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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 18, 2008)
APRIL 18, 2008 justout 39 The Write Stuff What's on your bedside table? I love a good book. I’m particularly drawn to fiction, which helps me sleep at night. So the creased bindings of Rob Byrnes’ The Night They.Met and Joe Keenan’s Blue Heaven have more lines on them than my aging face. Recently I enjoyed a couple of soon-to-be- published gay memoirs: Joel Derfner’s hilarious and touching Swish: My Quest to Become the Gay' Wesley Jacobsen is also into Harry Potter, although she recently read the last in the series. “I like the feeling that there might be something more out there than meets the eye,” she told me. Tyler Meza just finished Dreamcatcher and reports that he was enchanted by Stephen King’s twisted imagination. “I’ve never read a book so concerned est Person Ever and Craig Seymour’s All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C., in which he reveals a youthful dalliance with cyber-gossip Matt Drudge. But now I’m at a loss about what to pick up next. Fortunately, with a column due and a couple of events to attend, there were plenty of readers to ask. The first event was Just Out's monthly Gay Nero. Josh Ferrer read Naked in the Rain because he’s a friend of author Eowyn Wood, who works message that beauty eventually goes away.” That might be true, but there was beauty aplenty on display at Oaks Park, including Jonathan Hill, who enjoyed Here’s What Well Say by Amazing out out at Cascade AIDS Project. Her novel is about teen gay runaways. Cutie Marc Kochanski, who used to work at CAP, is reading The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities, which he says “has a clear eye and mixlem view of relation ships, including polyamory.” (When is that book club meeting?) Floyd and Noah Buck clown around at Cascade AIDS Project's Art Evening and Auction with Nick the Creative and Barnaby the Bear. e Two nights later, two dozen cultured queers got together for a truly effervescent performance of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring at Port land Opera. During a cocktail reception before the show, Ted Huffman told me that his current favorite author is Sloane Crosley, whom he calls “the female David Sedaris,” and that her book, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, is “a better Sex and the City.” Rick Sullivan enjoyed Way of the Weird, about a shaman and his spiritual path, although he confessed that boyfriend Greg Mitchell “made me read it.” Jared Heiden enjoyed the history of the burn ing of Rome in Quo Vadis: A Tale of the Time of Skate Night, where 308 others joined me in cir cling the rink. Charles Milne recently finished Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, which he called an “excellent story with an excellent Race winner Reichen Lehmkuhl. “It’s all about his coming out and being raped in the Air Force,” Jonathan said. Then I turned to boyfriend Drew Akerson, who, with Jonathan, was dressed in ’70s roller disco drag. “I’m so behind tl\e ball,” Drew sheepishly admitted. “The last book I read was the first Harry Potter." with farts,” he said. On a more somber note, Linda Selig found Robin Merrow MacCready’s Buried— the story of a young girl who is deserted by her alcoholic mother—to be very healing. ■ Speaking of CAP, its annual Art Evening and Auction was April 5, and among the attendees, Kent Matthews told me he is aptly reading Out law Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality out out e.ii lout -iiindout ____ . ______________ 1 '______________________ 1 a____ .____ _____________ ■ • o 'out Out Going BY FLOYD SKLAVER in 20th Century American Art. Jeff Anderson has five books on his nightstand, including Bruce Wagner’s Force Majeure, Lucy O’Brien’s biogra phy of Madonna and Jcxii Picoult’s latest, Change of Heart. Ryan Holleran just finished Melanie Rawn’s The Star Scrolls, which he calls “a good dorky fantasy.” Jeff Butters has Ursula Hegi’s The Worst Thing I’ve Done on his nightstand. Butters Gallery represents the author’s artist husband, so Jeff stays with the couple in East Hampton whenever he visits New York. CAP executive director Jean Ann Van Krevelen is reading The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. Partner Tracy Turner has a microbiology textbook next to the bed because she’s got two more years of study to be a respiration therapist. Thanks to all for the great suggestions. Now, if you readers would just let me know about your events so I can cover them, that would be really Out Going. © F loyd S klaver wants to know about your event. E-mail him at floydsklaver@comcast.net. eaindout o eatin o lout eatiru o lout Amazingly great Breakfast and Lunch 2225 NE MLK WWW.ECHORESTAURANT.COM OREGON FRESH CUISINE VINTAGE COCKTAIL RECIPES Mon - Fri 6am to 2:30pm Breakfast All Day Everyday Full Bar 914 NE Broadway • 503-287-4750 Sat - Sun 7am to 3pm BARGAIN MENU EARLY FULL MENU ‘TIL CLOSE FREE PARKING/PRIVATE LOT 503.460. ECHO (3246) We love diversity. 2525 SE Clinton St. 503-233-5301 8338 N. LomBaRÒ 503-247-1066 ALSO US IN beaverton / eugene / medford / SUN « FIND VALLEY ID. b
