Tag Archives: quote

Mushpa y Mensa Super Summer Update

Hello Mushpa y Mensa Super Fans!

Yes, you see right, it’s Mushpa y Mensa’s Super Summer update, after a few months of silence. We are happy to say that in the last three months, Mushpa y Mensa have begun their “Gypsy Market Life”. Already, on this journey, we have met quite a few amazing people, like the folks at Seaglass Salvage Market, Brooklyn Arts Center, Beacon House Inn, and Satellite Lounge to name a few. We have also danced and tasted many sweet wines at the Duplin Winery’s Main Squeeze Music and Wine Festival, as well as met dozens of new, fun people at the annual Azalea and Strawberry Festivals in North Carolina. ;] We even partnered up with Wilmington’s Earth Day Alliance and enjoyed a wonderful Earth Day Celebration at Hugh MaCrae Park.

It’s been surreal so far.

It’s amazing what faith, love, encouragement, and a little help from our friends can do. In terms of our little cottage industry, we are, as you say, busting a hump. We are constantly checking ourselves on how we can make things better from our art, to our business, to our life.

We have actually just updated the “Photos of Our Peeps” page on Mushpa y Mensa’s site. We added a photo uploading tool, so you can upload pictures of you in our organic tees, wearing our amazing jewelry, hugging our lavender filled plush pets, or even just keeping your hands cool with one of our coffee cozies. :]

And in terms of our Art? Well we keep on bringing to life tons of ideas in our head. For example, we recently created 3.5 new shirt designs. A cool Octopus Olivia with an Anchor Tattoo on her forehead,as well as R6: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Replenish, Reflect, Reimagine inspired by Earth Day.

We also have new organic Pima cotton relaxed fit tops that are flying out of the truck. Here is an example of the Pima tops with one of our new designs, Argema Mittrei, a female moth. Lastly, we spruced up Robot Girl and added a cute heart. All these designs we print for the ladies, the gents, and of course the smallest people around.

Mushpa y Mensa have also been focusing on custom shirts that have been selling off Maya so fast we don’t even have time to list them on our Etsy shop!

Spread the art, spread the love.

A few questions answered…

Where can I find the Art Truck?

Follow us on Twitter @mushpamensa. We are constantly posting when and where we will be. There is also an events page on our site, www.mushpaymensa.com/events we keep updated, but Twitter is best for the most up to date information.

We are doing some art shows, markets and fleas, but are hunting to find good spots to park around town. We are partnering up with cool people like the folks at the Beacon House Inn on Carolina Beach and Satellite Bar and Lounge in Wilmington.

And for all the natives and people in the know, since we are new in town, feel free to hit us up at info@mushpamensa.com or our contact page with any ideas where to park, festivals to do or whether you’d like us to rock a party or event with you!

Are you going on the road anytime soon?

We want to explore the grounds of NC and the surrounding area, so we will keep the max to weekend trips. But worry not, we will definitely be making it into the mid-west and west-coast! Maybe even an occasional trip to NYC sooner than you think!

If you have any questions about anything, make sure to ask! We love to hear from you all.

Until the next super exciting Mushpa y Mensa’s and Maya, Magical Mobile Art Machine update we say good day!

With lots of love,

               Cara and Maria Emilia

                                                             a.k.a.

Maya’s Magical Zine

Mushpa y Mensa
Hello Super Mushpa y Mensa Fans! We know it has been killing you waiting for our next post. Well here it is Maya’s Makeover Zine!!! We will not go on and on about our amazing zine as it is pretty self explanatory, but here is what Maya’s zine includes:

 

  • Our truck’s full makeover archive with before & after pictures of the project.
  • Mushpa y Mensa DIY tips a.k.a. our gained knowledge we give unto you!
  • How-to everyday eco-tips
  • Delicious food recipes
  • Plus Mushpa y Mensa’s greatest hits and inspirational thoughts from our blog, “La Casa“!

All this in a fantastical and printable PDF.

Want some more Mushpa y Mensa?  Check out www.mushpamensa.com

With much love,

Mushpa y Mensa
(a.k.a. Cara Elaine and Maria Emilia)

My Criminal Mind

First edition cover of The Sound and the Fury

Last night I was watching Criminal Minds. It is great-ish show. I have a somewhat odd interest in serial killers, sociopaths, psychopaths, and the un-rested. At times I have to mute it and look away, which thankfully confirms I am not a sociopath. ;]

I am interested in things that are a conundrum of the norm. Events, circumstances and people that make me question, that propel me to discover more through knowledge and my own truth that comes from wherever it comes from. I also like the nerd factoids and of course the quotes.

On to the point, this was a long intro to basically let people know that I am going to start posting some of the quotes from this show on a regular basis. Yes, I am that nerdy. B] I like quotes because they inspire me not only to be different, but get me interested and/or remind me of people, books, periods that help me evolve, to understand things, and to not feel so alone in this world. They move me. Anything that gets me to pick up a book is a good thing.

