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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 2, 2003)
may 2,2003 DIVERSIONS Animazing new book P Birds of a feather A dmit it. You don’t go to live dance. You think it’s boring, you think it’s gay. Even too gay for you. OK, you might go to The Nutcracker every other year, but that’s about it. If any of this applies to you, you have not seen any dance commissioned or brought to town by Portland nonprofit White Bird. Founded by gay couple Paul King and Walter Jaffe in 1997, White Bird brings world-renowned dance companies to Portland that might not otherwise find their way here. They also help fund new work among local and national choreogra phers. They help pay for it and then they bring it here to you. And you don’t even appreciate it. I’m telling you, and you can believe me because I’m a convert myself, you will never attend a White Bird-sponsored performance you won’t like. The dancing runs from ballet-esque to modem to hip-hop to productions the likes of stage plays set to music. The physical ability of great dancers is, literally, jaw-dropping. Here’s how you can make it up to Paul and Walter. First, of course, you can buy tickets to their shows. (Always advertised in Just Out!) Second, you can buy a ticket to the Cockatoo Cotillion, which starts 8 p.m. May 15 at the Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W. Burnside St. It seems Paul and Walter do not shy away from being, well, just queer all over with this benefit, which features as masters of ceremonies Pink Martini frontman Thomas M. Lauderdale (gay) and Mexican Elvis impersonator El Vez (gay). Also in the house are the marching band March Forth (pretty gay) and Portland dance company Bodyvox (probably T hom as Lauderdale and other birds of a gay)- feather flock to the Crystal Ballroom for You get the C ockatoo Cotillion them all, plus a*performance by Pink Martini, a temporary tattoo of a white bird and the chance to enter the “highest jumper” contest and to participate in the history-making longest cancan line in the world, which is being documented for Guinness World Records. Paul says there are even “more surprises,” but why would you need any? The best part is it’s only $18 in advance or $25 at the doqr, which, either way, is a freakin’ steal. If you want to, you can spend $125 and go to the earlier Patron Dinner, which sounds like a stuffy washout until you hear it’s in Lola's Room and there will be a performance by gay Portland choreographer Minh Tran, who will do Ms. Saigon along with the stripper twins from Three Sisters! This is not available in stores! G et your tickets from the Crystal Ballroom box office, the Willamette Week office or White Bird at 503-245-1600. Tell ’em Lisa sent you. JH ortland gay sci-fi and comic btx>k writer Andy Mangels has just published what turned out to be quite an astounding project with Ani mation on DVD: The Ultimate Guide. “The DVD business is growing by leaps and bounds,” says Mangels, who quickly realized that with so many new releases per week he could essentially never finish the book. Finally after a year of viewing and cataloging 1,000 titles (yes, himself), he brought in outside writers for another 300, and the volume is now on txx>kshelves. The 36-year-old has published numerous articles locally and nationally, including in The Advocate and The Hollywood Reporter, around science fiction film and literature and queer lifestyle and entertainment. He’s also the author of, among other titles, Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Characters and Beyond Mulder & Scully: The Mysterious Characters of the X'Files. Animation, Mangels says, is “one of the few motion picture art Portlander Andy Mangels penned the forms not limited ultimate guide to animation on D V D by reality onscreen. Anything that can be imagined can be drawn.” And anything you can imagine has been included in this book. From Disney to Japanese anime to The Powerpuff Girls to a special “adult” section, this is your guide to cartoons. “It’s the only book of its kind,” notes Mangels. “There are general DVD guides and some animation encyclopedias but no other books that combine the two.” And the hxx>k is written, he assures, “from a gay male perspective, so there is quite a bit of humor and knowing winks." Mangels’ next projects include novels based on Star Trek and Roswell, “all of which feature gay or lesbian characters in some form." He’s also collecting discs for a second animation txxik and wants to do horror, science fiction and, eventually, gay and lesbian films