Speakeasy Japan was a huge success! Thanks to everyone that volunteered to make Mission Control’s first Speakeasy a great event. And thanks to all the folks that came out and participated in a truly unique and memorable evening.
‘Speakeasy’
Speakeasy – Japan, Tuesday March 23rd
On March - 3 - 2010
Join us for Speakeasy-Japan, a social and cultural gathering exploring the contrast of contemporary and traditional Japanese culture,
celebrated within the magical milieu that is Mission Control.
Featuring:
Midori on Pink Japan | Chanoyu Tea Ceremony by Heather Tea Dragon | Japanese Love Hotel and Fetish Tea Service | Shibari style Rope Bondage | Japanese Snacks… and More!
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Tuesday, March 23rd 7 PM – 11 PM
$20 at the door, $15 pre-sale. No PAL required, so bring your friends! Alliance Cards and Multipasses accepted. This is a social and cultural event and not a play party, though some nudity may be shown. As always, strictly BYOB.
Please dress up in Cosplay or 20′s Speakeasy attire if you can. It’s more fun that way!
* Scroll down for more info *
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Pink Japan: Secret Lives & Underground Sex Cultures
Take a tour of the sexual underbelly of Japan in this funny expose.
Presented by Midori
Join Midori, author of The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage, in this quirky and insightful talk and a double-expatriate’s presentation of Japan’s hidden sexual culture. Midori is a Kyoto born, Tokyo-raised, trouble-making, freak-seeking missile of a Japanese-American author and sex educator based in San Francisco.
From cuisine, music, fashion, technology to anime, Japan’s cultural influences on the West is immense. In many ways Japanese erotic cultures also influence today’s Western tastes. Yet the daily realities of Japan’s gender relations, sexual habits, sexual consumer culture remain hidden to us, creating an aura of mystique. Join us and peak behind the sliding walls…
Acclaimed writer and lecturer on a wide range of sexual topics, and an activist, Midori has a degree in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and vast indispensable experience as a pioneering San Francisco sex educator. She is known for her humanistic, humorous and warm classes that help revv-up sex lives and encourage self discovery and personal growth. Originally from Japan, now based in San Francisco, she travels all over the globe teaching passionate love skill. A regular advice columnist for CarnalNation, Men’s Health, and other publication, Midori has appeared on HBO and BBC, and has been featured in Vogue, Playboy, Der Spiegel, Cosmo and more. Multifaceted, she is a performance and installation artist who has been invited to present to art institutions such as Tanzquartier, Vienna and Das Arts in Amsterdam. She’s the author of bestselling books “The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage” and “Wild Side Sex”
For more on Midori, visit Www.PlanetMidori.com
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Chanoyu Tea Ceremony
Hosted by Heather Tea Dragon
Ms. Tea Dragon is looking forward to serving you a bowl of tea at Mission Control. There will be three seatings during the course of the evening. However, space is limited, so please secure your admittance ticket for the tearoom early!
Born in the year of the Dragon, this little “Tea Dragon” has been trained in the tradition of Urasenke Chanoyu. She began her studies of chanoyu at the University of Hawai’i in a beautifully rustic tea house set amidst a traditional Japanese garden located on the Mānoa campus. The scenery and atmosphere of the location inspired her to pursue the Way of Tea all the way to Kyoto, Japan; where she studied at the technical tea college for one year. Soon she was living in the Bay Area continuing her studies in San Francisco and volunteering at the Sakura Matsuri, local educational programs for college students, art galleries, and museums. She continues to host gatherings both public and private and always makes sure to bring her tea whisk with her to the playa.
Chanoyu literally means “hot water for tea.” This procedure of making and drinking powdered green tea is a form, definite and regular. It cannot be defined as to content. That is for each person, each occasion to decide. While chanoyu may be a solitary activity, more often it is done within a small group of people.
In the words of Sen Genshitsu, fifteenth generation Head Tea Master of the Urasenke Tradition of Chanoyu, “Strange to say, this tranquility [of sitting alone] will deepen even further when another person enters the microcosm of the tearoom and joins the host….That we can find a lasting tranquility within our own selves in the company of others is the paradox.”
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Shibari with Madame Butterfly, MastressK, & miss meowrs
Shibari, or kinbaku, is the Japanese art of bondage. It is a significant theme in Japanese eroticism and invokes a fascination with domination and submission. Translated literally Shibari means “to tie” or “to bind.” It is used in Japan to describe the artful binding of objects or packages. It has come to also mean bondage of a jujun (“one who submits to the rope”) in intricate yet simple patterns by the nawashi (“one who uses rope”). It aims to be aesthetically pleasing to behold and sensually pleasing to experience.
As Midori describes it, the:artistic heart (of Shibari) is much like that of Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) . . . Take the natural ingredient, apply to it the artist’s interpretation, distilling nature’s patterns. . . thus producing a symbolized homage to the balance and grace of natural forces. Like Ikebana, which understands, incorporates, and represents the drama of seasons, Japanese rope bondage understands, incorporates and represents the drama of fantasy and sexual desire.
At Speakeasy Japan we will enjoy the Shibari art of Madame Butterfly and MastressK – each acting as ‘nawashi’ for the evening. Join them in the main room as they artfully bind, interpret and distill the beauty of miss meowrs, their ‘jujun’.
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Love Hotel Cafe
envisioned by our very own Chris Kiss
For one night only, we bring to you the Mission Control Love Hotel Tea Service. Japan’s erotic impulses are translated into cultural and contextual “mash-ups” that fetishize the innocent, the foreign and the virtual.
Chris will combine two of these: a Maid and Butler Cafe and a Love Hotel. The result – a Love Hotel Cafe where you can enjoy tea and scones served by attentive and sweet Maids and servile and accommodating Butlers. Become Master or Madame of the house for the time it takes you to quaff your tea (sip slowly!).
A uniquely Japanese institution, the phenomenon of the Love Hotel is captivating both aesthetically and in terms of its function in the layered and complex sex culture of Japan. Sharing roots with the geisha teahouses of the Edo period, love hotels provide an insight into the psycho-social and political history of sex in Japan, and speak to prevailing views and expressions of kink, sexual orientation and social convention. Often combining traditional furnishings and aesthetic elements such as shoji screens, tansus, and Ukiyo-e woodblock prints with contemporary elements such as manga, karaoke, video game consoles, device bondage, school-girl pornography, and various visual tropes adopted from western culture, these spaces represent one of the many fascinating aspects of the nuanced world of sexuality and fetish in Japan.
Mission Control and the love hotel serve distinctly different roles in their respective sexual sub-cultures – Mission Control has been designed to foster community and openness while the love hotel is designed to serve the privacy needs of its clients – however, they share many characteristics. Both use the artistry of environmental design to stimulate imagination, and both provide a unique place for freedom of expression.
PLUS:
Japanese Snacks
Music
And More!
In true Mission Control style, there are many ways to co-create & participate… dress up, volunteer, bring japanese goodness, ask questions, and start conversation. This is our time to relax together.
Enjoy the social and cultural nexus that brings all your favorite friendly people together.
COSTUME PLAY!
Please feel free to dress up in your favorite Japanese Cosplay or Speakeasy 20′s wear.
It’s more fun that way!
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