The quote from last night I am posting is by William Faulkner.

“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”   –  William Faulkner (The Paris Review interview (1956) with Jean Stein; later published in Writers at Work)

Anyway…hope you are into it. I am going to read, “The Sound and the Fury” because of this and because I am living in rural North Carolina, I know nothing about Jefferson, Mississippi and my cat’s name is Jefferson, so let’s do this.

– Mushpa

No Limits, Only Plateaus

Bruce Lee LimitsYes, I am becoming the Queen of Quotes. You’re welcome. ;] No, but really it’s true, why limit yourself? Why become stagnant doing one thing, in one place, when there is a whole world out there? Nothing in life is guaranteed…ever…so let’s go out there and have some fun. I want to live this life not survive it.

Safety last! Adventure first!

– Mushpa

I Am Happy America Won Yesterday!

mark twain A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Americans are funny. I went out with Mensa and a bunch of friends yesterday to watch the World Cup in a mammoth of a sports’ bar, America was playing the Republic of Ghana. It was interesting to me how the men were all rooting for the USA. All America boys of all colors, religion and race, but the All-American girls kept saying to me they hope Ghana wins. I thought, that’s so strange. Mensa for one, growing up a few years in Ecuador, would never had said I hope Switzerland wins this last Sunday, what made her wish a country she knows nothing about, never visited, nor befriended anyone from would win over a country she is a citizen of and has lived in longer than anywhere else, including Ecuador? What is it that makes so many “liberal” ladies (and feminist men) so anti-American? It reminded me of this Mark Twain quote from his book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: “My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.”

Our government and corporations in America are in a horrible state of affairs for the time being; it is very true that something needs to be done about that, but that has nothing to do with soccer. Our soccer players are not billionaire baseball, football or basketball stars making a fafillion dollars off of corporate money (Only 4 US Major League Soccer players make over a million dollars. The league’s average base salary is $186,258, while the league minimum is $36,500. The minimum salary of a Major League Baseball player is $500,000 while the average salary in 2013 was $3.3 million.). They are Americans, representing us, the people, not the institutions or politicians of this country, so let it go and like every other countryperson let’s root for our team. Trust me, they need all the help they can get. ;]

Go USA!

– Mushpa

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Mensa Responds:

I struggled with the idea of belonging, like many people do. I belonged to one country when I was born, when I grew up, and then I moved, and didn’t belong anymore. I moved here, and that’s where I finished growing up, but I didn’t fully belong, I just got used to it. And here is where I find myself, not truly belonging anywhere, yet struggling to find where I fit. And I’ve done this, and had this conversation with many people, discovered different ways of aligning myself with people who struggled with the same issue, finding niches but then getting knocked out of them because, there again, I found something that wasn’t quite right. The loyalty I have to the country I was born in, I find that it might be only there because my family is still there, maybe. I don’t think that I would be as loyal, as connected if everyone lived here. I am loyal to my childhood, because that’s what I experienced there, and my childhood was pure, and simple. I am loyal to those memories. I always hated growing up, dreaded the idea of growing up, and I did that here, in this country, in a very different place. A place with many virtues, but also many flaws. But I grew up, and I learned and struggled to cope with those flaws, focusing more on them rather than seeing the virtues and privileges I was given by this land. Now that feeling still lingers. After being here longer than anywhere else, I still haven’t let myself fully belong. Because it’s political, it’s social, it’s controversial, it’s trendy, it is what progressive thinkers do. But it is not progress. Hate, criticism, protests, it is not progress. Hate speech, controversial conversations, protest songs, and open discourses, all done in closed minded environments, are not progress, they are words. Words have been powerful over the centuries, but it is also what has enslaved us, as we have taken words to be truth rather than, just thoughts, which derive from experiences, which are just a direct reflection of our actions.

I don’t know if any of this is making sense now, but I struggled rooting for the team yesterday. I knew I fucked up saying I was rooting for the other team, it was not right, it was not my land, not my country. And I tried to get excited and stay in the game, with my now land’s team, but something felt off. Something didn’t fit. All that hate speech, those controversial conversations, those protests songs, and discussions, have tainted the soul of this land, and my own soul, as if someone other than human beings live here. It’s so tainted, its so ingrained in my brain, that I could not root for my own team, a team made up of MANY different people, all who once and maybe still didn’t feel like they belonged. I felt uncomfortable celebrating this success. But the truth of the matter is that yes, the tainted words from the criticism of the institutions have mangled the spirit of loyalty and solidarity of all people, all human people in this land. The truth is that not only are these institutions, the ones we normally think of, media, religion, or institutions of racial-gender-and socio-economic inequalities, so prominent. Something else has brewed up.  Something much uglier and complicated, that has lead us to believe that we are having conversations about progress, when we are only alienating each other more and more to the point where no one truly belongs, anywhere. I should not feel like this. It is not fair.

Yet I am guilty. I struggle to be loyal to the rest of the souls of this world.

 I will have to fix this.

-Mensa