All posts by tdaait

Beautiful

To celebrate Mushpa y Mensa’s new Vimeo amazingness, which is sooo much fresher than YouTube (we said it), we are posting this fantabulous montage. It is a compilation of final shots from multitudes of films to the song, “Gathering Storm” by Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

It is all about jumping, moving, living, breathing. There is an amazing world out their waiting for your journey.

– Mushpa y Mensa

Here is the breakdown of the shots and what each grouping is about. So cool.

PART I: Awakening/Creation

00:02 – Tree of Life
00:13 – Vanilla Sky
00:16 – Immortals
00:18 – 12 Monkeys
00:21 – McCabe & Mrs. Miller
00:24 – Julia’s Eyes
00:33 – Solaris
00:39 – 2010: The Year We Make Contact
00:42 – THX-1138

PART II: The Natural World

00:47 – Badlands
00:51 – Up In The Air
00:56 – Samsara
01:00 – The Sea Inside

PART III: Youth

01:07 – The World According To Garp
01:11 – Billy Elliott
01:15 – This Is England
01:17 – La Dolce Vita
01:19 – Au Revoir Les Enfants
01:23 – Dead Poets Society
01:26 – A Serious Man
01:30 – L.I.E
01:34 – Gasman
01:38 – The Sweet Hereafter

PART IV: Love

01:44 – Bram Stoker’s Dracula
01:50 – Moonstruck
01:56 – Beginners
02:03 – Rushmore
02:08 – Garden State
02:14 – Rocky
02:20 – Oldboy
02:25 – Departures
02:30 – Amelie
02:33 – Tron Legacy

PART V: The Journey

02:38 – The Graduate
02:43 – Good Will Hunting
02:47 – Boys Don’t Cry
02:50 – Tron
02:55 – The Quiet Earth
02:59 – The Searchers
03:03 – Ghost
03:06 – Cube

PART VI: Triumph

03:12 – Beasts of the Southern Wild
03:19 – Chariots of Fire
03:23 – L’Auberge Espagnole
03:26 – Amadeus
03:30 – The Red Balloon
03:36 – Frida
03:39 – Adaptation

PART VII: Celebration

03:44 – My Left Foot
03:46 – Fearless
03:48 – City Of Angels
03:50 – The Breakfast Club
03:52 – Rescue Dawn
03:56 – Rudy
03:58 – The Hurricane

PART VIII: Transcendence

04:01 – The Wrestler
04:03 – Thelma & Louise
04:06 – The Right Stuff
04:08 – Love (by Angels & Airwaves)
04:12 – Close Encounters of the Third Kind
04:14 – Star Trek: The Motion Picture
04:15 – Superman
04:17 – E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial
04:21 – Starman
04:24 – Naqoyqatsi
04:26 – Akira
04:28 – Stargate
04:34 – 2001: A Space Odyssey
04:44 – The Last Temptation of Christ

The End of Summer

Ocean SoleWell my friends it is the end of the Summer of 2013. I hope for all it was a fantabulous one! I know for us here at Mushpa y Mensa it was inspiring and wondrous! This entry goes out to those who are looking to do something creative with their old flip-flops of summers past. Check out this video!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzHUwmrOpFE&w=560&h=315]

Thanks Ocean Sole!

– Mushpa

The 100th Post of La Mushpa y La Mensa

Jefe Helping
Jefe Helping…

Mensa and I are always talking about consuming less, needing less, getting rid of excess. Things that anchor us to one place be it literally, monetarily or mentally.

We do little things like take our worn out old clothes, wash them and then cut them into a million little pieces to stuff our Plush Pets…

Plush Rabbit
Pierre, the Lavender, Recycled Fabric, Eco-Felt Plush Pet

…or make some deeelicious seitan from scratch, while whipping up some organic, coconut oil based mayo… I personally am extremely gifted in mixing alcohol with almost any “leftover” liquids (frozen or flowing) and it tasting like nothing you’ve ever had before (in a very good way).

Drinks on Me
Cocktails Anyone?

Some bigger things are Mensa creating an amazing backpack out of an old bag, after her million year old bag disintegrated right before our very eyes. The very backpack we packed with soy milk (something we have talked about learning how to make since we consume so much of it…stay tuned) and such this weekend after working in the co-op (don’t ask). We biked over 8 miles and this revitalized beauty made it through like a champion!

The Bag
The Bag That Rocks

We also made our fantastical Mushpa y Mensa cloth sign out of old pillow cases and fabric pieces. See below…

Mushpa y Mensa Sign
Mushpa y Mensa – Arts Not Crafts!

We are making it happen more and more every day, but we need a challenge….something to keep our momentum soaring towards our destiny. What we came up with is…well let’s start slow, why don’t you get to know us first…see what we mean when we say “from scratch”.

From the Inside
La Mensa’s Robot Girl With a Twist

We are here for a reason, all of us. Let’s make some stuff together, see what we think, then figure something out. Let’s connect as they say, in a good way.

This is our 100th blog post and the start of something gargantuous! :] Life, as La Mensa would say is, “pretty bad-ass.”

– La Mushpa

Reverie

Michelle O’Sullivan reads ‘The Orchard’ from her first collection The Blue End of Stars.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqGkfkv1V3U&w=420&h=315]

Yesterday I decided to clean out my e-mails, including my drafts and in doing so I came across this poem, “Reverie” my friend Michelle O’Sullivan, an amazing poet, wrote. This poem says so much to me as an artist. It inspires me. It’s beauty undefined.

