suicide, relapse in addiction and lose everything, including life. There is nothing romantic about it. It is only a sad, futile loss.' - Paul A. Hood, MS, LPC
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/creativity_and_madness
'Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence-whether much that is glorious-whether all that is profound-does not spring from disease of thought-from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their grey vision they obtain glimpses of eternity.... They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the "light affable."' (Edgar Allan Poe, cited in Galloway, 1986, p. 243)
"No great genius was without a mixture of insanity" (Aristotle)
"Everything great in the world is created by neurotics. They have composed our masterpieces, but we don't consider what they have cost their creators in sleepless nights, and worst of all, fear of death." (Marcel Proust)
"Poetry led me by the hand out of madness" (Anne Sexton)
EXPLANATION FOR BIPOLAR BEING A DRIVING FORCE IN CREATIVITY (Healthy or not): "The expansive quality of the mood is characterized by unceasing and indiscriminate enthusiasm for interpersonal, sexual, or occupational interactions" (APA, 1994, p. 328).
"There is thus a thin but definite borderline between the most advanced and healthy type of thinking - creative thinking - and the most impoverished and pathological types of thinking - psychotic processes" (Albert Rothenberg)
"Two aspects of thinking in particular are pronounced in both creative and hypomanic thought: fluency, rapidity, and flexibility of thought on the one hand, and the ability to combine ideas or categories of thought in order to form new and original connections on the other" (Kay Jamison, 1993, p. 105).
I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it..., but mostly you need ordeal...My idea is this: The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business. Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing. (John Berryman, Poet)
A poem, by me, for p. 8
The shift finds me
Disoriented
Agitation gnaws at my foot
But my arteries throb harder, louder
And freeze.
It is nothing of any importance
To them at least
But the wheel begins to turn
Water is cycling now.
Dirty water, wild water
Violent and jarring, so that
The conductor spins around--
Arms flail madly.
Death maybe-- or madness
She said no
But perhaps just to tell me
And the water would calm.
News came through
Transistor of vocal vibrations
Then came the old pitter-pattering
On the tin above our heads.
Disoriented
Agitation gnaws at my foot
But my arteries throb harder, louder
And freeze.
It is nothing of any importance
To them at least
But the wheel begins to turn
Water is cycling now.
Dirty water, wild water
Violent and jarring, so that
The conductor spins around--
Arms flail madly.
Death maybe-- or madness
She said no
But perhaps just to tell me
And the water would calm.
News came through
Transistor of vocal vibrations
Then came the old pitter-pattering
On the tin above our heads.
Friday, November 12, 2010
POEMS BY SYLVIA PLATH
To be reviewed for inclusion and allusion:
---------------------------------------------------
Lady Lazarus
by Sylvia Plath
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr god, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
--------------------------------------
Poem For A Birthday - The Stones
By Sylvia Plath
This is the city where men are mended.
I lie on a great anvil.
The flat blue sky-circle
Flew off like the hat of a doll
When I fell out of the light. I entered
The stomach of indifference, the wordless cupboard.
The mother of pestles diminished me.
I became a still pebble.
The stones of the belly were peaceable,
The head-stone quiet, jostled by nothing.
Only the mouth-hole piped out,
Importunate cricket
In a quarry of silences.
The people of the city heard it.
They hunted the stones, taciturn and separate,
The mouth-hole crying their locations.
Drunk as a foetus
I suck at the paps of darkness.
The food tubes embrace me. Sponges kiss my lichens away.
The jewelmaster drives his chisel to pry
Open one stone eye.
This is the after-hell: I see the light.
A wind unstoppers the chamber
Of the ear, old worrier.
Water mollifies the flint lip,
And daylight lays its sameness on the wall.
The grafters are cheerful,
Heating the pincers, hoisting the delicate hammers.
A current agitates the wires
Volt upon volt. Catgut stitches my fissures.
A workman walks by carrying a pink torso.
The storerooms are full of hearts.
This is the city of spare parts.
My swaddled legs and arms smell sweet as rubber.
Here they can doctor heads, or any limb.
On Fridays the little children come
To trade their hooks for hands.
Dead men leave eyes for others.
Love is the uniform of my bald nurse.
Love is the bone and sinew of my curse.
The vase, reconstructed, houses
The elusive rose.
Ten fingers shape a bowl for shadows.
My mendings itch. There is nothing to do.
I shall be good as new.
---------------------------------------------------
Lady Lazarus
by Sylvia Plath
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr god, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
--------------------------------------
Poem For A Birthday - The Stones
By Sylvia Plath
This is the city where men are mended.
I lie on a great anvil.
The flat blue sky-circle
Flew off like the hat of a doll
When I fell out of the light. I entered
The stomach of indifference, the wordless cupboard.
The mother of pestles diminished me.
I became a still pebble.
The stones of the belly were peaceable,
The head-stone quiet, jostled by nothing.
Only the mouth-hole piped out,
Importunate cricket
In a quarry of silences.
The people of the city heard it.
They hunted the stones, taciturn and separate,
The mouth-hole crying their locations.
Drunk as a foetus
I suck at the paps of darkness.
The food tubes embrace me. Sponges kiss my lichens away.
The jewelmaster drives his chisel to pry
Open one stone eye.
This is the after-hell: I see the light.
A wind unstoppers the chamber
Of the ear, old worrier.
Water mollifies the flint lip,
And daylight lays its sameness on the wall.
The grafters are cheerful,
Heating the pincers, hoisting the delicate hammers.
A current agitates the wires
Volt upon volt. Catgut stitches my fissures.
A workman walks by carrying a pink torso.
The storerooms are full of hearts.
This is the city of spare parts.
My swaddled legs and arms smell sweet as rubber.
Here they can doctor heads, or any limb.
On Fridays the little children come
To trade their hooks for hands.
Dead men leave eyes for others.
Love is the uniform of my bald nurse.
Love is the bone and sinew of my curse.
The vase, reconstructed, houses
The elusive rose.
Ten fingers shape a bowl for shadows.
My mendings itch. There is nothing to do.
I shall be good as new.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
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