mikevarley.com

I’ve decided to start posting my regular quarterly email updates on the site.  Most of of have already seen this, but for those who haven’t, I use it to update friends on my art life, personal life, and any interesting developments I fancy.

Friends,

Welcome to another edition of the Mike Varley quarterly.  Lots of excited things have taken place since our last update, punctuated by long periods of sleeping and eating.  As always, the elements relevant to speed readers are written in bold.

Starting with art news, my first CD, “The Events of Election ’08” is complete, pressed and on sale!  www.theeventsofelection08.com. Since this is a big deal for me, I’m sending a separate email out concurrent to this one on the subject.  Over the next few months, I intend to send out a bunch of the CD’s with letters to artists I admire, public figures that inspired the album and spoken word labels to spread the good word.  I’m not sure what will come of it, but it’ll be a good writing exercise and good material for mikevarley.com.

As for the movie, “Bruce and Dom”, editing is complete and all that’s left is cleaning up loose ends. As it turned out, it came together as one piece rather than a series of vignettes.  Run time is about one hour and twenty minutes, which is perfect for this type of experiment.  When it’s finished, I’ll send out email.

Attached is a photo of my latest painting, “Brooklyn, 2009.” It’s modeled after the Brooklyn subway map.  The text reads, “The city subway’s silent motto: statues of flesh, we ride alone.”  You can see several more pictures on its art page.

Moving on to personal updates, the job at that advertising firm didn’t come through. The long and the short of it was they jerked me around and expected me to like it.  Since it was the second time they did that, I told them my feelings on the subject and I haven’t heard from them since.  I’m okay with it though, because instead I’m now studying to be a New york City tour guide! My stepfather Ed and I are now taking classes to be tour guide on those double decker buses that drive around the city.  It’s totally up my alley; I love learning trivia about the city and I love teaching people trivial knowledge.  As you can imagine there’s a ton of information to know, so I’m taking my time learning everything and hope to take the tour guide test near the end of July.  After that, there’s a two-week period where you drive around learning the routes and then you interview for the gig.  So if everything goes well, I’ll be starting by mid-August.  Hopefully I’ve finally found my job.

Among other recent events included a smashing success birthday party and Natural History Museum scavenger hunt for Jess, Erin and Ian; a brief, fascinating, seasonal stint selling flowers in New York’s Union Square, and a recent love affair with the Bill Callahan album “Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle.  Summer plans include my annual World Series of Rafters Tournament at Bay Hills; a trip to California for Jen’s wedding and sightseeing, and planned love affairs with the new Busdriver, Jeffrey Lewis and Pheonix albums.

Be on the lookout for my separate “Events of Election ’08” CD, and have a great summer.

Regards,
Mike Varley