Do you have an Austin blog?

Hey people - before I forget:

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Totally optional of course!!

So in about a month and a half, this blog will officially be one year old. Isn't that crazy? I usually never keep up with hobbies! Also - big step - I ordered "That Austin Girl" business cards the other day!!! They are on their way right now, and I am super-pumped. I'm always messily scribbling down my URL for people on old receipts or bar napkins or whatever, which is just silly.

ANYWAY. The reason I bring all this up is because I'm really interested in reading all the other local blogs out there. (PS: Soon, I'm going to do a post on OTHER, non-Austin-based blogs I'd like to collect, so if you blog from a different city entirely, sit tight). I read about 4-5 ATX blogs daily, but I know there has to be a ton more out there - witty, wonderful things that lurk completely beneath my short-range radar.

So Austin bloggers: Where you at?

Here are the instructions:

1. If you are an Austin blogger, leave a comment about your blog to this post. (EVEN if you know I read yours already.)

2. Tell me what it's about! Music / food / your life / etc. It doesn't matter if your blog is ABOUT Austin or not, I'm just interested in blogging Austinites.

3. I will collect blogs and URL's and post them all here.

Easy-peasy, right!

Also: Our results from the DEAL BREAKERS poll are in. Here is the final tally:

WINNER, most offensive Deal Breaker: Constant Bluetooth usage
2nd place: Non-ironic visor wearing
3rd: Precious Moments
4th place: Brand names on attire
5th place: Sunglasses indoors

People, let it be known that you do NOT like the Bluetooth in excess. In fact, "constant Bluetooth usage" got nearly double the votes (12!) of the second place winner! (non-ironic visor wearing!) Tiffanie Lanmon, who inspired this post, had predicted (as had I) that Precious Moments would dominate. No no no. As she put it, "yes, the porcelain figurines can stay just as long as you give the 'tooth a rest. Austin just wants some quality time, baby...even if it means sharing it with a doe eyed figurine."

Well-put.

Finally, to cap off the weekend: Here are some pics from last night. Car Stereo Wars tore it up at Beauty Bar!

In this last pic, my friend Sissel is looking quite fierce here.....while I am sporting some crazy eyes.

Don't forget to drop off your URL, Austin bloggers!

Trade your booty-shakin' for some book-learnin': Perfumes - The Guide

Ok, so here's a yummy little book I read recently. As much as we would all like to be creatures of the night, dance-dance-dancing 'til morn-morn-morning, it's just not always possible.

Henceforth, I give you:


Do you guys like perfume as much as I do? I don't wear it all the time, but I do like to wear it when I go out. It's such a silly, frivolous pleasure.

Anyway, here's an excerpt from my book review of Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. (And you can read the full review at Lit Mob.) Enjoy!

Perfumes: The Guide is a dishy little affair. Over a number of years, biophysicist Luca Turin and perfume aficionado Tania Sanchez smelled nearly fifteen hundred fragrances, and the two have recorded their findings in this alphabetical catalog. Sound girly? It sort of is. But even men (well, the men I like most) will discover bits of advice worth holding onto, and pleasures rugged enough (such as Himalayan musk deer, civet cats, and ambergris, a substance that great big sperm whales cough up into the ocean—all providers of fragrance you may be wearing right now, gentlemen). Ladies, if you want to drive men wild, you are advised to rub yourselves with bacon. When you are ready to discuss the more sophisticated and finer points of fragrance, Perfumes is ready.

The book starts out with a collection of essays from Turin and Sanchez designed to get our heads in the game, sketching out the first criticism of perfume that I think I’ve ever seen. Of the perfume industry itself, they are witty and illuminating: perfume companies “change formulas without telling customers,” “lie about contents,” and “shill shameless copies of great ideas and hope no one notices.” Scandal. Also, they dismiss the idea that perfume is a “science” supported by pheromone mumbo jumbo: “Tocade is not a better fragrance than Dior Addict because it better approximates the mix of odors released by a fertile female. Tocade is better than Dior Addict because it’s more beautiful.” Turin and Sanchez make it clear that perfume is an aesthetic form and should be treated as such, and the first forty-nine pages reveal to us the tools by which we should evaluate the art, with words like “drydown” and “top note.” Finally, oenophiles don’t have a monopoly on connoisseur lingo.

