The Empress is literally some singers hanging around in a kitchen during the first real rehearsal of a certain song. That feeling of a thing coming together. That feeling of takeoff with one foot still grounded in the kitchen.

STEELY ANN & JOE’S GARAGE Saturday April 13
Doors 7 p.m., show 7:30 p.m.
Kato Ballroom ticket link: http://tinyurl.com/55tnwpzt 

The High Priestess is about knowing a truth in your bones and rewriting the rules accordingly.

STEELY ANN & JOE’S GARAGE Saturday April 13
Doors 7 p.m., show 7:30 p.m.
Kato Ballroom ticket link: http://tinyurl.com/55tnwpzt 

The Magician is about feeling like you’ve got what it takes. Plenty of lyrics along those lines in both bands’ catalogs, although most of the protagonists (speaking for the Dan tunes) wind up with wounded egos and a sneer. But all that comes later. Right now, whatever you feel ready for, The Magician says yep your ship of love is ready to attack.

Here’s me celebrating Palm Sunday by adding some evil eye protection to my papal appreciation hat, which, I think we can all agree has me ready for anything.

STEELY ANN & JOE’S GARAGE Saturday April 13
Doors 7 p.m., show 7:30 p.m.
Kato Ballroom ticket link: http://tinyurl.com/55tnwpzt 

Merry Christmas and happy 55th birthday to me! Here’s a recent performance in which I explain how being born on Christmas Day leads to exorbitant amounts of self-confidence. The set concludes with the world premiere of my contribution to the holiday canon, “Christmas is for Spiders.”

Here’s the album version. Huge thanks to my bandmates for bringing the song to life with fearless emotion and percussion.

Thank you for watching. In appreciation, I’d love to give you a limited edition portable directory of local discounts for seniors 55+. While supplies last! Come get yours Christmas night at Wine Cafe 7:00-9:00 p.m., where I’ll be holding court Christmas-birthday-style, i.e., all the gifts are things people received earlier in the day and promptly disliked, and everybody pays their own tabs because yes it’s MY birthday but it’s also YOUR Christmas, for (I’m trying not to say it) (I can’t not say it) for chrissake.

Greater Mankato Area Comedy Coalition comedy shows resume Sunday, Jan. 14. Details here.

Well I’ve certainly learned a thing or two since creating the Doilies of Intolerance prototypes featured in this month’s Mankato Magazine.

Namely, I’ve discovered that the text should be not-centered, so that the plant or scented candle or whatever can sit in the exact middle of the doily while the text basically stage-whispers from the left or right. Centered text looks good when you’re considering the doily on its own, but in order for the message to function effectively in social and/or domestic situations, it really needs to move over.

It was the randomly stained tea towel that brought me to this breakthrough. See how the text is somehow more effective off-center, not symmetrical at all? As if it’s got some far more important function than mere cleverness. I think that gives these fucks their gravitas.

Fortunately, thanks to friends and every thrift shop in Mankato and St. Peter, I have lots to work with. The Arts Center’s weekly sewing circle, Stitch Witchery, starts back up Wednesday, March 15, 5-7 p.m. This is not so much a shameless plug for that program, as it is an admission that the program exists in large part because I’m so stoked about these doilies. Stitch Witchery is free, with donations to the Arts Center encouraged.

I mean what else are you going to do with your doilies or your Wednesdays.

As a person who is downtown-HyVee-famous*, sometimes people thank me for doing good things for the community, and that’s amazing because they aren’t even aware of my efforts to combat the dick humor that’s been creeping into the Sunday night comedy scene like so much common buckthorn.

Video below, and full text below that. Props and thanks to Greater Mankato Area Comedy Coalition host Dan Bacula, who’ll keep you updated on GMACC happenings if you ask.

*That’s where you get recognized while shopping at the smaller of Mankato’s two HyVee stores, but only at the smaller store, definitely not an issue at the big HyVee on the hill, the one with the salad bar and the liquor store.

Hey thanks, Dan. And thank you, everybody. Boy, there have been some allusions to it tonight, but I’m just going to go for it, and say it, about us here as a comedy community: We have become quite scatological, here on Sunday nights.

It’s something I noticed after being away this summer, and then coming back this fall, and wow. And another thing I’ve noticed, I don’t know if it’s related, but we’ve become also quite a boys’ club. So, it’s a lot of men, getting up for five minutes or sometimes more, and talking about their privates and how they function. And in a way, you know, good for us, we’ve become a safe space for men finally to come up here and be vulnerable in that way, here at open mic comedy.

And I don’t say that to make anybody uncomfortable. I know that identity politics are very personal and very sensitive, so I don’t want to be putting a label on anyone who doesn’t own that. And I know that some of the people I’m thinking about, the comics who come up here, they might not identify as men who love getting up in front of a lot of people to talk about their pee-pee. But if they do, if you do identify as a man who loves getting up in front of a lot of people and talking about your pee-pee, I want you to know that I see you.

