mikevarley.com

Two and three-quarter years is a decent improvement over the previous time stretch between updates. Not to say there haven’t been regular updates on Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter, but this site needs a recap every once in awhile to keep that spirit of early blogging alive.

Truthfully I cannot update any other aspect of this site via the WordPress backend, and would need the aid of my friend Ramsey Ess to add anything other than news feed posts. This whole escape pod aesthetic is pretty fun though, so we’ll keep up with the irregular updates until the astronaut ice cream runs out.

Since our last update, “2020: Total Clarity” was successfully completed – 260 marathons, 7,024 miles and every neighborhood in New York City. Jessi and I got married on the final marathon walk; you can watch a recap documentary on both the project and the wedding here.

Since June 2021, I’ve been working exclusively on documentation for the project via NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens. “Post Clarity” is the name of the five-part series dedicated to that task. Series One, Everything is Everything, is the culmination of my reviewing over 200 bagel shops around NYC while doing the marathon walks.

The effort was very well received, garnering the most press by far of anything Jessi or I have ever done: The New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, The Today Show, and many, many more. The NFTs also sold well enough to keep me out of the office and on task full time.

Series Two was “Weed Bags of New York,” which catalogues all the most interesting discarded weed bags we found while walking the streets. With marijuana being legalized in the state the year we completed the project, I’m confident this will be a time capsule for an era of drug packaging soon to slip into history.

Series Three, Four and Five of “Post Clarity” are all in various stages of production at this time. I’ve also developed several smaller NFT projects unrelated to the walk as inspirations arise, including Highley Abroad, Highley Reviewed and a companion meme series to Weed Bags, ’30 Memes in 30 Days.’ I find the NFT medium to be the perfect compliment to both my skillset and my interest in jumping artforms as enthusiasm dictates. My current intention is to create predominently in the NFT form moving forward.

To that end, I’ve done a lot of work in the metaverse platform Voxels hosting events and creating a residency space for traditional artists to get a taste of what what working in web3 is like. This video is a recap of our first year running HV Studios.

That’s all I’ve got on the update side for now. As I said earlier, I can’t update anything else about the site but a recent podcast appearance with Lydian Stater gallery had me provide an updated bio in the style of this websites ‘About Me’ section at their request. Below is that effort, written just before the turn of the calendar year several days ago:

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Mike Varley has recently returned to the craft of ‘About-Me’ writing after a number of years that will henceforth be known as “About-less.”

He’s become aware through querying his senses that writing a bio two days before the end of a calendar year will garishly color the contents to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. Nevertheless, he has opened a Cherry Coke for the occasion despite the fact it is neither the time of day nor the will of God.

18 months ago, Mike walked seven thousand and twenty four miles around the 5 boroughs of New York City – roughly four thousand, two hundred and sixteen of those with his now wife Jessi Highet. He has spent most days since relieving the experience via digital documentation, a testament to his dedication to never settle on an evident trajectory.

Recently he’s learned that the act of entertaining, scheduling, performing, and supplementing radio, newsprint and television interviews is a surprisingly time consuming task but worth the effort if you get to meet Al Roker.

Please don’t bite Mike Varley, he has no patience for doctors.

If you must know, Mike Varley has made feature films, novellas, music videos, Halloween masks, electrical cord paintings, Triple-A video games, podcasts, audio books, and, this one time, a tiny hut made out of no more than 20 cotton swabs.

He is pleased to have kept this brief.

Five and a half years can go by pretty fast, can’t it? It’s not a lack of content that has kept me from updating the site, but rather a diversification of effort.

Back in November of 2013 I began a job at the NY branch of video game developer Avalanche Studios. During that time we produced two AAA video games – Just Cause 3 and Just Cause 4.

My responsibilities were unique to each project. On JC3, I started out in screenshots and video capture, which means I helped generate all the content for magazines, conferences, YouTube advertisement and in-game menus. I also did a fair share of writing for the project and was credited accordingly.

Towards the end of JC3 and fully on JC4 I transitioned to the Production department. My responsibility was that of Outsource Manager, managing all the external relationships necessary to ship the game. This included Concepting, Characters, Vehicles, Weapons, Environment Art, Animation, Audio, Cinematics, Contractors, Music Licensing, and much more. I learned the legal side, the budget side, the pipeline side and the soft skills side. I couldn’t have asked for a better environment to learn how to create at a global scale. The experience I gained at Avalanche will stay with me my entire life.

Despite my busy work hours, I did manage to keep up on the personal creative ambitions. I’ve continued to make a mask a year for Halloween and am approaching my 10th year at the practice. You can find a gallery of them here.

In 2015, a group of friends and I developed a sketch comedy group called “Good Clean F—.” The show ran two seasons of sketches and ended up appearing in seven different festivals. You can view the sketches at the corresponding YouTube page.

Following the sketch show and deep into Just Cause production support, I wanted a creative project that involved total autonomy and no obligation to be anything beyond itself. This led to “The Love Method,” a feature-length script I wrote over the course of a year+ during weekends and night hours at Avalanche. I told no one except my partner Jessi about the script as it was being written, not wanting to compromise its true purpose – a creative exercise free from the burden of expectation. It exists now in a sharable for for anyone who’d like to read it, along with a shorter look book version. Reach out if you’re interested in learning more.

This brings us to the present day. As the beginning of this posts suggests, I am no longer affiliated with Avalanche as of a week ago. I’ve left to once again pursue more independent ventures, this time joined by my partner Jessi Highet. As of tomorrow, we begin “2020: Total Clarity,” a multi-disciplinary art project with a focus on New York City and human endurance. Its aims are too elaborate for this post, but you can read all the details at highleyvarlet.com

In its nearly 15 years, this site has gone from slick blog to outdated website to mid-2000’s time capsule. I don’t have nearly as much hair as that top left icon indicates and broken plug-ins litter the site. But for the time being we’ll keep this place as is. There’s still a lot of good content for the curious, and it matches my general affinity for all that is old and musty.

For everything cutting edge, check out Highley Varlet on Instagram and YouTube. Thanks for taking the time and catch up in a few more years.

Regards,

Mike

Thursday, August 14th is not just the final summer screening of “Brunch: The Movie” – it’s also the first ever “Quickie Crest Film Fest,” a celebration of local short short film talent at the esteemed Crest Hardware in Williamsburg.  We’ve been putting together the fest all summer – check out the trailer for all the short films:

 

Admission is $10 dollars with free drinks provided by Angry Orchard, Rebel IPA and El Buho Mezcal.  Check out the Facebook invite here!

Hey all,

This Saturday, July 26th will be the next chapter of the Brunch: Movie summer tour at Matt Torrey’s.  Join us for FREE brunch food and Mimosa’s at 2 PM in Bushwick.  Go to the facebook invite for all the details.

 

Check out this video from the premiere of “Brunch: The Movie” back in March, in anticipation of our next screening June 27th!

 

Hey all,

This summer, Brunch: the Movie will be playing at venues all across the city.  Check out our facebook page for all the details.