hornmag
ART. CULTURE. MUSIC. FASHION. PEOPLE. TEXAS. #1 SEPTEMBER 2024
Turk Pipkin, photographed at Paggi House, Austin, Texas, July 19, 2024.
Pic by Matt Wright-Steel.
Joey Berlin is an Austin-based freelance music writer. He’s the creator and publisher of the Austincentric music blog Ear Traffic ATX, where he posts features and columns on an eclectic array of local music and beyond, including artist profiles, album reviews and show recaps from venues all over Austin. Indie and garage rock are his favorite wheelhouses, but he’s liable to fall in love with something from just about every genre. You can find his work at www.eartrafficatx.com. Joey is a native of the Kansas City area. He and his wife, Nicole, have lived in Austin since 2014. ¶ Nicole Berlin is an Austin-based photographer with a particular love for capturing live music. She pursues her passion for experimental, nontraditional photography using prisms and other objects that alter light. She’s the official photographer for the Austin-centric music blog Ear Traffic ATX (www.eartrafficatx.com) and the Austin-based music school Girl Guitar. She has plied her trade at many of Austin’s most storied and popular music venues, including the Moody Theater, Antone’s and the Far Out Lounge. In her spare time, she plays guitar and crochets gifts for local charities. You can find her photographic work on Instagram (@nicoleberlinphotography) and at nicoleberlinphotography.com. ¶ Torquil Dewar was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland. After studying News & Information Design at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne’s Faculty of Visual & Performing Arts, he moved to London to work on a variety of newspapers and magazines for several years, both as a full-time employee and as a freelance art director. He then moved to Peoria, Illinois, for two years, followed by a move to Austin in 2004, with his daughter and a variety of feral cats and dogs. He has finally decided he likes it here and hopes to one day not have allergies. He started this magazine not knowing if there will be another. Fingers crossed! ¶ As a child, PhiL KLINE was always exploring with friends, hopping fences and riding bikes all over Kansas City. The only thing missing was a camera. Studying film at Columbia College Chicago, he became awakened by the craft of visual story telling. An internship with Dennis Manarchy showed him the fast-paced world of commercial film production. Eager for more experience, he moved to NYC, where he received an MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts. He then began shooting food, most notably for the New York Times. Next was Austin, where he assisted and traveled with the brilliant Dan Winters, a fortunate experience which prepared him with the necessary tools to explore the craft of photography. ¶ Shelley Lai was born in Taiwan and raised in Texas. After graduating with a major in advertising at the University of Texas in Austin, she started working at an Austin food magazine. She then moved to Plano to become production designer for Plano Profile magazine. From there, she moved back to Austin to become art director for Playback magazine, an experimental digital music magazine, where she and Torquil started working together in the same office, collecting empty Hob-Nob containers and making up new words that only Shelley uses. ¶ Kelli Ponce is an editorial fashion stylist with extensive experience in the beauty industry. She hails from South Texas but calls Austin home. Known for her creative vision, she brings a dynamic blend of artistry and technical skill to every project, drawing inspiration from her diverse background and passion for innovative fashion. Visit www.kelliction.com for more details.¶ With over 20 years of experience in the beauty industry, Codi LEPORS has established herself as a skilled hair and makeup artist. Her 13-year tenure at MAC Cosmetics allowed her to refine her craft and develop a keen eye for the “Art of Makeup.” After leaving MAC, Codie embarked on a new venture, launching her own business, Makeup ATX. As the lead artist at this Austinbased company, she provides on-location hair and makeup services to clients. Outside of her professional life, Codie resides in Austin with her husband and their two boys. She’s also a self-proclaimed “plant mom” to over 100 plants, showcasing her nurturing side beyond the world of beauty. ¶ Sarah Thurmond is a freelance editor and writer in Austin. She currently contributes to Texas Highways as a web editor and editor of the magazine’s Events Calendar. Prior to going freelance, she was executive editor at Austin Monthly. While living in New York City, she was on the editorial staff at Tennis magazine and Sports Illustrated. A native of Del Rio, Texas, she is a proud childless cat lady. ¶ Drawing from a life-long pursuit of travel, fashion, culture and remote adventures, Matt Wright-Steel has cultivated a distinct creative voice as a commercial photographer and photo editor. Matt’s background in Anthropology enhances the depth and resonance of his creative pursuits, resulting in more impactful and engaging imagery. He is continually seeking visual opportunities that go beyond the simple act of pressing a shutter. A proud, 5th generation Texan!
Creative Director, Publisher
Torquil dewar
Art Direction
OCTOBER CUSTOM PUBLISHING
Writers
JOEY BERLIN
SARAH THURMOND
Photography Nicole Berlin
PHIL KLINE
MATT WRIGHT-STEEL
Styling
Kelli Ponce
Hair & Makeup
Codi LEPORS
Set Assistants
OLIVIA WILLIAMS
PETER WALTON
Printing
CapitoL Printing Co.
We’ve talked about doing thIs for a LONG TIME.
Make a kickass print magazine that’s not only beautiful, but is full of interesting, unique Texans you probably wouldn’t expect to see together in one place. Some of them you’ll know, others you won’t – that’s the point. Texas is huge, diverse and has so much more to it than is often portrayed in mainstream media.
