Source: Annie Sprinkle
By: Company Press Release
The Sprinkle Report Winter-2005: 1. Doing the Breast Cancer Ballet 2. News from the Love Art Laboratory 3. Our New Theater Show is Born! 4. Spectacular sex update. 4. My New DVD is available for XXX-mas. 5. On the home front. 6. What’s Next?
Greetings from San Francisco! I hope this email newsletter finds you healthy and happy. There have been some very interesting and exciting developments in my life and work, which I’m anxious to tell you about.
1. On April Fools Day, I was diagnosed with breast cancer in my right boobie. Luckily I have always routinely checked my breasts and I felt the pea-sized lump, which was invisible on mammograms even after doctors knew it was there. (Hand-check your breasts! You can’t depend on mammograms.) While it was a bit of a shock and I confronted my mortality for the first time, breast cancer made some sense in the grand scheme of things. For three decades my work has often focused on, and has utilized, my large breasts. If I had to get a disease, I was glad that it was breast related and would fit into my body of work.
Yes, I still have both breasts. Two biopsies and two lumpectomies later, pathology showed no lymph node involvement, stage one breast cancer, with an estrogen receptive, fast growing, .09 cm tumor. Fortunately I had excellent health insurance, thanks to my wonderful domestic partner Beth, and to UCSC (Beth is an art professor there.) So we lined up the most wonderful, kind, holistic, Fun, medical practitioners and healers, and they All recommended I do chemo followed by radiation. Beth came with me to every one of the eight chemo infusions from July thorough October. She has been a super fantastic bosom-cancer-buddy.
While I had some rather icky days where I became chemically altered and fatigued, we got through chemo with flying colors. Family and friends sent much love my way. Beth even shaved her head in solidarity. Plus there was (and still is) yoga, gym workouts with a fab personal trainer, Chinese medicine, acupuncture, herbs, swimming, steam baths, miso soup, support groups, and shamanic journeys/healings. If I have been out of touch with you and haven’t told you about the breast cancer before this, it’s only because all of this stuff has kept me very busy. (I’m behind on over 1,000 emails!) Plus I have continued to work throughout breast cancer treatments.
While I consider myself completely cured at this point, for extra insurance, I am undergoing 33 radiation treatments. I’ll finish Jan.4. My prognosis is excellent. According to statistics, I have only a 3% chance of the breast cancer recurring before ten years. Those are good odds that I’ll be around for years to come (pun intended). Life is just too damned interesting and wonderful not to stick around. Plus I have a commitment…
2. Last December 18th, Beth and I made a formal commitment to seven years of doing art projects about love, to in our own personal way counteract the violence of the wars, and the attacks on gay rights and sex education. We have been very busy beavers and are thrilled with all that we have accomplished this past year in our “Love Art Laboratory.” There were our Free Sidewalk Sex Clinics, Cuddle performances, and the X-Treme Kiss. Then there were the amazing Erotic Art Making and Art Give Away Events, where we generated and gave away close to a thousand pieces of erotic art. We dressed up in costumes for each chemo infusion and created a Chemo Fashion Show. Most of this, and more is documented and on our web site: LoveArtLab.org/. Do check out Hairotica, see how beautiful we look bald, plus marvel at the gory photos of my surgeries and tumor.
3. My most exciting news is that Beth and I have birthed a new theater/performance art piece, Post Porn Love. We just world premiered it (early Nov.) at the Center of Contemporary Arts in Glasgow and got great response! We can hardly wait to do it again. It’s about love, sex, death and art; directed by Neon Weiss, with mixed media design by Sheila Malone. If you know of any good theaters in your city that might be interested in our show, please let me know. We’re currently booking (internationally) and hope to perform for you.
4. Unfortunately my breast cancer diagnosis came right before my beautiful book Dr. Sprinkle’s Spectacular Sex-Make Over Your Love Life was released. So I wasn’t able to give it a proper book tour and publicity push, and sales suffered for that. However I’ve been getting some wonderful feedback from people who have read it. It’s not too late for you to get a copy from your local bookstore, or from my web site, AnnieSprinkle.org. (Notice that my web site got a beautiful makeover by Danny Wasko, and there are lots of new high-res photos of moi in the press photos section.)
5. At long last my first DVD is done! Annie Sprinkle’s Herstory of Porn, now has lots of extras, and a commentary by film scholar Linda Williams. My unique film diary makes a lovely XXX-mas gift folks! It’s at the duplicators now and should be for sale on my site by Dec. 7th. Annie’s Amazing World of Orgasm is next up and coming.
6. On the home front, several months ago Beth and I had our three-year anniversary. We are super compatible and have so much fun together. Joseph Kramer is our ideal husband. Plus he gives us the most amazing massages. Bob, our Labrador retriever, is the perfect pup. All is delicious. Even cancer can’t get me down.
7. So, what’s next? Who the fuck knows? Life is so full of surprises! Breast cancer inspired me to assess my life and sort out what’s important. For one thing, I really need some exciting new clothes! Plus I still seem to want to say my piece to try and make the world a better place, even though it’s a lot of work and doesn’t always pay as well as other things-at least not yet.
The plan is for Beth to take sabbatical for the next 9 months, and together we will focus on our love-art projects and tour our new show. For the first time in my career, I will try the “fine artist” grant-writing route. However, I’m open to all possibilities. When we’re not working we will certainly be enjoying friends, family and many of the other abundant pleasures the world has to offer—with gusto.
Happy holidays and a spectacular new year. Peace on earth, please!
Breast wishes (takes on new meaning now), and cuddles,
Annie M. Sprinkle-Also known as “Fifi”
