How to put it? The name is quite personal, actually. I see this earth and life on it as one enormous dichotomy. Everything is split into two. And my personality is very dualistic. Therefore I have named my publishing house:

Dark Woods n Wastelands

Because those two landscapes lay the very foundation of my creative inspiration and expression. Together they form my own private world of divine imagination, the center of the labyrinth, the fifth element; they are my magic wands, they are where my compass always leads and I do not know why. Nevertheless, whenever I daydream or work on art or music or dance in my underpants, I am essentially in one of these two places.

The Dark Woods are the birthplace of all folk and fairy tales (or at least of the folks that I’m descended from, mainly of Celtic and Saxon origins. I use the older words for Irish and Germanic because this place is from a time long ago. Even before these old fashioned names. The black forests that covered a land once called Saxony and the majestic oak groves of the isle of Eire—these are the homelands of the Dark Woods. But these woods go even further back! Back when the land had no name. Back to the primal archetypal time that doesn’t really exist in historical timelines, but rather only in mythological terms, which are timeless in their own style and function. Also, there are magical creatures in these woods…

“The wood-woman represents a state of divine wildness and abandonment to natural rhythms, cycles, forces—an aspect of the Goddess in her primal, vegetative state. We feel her touch upon our lives not only in times of deep communion with nature, but also in moments of wordless rapture when we are dancing, singing, listening to music, making art or making love. Look, she is still standing there at the edge of the wood, smiling slightly, drawing you deeper…”~~Brian Froud

That quote always gives me the most wonderful shivers. He explains it so well. The Dark Woods are about rich, moist earth, the sacredness of trees and dark places, sexual awakening, secret fetishes, elves, wise old men, glass coffins, castles, gingerbread houses, stay laces, white witches, bad fauns, vampires and wolves that swallow the moon. I can quite easily get lost in these woods for hours, even days at a time. But I am not afraid. It is almost a comfort to be lost there.

It is a stark contrast to getting lost in the other place.

The Wastelands are harder to explain—similar in nature to that old stuffy poem by Eliot. It’s kinda hard to explain too, being stuffed with a library of obscure literary references! The Wastelands have more to do with me and the reality of my life and the time I live in. In the Dark Woods I am sometimes a sexy and more mature Snow White or Red Riding Hood or Princess Alice. This is all good fun. Fantasy is healthy, especially where sex is concerned. But in the Wastelands, I’m just me. And it usually is just the Wasteland. Like THE Wasteland, the archetype upon which all wastelands are based. When I think of the Wasteland I usually think of Max, but he has his own essay somewhere else, so I will talk more generally about the Road Warrior and what he represents to me. The Road Warrior is a survivor of the apocalypse. He exists only in a post-apocalyptic world called The Wasteland. I am completely, utterly and totally obsessed with this world.

Well… there it is.

Let me share with you my list of post-apocalypse media. The “b” stands for book.

 

• Mad Max Trilogy
• Akira
• Reign of Fire
• Bladerunner
• Children of Men (book and film)
• The Day after Tomorrow
• 28 Days Later
• 28 Weeks Later
• Waterworld
• Night of the Living Dead
• Day of the Dead
• Dawn of the Dead
• Land of the Dead
• 12 Monkeys
• Night of the Comet
• Escape from New York
• 1984 (book and film)
• Terminator 1&2
• I am Legend (b)
• Bangs & Whimpers: stories about the end of the world (b)
• More than human (b)
• The Stand (b)
• Good Omens (sorta)
• Into the Forest (b)
• The Road (b)
• Earth Abides (b)
• Firefly Series/Serenity (sorta)
• Tank Girl (graphic novel)
• On the Beach (b)
• The Postman (the book NOT the movie)

These are the books and movies I watch over and over again. Last week someone asked me, what was my favorite genre of literature? Being a literature major in college I wanted to say something lofty but I just couldn’t. I answered immediately, “post-apocalypse” and was met with a blank stare. I didn’t have the energy to pontificate on this, my most favorite of subjects, so I glanced at her netflix account and said “Have you seen Children of Men yet? No? Move it to the top of your list. It is an excellent example of my favorite genre.” I basically dumbed it down for this person, knowing full well that I could give them a notebook full of suggested books to read and they would not read a single one.

The Wasteland has a labyrinth and when I walk to the center I always find what I have lost: hope. Hope in myself and more importantly, in humanity. In medieval times, the labyrinth symbolized a hard path to God with a clearly defined center (God) and one entrance (birth). Labyrinths were thought of as symbolic forms of pilgrimage; people walk the path, ascending toward salvation or enlightenment. The labyrinth gives me back my hope; most of the time I feel its absence in my heart. I think my rage burnt it all up awhile back. But when I think of The Road Warrior…I think of him as an extension of myself. That part of me that is a stone cold survivor. That ultra powerful part of me that knows if the shit goes down, I will rise above it. I will survive because I am that strong. In The Wasteland I survive the impossibly harsh elements: the unrelenting sun, the hot sandy winds, the endless struggle to find something, anything, some landmark that will be familiar. It is all a metaphor for my life in the Bay Area in the 21^st century. Kinda silly having a low-budget action movie from Australia being a metaphorical landscape of my soul, I know. I know.

But there it is. I can survive heartbreaking poverty, I can survive tragic deaths of loved ones, I can survive the mass consumerism that is choking me. I can survive all this because I am the fucking Road Warrior!

You would think I would prefer to describe the Dark Woods in my ramblings. But my fantasies in this realm are very dark and should stay that way. The Wasteland is a more public realm. Much brighter, but in a cruel and relentless way. In The Wasteland, there is nothing. No trees, no buildings, no communities of animals or people. Just me alone, walking. There is only the road in The Wasteland. Nobody knows where it begins or ends, or if it twists or turns. It is hard to tell, for the landscape is not only barren but hazy–distant like a dream. The road is not a path meant for footsteps alone. The road is wide enough to accommodate vehicles, if such a thing ever existed in The Wasteland. The road is only barely distinguishable from the landscape by the tracks of ghost machines. They look ancient, but could’ve been made yesterday.

Who knows.