Dept. of A job's a job

My friend Marilyn writes, "Laura Antoniou is the keynote speaker for the International Master & Slave Contest at South Plains LeatherFest, taking place the last weekend in February, February 25-27." That event is taking place in Dallas, Tex., for all the leather lifestyle folks in flyover country -- an interesting proposition. It'll definitely be the most interesting thing happening this month in Dallas, a city which is so dull that the only thing you can do there is eat, with a predictable effect on the residents. But my attention was caught by the "keynote speaker" bit. A B&D conference has a "keynote speaker" who is a noted B&D erotica author. I never thought about the possibility of a gig like that. I'm not sure what kind of conference I might be the keynote speaker at -- maybe the conference of geeky people with furtive yet colorful erotic lives who don't really fall under a single label. Master and Slave...  It seems a bit 20th century.