The Portland Shockwave women's football téam I
tryouts Dec. 22.
Pink Martini performs Dec. 31 with MGM movie queen and Portland native Jane Powell (inset).
Roman Empire an Intimate Affair
Take notice, Portland, the city has some
new writing talent.
“Rome is nothing without him. It exists, it
motors and screams and breaks and scalds.”
So begins the intimate, handmade hook
titled The Rise and Fall of My Roman
Empire: A Romance in Three Chapters.
Written hy Philip Iosca, this is no ordinary
love story. “It’s fictionalized memoir,” he says
of the tale, which concerns a narrator’s love
affair in Rome and the wake of returning to the
city where the relationship took place.
Besides being the author, Iosca has also
designed, printed and assembled each part'of
this project. Roman Empire comes with three
. chapters lined with metallic gold contact
paper, wood grain contact paper and vintage
gay pom.
If anything, Iosca is an indicator of gay
coolness. He is an alumnus of Catlin Gable
School, along with the likes of Gus Van
Sant. After receiving his undergraduate
degree from the prestigious Rhode Island
School of Design, he returned to Portland
and enrolled in the elite Wieden+Kennedy
12 program. He works as the director of mar
keting for the other incubator of innovation
in town, Portland Institute for Contemporary
Art. In addition to all this, he happens to be
the boyfriend of three years to Pink Martini’s
frontman, Thomas Lauderdale.
With three other artist books under his
belt, Iosca hesitates to call himself a writer.
“I’ve always had a really interdisciplinary
approach to my artwork. If I have an idea for
a project, I’ll execute in whatever means or
Philip Iosca wrote, designed, printed and assembled each part of The
medium are appropriate for solving that
A/se and Fall of My Roman Empire.
problem. Sometimes words are the way to
“I’m getting to a point in my art practice where I’m trying
solve a problem, so that technically makes me a writer. But it’s
to generate a body of work before committing to an exhibi
just another way of solving the problem.”
Don’t go looking at Barnes and Nobles, or even Powell’s, for
tion, rather than committing to an exhibition, then having to
Roman Empire. This intersection of love, desire and place is on
generate work,” Iosca says. “I’ve never had a solo exhibition
sale for $30 at only two places: Reading Frenzy, a local inde in this town. I think it’s something I’d like to do myself
somehow."
pendent press emporium, and Printed Matter, a bookstore in
—Wayne Bund
New York City specializing in artist books.
DJ Girlfriends presents Pink, a monthly
queer night at Dunes offering an eclec
tic array of music from disco to hip-hop
and everything in between. Pink drink specials
all night long! (8 pm speed dating, 10 pm dance
party. 1905 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. $3.)
The Gender Fluids are at it again with the sec
ond annual Queer Quistmas spectacular at
Mississippi Pizza Pub! This year's holiday cheer
is loaded with things that would make Jack
Frost heat up and melt into a big puddle of, well,
Jack fluid. The vignettes feature song and
dance, spoken word and a multimedia fruit pie
only John Waters could love! Electro-pop
sensation CJ and the Dolls open. (10 pm.
3552 N Mississippi Ave. $5-$10 sliding scale.)
C.C. Slaughters presents The Superstar Divas
Holiday Show Part 2. (8 pm. 219 NW Davis
St.)
In
tics
Sex
MON • DEC. 24
. ! .
ope
the
Metropolitan Community Church of
Portland holds spiritual and festive
Christmas Eve services. (7 and 11 pm
2400 NE Broadway.)
TUE • DEC. 25
Broa
fash
cour
SUN • DEC. 23
The Adventure Group takes an easy
walk at Washington Park and Arlington
Heights Loop, from a deep forested
valley, climbing high through twisty urban
streets, to a vertiginous viewpoint at the top of
one of Portland’s longest stairways. Along the
way you’ll hear about landslides, lawsuits,
Communists, roses, goiter and plank roads.
Meet at lower park entrance. (10 am. West
Burnside Street at Northwest 24th Place Larry
503-222-5717.)
Kilin
Merry Christmas!
WED • DEC. 26
J
The Adventure Group takes a moderate snow
shoe trip to White River for spectacular views
of Mount Hood. Meet outside Starbucks at
Hollywood Fred Meyer. (9 am. 3030 NE Weidler
St. Ron 503-284-3345.)
Mot
Kara
Holic
whe
212
Splei
weel
Thur:
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1400
Iove I
Plazm Delivers Queer Content
The latest issue of Plazm is chock full of queer content.
The art/design/literary magazine is published annually, and
the theme for this 29th issue is collective memory.
Domenick Ammirati’s fictional story about a gay
couple who pass as brothers reads like a cautionary tale for
narcissistic gay men: It is possible to find someone who is
too much like yourself.
In a six-page spread designed to resemble a hastily cut-
and-pasted zine, several notable Portlanders collectively
remember the punk and post-punk music scene circa 1980-
1995. Sts, who drums for The Lookers and Cadallaca and
serves as program director for the Rock ’n’ Roll Camp for
Girls, waxes nostalgic about queercore bands such as Team
Dresch. “Their openness about being queer and their obvi
ous power changed the lives of thousands of young homos,
including mine,” she writes.
More visually appealing are the nine full pages devoted
to works by queer artist Storm Tharp. He uses ink, char
coal, colored pencil and a watercolor paint known as
gouache to create distinctive and disturbing portraits. The
faces warped by large, black dots seem to swim on the page, refusing to take discrete
shapes. They are contained only by the often colorful clothing and hair Tharp uses
to demarcate each subject.
and I
T