In the past few months we’ve sadly lost Agent Babe Alert, as it was time for her to move on to other things. She was inspiring, especially wonderful in the art of group dynamics and implementing the ideal of consensus, Obviously, her fortitude, badassocity and sparkle will be missed.

The most important thing we want to put out at this point is that we will be doing another girls’ camp this summer. We loved being able to give back and empower young women and learn from them in return…mark your calendars for June 9th & 10th. Like last year there will be a performance, and this year there will also be a ride. Look to your left and you will see a link that says “2012 Girls Camp! More Info” – Click on it for pertinent information. We cannot wait to see you there!

Stay tuned for our upcoming shows this summer. We can’t wait to get out in the heat and tear it up Sprockettes’ style with y’all!

See you soon and keep on biking <3

We’ll be performing at Agent Curse and Agent Dollface’s job-site, for the employees at Port City Development Center on the 16th.

We’ll then be shaking it at Agent Babe Alert’s work at the People’s Co-op Harvest Fair and Craft Festival at about 6:30pm on Wednesday the 21st.

Later we’ll be sharing the floor with some other rad chicks at the Roller Derby West Region playoffs, on Sunday the 25th at about 4:30pm.

Hopefully we’ll get to see you at one of these amazing shows!

A Sprockettes’ New Year’s Resolution and commitment to our community is for us to support local organizations who are working to make our world a better place.  We’ll be performing at these organizations’ events while spreading information about that organization to our community. January’s highlighted organization is the Civil Liberties Defense Center, and we have an exciting show to share.

We’d like to invite you to join us for our first show of the 2011, Cirque Du Civil Rights. We will be performing with numerous, amazing performers from our community, and for a good cause!

January 7th, 2011, 9p
Dante’s- 350 W. Burnside, Portland
21 +

$12 in advance or $15 at the door
For advance tickets, click here.

Hope to see you there!

This weekend (sorry for the short notice) after the Cross Crusade race on Sunday, November 8th, will be the Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships at 4pm. This is the Portland Single Speed Collective, and since we’re a collective, how could this not be a perfect match?

Portland International Raceway (PIR) at West Delta Park – 1940 North Victory Boulevard
Sunday
3:45pm for our show
4:00pm for the Single Speed racing

Bring your galoshes.

We still encourage you to come out and support the other performers and organizations and celebrate a little combustion-engine free cavorting in the streets for the day.

See you Saturday at 2:25om. Tour de Fat has free entry and entertainment 12-5pm.

After about 8 hours on the road and a fabulous lunch at Mr. Salsa’s in Oglesby, Illinois, we pulled into Madison, WI ready to rock. Where, oh, where was this rocking to take place, you ask? Well, we really didn’t even know until we had arrived in town. All the graceful magic we’ve manifested (and have had enormous help manifesting by all the indescribably amazing hosts we’ve had in each city) brought us to Angela the artist, photographer, and neo-burlesque performer. Sweet, sweet, daring Angela in the house so gorgeous it could be a museum, the one filled to the brim with art, costumes galore, and fresh produce from her back yard. Not only did she appear from the ether just to host us, but she immediately took us on a night tour of beautiful Madison, stopping at a bar to drum up excitement for our show, and heading down to a sandy beach lake for the night.

The next day found us chalking the dedicated bike/ped paths with announcements for the show, stopping at the coffee shop 40 hundred times, admiring the community garden that lay directly behind Revolution Cycles, and spreading the word (with the awesome flyers Angela designed and printed on hot pink paper just for us). Both before and after a huge organic brunch at the house, Angela took part in a first-ever event. She learned an entire Sprockettes dance number, SOTI, to be performed at our show. And did she ever perform it! How do we thank you, Angela, for being gutsy enough to just jump in and for doing it in your very own hot pink and black? And thank you Jeff, for bringing the peeps to your shop for the party!

We got to the show, and of course, the crowd was already pumped and ready to see some fabulous bike dancing. Folks filled the parking lot and the roof above Revolution Cycles. We danced our hearts out and brought Angela up for an encore presentation of SOTI, which she ruled. The DJ did a bang-up job morphing the end of our set into a dance party. There was a live band inside the shop and a DJ in the lot. Madison, we love you. We love your bike paths and organic coffee and bursting berry trees and bushes and swimming lakes and your food. The food. Right, the food. Onto the food.

After the dance party, Chris took us to his outstanding restaurant, The Weary Traveler and treated the Sprockettes (and Daniel, Agent Tippy Tappy, and Angela, Agent Olive Talique) to dinner and drinks. Amazing. Amazing. He serves local and organic food and has a beautiful menu. There isn’t a website, but if you are ever hungry and thirsty while you’re near 1201 Williamson St in Madison, you will love this place. Do be sure to check out the Specials board, as there is now a very special little souvenier to be found right at the top. Thanks, Chris, for feeling the vibe and treating us to a wonderful meal at the end of our very busy day.

