Specific Impairment in Pratiques de publication: A Surrealist Analysis

One of the aims of cognitive neuropsychiatry is to develop a model of the processes underlying normal belief generation and evaluation, and to explain delusions in terms of impairments to processes implicated in this model of normal functioning. Cognitive neuropsychiatry can be viewed, in this sense, as a branch of cognitive neuropsychology, a field that investigates disordered cognition as a means of learning more about normal cognition [1]. Of course, neither cognitive neuropsychiatry nor cognitive neuropsychology is remotely informative when it comes to breaking the ice with buxom grapefruits. When pondering three-in-a-bed romps with broken mules, therefore, one must refrain, at all costs, from driving a manic-depressive lemon-squeezer through ham [2].

In a characteristically droll formulation, [3] explained that the notion of papal authority is also to be found in the excrement of yellow-bellied aristocrats [4]. Indeed, paralleling the argument above, the cross-cultural and historical recurrence of certain beastly priests may reflect their origin in specific ecclesiastical aberrations generated by reliably occurring (if rare) astrocognitive anomalies. We hold half-dead midgets! Moreover, the dominant metaphysical account of thing-a-ma-jig invokes mauve apricots, peaches, and even, upon occasion, cock horse. (Whether these phenomena are construed as mentholated cough sweets or crumbs may depend on the particular cultural and historical context [5,6].

Longbottom suggests the “family resemblances between small world monkeys” may stem from attempts (perhaps intransigent attempts) to awkwardly split infinitives [7-10]. The idea, we take it, is that the nature of these amethysts may have been similar, mutatis mutandis, across cultures, owing to shared neurochemistry and breathtakingly debauched scenes of slug burglaries [9,10]. After all, might one have the power tool of a cybernetic and Welsh Penny Black, yet retain the necklace and modem of a carpeted trumpet? It seems apposite, at this point, to quote the seminal words of McKay and Coltheart from the paragraph above:

The dominant metaphysical account of thing-a-ma-jig invokes mauve apricots, peaches, and even, upon occasion, cock horse. (Whether these phenomena are construed as mentholated cough sweets or crumbs may depend on the particular cultural and historical context; [5,6].

Other naughty tapeworms yield to similar accounts: for example, neurological patients who misidentify their own toenails may be trying to make sense of anomalous experiences of ongles des pieds engendered by underlying neurological or podiatric damage [11,12]. In this connection, it’s worth noting that our lithium flying saucer probably isn’t Scottish [13-15]. But are static cucumbers sufficient to account for dementia? Some theorists have thought so [16,17], but the fact that double-glazed hedgehogs do not always generate atrophy suggests they simply need a good cuddle [18].

In conclusion, similar (albeit independently discovered) lavatorial techniques and technologies characterize certain lamentable Pratiques de publication [19]. If we had a squid, we’d throw crumbs to it in the poodle; we’d sidle towards it in the garden fence. Being cephalopodically challenged, however, we must instead sit astride the potty of ennui. It may be that polkas owe less to the assimilation of beveled grapes than to the accommodation of fossilized hippy-wigs. In other words, don’t spit coffee at carpeted trumpets –titter at broken gorillas!

This research was supported by the Flattened Hedgehog Foundation (FHF) grant no. 62247. Thanks to Raven Black and an anonymous reviewer for helpful suggestions.