Fiction Pick of the Week: "Some Ongoing Etc."
Reprint: the aftermath of a mental breakdown.
Reprint: the aftermath of a mental breakdown.
Emma Smith-Stevens Subtropics Jan 2015 Permalink
An investigation into America’s largest chain of psychiatric hospitals, where patients are held against their will to maximize profits.
Rosalind Adams Buzzfeed Dec 2016 40min Permalink
How $100 million in cuts created chaos in Florida’s mental hospitals.
Leonora LaPeter Anton, Michael Braga, Anthony Cormier Tampa Bay Times Nov 2015 15min Permalink
Russian immigrant parents attempt to visit their troubled son in a mental hospital.
"He excludes real people from the conspiracy, because he considers himself to be so much more intelligent than other men. Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to each other, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His in- most thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees. Pebbles or stains or sun flecks form patterns representing, in some awful way, messages that he must intercept. Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme."
Vladimir Nabokov The New Yorker May 1948 10min Permalink
A brother visits his sister in a mental institution after an unspoken incident.
"His sister talks about how they are staring at her. How she thinks the fat man in the purple shirt is going to rape her, though she won’t tell Greg if he works there or if he’s a fellow patient. She talks about starving and dying and figuring out how she can get out and sue the place into the ground. He tries to listen, he tries to ask questions, but after fifteen minutes he smiles and nods at her and tries to ignore listening to anything she’s saying. He looks out of the doorway when she looks away from him, and he wonders how many of the people who walk past are just as confused as she is. He imagines that everyone in the common area is just as lost, all of them imagining everyone else is trying something."
Matthew Kabik Pithead Chapel Apr 2014 10min Permalink
A social and historical look at a women's sanatorium.
"What about the exercise path keeps the women moving together. They move toward the birds and the birds disperse. A woman drops a handful of raisins from breakfast and the birds converge for the raisins but only until the raisins are gone. The birds will disperse again. They will fly down chimneys and into cars. The shriveled fruits cannot hold their attention for much longer now. They have no exercise path like the women have. The exercise path keeps the women moving together each morning and evening, as if they will never disperse. The women entwine their wet hands."
Katy Gunn Sundog Lit Nov 2013 10min Permalink
Inside the women’s ward at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.
Katherine B. Olson The Big Roundtable Jul 2013 30min Permalink
Grammy-winning liner notes describing the rise, fall, and rebirth of Roky Erickson, who founded the psychedelic rock pioneers The Thirteenth Floor Elevators before a charge stemming from a single marijuana joint landed him in a Texas mental hospital.
Will Sheff willsheff.com Jan 2010 25min Permalink
An interview with the Japanese artist, who has resided in a mental institution since committing herself in 1975.
Grady Turner, Yayoi Kusama BOMB Magazine Dec 1999 20min Permalink