Entries Tagged 'Shout Outs' ↓

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!!!

Angels! As part of my work with the Encyclopedia Show – Austin that someday I hope pays me a living wage, I get the loveliest job of getting to sit down and interview my favorite Encyclo-friends about their lives with some boring questions from the Institute for Human Knowledge and Hygiene plus some juicy good ones from the brain under my goddess crown of golden spirals. We should all know those who share I life stage, and honor them. Also, if there’s anything YOU want to know, just comment and I’ll answer for Ralphie!

TWENTY QUESTIONS WITH GYPSY MAGNOLIA: RALPHIE HARDESTY

Basking in the glow of technology.

#1- How old were you when you learned to read? I have the worst memory, but I guess it was kindergarten. That would’ve made me 4? Does that sound completely wrong? When do children learn to read?!

#2- Exactly how many books do you read per year? I am a very typical American. I do my reading online or through Netflix.

#3- How big is the T in your Truth? My T won a blue ribbon at the county fair.

#4- Literature is FUNdamental!

They dared him to bring his mom. He had the last laugh.

(now for the juicy ones)

#5- If I were to be pretend romantically involved with one character from fiction it would be Fabio.

#6- If I were to be pretend romantically involved with one nonfiction writer it would be David Rakoff.

#7- Bed-Banish-Betroth:  Jackie Collins, Nicholas Sparks, V.C. Andrews I had to google Nicholas Sparks and VC Andrews. Betroth Jackie, Bed VC, Banish Nicholas.

#8- What book would you read with your last meal? Does the spoonful of Nutella I just ate count? The Chocolate War.

Ralphie moves like a bat.

(Personal questions)

#9 – Name the Weird Austin thing that is most like you: THE BATS! BECAUSE I EAT INSECTS AT NIGHT!

#13- Movie theaters  = popcorn time!    True.      False.   Discuss. False! My life is separated into before and after the Alamo Drafthouse. Before, movies were popcorn time. Now, popcorn is but one awesome choice you can make. Popcorn and Reese’s were my movie theater snack preference, but now I like pizza.

#15- My astrological sign is: Libra. My strength is my ability to understand and work with others.

#20- What is the most beautiful idea you are in love with? That the world will end in 2012. Is a fact an idea? I will google it and get back to you.

#21- What charity are you playing for today? Locks of Lynde: Wigs for Balding Gay Men.

Y’all. The combinations of pieces and ideas and videos and awesome is going to be so gooooooooooood.

We can’t believe that Elizabeth Crane is premiering an amazing new fiction piece in our show! And some of the funniest videos that are going to go instantly viral. Y’all gotta be there to believe it.

Plus: Free burritos, fries and hot apple pies for some truly lucky audience members!

See ya’ll Thursday at the ND@501 Studios at 7:30pm!!!

Angels! As part of my work with the Encyclopedia Show – Austin that someday I hope pays me a living wage, I get the loveliest job of getting to sit down and interview my favorite Encyclo-friends about their lives with some boring questions from the Institute for Human Knowledge and Hygiene plus some juicy good ones from the brain under my goddess crown of golden spirals. We should all know those who share I life stage, and honor them. Also, if there’s anything YOU want to know, just comment and I’ll answer for Michael!

TWENTY QUESTIONS WITH GYPSY MAGNOLIA: MICHAEL GRAUPMANN

I'm so excited to chat with Mike!

(Required by the Institute)

#1-  How old were you when you learned to read? 6

#2- Exactly how many books do you read per year? 5

#3- How big is the T in your Truth? 8.5 inches

#4- Literature is FUNdamental

(now for the juicy ones!!)

#5- If I were to be pretend romantically involved with one character from fiction it would be Madame Bovary

#6- If I were to be pretend romantically involved with one nonfiction writer it would be Roger Ebert

#7- Bed-Banish-Betroth:  Jackie Collins (BETROTH), Nicholas Sparks (BANISH), V.C. Andrews (BED)

#8- What book would you read with your last meal? The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

(Personal questions— My favorites!!!)

#9 – Name the Weird Austin thing that is most like you: BookPeople

#11- What is your favorite yoga pose? Eagle

 

Stay Fresh, noble Eagle!

#13- Movie theaters  = popcorn time!    True? False.

Discuss. So much noise. Can’t eat without shoveling. Kernels stuck in teeth. Salt all over hands. Butter is fake.

#14- I would walk down the aisle to Nelly Furtado’s song Forca because it is inspirational and about fighting.

#15- My astrological sign is: Virgo. My strength is my organization and details.

#17- What was your high school goth name? Bert

#18- The longest I lived in a vehicle was 48 straight hours from Illinois to California. I learned to vary my diet more than a single economy sized bag of pizza-flavored Combos.

#19- What is Austin’s best kept secret? The Encyclopedia Show

(Bonus!)

#21- What charity are you playing for today? Austin Pug Rescue

Thank you for your words, Angel Michael! See you next show!

Hail Caesar. Whoa Cesarean.

Angels, I’m not much into following things like the Oscars, but since they’re over I’ve been trying to see what all the fuss is about. Plus, my inability to conceive does not mean I don’t ovulate for a week each month and need some quality couch time.  Did you know it takes MONTHS for movies to go from the theater to DVD? I feel like maybe they could be a lot more efficient if they just did it all at once. I really wanted to see dreamy Colin Firth’s performance in The King’s Speech because I had a childhood stutter that I lost when I accidentally hypnotized myself one time in a funhouse. I don’t miss it, but love both the “overcoming disabilities” and “hooker with a heart of gold” tropes. So, since the local movie theater is only playing the Bieber movie and “Topper” (they do one kids freebie and one for retirees who are nostalgic for a time when cinema verite was not invented), I decided to do the next best thing… watch all 11 episodes of the EPIC (correct use of the word) 1976 BBC miniseries “I, Claudius.” Or, as I thought it was called “I, CLAVDIVS.” How did the Romans tell the U from the V?

