The single coolest vegetable you will ever see in your life.

Question: What was your favorite color as a child?

Was it purple?

If so, then congratulations, because you and I were awesome together. Like you, I also loved purple, and wanted everyone to know its glorious hue. Purple was the first crayon I reached for, and the last dash of marker scribble I would have used to color your picture.

At age four, I wanted a pet chick with feathers dyed to be purple. At one point, I wanted to be a pet chick with purple feathers. There were no limits to purple's potential, and to me, the fact that the words "purple" and "perfect" sounded almost exactly alike was not a coincidence. Not at all.

Well, it now appears that my childhood dreams are coming true! Because as of this week, I have learned that my favorite vegetable, the sweet potato, comes in a startlingly different shade. And oh, fellow purple lovers, it's not orange.

Is this not craziest sweet potato you've ever seen?

I ate this on Monday, purchased from a tiny market in Honololulu. Beka said, "I think you'll like this," but she may not have realized the full extent of the miracle.

Now that I'm back in Austin, my rainy, pretty Austin, we'll start talking about city stuff here in a moment. (Although I may force a couple more Hawaii photos on you.)

But I wanted to share the Okinawan Sweet Potato first, in case anyone else finds this as exciting as I do.

Snapshots from Hawaii.

Aloha!

I am Hawaii Eavesdropper right now, visiting my beautiful friend Beka.

This is Beka.

My family will be shocked to see this (me hiking, that is), as I am a notoriously unenthusiastic hiker. But we've been hiking every single day so far, and I am completely digging it! Yesterday, Beka's friend Malia and I hiked down this rocky boulder-like piece of geography, and I didn't fall once.

Here are some more random snapshots.

aloha nui loa!

Celebrating Sloooow (Also: Yummy) Food at the Texas Artisan Showcase

Hello friends!

Sweet Breanna, our lovely food contributor, is here today to talk to you about the Slow Food Austin Artisan Showcase, going on tomorrow. Please refrain from drooling on your computer monitors.

As for me? Aloha, I am in Hawaii! And will be back on Tuesday. In between now and then, I'll try to stoke the flames of your jealousy with some pictures of the beach, surfers, Mai Tai's and chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. Yes?

Now take it away, B!:

In case ya ain’t heard, Slow Food Austin is kind of badass. It’s one of those organizations that helps make Austin a super-awesome place to live (and eat). If you want the official description of SFA, observe, my friends:

“Slow Food Austin supports activities and education to preserve biodiversity in the food supply, spread the education of taste and connect producers of excellent foods with the co-producers (consumers) through events and initiatives.”

I mean, boom. I love them.

One thing they do that I’m dying to check out is a Happy Hour event once a month at cool locations around Austin. This month they had it out at Boggy Creek Farm with Bill Norris from FINO and David Allan, the Tipsy Texan, with appetizers served by Ecstatic Cuisine. (Uhh, you had me at FINO.) Also, appetizers. In May, the Happy Hour was held at Green Gate Farms (see gah-orgeous pic below).

Does this not look like a dream? My big fat foodie dream, specifically...

Anyway, all rambling preamble aside, I wanted to tell you that the fine folks at Slow Food Austin are hosting a Texas Artisan Showcase this Saturday, June 26, from 4-8pm at Space 12 (3121 East 12th Street).

It’s gonna be stellar, with samples of beers, cheeses, breads, meats (or charcuterie if you’re French, and/or know how to pronounce that), coffee, tea, and more! All from “good, clean, and fair” Texas producers and sellers, as if you needed another reason to go. Plus, there will be live music, a silent auction, demos, and a live auction where I hear they’ll be auctioning off cuts from a whole hog. Which sounds...bizarre? Maybe a little too REAL? At any rate, my interest is piqued.

You can buy tickets (which range from $35-$60, depending on whether you’re a Slow Food member and how much you want to sample) through Brown Paper Tickets.

