Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

We had a delightful trip to Pflugerville thanks to an amazing assemblage of contributors, a great sponsor and a wonderfully supportive audience. (There were even a grip of Pflugervillians in the house, and they DIDN’T EVEN WALK OUT!)

It was a surprisingly sexy evening, despite the quiet reputation of this sleepy suburb. We learned SO MUCH about people and things and feeeeeeeeelings thanks to our contributors: Michael Jastroch, Amy Gentry, Lesley Clayton, Nicole Lucas, Brendan K. O’Grady and Genevieve Van Cleve. We made so many jokes with silent ‘p’s in them! And no Pflugervillians even walked out!

Our sponsor, CultureMap, was also in the house, giving out free swag and handing out a special prize of 2 tickets to see John Leguizamo at The Paramount Theatre! It was our lucky winner, Kandace’s, first time at the show AND she’s a Pflugervillian AND she didn’t even walk out of the show!

The videos will soon be posted online. But until then, check out the videos from past shows from the past three seasons!

Thanks, Pflugerville!

The great news for the month is: We got a sponsor for our Pfebruary Pflugerville show!

CultureMap Austin will be in the house for our next show with mountains of swag to give out to y’all! Get ready to be given stuff AND enjoy a great new show full of awesome contributors! We’re talking reusable, recycled grocery bags, pens, beer coozies and more!

We thought with February’s theme, it made a whole heap of sense partnering with a shiny new media source that keeps you up-to-date on events and places on the big ol’ State of Texas map. It’s a CultureMap…. get it?

So map your February 9th out for a great deal of learning, laughter and pfun as we head north to Pflugerville. But at the ND. (We’re only going to Pflugerville with our miiiiiinds.)

See you then! Happy Pf-V-Day!

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!

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%.

Thanks again to our brilliant contributors for last night’s Wyoming show at the ND.

Kerri Lendo, Roxy Castillo, Phil West, Georgia Young, Chris Crowe and Dan Rumney led us on a journey we’ll never forget! We learned that Wyoming isn’t as bad as we thought, but we’re probably gonna stick it out here in Texas…

Look for videos to be posted soon! See you all on July 21st for The Circus season finale!!!

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!

It’s the day of the show!

Did You Know?

Ted Kaczynski, who you probably know as Ted Kaczynski (or maybe the Unabomber), went to Harvard when he was 16 years old! While there, he participated in a psychological experiment that absolutely wouldn’t pass IRB approval today.

In this study the participants were insulted and embarrassed by older students, then shown video of themselves being insulted and embarrassed. If you have ever taught at an Ivy League school, the benefits of doing so need not be explained.

Kaczynski says that he began to despise technology in 1962, which CBS points out is the same year the experiment ended. Hard to believe that this had anything to do with choosing to send mailbombs, EXCEPT! as the article explains, “‘He included psychologists… as people who were the enemy,’ says [Author Alston] Chase.”

Most serial killers have some severe trauma in their pasts making them sociopathic and violent. Kaczynksi’s relatively light trauma makes him a wimp among serial killers, to say nothing of his gutless remote violence. Treated.

Be the first kid on your block to buy them! At our show!

Everyone!

Five Things is one of our favorite shows in town and their next show is tomorrow night! At 7pm! At the US Art Authority! Next to the Spiderhouse!

Look at that poster!

Come see past Encyclopedia contributors Amelia Gray, Stacy Muszynski, Boone Graham and Genevieve Van Cleve up on a stage! And maybe Mike will get a haircut (finally)!

Man, does it get better than this?!

See you there!