Elaine’s All Blogged Up

Afuwa and I went out the other day to blanket the city with lovely shiny posters for Queerotica, and I found I was enjoying a particular game as we encountered postering places and tried to find room for ours. You see, many of my queer peers had posters out for events, even in the areas of town that might be termed less than queer friendly. And my game was to scrupulously avoid overlapping or obscuring anything queer-themed. As a result, many of the lampposts (even at Broadway and Alma) were almost entirely freakin’ GAY by the time we were done.

Covering the city with all those bits of coloured paper… looks like a rainbow to me.

This is gonna be a Really Good Time. Ryan’s in it, and Shaira, and Dj. and Ticha and Maryanne and Amber Dawn and Rachel, and lots of other talented folks.

Friday, July 25th

See you there!

(Click the poster if you can’t see the whole thing, and it’ll pop up in a new window. Or check out http://prideinart.ca for details.)

I’m involved in producing or performing ina bunch of stuff this Pride season…

So here’s a kind of lump of “Here’s what I’m doing in the next few weeks, please come out and join me.” newsletter. With links to details, and to the pretty posters.

Please feel free to tell other people about ‘em.

In order of organizing panic, I mean, in the order we come to ‘em….

Continue Reading »

I’ve got the final list of our amazing talent!
Here are the writers. I mean readers. You know.

(in no particular order!)

- Anna Camilleri
- Michael V Smith
- Amber Dawn
- Elaine Miller
- River Light
- Mette Bach
- Afuwa Granger
- Douglas Bacon
- Billeh Nickerson
- Tony Correia
- Terrie Hamazaki
- Claire Campbell-Williams
- Kat Babcock

and on the little sister’s reading team:
Jim Deva
Janine Fuller
Stuart Blackley
Ken Boesem
Jürgen von Steffens
Aerlyn Weissman

I swear this is not my fault. I just looked up from my typing and there he was, in this position. I gasped in horror, picked up the camera and snapped a pic… and he casually unpretzel’d himself and walked away with no sign of spinal injury.

Dykes on Bikes @ Vancouver Gay Pride 2008 — the plan! (pass it on)
http://bykedykes.vancouverleather.com/
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Sunday, July 27th — Dykes on Bikes pre-parade BIKE WASH

1:30 — 4:30pm
2304 East Georgia St
http://bykedykes.vancouverleather.com for details….

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Saturday, Aug 2 — The DykeMarch

http://www.vancouverdykemarch.com/
Gather 11:30am at the west wide of McSpadden Park.
Starts at noon.

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Sunday, Aug 3 — the Pride Parade

For those starting on the East Side (Oh, the joys of the queer-women
biker gang run through the heart of the city…) Commercial and 3rd Ave.
Between 10 & 10:30 arrival, leave the east end for the west end at 11 am.

Parade starts at Robson and Thurlow this year!
http://www.vancouverpride.ca/parade/parade_route.php
Offical start time is noon… bykes arrive at Robson &
Thurlow at 11am (or earlier, or later).
Go to the head of the parade. No paperwork required.

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Parade Guidelines:

Wear your helmet to travel to the parade start, but *you* choose whether
to wear it during the parade. Often a float vehicle hear the front will
volunteer some space to hold your lids while en route.

Keep it slow, both on the turns and the long straightaways! Fast riding
scares the moms with toddlers sitting on the curb, and some of our
riders have less experience than you do, hotdogger. And the cops can get damn snarky at high-speed riding. Also, you want everyone to be able to see your sexy self on your hot machine — not just a blur with a bug-spattered grin.

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If you haven’t already…. Join the BykeDykes mailing list!
http://bykedykes.vancouverleather.com/

See the BykeDykes gallery, including some past year’s Bike Wash events
http://elainemiller.com/gallery/bykedykes/

Take Pictures! Get your mom to take pictures!
Send ‘em to elaine@elainemiller.com (with notes about attribution if
necessary) and Elaine will whip ‘em up onto the gallery.

Dykes on Bikes pre-parade BIKE WASH

WHY
You know you wanna look all purty in the Gay Pride Parade. Also, it’s nice to be admired for your shiny machine at every other place in town.

WHO
Dykes with bikes, women with motorcycles, genderqueers with scooters, and all those queer folks who admire ‘em and/or wanna offer polishing help.

WHEN
Sunday, July 27th, 1:30 — 4:30pm
(in any weather except violently inclement)

WHERE
2304 East Georgia St
(1 block west of Nanaimo St)
Look for the pirate flag and the array of motorcyles.

