D IV E R SIO N S
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PHOTO BY OWEN CAflEV
Ahoy there, lady!
rolific lesbian author Barbara Sjoholm
sails into In Other Words, 3734 S.E.
Hawthorne Blvd., at 7 p.m. Nov. 19 to
read from Steady as She Qoes: Women's
Adventures at Sea.
W ithin this new anthology are contempo
rary stories of seafaring women Sjoholm co l
lected while doing research for her forthcom
ing lxx>k The Pirate Q ueen, In Search o f G race
O ’M alley and Other Legendary W omen o f the
Head out to sea with Barbara Sjoholm
Sea. “1 simply felt that there wasn’t enough
women’s maritime writing out there, either in on Nov. 19 at In O ther Words
the classic anthologies of sea literature or in
anthologies of our own. So I decided to put
earn enough money to provide yourself with
one together,” says Sjoholm, who’s written a
fixxl and housing, much less health care.... If we
number of hooks as Barbara Wilson, includ
don’t understand the problem, and if we fail to
ing G audí Afterruxm and Sisters o f the Road.
encourage others to understand the problem,
“Wilson was my fathers adopted name and
we’re never going to fix it.”
N ickel and Dimed runs through Nov. 16 at
it was, frankly, always a bit boring to me. After
Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, 5340 N.
quite a bit of thought, I just decided to make a
change,” explains Sjoholm of the surname
Interstate Ave. Tickets are $15-$30 from
503-241-1278.
that now reflects her Scandinavian heritage.
In 1975, the writer founded Seattle-based
Seal Press with Rachel da Silva. They sold the
business in 2001 to an umbrella group formed
by their distributors, which ensured some sta
bility for its editors and authors. “Over the last
27 years, hundreds of women have been
orld-class talents have been in Portland
rehearsing for Turandvt, and opera
involved in the press in one way or another,
and it’s something I’m very proud of,” she says.
lovers lucky enough to get rickets to the
sold-out Nov. 8, 13 and 15 performances are
A t In Other Words, she’ll be joined by
in for a feast of beautiful music, extraordinary
Columbia River kayaker Ginni Callahan. Sjo-
singing and pageant-like spectacle.
holm says their reading is “a chance for every
body who loves boats— or who fantasizes about
Up-and-coming dramatic soprano Caroline
them— to come and hear some great stories.”
Whisnant makes her Portland Opera debut as
Aye-aye, Captain!
the icy princess who swears no man will ever
possess her. She
devises three
impossible rid
dles. Any man
who can answer
them can claim
her as his prize,
but any man
who guesses
incorrectly will
lose his head.
Chinese tenor
Yu Qiang Dai,
hailed as “the
next Pavarotti,”
is the suitor
Calaf who, mes
merized by her
beauty, risks his
Artists Repertory Theatre presents Nickel and I)imed through Nov. 16 at life to seek the
unattainable.
Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center
And Portland
audiences have the privilege of hearing the
radiant, shimmering voice of internationally
recognized
soprano Cynthia Haymon, who has
I n h e r e s a daily struggle to survive; so many
performed at most major opera houses around
I Americans are just a paycheck away from
the world (and brilliantly stepped in as a last-
I disaster, and more people need to get hip
minute replacement in 2002’s The Pearl
to that!” proclaims Stephanie Mulligan in her
Fishers).
directorial debut for Artists Repertory Theatre’s
Turandot also promises to be one of the queer
2nd Stage production Nickel and Dimed.
est prexiuctions at Portland Opera in a long time,
Mulligan finds Joan Holden’s stage adapta
with out director Peter Rothman and singers Jon
tion of undercover reporter Barbara Ehrenre-
Kolbert (who recently moved to Portland) as
ich’s btx>k about trying to manage on mini
Pang, Jeffrey Morrissey as Ping and Just Out
mum wage politically affirming, but shirking.
columnist Marc Acito as the Emperor.
The chance to make the topic both personal
and entertaining is what drew Mulligan— who
more acts as stage manager— to direct this
slice of life that blends human dignity issues
with the rights of the working poor.
“My sense was that Holden’s play could bring
» n at Boy has a heart, and that heart is
to light the issues that so intrigued and infuriated
■ C Wade McCollum,” prcxdaims the press
me, and the production would inspire conversa
mm release from Portland Center Stage
tion, contemplation and, ideally, action,”
explains Mulligan, a lesbian Portlander who
regarding its much-ballyhixxxJ new produc
tion Bat Boy: T h e Musical.
comes from a long line of union workers. “If you
work full time for minimum wage, you will not
No doubt the gay actor honed that heart
P
Last girl standing
f she were in your average slash-’em-up
horror flick, Daphne Gottlieb would he
that ineluctable last girl standing.
