Strange Radiation – Andrew Willett, at it again.

Buddy Is 3

On February 2, 2022

I’m in Mexico! In Mérida, capital of the state of Yucatan, thawing out. This morning has been spent enjoying the breeze and teaching myself a little about the Maya civilization, which was local to here — we’re going to see the ruins of Uxmal later this week, and I’m so excited. But today is also a big day for another reason: Buddy is 3 today.

A while back I did a series of rituals with someone who specializes in such matters, working through some stuff. In our very first session, I was told to visualize walking down some stairs into the earth, where among other things I’d find an animal waiting to meet me. And there he was: a winged garter snake who flapped over and coiled itself around my right arm. In that very moment a little background process running in my head knew I’d found my tattoo. I’d circled the idea for years, never finding an image I wanted to risk living with forever — but this was it.

After months of casting about on the internet, I found the amazing Johno, who at the time owned Black Iris Tattoo in Greenpoint. One look at his instagram feed told me this was the guy. There was an email conversation, and we made an appointment. It was HAPPENING.

My extremely rudimentary sketches for Johno.

I spent much of the night before the big day staring at the ceiling, miserable. What if I got it and hated it a day later? For the rest of my life every time I looked in the mirror it would be a source of shame and regret. Should I cancel? But if I canceled, wouldn’t I regret THAT every time I looked in the mirror? Either way, I was on a familiar road to self-torture.

Then I remembered: One of that snake’s messages was to treat myself as I would others — with love. And living in fear of my being mean to myself was not loving. I decided to roll the dice, get the ink, and love myself anyway, no matter what. That was the kind of man I wanted to be.

So I went to Brooklyn. The sketch Johno had made from what I sent him was… thrilling. Magnificent. And he spent a few hours putting it where it belonged, and today I am a man who loves his ink and what it reminds him of. Thanks, Johno.

And happy birthday, Buddy.

‘Thirteen Girls Fighting Over a Cowbell’

By Andrew

On January 30, 2022

In nyc

Pulsallama -The Devil Lives in My Husband’s Body from The Local East Village on Vimeo.

Don quoted a line of this at me over dinner the other night — “Our insurance doesn’t cover it!” — and I forced him to explain. Apparently Pulsallama was this deranged new wave percussion ensemble art thing that recorded a couple of singles and at one point included Ann Magnuson. It’s… very early 1980s East Village. Just click the play button.

The Book, the Grumpy Bear, and Me

By Andrew

On January 23, 2022

In writing

19th-century woodcut of Bodhidharma meditating — Bodhidarma meditating, Yoshitoshi, 1887

So the other day I did something kind of momentous, but to explain I have to tell you about Daruma-san. You may have seen these roly-poly little Japanese dolls before. They represent Daruma, aka Bodhidharma, the monk who brought Chan/Zen Buddhism to East Asia in the fifth or sixth century. He was said to be stubborn, hairy, and determined: a symbol of perseverance. When someone gives you one, its eyes are blank. At the start of a project — I dunno, say, “I want to write a novel” — you paint one eye. Now he stares at you one-eyed, wishing you success and encouraging you along the way, until you finish, and paint the other eye.

A million years ago, I decided to stop piling up endless notes and write that novel. A friend had given me a Daruma, and I figured he’d be great for this purpose. Away we went! And eventually, after a lot of writing and revising and lying on the floor questioning my life choices… I had a manuscript! Time to get it published! Unfortunately, the ms then spent a few years trapped in a publishing Phantom Zone, and by the time I could drag it out, I was told by people in the biz that although it was good, well written… the market had moved on. This book, they couldn’t sell, but thanks anyway. “I’d love to read the next one you write,” they said.

I felt like such a failure. And I let Daruma stare at me one-eyed from my dresser for years. But the other day I realized that I was being unfair to myself and Daruma — that I had moved the goalposts on us. I had wanted to write a book! And then I WROTE A BOOK. 110,000 words! And it was good, even! Maybe I’ll write another; maybe I won’t. (I do have an idea.) But that work happened, and it was time to celebrate that and move on.

So I did.

What’s the etiquette on flogging your shiny new publication on Twitter? How often is too often? Also, how subtle do you have to be when mentioning it in the presence of co-workers? Is the all-office email address over the line?

Asking for a friend.

