Their Cup Runneth Over

Queer sports fetishists of Portland, rejoice! The dudes are donning their jocks and cups, and are begging you to come watch ’em swing their bats.

There’ll be plenty of grass on Portland’s ball fields for Independence Day weekend, as hardcore guy and girl softballers from Phoenix to Vancouver, British Columbia, descend on Stumptown for the Rose City Softball Association’s eighth annual Cascade Cup tourney.

Over three days and nights of team-on-team action both on the field (at Gordon Faber Sports Complex in Hillsboro) and off (in dances and open-to-the-public block parties at Jupiter Hotel, C.C. Slaughters and Scandals), about 45 Western U.S. and Canadian teams will compete for champion titles, vying for tall Cascade Cup trophies and serious bragging rights.

So are all these competitors serious sports junkies? No way, says Tim Bias, a 13-year RCSA member and public relations ambassador for the group, who says you’ll find the same mix of types at the tourney—“drag queens to jocks and everything in between,” he says, adding, “of course, I’m on the jock side”—that you’re likely to find any night out at the bars. Except not being at the bars is, he adds, part of the point of the RCSA league and the Cascade tourney. “It’s an amazing way to meet other men and women,” he says, adding with brio that “it has nothing to do with dark, seedy bars and alcohol.”

Well, not exactly nothing. After daylong softball games on Saturday and Sunday, both nights close out with major bashes at gay bars—a Saturday night Obsession Block Party at C.C. Slaughters and Sunday night street party/awards ceremony at Scandals. Bias says the parties are “a great time to meet players” and, he adds with a wink, “to help soothe their sore muscles after a long day of playing.”

The Cascade Cup’s games are free and open to the public (full info at www.cascadecup.org), and the parties carry a modest cover, from 3 to 7 bucks.

—Stephen Marc Beaudoin


Writers and Fans Come Together at Q Literati

Literature is fundamentally a private act. Writers create in their own secluded spaces for the enjoyment of readers who read in quiet solitude. But Diane Anderson-Minshall and her “co-pilot in life,” Jacob Anderson-Minshall, want us all to come together to share our love of literature once a month at Q Literati.

The Anderson-Minshalls are relative newcomers to the Rose City. They met in 1990 at Idaho’s very first Gay Pride celebration, where they were both part of “the four-person Queer Nation contingent.” They moved to the Bay Area and spent 16 years immersed in San Francisco’s literary culture. Diane founded two lesbian publications, Girlfriends Magazine and Alice Magazine, before returning to Curve Magazine and eventually becoming executive editor. Jacob (born Susannah) explored his gender identity and eventually transitioned three years ago. He began writing a monthly syndicated column about trans issues called “TransNation,” which appears in The SF Bay Times, Outlook (Ohio) and Bay Windows (Boston). Together they have written two Blind Leap mystery novels (the latest was published earlier this year) with plans for at least three more in the series.

Among the pleasures the power couple indulged in were San Francisco’s Radar Reading Salon and the open mike at Femina Potens Art Gallery. So, it was only natural that when Diane felt the tug of “The Great Dyke Exodus” from San Francisco to Portland, she and Jacob decided to combine the best qualities of those two reading series into Q Literati.

Q Literati features established and emerging writers and spoken word artists. Each month, the Anderson-Minshalls hope to bring in published authors and “literary superstars” for readings as well as provide an open mike to encourage fresh, young voices to emerge. The first event in June attracted more than three dozen rapt listeners. Each month there will be snacks, doors prizes and, according to Diane, “homemade cookies for anyone who asks a question.”

“Portland is a great city for writers and readers because people cherish the written word,” Diane says. “We want to engage in literature without it being stuffy and academic.”

Q Literati is held on the second Wednesday of each month at Q Center, 69 S.E. Taylor St.

