Never Let Them See You Dumb.

Our next month’s show is going to be a doozy! We’re learning all about our suburban neighbors to the north: Pflugerville!

This is the Pfluger Coat of Arms, part of the proud history of a sleepy German town started by immigrants. Pretty soon, they threw a ‘p’ in front of every other word and started having fun with homonymns! You know we’ll be pronouncing that ‘p’ every time.

See you Pfebruary 9th at the ND!

That’s right. It’s the exercise craze extraordinaire known as ZUMBA. (Not to be confused with Zuska disease – that would not be a fun craze to jump on the bandwagon for.)
Did you know?

ZUMBA: (According to Wikipedia) is a Latin dance inspired fitness program created by dancer and choreographer Alberto “Beto” Perez in Colombia during the 1990s.

The Zumba man himself, Alberto Perez. Photo via sptimes.com

Now that we have the basics out of the way, what do we really know about this “Zumba”?

SURE, we know that ladies love it. Need an excuse to shake your hips vigorously to a hip-hop/salsa beat? Zumba’s got you covered. Always wanted to shimmy those arms with careless abandon and call it a workout? Zumba does that too. Want to look cool while working out?

This is cool... right?

Maybe Zumba isn’t the best choice, then.
As an alternative, MMA fighting is probably an awesome workout and totally looks cool… just don’t die.

Regardless of it’s flaws, Zumba is an effective cardio workout that allow it’s participants to shake the crap out of their worries and into a slimmer figure.

Shake. It. Girl.

This is why Zumba is here to stay.

For more information on EXERCISE come out to the Encyclopedia Show Austin and Ginger Snaps Burlesque’s JANUARY 12th show at ND 501 Studios. The fun starts at 7:30pm!

Tickets for both shows are $16 at the door, but can be bought online for a SWEET discount!
CLICK AND BUY CHEAPER TICKETS YAY

For just The Encyclopedia Show, tickets are $6 online and $8 at the door.
For just Ginger Snaps Burlesque, tickets are $10 online and $12 at the door.

Be there or be sad and depressed that you aren’t there, but instead are home alone eating Phish Food ice cream while watching Will and Grace re-runs and contemplating the meaning of life (and why you aren’t at the Encyclopedia Show Austin and Ginger Snaps Burlesque January 12th EXERCISE show)!

Dear Janet,

Hey girl.

I just wanted to let you know that I didn’t forget about February 1, 2004. No-sir-e, I did not. Just in case you can’t remember:

OH NOES!

Listen! I’m not here to hate – on the contrary. I’m here to say that I think it was pretty stinkin’ messed up how people treated you after the “wardrobe malfunction.” You and JT were pretty clever to come up with that, in my opinion. Come on, we both know that wasn’t an accident. He had you naked(ish) by the end of that song, all right.

SO SILLY

I also don’t think that people should have gone around and blamed you guys for being solely responsible for the increased regulation of broadcasting and the censorship of free speech. That’s pretty heavy stuff just for one exposed(ish) nipple!

Look, I’m not trying to reopen old wounds. All I really wanted to say was you’re still awesome, and 2004 was a fluke year. MTV, and the FCC, and the PTC were just jealous – that’s all.

Keep on rockin’ girl.

I LOVE THIS SONG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2KabvvLF7M

Everyone should come on out to see The Encyclopedia Show Austin: Censorship TOMORROW at ND@501 Studios. Doors open at 7:30!

It’s time once again for another amazing installment of THE
ENCYCLOPEDIA SHOW, Austin’s premiere event for learning and laughter
combined with all the excitement of a variety show.

Each month, a clutch of volunteering writers are given assignments
picked from a REAL LIVE encyclopedia. Stand-up comics, writers of
fiction, page & stage poets and some miscellaneous weirdos will share
their takes on the topics at hand!

You’ll learn true things and some things that are… less true. This
is the way school should have been run!

This month, the Harry Ransom Center joins sponsors a special performed
Encyclopedia entry on CENSORSHIP inspired by their incredible current
exhibition: “Banned, Burned, Seized and Censored.”