My daughter grew up in Texas. I’ve had multiple cats and dogs live and die with me here (they just show up, I dunno). The friends I’ve made since moving here are a mix of transplants from other states, foreign-born immigrants and born-and-bred, dyed-in-the-wool Texans. Most of them are creatives, and all of them are among the most talented people I’ve ever met. Some of them worked on this issue. I’m not from Texas, but I honestly can’t imagine living anywhere else now. You can go almost anywhere in the world, and people know Texas. They know about its people, its landscapes, the food, music, art, film – you name it. I don’t think there are many countries, let alone states, that have such a strong identity.
We hope you enjoy this first issue of Hornmag. Oh, the name, right. When I drove into Texas for the very first time in 2004 – just me and two elderly dogs in our moving truck – I saw my very first Longhorn cattle in a field just off the interstate in Georgetown. Absolutely exhausted, hungry and incredibly grumpy after driving for almost 30 hours, I turned to the dogs and barely managed to say “Huh ... horn,” before turning my attention back to the road. I’m from Scotland, where we have similar-looking but smaller animals called Highland cattle. I had no idea Longhorn cattle existed, but it felt like a sign, and now here we are.
The articles and views expressed in Hornmag are the opinion of the respective authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the publishers. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission from the publisher.
Contact us at info@octobercustompublishing.com.
Made entirely in AUSTIN, TEXAS
None of this would have been possible without the incredible, amazing, talented and kind contributors who stayed up late, worked weekends, called in favors and went above and beyond. Even if this is the only issue we make, it’s been worth it just to see these people cook.
Thanks for reading.
Torquil Dewar
BY JOEY BERLIN / PIC BY PHIL KLINE
Between becoming the target of online vitriol and nearly drowning in his car, Caleb De Casper endured a jarring spring of 2023, bringing the eclectic Austin dance-pop artist and LGBTQ+ activist to the realization that he needed a break from making music.
Now he’s back, with a new song shining a pointed, jaundiced light on every toxic and odious aspect of online culture – phone zombieism, isolation, misinformation. And when you talk to him, it’s clear that his disgust with the internet isn’t just a mere inspiration for his new single; it’s the impetus for a personal journey.
“What we need is to learn how to exist around each other as people again; I feel like everyone’s just a reaction to other people’s reactions at this point,” De Casper said. “That’s what I am trying to do for myself.”
With pop, glam, rock and dance turns and amalgams peppering his recordings, and LGBTQ+ themes often fueling his lyrics, De Casper has made a dent in the Austin scene with the likes of 2019 EP De Casper and his 2022 debut full-length, Femme Boy. In March 2023, De Casper testified before a Texas Senate committee against the controversial Senate Bill 12, the measure that aimed to criminalize some drag shows and other “sexually oriented performances” occurring in front of minors.
From there, he says, “I [got] swooped up into the just terrible, far right, extreme side of the internet using my image to be transphobic and hateful to people that don’t even understand who I am, what my identity is, none of that.” He saw himself implicated in “horrible conspiracy theories and things” and received threats.
Less than a month after his testimony came his April 2023 drive through a flash flood, an ordeal he survived to recount for one of Austin’s local news stations: The runaway waters smashed a concrete barrier into the back of his vehicle.
“I almost died in my car,” he says now. “Water went up, up, up, up, up, up, up, and then thank God it went down.” Once he was safe, “my nervous system was fucking shot,” and he took it as a divine sign to take it easy for a bit.
“It was like, [playing] all these music festivals, big things, big things, big things, Texas Senate, people threatening you, conspiracy theories, drowning. And I was like, ‘I’m done,’” he said. “‘I need a therapist, because I have to figure out what I think and believe, and to be able to protect my energy from all this stuff.’ That was so necessary to be able to be meaningful in my art again.”
The 31-year-old’s return came in late July in the form of a single that could be called disco-pian: “Sik Culture,” co-written with Jonathan Horstmann of fellow Austin act Urban Heat, is a danceable but moody darkwave assessment of a society that’s losing its soul to electronic communication, image-crafting and tastemaking.
De Casper’s original inspiration for “Sik Culture” was the venerable LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr and his dissatisfaction with today’s dating culture, before the track became focused on society as a whole.
“People don’t know how to connect with each other anymore. People don’t care to connect with you,” he said. “It’s like that part of us has atrophied because everything’s just a swipe or a click away. And then you can yell at people, and you don’t have to face repercussions over it because you never see them ever again – you know, just [hit] ‘Block.’”
“wHAT We need is to learn how to exist around each other as people again; I feel like everyone’s just a reaction to other people’s reactions at this point.”
His view of the distorting power of the internet even extends to the image of his home state: “The propaganda they put out about who lives here is very monolithic. But there are so many people here who are creative and different and diverse, and really they appreciate art and creativity.” When it comes to perception of how members of the queer community are received in certain locales, he recalls walking into a convenience store in remote West Virginia while on tour, wearing huge acrylic nails and smeared makeup.
