an illustration by the wonderful Roman Muradov, from here.
He says this about the article:
The general idea ... is not new (I think Dickens wonders something along these lines in Night Walks), but it has extra resonance today. The line between ‘sanity’ and ‘insanity’ might get thinned out and adjusted, but always to fit the needs of those in charge of adjustment, who can’t function without the line. Even if it’s you the people, that still remains a system of confusion and ultimately, control.
The idea of these shapes covering the space allocated by NYT’s page probably came from Will Self’s Quantity Theory of Insanity, an early story in which we meet the Laing-ish doctor Busner, who later reappears in Self’s other stories and novels, most significantly in Umbrella as a much more fulsome and complex character.
Myself, I’ve never taken anything (yet) and I don’t know if I will. Trauma has informed my drawing and writing and well, everything I’ll ever do, so the whole ‘getting over it’ thing must involve removing the host (well.. later). Then again, I’ve been having worse nightmares than ever in my life, daily, and now I go to bed in fear, expecting the violence and punishment that’s currently absent in my ‘real’ life to be redistributed at night. Wonderful and frightening Céline offers this insight on misery: "…maybe it’s better to end up loving her a little than to knock yourself out beating her all your life. Since obviously you won’t be able to bump her off." Maybe.
and more illustrations from Roman:
