NOTES FROM THE MARGIN

Laughing Horse Books, a progressive book store that has been a meeting place for activist groups since its 1985 inception, has lost its lease after the building's new owner began charging market rates that would nearly double the store's rent. Do your part and buy some books at 3652 SE Division St. For all you real-estate mavens out there: Know an affordable location? Call 230-0488 and help out the community!

THURSDAY APRIL 20

Graphic Novel Reading Club

You want to be in a book club, but you don't have time to read anything other than your divorce papers, eviction notice and stack of subpoenas. Solution: Pick up that masterpiece of Japanese sequential art (read: a book with lots of pictures), Lone Wolf and Cub, Volume 1: The Assasssin's Road, and discuss it here. Bridge City Comics, 3725 N Mississippi Ave., 282-5484. 7 pm. Free. Please bring a chair and something to drink.

David Johnson Memorial

Poet Johnson, who passed away in February, published Pitching My Tent on Slanted Ground in August. Celebrate his life with a reading of his work, featuring his friends and others in the literary community. St. Johns Booksellers, 8622 N Lombard St., 283-0032. 7:30 pm. Free.

FRIDAY APRIL 21

Bev Doolittle

Calling all virgins, Catholics and slutty ho-bags! Bev "Ducky" Doolittle, a sex educator/journalist, will read from her first book, Sex with the Lights On. In Other Words, 8 NE Killingsworth St., 232-6003. 7 pm. Free. Jessica AbelAbel's recently released graphic novel, La Perdida, has been garnering accolades left and right. But if you wait to see Abel at Wordstock, you won't be able to touch her on account of the super-tall stage. Best to see her at the cargo-elevator-sized Reading Frenzy. Reading Frenzy, 921 SW Oak St., 274-1449. 7 pm. Free.

SATURDAY-SUNDAY APRIL 22-23

Wordstock

Wordstock is going to be so unbelievably awesome, but if I even get started, I'll never stop. So, for a complete list of events, check out wordstockfestival.com. Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., 546-1013. Free-$3.

SUNDAY APRIL 23

Lawson Inada

Oregon's newly ordained Poet Laureate will not be breakdancing or baking bread. He will be—get this—reading poetry. Special guests include puppets and music by the Yat Sing Music Club and Tanuki Taiko. Globe Hotel, 1 NW Couch St., 224-4646. 1:30 pm. Free, but reservations required; please call 228-8131 x 2001.

Justin Maurer's release party

Maurer reads from Don't Take Your Life: True Stories, his sweet, new release from Future Tense Press. Paragon, 815 N Killingsworth St., 289-0888. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

TUESDAY APRIL 25

Dr. Sidney Schwab

Schwab, who was awarded a Purple Heart in Vietnam, will be reading from his memoir, Cutting Remarks: Insights and Recollections of a Surgeon. The heroic doctor and published author will then be fielding questions on his life as an underachiever. Borders, 708 SW 3rd Ave., 220-5911. 7 pm. Free.