Green Gate Farms

And before I go, to whet your appetite further, here’s a list of the confirmed Artisans/Producers who will be offering their goods at the Showcase:

(512) Brewing Company

David Allen (Tipsy Texan) and Bill Norris (FINO) will create “Slow Cocktails” using local spirits, mixers and herbs

Zhi Tea

Summermoon Woodfired Coffee

Owl Tree Roasting

Mary Beth Murphy (Piche) will host a 10-minute demo on olive oil 

demoBread: Bona Dea

Pure Luck

John Antonelli of Antonelli’s Cheese Shop, will MC a demo, while a producer performs a cheese making demonstration

Guajillo honey (Thunderheart Bison) and Gause Yaupon honey from Boggy Creek Farm. Barrie Cullinan will provide her butter croissants for this and the following station

Green Gate Farms

Straight from the Vine

Thunderheart Bison 

Dai Due Butcher Shop (Jesse Griffiths) 

Kocurek Family Charcuterie (Lawrence Kocurek)

see you there!

*photos snatched from slowfoodaustin on Flickr and courtesy of Marshall Wright of eatthislens.com

Sexy Face and Vivian's Muse.

I have a friend, Nina, who tries to teach me how to do Sexy Face.

"Just act like someone called your name from across the room," she says. "Look up, and turn your head, suddenly" - she demonstrates - "like you're startled. But SEXY startled."

I give it a shot.

"No, no, not like you're SHOCKED," she says. "You're not scared of them. Just gently surprised. Like, 'oh, I had no idea you'd be here!'"

I attempt it. But instead of, "oh, I didn't know you'd be here!" my face reads: "WTF!"

"Here, let's try something else," Nina suggests. "You're angry. But angry hot."

Nina demonstrates, and she is - as always - smoldering. Salma Hayek in Dusk 'Til Dawn. A subtle, fiery look of passion.

I raise my eyebrows, think about being mad, and try to look ANGRY (hot).

"Tolly, baby..." she sighs. "You look like someone just ran over your cat. Remember, you're not actually pissed. You just want to look ever-so-slightly serious, the way models do."

I have the kind of features, or personality, or whatever that prevents Sexy Face. Happy Face? Fine. Big, Enormous Grin Face? That too. See me on the right (mustached), with my friend Sarah? That is the face I was born to make.

So when I got an email last week from an exceedingly lovely person, Julia Vie, I was intrigued. She is the owner/operator of Vivian's Muse, a photography outfit that specializes in snapping the female form – in the bedroom.

Now, I've never done a boudoir shoot before (too shy!) but I've seen enough boudoir photography – mostly by male photographers – to make me extremely skeptical. As readers of this blog know I am obsessed with Flickr, and have done enough searches on there for "woman," "girl," etc. to become well-acquainted with the tackier corners of Flickr soft-porn.

When I clicked on the link for Vivian's Muse, then, I didn't know what to expect. Imagine my delight when I spied THESE adorable pics!

Julia hosted a Pin Up Photoshoot Party at Hotel St. Cecilia last weekend, and said she made a little video. Maybe she'll send it my way so we can see!

In addition to boudoir, Vivian's Muse also does wedding photography and portraiture, some in this almost lo-fi style that I REALLY like. She's also offering a Free Boudoir Shoot when you bring in 5-6 girls, and I know some of you will want to jump on that.

I'm going to do a little post on Vivian's Muse for Launch787 too next month, and am putting together some questions to ask Julia. What would you ask?

This is Julia, by the way. How cute is she?

When did I start hating the phone?

I was thinking about this yesterday while I was at my parents' house. I'm here in San Antonio until tomorrow.

Ring! Goes their land line. Ring! Hello! Pick me up!

OH GOD, I think, a familiar sense of dread coming on. Who is it? What do they want?

Ring!

What did I do? Am I in trouble?

RING!

Jesus. Please turn over to voicemail! Please please please, so I can stop freaking out. This is making me anxious.

…

Ahhh, I breathe. Silence. Sweet, savory silence. All is right in the world! Now, hopefully that person will write an email.

…

Where were we, O Magazine?

ring!

F! GAH! Shut up!!

When did it get like this? Why do I hate the phone so much? Especially when I don't know who's calling?

I like to blame it on digital culture, and the fact that we're all so used to communicating online these days. Which is disconcerting, because I certainly don't want to forget how to talk to people. But I think I know the real reason, and it has little to do with Twitter or Facebook. I'm almost positive I can trace it back to a string of by-phone incidents that I haven't quite gotten over yet, and I'm still waiting to man up and forget about it. This is how a typical phone conversation during that period went:

“Hello, Tolly. We'd like to discuss your less-than-impressive results.”

