BGSQD

Opening Reception for Jared Buckhiester: Love Me Tender
2017-09-15 18:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | NY
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is proud to present Jared Buckhiester: Love Me Tender. Spanning the last decade, Love Me Tender surveys Jared Buckhiester’s exploration of conflicted desires and the American archetypes that anchor them. Curated by David Getsy, this exhibition presents a selection inclusive of the artist’s varied and emotionally-invested approach to the medium of drawing. A catalogue including an essay by the curator will accompany the exhibition. Additionally, writer and poet Charity Coleman will present an evening of readings on September 30th, and Jared Buckhiester will present and screen the films of Doug Ischar on October 12th.
Jared Buckhiester: Love Me Tender will be on view at the Bureau September 15—November 12, 2017.
Download a PDF of this press release.

Jared Buckhiester is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in New York City. He has a BFA in photo from Pratt and an MFA in Sculpture from Bard College. Jared makes everything but painting, combining biographical psychosexual material with the ever-present narratives of political violence. Jared has had exhibitions at Envoy Enterprises; Feature Inc.; Gallerie Du Jour, Paris; Thomas Rehbein, Cologne; and at The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in Lille France. Jared has been the recipient of awards from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, The Albert K Murray Foundation, and The Dedalus Foundation for the Arts. https://www.jaredbuckhiester.com

David J. Getsy is the Goldabelle McComb Finn Distinguished Professor of Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He writes about queer and transgender strategies in modern and contemporary art and in art history’s methodologies. He has published seven books, most recently Abstract Bodies: Sixties Sculpture in the Expanded Field of Gender (Yale, 2015) and the anthology of artists’ writings, Queer (MIT, 2016). His current projects involve archive-based recoveries of queer and genderqueer performance practices from the 1970s. He is currently completing a book on Scott Burton’s queer postminimalism and performance in the 1970s and, for the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, curating the first retrospective of costume and performance artist Stephen Varble. https://www.saic.edu/~dgetsy.

Red Hen Press Presents: Judy Grahn & More!
2017-09-14 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Red Hen Press authors t’ai freedom ford, Celeste Gainey, Dean Kostos, Heather Aimee O’Neill, Jason Schneiderman in celebration of Hanging On Our Own Bones, the new poetry collection from LGBTQ and feminist icon/activist Judy Grahn.

Judy Grahn is a poet, writer, and social theorist. She currently serves as Research Faculty for the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California. She is former director of Women’s Spirituality MA and Creative Inquiry MFA programs at New College of California. Her books include love belongs to those who do the feeling (Red Hen Press, 2008), Blood, Bread, and Roses (Beacon Press, 1994), Edward the Dyke and Other Poems (The Women’s Press Collective, 1971), and Hanging On Our Own Bones (forthcoming from Red Hen Press, 2017).

t’ai freedom ford is a New York City high school English teacher, Cave Canem Fellow, and Pushcart Prize nominee. She received her MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College. In 2014, she was the winner of The Feminist Wire’s inaugural poetry contest judged by Evie Shocklee and is a 2015 Center for Fiction Fellow. She won the 2015 To the Lighthouse Poetry Prize from A Room of Her Own Foundation (AROHO). Her fiction has appeared in Black Ivy, The Brooklyn Review, Bronx Biannual, and Kweli, and her poetry has appeared in Drunken Boat, Sinister Wisdom, No, Dear, The African American Review, and more. Her first poetry collection, how to get over, will be released by Red Hen Press in the spring of 2017.

Celeste Gainey is the author of the poetry collection, the GAFFER, from Arktoi Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press. Her chapbook, In the land of speculation & seismography (Seven Kitchens Press, 2011), was runner-up for the 2010 Robin Becker Prize. Graduating with a BFA in Film & Television from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, as well as earning an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Carlow University, Gainey was the first woman to be admitted to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) as a gaffer, and has spent many years working with light in film and architecture.

Dean Kostos’s collections include Rivering (Spuyten Duyvil, 2012), Last Supper of the Senses (Spuyten Dyvil, 2005), The Sentence That Ends with a Comma (Painted Leaf Press, 1999), and Celestial Rust (Red Dust, 1994). He edited Mama’s Boy and Pomegranate Seeds. His work has appeared in leading journals: Boulevard, Chelsea, Cimarron Review, Cincinnati Review, Southwest Review, Western Humanities Review, and on Oxygen.com. Having taught at Wesleyan, The Gallatin School, and The City University of New York, he also wrote a libretto for Voices of Ascension, and his poem, “Subway Silk,” was translated into a short film by Jill Clark. He is also author of This Is Not a Skyscraper (Red Hen Press, 2015).