FACT: Romans only vsed fovr vowels.

Anyhoo, Derek Jacoby, who has made a pretty magic career playing white haired men on PBS, is the lead role/narrator, Claudius, who is born deformed and afflicted with a stutter. Things in Rome were just like living in the U.S. Dominant political structures, wars in foreign lands people pretend aren’t happening, a crazy wife of a Republican emperor, and orgies. There is so much sex in this miniseries, angels, that you really get a feel for how weird the 70s must have been. And it’s one of those things that was on PBS so kids probably watched this when they couldn’t get their clammy hands on one of the good National Geographics. A bird lands on Claudius and I think that tagged him as going to be emperor. His step mom was a meany but like a Roman Cinderella, he endured. When he is eventual emperor, the stutter has disappeared and he takes a wife that one day challenges the president of the hooker club to a duel to see who can outlast more lovers in a single day. Trope goldmine, angels! And I don’t want to ruin anything, but the hooker is Sicilian. And the empress is hungry. You feel me? And there are so many nipples!

I am often asked if my work is based on John Hvrt's crossdressing.

I identify with Clavdivs because all this slutty is happening behind his back and ruining his marriage. Additionally, having such an educational program to teach us about the dangers of empire is really important in the age where Bret Easton Ellis (author and purveyor of cocaine smut) is calling Charlie Sheen (misogynist and consumer of cocaine smut) “post-empire.” As in, when people are going buckwild with pleasure, they are probably ignoring more important things like war. Like Janet Jackson, I live by the Pleasure Principle, but am never not keeping it really real about the global cost of our ignorance. You know, like how sometimes James comes home to the trailer with Jack-In-The-Box and I ask him how the soy in the meat is treating him? Because it treats the worlds’ indigenous farmers like shit and starves them? And the excess estrogen is going to one day turn him into a goddess! Slowly, it works, as he’s now eating more chicken. Bird by bird, Anne Lamott reminds us. And the Roman fashion is so drapey I really love it, but the miniseries is sometimes confusing when everyone is called Caesar with no salad in sight.

Empress Livia is the original golddigger. And she was pretty slvtty.

Today we as a globe lost Elizabeth Taylor, one of my personal goddess role models, as I’m hoping to spawn my own collection of ex-husbands and conflict-free white diamonds someday. Watching “I, Claudius” helps me embrace the world without her light, with a reminder that imperialism is bad, mostly when rich people are really busy trashing each others’ lives. I give the miniseries 3 and a half blossoms. Feel free to watch it next time you’re cramping for 11+ hours!!

xoxoxoxoxoxox

G

We got inspired last night! It happened!

So, apparently, there’s an alternative comedy show in New York called Tell Your Friends! that got started by a great guy named Liam McEneaney. He and his comedy pals meet once a week in a small underground club in Brooklyn to work their stand-up and music in front of an intimate audience. And the environment they’ve created is so great that they made a concert movie documenting their friends making great comedy so those of us outside of Brooklyn can see it too!

The cast of Tell Your Friends!

The movie is called Tell Your Friends! The Concert Movie! and it features out-of-control comedy sets by McEneaney (who hosts the night), Christian Finnegan, Rob Paravonian, Leo Allen, Reggie Watts and comedy team Kurt Braunohler and Kristen Schaal. Plus, interspersed throughout the show are interviews about alternative comedy with Colin Quinn, Marc Maron, Janeane Garofalo, Paul F. Tompkins, Wyatt Cenac and Jim Gaffigan. Yowza.

The line-up of comedians is enough reason to see the film, but the excitement comes from knowing that an important moment of comedy history is being preserved on film. Finnegan, Schaal and Watts are on the fast track to becoming major breakout stars already, and it would be no surprise to see the rest of the TYF! crew join them when this movie gets major distribution.

If you have the opportunity to see the movie, do it. For fans of intimate performance and creative approaches to comedy (which you all are, duh), this movie will be right up your alley. If you live in New York and you haven’t gone to the Bell House to check this out live, you’re missing out. And If you have a million dollars to invest into a new project, you should contact McEneaney and make it happen.

Like I said, inspired. Maybe we don’t have the kind of money it takes to film our show yet. And maybe we don’t have celebrity friends yet. But we are making great comedy on a regular basis. And we’ve got a fantastic Austin audience. And we’ve got plans for so much more…

Thanks, Tell Your Friends!

Now let’s do the same.

Hello, great Encyclopedians!

The first Wednesday of a new month means there’s two great options for your nighttime learning.

First, our good friends at the Dionysium bring you their 82nd show in a row at the Alamo South Lamar at 7pm. The topic is this month’s show is FILM, and they’ve got lectures, debate, poems and cartoons(!) to inject hot knowledge into your quivering brain space.

Also tomorrow night, at the U.S.A.A., our new friends at Nerd Nite present their 23rd great night of lectures by actual live nerds. This night, the lectures and fun are focused on the heavens because this night is: SPACE JAM! We’ll also be there collecting donations for the upcoming KUT Spring Fundraising Drive to show our support for public radio!

Both great shows will fill your night with smart stuff. Pick one, or try both for extra credit!

Hi, everyone!

Thursday, Feb. 10th, we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day early with a show dedicated to diseases. What? Love and Disease? How do those things come together? Well, come out on Thursday night to the ND at 7:30pm, and see how we connect the two.