Slide Show: Text Me
The big winner of the night? Rose Hall’s dress, inspired by Fahrenheit 451. Note the burning pages on the skirt. What did she win? Tickets to The Nutcracker. “I’ve never won anything before,” Hall said. “It’s kind of awesome. My mom
Photography by Julia Kepler
Look at me I’m standing on a boat: Ashley Mitchell, Katie Cagle, and Kate O’Donnell interpreted the title of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat. (We’ll say nothing of the dog.) They won the made-up prize for “Best Foreign Novel.”
Photography by Julia Kepler
Haruki Murakami’s novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was the theme of Lisa Mae Osborn’s costume. She spent three hours with a hot glue gun putting it together. Most impressive: her winder actually worked.
Photography by Julia Kepler
During the show, ballgoers could peruse Gallery Homeland and its current exhibit: The Sword of Light, by Josh Arseneau.
Photography by Julia Kepler
Sportswriter Dwight Jaynes and his wife, Kimberlee, model as “Book Club” and “My Life Is an Open Book” respectively. “[The IPRC] is a great thing for our city,” Dwight Jaynes said. “Everyone would be proud of it, if they only
Photography by Julia Kepler
Diana Woolsey shows off her skirt, which was inscribed with a story she wrote specifically for event.
Photography by Julia Kepler
A detail of the “story skirt,” which included, Woolsey said, clichés about a bank robbery and an ensuing chase across state lines.
Photography by Julia Kepler
Heather Mahrry came as “Words, words, words,” the response Hamlet gives to Polonius when questioned about what he was reading. Lines from the scene are written on Mahrry’s dress.
Photography by Julia Kepler
Squeeze-box artist Justin Franzino pumped out the hits all night long.
Photography by Julia Kepler
Competitors walked down this pieced-together runway, made from children’s poetry about poultry and pages taken from a textbook about Panama.
Photography by Julia Kepler
Todd Mignola and Amy Dubin went period as Pip from Great Expectations and Madame Bovary. “I had the coat, so I just had to pick a character,” Mignola said. “I like the sound of ‘Pip.’”
Photography by Julia Kepler
Adina Lepp came as Michelle Tea, the San Francisco–based author of such titles as Rent Girl and Valencia. Tea performed a day later to close out Wordstock. Note Lepp’s tattoo of the I-5 corridor as it runs through Portland.
Photography by Julia Kepler
Rebecca Davison arrived as Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road, represented by a vintage dress and a few yellow pieces of fabric. “I’ll probably use it for Halloween, too,” she said.
Photography by Julia Kepler
One of the most inspired costumes of the night was Lisa Pate’s Tao of Pooh. How did she pull of the pooh? “Tootsie Rolls in a diaper,” she confessed. As horrible as that sounds, it looked even worse.
Photography by Julia Kepler
After all was said and done, this year’s Text Ball made over $2,500 for IPRC programs. “It was the best Text Ball we’ve had,” said Justin Hocking, the IPRC’s executive director.
Photography by Julia Kepler