“Oh, ok. What results concern you specifically?”

“Well” – exasperated, exhausted sigh – “how much time do you have?”

And then, one to two hours later, I would gently place the phone back into its cradle, and contemplate how to kill myself.

This is why the phone is absolutely terrifying. When I'm working by email, I can collect my thoughts, make compelling arguments, and more easily exercise my command of the English language. When I'm talking on the phone, my responses to these types of calls are usually:

“Um?”

“No? Yes?”

“Wow.”

“But-”

“Yshmklyn? Umfrti. Pqlyrnt?”

I've always been a stronger writer than talker. And when you're a publicist, like I am, it really does make sense to keep records of your conversations by email (rather than phone). Email is efficient, it's time-saving, it's a cheaper form of communication than long distance if you use land lines...

But. I am concerned that somewhere along the way, this relatively brief time in my life, dealing with a relatively mean client, bypassed the “light tendency” part of my brain and festered in the “Pavlovian response” part of my brain, causing me to freak out a little bit when I hear ANY PHONE. It always passes quickly, like a static shock, but it's a five-second jolt of: “shit. Oh no! What do I do? PANIC!!”

And then, I force myself to pick up. And a lovely conversation usually follows.

How does one fix such a silly mental ailment? Is anyone else out there a little bit scared of the phone?

I remember laying in bed when I was 16, and talking for hours on the phone at night. To friends. To boyfriends. Whoever. The internet had just gotten up and running, but was still too rudimentary to do anything besides read the AOL homepage. I didn't have a cell phone until I was 20, so these intimate, high school conversations weren't happening in the privacy of my car, either – I was talking about God knows what in my bedroom, which is literally three steps away from my parents' bedroom. It's funny to me, because we're all so concerned about privacy these days. And yet, I feel my life has only gotten a lot more isolated, more insular, the more digital it's become.

“Hi, baby,” said Ross earlier, when he called yesterday. As you may recall, he is currently a million miles away, gone for months.

“Hi!!!!!” I responded. I shot my hand up into the air, an involuntary jazz hand of excitement.

“What are you doing?”

I drank in his voice, giddy just to hear him talk. We spoke for about 45 minutes, him telling me about the jungle, me holding up the cat to the phone, and pulling her tail to make her meow. I told him I was at my parents' house, he told me it was hot, extremely hot, where he was.

It was better than the best email.

Saturday is crazy. Here's one option!

Holy weekend, there are a billion things going on in Austin today.

Some rock-tastic teens are playing this afternoon at Highball, 1:00pm, for the Girls Rock Camp Showcase. There's a gourmet grilling party happening at Breed that I totally meant to blog about.  I'll be at the Hollywood Gossip release party tonight, while a ton of you will be getting your faces melted off at Stubb's for Night 2 of the Passion Pit madness. Yow!

(Speaking of. Can we talk about the fact that I sold my Passion Pit ticket last night, for reasons I'll explain later, and saw Sex & The City 2 instead?

?!?!

Actually... let's not talk about it. It's embarrassing).

Anyway, GARY! uncovered one more bit of fun going down tonight, happening on Austin's east side. Take it GARY!:

Don't worry, you aren't seeing things. Yes, you are getting two posts from GARY! this week, and that is because we live in a city that is chock-full of badassery (real word, I swear). So here we go.

A few weeks ago, a show took place that I regretfully didn't have time to write about called Night Fever! VOL I: Hip Hop. Not only did I fail to post about it, I also didn't make it out due to conflicting plans (and the lack of a clone).

Well leave it to our friends here at Austin Eavesdropper to tell me that I missed a pretty stellar event. You see, last time Night Fever occurred Soul of the Boot and Strange Tribe Productions brought in DJ NuMark, and apparently it was amazing. (EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the part where I nod and pretend like I know who GARY! is talking about).

So the next time one of these events rolled through town, I knew I couldn't miss it.

Rich Medina, who headlines tonight, is a total grab bag in terms of musical stylings: Think hot soul, funk, hip hop, house, even afro-beat. Here's a sample here, and here. Deliciously chill, non?

Also on the bill are Austin's own The Lost Soul Revue. These guys are an anachronistic wonder, essentially a Motown cover band, but damn are they good. If you ever catch one of their sets, listen up for Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Otis Redding, The Shirelles, The Ronnettes, Stevie Wonder, Sly and The Family Stone... all accompanied by a 10-piece band.  This lady just opens her mouth, and spills out two tons of soul.


