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