What follows is Turin and Sanchez’ staggering list of fragrance reviews, of which there are two broad highlights: a) colorful raves of their favorite, five-star picks (of Gucci’s “Rush:” “Announces its sloppy good mood for miles about, and woe to anyone in the vicinity who planned on using his sense of smell for anything else”) and b) the oh-no-you-didn’t damning of the un-worthiest scents (of Escada’s “Sentiment pour Homme:” “To choose this as your personal fragrance could only be a cry for help.”)

Speaking of perfume....would you like to do a poll on favorite scents to smell on people??

Who's your favorite claymation figure??

So, as you all may or may not know, there are frequently little polls running on That Austin Girl ranging in subject from "Favorite Cocktail" to "Favorite Toys" to whatever else I'm sort of in the mood to talk about. They frequently do not have anything to do with Austin, Tx really, except for the fact that it is where I am physically located. (On a sidenote: I think my blog is having an identity crisis. Sometimes think I should make it more local or more topic-oriented, like, "Hi welcome to That Austin Girl, where we talk about BANDS." But instead it's quite random, and it ends up being about whatever, and I hope that's ok with everyone? At any rate, I've decided I really like these little polls so we're going to keep doing those). ANYWAY.

The most recent poll we did was "Favorite Superhero," and Batman completely crushed his competition (which I think we can chalk up to his summer 2008 trendiness, cheesy Darth Vader growly voice and all). But now, I'm throwing out a much, much tougher question.

Who is your favorite claymation figure?

Are you ready? Are you so excited?! Let's meet our contestants:

Wallace & Gromit

Gumby

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER (my vote!!)

Penny from "Pee Wee's Playhouse"

The California Raisins

For me personally, I don't know if anyone can dethrone Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, although Gumby is a close second. (PS - How did a blob of green clay that resembles the letter "K" get his own show on NBC? What? Ditto on a Motown band comprised of raisins??) I remember watching the Rudolph the Reindeer Christmas special on TV for the first time when I was 5 or 6, and thinking it was, like, an action-adventure thriller. I also remember thinking it would be so cool if I had a light for a nose.

So I'm going to leave this post up a few days in case you want to leave a comment explaining your selection. Why, for example, is Penny (who looks like she is about to hurl in this picture?) more awesome than Rudolph. (Which is completely hypothetical by the way, since Penny is clearly NOT as awesome as Rudolph).

Readers, you have the floor: Who is your fave clay character? And how did you first encounter them?

Punk My Little Ponies + Museum of Ephemerata

So in honor of the Favorite Toy poll that we ran here at That Austin Girl last week - and then I promise I'll let it go - we had to talk about these special new edition My Little Ponies.

To celebrate My Little Pony's 25th year anniversary, Hasbro is having celebrities decorate their own My Little Ponies, auctioning them off, and donating the proceeds to sick children. Isn't that great? (Boo-ya, Legos people!!) Even more great, though, are some of the participating celebs...which are a little more random than you may think.

Now, asking celebs to do anything is always a gamble, so I should start out by saying how wonderful it is that they are even participating. That being said, John Stamos (i.e. Uncle Jessie), Kimora Lee Simmons, and Amy Grant (?) all have decorated My Little Ponies that are making me giggle. Kimora Lee's in particular, which could totally kick John Stamos' pony's ass. Check out the full gallery here.