on DVD. Let’s hear it for the hois U niversity of Oregon’s Cultural Forum is proud to give the bois a night of their very own May 10 in the shape of Boifest 2003. “In the vein of Ladyfest and Lesbopal<x)za, Boifest was conceived to fill a void,” says Nathan Hazard, Cultural Fomm regional music coordinator. The event, he says, will provide “an opportunity for queer-identifying male musicians to gain Northwest support and share new ideas.” The show includes “homo” hip-hop from Oakland, Calif., by JB R.A.P. (of the Deep Dickollective), Portland singer- songwriter Rory Merrit Stitt, Olympia’s rock/punk Rad Community and darkwave/punk Madame Morte plus a “Mystery DJ.” Eugene’s own Diva will be the extravaganza’s master of ceremonies. Boifest, says Hazard, will “ include all colors and convention of queer hoi, both biologically] and non. We are creating a queer catchall, if you will— a place for all nonlady queers to show off their musical accomplishments.” Boifest starts 8 p.m. in Agate Hall, 1787 Agate St. in Eugene. Tickets are $5-$7 from culturalforum.uoregon.edu/boifest or at the dtx>r. Acclaimed gay authors in Oregon Y ou might find it a happy coincidence that two well-known gay writers are reading at the same time May 10 and 12 in Oregon, but it’s not really coincidental. Mark Doty and Paul Lisicky have been partners for eight years. Doty is perhaps the best known and certainly most awarded gay male poet in the United States. He is the author of six books of poems, including 1993’s My Alexandria, which was chosen for the prestigious National P<x;try Series of books, won the National B<x>k Critics Circle Award and was the first U .S. poetry volume awarded Britain’s distinguished T.S. Eliot Prize. 1995’s Atlantis received the Ambassador Book Award and the Bingham Poetry Prize. Doty is particularly noted for his work around the anguish of A ID S. His partner died of the disease in 1993, and his poetry and two memoirs became lush and haunting meditations about illness and loss. Doty met Lisicky at one of Lisicky’s readings in 1991. A couple of years after his partner died, he and Lisicky began a relationship. “I think we were the last ones to see it coming, honestly, but all of our friends predicted it,” Lisicky says from the couple’s home in Manhattan. Lisicky is the author of Lawn Boy, a gay coming-of-age novel, and last year’s memoir Famous Builder, in which he reveals he started writing church-inspired music at the age of 6, published Catholic liturgical folk music at 15 and recorded an album at 19. “I started playing in bars and coffeehouses, trying my best to be the boy Joni Mitchell, but those clothes didn’t fit right,” he explains. He took fiction workshops in college, and “my gut must have told me that writing would allow me to synthesize everything I knew about music. When you write, you’re the composer, the vocalist, the whole orchestra.” Along with writing, Lisicky teaches at Sarah Lawrence College north of New York City, while Doty teaches fall semesters at University of Houston. “Believe it or not,” smiles Lisicky, “Mark commuted back and forth weekly.... We like having time to ourselves.. .but we start feeling antsy and isolated once we pass the 10-day point.” They won’t have to worry about that on their trip to Oregon, where Authors Mark Doty (above) they will do readings together and and Paul Lisicky read hopefully, Lisicky says, find “some May 10 and 12 in Oregon time to play at the coast. We usually manage to get ourselves into trouble in the midst of work.” Doty and Lisicky read from recent work at 7 p.m. May 10 in the Newport Recreation Center, 225 S.E. Avery St. Adm ission is $7 but free to high school students. T he couple read in the Rose City at 7:30 p.m. May 12 in Room 327 of Portland State University’s Sm ith Memorial Center, 1825 S.W. Broadway. General admission is $8 but free to P SU students and faculty. Bean there and back O penly gay former pro athlete Billy Bean reads from his new hx>k, Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major- League Baseball, 7:30 p.m. May 8 at Powell’s Btx>ks on Hawthorne, 3723 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. The handsome Bean Major-league homophobia: Gay was ironically dubbed “the ex-ballplayer Billy Bean tells all boy of every girl’s dream” May 8 at Powell’s on Hawthorne by homophobic Los Angeles Dixlgers manager Tommy Lasorda (whose own gay son died of A ID S). Bean and co-writer Chris Bull’s memoir follows the snuggles of secrecy in a bnitally anti-gay professional sport. | H Compiled hy L isa B radshaw and M arie F leischmann
