Portland

Last night was Equity Foundation's annual benefit auction, held at the Portland Center Stage Gerding Theater. Equity is a fantastic Portland-based foundation that awards grants to nonprofit organizations statewide that are effecting social change, particularly around queer activism. We're honored to be among the organizations chosen for 2008: Equity will be sponsoring the Bitch In page for our upcoming Loud issue (Summer 2008).

It was fancy! And gay! Check out the archetypal gay icon herself hovering over an impressive lighting technique.

If there's anything more awesome than seeing an eight-year old girl scream that into a microphone, it's being in a theater full of girls like this celebrating the opening of Girls Rock! The Movie.

Tonight, four of us contributors to Michelle Tea's latest anthology, It's So You: 35 Women Write about Personal Expression through Fashion & Style, read at Powell's.

Mary Christmas started the night off with the story of her illustrious career as a young New York fashion model ending with an ill-timed family move to Chicago, where modeling perms for hair salons was considered top of your game.

Events are funny beasts - we spend so much time planning them - there is worry, stress, debating over whether there should be candles or whether the program should have the mission statement on the front page or inside back cover - and then when the big day comes they take on a life of their own and magically, everything works (or doesn't but that is another blog post). I just had to write about the auction we had last Saturday night - sm[art] *art show and silent auction to benefit Bitch, because this one worked!

B-sides is the blog about B-Word, the organization behind Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture and other soon-to-come cool projects (like this very website). Why the name B-sides? Well, who can forget many a good song that was on the B side of an album—a hidden gem that completely changed your world, for at least the evening, if not longer. And well, not to be too obvious but since this organization is about the B-word it seemed to make sense.