Poetry, Art and Jane Austen in GLBT-Friendly SF

My iambic pentameter sonnet "My Friend the Oak" has been accepted for a show at the Wickford Art Association Gallery on August 9th. It's one of those shows where the artwork is inspired by poetry. Yay!

In light of recent personal and collective events of a catastrophic and/or mind-boggling nature, including three paranormal hauntings, it seemed high time to in the words of an old friend to 'get jiggy with it' and reply to a resplendent advertisement seeking a partial owner of a sex toy store in Ptown. Nothing like the hauntings of three suiciders in twenty-four hours to put a spring in your step. Tiny Tim, they'll be plenty of edible underwear in everyone's stockings this year! No better time like the apocalypse for integrating some of that 50-shades-of-gray-chic infused with a touch of dungeon-inspired counter-cultural punk from my youth. What better way to express my inner... priestess? And as my husband who plunked me the anonymized email so aptly surmised it's "a great way to meet attractive gay guys". Somehow, I think the upwardly mobile hipsters of the Summerlands of Ptown can use readings with a candid medium and arts advocate when they are done perusing the galleries. I've sometimes pictured myself in old age, as a grand dame of mediumship, looking like Katharine Hepburn in Suddenly Last Summer, as she descends in her elevator, seated on her wicker throne. Owning such a shop would be a delightful excuse for further research into the depths of human sexuality, from a metaphysical perspective. Wait darling, I'm getting some relationship advice for you from your deceased aunt, bring those nipple clamps to the register and come with me. Naomi Wolfe's investigation of the Vagina should inspire all women to get right down to the real nitty gritty.

I believe my mention of "healthy sexuality" in my brief email may have landed me in the Doreen Virtue angel club file for life. Healthy doesn't mean lacking in kink, to me it just means consensual sex between two adults. If Shakespeare were alive today he might be a cross between the late Timothy Leary and Hunter S. Thompson, and have made his money as international playboy Tycoon, owning his own line of environmentally-friendly, TSA-tamper resistant, silicone-based, Cosplay-inspired sex toys that cater to international business men. If Jane Austen were alive today, she might wear leather chaps, sport a tongue barbell and own SF GLBT-friendly Good Vibrations. Oh yeah, she totally would. Totally. The premier magazine "Goforthauger Abbey" might sell out despite its terrible name, and get reprinted in two hundred languages.