Hope to see you guys there for what is sure to be another amazing night in Austin!

details:

The Scoot Inn 

1308 E. 4th St @ Navasota


Austin, TX, 78702

$5.00 for the ladies / $10.00 for the fellas

Additional info here.

see you tonight!

A post from GARY! TONIGHT: Maluca -- The Forbidden Dance.

Happy Thursday afternoon, everybody!

So, question for you friends. It's early summer...you college students are up to no good...let me guess. You're craving a dance party tonight! 

That's good news, because GARY! - Austin Eavesdropper's music editor - dropped this treat into my inbox just now, and I wanted to share it with you. Take it away, GARY!:

So if you took part in any of the free SXSW events over the past few years, then you should be no stranger to the guys over at Mad Decent. They throw some ridiculous parties when they swing through Austin, and release even crazier music. What you may or may not know is that Mad Decent is actually the baby of Diplo, a DJ curator of sorts, and also home to people like Crookers, Major Lazer, Rusko, and Blaqstarr.

But the latest Mad Decent addition? MALUCA. And she plays in town tonight, y'all.

When I asked my friend Jill to describe her to me, she did so in the simplest way imaginable: "Think Latin MIA." Now if that doesn't insert a compact little visual into your skull, then the only thing to do is see Maluca for yourself. Here's a short video for the Diplo-produced track, "El Tigeraso," Maluca's debut single - an infectious, electric track that draws on the woman's Dominican merengue roots.


Born in the Bronx and raised in Manhattan by Dominican parents, Maluca is that increasingly rare bird - a downtown girl, who brings together the classic cool, glamour, grit and passion of New York City in an instant. She and Diplo met at a karaoke bar, immediately began working together, and the rest, as they say, is history.

If this is perhaps your cup of tea, then you should definitely come down to The ND tonight and catch her show. Make sure to RSVP before the list closes tonight for reduced cover.

(BONUS: Listen to Maluca's track with Oliver Twizt here.)

See you killers on the dance floor,
g.

Details:
Wet Hot American Party with Maluca
With DJ Orion and Dubbel Dutch, hosted by Misa Soliz.

18 AND UP WELCOME, DOORS AT 8PM

June 17 at The ND (501 Studios)

Sponsored by the Travis County Democratic Party and Ultra8201.com

$7 PRE-SALE AND DOOR TICKETS WHEN YOU RSVP HERE.

$10 OTHERWISE.

Secret's Out: Hollywood Gossip releases Dear as Diamonds this Saturday.

People!

What are you doing on Saturday night? Hanging out with me!

If you live in Austin, that is. That's because I'm going to Hollywood Gossip's CD release party at Ghost Room, and I don't have to ask you twice if you'll be there.

Hollywood Gossip is about to release their new album Dear as Diamonds, and were kind enough to let me sample it. Here's a review I wrote up for Launch787, and I'm re-posting it below. You can enjoy the whole album here, and be sure to check out Republic of Austin's astute review.

As for me? Y'all, I threw a private dance party for one in my car when I got this CD in the mail. Here's my review!

review: dear as diamonds

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Morrissey woke up one day super-happy, kidnapped The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy in an energetic fit of delight, and flew the both of them down to Austin to throw a house party with Voxtrot?

Of course you do. That’s why we have Austin’s four-piece Hollywood Gossip to thank, for their upcoming Dear as Diamonds album (drops June 19) is all of those things.

I listened to Dear as Diamonds on a sunny weekend, head-bopping along in my car, and pulled out some favorites. While you can sample the album in its entirety here and join the band for its no-doubt packed CD release show at Ghost Room on Saturday, June 19, here are three singular bits of Hollywood Gossip goodness that I personally recommend:

#4, “I Can Be Right:” A sexy, syncopated, Strokes-like tune that contains the album’s namesake. “The lights shown from the stage / and when they caught your face / you seemed as dear as diamonds.” Swoon. Swoon times 1,000.

#9, “Worst Day:” A hand-clap-happy flashback about a good kid who fesses up to…something, while his partner-in-crime lies and gets off scot free. Who hasn’t been there? When I listen to this song, I don’t know whether to dance or punch someone in the face. Probably stick with dancing.