Heather Aimee O’Neill is a co-author of Obliterations, written with Jessica Piazza (Red Hen Press, 2016). She teaches writing at CUNY Hunter College and is the assistant director for the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop, one of New York City’s most prominent writing workshop organizations.

Jason Schneiderman was born in San Antonio, Texas, but was raised around the United States and Western Europe. He holds BAs in English and Russian from the University of Maryland, an MFA from BYU, and a PhD from the Graduate Center of CUNY. He is the author of two previous collections of poems: Sublimation Point (Four Way Books, 2004) and Striking Surface (Ashland Poetry Press, 2010), winner of the Richard Snyder Prize. He is also the editor of the anthology Queer: A Reader for Writers (Oxford University Press, 2015). His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish Poetry, Verse Daily, The Poetry Review, and The Penguin Book of the Sonnet. Schneiderman has received Fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Yaddo, and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and is the recipient of the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and lives in Brooklyn with his husband, Michael Broder.

TELL 36: Past Lives
2017-09-09 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Past Lives is the theme of the 36th installment of TELL. Featuring Dusty Childers, Shannon Matesky, Reilly Owens, and F. Squire.
$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at BGSQD. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

The only way Dusty Childers has found to keep things out of his mouth is to continue talking. Given a time frame, a mic and an audience has helped make his nonstop banter more productive, and (according to those he’s paid off) somewhat entertaining. Although not tax deductible, being an audience member of a show in which Dusty is performing surely is a charitable moment. Feel good about yourself, and clap if you can muster it.

Shannon Matesky is an actress, writer, director, producer and an organizer from Berkeley, California. She is creator and curator of Queer Abstract, a monthly performance series in Brooklyn. As an actress Shannon has performed with a range of theater companies including The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theater, and The Inconvenience. She has been featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, Nuyorican Poets Cafe and elsewhere. Shannon has produced campaigns and festivals across the United States, including the Brave New Voices International Teen Poetry Festival, Life is Living, and The Fly Honey Show. Shannon currently works with Urban Word NYC. For more information visit www.shannonmatesky.com

Reilly Owens is a Queer Trans Woman of Color and her pronouns are she/hers. She is a student at Queens College where she studies Anthropology. Reilly loves to converse with people and her life’s story is a series of many adventures, and meeting with many people and seeing opportunities for growth, either for herself or the people she works with. Her current journey sees her growing into her skin with self-confidence and love for those around her. FUN FACT: One of her favorite breakfasts is peanut butter, apple butter, and bananas on a English Muffin.

F. Squire is a new poetess and resident of Brooklyn, believes in the physical prowess of spoken word. Their first selected work, Hairstory, was published in Glitter & Grit (A Lambda Literary Award Winner). This year, they were Judge’s Choice Winner at the Funhouse Follies Cabaret and performed at LGBT Voices for Queens Pride Festival. Their motto is “Embrace Your Spectacle.”

Book Launch for Mickey Aloisio’s ‘American Wildlife’
2017-09-08 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join Mickey Aloisio as he presents and signs copies of his latest book, American Wildlife. There will be a conversation mediated by independent curator and writer, Efrem Zelony-Mindell with Aloisio about the work, starting at 7:30 and will open Q&A with the audience directly after.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
American Wildlife is the outcome of a trip where Aloisio spent three months on the road photographing queer men and their communities across the country during the fall of 2016. During this time, he found his subjects by going to the different safe spaces of that particular area. Aloisio would then arrange to go to their home to create art with them as two collaborators.
Each book is a first edition copy of 100. The book is 90 pages, soft cover with a foreword by Efrem Zelony-Mindell. Each signed copy will be sold for $50 and a limited edition print sale (25) of the book + an 8×10 signed archival pigment print will also be available for $100.

Mickey Aloisio is an American born artist who is currently based in Queens, NY. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology with a concentration on photography in 2016. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Aloisio addresses ideas of sexuality, vulnerability and identity with an expressive and sincere approach.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
2017-09-06 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

Please join us for Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), directed by Stephen Frears, written by Hanif Kureishi, and starring Frances Barber, Ayub Khan-Din, Shashi Kapoor, Claire Bloom, Roland Gift, and Meera Syal.

We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The more people come, the more likely we’ll continue the event! The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.

Synopsis: While their London neighborhood erupts with violence sparked by the police killing of a black woman, middle-class couple Sammy and Rosie cope with a visit from Sammy’s father Rafi, a former politician with an unsavory past. He disapproves of their friends and their open marriage. TW: suicide, torture. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes.