By Andrew

On January 2, 2018

In writing

2018: And So We Begin Again

By Andrew

On January 2, 2018

In writing

So where were we? Jeez, the last time I said anything of substance in this forum I was still single. (Don and I made honest men of each other on Labor Day, and the wedding was, as the phrase goes, everything.) The new year started with an auspicious portent: a fiction sale! My short story “Mrs. Peak and the Dragon” is part of Abyss & Apex‘s Q1 2018 issue. It’s an old favorite of mine that was sitting around waiting on some indefinable Oh but it needs more tweaking, and so I’m very glad to have been nudged into just sending the damn thing out already.

And now it’s time to start building up those write-all-the-time muscles again, because I’m gearing up to write another novel. (More on that later.) And where better than in the pages of a blog that pretty much everyone has forgotten exists?

The New New

By Andrew

On October 3, 2017

In misc.

Well, it was lose the blog archive or migrate away from Movable Type and into something, you know, modern and functional. So that’s happening. Plus it might be fun to have a place to yammer at greater length than Twitter or Facebook allow. So, yeah. This is happening. Ere long this will actually start to look good, even. But for now, it works and my ISP isn’t rolling its eyes at me.

Finger-Crossing

By Andrew

On April 18, 2014

In misc.

All kinds of shiny new stuff going on under the hood. What that means for the future of Strange Radiation, I’m not yet certain. I am curious to see how the antispam systems hold up.

Process

By Andrew

On November 6, 2011

In misc.

Let’s begin with another music video: “In Your Arms,” by Kina Grannis. The song itself is… cute. A happy if not particularly world-shaking romantic pop tune. But the video:

I know, right? That’s a hell of a lot of work. Specifically, it’s 2,460 frames, created and shot entirely by hand over 1,357 hours using 288,000 jellybeans. Damn. The numbers are tabulated in this equally fascinating (to me) video — the one that actually moved me to write an entry in my poor neglected blog — right here:

On the face of it, two solid years of labor for a single music video sounds pretty crazy. Her record “Stairwells” came out in early 2010 — isn’t the buzz cycle for a disc supposed to have ended by this point? On the other hand, the final result is getting a lot of attention. And she comes off as pretty charming in the making-of, to the point that I’ll probably give a few of her other songs a listen as a result.

I don’t know what it says about me that I so often find the “how we did it” documentation at least as interesting as the end result. I have spent many happy hours, for example, listening to the screenwriters’ commentary tracks on the Lord of the Rings extended DVDs, as Jackson-Walsh-Boyens talk about the millions of tiny decisions they had to make on what to keep, what to move, what to cut. (The screenwriter’s commentary on “Sense and Sensibility” is pretty great as well, but hey, Emma Thompson, how can you go wrong.)

And finally, if you haven’t seen the animation work done for Oren Lavie’s “Her Morning Elegance,” well. Hie thee hither.

Hey, Look!

By Andrew

On August 28, 2011

In nyc

It’s the hockey players from last night! Current best theory is that they’re in town for the 2011 World Police and Fire Games.

Thanks to Croft for the link.

Hockey in the Moustache of the Storm

By Andrew

On August 27, 2011

In nyc

Greetings from the last couple of hours before Hurricane Irene hits NYC.

I just walked back to Don’s after finishing a shift at the Gray Lady. The weather right now is mostly OMG Rain as opposed to Aieeee Hurricanocalypse. Lots of rain but very little wind; not so much the teeth of the storm as the moustache of it. Passing through Times Square I discovered a bunch of Canadian guys playing a shirts-vs-skins hockey game in the pedestrian mall. Their laughter echoed through the square; they were almost the only people around, beyond a few random folks standing around watching them play and taking pictures.

Judging by the matching outfits I’d say they’re a team visiting from Vancouver (it said “Vancouver” on their jerseys, which were black with red flames) who are staying in one of the nearby hotels. Or possibly more than one team: a few women played on the shirts side, in jerseys of their own, equally official looking but different from the men’s. I stood and watched for a few minutes — hey, shirtless guys in the rain, how could I not — and as the runoff got deeper on the blue-painted surface of 7th Avenue the athletes fell down more often and the bright orange ball started to kick up an impressive fantail as it scudded along. Everyone seemed to be having a grand time.

Were I more used to thinking like a journalist I’d have figured out a way to use my phone as a recording device without shorting it out in the rain, and then I’d have interviewed them. Who were they? What brought them to New York? Had they been stranded by the closing of the airports this afternoon? How bad did the weather have to get before they’d pack it in and go somewhere dry?

But I wasn’t, and I didn’t, and so eventually I just got tired of how my boots were filling with rainwater. I walked on, the hockey players’ shouts and laughter ringing out through Times Square over the sound of the downpour. They kept calling each other seagulls, but I never found out why. That was okay.

Yup, still love it here.

(EDITED: Video footage in the follow-up post.)