“This weathered old woman inside was looking me up and down, like she was going to say something nasty or spit on me,” De Casper remembers. “And she says, ‘Are those your nails?’ I was like, ‘Yes.’ And she goes, ‘I can’t get mine to grow that long.’” He laughs. “But a lot of people are like that, and we don’t see that, because the internet is so extreme.”
For his next moves, De Casper’s work with his “Sik Culture” producer, Ribongia, is ongoing, and he plans to continue his re-emergence with more singles and hopefully a new tour.
“I’m on my way to doing some pretty amazing things soon. I can feel it,” he said. “I’m really grateful to everyone who has said, ‘Welcome back from your hiatus. We are totally here for it.’”
BY JOEY BERLIN
Singer-songwriter Mandy Rowden faces the same challenges most musicians in the Austin area face, plus one that most of them can’t claim: maintaining the institution that she created.
In 2007, Rowden founded Girl Guitar, a guitar school for women that takes students of all levels of skill and experience – including those for which that level is “zero” – and trains them in six-week sessions. At the end of those six weeks, bands made up of Girl Guitar students play in a showcase – a real one, in front of real, paying concert goers at a real Austin music venue.
Nearly 18 years ago, that first showcase featured about eight players from Rowden’s acoustic guitar classes as an opening act at Austin’s famed Hole in the Wall bar. Now, Girl Guitar and its handful of teachers make room for roughly 150 students per session in classes for acoustic and electric guitar, songwriting and band classes, among others. Classes are held both in person at the Girl Guitar space in south Austin and virtually. About 80 to 100 play at the showcases, which bounce around between several different venues, such as the current downtown location of legendary club Antone’s.
“One of the things I like to tell people is, you are going to be scared. You probably are going to make some mistakes. That’s so freaking normal,” Rowden said. “But when you’re done with this, the payoff is so freaking high. Because you go, ‘Holy shit, that was terrifying. And I thought I couldn’t do it, but I did.’ And then, logically, you go, ‘I wonder what else I could do.’
“Then all of a sudden, the world gets a little bigger for you, and you get a little tougher. And no matter what – whether you go on to do lots of showcases, or maybe the performance doesn’t become your thing – you keep drawing on that. And you come across these tough experiences and you go, ‘Oh, I wonder if I can do this,’ and you’re like, ‘Well, I did that.’ I feel like it informs how we move forward.”
Each showcase is brimming with unwavering support for the performers from their fellow Girl Guitar students – such as this writer’s spouse, who also takes photos for each showcase – along with their friends, family and anyone else who pays the cover and pops in. Bands usually play three or four songs, then quickly shuffle off and give way to the next group, adding up to around five to six hours of live music.
“Almost on par with making music,” Rowden said, “I think people come here because having a strong group of women around you is just such a necessary thing.”
Along with being a safe space to rock out, screw up or both, showcases are also textbook organized chaos, something Rowden thrives on. An Americana-steeped, Neil Young-obsessed songwriter, Rowden juggles running Girl Guitar with her own recording and performing career. She has released four full-length albums since 2015, appearing repeatedly on top-10 lists for the Austin Chronicle’s annual Austin Music Awards, among other accolades. Girl Guitar, too, has been honored multiple times for Best Music Instruction in the Chronicle’s annual readers poll.
Full-fledged bands have grown out of the school, such as the Rhinestone Renegades, a country band Rowden formed with Girl Guitar students who “started out as pretty close to beginners when they came here, and have worked so hard that … they’re gigging all over Central Texas on a professional level. They’re gigging not as, ‘Hey, come look at these little students having a good time, making a lot of mistakes.’ They’re gigging and being paid like professionals, and that’s a huge success.”
But Rowden knows Girl Guitar’s growth and acclaim don’t make it immune to the realities of everything tied to Austin arts in general, and music in particular. Rising costs are a threat to about every artistic venture in the city.
“This area we’re in used to just be full of these artists’ colonies, and there’s just space everywhere. Rehearsal rooms, and places the artists could carve out a spot and do their thing, and those are nearly nonexistent now,” she said. “Just the rising cost of this crazy city we’re in definitely poses some challenges. But as supported as our crew here is, [it’s] been really, really helpful to occasionally do a fundraiser-type thing, and everybody comes out in droves and helps us cover [what we need].”
As far as Primo the Alien is concerned, the hunt for outside validation is over.
Known for making electronic synth-pop in a town that slants toward guitars and more traditional, rootsy sounds, Primo has undergone what she calls a “quiet uncoupling” with the drive for fame and exposure. She’s broken up with the idea that she needs to chase the approval of either Austin’s tastemakers – dominated by what she calls the “Old Guard” – or of the music lovers who supply the real-time metrics consuming so many artists today, such as streaming plays and likes on social media.
Instead, she’s now making music free of consideration of any of those things. Really, it’s a natural landing spot for an off-center artist who’s always had her own metronome, right down to the Primo the Alien persona – essentially, an intergalactic assassin character in a rock opera –that she first adopted in 2017. No longer does she affix hope, as many artists do, that a certain song she’s written is going to put her “on the map.” She’s grown out of that, she says, and harping on the size of her social and streaming footprints is another piece of “the machine” that she’s leaving behind.