This month’s featured performers include:

SHAPPY SEASHOLTZ (poet, comedian, author of “Spoken Nerd”)
DIANA GRISANTI (playwright, Michener Fellow, author of “Post Wave Spectacular”)
KERRI LENDO (comedian, Funniest Person in Austin finalist,
writer/director of “Sleep Study”)
AUSTIN KLEON (writer, newspaper blackout poet, author of “Steal Like an Artist”)
GENEVIEVE VAN CLEVE (civic-minded citizen, slam poet, political campaign director)
CRISTIN O’KEEFE APTOWICZ (poet, NEA grant recipient, author of “Hot Teen Slut”)

Also appearing—The Encyclopedia Show cast regulars:
Gypsy Magnolia, The Amateur Professional Historian from New England,
and Your Terrific Neighbors!

With your hosts: Mike Graupmann and Ralphie Hardesty!
And the dulcet tones of: The Volumes!

The newly renovated ND@501 Studios
501 Brushy Avenue
www.ndvenue.com

12/08/11
Doors open at 7:30pm
Show starts promptly at 8:13pm

Free admission!
Thank you to the Harry Ransom Center for their generous contribution!

Angels. In the 9+ years since my divorce from my gay husband who taught me all the best muffin recipes in exchange for me paying his student loans, I have learned many things about myself, my choices, and my body. But today I am here to typespeak about a civil war that is keeping our country together.

Before this photograph I'd never imagined a tiny tiny angel crying inside a wedding ring. Art really can challenge us.

Divorce. It changes us. I know this is a controversial subject, angels, as we’ve been using any excuse to discuss it as a nation and as a people. Just look at how normal divorce has become. Why is it such a horrible thing if we’re all doing it? Shouldn’t it feel good to rid ourselves of unproductive relationships? Ask South Sudan how it felt to break ties and become its own person. Or ask Ghana how good it felt to take its maiden name back after England called it “The Gold Coast” for all those years. Empowerment can’t be typed without taking a break to spell power, and people are waking up to the knowledge that divorce is a civil war WE. CAN. WIN. And after we divorce, with the right mindset where we let our egos free and think about the relationship with the regard we reserve for truck stops, we can get on with our lives, making new decisions and new mistakes. And, angels, don’t pretend that “new mistake” is not your favorite color. It’s one of my fondest looks.

I love representative line graphs. Angels, isn't the slope here just MAGICAL?

Imagine spending the rest of your life with someone that no longer interests you? Or someone you never loved in the first place? Or someone that has changed after he got hair plugs and/or breast implants? Or someone who you found out was only a pretend spiritualist? Don’t get me wrong, angels, I love the idea and practice of marriage, primarily because I love waking a partner with soft kisses four days a week and having my hair washed. However, it is my experience that marriage, like monogamy, puts an end to the good things associated with a romantic relationship. Inside an unfulfilling marriage, we lose our sparkle as time passes, and only become vague, lumpy forms that are faded representations of the person we aspired to become. Humyns used to be thrill seekers like the hunter-gatherers, but once marriage became a chore, the humyn kind lost all knowledge of nut munching and spear-throwing physics in exchange for learning to use Ikea wrenches to put together a piece of Swedish art that you  hope someone compliments already so you can act like it’s no big thing that you “just picked up one day at Ikea.”  As a people, divorce helps us find ourselves, enabling us to open ourselves again to the future promise of love— by showing us the love we don’t want. Permitting us to join together with others in the experience … of new experiences… our part in life’s grand socio-scientific experiment.

Angels, my cheekbones were not this robust before my divorce.

If marriage is a science fair project, and the hypothesis (H1) is, “We belong together forever” then the null hypotheses (H0) would be, “We belong together more than forever” or “We belong together less than forever.” Therefore, divorce, in the most scientific terms, is simply failing to reject the null hypothesis. Which happens ALL THE TIME! Some of the best scientific discoveries (epoxy resin, st. john’s wort, valium) have happened after rejecting the null! Angels, let’s gather our clipboards and move to the next experiment already! Divorce should feel like a victory over the worst part of yourself that was a fool for loving someone because he bought very fancy canned foods for your noble cat beasts. It should feel like you made it over the walls of denial that you’d erected around your mental vagina and you’re now racing toward self-acceptance and truth.

I know many of you may be disappointed that divorce may not be for you. So how can you help your brothers and sisters in the struggle? How can you aid them to the place where they feel the confident to wear whatever they want every day even if it is a caftan without fear that their spouse will once again say “Bea Arthur looked sexier in that?” Please, take a night and join those in need of a gentle nudge in the right direction. (hint: they’re at karaoke nights!) and offer your best, most encouraging Tammy Wynette. I even linked the video with the words, so you can train at home. You could be the angel that makes all the difference, angels. Everyone deserves to have their entire being loved. Let’s keep trying until we get it right.

