On a cold February night, masked performers read for Red Light Lit poolside at the storied Phoenix Hotel in San Francisco. Overhead, leafy branches suggest a proscenium arch. A fire blazes in a long concrete planter. Poet Preeti Vangani delivers, “I want a poem for the man whose idea of heaven is an accidental brush with a woman’s side boob.” Appreciative laughter ripples across an audience of 60 people who drink cocktails and eat under the glow of heat lamps and strings of lights.
The event is MCed by the exuberant Jenn Stokes, a producer for San Francisco Pride and Folsom Street Fair, and elements from each performance flow into: “Today will simply be the day I listened to your lips kiss every word of a Neruda poem and then licked them clean of cola and seafoam.” Musician and poet Sarah Bethe Nelson’s ethereal voice leads us into Emily Van Dyke’s stand-up comedy set: “Has anyone been spooned by a data scientist?”