“It becomes an obsession,” she says, before launching into an impression of the racing, consuming manifestation of said obsession: “They’re checking, they’re checking, they’re refreshing the feed, refreshing the feed, refreshing the feed: ‘How many likes, how many likes, duh-duh-duhduh-duh-duh, bluh-luh-luh-luh-luh-luh-luh. How many plays did it get? It’s the first day; it’s been 24 hours. Did it at least get a thousand streams?’ You play, and it just keeps happening.
“It’s a persistent noise, always, until you finally go, ‘Shut the fuck up!’ And by the way, a lot of people who think that way, you make dogshit music when you’re doing that – because you’re not an artist yet. You’re not an artist until you are an artist – until you have fucking foregone the need for approval, validation, likes or whatever. Until you get there, you cannot make anything authentic, because it’s drenched in all the other bullshit.”
As self-assured as she’s been her whole career, it’s been a long trek to this mentality, and knowing herself as an artist. There were multiple auditions for “American Idol,” in which she earned Golden Tickets to perform in Hollywood in both 2013 and 2014. In 2022, she performed at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Last year –branching out some from the aggressively ‘80s-y synth sound she had become known for – she released the EP We All Hate Ourselves Sometimes,
which featured four tracks more in line with today’s signature indie dream-pop sound. Primo recalls saying to her production partner, “If this isn’t the thing for Austin, nothing’s gonna be.” In her estimation, it didn’t make a ripple.
Now, it’s entirely about what makes her happy. Also a producer, as well as a member of the pop trio KVN, she wants to focus on writing for other artists and specifically on writing for “sync,” the industry term for placing songs in media such as movies, TV shows and commercials. Meanwhile, she’d like to see every musician make her mindset their own.
“If I can make anyone making music adopt this mentality, I would just – I wanna put everyone in a room and do torture on them until they acquiesce. I wanna put them in a chair and do ‘Clockwork Orange,’” she said. “Because I see it: I see everyone so caught up in that, so insecure and so anxious and so stressed, and feeling so shitty about themselves. Human beings already feel like shit, OK? We don’t need to add other stuff on top of it and to make it worse.
“We already feel insecure, inadequate, like failures. We feel all that already. And so that fucking … whole machine, getting caught up in it, and all it does is just keep you there all the time.”
She’s content with the music she’s making today. She released her latest single at this writing, “Keyboard God,” with fellow Austin artist Jake Lloyd guesting, in May 2024.
“I always think, ‘If I make it, what would I want to happen?’ I would want to be around the same people that I am around now,” she said. “I would want to be hanging out with my dog. I would want to watch movies like I do now and TV shows and play video games, and I would make music. Nothing about my everyday life would really change in terms of who I want to be around, how I want to spend my time and what I want to be doing. None of that would really change.”
BY JOEY BERLIN / PIC BY NICOLE BERLIN
BY PHIL KLINE
BY SARAH THURMOND / PIC
After Graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Rick Soto Was working at an advertising agency in New York City when his boss invited him to the Heisman Trophy dinner — Only Soto didn’t own a suit. “I had like $200 to my name,” he says. “During lunch, I ran to a K&G and bought a discount suit for like $79, then I had them do some alterations. I went to the Heisman dinner and felt amazing.” Today, Soto is making others feel amazing as the owner of Soto & Co., a business he launched in 2016 starting with ties and accessories before moving into custom suits, coats and shoes. He operated the business out of a retrofitted delivery truck (yes, fittings were done in a truck) and grew a client list that includes professional athletes like Emmanuel Acho, C.J. Stroud and Micah Parsons. The Victoria native, who credits his business-owning parents for his entrepreneurial spirit, opened his first storefront during the pandemic. The space on Austin’s east side is reminiscent of a posh bachelor pad with a stylish décor and bar cart. Next, Soto Plans on expanding into other cities including San Antonio, and he’ll do it by trying out the truck first in each market.
What is something you wish you knew when you were starting out?
I wish I would have put doors on the truck. I used to have it wide open in the summer, and A/C was just not working. All the air would go out. It always made me wonder, “Damn, people really rocked with me if they were getting measured and trying on their suits sweating for four years.”
How do you approach obstacles?
I consider myself a very resourceful person so, if anything, it’s always being ready to pivot and adjust, then take a little bit of a risk and add some luck to it. Utilize those three things and hope for the best. Luckily, it’s worked out for us so far. And I think every risk that I take, even though it’s a risk, is calculated.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
As frustrating as it is at the time, my mom always says, “It’ll all work out.” Take that mentality and figure it out and try not to stress about it, because one way or another, we will figure it out. We will make it work. That’s proved more times right than not.
Is there anything you won’t let a customer talk you into doing?
I always put in my two cents, but at the end of the day, it’s what they want. If they like it, I love it.
What inspires you right now?
My daughter. She’s my biggest motivation and my biggest inspiration. I tell people my goal in life is to be somebody my daughter can brag about. I’m just trying to keep that on the forefront of my mind.
Do you allow yourself to take time off?
