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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 21, 2010)
O R E G O N S LE S B IA N /G AY /B l/TRA N S /Q U E E R N E W S M A G A Z IN E MAY 21. 2010 places. Looking back gives the participants a A ID S in 1988 at age 41. chance to wax poetic on the peculiar pleasures Next up is Edie and Thea: A Very Long En o f “male impersonation.” Com mentators with gagement, a funny, moving love story about two whimsical names like Flare, Carlos Las Vegas, women who met during the closet days o f the Dainty Box and others are seen burlesquing early 1960s and stayed together for more than 40 such male stereotypes as a “Big Papa” good ol’ years, until Thea’s death in 2009. These women’s boy and a nerdy teenaged boy. The film shows histories individually and as a pair, parallels that the D K world as an ever-changing locus for o f the gay liberation movement. We see them the m ost expansive gender play as these inven in all its phases: dancing furtively in secret gay tive “genderfuckers” include even “femme” male bars in the 1950s, flirting with therapy to “go riffs in their repertoires. straight,” marching for gay rights in the 1970s, Accompanying this show is Storme: Lady of attempting to resolve the rift between feminism QDoo: The Fourth Annual Portland Queer Documentor/ Film Festival Thursda/. June 3 Forever's Gonna Start Tonight 7:30 pm (U S A , 54 m in.), screening with Get Happy (U S A , 25 min.). Forever's director M ichelle Law ler and Vicki M arlane will be in attendance. O pening N ight Party at Savoy Tavern & Bistro and Broder, 2500 S E Clinton. Tickets, including film admission, are S20. 9 :0 0 pm and lesbianism. Best o f all, though, are the dy DeLarverie was the only male impersonator at namic personalities that emerge. Edie and Thea’s the legendary New York drag club that inspired intelligence and crackling humor, well displayed La Cage aux Folles. Archival footage and photos here, must have helped them survive the difficult depict this striking performer at work— unlike times. They’re also refreshingly upfront in talk Frida/. June 4 many gender performers, she did her own sing ing about sex, particularly the adaptations and 7:00 pm ing— and as she is today, working as a bouncer. compromises they’ve had to make as they age. In Expert commentators such as Lam bda Award a characteristic moment, Thea reminisces wist ven Greenstreet and narrated by Lance Dustin winner Joan Nestle offer context. The theme o f fully about the sight o f young Edie in a tight Black, screenwriter o f Milk. The film opens with authentic selfhood runs throughout this entic sweater: “She had a lot o f action inside!” They an endearing gay couple getting married during ing 2 1 -minute portrait. A s DeLarverie says, leave the viewer with a simple, irrefutable mes San Franciscos historic registration, and revisits “All I had to do was be me.” sage: “Don’t postpone joy.” DAV.D DANIELS the Jewel Box Revue. African-Am erican Storme them on the emotional roller-coaster ride that Saturday’s lineup begins with another un Equally powerful is Yony Leyser’s William follows. Cowan and Greenstreet meticulously compromising black diva. Unsung: Sylvester S. Burroughs: A Man Within. It’s hard to believe document the schemes o f the M orm on Church is a brisk biography o f the disco queen whose Leyser is only 25, so finely crafted is this docu in helping to pass Prop. 8, while showing the “M ighty Real” burned up the dance charts back mentary (which took 5 years to make). Bur human cost o f M orm on bigotry on families, in the day. Sylvester, bom in 1947, is shown roughs is an especially tricky subject. W idely individuals and society. here in multiple guises— budding gospel singer, considered the “godfather o f punk,” as well as The litany o f deceptions at work is quite disco goddess, Cockette, “Paris chanteuse,” even a pioneer o f queer, Beat and junkie culture, he extraordinary, from the church’s setting up a “Snake Woman” (to fevered Brazilian fans)— but seems too soft-spoken, too inward-looking phony organization through which to funnel is always recognizable for his glamorous getups to be a trailblazer. Despite the wild creativity money, to a massive ad campaign filled with and soaring falsetto. The portrait is fair-minded, (he’s responsible for the phrases “soft machine,” lies, to downright extortion as pastors visit not sparing us Sylvester’s occasional shallowness “heavy metal” and “blade runner”) and expan parishioners at home and say, “Based on your (“I wouldn’t get out o f the car until someone siveness we see in his novels like Naked Lunch, finances, this is what you can afford to give,” opened it for me”), and friends and fellow art Burroughs appears repressed, paranoid, rig and wait for the check. The film clearly links ists weigh in on the strange idly unemotional, perhaps self-hating— more M orm on activities to gay teen suicides, and in magic that made up this a heartwrenching moment, follows a group o f character, who died o f DOC continues on r o a e 55 (U S A , 80 m in.) D irector Reed Cow an in attendance. 9:00 pm Even when sleeping with the only flaw in the film is that it fails to mention the shortcomings o f the anti-Prop. 8 campaign, rent bo/s who were viewed by many observers as incompetent. U l timately, though, 8: The Mormon Proposition is a Saturda/. June 5 I:30 pm 6:00 pm m in.). Director Kerthy Fix in attendance. Sunda/. June 6 I2:00 pm 3:00 pm 4:45 pm Burroughs kept a loaded gun under his blanket. celebratory one, a 43-m inute profile o f the In ternational D rag King Extravaganza (ID K E ), which began in 1999 in Colum bus, Ohio, o f all Special Sneak Preview (U S A , approx. 90 m in.). Film m akers in attendance. Other Nature (N e p al/U S A , 57 m in.) Out in the Silence (U S A , 57 m in.) Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls (N ew Zealand, 84 min.). Jo o ls and Lynda Topp and producer Arani Cuthbert will be in attendance. why gay marriage was killed in California, and The second entry on this bill is a more William S. Burroughs: A Man Within (U S A , 90 min.) Le Tigre: On Tour (U S A , 73 8:30 pm his common choice. the true nature o f the forces we’re up against. Unsung: Sylvester (U SA , 48 m in.), screening with Sylvester: Mighty Real (U S A , 4 min.) Edie £sf Thea: A Very Long Engagement (U S A , 61 m in.). Directors Susan M uska and G reta O lafsdottir in attendance. 4:00 pm 7:00 pm must-see for anyone interested in understanding A Drag King Extravaganza (C anada, 43 m in.), screening with Storme: Lady of the Jewel Box (U SA , 21 min.) homeless Utah teens as they go “hom e” to a filthy building— abandoned, as they were. The 8: The Mormon Proposition QDoc is held at the Clinton Street The ater, 2522 SE Clinton St. General admis sion tickets are $8; students and seniors are $6, andfestival passes are $75. Restaurant and Bar Good food, Great Fun, and Friendly Staff... Portland’s East side Dining & Spirits .... 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