#12: “All That I Want:” Ladies, are you married? If not, you’ll want this to be your future wedding song. TRUST. Cory Ryan trades her big bad bass for a sweet ukelele, and the result is gentle gorgeoussity. No, gorgeoussity is not a word. I don’t care and neither will you when you hear this song. When frontman Tyler Womack croons, “Ooh you’re all that I want, you’re all that I need,” your hipster heart will shed away its hard, hard irony and melt into a pool of shimmering love tears. Tears of joy, that is.

see you saturday at the show!

The Next Oprah is from Austin, has Cerebral Palsy, and I want to marry him.

Omigod! You guys.

GARY! just turned me onto a man, a man from Austin, who is auditioning for Oprah's Next TV Star. His name is Zach, and he is currently leading the contest by one million votes.

Zach has Cerebral Palsy,"the sexiest of all the Palsies," as he calls it.

But his audition is not a sad audition. It is a hilarious audition.


According to our dear friend Lauren Lytle, Zach used to do a show called The Wingmen. I just watched an episode, and that too is delightful.

I want this man to win so badly! How incredibly awesome would that be, Austinites, if one of our own became the next Oprah? Let's rally the troops!

vote for zach here!

Also, check out Zach's adorable follow-up video here, where he says thank you for all the votes. His reaction when he sees how many votes he got is PRICELESS.

Review of Snap Kitchen: Or, the day protein came to town.

If you were my friend from roughly 2002 - 2004, then you would know that I ate sweet potatoes, almost exclusively, every day.

Oh sure, there was the odd bowl of cereal, container of yogurt, or veggie burger thrown in. But mostly, it was microwaved, salted sweet potatoes. Cut in half. Eaten with a spoon.

In 2005, I graduated to butternut squash. Looking back, I'm a little shocked that I managed to fit a whole butternut squash into my stomach at one time. That's a pretty serious vegetable. I suffered from stomach problems for the next two years, and even visited a gastroenterologist. But while everyone thought it was simply the stress of grad school, I'm fairly certain this is your body's natural reaction when you insist on stuffing a plant the size of a small cat into it every day.

It wasn't until I got to Austin, in 2007, that I began to seriously contemplate protein. "Hey, I wonder what it would be like if I ate a salad with tuna on it?" Or, "What if I put cottage cheese on top of this sweet potato?" (Which, if you're wondering, is actually really good. I realize it sounds bizarre.) I mean, I knew all those health magazines by heart. I heard the protein gospel. I was just unsure of what to do with food if you couldn't microwave it, or simply unwrap the package and eat it.

So, I sought out protein sources that required me to do neither.

I finally began eating like a normal person when I got married, and lived with a man who basically said to me: "Tolly, this is a POT. This is a BURNER. FOOD goes inside the POT. Now we're going to turn on THE BURNER."

Truly, I lacked kitchen instincts.

These days though, I can make all kinds of stuff! Food Network isn't calling anytime soon, but I can grill salmon, I can bake frittata, I even made buffalo meatballs a few weeks ago.

This is a very, very long prelude to my review of Snap Kitchen, a company here in Austin that kindly allowed my friend Breanna and I to sample out their services for three weeks. Pictured at the top is one of my favorite dishes of theirs, Ginger Chicken Stir Fry.

Breanna posted on Snap Kitchen recently, while we were both still in our three week "trial" period. It's over now, and I'm actually pretty sad about it. That's because I adored Snap Kitchen!

As Breanna wrote, the idea of this company is that, using fresh, local, organic-as-much-as-possible food from the farmer's market, meals are prepared with appropriate portions of fats, carbs, protein, etc. They have nutrition labels written on all the packages, so you when you enter the store, you just peruse the reach-in refrigerator and pick something out. Quick. Easy. A snap, if you will.

Now Reader as you've come to learn, the number of edible proteins regularly found in our refrigerator totals, oh, TWO. Me preparing a salad with something fancy like flank steak is a little bit like me going to the grocery store wearing Prada. It's an option, but an extremely unlikely option.

