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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 2005)
30 just OUt » januaiy 21.2ÛÛ5 DIVERSIONS Suzy La Follette (left), Andrea Gibson (center) and Excuse Me Sir are making noise to support In Other Words Women’s Books and Resources, America’s only nonprofit feminist bookstore Siren's Iris makes Rose City debut NOW OPEN 24 HRS X/Islt oor Web site at www.Justout.com • Write a Just Friends Voice Personal ad •Send in classified ads • Letters to the editor ♦ • Transitions and notables •Order a subscription • E-mail Just Out staff •Locate our distribution points Coventry Cycle f /Works Pro fc\ f, f ion a / Sen 'ice Com fortable Rikeo Recumbent*/ a Specialty! (COME SEE WHY!) Open Tuesday-Sunday 230-7723 2025 SE Hawthorne r egon Camera Everything Photographic We have a knowledgeable, friendly staff helping you find the right camera, binoculars, or photographic accessories. A ‘family’ owned and operated business since 1997. 512 SWAiun Arene Cernito. M 37333 (54D7S32C53 wvwjrefNcaBcncM \__________ —______ -_____________ / sangria, soda and Pabst Blue Ribbon; free munchies; and tables selling merchandise from the bookstore and the camp. Tickets are $5-$5O sliding scale from In Other Words. —Kathy Beige Take two queer/radiciil/feminist perform ance artists/poets and combine their energy, and you just might be blown over from their force. Out cold Andrea Gibson and Suzy La Follette, both • champion slam poets, have combined their Altitude, the largest international gay and prose and their politics and are heading out on lesbian ski and snowboard week, is right the road to bring their firestorm free verse to around the comer—and only seven hours Portland in support of In Other Words. away, if you’re driving from Portland. Gibson, a 29-year-oid from Boulder, Colo., The 13th annual festival kicks off Jan. 29 in and La Follefte, a 25-year-old from Austin, Vancouver, British Columbia, followed by out Texas, met at a poetry slam in Arizona and door adventure and indoor festivities from became fast fans of each others work. They’ve Jan. 30 to Feb. 7 in Whistler, one of North teamed up and formed Siren’s Iris as a way to America’s top ski destinations. collaborate on some pieces and take their com This year boasts an expanded lineup of pop bined messages on the road. ular features such as skiing and snowboarding, La Follette says audiences should expect an world-class dining, nonstop entertainment and entertaining evening of hard-hitting poetry. But special themed parties along with new stuff like not t<x> hard. “With the dual poetry pieces, our fireside breakfasts and health and wellness voices meld into a beautiful harmony,” she says. options such as yoga and men’s and women’s Although some of their poems are overtly wine and spa activities. political, Gibson assures they will not preach. “Altitude 2005 is presenting 40 events this “If you’re preaching, people can’t hear what year compared to last year’s 29, as we aim to you have to say.” meet a wide range of interests and continue to While they may rant about all the stuff , build this unique, world-class event,” says Lee that’s wrong in the world, they make sure to Bergeron, president of Out on the Slopes Pro- include a healthy dose of hope and, of course, ductions. “The fact that Altitude...continues love. “Love poems can save the world," Gibson to grow in scope and profile pays tribute to the says. “Our relationships with people are memory of the event’s founder, the late Brent metaphors for our relationships with the world.” Benaschak.” La Follette says performance art has the ability to change hearts and minds. “People have said I’ve changed them on stage. That’s something this show can do.” Gibson says the difference between a Sirens. Iris show and a traditional poetry reading is all in the delivery. “A lot of time when I’m con nected with an audience, I feel they’re speaking half for me. It’s almost like they’re pulling it out of me.” Portland performer Marie Fleischmann will kick off the free reading, which will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Feb. 3 at 3734 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. Come to help pull the poetry out. Come to Queer skiers party hard at the Altitude support women’s art. Come to see La Follette Snowball perform “Suzy Strap-on.” Or, as Gibson says, come because “we both have really clx >1 hair.” Altitude gets warmed up Jan. 29 in Vancou If poetry isn’t your thing, you can still support ver with the Avalanche Party, an action- the independent feminist hxikstore by attending packed event that bl ings out hundreds of local the R<x:k and Read benefit from 7 to 10 p.m. and international revelers to set the m<xxl for Jan. 28 at Hip Chicks Do Wine, 4510 S.E. 23rd the week. Festivities culminate Feb. 5 with Ave. In Other Words will share pnxeeds from Snowball, a legendary party that, we’re told, is the ikxir and 10 percent of beverage sales with the apex of Altitude. Finally, the week wraps the Rock ’n’ Roll Camp for Girls. Feb. 6 with the Recovery Party. • The night of fun and frivolity features For more information about the event, reg rockers Excuse Me Sir, bluegrass band Cocks istration, accommtxJations, lift tickets, passes, in the Henhouse and gypsy punks Myshkin’s travel and special air/hotel package deals, visit Ruby Warblers; a cash bar pouring wine, www.outontheslopes.com. If you’d rather stick close to home, Lesbians Enjoying Nature and Science and the Oregon Bears are taking separate excursions to Mount H lxx J on Jan. 29. Will the LENS ladies cross paths with the furry creatures? You won’t know unless you go. Details are on Page 25. —Jim Radosta Oh, Mary! Wade McCollum, best known for Drammy- winning title performances in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Bat Boy: The Musical, returns this month to the Portland spotlight as a lesbian Victorian explorer in Insight Out Theatre Collective’s comedy On the Verge. But it’s not about drag, he says. It’s about courage of three sister sojourners braving the unknown, crossing cultural bound aries without prejudice and, in so doing, fulfill ing their deepest yearnings as they travel on a serendipitous safari across space and time to the 1950s. Along the way, they encounter slang, Cixil Whip® and other curious pieces of cultural flotsam. “The women in On the Verge defy many of the fundamental societal doctrines of their era,” remarks McCollum. “They are well- educated, courageously exploring the unknown reaches of our world. They are intrepid souls who outgrow their era and have to move on. They machete through the constricting, corset ed expectations of women in 1888, and in doing so travel through terra incognita to palaver with characters from the future." Palaver? A discussion of differences between, say, three female Victorian anthropol ogists and a 1950s lounge lizard. I)irector Tiffany Cole says: “These women experience this process in this totally outra geous way, and they embrace what they encounter with arms wide open. You never know—that different or unknown thing may be just the thing for you.” And, incidentally, how these three societal surveyors (McCollum and Insight Out co founders Julianna Jaffe and Lindsay Lucas) measure themselves against the “natives” (played by chameleon Andy Lindburg) is the wit of yet another award-winning former Port lander, playwright Eric Overmyer. As for that bit of cross-casting? Cole sees the choice as “more of an enlightenment into the character rather than a bit about a man dressing up as a woman. Mary is a really inspiring, mcxJem human being, and a woman born at the wrong time. Overmyer liberated her to find a future where she can revel in her true nature.” On the Verge through fcb. 5 at West End Theater, 1220 S.W. Taylor St. Showtime is 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, along with
