Really Good Highlights of the week! Get ready to Google

This is Erin Markey, whom you NEED to see on Sister Spit this month.


Hi everyone-
I write to you right before bed, so I haven't time to do the standard, very accepted action of linking to things in this post, so get your googling hand ready to look up anything I talk about. Very olde tyme.

Okay, highlights of this week:

I had Beth Pickens (my potential Amazing Race partner, of SF Food Adventure Club & RADAR Productions fame)
and Chris Vargas (of Falling In Love With Chris & Greg) on my podcast.
We taped it in my dining room and got into an argument while answering advice questions on tape.
I hope that shows the producers of the Race our potential for drama.
Anyway, that episode is "in the can", and still in "post", and will come out...
I don't know, SOON. I will tell you when it's out and you can download it from iTunes.com.


I read with Sister Spit,
which included DOROTHY ALLISON.
What an honor!
Also on the bill were Michelle Tea (But Of Course!), Brontez Purnell, Erin Markey, Kit Yan, and Cassie J. Sneider (who loaded me up with her pug-centric publications as they left).
Look up all of those people, you will be glad.
Sister Spit is still on the road, but now with Justin Vivian Bond instead of Dorothy.

THEN I went to the Bridgetown Comedy Festival, where they lashed a green plastic bracelet to my wrist so I could see as many shows as I wanted in a 72 hour time period.
I saw homosexual dreamboat & impression-wizard JAMES ADOMIAN, the magical and so touching MARIA BAMFORD, Brett Gelman (of iBrain fame), Janeane Garofalo, and Kevin Allison.
I don't know what to say about that except that I sat in theaters all weekend with strangers whom I have never seen before and may never see again (comedy crowds are very foreign to me), and I also saw many many struggling white guy comedians as I waited for the headliners I came to see, including a guy who played an acoustic guitar and sang a song about how his wife has a great body but an ugly face. COMEDY! Sigh.

This is what I need to tell you:
I WON AN AWARD.
I don't win awards! The last thing I won was the honor of being voted "Miss Specs Appeal" by Robyn Chapman at Hey Four Eyes Zine ,
and I've been toting that around for six years!
It was time for something new.
I won the 2012 Artist of the Year Sunburst Award.
It is an award for my work as a Teaching Artist, given out by Young Audiences.
I get to go to a luncheon with the mayor.
I am honored and also thrilled.
An award!

Okay, I think that's all for now.

I'll be at Stumptown at the end of the month, tabling with Tugboat Press & Carrie McNinch. If they give me any kind of physical manifestation of the Sunburst award I'll be wearing it around my neck for you to see.

TAKE CARE,

n.g.

Terrarium Fever, Amazing Race, Sister Spit & More

Hello!
1. I made a terrarium. I went to a terrarium-making birthday party for a friend and came home with my very own fishbowl full of flora, complete with miniature house and mushroom. I can now space out and stare at the terrarium's landscape every morning instead of just staring at the cereal box.



How about a close up?



We've got some Irish Moss in there, and a little moss blob to the left, in the back yard of the ceramic house.

The terrarium is made of a fishbowl, some rocks, charcoal bits, dirt, more rocks, and tiny hand selected plants. I am obsessed! My friend Jenny is a terrarium expert and sometimes will even sell you one already made.
Easy!


2. I finished this pet portrait of a lovely dog named Restaurant last week, and had it resined (as always) with the ladies at Robot Candy.

Thanks to hand model Katy Davidson.

Tiz the last portrait I'll finish before completing my book! (knockonwoodknockonwoodknockonwood)

3. CONFIDENTIAL TO WATCHERS OF THE AMAZING RACE:
Did you see the Amazing Race this week? It was brutal and amazing that the "Dating Goths" U-turned the people right behind them: The vicious cheerleaders! Jaime and Cara could be so nasty, I was of course glad to see them go, BUT I found out that the Goths'd had 11 (ELEVEN) hours to get from the pit stop to the mandatory flight in China, and their fellow race-mates were miffed that they were given only a 30 minute penalty for missing a mandatory flight. What do you think?
Also, what's with the "you're still racing" pit stops? Are these in place so the producers can keep favorite teams racing even when they come in last? I'm so confused.

4. NEW Advice Column Up (for adults only), covering questions about placenta etiquette, cougars, radiation and more.

5. I'm reading with Sister Spit on Monday! Also, I'm reading at SmallPressPalooza on Monday! Two shows in one day. Different things at each show. Please come out! Monday March 28th. SmallPressPalooza is at 6 at Powells, Sister Spit is at 8 at Holocene.



6. A little spotlight for you on some of the people on the Sister Spit (/Mister Spit) train coming to Portland:
Amos Mac and Mari Naomi


Amos Mac is a photographer and co-founder of the trans male quarterly magazine Original Plumbing (OP to you).

He does brilliant portraits and author photos, and took this photo of me a couple of years ago as part of The Creamcicle Project for our friend Rhiannon Argo, in which I look much more dissatisfied than I do in real life.
......Right?



MariNaomi is an artist from San Francisco who has just released a book called Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume Ages 0-22, and has been keeping a fantastic comic tour diary here.


They will be joined by Michelle Tea, Ali Liebegott, Myriam Gurba, Kirk Read, Blake Nelson, and special guests Matilda Bickers and Chelsea Starr.

Get tickets for Sister Spit here.

Over and Out.
Good Day.

p.s. Wishbone got ten (10!) teeth removed exactly two weeks ago. Way to go, Wishbone!

Nicole's Dress | Sister Spit.mov

New Advice Post

New Advice Video is Up!

FOR ADULTS ONLY

A video from our live advice stage show at the Bedlam Theatre in Minneapolis, featuring special guest Leo Plass can be found HERE.