HOW
We’ll provide buckets, a few rags, a garden hose, and some ordinary soapy stuff.
And ice. And a cooler or so.

Bring whatever you’re drinking, a few more rags or sponges or toothbrushes, plus any polishing compounds and the like.

WHAT ELSE?

Join the BykeDykes mailing list!
(even if you did a few years ago, because a webserver crash ate the list a while back)
http://bykedykes.vancouverleather.com/

See the BykeDykes gallery, including some past year’s Bike Wash events
http://elainemiller.com/gallery/bykedykes/

BONUS: Dykes on Bikes Pride Weekend planning cheatsheet:

Saturday, Aug 2 (DYKEMARCH): Gather 11:30am, West side of McSpadden Park

Sunday, Aug 3 (PRIDE PARADE):
East End—> Commercial Dr at 3rd, 10:30am, head downtown @11
West End—> Robson and Thurlow, 11am-ish., Parade starts at noon.

We’ve got our dang star-studded lineup, for the most part, and are doing a kind of “last call” before we finalize the new poster. Have a piece you were sitting on until the last dang second? Get it to us, quick!

Deadline: June 29th

http://elainemiller.com/queerotica/

http://elainemiller.com/queerotica/call.php

http://tttaiko.com/jodaiko/

Cuteness Factor Ten, Mr Sulu.

Looky here if your browser is getting the image all blocked up…

Desire has to be one of the most unique women’s leather events around. The brilliant women who plan it create a kind of … I dunno… leatherwoman disneyland, where you never have to think a thought about the great big outside world unless you choose to.

I had a chance to connect in some amazing ways (social, sexual, and play-wise) with some incredible folks, and boy, did I ever build memories! Mmm. Memories….

I’m damn grateful for so many things about this past weekend — especially the people. Especially those adorable dykes who were so generous with giving me all a grrl could possibly… desire.

I could rave on and on, but… well, not in a public blog. So there.

(If you’re reading this at one of the many places where my blog feeds, you might need to see the actual blog to catch the nifty factor…)

So, I have this font that’s my actual handwriting. Wait, that’s not the nifty part. Especially not considering how much like an epileptic chicken I write.

There’s this coolio plugin here:
http://templature.com/2007/10/18/ttftitles-wordpress-plugin/

And I installed it. Now my posts will come titled as if I handwrote them, which tickles my techy irony-spot.

Ryan and I (with help from cute “schoolboys”, T and MA) are performing at Diva’s Den this Sunday evening — I do hope you can make it out to laugh at… I mean, cheer us on!

Penthouse at 1019 Seymour St
doors 7, 8pm show start
$15 adv (little sisters) or $18 at the door

Note that the damn venue is only partially accessible — they’ve got a dedicated accessible area with a view, reachable by the back door, but bathrooms are reportedly impassible.

VIDEO
If any of y’all are both planning to come *and* in possession of a videocamera, if you’d consider taping our wee show, I’d be mighty pleased. This must be done by prearrangement only, so lemme know before Sunday morning, please, and I’ll make it okay with the bouncers.

And…

DESK PROP
We have the generous offer of a sweet li’l schooldesk, but now realize that we’d be better off with a separate table-and-chair kind of desk, so the desk part and the chair part can be used separately onstage.
Anyone got a wee table/desk kind of thing? the kind that isn’t attached to its own chair?
Please let me know — I can travel to pick up, and drop it off again to you.

See you there?

-Elaine

This post is pure meaningless frippery. Don’t even read it.

I stumbled across this image, and had to share.

I once (about 5 years ago?) did a reading on the smallest stage I have ever encountered. It’s smaller, I think, than my kitchen table. Smaller than my loveseat. Much, much smaller than my bed. Here it is…

(Points for those Vancouver queers who comment with the name of the venue.)

Call for Readers/Submissions: QUEEROTICA 2008

This is a call for writers/readers/performers of queer erotic literature (and written filthy smut and porn) to read at Queerotica, a “collective fundraiser” (to pay you, the local queer writers who read porn at this event) on July 30th, 2008 during Pride week in Vancouver.

What I’m Looking For:
Writers who are willing — nay, eager — to read or recite their own pieces of queer erotica/porn/smut.
Erotica must be queer-themed, which includes gay, lesbian, bi, and all flavours of queer transgender.
I’d love to see raunchy, transgressive, smokin’ hot porn. I’d love erotica featuring queers of all different races, sizes, ages and abilities. I’d like to see intelligent, contemporary, mind-bending porn that leaves the listener hot, wet, hard, or dizzy. I’d like to see clever erotica that makes us laugh and sigh and smile knowingly at our lover. I’ll even look at poetry!
Restrictions (the usual suspects): no children, animals, former food, or former people.

