July 03, 2005

Bizarro Lit

As I mentioned in my last post, there's a new crazy as hell literary genre by the name of Bizarro that's gathering strength. The misfits and weirdos are crawling out from their hiding places on Amazon and banding together in a kill or be killed assault on the publishing world. I'm throwing my propeller hat in with these freaks because I bizarro love them. They're much closer in energy and spirit to the film, music, and cartoon world than the publishing world, and that's right where I want to be.

This isn't really anything new. The Bizarros have been with us for centuries. Ever been to Pompeii? Ever stop staring at the people frozen in volcanic ash for a second to look at some of the artwork uncovered there? If so, you'd see that some of it is rather bizarre...o.

For example:

That's a pretty bizarre windchime that I don't think you'd find for sale at your neighborhood Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Well, you might be able to find a baby riding a phallic beast windchime in the Beyond section, but it's a longshot.

"But Chris," I can hear some people saying, "You're more funny than you are bizarre." To them I say, "Hey, Bizarro can be funny." Check out this ridiculous bizarre painting from Pompeii:

Or better yet, how about the classic Bizarro episode from Sealab 2021?

The point is that Bizarros have been writing books, making music, films, cartoons and painting for many years. Some of it's insanely funny, some of it's horrific, some of it's erotic, campy, discordian, surreal, absurd, punk, and on and on. What ties us all together is that we don't fit neatly into any of the normal bookstore sections, mainly because a lot of us take the kitchen sink approach to writing, throwing all of our varied cross-genre and cross-medium influences together into each book. Outside of the literary world, a band that does this beautifully is The Flaming Lips.

If you want to learn more about Bizarro Lit, head on over to the Mondo Bizarro forum, the new home to all the freaks, weirdos, and misfits of the literary world.

I've also finally broken down and joined the super friendly folks on myspace. You can add me as your bff here:

Best Friends Forever!

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