Barking Sycamores

Barking Sycamores' unthemed Issue 5, showcases the brilliance of many kinds of neurodivergent minds. It is raw and honest about problems with the psychiatric-medical complex. It speaks of our trials and flaws. Some of it is not easy to read. But, inside much of it is a spectacular wit and humor, imbued with the spiritual of survival. Contributors: T.K. Dalton, Irving A. Greenfield, Philip Kobylarz, Jessica Lindsley, Claire Phelan, Barbara Ruth, Judson Simmons, Danielle Watkins.

Popular culture is an inescapable component of our daily lives. Turn on a television, read a publication, surf on your smartphone, and you partake in some fashion. Even if you disconnect from media or technology, the sum of your prior experiences and interactions with pop culture continue to stay with you, shaping your thoughts and even your selves long after exposure to it. Whether you love, hate, critique, remain indifferent to, or choose to ignore a particular aspect of it, the fact is, it becomes a part of you. For Issue 6, we chose the theme of pop culture because we were interested particularly in how neurodivergent folk process and interact with it. From the submissions we received, popular culture proved to be a power presence in the lives of our contributors. Sometimes it was a distraction, nuisance, or negative influence; other times it proved to be simply, ubiquitous background noise; and in other instances, it was a welcome obsession, a source of inspiration, or sources of enjoyment and relaxation. The contributors took bits of popular culture, either singularly or combined, together, and reinterpreted them to create a range of work in many shades: humorous and witty, insightful, stunningly beautiful, and darkly disturbing. We are proud to present this issue to our readers. Given more time, we surely would have collected more work and been able to present a much larger range of commentary on popular culture. However, we invite you to read, consider, and enjoy what our contributors offer here.