USS presents IWPS Qualifier !
2017-09-05 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is returning with an IWPS qualifier.
IWPS is the Individual World Poetry Slam presented by PSi, in Spokane Washington this year October 11-14th.
There will be NO OPEN MIC.
Four rounds:
4 minute
1 minute
2 minute
3 minute
Sign-ups at 7pm SHARP
all ages // wheelchair accessible // admission $5-10

Bureau closed Sundays and Tuesdays in July and August
2017-08-29, 2017-08-27, 2017-08-22, 2017-08-20, 2017-08-15, 2017-08-13, 2017-08-08, 2017-08-06 and 7 more dates | NY
The Bureau will be closed on Sundays and Tuesdays in July and August. Our summer hours are Wednesdays through Saturdays, 1 to 7 PM.

Reception for #youdonthave2banancy tees at the Bureau!
2017-08-19 16:30 - 18:30 | NY
Join us for a welcoming reception for the new #youdonthave2banancy tee-shirts at the Bureau! Stop by and check out the tee-shirts and bags and say hello to the artist who makes them, Stephen Anton!

Disclosure: Michael Broder, Donna Minkowitz, Julene Tripp Weaver
2017-08-12 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Three writers read poetry and memoir about their experiences of disease and disability with an emphasis on the complex, difficult, and fraught issues of DISCLOSURE—to lovers, friends, family, employers, and the larger community.

Michael Broder is the author of Drug and Disease Free (Indolent Books, 2016) and This Life Now (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2014), a finalist for the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His poems have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. He holds a BA from Columbia University, an MFA from New York University, and a PhD in Classics from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Michael is the founding publisher of Indolent Books, the founding director of the Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity, and the founding director of the HIV Here & Now project. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband, the poet Jason Schneiderman, and a backyard colony of stray and feral cats.

Donna Minkowitz‘s magical realist memoir, Growing Up Golem, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and for the Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award. Her first memoir, Ferocious Romance: What My Encounters with the Right Taught Me about Sex, God, and Fury, won a Lammy. A former columnist for the Village Voice and The Advocate, she’s also written for Slate, The Nation, the New York Times Book Review, and Salon. She is the restaurant critic for Gay City News.

Julene Tripp Weaver is a native New Yorker who moved to Seattle in 1989. A psychotherapist, she worked in AIDS services for over 21 years. She is the author of truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS (Finishing Line Press, 2017), No Father Can Save Her (Plain View Press, 2011), and Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues (Finishing Line Press, 2007); a poem from this book was featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac. She has poems published in: Anti-Heroin Chic, Riverbabble, River & South Review, Rat’s Ass Review, The Seattle Review of Books, HIV Here & Now, and elsewhere; a creative nonfiction piece about the night Jimi Hendrix died is published by Yellow Chair Press, In The Words of Women International 2016 Anthology. Find more of her writing at www.julenetrippweaver.com.

OLNY's Poly Movie Night: Amorous
2017-08-09 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

Please join us for Amorous (2014), directed by Joanna Coates and starring Josh O’Connor, Hannah Arterton, Rea Mole, and Daniel Metz.

We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The more people come, the more likely we’ll continue the event! The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.

Synopsis: Young strangers–Max, Charlotte, Leah, and Jack–leave London for an isolated cottage where they attempt to build an intentional community of four. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes.

USS presents Regional Slam Off / NPS Send Off
2017-08-01 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
It’s that time of the year again! Time when teams from all over the country converge for a week-long poetic competition and community-building. Come experience the hard work put in this summer by top notch poets from NYC’s Bowery Poetry Slam, Jersey City’s JC Slam, and Philly’s Fuze teams, as well as your own Union Square Slam team!!

*** NO WORKSHOP OR OPEN MIC TONIGHT ***

We need five judges!! If you don’t know any of the competing poets, and volunteer to judge, we will refund you your admission fee. Pinky swear.

Please note: the Bureau is closed on Tuesdays in July and August. We will open at 7 PM for this event.

all ages // wheelchair accessible // admission $5-10

Queer Lives/Fault Lines
2017-07-29 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
The Bureau of General Services-Queer Division hosts this multi-genre reading of poets exploring intersectional identities and cultural violences that are experienced in a queer context. We may also speak of joy.

Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds

We will have a brief reception from 7:00-7:30 with readings beginning at 7:30. There will be non-alcoholic beverages available. There will be a brief intermission. The event will end by 9:30
The Bureau is wheelchair accessible. All-gender bathrooms are available down the hall.