—Floyd Sklaver


From Thinking to Being

A Trappist monk once sent some poems to a famous poet. His note acknowledged her busy schedule and that he didn’t expect a reply. To his delight, not only did May Sarton respond, she told him it was a pleasure to be sent real poetry. The monk and the elderly writer enjoyed a congenial correspondence that the poet, no longer a monk, continues to treasure 12 years after Sarton’s demise. This is one of many stories of writers, thinkers and mystics who have contributed to Daniel Skach-Mills’ poetic voice of realism and serendipity.

He was born in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The family moved to Medford, then to Portland when Skach-Mills was 8. A cradle Catholic, he graduated from La Salle High, where he began writing poetry and edited the school’s literary magazine.

Although poetry was nearest his heart, Skach-Mills received all the “cultural messages” that insisted, “You can’t make a living writing poetry.” He pursued radio broadcasting at Mt. Hood Community College but left, dissatisfied, and worked in a bank, which also didn’t work out. “It was,” he says, “a strange nonfit.”

After attending Mt. Angel Seminary in 1983, Skach-Mills left school to enter the Trappist order, where he remained for five years. A retreat attendee left behind books written by Naomi Shehab Nye. Skach-Mills eagerly digested them, and the poetry he had set aside returned. He has continued to exercise his poet’s voice ever since.

Skach-Mills left the order in 1992; earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees; and met his life partner, Ken, who sings with Satori Men’s Chorus. They met at St. Philip Neri Catholic Church’s Dignity group and have been together 16 years.

Skach-Mills’ latest book, The Tao of Now (Ken Arnold Books, 2008; $14 softcover), is “an incarnation of something ancient, yet new, that draws everyday life into the poetic pen. It draws the ink of everyday life and the natural world and uses that to point to the normal reality.”

He sees these poems as his way of “trying to shift human consciousness from thinking to being.” He hopes “to move people to fall in love with being.”

Skach-Mills will read from The Tao of Now 2:30 p.m. July 17 in the teahouse at Portland Classical Chinese Garden, 239 N.W. Everett St. For more information call 503‑228‑8131.

—Patricia L. MacAodha


Patsy and Edina: The Definitive Collection

About 15 years after Absolutely Fabulous debuted in the United Kingdom comes Absolutely Fabulous—Absolutely Everything, an aptly named boxed set of every gay man’s favorite British ladies, Patsy and Edina.

We first met Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley) and Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) in the United States back in 1992, when Comedy Central picked up this British Broadcasting Corp. comedy. For those unfamiliar with the plot, Edina (born Edwina, but she dropped the “w” in favor of a more “modern” spelling) is a 40-something publicist with a taste for all things designer and fabulous (not to mention drugs, booze and pills). Her best friend and partner in crime is Patsy, a fashion editor who acts as the bad influence and plays on Edina’s insecurities, escalating each situation to a hilarious fever pitch.

The real heart of the show is in the role-reversing relationship between Edina and her daughter, Saffron (Julia Sawalha), an intelligent, level-headed (yet equally entertaining) counterpart to the exaggerated situations Patsy and Edina constantly find themselves in. Full of outrageous characters and never-dull plot lines, Ab Fab follows Patsy and Edina on a trek to New York in search of a door handle, an Aspen ski trip gone awry, Edina’s ongoing quest for a model’s body and, in the final series, the birth of her grandchild (whom she deems “the Chanel of babies” after discovering the father is black). While in any other show characters with these traits would seem unredeemable, the clever writing and plots make them lovable and definitely laughable.

After countless DVD releases, and even a release of the “complete” series in 2001, this new nine-disc set compiles all five seasons with every special, outtake and blooper associated with the show. The set comes packaged in a silver quilted book (not unlike Edina’s black bomber jacket worn in the first season), and the DVDs are housed in cardboard sleeves with descriptions of the contents. Beautifully designed and thoughtfully compiled, this set acts as a wonderful love letter to longtime fans of the show and is a must-have collection for any fan of cutting-edge, smart and irreverent comedies.

—Blake Martinez