Never Let Them See You Dumb.

Who would know what’s cool today better than a Dinosaur? Nobody.

Think about it. They did their thing. They never hurt anyone but those in the food chain below them. They partook of the earth responsibly. They changed their gender when kept in captivity. And then they ironically disappeared when all the good bands dried up.

We have a lot to learn about TODAY from the original Hipsters: Those Dinos.

Therefore, we present you with:

Hipster Dinosaurs

The little known Pabstosaurus

Besides being the birthday week of our own lovely host Mike, this week is also chock full of literary surprises that you don’t want to miss!

First up, our friends at Mortified! are putting on their long-awaited August show at the United State Art Authority on Wednesday and Thursday! You can come one or both of the days, but all the same people will be performing.

If you loved Jenn Hartmann, who performed “Siren” for this month’s E Show, you can see her sing some of her earlier, less “professional” songs (some which may or may not be about one of our E Show hosts…) at Mortified!

Read about the show, and then buy your tickets immediately.

Then, once your appetite for voyeurism is satiated, come for all the badass rockin’ pulp fiction you can handle when The Whiskey Rebellion launches their latest show at the ND on Thursday night.

Check out the invite page, and then get there early to listen to the alcohol and drink the bands!

See y’all at the shows!

Did you know?

The original character alignment system for Gary Gygax’s beloved role-playing classic, Dungeons & Dragons, only included Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic! Later editions expanded the system so that your guy would fall somewhere on a combination of two axes: Law vs Chaos (both of which have good and bad attributes) and Good vs Evil. Today’s edition only includes five alignments: Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil and Chaotic Evil.

Since the Encyclopedia Show is staunchly classic D&D-oriented, we identify with the two axes system. (The first term is along the Law/Chaos axis, the second along the Good/Evil axis; both axes include “Neutral.”). Excuse my rampant wikipedia-linking: I, Ralphie, am Chaotic Neutral.

Continue reading →

Did you know?

The myth of cyclopes exists probably due to the fossilized remains of dwarf elephants. They had giant holes in the center of their skulls where their trunk connected, which looked very much like an eye socket.

So perhaps it should be said that walls made of roughly-hewn rocks without mortar are dwarf elephantean. Perhaps not.

Oh angels! What energy the divine days of August (Agosto for our south-o-the-myn-made-border-kindred-spirits) brings into being!

This month I feel my energy has been tumultuously circling like a Dairy Queen blizzard machine because it is just that hot here in Texas.

James has been particularly surly, as I’ve been straddling the fence about taking Folk Singers Against Sarah Palin national, which I think would involve living at the Washington D.C. YMCA. I can’t tell if James is wishing me gone, or hiding his hurt at our possible parting. It’s odd, as a feel called to a new place, but love this one like a home- surrounded by loved ones, good energy, pleasing sighs and rupturous laughter. I feel like other work is calling, but there are still so many roots to raise here. And my friend Elphaba just started offering free Reiki in exchange for my fennel dip recipe. Still I rise!

For my mythical moment: Let’s talk Auras. What are you?

Here I am:
LAVENDER AURA: Imagination, visionary, daydreamer, etheric.

I particularly like:
The Life Purpose of someone with the core color of Lavender is to explore other dimensions and realities and then share their amazing otherworldly perceptions with the rest of us. They are here to stimulate our imaginations, inspire our sense of wonder, and awe us with their magical minds. -Russell Rowe

Let me know what your soul glow is, friends! Seeking gold-aura-ed starperson!

We’ll be at Mohawk tomorrow night for the release of American Short Fiction’s latest issue! Stories, music and friends: all the things we need to make it a special evening of reading series fun.

Join us, won’t you?

Look at all the reading series events that are happening in August! Let’s get out and support our friends and show them that we all like to be read to!

Calendar is courtesy of Five Things Austin (circa Amelia Gray)

I’ve got a severe phobia of horses after an incident with a crab apple and an electric fence, so I thought I’d start today’s entry with the King of All Horses: the Slepnir.

Slepnir: The prettiest pony around.

Identified most notably by the fact that he has EIGHT LEGS down there in that undercarriage, Slepnir was All-Father Odin’s loyal steed because he could run faster than a two-legged horse and probably talked without peanut butter and Hollywood trickery.

Slepnir could transport people to Hela and back and ran faster than every jockey-whipped Seabiscuit ever made. He didn’t even need wings to fly because he was faster than anything else on the planet and could “jump higher than a rainbow.”  So take that, you pansy My Little Ponies.

The way the ol’ Norse bedtime story goes, Slepnir was sired by the magical horse of a Frost Giant and the trickster god Loki dressed as a sexy lady horse. But here’s the part that’s tricky: Loki not only had to dress like a lady horse but also get impregnated BY a horse and then GIVE BIRTH TO AN EIGHT LEGGED HORSE.

Now THAT’s some Benjamin Buttons s**t…

I’m betting Loki now has a phobia of horses much larger than mine.

Thanks to Wayne Brenner at the Austin Chronicle for an awesome article on the spreading reading series fever here in Austin.

So good to see (some of) our friends from The North American Reading and Writing Association for the Love of Literature (NARWALL) who were also featured! Go check out all of their shows because we guarantee you’ll love them.

Let’s keep spreading the word and get more people excited about loving literature!

Did you know?

The most popular and most powerful African water spirit, Mami Wata, gets her name from the English phrase “Mommy Water.” She is also known by region- and country-specific names (“Kuitikuiti,” “Mboze,” “Makanga,” “Bunzi,” and “Kambizi” in the Republic of the Congo alone).

Borrowing her name from a foreign language is appropriate because she is considered to be from another world, the world of the sea. She does not long to be part of your world.