The New Color of the Month is live.

Update: 1:02pm. We are now at 50% sold.

DO NOT FORGET TO MARK YOUR CALENDARS
Tomorrow, Jan 31st at NOON the new color of the month will go on sale. This color will sell out fast, all orders will be filled first come/first served. In order to be fair to all those placing online orders, no phone orders will be accepted. If you want this, you MUST order it via the website.

a teaser

a teaser
Originally uploaded by Mr Monk

a non color corrected snapshot of the new Midori/ALC color of the month. this is really dark purple.

Now while I work on getting this new Color of the Month just perfect....

...don't forget about the charity auction that we are running for Home Alive.



This rope took a lot of time and love to create and it will surely make become the prized, first reached for rope of whomever is lucky enough to win it.

Take a look, place a bid, make a difference.
UPDATE: 01/29/09 The auction is now closed. On behalf of Washington St. Ms. Leather and Home Alive, thank you for helping make a difference.

would you bottom to this guy?

would you bottom to this guy?
Originally uploaded by Mr Monk

pausing before my evening playdate. I'm so enjoying the non traditional dom look these days. leather is fun, but ties are sexy... and versitile!

Announcing January’s Color of the Month, a charity fundraiser for Midori & AIDS/LifeCycle

Longtime readers and customers will know that every year it is my honor and privilege to create a unique color of the month to help raise funds for Midori and her tireless work with the AIDS/LifeCycle. Thanks to your generosity, together we have helped raise thousands, but there is still so much more work still left to be done.

And so, once again I all upon you, dear readers and customers, to answer the call and fill our toy bags with rope.

The Midori/ALC charity color is only chance this year that we offer our ultra premium Bavarian Blonde 4-strand hemp as a color of the month. Starting with the fiery red “Lifeline” two years ago and the breathtaking “Unity” last year, we have created some unforgettable ropes and raised a lot of money for an excellent cause. Following in this grand tradition, this year we are proud to unveil our next color. An imperial purple we are calling, “Hope”

This year, as Midori embarks on her fund raising efforts again by hosting her annual “Bang 4 the Buck” party in Seattle, WA on January 30th. We too will do our part to help this worthy cause. For those of you attending the event, Midori will be in possession of the first of this color and will, I’m certain, put it to some very memorable use.

For the rest of us not attending the event, the shade will go on sale on Saturday January 31st at noon. PST. This color is bound to sell out fast, our last color of the month sold out in 28 minutes and was the largest dye run to date.

This is a one time, one of a kind dye run and sure to sell out quickly. Do your part, buy some amazing rope and make a difference.

Still up to my eyeballs in accounting, but today I also need to work on...
Writing the new Color of the Month marketing and press release...
Working on my SEAF proposal and seeing about getting cgi mock-ups made for it...
Oh and then there is this vidoe blog that needs one last edit and render...



So while I pound my melon against the keyboard in a vain attempt to be witty and creative, take a listen to Matisse's latest podcast, featuring me as her color commentary.

Behold, accounting my accounting hell

Been a quiet sorta week here on the blog, not for lack of desire, no I can't go and blame the whole "Mercury in Retrograde" thing for lack of updates. Although it would make for an easy scapegoat. Nope, this week is accounting week, closing up all the files for 2008, settling accounts and setting up the files for 2009. A much necessary and legally mandated thing to do, and also really, REALLY boring. A word of advice to all would be self employed types, the better records you keep the more money you will retain come tax time. However keeping those records is a time consuming and boring process that is counter to the thing that actually makes you money. So don't put it off till you can't see the top of your desk due to the pile of papers and your accountant is looking at you holding a slip of paper with a drawing of a set of boobs and a phone number and asking you if this is a deductible receipt or an employee tax record.

Ok, ok so maybe it isn't as bad as that. Still, not my favorite aspect of business but one that must be done, so do it I will.

Hooray for Boobies!

I have a question for a professional. Many times I have seen women with tied breasts, and it seems the ties are so tight that the breast becomes purple.
What are the dangers of this type of rope work?

Ahh boobies, I like boobies. Boobies and rope? Like chocolate and peanut butter, two great tastes that go great together. Breast bondage is great fun and yes, you are right to want to err on the side of safety here. While breasts are amazingly strong and resilient things, there is such a thing as “too much of a good thing”. As for images you have seen online of this? Well much like watching old Max Hardcore videos for tips on Daddy/girl play, the bondage porn is probably not your best, first location for help on this topic.

Check out Bondage for Sex Vol 1 and Shibari You Can Use (both for sale at Twistemonk.com, how handy is that?) both feature some basic breast bondage ties, if I had to pick my favorite I’d say Shibari You Can Use covers the topic a bit more in depth and would be my first choice. Quick rule of thumb, much like tying any limb, breast bondage will constrict blood flow is potentially dangerous. If the skin becomes cool to the touch, the skin becomes discolored from a warm red to a paler blue or purple then remove the bondage. Your best bet is to start slow, don’t bind them as tight your first couple attempts as you gauge what your partner is both capable of and what they enjoy. Some women love a LOT of pressure while others only want something snug around the breasts so take your time and experiment with your partner (I know she will hate it, “What, you have to tie me up again?! Oh ok I guess”) and above all else talk to your partner. Constant feedback is the key to creating an experience were you get plenty of the “good pain” and avoid much (if all) of the “bad pain”.

shooting video

shooting video
Originally uploaded by Mr Monk

shooting insert shot for our next how to video. if I can just get my film guy to cgi my face onto brad pitt's body (circa fight club of course) then we would be golden!

Traveling with Rope, your opinions please.

