BoingBoing pal and intrepid sexblogger/podcaster/author Violet Blue today made her debut as the SF Chronicle's newest columnist. The first edition of her weekly online column about the erotic underpinnings of San Francisco city culture, "Violet Blue: Open Source Sex," is now live: Link. This week, she reports on an underground sex club and secret Tiki bar frequented by hipsters and Elvis impersonators.

For a news institution like the Chron to make an indie blogger a columnist is interesting enough... but this is also the paper's first-ever column about sexuality. That's an admirably risky move. Phil Bronstein's got balls.

But evidently, not everyone at the paper does. Typically, they run a list of links (a blogroll of sorts) next to online columns. Looks like someone went limp at the last minute with Violet's column. Not only did they yank the links, they won't even link to her own blog, or books, or podcasts, as they would with other columnists (shame on you, whoever you are). She's posted the conspicuously missing linkroll here.

And Scott Beale adds, "A group of pranksters have been modifying bus shelters with unauthorized promotional posters for Violet’s new column. Here’s the first one and the second one."

Looks like the work of the Billboard Liberation Front. One of the pimped-out bus stops is shown above. More snapshots here, including one billboard-mod which contains nudity. Here's the Chronicle's press release about the column launch, here's a video interview with her at RyanIsHungry, and Violet's blog-post about the project is here. Congratulations, Violet!

Update: David Calkins says,

"We saw this. Took a quick snapshot - sorry for the poor quality. Balsy fuckers, whoever they are. I wonder just how many buses and shelters they hit?"

Link to full-size.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:41:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments