Gossip Should Have No Friends

[September 19th, 2007] OPERATIC ENDING: In the two short years since Opera Theater Oregon blazed onto Portland’s sleepy classical music scene, the company has reinvigorated opera for a new generation of fans. Many were taken by surprise, then, at the very recent resignation of OTO co-founder and Exec Director Amy Russell Cathey . In an email announcement, Cathey writes this: “I will be turning my focus of time and energy to my family. I have two fantastic little people at home...they would like more time with their Momma. I am so proud of where OTO is today and where the company is going.” The rest of the OTO staff remain in place; their next show is a staging of the Donizetti opera The Elixir of Love , set in a suburban mall circa 1985—it’s called Muscle Max , and opens Wednesday, Oct. 26, at the Someday Lounge.

FASHION FLASH: Way to go, O ! Entrenched at New York’s Fashion Week , Oregonian staff reporter Vivian McInerny produced a trend report on the latest looks for next spring, including several photos of models wearing flouncy tops and skirts. But who got the most exposure? Front and center, and taking up nearly the entire page of last Saturday’s B section, was a big ol’ photo of an unidentified “model” strutting her stuff up and down the catwalk at the Heatherette show. Now, did they really not know that the model in question was no other than Jenna Jameson —a.k.a. the most famous porn “actress” in the world ? Hadn’t any of the daily’s low-level fact checkers seen Jenna Loves Rocco or Smells Like...Sex ? In any case, kudos to McInerny, who did include a mention of Jameson days before in a Tuesday, Sept. 11, post on her OregonLive.com fashion blog—but, oddly enough, the emaciated spank queen was never identified in the text of the print story, or any of its photo captions. Is this a new strategy of subconscious titillation? Silent but deadly sex appeal? We can’t wait to see what the O does with the Sunday comics....

GREAT WHITE HOPE: Are you a woman in the market for a 1973 GMC pickup with a camper shell, a mudflap-girl tattoo, a check for $29.99 and a supply of “meat products”? Well, what woman isn’t? So let’s narrow this down: Are you interested in winning these prizes and appearing on reality television as an emblem of “the large and looming underbelly of middle Americana” ? Then you’d better hustle your cutoff jeans to Mount Tabor Legacy (4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd.) at 7 pm this Saturday, Sept. 22, for the seventh annual Miss White Trash Pageant (see It List, page 56, for details). It would be the eighth pageant, but the 2005 pageant was canceled “due to a parole violation.” The contest will be filmed by Speedway Films for a reality-TV pilot. According to pageant co-organizer and longtime Portland music fixture Rev. Tony Hughes of the band Jesus Presley, Speedway’s owner contacted the pageant after seeing the Miss White Trash website (misswhitetrash.com) and said, “We have to do this .” But enough with the big-city glamour—there’s going to be a wiener cannon !

FIVE POSTS YOU’VE GOTTA READ ON WWEEK.COM/TOP5

TBA DIARY: This year’s arts fest was a series of question marks and exclamation points , ending with a slim parenthesis of autumn moon.

ALL EYEZ ON KNEE: Hank Stern and Casey Jarman search desperately for the silver lining under Greg Oden’s kneecap .

A TALE OF TWO TRAGEDYS: One Tragedy plays DIY hardcore , the other horror-rap —we mixed ’em up (oops), but our handy test helps you sort ’em out.

THE MUD THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME: The mayor’s race turns ugly early with rumors about Sam Adams’ youth outreach .

BAND NAMES EXPLAINED: Local Cut studies the origin myth of Fuckwolf .