Yesterday a supplier and I were talking about upcoming conventions and how the economy may or many not be impacting turnout and of course the ever important product sales. As I have said before, for me conventions are fun but with more and more sales via online they have become almost a burden trying to keep up with existing orders while building stock levels for sales that may or may not be there. However for smaller, boutique kink vendors conventions are their bread and butter, one of the few opportunities they have to get in front of potential customers and pitch their wares. It is a tough position to be in, travel is expensive and a bad show with low turn out and low sales can really push a company quickly into a dangerous financial place.

Why am I saying this? Because I've been there, early in my career, standing behind an untouched table on the last day of a convention, wondering how the hell am I going to pay for getting all this stock back home to Seattle. Thankfully those moments were few and these days the Twisted Monk brand has grown to a place where traveling to a convention is no longer a necessity for maintaining a healthy bottom line.

But I digress, the interesting point of the conversation was this. With all the negative economic news these days and airlines now charging more and more for every checked bag, how will this impact those of us who travel with something as heavy as rope? Granted, when I travel to a convention to sell I'm normally checking 6-9 bags in at a time (this is over and above the stock/personal rope/show gear I've pre shipped out beforehand), however rope is heavy and most rope people tend to have some pretty hefty kits.

And to that end, I pose the question to you, dear reader, how will your travel budget change in 2009?

So yesterday I was forced to pack it in early, a very rare migraine put my ass down for the day. Not regularly prone to such things, when it happened I was casually mentioning to Tambo, "wow, my vision is going all wonky and it smells funny..." that was before the phalanx of dawrven miners took up residence in my sinuses and begun pounding away. Not fun, thankfully these things are pretty rare for me, but count me out for the day none the less.

Thankfully I happen to have some pretty effective, ahem, tools for dealing with such things. So there I was, stoned outta my ever loving mind, flat on my back, and bored to fucking tears. Being in pain is one thing, being numb and bored? I think that may suck worse. Anyways, too mentally incapacitated to operate anything more complex than my zipper and not tracking data too well I fell back into the warm, inviting arms of an old foe. The Maury Povitch show. Oh sweet Maury, your how your deeply creased face seems so inviting, yet somehow reminiscent of Emperor Palaptine in a powder blue sweater....

I once, a long time ago, suffered a powerful Maury addiction. Like a junkie twitching in a doorway, I needed my daily fix. Rest assured, over the course of my life I have ingested some pretty outrageous things, but this was far worse than any pharmacological or chemical compound, that man had me in his clutches. Why you ask? How could someone like me suffer such an affliction to a daytime TV show? I think this best explains it, a video clip taken one night early in the days of the Abbey. I'm ranting about why I loved to what the show so much.

I think you will agree, those were some dark and desperate days for your humble narrator. Fortunately with the help of my loving partners, an all consuming job and us not owning a TV for 3 years, I was finally able to rid that particular monkey from my back.

Today the pain in my melon seems to have vacated and the painkillers, having done their job, are no longer dulling my faculties and slowing my speech. No, this morning as I type this and sip my coffee, NPR is playing in the background talking about smart people things and in between edits I'll pop over to the BBC news to get their take on the world. Confident that my brain, now returned to me, no longer craves the sugar fix that is Maury.... for now.

But like any addiction, you are never truly healed.

Interviewed by The Rumpus
As I twittered last week, I was approached by the folks at The Rumpus online magazine to do an interview. apparently they thought that the life and times of former missionary turned bondage rope mogul would be an interesting read... who knew?

Anyways, with out further adieu... my interview with TheRumpus.Net


On a completely different note, what do you guys think of the twitter feed anyway? Worth the bandwidth? Still entertaining? I'm still working out what makes for an "interesting" twitter vs. "self indulgent whining about the state of my coffee cup" twitter.

A quick one, MM just posted another podcast from our last recording block. As she points out in her blog, when we record this we are holed up in a windowless, sound proof room getting hand signals from a guy behind a glass wall and burning through letter after letter. Things can get a bit silly after a few too many rock stars. So enjoy us doing our best to answer a reader letter and to the reader who sent the letter, please don't take our silliness to heart, it was late and we were getting punchy.
Cheers!

Old and New

Yesterday I almost added another minion to the fold, a temporary minion but another one none the less. An old and dear friend who used to help me out back in the days when we were doing this out of my garage, thankfully things worked out for him and he can continue along his chosen career path, but for a moment we laughed at the idea of him coming back into the fold.
"yeah, a lot has changed since you helped me first move in to this pace"
"Like the walls are no longer bleed black when washed?"
"Oh and we have walls now too!"


So here is the Abbey circa Jan 2005 when we first moved in and started production. No walls, no fixtures, no heat and not much in the ways of creature comforts. Just a big, big space with lots of potential.

And here it is this summer, taken on a warm afternoon when Merrick came to visit and do some photography work with me.

Lots have changed over the years as the company has grown, changed and transformed from this thing that I did with the help of my friends into something that supports myself and my crew. Also i needed an excuse to show off Merrick's naked boobies.

The question of “why”

I frequently get the “why do you like to do this?” question when talking about rope bondage. A perfectly normal and harmless question, but on that could easily take hours to explain all the historical, artistic and psychological reasons, so instead I like to tell this story.

Few years back I was selling rope at a convention and got into this very conversation with three well known and well regarded rope tops. When asked, the first paused and stroked his chin contemplatively and said, “It would have to be the artistry of it all, the lines and how they form across the body. The symmetry of the rope and how it forms the bottom into a compelling shape…”
The next one shook his head and disagreed, “That is all well and good, but for me it is the engineering of it. The “how” of doing bondage, what knots are going to be the strongest and most useful, how am I going to execute the bondage in the most efficient and streamlined fashion… that is what I really like”

Turning to the third and final rigger, he sorta shrugged and in a matter of fact voice said, “I do it cuz trying up pretty girls makes my dick hard. Always has.”