April

From the Editors

Greetings, gentle reader...

We have many announcements this time around. To begin with, I am now officially functioning as Editor in Chief. What does this title mean? Due to workload issues our web master, Jennifer Barnes, is handling most of the hands-on duties. Our latest addition to the team, the inimitable Gary West, fills the position of Reviews Editor. With more hands on deck our publication can now go monthly! As you may have noticed we've slimmed down the content a bit to accommodate this new format. Hopefully you'll find the faster read to be enjoyable. Despite the fact that we are publishing with twice the frequency we are still closed to submissions. We're filled all the way through July. When the situation changes we'll make an announcement.

I'm sure you also noticed the prominent Dream People's Forum banner. This is part of our aggressive expansion into creating a more interactive experience. You will find all manner of action in the Forum, from artist galleries to online poetry groups, and curious subsections managed by instigators such as Paul Bradshaw. Go investigate at your leisure, and be sure to jump into the conversations. The Dream People's Forum belongs to you, the reader!

Other developments concern the recently released anthologies edited by your humble Editor in Chief, John Lawson. The first is a collection of cannibal fiction titled Of Flesh and Hunger; the second is a total freak out titled A Slap in the Face. Both books are wild trips into the minds of highly imaginative/disturbed minds, featuring frequent contributors to The Dream People. You can also participate in our Of Flesh and Hunger tie-in Taboo Contest--more details are available in the Dream People's Forum and on our guidelines page. On top of that, A Slap in the Face is available as a free download, just point and click!

Now that the obligatory announcements are out of the way I urge you to explore our odd dreamscape.

Darkest dreams,

John Lawson, Editor in Chief

Paul's Sanitarium: ARE YOU ODD?

by Paul Bradshaw

The other day someone I work with described me as odd. In fact in the space of 24 hours I was described by three different people as odd, weird, and strange. This has got me thinking… am I really odd? Or is this merely another person’s perspective? Is it the fact that I had placed a white sticky strip on my left cheek and was dancing at the top of the wine aisle at my local supermarket singing Nelly’s Hot in Here? Or the fact that I (a) read books and (b) read books of a bizarre nature? I don’t know. One thing’s for sure though… I think I would hate to be normal.

Perhaps my appearance has something to do with it. I’m not much more than five feet in height, although I insist to everyone that I’m really 6’7" and that I am an optical illusion. What you see definitely isn’t what you get. Or sometimes I say that I am 5’ 12" — 5 feet tall and 12" inside my trousers. Although again for some reason people refuse to believe this. It may be that my behaviour is odd. Yet what is odd behaviour? Consider the definition of the word odd at the online dictionary at www.yourdictionary.com:

Deviating from what is ordinary, usual, or expected; strange or peculiar: an odd name; odd behaviour.

The key phrase here is deviating from what is ordinary. Does this define whether a person is odd or not odd? In other words, ordinary or strange? Okay, consider the following examples of human behaviour.

    1. Urinating from the top diving board at the local swimming baths.
    2. Hanging wallpaper upside down.
    3. Mowing next door’s lawn.

Do you consider these examples of odd behaviour? Yes? Well you could be right, after all it’s all a question of individual opinion. Yet what about the perspective of the person who is thought to be odd? He may not consider these examples as strange at all. What about these examples then.

    1. Urinating from the top diving board at the local swimming baths, out of the window.
    2. Hanging wallpaper upside down in someone else’s house.
    3. Mowing next door’s lawn without any clothes on.

You see? There’s no end to odd behaviour. If you cruise the internet or the newspapers you are bound to discover similar examples of odd behaviour. Yet are these people indeed strange, weird, peculiar? Or are they merely different, deviating from what is ordinary? Who really knows?

Okay, if you have doubts as to whether you yourself come into the odd category please feel free to partake in the following test. Simply read the examples and take a note of which option you would take in each scenario. The answer as to whether you are different from the norm will be given to you at the end. Good luck!

  1. Your wife/husband gives birth to a new baby. Do you:
    1. Tell her/him what an attractive addition this is to the family.
    2. Wonder whether you really are the father/mother.
    3. Secretly wish that your wife/husband has given birth to an alien.
  2. You are urinating in a public convenience and the man beside you has a much larger penis than you. Do you:
    1. Happily continue emptying your bladder.
    2. Wish that yours was as big as his.
    3. Go out and shoot the nearest clown.
  3. Next door’s cat knocks at your door and asks for a cigarette. Do you:
    1. Say, ‘Bloody hell, a cat that talks!’
    2. Tell the cat that smoking kills.
    3. Invite him inside for cigarettes and conversation with your 40-a-day talking goldfish.
  4. You are arrested for watching TV without a licence. Do you:
    1. Explain that there must be a terrible misunderstanding.
    2. Tell the police that you only watch videos and you thought that didn’t count.
    3. Ask for several more crimes to be taken into account such as budgie rustling, walking between the cracks in the pavement, shaving in the afternoon, masturbating in slaughterhouses, wolf whistling at aardvarks, home dentistry, and staring at ugly children.
  5. You meet Andy Kaufman in the street. Do you:
    1. Say, ‘Hey, you’re supposed to be dead!’
    2. Ask him to do Latka for you.
    3. Enquire whether Elvis and John Lennon are still dead, fart loudly, and read to him a copy of the Dancing Skinless anthology of erotic surrealism.

 

How did you do? Okay, if you answered mostly a’s you are not odd in the slightest, no way at all. For you, oddness is putting on your left sock before your right one, or vice versa. If you answered mostly b’s you are slightly odd. People may question your sanity at times but you are capable of normal behaviour for the majority of your existence. Put it this way, no guys in white suits will be calling at your home in the near future. If you answered mostly c’s you are gone, man, totally wacko. You’re stranger than a pig’s penis. The whole time folk will stare at you and call you odd, bizarre, strange, peculiar, eccentric. You don’t have both oars in the water, you’ve escaped from the acorn academy, manufactured in the blue-devil factory, ten cents short of a dollar, you’re knitting with only one needle, you’re in the squirrel tank, you’re licking the inside of the envelope, you’ve graduated from the laughing academy. But don’t worry, The Dream People welcomes you, we don’t discriminate, so come along and stay here with us -- weirdo!!!

 


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