With Snap Kitchen, however, I ate flank steak A LOT. Ground turkey, stir-fried shrimp, more quinoa than I knew what to do with. And for me, this has been the biggest take-away lesson from Snap Kitchen: That you feel a little bit awesome when you eat that much protein. I went into this trial period not wanting to lose weight necessarily, but wanting to feel more energetic. I have this weird low blood sugar thing sometimes where I feel shaky at odd hours of the day, and I never experienced that while eating Snap meals. I know this sounds like sponsored-post talk, but I honestly felt marvelous?

Since we're doing a series on Snap Kitchen, and I'm going to interview the owner for the third and last post, I'll save the more explicitly-nutritional stuff for him. But if you're intrigued already and stop by the store, let me tell you what my favorite Snap meals were:

Banana Nut Pancakes (zomg.)

Housemade Buffalo Sausage and Peppers

Buffalo Meatballs 

Buffalo Quinoa Hash (are you seeing a pattern?)

Grilled Flank Steak Wraps

Ginger Glazed Salmon

Gluten Free Coconut Mini Cakes (don't let the "Gluten Free, womp womp!" label scare you. These are SOME OF THE MOST DELICIOUS THINGS I'VE EVER PUT IN MY MOUTH.)

I'd love to hear what other people thought of Snap Kitchen if you've tried it yet.

Also, with my man gone, and my Snap trial over, what are you cooking right now? I boiled eggs this morning, so that's a start, but what are your ideas?

Photo source of that hilarious masked woman.

Art and Buddhism.

So Ross has been gone for a little over a week now, and I'm going to be honest. It hasn't been easy.

Since we've done this before - the long-distance thing I mean - when I went away to grad school for two years, I thought it would be a breeze.

But as it turns out, that is not at all the case.

During my Buddhist book group last night, we talked about the concept of seeing. We're reading this book right now called Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen, and this whole issue of seeing - how we torment ourselves by misinterpreting what we're seeing, how things instantly click into place when we realize what it IS we're seeing - was illustrated by this image Hagen includes in his book. Can you figure out what it is?

I TOTALLY had to skip to the back of the book to get the answer. It drove me nuts while I held out.

Anyway, you've seen this image before (trust me), but no one in our group was able to get it at first glance - we all needed the hint! And then when we did see it, we were instantly more relaxed, more comfortable...a woman in our group even said, "oh thank God!" when it became clear to her.

I'm trying to liken it to my situation with Ross's absence, as pseudo-philosophical as that sounds. Like...I think I'm seeing how depressed I am when he's gone, when maybe I'm getting to see how awesome/supportive/helpfully distracting my friends are? Maybe I'm getting to see that I'm a lot more attached to him than I thought? (And is that a good or bad thing?)

Well, I apologize for holding you hostage in this post while I dribble emotions everywhere. To snap out of my funk, I spent part of my morning looking at these photos from the 5 x 7 art show that happened a few weeks ago at The Whitley. Aren't they rad? And - while not pictured - let me assure you that penises were in FULL effect at this show. I think I counted three penis portraits while I was there. And snickered at every one. Because I am a 12-year-old.

TONIGHT: "Mind of Adi" at Mohawk, starring The Frontier Brothers.

It occurred to me this morning that I have done far too little posting about Austin's own Adi Anand.

Oh Reader, are you familiar with Adi? If not, please correct that immediately.

Adi is one of the architects of Austin nightlife, along with friends we know and love, like Knuckle Rumbler and Ultra8201. He has a regular "Mind of Adi" residency post at the Mohawk, and writes for about a billion music outlets, both local and national. I follow his posts on Austinist, and simply by catching up on one or two, I immediately feel versed enough in indie bands to hang with my hipster music friends and not make a complete fool of myself.

"You guys I am TOTALLY digging that Kid Sister track with (insert obscure DJ/producer here)'s samples! Totally!"

Anyway, the thing I love most about Adi is this: He is a nice person.

Tonight, his "Mind of Adi" residency soldiers on at Mohawk, featuring the likes of The Frontier Brothers. Here's a little sample.


Ooh! Is fun! Makes me want to jump up and down. I like very much, do you?

Doors are at 6pm tonight. Maybe see you there!

Oh, and look for this guy. (Adi).

My stunning eHow.com debut.

Ok...you guys. I am dying.

So a few months ago, my buddy Rene and I made a series of instructional videos for eHow.com. One of their videographers came over to her little design studio, when it used to be located above Spiderhouse, and we shot these segments together.

