Joannie Penderwick

Recent writing —
“The New Old Flower-Power Fantasy of Greta Van Fleet” (PopMatters)
“I’ve Struggled With Schizophrenia, and This Pandemic Is Messing With My Sense of Reality” (Slate)
“How to Talk to Someone With a Mental Illness” (Forge)

Contact me —
joanniependerwick@gmail.com

Help me do what I do —
paypal.me/JoanniePenderwick

About

I write about schizophrenia because a) it is misunderstood, wenowdis, b) I have lived my whole life in this one room, so its wallpaper is basically what I’m qualified to weigh in on, and c) I’m not convinced the topic is devoid of crossover themes.
I write about rock music because it’s the only thing I can’t not write about without feeling what the kids and the pop psych overlords call fomo.
I don’t know if you could view this as a point of connection or not, but among my favorite experiences is figuring out where, hopefully in reality, a strange sound is coming from. Goes a long way toward calling the universe to order.
My favorite song is “No Good Trying” by Syd Barrett. My favorite album is The Madcap Laughs, also by Syd Barrett. My favorite things to point out when pop gets called good for dancing to are “Someday Baby” by R.L. Burnside and “The Way You Used to Do” by Queens of the Stone Age. The song everyone should walk down the aisle to because it would be funny is “Dangerous” by Big Data. The best song for playing with dynamite gimmickry but making it work is “We Used to Vacation” by Cold War Kids. The best at making this rock a home is Brittany Howard. The best leave-this-hole-for-California road tunes come from Dorothy. The band that’s just sorta mine, for worse or possibly not, is Greta Van Fleet. Perfection is a boneheaded lens to apply to rock, but the perfect rock song is (duh) “Baba O’Riley” by The Who. The perfect band to cover “Summer in the City” was Gibby Haynes & co. The perfect musical adaptation of schizophrenia, as I have known it, I’m sure Jack White would say is just a love song.