Ask the Author: Christopher Ryan
[admin / March 16th, 2010 / Interviews ]In the February issue, Christopher reveals a Work History, then talks with me about the strange things we do for money, the tattoo that means the most and the exact location of the devil.
1. What is the strangest thing you’ve done for money?
My first paid job, at age twelve, was to demonstrate giant bubble wands for the store my mother worked at in the summer. I stood out on the dockside and created ten-foot-long bubbles that tourists would point and laugh at. Sometimes my best friend came down to demo the bubble trumpet, which made about a hundreds bubbles at once.
2. What is the most important tattoo on your body? Why did you get it?
The one I can’t see, since it’s on the back of my arm, which is a big bloody knife stabbing the shit out of planet Saturn. I guess it’s some sort of commentary about illusion and matter. Mostly I like the image, since usually you see tattoos of knives stabbing little things like flowers and skulls and hearts. I like to think big.
3. If you could defend a mythical animal from extinction for a living, what would it be and why?
This is by far the most awesome question I’ve ever been asked. And the answer is easy: The gyascutus, which was a creature with two legs longer on one side than the other so it could circle steep slopes. Â Imagine what would happen if it ran onto flat terrain. Such a miserable creature would need all the help it could get.
4. Did you meet the devil in Helsinki? Bonus points if you know what song this question came from.
If you ask the Lutherans, he’s omnipresent. If you ask the death-metalheads, he’s not present enough. And, like in most countries close to the Arctic Circle, the metalheads outnumber the Lutherans. (And no, I didn’t get the reference, and even after Googling that shit.)
5. Which animal from The Bible of Animal Feet is Judas? Why?
The easy answer would be humans, I suppose, since we betray one another endlessly for the pettiest of offenses, but the truth is that every animal in The Bible of Animal Feet is capable of being Judas. Animals betray, abandon and murder one another for reasons we currently don’t, and likely never will, understand. The trick is not to judge them for it, and to take notes on their tactics.
Question #4 comes from a line from Tricky’s Christiansands.