Now do any of you have one of those friends who laughs at nothing? Giggles at inopportune moments? This is me pretty much ALL of the time, but for some reason, Rene and I were cracking each other UP while filming these. I think because we were deliberately being a little bit cheesy.

"Rene, can you show me how to design a dress?"

"Absolutely! Let's go!"

And, oh, the end result does not fail. As I sit here typing this post, I am giggling like a LUNATIC.

This video I've posted below is pretty straightforward/educational. But this video, however, sends me into total hysterics. What's going on with the editing at the beginning? Am I dancing?

Austin Eavesdropper in Rare Magazine!

Oh my gosh! You guys!!

I came across this just now while browsing on my girl Tiffany's blog, Austin Is Burning! I am totally thrilled!

Please excuse the self-promotional nature of this post, but, can I just tell you how touched I am to be included on this list?  It is part of Rare Magazine's annual "Rarest of Them All" issue, where readers vote on various "Best of" categories. I didn't even know when the poll was going on! But I guess people voted for me!!

If you cannot tell, I am on my period right now (sorry!) so my emotions are kind of, um, abundant. But I just want to say this:

The fact that this blog has readers is EXCITING ENOUGH to me. But the kinds of readers who say it is their favorite? That almost makes me cry a little bit. I always think I'm not doing enough. "I should create a Facebook page...I should make more videos...I should comb through all the archives of my stupid-looking early posts and re-format them or better yet delete them and hey what the hell is an RSS?" And trust me, I want to do/fix/learn all of those things!

But while I learn and improve, I so, so appreciate everyone who has stuck with me and found this blog enjoyable.  This is the most fulfilling hobby I have ever had. I have gotten to meet the coolest people through Austin Eavesdropper, I have had a forum to talk about my public obsession with this city, and I have opened up certain posts and read your comments before when I need to feel a little bit awesome again. (It's true.) I want to continue to make it better so that you love it even more, and if you ever have a suggestion or simply want to say "hi," please know that I do a little tap-dance whenever people write. tollymoseley@hotmail.com.

Wow. I'm kind of acting like I won an Academy Award here - I think I'll stop now. Before I do, have to say it, one more time:

thank you. i love you!

A post from GARY!: Happy Pride, Austin.

This post, lovelies, comes courtesy of Austin Eavesdropper's very own music editor GARY!

I hope you find his simple reflections on this song as touching as I did. GARY! and I were having a conversation earlier about the nature of love, and about shame. In our hip, ironic, post-everything world, it is things like Pride Week that remind me how good it feels to genuinely emote. And to say so - without qualification or apologetic quotation marks - when something moves you.

Here's GARY!:


This one goes out to all the gays, queers, lesbos, fags, drag queens, dykes, moes, and everyone out there that gets us and, more importantly, supports us.

I just stumbled onto the remix of an older Chemical Brothers track called “Saturate” that the Stanton Warriors reworked recently. Instead of converting the song into another breakbeat track, they actually included some samples of Martin Luther King quotes. I have no idea why, but the effect is simply astounding.

I gotta say that 50 years later, his words still resonate with anyone that has been witness to any kind of social injustice. And I can’t help getting a little emotional when I listen to this track, because as far as we have come, we still have so far to go.

The only thing I know is that his message is so strong and positive, that one can only hope that eventually everyone will come around and realize that hate has no place in humanity.

You can download the track here.

Happy Pride, Austin.

--Gary

“Remember we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters and not die apart as fools. And so for this to be done, what should we do next? Keep working. Keep struggling. And keep marching. And don’t you surrender.

We are doing something brand new here today. Trying to stop a war before it starts. Trying to slow down the strong to protect the innocent children. Don’t you give up, and don’t you surrender.

Your spirit and faith will be tested. The war machine will give us fierce opposition, but faith can move mountains. And YOU are the light of the world. It’s hope time. Its healing time. Give peace a chance.”

Avocado Margaritas at Curra's.

My friend Megan turned me onto this delightful beverage yesterday.  What's great about the Avocado Margarita at Curra's is: It tastes like a health drink.

That's Megan, gazing in wonder at the bounty before her.

In this picture, I am doing one of two things. A) Contemplating how delicious this drink is, and how it just might top El Chile's Chilango Margarita in my mind for best local cocktail, and B) how glad I am that I did not kill a little dog.  That's a long story but basically, I had met the tiniest, most adorable dog in the world moments earlier, and I almost seriously injured it because I was loving it so hard.  Like Lennie in Of Mice and Men and the rabbit.