Now that we have a full staff who I’m confident can man the ship while I’m away? Absolutely. I finally realized I can take a step back and focus on the business itself. Ultimately what I want to do is grow and scale the business. So, I’m glad I can focus on that.
BY SARAH THURMOND /
Growing up, Xavier Alvarado loved watching superhero movies and making comic books. The Nebraska-born, Houston-bred artist learned his drawing skills from his father, a former boxer and college basketball player who studied art. Like his dad, Alvarado played basketball, including two-and-a-half years at Concordia University; unlike his dad, he decided to pursue a career in art. The decision has paid off, with Alvarado’s work appearing in galleries around Austin, including Big Medium, where he also works as a program design strategist and project manager, and in collaborAtions with Austin FC and Louis Vuitton. Alvarado Takes inspiration from his family’s Trinidadian roots (“A lot of colors, the music, the tone,” he says), as well as storytelling and imbuing his art WITH positivity. At age 30, his approach to art has evolved from “chaotic” to “a very wise process,” he says. “I used to make a painting and just leave it. But my best paintings come from when I let them grow over time.” An actor as well, Alvarado has had roles in shorts and feature films, including the upcoming HIErarchy, directed by Russell K. Reed and written by Chiderah Uzowulu.
How did It feel to be part of your first show?
It was cool. That’s when I learned about wine and cheese. Seeing everybody else’s art and people in the room observing art, that’s show and tell. I look at art shows like science fairs: You get to present the design and talk about how you did it. And you can dress really cool.
Is there anything you try to avoid in your art?
Negativity. I do show some grit, some obstacles, but I don’t land on negativity.
How do you handle it when the ideas won’t come?
I have patience. I get around friends, I go have brunch, cook a meal, stay busy and create other things.
What’s been the hardest lesson you’ve learned in your career?
I can be very ambitious with my ideas, and I get told no a lot. To deal with those noes, I reframe them, that it’s not just a no and a blow to me personally, but just that point in time. I just reframe it as my ambition, keep my positivity about what I want to create, and tame that beast of my ambition.
How do you handle criticism?
I try to validate the source: What biases do they have? Is this something that I should take into account or even wrestle with? What are they saying and what can I use and what can I discard? But I love constructive criticism.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
My dad said, “Take a step back and look at the art from different angles. And then watch your ego.”
How do you handle failure?
Go back to the drawing board. You got to sit with it for a little bit. I like to assess and protect my mind at all costs and not take it as a blow but as a lesson. It’s not forever.
What’s the best thing about what you do?
The best thing that I do is inspire through art. Art is inspiration. It inspires people to create change or make a change. It inspires people to chase their goals, build relationships, be intimate, be curious, or highlight different cultures and ideas.
The worst thing?
That there isn’t enough money in art. There’s not enough money in creative programs. There’s more money in sports and other things.
What inspires you right now?
All of this talk about AI. It inspires me because it’s the next wave of technology, just like when cellphones happened. It’s now one of the biggest tools to understand and navigate how it can help you. It inspires me because it’s such a great challenge right now. Everybody is learning how to navigate this tech industry. If you’re not using it now, you probably will be soon.
What makes you optimistic about the future of art?
People can be so overstimulated. Now they want to experience something real and come to the galleries and experience art for real. You’ve seen the art online, now you can experience it in person. People are more appreciative of real experiences now.
PIC
BY PHIL KLINE
BY SARAH
Ask Emily Basma, Louise Ho, and Morgan Hyde what their favorite movies are, and you’ll get a diverse list of titles, including Tetsuo: The Iron Man by Shinya Tsukamoto (Hyde), The Birdcage by Mike Nichols (Ho), and Daughters of the Dust by Julie Dash (Basma). But what else would you expect from the trio of cinephiles who help run Hyperreal Film Club?
Founded in 2016 by Tanner Hadfield, Jenni Kaye, and David McMichael, Hyperreal is a microcinema community organization dedicated to promoting the cinematic arts in Austin.
Since its first event, a screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain in the basement of Co-Lab Projects, the organization has upheld its motto, “Cinema for the People,” by hosting movie nights and special events at places all over Austin, including eastside bar Hotel Vegas, mini-drive-in movie theater Blue Starlight, and the Elisabet Ney Museum in Hyde Park. They also partner with the Paramount Theatre for the historic venue’s annual Summer Classic Film Series. This year’s selections included Japanese horror flick Cure and the cult classic Streets of Fire
“We believe very strongly in community involvement, whether that be working with other screening venues in the city or working with local filmmakers,” Hyde says. Along with venue partnerships, Hyperreal builds its community through an active website that includes podcasts; a journal with daily articles; and a communications hub, called the Discord, where movie fans and filmmakers can discuss all things cinema and post helpful information like job opportunities.
Keeping the show going are volunteers like Basma, Ho and Hyde, who come from different backgrounds but share a love of cinema. Hyde, a North Texas native, graduated from the University of Texas’ film school and joined Hyperreal in 2019, first writing reviews and features before becoming a film programmer.
“My wheelhouse is cult, genre film, that sort of stuff,” she says. The first film she programmed for Hyperreal, Resident Evil: Retribution, led to her current job on the programming team at Alamo Drafthouse.