I am Gypsy Magnolia. I am a divorcée. I am the 99%.

Did you know?

Contrary to popular belief, during the 1850′s America suffered two civil wars, not one. While the North and South waged battle, the East and West were simultaneously at war. According to the video, “the west had expanded as far as they could go, so they started to expand back into the east.”

TRUTH

Seriously. It’s true.

“Brother against brother, and brother against brother going in a different direction.”

Brotherly Love

WATCH:

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=268663&title=2-part-2-the-forgotten-civil-war&xrs=share_copy

CRAZY RIGHT?!?

That's right. Drink it ALL in.

Did you know?

That handsome devil up there is none other than the Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and rumor has it that he was quite the lady killer in his time.  In a close examination of his private letters, Rob revealed his flirtatious side to many women.

(more like this, amirite?)

Despite the need to express his love of women, it is believed that he was always faithful and devoted to his wife, Mary.   Mary even seems to have been a good sport about her husband’s bad habit, as she wrote witty attachments at the end of some of his letters.  On one, she expressed her hopes that Rob wouldn’t try to pass himself off as a widower at a party he was going to.

Because that gets all of the ladies…?

P.S.  I like Mary. She’s sassy.

Stay tuned for more civil war trivia, and don’t forget to mark your calendars for The Encyclopedia Show Austin: CIVIL WARS on November 10th!

The 1st Annual Texas Book Festival Lit Crawl went off without a hitch tonight! It was a delight to see what performing on a new stage was like, and to perform outside for the first time.

Thanks to all the performers: Ernie Cline, Jeff Martin, Anis Mojgani, Lydia Nelson and Your Terrific Neighbors. Thanks also to the lovely Jill Meyers and the delightful Clay Smith for helping us to coordinate this with Tamara and Maggie at Cheer Up Charlie’s. They were all so generous and helpful and kind.

Thanks also to the fine folks that came out to join us for the show. There were lots of our favorite loyal faces and even more brand new, curious and still-innocent faces. We love to have new people join in the adventure, so this kind of weird, fun experiment is a great way to do that.

Also in attendance was an impromptu crew of big name poets, a virtual who’s who of Austin Slam giants who helped put the ATX on the Slam map. Seeing them all together (and having a couple of them in tonight’s show) was such an awesome experience for lit nerds like us. It’s so great to know there’s so much amazing talent in this town, and that all of them are wonderful individuals that we’re proud to call friends. It’s so good to work with geniuses and to still get to see them keep blowing peoples’ minds.

Thanks for this opportunity, TBF. And congrats for a successful first year with the Lit Crawl. We can’t wait to see it keep building and growing for many more years to come!

Great news for our host venue this morning in the 2011 Austin Chronicle “Best Of Austin” announcements: They’ve been noted as the Best Grand Re-Opening in Austin!

This honor is well-deserved after the hard work Mike and Krissi and Dave and Laurel and Jay and the whole crew at the ND have been doing for the last three years! The shows are awesome, the crowd is diverse and the venue has become a local institution already!

Huge ups to our friends who have helped us so much to get to where we are today as well. It’s been wonderful growing with y’all! Congrats!!!

Hi, everyone. Hope you’re enjoying the new October weather. We like to refer to this as Reading Weather, because it’s so much easier to be outside under a tree when you can wear a vest or a cardigan without sweating your balls (or lady-balls) off.

It’s also the month where we celebrate one of our favorite festivals in the whole gosh-darn year: The Texas Book Festival. This totally free, totally rockin’ nerd bash is a two-day gargantuan of a festival that takes over downtown and even the dang Capitol building for shows and panels and discussions and events all centering around books. Small books, fat books, green books, even cookbooks–it’s like a darn melting pot of delicious book stew.

And this year, an idea from all the way over in Saaaaaan Francisco made its way over to lil’ ol’ Austin, Texas for an inaugural night of performances: The TBF Lit Crawl! On Saturday, Oct 22, bars up and down East Sixth Street will feature readings, signings and sightings of famous authors making the most of their biggest fans and their favorite brews.

The Encyclopedia Show will be sharing a special billing with our pals at 5 Things over at Cheer up Charlie’s starting at 8pm. We’ll have bestselling nerd authors Ernest Cline and Jeff Martin joining our fun-filled cast out on the backyard stage. So bring your friends, buy some books and enjoy the crisp Reading Weather with us. We’ll be wearing our finest attire, for sure!