It's Ok To Be Me (Even if I'm a Drag Queen)! - QueerBomb.

It's hard to write this post without getting gossipy.  Because there's an (awesome-sounding) party tonight that is, in fact, born out of a very real controversy. A controversy here in Austin.

So Austin Pride is this weekend, hosted by The Austin Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. It is a two-day event with some MONEY and some extremely well-selected entertainment (Mario Cantone, haaay!) behind it.  This is the 8th year of the festival, and may I just say that after living north of the Bay Area for two years in California, and losing my "Pride virginity" in Los Angeles of all places roughly four years ago with my gay besties, I was thrilled to move back to Austin and see that it HAD a Pride. My little Austin!

However, the official line from Austin Pride is that it is "family-friendly." I.e., no assless chaps. And the subversive, carnivalian, perhaps shocking forms of dress and behavior that come with an assless-chaps-embracing community.

The goal of Austin Pride - again, from organizers - is to be educational, to not alienate, to not scare anybody.

Which I can understand ... sort of. Ross and I were talking about this in the car the other day, and he said: "Well I see their point. They want to be taken seriously."

But that's just the thing. The standards that define "serious" and "silly" in our culture are shaped by heteronormative rules.

(And friends, at SF and Los Angeles Pride, you witness those rules being gleefully broken.  Even though I'm not gay, or a man - though I've sometimes wondered if I might be a sweet gay man inside a woman's body? - that wild anything-goes spirit gives way to some exhilarating celebration. I enjoyed the longest dance party of my entire life at a Paramount Studios back lot that year in LA, a vast sea of shirtless and sweaty pectorals, with me, blond Tolly, happily bobbing away in the center of it.)

"But I know several serious drag queens!" I retorted, to Ross. Which is a lie. All the drag queens I've ever seen, in my life, are hysterical broads. They want to make you laugh.

You're laughing because you begin to see what a made-up thing gender is, where hormones and nature-bequeathed DNA strands stop, and social constructions take over.

Anyway, without getting too off-topic here, a group of queer activists in Austin have organized a "counter-Pride" march and party for tonight: QueerBomb. The idea is to celebrate queer culture in ALL its diverse, eye-popping glory, which I think is AWESOME. 

For context, I give you some Pride background by the Austin Chronicle's Kate Getty, in an analysis she wrote back in 2008:

"The concept of Pride originated out of a riot in Greenwich Village, New York City, June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn to be exact, a speakeasy gay bar. After the events of that fateful evening, Stonewall became known as the place where, for the first time, gays, lesbians, drag queens, and those deemed "different" stood up to the oppression they regularly faced. In 1969, even the simple acts of same-sex dancing and canoodling were enough for search, seizure, and a nice beat-down. Police would raid gay bars on the regular. Queers were sick and disgusting and an easy target. But on that June night, after a day of laying beloved icon Judy Garland to rest, those angry Stonewall patrons pushed back in revolt. The event is cited as the beginning of the modern American LGBT movement. In honor of Stonewall, most communities celebrate Gay Pride in June with locally sanctioned celebrations without the threat of being beaten bloody, thrown into jail or a mental institution, or just plain killed dead."

Kate Messer's also has an article in this week's Chronicle, about QueerBomb, here.

Republic of Austin's Chris Apollo Lynn's insightful, personal post about QueerBomb is here.

And now, I give you tonight's QueerBomb details!:

MARCH: Friday, June 4, 8:30pm (details below)

PARTY: Immediately following march at Independent Studios (501 Studios)

FEATURING: Little Stolen Moments, Christeene, Kings & Things, DJ Jay Jay Booya and DJ Chelsea Starr (of Hot Pants Party fame)

FREE

The march will leave from The Independent and march down 6th, looping back up 7th for the party. Outrageous, gender-bending dress is encouraged.

In the words of one of my buddies (and a QueerBomb ring leader), "let's all look like Xanadu vomited on Sid & Nancy, mmkay?"

(PS: What are YOUR thoughts on Austin Pride and QueerBomb? Would love to hear how you all feel about any and all of it, no matter where you stand. Truly I am trying to take a nuanced viewpoint myself).