I
The San Francisco queer poet has trav
eled with the Slam America Bus Tour and Sister
Spit, hut, unlike some slam-types, her words res
onate equally well in print as they do from her
mouth. “1 write first and foremost for the page,”
says Gottlieb, who will lie in Eugene Nov. 11
and Portland Nov. 12 and 13. “After all, a book
can go all sorts of places that I’ll never be able to,
regardless of how ambitious my tour schedule is.”
But her appearances with delightfully cyni
cal poet Hal Sirowitz will still be something to
see. Or, rather, hear. “In performance, it’s the
pleasure of breath, the danger of live theater,
of dialogue and community; on the page it’s a
solitary pleasure, almost a mminative one. My
job on the page is to use all aspects to let the
words perform for themselves.”
Gottliebs third hook of poetry, Final Girl, is
threaded together by the evocative theme of
the horror and slasher movie genre’s heroic
women— the final girl alive. “I’m fascinated by
‘low culture,’ especially things that are geared
towards getting Kxlily responses from us.
Horror— vomit and/or screams. Pornography—
cum and breath. And women’s weepies— tears.
1 think that a lot of genre work— detective,
mystery, sci-fi— and pop culture in general func
tions as a mirror of our collective unconscious,
sort of an encoded love letter of what we’re
thinking about at the time.”
W hat’s beautiful about Final
Girl is relating each piece,
however seemingly distant,
back to the theme. Consider:
it's on but
I don’t know
whether I want
to be
her, fu ck her
or borrow
her clothes
Daphne
Gottlieb
This poem, “the frightening tmth about
desire,” takes on a new meaning when you
think about this girl as a character fighting for
her life, possibly with other women, against a
generally unknown, generally male, assailant.
“T he figure of the final girl and her coun
terpart, the femme fatale, sort of embody the
extremes of female gender representation,”
explains Gottlieb. “The final girl is
androgynous— sort of an adolescent boy— and
is assured survival, and the femme fatale is
excessive, monstrous and is forced to d ie....
So there’s sort of this odd continuum of the
representation of femininity.”
The 3 5-year-old lost her mother to lung
cancer while writing the new book, which,
she says, “made this curious sort of intellectu
al exercise about death and gender incredibly
soul-searing and...makes the book intensely
personal. The writer is sort of de facto always
a ‘final girl’— the one who has survived to tell
the story.”
See the Just Out calendar for details on all
three Daphne Gottlieb readings. JH1
Opera more gay
than usual
W
Working for the man
McCollum strikes
gold again
Wade McCollum didn’t even need makeup
for his new run in Bat Boy: the Musical.
(Ha ha, just kidding.)
playing the lead role in the long-running
Hedwig and the Angry inch for triangle produc
tions! Both Hedwig and Bat Boy, a character
based on W eekly World News tabloid cover
stories about a bar boy discovered in a West
Virginia cave, are “on the outside trying to
find their place,” says McCollum.
But where “Hedwig throws her differences in
your face,” he continues, “Bar Boy tries to hide
them and disguise himself as ‘normal’— two
very different ways of trying to find a home in a
world saturated with judgment and violence.”
The musical is directed by P C S’ gay artistic
director, Chris Coleman. “Anyone who’s ever
felt like an outsider will relate” to Bat Boy,
notes Coleman.
Bat Boy: The Musical nins through Nov. 23
at Newmark Theatre, 1111 S.W. Broadway.
The Nov. 11 and 13 performances include
post-show dialogue with the cast. A discussion
of tabloid journalism follows the matinee
Nov. 9. Tickets are $16-$51 from the b»>x
office or 503-274-6588.
Because women
like sex, too
acific Friction, a relatively new organization
planning an annual Kinkfest-type event for
women only, has come up with a brilliant
fund-raiser: Portland’s first-ever Women’s Only
Bath House Night from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Nov. 14 at Club XES, 415 S.W. 13th Ave.
Gtxxl heavens, it’s about time.
“Why should guys have all the fun?” asks
^ie Web site PacificFriction.org. “Women,
now’s your chance to find out what makes the
bathhouse scene so hot.”
Althixigh the organization was founded by
women in the B/D/S/M scene and leather chicks
should attend in abundance, “If you’re not into
B/D/S/M, the women’s bathhouse night can still
be lots of fun," notes Ruth Thomas of Paci-
ficPriction and Portland Leather Alliance. “No
one is ever, ever expected.. .to do anything or
act in any way.. she dties not chtxise. It’s all
aKxit having fun and being who y<xi are.”
PacificFriction emphasizes bathhouse night
is for self-identified women. Tickets are $15
from the Weh site, $20 at the door. |H
P
C xrmpiled by LlSA BRADSHAW
and TiMt'iTHY K rause