After dinner, it was another night ride out to the lake for a bonfire. I would write more about that, but it’s only just now happening so who knows what the night has in store! You’ll just have to check back to see.

I forgot to mention our town mascot! This time around, it’s Velo the cat, who lives at the bike shop (which is 2 blocks from where we’re staying). He’s a long hair and has his summer shave on, making him feel like a velveteen rabbit.  Velo regularly receives postcards and updates at the shop that Angela writes for him about her travels and adventures. He’s a well-rounded little black cat, Velo is. Now that he’s seen the Sprockettes, he’s ready to relax, content knowing that if a mini-bike dance team can roll into his parking lot and take the town by storm, absolutely anything is possible. Anything.

Yours truly will be performing at the super secret location warehouse party on Saturday, Feb. 14th sometime between 11pm-12am. But come for the entire night because you won’t want to miss all of the festivities: fashion show, silent auction, dance party, performances by The Sprockettes, Chain Reaction, Nerds on Wheels, music by Full Face Riot, Riot Cop, and more!

For a full lowdown of the weekend visit here: http://www.zoobomb.net/minibikewinter/

You won’t want to miss out on the most fun weekend to be had in the wintertime here in Portland!

In other news, the six year old across the street got his training wheels off the day after we did some maintanence in his bike at my place, but then his bike got thrown away when he got a flat tire. I’ve been spending some of this holiday vacation fixing up a completely rusted-out 12-incher I found in a free pile this fall. The pile was comprised of various sizes and styles of decrepit kids’ bikes left over from a Time-Based Art event in NE PDX. I grabbed three of them. I didn’t see the bike-art event, but my guess is art and performance with tiny bikes is likely to be unlimited in its capacity to intrigue audiences.

And in other In Other Words news, Portland’s feminist bookstore reported some amazing success in fundraising recently.  They are working on restructuring things to support their long-term sustainability. A quick update: “We will be able to pay back our short-term loan and begin digging ourselves out of debt. As phenomenal as this, we still need to raise another $8,000 by the end of February to meet our second goal, which will enable us to pay down our expiring line of credit. We are still encouraging our supporters to make tax-deductible donations if they’re able. We also encourage you to come buy 50% off books at our After Solstice Sale, which will be running January 12th-February 14th.”

See their website for more news and information regarding the organization, their fundraising, and how they got their roof fixed after it caved in with snow.

Those are some tidbits of things going on outside Sprockettes. As for what’s going on inside, we’ll let you know soon as we know!! Thanks to the Brutal Snow, Freezing Rain, And Ice Storm Extravaganza of 2008, Sprockettes had to cancel our last two practices of the year. None of us had DOT-approved chains for a our bike tires so we couldn’t make it to our practice space.  We hope that everyone is warm, safe, peaceful and cozy and ready to wrap up 2008.

We’ll see you in the new year!

Dear friends,

In Other Words, like so many of our fellow bookstores, has fallen upon incredibly hard financial times. With the decline in our current economy, we have experienced severely decreased revenue. If we are unable to raise $11,000 by the end of December, In Other Words will have to close its doors.

We desperately need your help. We are confident that if everyone who cares about In Other Words makes a contribution, large or small, we will meet our goal. Please give as generously as you can to save the last remaining non-profit, feminist bookstore in the country: the place where so many Portland artists, activists, organizers, readers, writers, political thinkers, musicians and poets find their voice, their power, their community, and their political home.

Our community cannot afford to lose In Other Words, please help us save her!

You can make your tax-deductible donations on the In Other Words secure website, or by stopping into the store.

Please forward this widely to your community, we need all the help we can get!

Sincerely,
The Board, Staff and Volunteers of In Other Words

June 14, Cirque du Cycling, 4pm Mississippi St, Portland OR

June 17, World Carfree Conference, 7pm, City Hall, Portland, OR.

June 18, World Carfree Conference (workshop), 4pm PSU, Portland OR

June 18, Pedalpalooza Dance Party Ride, 6pm South Park Blocks, Smith Hall, Portland OR

June 22, Sunday Parkways, 1pm Peninsula Park, Portland OR

June 28, MCBF, Portland OR

June 28, MCBF Sprockettes Invitational Bicycle Bash, 8pm, On Air, 1300 N River, Portland, OR

July 19, Tour De Fat, San Francisco, CA

July 26, Tour De Fat, Truckee, CA

August 2, Tour De Fat, Seattle, WA

August 16, Tour De Fat, Portland, OR

August 23, Tour De Fat, Boise, ID