Basma moved to Austin from Savannah, Georgia, eight years ago. A filmmaker and photographer, she most recently worked in the camera department of the Paramount series 1923. Having spent years in an industry that is known for being “a boys club,” she finds Hyperreal refreshing thanks to gender parity on the organization’s council, a group of about 12 members who make standard organizational decisions for Hyperreal. “To
have an organization that is really interested in allowing people with different perspectives show films that they find important has been really amazing,” she says. “I just got to show a Saudi Arabian mermaid folklore film that literally has not been shown in America before. I really adore this organization because it’s like, ‘Yeah, let’s figure out a way to show this film because you think it’s important.’” Over the years, Basma has programmed shorts for Hyperreal, giving her an opportunity to show the work of local filmmakers, including her own.
As for Ho, she grew up in San Francisco and did cinema studies at NYU before moving to Austin six years ago. Originally, she wanted to work for a studio and do acquisition and distribution. “But slowly I got more and more disillusioned with the film industry until the only thing that was still pure to me was audience engagement and exhibition,” she says. Through Hyperreal, she’s not only been able to be a film programmer and put her background in event and venue management to use, particularly with microcinemas. She’s also made friendships through the organization.
“it’s nice to have something that brings people together and actually feels like you’re in community with people.”
“Hyperreal has really come to dominate my social life,” she says. “People that come to the in-person screenings, who are not involved behind the scenes in any way, have become some of my closest friends. It’s nice to have something that brings people together and actually feels like you’re in community with people.”
In September, Hyperreal Film Club opened its first venue, a 60-seat theater and event space located at Third and Chicon streets in east Austin. Along with hosting screenings Tuesday through Friday, Hyperreal plans on using the venue for special events and as a rental space to generate revenue. “It’s going to be interesting with this space because for once we’ll be creating the vibe,” Ho says. “We have been adapting to the spaces we’ve been in, and now we’re curating our own space and our own vibe. I feel like our best phase is yet to come.”
What are you Top 3 favorite films?
Morgan: Tetsuo: The Iron Man by Shinya Tsukamoto, the 1989 version of Dr. Caligari, and Frankenhooker by Frank Henenlotter. It’s so fucking good. I wish I could show it every week.
Louise: The Birdcage; Be Kind Rewind, which is Michel Gondry’s comedy; and Drylongso, a ’90s comedy about a filmmaker in Oakland. I’m from the Bay Area so I really love it.
Emily: Daughters of the Dust by Julie Dash, also filmed essentially in my hometown of Savannah
– massive inspiration for me photographically; Orlando by Sally Potter; and Thirteen Ghosts, the Steve Beck version starring Tony Shalhoub.
What film should a person see at least once in their life?
Morgan: Hausu by Nobuhiko Obayashi. It’s one of the wildest, most innovative horror movies you’ll ever see.
Emily: Rumblefish by Francis Ford Coppola. It’s got gorgeous black-and-white photography. It’s got a young Matt Dillon and Diane Lane. The score is super-bizarre. And it’s narrated by Tom Waits.
Louise: A Trip to the Moon by George Méliès. It’s an idea of what special effects were going to be like before they evolved into what they are today.
Favorite concession snack?
Morgan: I typically just go for popcorn with some butter on it. I’m very classic.
Emily: Buncha Crunch poured into popcorn. Louise: I like crumbling seaweed all over my popcorn. If you work at movie theaters, you end up living on popcorn. There’s so much popcorn left over at the end of the night.
To talk or not to talk during a film screening?
Emily: I’m from Savannah. My movie theater experience growing up was, “Yeah, we’re in a horror movie, and we’re going to yell at the characters.” I respect a space that says intentionally no talking, but I’m used to talking in the movie theater.
Morgan: Most of the time I prefer no talking, but it’s such a case-by-case basis. When we show stuff at Hotel Vegas, that’s a rowdy bar environment. Please, respond to the movie, hoot and holler. But if I go to Austin Film Society, I’m like, “You better be quiet!”
Louise: I think a lot of people need to work on the lost art of the whisper. That’s always fine and polite. But if it’s unrelated to the movie, if you’re having a conversation about something else, that’s obviously rude.
Is there a filmmaker out there that you would devote a 24-hour marathon to?
Morgan: Lucio Fulci.
Louise: Agnes Varda. She has so many movies, the vibe shifts would keep it interesting.
Emily: Elia Suleiman, a Palestinian filmmaker who’s interested in exploring current events and past events. I feel like you could watch all his films in a night, and it wouldn’t feel tedious.
The first time Louisianna Purchase performed drag, it did not go well. “Literally 15 seconds into my number, my wig fell off,” she says. Not one to give up, she returned to the stage three months later to perform a duet with Summer Clearance. That’s when the bug hit, Louisianna says, and she hasn’t taken a month off drag since. Fast-forward 11 years and Louisianna has been voted Best Drag Performer eight consecutive times by the readers of The Austin Chronicle, and she’s competed on the reality TV show The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula. Not bad for a kid from Johnson Bayou — a town of 500 in rural Louisiana — who moved to Austin at her best friend’s urging to pursue visual art and music in 2011. Within two years, she found herself “thrown into the world” of drag when she started dating performer Bubu. They’ve been married for five years. today, Louisianna performs in Sad Girls Only at Swan Dive and Mochi Mochi at Cheer Up Charlies, two venues in Austin’s Red River Cultural District.
