Think Out Loud

 RuPaul might be the country’s most famous drag queen, but in the Pacific Northwest, the LGTBQ+ community is still feeling the loss of Darcelle, who passed away earlier this year. The icon, also known as Walter Cole, was arguably the best known and loved drag queen in the region. Darcelle XV Showplace, the drag bar institution she created, lives on where she and others have performed for decades. So when Portland writer and podcast host Eden Dawn was pitched the idea of beating the world record for the longest continuous drag show (36 hours and 36 minutes in Australia), she knew it couldn’t happen in any other place, with locals in the audience participating and cheering them on.

What Dawn ended up producing was a 48-hour extravaganza created with a cast of dozens of performers — 60 drag queens, and an assortment of MCs and stand up comedians, as well as a large and dedicated crew behind the scenes. At the end of the two days, a representative of the Guinness World Records pronounced the record set, and presented performers with the official certificate. Still, that outcome was anything but certain. Any one of a series of mishaps and near misses could have shuttered the whole project.

Dawn and Fiona McCann produced a five-part podcast telling the story of the triumphs and the tribulations, called “Slaying a Drag-a-thon,” which is a “sidecast” of their regular show, “We Can’t Print This.” The whole event was also a fundraiser with $309,000 donated to the Trevor Project, which helps LGBTQ+ youth in crisis. Joining us in studio to talk about the highlights and lowlights are Dawn and BinKyee Bellflower, one of the drag queens that helped break the record.

Two Oregon high schoolers have teamed up with their grandfather to create a biodegradable drinking straw. They say the seaweed-based invention is a step toward more sustainable alternatives to disposable plastic products. The crew conducted many experiments in a garage-turned-laboratory and hope to create other products using biodegradable materials like shellfish exoskeletons, seaweed and lac bug excretions. 

Edward Brezina is a senior at Oregon Episcopal School. Emile Cantrell-Moore is a senior at Lake Oswego High School. Bob Cantrell is their grandfather and mentored the students on the project. We hear more from them about the straw and what it was like collaborating with family members on the experiments.  

Today marks one week since Portland Public Schools teachers declared a strike and campuses have been closed. Negotiations are ongoing with no clear timeline on when an agreement will be met. In Oakland, California, a teachers strike in the spring lasted a week and a half and kept kids out of school for several days. Jill Tucker is the education reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. She joins us to share more on why teachers went on strike there and how the resolution was reached.  

Vasectomy rates have risen in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere in the country since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the legal right to abortion in 2022. At Oregon Health & Science University, Jason Hedges performs about 500 vasectomies a year. He’s also one of the relatively few surgeons who does reversal procedures as well. He says like others in his field, he’s seen the interest rising and wait times for the procedure increase. Hedges joins us to discuss what’s involved and the changes he’s seen over the last several years.

Shakespeare’s “Henry IV, Part 1” follows the titular king as he prepares for war while his ne’er-do-well son Hal shirks — then ultimately accepts — his duties. The play deals with themes of violence, masculinity, power and leadership, all of which speak to Indigenous playwright Yvette Nolan. She recently updated the play’s language as part of Play On Shakespeare, an initiative that aims to make the Bard’s plays more engaging and accessible to modern audiences. 

A production of Nolan’s translation opened last weekend at Lewis & Clark College and will run through Nov. 11. It’s part of a larger series of talks and performances taking place across Portland to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. The play is directed by Waylon Lenk, a Shakespeare scholar and the college’s inaugural Native Artist-Scholar in Residence. He and Nolan join us to share more about “Henry IV, Part 1” and what Shakespeare means to them. 

 It’s hard to imagine a writer who has had as enduring an impact on the English language as William Shakespeare. Phrases like “neither rhyme nor reason,” “too much of a good thing,” or “It’s Greek to me,” color our language today centuries after the playwright immortalized them with quill and paper. But many of these linguistic contributions would have been lost to history were it not for the First Folio. Published in 1623, seven years after his death, it contains three dozen of Shakespeare’s plays, half of which were never printed in his lifetime.  

To honor the 400th anniversary of the First Folio, a monthslong celebration is taking place across Portland. It includes a variety of live performances; an exhibit at the Central Library; film screenings of Romeo and Juliet and other adapted works; and free public talks that draw cultural points of contact with Shakespeare-era England. Jonathan Walker, a professor of English at Portland State University, joins us to talk about creating and organizing “Shakespeare’s First Folio: 1623-2023,” which runs through May.  

The Hollywood Theatre will host a screening of the new movie, “The Holdovers,” on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with a live ensemble performance from the Portland-based composer of the film. We hear more from composer Mark Orton about the score and his work creating music for other films. 

Last week, the Black Business Association of Oregon, in partnership with ECONorthwest, revealed a new Black Economic Prosperity dashboard. The dashboard provides data on the current state of Black Oregonians which reveals that one out of every five Black individuals in Oregon lives in poverty. Additionally, the median income for Black households is only two-thirds of that for white households and only 36% of Black households own a home. Lance Randall, executive director of the Black Business Association of Oregon, joins us to discuss the new data.

The Oregon Quality Education Commission is responsible for figuring out how much the state should be spending on students for a quality education. While the commission has been around for a little more than two decades, the state legislature has not once spent the suggested amount the commission puts forward. John Rexford is the chair of the commission. He joins us to share how the commission comes up with its calculations and some of the unexpected costs that come with running schools. 

Several recent court cases have upheld transgender prisoners’ right to gender affirming care while incarcerated, and the right not to be held in segregation. Tara Herivel has represented a number of transgender prisoners, and joins us to discuss the legal options available to these adults in custody. We are also joined by Nova Gaia, an inmate at Snake River Correctional Institution, who recently won the right to gender affirming care and treatment.