Speaking of galleries, celebrities, and toys. Have any of you all been to the Museum of Ephemerata? It used to be in this fabulous little house on 34th St., but now it has moved to the east side (of course!) and has set up shop at 1808 Singleton Avenue. I haven't been there in years, but R. and I went once when we were first dating. The visit is a little fuzzy, but I do remember it was the place where I first discovered kombucha (they make their own, and host workshops), learned how to play a Jew's harp, and saw a vial filled with somebody's sleep. As in, the stuff from the corner of your eye. Which is a little disgusting, but also incredible (once you get past the disgusting).

If you haven't heard of it before, the Museum is basically a little collection of curios and oddities that date back to 1921, which are owned and proudly displayed by Jen Hirt and Scott Webel. The top attractions? A lock of hair from the head of Elvis (word), a two-headed ant, and - if memory serves - a stuffed jackalope. (Which looks like this and this. I know, the realism is stunning).

Anyway, all this talk about toys reminded me of the Museum of Ephemerata, which is getting kind of famous these days! The Chicago Sun-Times included them in an Austin travel story earlier this year (writer Lori Rackl also took note of the sleep), and I remember seeing the museum's two curators on the cover of the Chronicle this summer. So, Scott and Jen: Any plans for a "toys" exhibition in the future? (And might I suggest a rare Kimora Lee Simmons edition My Little Pony if so?)

Lastly: New poll everyone. Favorite (mainstream) superhero - Spidey, Aqua Man, or someone else entirely? Go vote at the top right-hand corner of the screen.

Let's talk about toys.

Ok, seriously everyone - Legos?!

If you're new to That Austin Girl, we've been taking a poll this week on everyone's favorite childhood toy. And so far, LEGOS are in the lead. In fact, they've garnered almost 50% of the total vote.

Even more shocking? Teddy Ruxpin, the jumper-suit-wearing talking bear, has 0 votes!! If he heard that guys...his jaw would drop.

(Not that I blame anyone. Teddy frankly scared me a little bit as a child. Kids these days are pretty used to interactive toys, I think, but back then I wanted no part of a stuffed animal who just up and talked. One time my friend Hayden took the Teddy Ruxpin tapes out of that little player in his back, and put his dad's Steppenwolf tape in instead, and I swear to God it was like the exorcist.)

Anyway, not to be a judgmental Judy or anything, but I never saw the appeal in Legos as a kid! Hayden (same dude) invited me over one time, and was like, all pumped that he had just finished putting together the Lego Castle. He set it out on his bed, and we looked at it for a minute, and then as soon as I tried to move the Lego people around I broke the movable drawbridge. That kind of pissed Hayden off.

So I get how the end creation of a big Lego project can be neat (until a stupid girl comes along and breaks it), and I think you must have a lot of patience to complete one. I mean, check this out!




It's a New York, made out of Legos! That's pretty rad, I have to admit.

But anyway, as a kid, and even now as an adult, Legos are just like....yay....something got built. Product = cool, process = kinda boring. Whereas with My Little Ponies or especially Barbies (I really should have included Barbies in this poll) there was a back story, relationships, scandal.

My other friend besides Hayden, Jeannie Kenmotsu (never "Jeannie," always "Jeannie Kenmotsu," because it was so exciting to say!) played Barbies with me, and we used to put Ken and Barbie on top of each other and then walk out of the room. We'd then walk back in and "catch" them making out.

"Barbie!!!!"

"KEN!!!"

"You guys were kissing and we saw you."

Barbie and Ken were totally busted, and they always remained speechless. Sometimes Barbie would be in various states of undress, and then she really, and I mean really, got in trouble - Jeannie Kenmotsu could give a fierce tongue-lashing when she wanted to, and she had a zero-tolerance policy for Barbie taking off her clothes.

So, Legos people: Given the regular drama of a Barbie/Ken love tryst, or a fantasy world of colorful horses with glittery manes complete with miniature plastic hairbrush (i.e. My Little Ponies)....How can little snap-together building blocks possibly compete??