Main | Crackerpacks » November 05, 2002

GOMI LAND

I'm supposed to tell you why I started this blog, but I'm not sure I'm supposed to cop to the truth. The truth, you see, is too simple: Warren Ellis asked me to do it.

The longer answer is that I'm a writer which means that by default, I'm an asshole with a lot of theories. I also spend a lot of time online doing research and in the process I stumble onto some pretty sweet sites. This blog will be my chance to share some of the more interesting ones with you and, with any luck, one will inspire you, too, to become an asshole with theories. It's a lot of fun and a nice way to make a living. It's better than working, though there are seldom free Cokes in the fridge or Krispy Kreme donuts in the lunch room.

I've just finished a novel (tentatively titled Blind Shrike) and am doing preliminary research on a new novel and a comic, as well as several short stories. You'll probably find a lot of weird science, art and myth/religion-related topics in my blog, with the occasional what-the-hell-is-this weirdo site thrown in just to break up the symmetry. I hate symmetry. Symmetry is fascist. (I told you I had theories.) Right now, I'm boning up on topics such as the mythology of
amber (the rock, not Zelazny's cash cow fiefdom), the Mayan afterlife, prions, prosthetics, recent Hong Kong cinema (I was a big HK buff until the output turned so shitty, now I'm going back and checking out the scene again), Southeast Asian gangs and the history of the LA basin.

I'm calling this blog Gomi Land because "gomi" means "trash" and I believe in the power of trash to transform and enhance our lives. We live in a Pop world and most of us who write fiction are parts of the great and vast Pop machine. As readers, we don't approach Pop trash the same way we approach High Art—with our defenses up and schoolboy/girl thinking caps on. Good trash bypasses all that and cruise missiles right to the backbrain where it can infest minds with subversive thoughts and mutant ideas. Trash is the our great secret weapon in the war on rational thought and good taste.

I hope you find some of the sites I'll post here useful. Hell, whether you do or not, my advice to you is the same. Start your own blog. Start writing articles and reviews. Inflict your well-informed opinions on others. But try not to be a jerk about it (this last isn't just advice, it's a rule for living).

Posted by Kadrey at November 5, 2002 04:38 PM

Comments