And I know a few things about respectful communication with people from other cultures. I think that’s probably obvious, because I’m a white lady with dreadlocks. And that’s not my only credential. I have attended a fair amount of diversity, equity, and inclusion webinars. And so from that, I know a few things about communicating with other cultures, and one of the most tried and true strategies that I will share with you tonight, is that a really powerful thing you can do to show empathy and ally-ship for cultures other than your own, is, try to speak in their language. And, it’s going to be messy, it’s going to be clumsy, you will step on some toes or crush some balls, but you do it. You do it because it’s how we show up, it’s how we do better. And so I’m going to do that tonight, as an offering between myself and those of you in this crowd who identify as men who like to get up and talk about your privates. I’m going to offer a bridge. I’m going to try to build a bridge, and I’m going to do that by trying to mansplain scatological humor to you.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to interrupt, but I couldn’t help but overhear you tell a joke about your penis. Now, it’s a little-known fact that telling jokes about your penis is not really scatological humor. A lot of people think that that’s the case. That’s not really the case. What a lot of people don’t know is that telling jokes about your penis, that’s a small, small subset of scatological humor. It’s called ‘dick humor.’ Now, the origin of the term ‘dick humor,’ it originated with the British. British military. 1891. That’s something I know because I’m a bit of a language buff. I’m an amateur linguist. Some people might accuse me of being a ‘cunning linguist.’ That’s just me, that’s my humor.“

Now, what I’ve just done, is tell you that I was going to mansplain scatological humor to you. And then I effectively held you hostage while I talked about not one, but two things that no one asked me to talk about. On my way to explaining something that no one asked me to explain. So that’s an even better bridge than I was trying to build. That is even better than mansplaining scatological humor. That is mansplaining how to mansplain scatological humor. And so I hope I’ve built a bridge. Thank you.

Weekly Comedy Open Mic takes place every Sunday at The Circle Inn, North Mankato. Sign up is at 7:00 p.m., performances begin at 7:30ish p.m. Direct questions to Dan Bacula, danbacula@gmail.com.

Turns out, no one. Nobody sank and it’s not like we didn’t try. Top: Me, Gail. Next: Ronda. Third: Jill, Emily, Sara. Last: Modesty skull courtesy Megan Hoogland and Michael Cimino. Ambience courtesy Hallett Pond. Photos and vision by Emily Stark Photography.

The Empress [Reversed] appeared in 100% of the four (4) tarot readings I’ve delivered over the past 48 hours. The readings were a pledge premium for KMSU, which, turns out the demographic that 1) supports public radio + 2) wants a tarot reading = middle aged white women. We will throw me into that sample as well, as middle-aged whitelady fortuneteller. Anyway. The Empress right-side-up is about being expressive and generative and putting stuff out there. It’s the you-go-girl of making and saying things. The Empress [Reversed] is about taking a beat.

That seemed to make sense for everybody personally, like relative to whatever personal circumstances caused them to seek a reading. It also seems to make some sense for the group as a group. Pretty sure I’m bound by science or tarot or both to publish these findings, so I did just that in the nearby Public Art Box owned and operated by the artist Patti Ruskey who does zero social media probably because she’s busy being attuned to higher powers. Here is evidence of the dissemination of my findings.

It is beyond the scope of this research to tell you what to do instead. All I can tell you is that The Empress is not saying you-go-girl, at the moment. She’s taking a beat and then some.

Unrelated to this study, but offered as verification of the powers of midsummer astrology, turns out the traditional 29th wedding anniversary gift is furniture, which on one hand is less mystical than 30 which is the year of the pearl, but on the other hand IS AWESOME because today is our 29th and WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING THAT, so far Scott and I have spent the year sitting on a couch.

So maybe book now, if you’d like your cards read sometime around the next summer solstice. Obviously it shifts my powers into high gear. I mean if the Empress showed up(-side-down) in all my whitelady readings to urge active listening, and if my furniture anniversary year magically mystically saw the world couchbound, then surely, certainly, scientifically, there is lustre ahead.

Well guess what, turns out Zoom is great for tarot because who wants to be stared at while absorbing their truth. You don’t. Doesn’t matter if the truth is harsh or pleasant. Either way, you want some privacy, and GUESS WHAT, here is what it looks like when your tarot reader is politely off-screen so it’s just you and the cards and the truth.

I figured this out yesterday in a meeting that wasn’t supposed to be about tarot, until it was. You don’t switch gears like that and keep making eye contact. You just don’t. If the Querant needs a while to ponder, a decent reader will prop the card and go get a refill.

Other new methodologies I have developed to suit our present moment: 1) Shuffle for at least 20 seconds. 2) Pick cards based on what falls out (this is not really quarantine-related, it’s just spookier).

Readings are free, although I do enjoy payment in the form of hearing, later, that you went from regretting to loving your box-bleached hair. Or, you embraced the regret and called your stylist to book for late July. Or that you were sooo happy after some alone-time staring at cards, that you spent a bit less of the evening screaming into a pillow. Now booking. Like, now.