We’re back in San Francisco, and it’s Easter, which means it’s time for the annual Hunky Jesus competition put on by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. For those of you who don’t live in the Bay Area, the sisters are a sex-positive non-denominational order of cross dressing nuns. They create or help run a number of progressive and transgressive events, and are something of a local institution. If you see the sisters are involved in a event, that means it…
A unique tribute to conspicuous consumption, Hearst Castle sits like a gothic wedding cake on a hilltop on the southern California coast. Hearst Castle was a meal ticket for architect Julia Morgan for twenty-eight years, and the estate now includes the hotel sized big house and three guest cottages the size of mansions. Here’s one of the cottages. William Randolph Hearst was a collector with the artistic sensibilities of a rabid magpie. He collected coffins, ceilings, floors, tapestries, and fragments…
The town of Cambria on the California coast was the inspiration for “Pine Cove” in Christopher Moore’s books. It lurks on a hill overlooking a bay with a small lagoon where eldritch horrors quite probably gather when they want a seaside vacation. Though most of the inhabitants clearly eke out a precarious existence selling each other antiques and curios, there may be some farming. We did see one couple with a pig on a leash, though whether this was for…