Interested?
Drop me a line at queerotica (at) elainemiller (dot)com and introduce yourself.
I’d love a copy of the piece you’re interested in reading. I’m almost universally computer-compatible. Send it in the body of an email, or attached as a text file, or as an RTF, or a doc file, or as an HTML file, or a link to your performance on YouTube, or… whatever else you can think of.

What’s In This For You?
Since this event is “admission by donation”, I can offer a only a promise of an equal share after costs for lending your talents and hotness. Amount TBA, on the night. Besides that, there’s effusive thanks, your name in lights, a cred on your pr0n-writing resume, and the warm knowledge that you’re setting fire to the pants of Queer Vancouver.

What Else?
Here’s the nifty thing: A bunch of the Little Sister’s crew are going to come read some of the varied erotic material that got books halted at the border! More details as I have ‘em.

Details, and the freshest news:
http://elainemiller.com/queerotica/

Event Info:

Queerotica
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008, 7:30pm
(note correction: it starts at 7:30pm!)
@ The Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre
(http://www.roundhouse.ca/)
Vancouver, BC, Canada

As part of the Pride in Art Festival 2008
(http://prideinart.ca/)

Organized by Elaine Miller with huge assistance from Afuwa Granger
(http://elainemiller.com, http://afuwa.com)

I’m producing this thing, with help from the lovely and talented Afuwa. Please mark it on your calendars! I’ve already got some smoking hot readers lined up…

Details here:
(note correction: it starts at 7:30pm!)
http://elainemiller.com/queerotica/

Call for Subs here:
http://elainemiller.com/queerotica/call.php

Ryan’s cooking like mad for our party snacks, I’ve got a bin of doohickies to bring, a bunch of dyke porn to pick up, and guests coming in from out of town… Yay! Birthday parties!

You coming to help celebrate?

I have a mild sprain of my right wrist — I’m gonna need help giving volunteer passers-by my birthday spanks.

http://nubianimp.com/sweat/

PRIDE IN ART FESTIVAL 2008 — GENDER TWIST — CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Performance Opportunities July 25th and August 3rd, 2008
Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Center

Pride in Art is inviting Queer Artists (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered and Intersex) to participate in the following Pride in Art Festival performances:

1) Cabaret Night
Friday, July 25, 2008

PIA is looking for creative and entertaining live presentations of a professional quality, utilizing visual elements to participate in Cabaret Night.

“In the spirit of Cabaret, once named ‘Degenerate Music’, PIA is presenting an evening that celebrates the decadent and sexually transgressive world. Cabaret is an art form that criticized, sexual hypocrisy, homophobia, bans on abortion and the general dishonesty and corruption of the culture.”
Be inspired by Madame Satã, Josephine Baker, Kurt Wiell, Bertolt Brecht and many others.
Drag and genderfuck encouraged but not required.
Grand piano will be available.

ii) Wilde at Art
Sunday, August 3 2008

PIA is looking for anything Wilde! (Oscar Wilde that is!) Wit, wisdom, gaiety, tragedy and hope. Explore the brilliant and, well… wild life of Oscar. Music, theater, dance or original piece of high professional quality and visual element is welcomed.

“It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.” Oscar WIlde
Drag and genderfuck encouraged but not required.
Grand piano will be available.

Submission Deadline:
Tuesday, May 23, 2008, 6:00 p.m.

Submission Requirements:
Sample of your work if possible (via e-mail or DVD-R)
Detailed description of your proposed performance
Biography, Resume and/or Curriculum Vitae
Headshot (if available)
SASE (optional, if you would like your submission returned)

For more information:

Website: www.prideinart.ca
Cabaret Night: Shaira Holman 604.254.5869 bastardprince-at-gmail-dot-com
Wilde at Art: Karen Lee-Morlang 778.898.6487 karen-at-lee-morlang-dot-com

Mailing address: Att’n: (Specify performance: Cabaret Night and/or Wilde at Art)
Pride in Art Festival 2008 Submissions
2248 East 3rd Ave Vancouver, BC V5N1J1

An artist’s honorarium will be paid

The illustrious Kona has offered to let me share in her annual birthday women’s sexy sauna party celebrations, and we’ve picked a date in between both our birthdays, and thus, we will sweat.

Please come join us, and come.

All them details at http://nubianimp.com/sweat/