The Readers:

George Abraham (they/he) is a Palestinian-American Poet, Activist, and Engineering PhD Candidate at Harvard University. His chapbook, al youm: for yesterday & her inherited traumas, was a winner of the Atlas Review’s 2016 chapbook contest. He is a recipient of the Lois Morrell Poetry Prize, the Favianna Rodriguez Award for Artistic Activism, and the honor of “Best Poet” at the 2017 College Union Poetry Slam Invitational. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Vinyl, Apogee, Thrush, Kweli, Hawai’i Review, Winter Tangerine, and anthologies such as Bettering American Poetry 2016, the Nepantla Anthology for Queer Poets of Color, and the Ghassan Kanafani Palestinian Literature Anthology.

Hannah Ingram (she/her) has been teaching in public and private schools in New York and California since 2005. During that time, Hannah has also taught in higher education around issues of inclusivity, intersectionality and queering curriculum in elementary contexts. Hannah has been writing since she could form letters, and her practice has been built through poetry workshops in college and graduate programs, and most recently, workshops through Brooklyn Poets. Most importantly, Hannah makes poems with children.

Kira Garcia (she/her) is a writer living in Brooklyn. She has published Shouts & Murmurs for the New Yorker, as well as personal essays, humor pieces and interviews for Lenny, Jezebel, and the Hairpin. She is old enough to remember when Ellen Degeneres was presumed to be straight.

Nicole Goodwin (she/her) is the 2017 EMERGENYC Hemispheric Institute Fellow as well as the 2013-2014 Queer Art Mentorship Queer Art Literary Fellow, and the winner of The Fresh Fruit Festival’s 2013 Award for Performance Poetry. She published the articles “Talking with My Daughter…” and “Why is this Happening in Your Life…” (Personal essay/Review for award-winning documentary Tough Love) in the New York Times’ parentblog Motherlode. Additionally, her work ‘”Desert Flowers” was shortlisted and selected for performance by the Women’s Playwriting International Conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

Jake Matkov (he/him) received a scholarship to the first grade. He was cast in Annie Get Your Gun, as The Gun and had nightmares ever since. A recipient of a 2017 New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellowship and a 2015-16 Queer / Art / Mentorship literary fellowship, his poems have been published in The Blueshift Journal, fields magazine, voicemail poems, and others. You can find him in Brooklyn or on Twitter and Instagram @ooohjakie.

USS presents Liv Mammone
2017-07-25 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is spending the summer showcasing our fire 2017 Slam Team, as they prepare for the National Poetry Slam in Denver this August. Each team member will lead a workshop before their feature, so don’t miss your chance to engage with these brilliant writers and performers! All proceeds go directly to the artists.
Tonight’s feature: Liv Mammone

Liv Mammone is an editor and poet from Long Island, New York; where she lives with her parents, brother, and family of feral cats. She has previously taught creative writing at Hofstra University and Queens College. Her poetry has appeared in wordgathering, Wicked Banshee, The Medical Journal of Australia, Rogue Agent, QDA: a Queer, Disabled Anthology, Grabbing the Apple and Typo Magazine. As a spoken word poet, she has featured at Sarah Lawrence, Artists Without Walls, Stonybrook University, and Union Square Slam. She is the first visibly disabled person to be on a New York City slam team. She’s a two time nominee for 2016’s Best of the Net poetry anthology.

SHOW DETAILS:
6:30pm: Workshop
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
9:00pm: Feature

We are located at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, inside The LGBT Community Center (208 W 13th St, #210)
Please note: the Bureau is closed on Tuesdays in July and August. We will open at 6 PM for Union Square Slam events.
Our venue is all ages and wheelchair accessible.

Workshop: $5
Open Mic and Feature: $5
No one is turned away for lack of funds.

Anti-Fascist Book Club Reads Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed
2017-07-22 14:00 - 16:00 | NY
A reading group for those fighting fascism!
Hopefully our readings will inspire thoughtful and informed activism.
Join us for our third meeting on Saturday, July 22nd, from 2 to 4 PM. We will discuss Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed is available for purchase at the Bureau. Please support the Bureau and purchase your copy from us. Thanks!
In our first meeting in April we discussed the first 100 pages of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism.
In our second meeting in May we discussed James Baldwin’s Going to Meet the Man.
Questions? Ideas for future readings?
Write to Grey Vild: greyvild@gmail.com

Bureau closed Sundays and Tuesday in July and August
2017-07-16 | NY

Bureau closed on July 6th
2017-07-06 | NY
We will be closed on Thursday, July 6th. We will re-open on Friday, July 7th.

Please note our summer hours for July and August: Wednesdays-Saturday, 1 to 7 PM.

We will be closed Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays.
