Our friend and amazing photographer, Anna White, just sent us a bunch of outtakes from a photo shoot she did a couple of months ago.
Here are a few, for more click HERE!
Good times!
-Mushpa
Category Archives: Queer
New Orleans Living
What Mushpa y Mensa went for a week of fantastical fun, a side of debauchery and a dash of magic to the “The Big Easy”? Why, yes we did. I am not sure if you all know but this month of October is Mensa’s Birthday Month!!! :] Congratulations Mensa! For the week of her actual Birthday we spent it running around New Orleans having an amazing time. We forget that there is a world outside of New York City where people are nice and say things just to be nice.
Thanks New Orleans for making the celebration, well, New Orleans style. Go big or go home! Check out some of our fantastical action shots HERE.
Happy Birthday Mensa!!!
<3
-Mushpa
Go Green, Live Rich
Mensa and I are blessed by the Universe daily. It occurs so often we sometimes take for granted all the little miracles happening all around us. We were talking about it last night, about how we need to acknowledge them, recognize them for what they are, validate and appreciate. :]
For example, I was thinking the other day after picking up some eucalyptus, rosemary and tea tree oil* for Mensa’s allergies that we should start doing some aromatherapy. It reminded me when I was the body care buyer for Whole Foods and was in charge of buying essential oils. The reps gave me oils to sample and some really nice ceramic aromatherapy candle essential oil burners. I have no idea where they have gone over the years, but I thought we should get one and get back into it. The next thing you know I get a text from Mensa with this photo below.
She had found this ceramic aromatherapy essential oil burner on the sidewalk, clean and in prefect condition. The funny thing was I had never even mentioned that I was thinking about this. Little things you see.
Then we were walking around Brooklyn the other day and found some books. One of them was, “Go Green, Live Rich“, by David Bach. Green, check, rich, not yet but lets see what he has to say. Rewards for doing the right thing sounds good to us. :]
The first chapter is about measuring your carbon footprint. The site David Bach recommends is www.earthlab.com/createprofile. I went and set up a profile and answered their questions. My results are below:
It’s nice if you set up a profile because then you may calculate your ECP (Earth Conservation Plan) and see what the averages are in your area, state and country. I’m super competitive. :]
Lastly, you may set up pledges to do more amazing things in your life. You start out checking what you already are doing and then from there grow.
Go hard or go home.
– Mushpa
*These particular oils are good at clearing you up. You can include myrtle oil but it costs a fortune, 30 something dollars for 15ml, so we skipped that one. Plus, you can only find it online, even in NYC. As a quick aside this is what you do to help with allergies, fill a saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, take the pan off the stove top and add 3 drops eucalyptus essential oil, 3 drops rosemary essential oil, 2 drops myrtle essential oil and 2 drops tea tree essential oil. Tent a bath towel over the saucepan (keep your face just far enough away from the steam to avoid burns) and inhale deeply for 5 to 10 minutes. Repeat 1 to 3 times a day.
The 100th Post of La Mushpa y La Mensa
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…
…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).
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!
We also made our fantastical Mushpa y Mensa cloth sign out of old pillow cases and fabric pieces. See below…
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”.
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
“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.“
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!
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.
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
Go Dance
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LhCd1W2V0Q&w=420&h=315]
Happy Sunday!!!
We’ve gotta dance and be in love…
– Mushpa
Underneath It All
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvuVFHTvdaY]
I do Babe. I really do. :]
– Mushpa