OREGON'S LGBTO NEWSMAGAZINE
arts*
MARCH 18. 2011
33 J C
“I was really shocked that the
people who were asking for Sister
Spit were all these different ages...
it was really cool to see that we had
made this impact on the culture.”
— MICHELLE TEA
Tea says. “It was really cool to see that we
had made this impact on the culture.”
It was at that point she realized that the
name Sister Spit— despite, or perhaps be
cause of, what Tea calls its unintentionally
“funny second-wave kind o f granola lesbian”
connotation— meant something to people.
“The name recognition means a lot,” Tea
says. “It suggests a certain type o f performance
in terms o f both quality and content.”
The van is Rill o f quality, all right. Take
Nelson, who earned his Sister Spit cred by
the mere fact that his first novel, Girl , was
excerpted in Sassy magazine. It can’t hurt
that he has since written Gender Bender , in
which a teenage boy and girl switch bodies,
or that his novel Paranoid Park was made
into a film by Gus Van Sant.
Nelson and Mac won’t be the only men in
the van. They’ll be joined by Kirk Read, author
o f the queer coming-of-age memoir How I
Learned to Snap. Mac, who made an appear
ance on the second half o f the European tour,
will be sharing photos from Original Plumb
ing as well as photos and a letter from the first
issue o f Translady Fanzine , featuring artist
and transwoman Zackary Drucker.
“I am a huge fan of [Mac’s] whole deal,’’Tea
gushes. “His photography is beautiful and tun
and striking, his vision as a trans person of how
he wants to place trans culture kind of front
and center in the larger culture is completely
excellent, and I think he’s really visionary.”
The guys will joined by writer and teacher
Ali Liebegott, author o f the book-length
poem rIhe Beautifully Worthless and a four
time Sister Spit veteran.
“If I could take her on every tour I would,”
Tea says. “She has such a great mixture of
wisdom and she’s totally smart and a smart
ass. You never know what you’re going to get
from her, she’s like a loose cannon in the best
way. And she drives.”
It’s a good thing Tea can’t take her favorite
writers on every tour, however, since she’s
already booking future bills in her head. The
lineup for 2012— featuring Dorothy Allison,
Mx. Justin Vivian Bond and Kit Yan, among
others— is already posted on RADAR Pro
ductions’ website.
This time around Tea was lucky to nab
Myriam Gerba, whom she calls a “wacky
and really smart” writer and high school
teacher and Mari Naomi, a graphic novelist
and visual artist. In addition to the folks in
the van, Sister Spit’s two Portland shows
will include performances by local writers
and artists Nicole Jorges, Chelsea Starr and
Matilda Bickers.
While Tea has no problem rattling o ff the
glowing qualities o f her fellow tour mates,
she had not decided, just days before the
tour began, what she would be performing.
Will she share excerpts from her upcoming
young adult novel featuring mermaids and
talking pigeons, her apocalyptic memoir
hybrid, her collaboration on the Beth Ditto
memoir From Coal to Diamonds or some
thing else entirely? There’s only one way to
find out.
When it comes to Sister Spit, Tea says,
“You never know what you’re going to get but
you kind of know you’re gonna like it.” JW
Sister Spit: The Next Generation, Monday,
March 28, 7 p.m., Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison
St., $10 in advancefrom brownpapertickets.com,
$12 at the door; Friday, April 1, 7p.m., Lewis &
Clark College, Evans Auditorium, 0615 SW
Palatine H ill Road, free; radarproductions.com.
Oregon Convention Center
Portland Oregon
Fri
Sat ~ April 22-23, 2011
Noon to 11 pm
ADMISSION $5.00
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