TCGardstein's blog

My featured performance at Madame X this past March is up on YouTube. I read three poems from The Poetry Prostitute. So if you wanna look and listen before you commit to buying my eBook or audio book, now you can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3MUnF7E1cA

...be sure to stop by the "Chemistry Lab" (you'll find directions on the official map of the camp)Saturday at 3 p.m., where I will be facilitating an erotica writing workshop. I've turned a baker's dozen of boring notebooks from Staples into worthy souvenirs. Think steamy quotes whose mission are to inspire. Think artfully scattered silver stars. Think I've revealed all? Think again!

I will also be running an Erotica Open Mic on Sunday night at 9 p.m. for those PEXers who wish to share 5 minutes of erotic poetry, prose, music, etc. Teacher's-pet types who show up at my writing workshop will get a chance to sign up early.

Hope to see you there!

If you're in the city (of NY, that is) and want to rev yourself up for what promises to be a summery Easter weekend, check out the Cornelia St. Cafe performance series tonight. I've been invited by the venue's curator, poet Kathi Georges, to read a choice selection or two from The Poetry Prostitute.

Time: 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Address: 29 Cornelia Street

It was a dark and stormy night, and it was barely the middle of Saturday afternoon.

Damn, was I depressed. The 13th is usually my favorite day of the month, but this mid-March monsoon that had begun in NY the previous day was growing worse by the hour. Trees were falling all over the city, killing half a dozen hapless people, and I was performing erotic poetry for the first time since last August. I envisioned a venue empty except for the hostess and the other bedraggled performers.

Was I ever wrong, and am I ever grateful to the people who filled the cozy, rosy-hued, bordello-like upstairs room of Madame X in support of all stripes of erotica performers. There were two other poets (my personal favorites, especially the one who already is my personal favorite in other respects), some essayists, storytellers, letter-readers, even a rapper. The hostess, Monica Day, changed from a slinky little outfit into an oversize white button-down shirt in the name of moving to the next level of intimacy with the audience. Door prizes in the form of bottles of champagne were given out to lucky audience members who rose to the "what was your most sensual moment" challenge, scribbling down those moments on little pink note cards, which were then carried up on stage in the mouth of a guy with a silver ponytail who was Monica's "pet" for the evening. (Yes, he also crawled on all fours.)

It's been too long since the last time I got my ass up on a stage and performed my erotic writing. I'll be reentering the fray this weekend. There will be a whole bunch of performers getting their (and hopefully the audience's) eros on, and curator Monica Day of http://thesensuallife.com has featured me along with Kiki Valentine of The Sunday Show and Richard Anton Diaz of Sexy Spirits, who was mentioned in my last post! I'll be reading some of the juicier poems from The Poetry Prostitute, which Paper Bag Press was cool enough to recently publish as an eBook.

Here's the skinny on starting your Saturday night off with a bang:

Madame X

94 West Houston Street

In the Big Sexy Apple!

7:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

$10 cover, 2 drink minimum

Even if you can't come (so to speak), please tell any erotica lovers in your orbit, who are also in the NY area, about this red-hot event!

It's been nearly five months since I've last posted any of my doings or reviews, and now seems an appropriate time to break the silence. Admittedly my desire to put eros into words has been at ebb tide, but now, with my new eBook of erotic verse, The Poetry Prostitute, up on Paper Bag Press, I am rediscovering the pleasure of doing just that.

Giving short and not-so-sweet astrology readings for guests at the "My Naughty Valentine" Chemistry event this past weekend was a great reminder of a particular kind of pleasure dome: one that has little to do with lights-out privacy and conventionality, and everything to do with swirling, sizzling eroticism tempered with humor and punctuated with downright surrealism. Yet the play area, which tends to lose its boundaries and spill throughout the urban loft space as the very long night progresses, is not the ultimate destination for all those who are screened and invited to attend this party. Many guests simply enjoy good conversation with new and old friends, delectable edibles by a gourmet chef, exciting entertainment, cozy couches, and jammin' dance floor with tireless DJs.

No Dark Odyssey for your faithful erotica author and blogger this weekend. Tonight, instead of packing my new fetish gear into my suitcase, I stashed it in the farthest reaches of my closet so that I don't get sad gazing at all that shiny black patent leather. 

Hemingway once quipped, "Nothing bad can ever happen to a writer; it's all material."

I'm not sure I agree with the first part of that statement, but as for the second...I believe in it more with each passing day.

Seems that yours truly, author of "Sandwich Filling," is pushing her envelope ever so slightly.

I've never been much for BDSM, although a few years ago I wrote an exhaustive (and exhausting!) glossary of "alternative lifestyle" terms for a website that never went live for reasons unknown. Many of these terms were familiar to me from my years spent researching the wonderful world of sex parties and so-called sandwiches (see my eBook), but many more were not. By the end of this writing gig, I had a pretty clear idea of my comfort zone, and which activities I might want to try in good (i.e., "bad") company.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a "pain slut." I have a very low threshold for pain, and let's not even get into the years of torture I endured before somehow managing to train myself out of being extremely ticklish. Nor do I have any pressing need to dish out pain in a sexual context--the only time I really feel like hurting someone is when I'm angry, and far outside the boudoir. And anger apparently has no place in SM. All this by way of stating that my knives shall stay in the kitchen drawer when they are not being used to chop edibles; my candle wax shall cool in its holder; and my needles shall stay in the sewing kit I never use because the tailor a few blocks away does a much better job hemming a new pair of pants.

...although the chemistry between Julia (played by the miracle known as Meryl Streep) and Paul, her diplomat husband was definitely cooking as well. These two middle-aged spouses, in fact, were far smokier together than the younger couple of Julie and Eric, who were more like two toddlers arguing over ownership of a shovel in the playground sandbox.

I just managed to delete the rest of this post. This is why one should never write a blog entry directly into the blog box.

Anyway, watching this movie made me wish that the concession stand served sole meuniere, boeuf bourguignon, and gimlets instead of popcorn with fake butter and soft drinks.

Food choices really do tell so much about a person's character, as well as the times we live in. I wish there was more food in movies, because most people do eat as they live their complicated lives, even if they don't actually cook. As a pro-butter omnivore with blessedly low cholestoral levels and a frame that still falls within the parameters of petite, I sometimes feel like an irresponsible hedonist when confronted with friends' diets..."juicing" instead of eating fruits and vegetables; no bread; and of course, no butter. At least I mostly run with carnivores. And it was a pleasure to cook an English breakfast for my English friend as he packed for a three-week vacation nearly three weeks ago. Upon his return, I want to surprise him with a vat of spaghetti carbonara and a caprese salad...after our other appetites have been satiated, that is....   

I'll be performing some of my erotic poetry in a variety show tomorrow night.

When: Tues. 8/18, 8 p.m.

Where: POV, 99 South 6th Street (between Bedford & Berry), right next to the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn

Why: it's a fundraiser for a Burning Man camp that calls themselves "the Museum of Unnatural History"

Wallet: between $5 - $15, depending on how many greenbacks you have to spare

Wet Your Whistle: drinks will be served!

This show will also feature musicians and comedians. All in all, a lineup of talent that will make the heatwave in "the Baked Apple" that much steamier. If you, um, come, you'll surely be glad that you did.