Reverie

The muse doesn’t tempt or ask,
she whispers lightly as she opens
the door, touches your earlobe,
the soft curve of your neck.

She doesn’t beckon or whinge
but takes your hand in hers,
sings low at the side of your face.
Everything, she says, bring everything.

– Michelle O’Sullivan

Michelle was one of the first people I ever let in my life for real, and we may live on other ends of the world now, I in New York City and her on the west coast of Ireland, but I have never lost my connection to her. She is my soul sister, before this life and in this life to the next. I am so proud of her publishing her poems in her new book, The Blue End of Stars, but not surprised.

I love you my friend, through thick and thin, always.

– Mushpa aka Cara

stevie_christine“When you grow up as a girl, the world tells you the things that you are supposed to be: emotional, loving, beautiful, wanted. And then when you are those things, the world tells you they are inferior: illogical, weak, vain, empty. The world teaches you that the way you exist in it is disgusting — you watch boys cringe backward in your dorm room when you talk about your period, blue water pretending to be blood in a maxi pad commercial. It is little things, and it is constant. In a food court in a mall, after you go to the gynecologist for the first time, you and your friend talk about how much it hurts, and over her shoulder you watch two boys your age turn to look at you and wrinkle their noses: the reality of your life is impolite to talk about. The world says that you don’t have a right to the space you occupy, any place with men in it is not yours, you and your body exist only as far as what men want to do with it. At fifteen, you find fifteen-year-old boys you have never met somehow believe you should bend your body to their will. At almost thirty, you find fifteen-year-old boys you have never met still somehow believe you should bend your body to their will. They are children. They are children.

Stevie Nicks

A little Stevie knowledge never hurt anyone.

— Mushpa

First Flickr and Now This?!?!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDiAD9ezW48&w=420&h=315]

Mensa getting ready for the Apocalypse with a bull’s eye, not bad. :]

Yes my friends we are kicking up our social media game lately. Here is Mushpa y Mensa’s new fun filled YouTube Video Channel where we showcase our how-to videos, La Mushpa y La Mensa having fun, going on amazing adventures, mini documentaries, hilarious hijinks, and whatever else we are moved by.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAlzEqUgYRI&w=420&h=315]

18 meters back I am the only woman to make the target and 1 out of 3 to hit it at all. :] I’m just sayin’ ;-] Apocalypse here I come!

For your entertainment there will also be a million playlists of sweet jams, serious segments, comedy, save-the-world videos among many others. Be ready for the Mushpa y Mensa visual art experience.

Much love,

Mushpa

Flick This!

Ladybug
Ladybug Love

We here at Mushpa y Mensa had an Instagram (which is owned by Facebook), but decided like Facebook, it is a tantamount waste of time and a way for a large group of people to convince others that their lives are more exciting, interesting, happier than going out and making it true. Not only that, but people should be aware how Facebook makes most of their money is by selling your information. Not through ad clicks and charging people with business pages money to have their posts reach ALL their “Fans” and “Friends” as you may believe.  Listen, I want to live my life not spend hours stalking others’ make believe life or promoting my own better than reality life. Been there, done that and every time it left a bad taste in my mouth. Thanks to Mensa pushing us we have been Facebook free for almost a year now and I have yet to miss it. Not surprisingly, I accomplish much more without it, so to my friends who tell me things like, “You would have known I was out of town if you had a Facebook“. I say call me, email me, hangout with me as I am never going back!

Next, people are always asking us if we have a Facebook so they can “Like” the Mushpa y Mensa page or link back to us. When we answer no they seemed shocked like for sure we will never be a success without Facebook or it will be soooo much harder. I find that to be a misnomer. We have already had movie stars, a big time movie producer and a composer of modern day operas among multitudes of other amazing human beings love and buy our art in the last 8 months since opening. We believe in ourselves, our art and the idea that if you do the work and right thing the Universe will always reward you and thus far it is working. I have asked other people with businesses and Facebook pages how much business it has generated for them and the results are nil to nothing. That says more to me. Honestly, you can’t use something bad to achieve good, that’s just the way it is.

Let me stop and get to the real point of this blog entry. Maria Emilia and I want to be able to take pictures and post them somewhere instantly, link back to them in our blog posts and document our journey through photographs of the making of Mushpa y Mensa, without using Instagram, so how can we? Flickr!!! Yes, ladies and gentleman we have a Flickr account now full of our fantastical photos!!! :] There are photos of our amazingly unique organic tees, of the fleas, fairs and markets we’ve worked, photo shoots, crafting, us and whatever else our little hearts desire. Go look at it and tell us what you think? I am so excited!

Never forget in life there is always a workaround, so don’t get stuck.

Such Love

With so much love!!!

– Mushpa

Love is Love

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlVBg7_08n0]

I can’t change, nor do I want to. Love is love, strangers may judge, but family should stand by each other in times of struggle and change, not just for the times when life seems easy, but for those times when we need them most.

Label me as I do and as you label others. Just as we have pride in being a Latina, Black, Brown, Greek, Jew, left-handed can we not have pride in who we love. I am truly blessed to love who I love and trust me I am loved by the universe as well. I see it everyday.

My love keeps me warm.

I am free.

-Mushpa