What does it take to be the best at something?
I’ve never thought of myself as being the best, but what has been consistent with my drag is having a connection with the audience and my fanbase. Just human to human. I’ve come to find that if you’re very authentic and present, audiences can feel that. I am also a firm believer in finding your drum’s beat and following that.
Are there any life lessons drag can teach non-drag folks?
Absolutely. It kills me to see people who have their life on hold, for whatever reason. I started drag at an age when most drag performers are thinking about quitting or retiring. You have one life that belongs to you. People would be so much happier if they followed their dreams without fear. The worst that can happen is people tell you no.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
When I got on Dragula, Mariah Balenciaga from RuPaul’s Drag Race and I were in Los Angeles doing a show together. She looked at me and said, “I have a piece of advice for you: Work smarter, not harder.” That runs through my head on at least a weekly basis. Don’t make things more difficult for yourself. Also, collect the money after the gig.
What’s the best thing about what you do?
I get to live out my fantasy onstage. There’s no greater satisfaction than producing art that completely comes from you, and people pay to come and see it.
And the worst?
Doing drag in the Texas summer heat. The sweating, the heat rashes, it separates those who have to do drag from those who are like, “I think I’ll do drag.” At least put some misters on the stage for us, please.
How do you handle failure?
I’ve learned that some of my greatest lessons have come from failures. And failures are only failures to a degree. To me it’s more of a failure if you never attempt, if you never give it a go. “Next time, diva!” That’s what you tell yourself.
What is something you wish you knew when you were starting out in your career?
To not stress. Looking back on Dragula, I wish I had more fun with it, been more relaxed. But I do suffer from overachiever syndrome.
How do you stay positive in a political climate that’s so uneasy right now?
How do I keep dancing in a world that’s burning? I ask myself that all the time. We have these horrific things happening in the world. Why am I concerned with drag? But I remember through my personal hard times, what pulled me through was art. Every hard time, there has to be dreamers who provide the content to help salve the people. I feel that’s my job, to provide entertainment and show love and give warmth to the world and my community.
BY SARAH THURMOND / PIC BY PHIL KLINE
Pipkin says, “You’ve got to create your own good news.”
That’s what Pipkin – known for appearing in The Sopranos and other TV and movie roles – has been doing with his wife, Christy, since they founded their Austin-based nonprofit in 2005. The Nobelity Project focuses on educational and environmental initiatives, most prominently in Kenya and central Texas. It has built all or a portion of more than 60 schools in Kenya since its founding, according to its website, and has sent more than 100 students in Kenya to college through its scholarship program. Many of those students are the first in their family to attend college.
“It’s a very distressing world right now,” Pipkin said. “And you’ve got to have something to feel good about. It really is helpful if you feel like you’re doing something that makes a difference. It doesn’t matter if it’s to one person, or if it’s to thousands of kids in another country, or whatever it is. It just has to be something that works for you.”
Raised in San Angelo and the Hill Country, Pipkin might be most recognizable to TV fans for his role as the narcoleptic boyfriend of Janice, Tony Soprano’s sister, in a handful of episodes of The Sopranos in 2001 and 2006. He later had a prominent role in another critically lauded HBO series, The Leftovers, and his film appearances include Waiting for Guffman, Friday Night Lights, The Alamo, Idiocracy and A Scanner Darkly. He’s authored both fiction and nonfiction books, including his New York Times bestseller co-written with longtime friend Willie Nelson, The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart. (Nelson and his wife, Annie D’Angelo, are members of the Nobelity Project’s advisory board.)
However, it was yet another medium – documentary filmmaking – that helped turn Turk and Christy’s Nobelity
Project into a true force for global good. Nobelity, which Turk wrote and directed, was released in 2006. The word, coined by Pipkin, was a portmanteau of the word “nobility” with “Nobel” – as in the group of nine Nobel laureates interviewed in the film about poverty and many other issues around the globe. Included in that group was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the revered South African anti-apartheid activist and winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize.
“We really thought it was going to be one movie about global problems,” Pipkin said. “We got all these great, amazing Nobel laureates, and I think somewhere in there, about the time I was interviewing Desmond Tutu, I was realizing this is going to be maybe a little more involved than one straight-up documentary.”
The film premiered at South by Southwest, earning Official Selection status at several festivals. It spawned a solution-focused followup doc in 2009, One Peace at a Time
The last Nobel laureate Pipkin interviewed for Nobelity was Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of Kenya’s Green Belt Movement. That initiative, founded in 1977, pursues environmental conservation through the planting of trees, and also aims to foster empowerment of women and girls in rural communities, among other objectives.
