Reprinted from The Olympian
BY MOLLY GILMORE-BALDWIN
When Vanda Mikoloski sent The Olympian a news release about her Quantum Comedy Show, we took notice. It's comedy about quantum physics -- not something you encounter too often.
And it was inspired by the made-in-Yelm movie "What the #$*! Do We Know?" (Say "What the Bleep Do We Know?")
But what caught our attention were the quotes at the bottom:
"Vanda is the funniest woman I've ever met." -- Sam Kinnison
"Vanda is superbly smart and funny ... funny and smart ... both of those." -- Bill Maher
"Watching Vanda is like watching a car accident on the side of a freeway." -- Brett Butler
OK, but she is a comedian, so is this some kind of joke?
"They're real," Mikoloski assured us. "I was really good friends with Sam Kinnison. He told the truth. It's a shame that he died. It's a shame that Bill Hicks, also a contemporary of mine, died. I actually feel like I have them behind me."
Mikoloski was a stand-up comedian from 1983 to 1996, but she had given it up and started teaching yoga in Yelm -- and to the Dixie Chicks.
"I toured with them," she said. "It was a fantastic opportunity.
"I like to think that I gave Natalie her political opinions." she said, laughing. "No, no, no -- I didn't do that."
Her story about Maher, a former boyfriend from her days as a comedian in New York, is even better.
"It's about my involvement with metaphysical things," she explained.
(A warning to the sensitive: The joke, about the FBI's standoff with the Branch Davidians, is as politically incorrect as Maher's late TV show.)
"When that thing happened at Waco, Texas, his comment to a friend of mine was, 'I hope Vanda's OK,' " she said. "He doesn't know what I'm involved in, but it's something weird like that. I just howled. I thought that was so funny."
Mikoloski has a lot more going for her than famous friends. She has a passion for what she's doing -- a passion she never found during her days in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle, when her comedy focused on romantic relationships.
"I always was frustrated that my act wasn't as smart as I was," she said. "I wanted to say something more, but I didn't quite have the confidence. That's just not a problem anymore."
You can't get much smarter than quantum physics -- even if the idea did come from a movie, by way of another comedian, Rick Overton. ("I used to try to flirt with him years ago," she said. "He was brilliant.")
As in the film, Mikoloski's comedy applies the laws of physics to daily life.
"Quantum physics is the science of the observer that at its core dictates that we're all one," she said. "It doesn't prove but it points to a unified state, which is heartening.
"It's what we need as a society -- understanding that we're not separate little bubbles that are aiming to consume as much as we can before we die."
We don't feel like laughing now, but Mikoloski can make quantum physics funny. Really.
"You can't call anyone an #$*! in traffic anymore," she said. "You can say, 'You occur as an #$*!' Actually, it would be more accurate to say, 'I'm an #$*!,' which isn't very satisfying."
|
