Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata: Helping Keep Austin Weird

Austinians fighting to “Keep Austin Weird” have legions of outposts throughout the city. The Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata is one of the quirkiest! Located in the house occupied by a husband-wife team, the Museum of Ephemerata is dedicated to the oddness of the human desire to collect things, as demonstrated in their “impermanent collection.” The collection has five categories: urban phantasmagoria, the celebrity collection, the snowglobe collection, and what the owners have dubbed “an entire wig collection dedicated to sleep.” The museum also hosts events. But in the spirit of the venue, they’re quite atypical: less along the lines of barbecues and blues bands than of seances, komboucha workshops, and special exhibits of narwhal teeth. All planned events are posted onto the museum’s website, so check there to see what's happening.

Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata
1808 Singleton Avenue
Austin, TX 78702
(512) 320-0566
 

Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum: Serene Space

There’s nothing exciting that goes on at Austin's Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum. But that’s precisely the point! Fifty sculptures created by 20th Century sculptor Charles Umlauf pepper the serene outdoor grove, giving visitors the opportunity to pause and appreciate them. Allow the sculptures to provide ambiance while you sit on a bench and read a book and let the kids roam around. Think of Umlauf as an artistically curated park, situated in the hustle of Austin but somehow shielded from it in a calm oasis. Umlauf offers summer camps for children and offers yoga sessions (the sessions are called “The Body as Sculpture”) throughout the season. And, okay, there’s one exciting happening: the yearly Garden Party, which was listed by the Austin Chronicle in its 2005 “Best of Austin” issue as, well, one of the best things to do in Austin.

Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum

605 Robert E. Lee Road
Austin, TX 78704
(512) 445-5582

Blue Starlite Mini Urban Drive-in: Cinema Time Machine

Drive-ins aren’t dead! It wasn’t more than a year ago that a guy named Josh saw an empty lot on Austin's Cesar Chaved Boulevard and thought the vacant space would be better utilized as a cinema time machine. Blue Starlite Mini Urban Drive-In has since taken on three additional employees, added capacity for 20 cars, and now sports a full 22’ x 10’ widescreen. Blue Starlite typically shows movies that are appropriate for a public throwback venue from another decade. For example, Star Wars, Back to the Future, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Pedestrians get in for $5, and cars are $25. Feel free to pile in as many people as you want to listen in to the FM radio speaker. Just know that the price does not include that drive-in friendly ‘61 Cadillac!

Blue Starlite Mini Urban Drive-in

2326 E. Cesar Chavez Boulevard
Austin, TX 78702
(512) 522-1278

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