“That’s how I ended up in Kenya,” Pipkin said. “Just by hook or crook, planted trees in a school, and then the school needed water for the trees. We built a water system, and then they wanted a library, and a computer lab. Then, as it turned out, they really wanted to have a high school, because kids had no place to go to school after the eighth grade. We built a high school. So it had a rapid acceleration of our work from filmmaking to direct projects.”
Mwangaza Primary School, Kenya.
Turk and Christy present the Feed the Peace Award to Willie Nelson.
Pipkin filming in Calcutta at the Muharran.
Photo by Vance Holmes.
Christy Pipkin awarding a laptop to a top-scoring Kenyan high school grad. Desmond Tutu in Nobelity.
Christy Pipkin planting trees with students in Kenya.
Roatan Bookmobile
A new computer lab at Ol Moran Secondary, a remote school in Kenya’s Laikipia plateau.
Christy Pipkin at the Feed the Peace Awards
Turk with a rescued lion cub at Ol Pejeta Conservancy.
New “Turk Wine” purified water system at Ereri Primary in Kenya.
The new Modern Library, funded by Austin’s Urbanspace and “The Modern.”
“We were doing work on the ground in other places – in southeast Asia, in Latin America and here [in Texas],” Pipkin added. “But Kenya has always been probably more than half of that, partially because the need is pretty deep and the money goes really far.”
A third Nobelity film, Building Hope, followed in 2011, focusing on the project’s landmark build of Mahiga Hope High School in the remote Kenyan town of Mahiga. Also part of that project was Mahiga Rainwater Court, a basketball court and rainwater collection facility.
“Kenyans believe in education more than [people in] anyplace I’ve ever been,” Pipkin says, and another recent highlight was a three-story, nine-classroom addition to Mwangaza Primary School during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nobelity’s biggest single project to date, it came in response to huge enrollment numbers, and was completed well ahead of schedule.
“I was like, ‘Well, it’s not going to get any better than this,’” Pipkin said, recalling that achievement. “But I will tell you that every time you go back to the little kids and open a preschool or see the kids’ excitement, they get library books in their hands for the first time, it never gets old.”
Projects elsewhere have included converting school buses into bookmobiles for students in Honduras and partnering with Central Texas Food Bank on the Kids Cafe program, which provides free after-school meals to food-insecure children.
“It kind of blows my mind that we were able to pull it off,” he says of the Nobelity Project. “And all of that, I think, comes back to Austin. I don’t think we could have remotely accomplished all we did anywhere but here. It’s just that Austin’s a very special place, and people are very generous. They want good things to happen in the world, both here and [elsewhere].”
Christy serves as executive director of the Nobelity Project. Turk, who’s not an officer of the organization and isn’t on the executive board, doesn’t envision Nobelity lasting beyond he and Christy: “Eventually,” he says wryly, “your friends get tired of you asking for money.”
“I think at some point you do everything you can, and then you say, ‘We did it.’ Put up a victory flag,” he added. “[If] we stopped working tomorrow, all the schools will be open and functional for decades to come. So the results of the work don’t stop.”
Meanwhile, he’s always writing. But finding more acting roles isn’t something he stresses over.
“When you’re 6-foot-7 and 71 years old, you’re just going to get the part [if] you’re right for it,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how hard you try, or look, or work, or anything else – you can’t play anybody who’s 6-foot-2, you can’t play anybody who’s 55.
“You know, I can always do comic relief. You need a big, tall guy for something, I can do that. But the roles just come or they don’t come, and I don’t worry about it.”
photographer: Phil Kline
creative director: Torquil Dewar stylist: Kelli Ponce hair & makeup: Codi Lepors model: Cy Gan assistant: Peter Walton Special thanks to: Texas Grip and Wallflower Management
lay(er)
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Iam standing
isolated, remote, oceanic upon the exposed Earth’s crust, above me, an infinite blanket of celestial bodies.
The air is crisp and dry. Tentacles of Ocotillo stretch vertically toward the stars, tipped with fire and bathed in the wind from distant lands.
I come here, to this ancient desert, as a pilgrim — like a bird’s annual migration, returning home to refill, create and begin anew.
Philosophically, I am not invested in notions of permanence. Just like the desert and the celestial bodies above, we are bound to impermanence.
(Words and pics by Matt Wright-Steel, at Big Bend Ranch State Park)
It is my half-life moment, my 45th birthday.
I say half-life out of an abundance of pragmatism and dash of optimism. I have brought along a few friends, something I have never done on my annual sojourn, but this seemed like a moment to share.
A waxing gibbous moon brings the land and the stars together under the gaze of the sky god, Uranus, slowly descending below the horizon; but continuing.
It is here, under this sky that I wait, camera placed, aperture open. I am in observation, open to the granular intricacies of the universe, listening to the clicks, the brushing of grass against basalt, the wind sliding through and around.
At a 20-second exposure, moonlight becomes sunlight, or rather, the reflection of sunlight. Cool and muted, the shadows dense and sharp.
The shutter actuations close. Time and space captured.
photographer: Phil Kline
creative director: Torquil Dewar
stylist: Kelli Ponce
hair & makeup: Codi Lepors
model: Peyton Fishbeck
assistants: Peter Walton, Olivia Williams
Special thanks to: Texas Grip and Wallflower Management
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