BGSQD

The QT BFF Reading
2014-12-14 18:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | NY
BFFs Grey Vild and Claudia Cortese, Jayson Smith and Aziza Barnes will read poems born of collaboration, conversation and BFF-ship. Cuuuute!

Aziza Barnes is a brown woman poet from Los Angeles currently living in New York. She is a senior at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, pursuing her BFA in theater, creative writing and Africana Studies. She was a member of NYU’s poetry slam teams in 2011 and 2012, winning first place in the nation. A member of the Dance Cartel, Aziza performs in venues around New York and is finishing a residency at the Ace Hotel. She is a co-founder of the Divine Fabrics Collective. Winner of the 2012 Button Poetry Prize and author of me Aunt Jemima and the nailgun.

Jayson Smith is a writer & choreographer hailing from the Bronx, NY. His work is published/forthcoming in various journals & anthologies, including Kinfolks Quarterly, boundary2: an international journal of literature and culture, and FreezeRay Press. Jayson facilitates a weekly writing workshop with the LouderARTS project in Manhattan, & is on staff for Union Station Magazine. Find him on Twitter to talk Beyoncé & poems & other, less important things.

Claudia Cortese’s chapbook, Blood Medals, which explores Midwest adolescence—a world of slap bracelets and sisterhood, date rape and PBR—is forthcoming from Thrush Poetry Press. Her poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2011, Blackbird, Crazyhorse, Kenyon Review Online, and Sixth Finch, among others, and her essays and book reviews have appeared in Mid-American Review and Devil’s Lake. Her first book of poetry has been a finalist for prizes from the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry and Black Lawrence Press. Cortese lives and teaches in New Jersey.

Grey Vild is a poet and writer who lives and works in Brooklyn. Vild’s work has appeared in THEM, Elderly, and Hue. He has a chapbook, entitled Go to Naples and Fuck Yourself, forthcoming from EOAGH. He is the happy recipient of the Queer Art Mentorship Fellowship 2014 with Stacy Szymaszek.

Queer Geographies: Beirut, Tijuana, Copenhagen: A Conversation between Editor Lasse Lau and Contributors
2014-12-17 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Is there certain logic to queer geography? This presentation will explore the different hegemony of social structures in society that frequently filter and often limit social uses of queer spaces. Spaces that are seen as non-spaces or powerless structures that exist parallel to streets, parks, sculptures, public toilets, department stores, software companies … Spaces that are appropriated socially and physically into the realm of a queer meanings. The clash between space, Marxist Geographer David Harvey writes, happens between the micro-scale of the body and the personal and the macro-scale of the global political economy. The new book Queer Geographies: Beirut, Tijuana, Copenhagen is a collaborative work of artists, activists, and scholars, showcasing queer art in three very different cities throughout the 2000s, showcasing how these cities produce their own significant meanings. Geographer and queer researcher Jen Jack Gieseking Bowdoin College writes about this book, “The art and its very smart, beautiful catalog highlight the identical processes of neoliberal capitalism that touch each of these places and brings queer life into sync more and more from greater distances.”
The 7 PM reception will be followed by a presentation at 7:30 of work from the book and a conversation between editor Lasse Lau and some of the contributors (TBA).

Lasse Lau (Sønderborg Denmark, 1974) is a award winning filmmaker and video artist who lives and works in Brussels and Copenhagen. His films and art explore socioeconomic issues relating to conflicts of space. He has exhibited in Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin, Germany), The British Museum (London, GB), Bozar (Brussels, Belgium) Museum of Contemporary Art (Zagreb, Croatia), Museum of Resistance (Turin, Italy), CAA Lagos (Lagos, Nigeria) Casa del Lago (Mexico City) Contemporary Museum (Baltimore, USA) and MoMA PS1 (New York, USA). Lau is the co-founder and board member of Kran Film Collective and New York based artist group Camel Collective. In 2005 he was a fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program (New York, USA).

Photo of Copenhagen power plant by Flo Maak

CANCELLED! DEADLINE: Works-in-Progress from Cutting-Edge Queer Artists: December Edition!
2014-12-18 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
The December edition of DEADLINE has been cancelled.

The next DEADLINE will take place on Thursday, January 15th.

Post-Clown Disaster, Ariel Federow and Cabaret Idiot, Sabrina Chap bring you this new works-in-progress series featuring new work from cutting edge queer artists. Built on the notion that there’s no greater inspiration than a deadline, this series forces renegade artists to bring new and developing work to an audience for the first time. Part experimentation + part guaranteed failure = 100% awesomeness.
Check out this article on the August edition of Deadline in Next Magazine: “BGSQD’s Deadline Gives Queer Artists Room To Create And Grow” by Chris Hernandez

Performers for the December edition of Deadline to be announced shortly.

NYC Book Launch of First Comes Love: Portraits of Enduring LGBTQ Relationships with Photographer B. Proud and Edie Windsor
2014-12-19 18:30 - 20:30 | The LGBT Community Center Room 301, 208 West 13th Street Room 301, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division are proud to host photographer/author B. Proud and Edie Windsor for the NYC book launch First Comes Love: Portraits of Enduring LGBTQ Relationships. Proud will discuss the project, present images from the book, and engage in a question and answer period along with Edie Windsor, who wrote the forward to First Comes Love. Several of the couples featured in the book will also attend.

First Comes Love is available at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (room 210 in The Center), and the Bureau will sell copies of the book at the event. Both B. Proud and Edie Windsor will sign copies of the book at the reception following the event.
Doors open 6:30 PM, presentation at 7 PM

Beer, wine, Absolut vodka cocktails, and sparkling water will be available for cash donations.
Please RSVP here.

B. Proud, photograph by Victor Rodriguez

B. Proud. It’s not a slogan. It’s the name that’s on her birth certificate and Barbara Proud says that it’s a name she has to live up to. As both a commercial and fine art photographer, B. Proud has exhibited her award-winning work in solo and group shows around the globe. Her “First Comes Love” Project, a traveling exhibition of photographs, stories, and video, and now a hardbound book, has received multiple awards and grants including those from the B. W. Bastian Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, the Delaware State Arts Council, and The University of the Arts, Philadelphia where Barbara is an adjunct associate professor. B. Proud currently resides in Wilmington, Delaware with her spouse, Allison, and their yellow lab, Soleil.

Edie Windsor, photograph by B. Proud
Edith S. Windsor challenged the U.S. government and the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied federal recognition of legal same-sex marriages. She took her case all the way to the Supreme Court. Edie, insisting that the government uphold the Constitution and its demand for equality, won a landmark victory for the LGBTQ community in her case United States v. Windsor. Edie and Dr. Thea Spyer were together for nearly 44 years, but after Thea died, the government refused to recognize their legal marriage and charged Windsor with a hefty estate tax. Edie, who lives in New York City, was a top three finalist for TIME MAGAZINE 2013 PERSON of the YEAR.

Live from the Bureau! An Open Mic Night
2014-12-20 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
LIVE from the BUREAU!
MC Ed Malone
Screenings of Zhe Zhe
Organized by Andrew Bell
An open-mic program featuring the original work of fledgling, emerging, established and seasoned live-performers. Come for burlesque, spoken word, diary musings, violin solos, short story recitations and other queer induced happenings. Expect individuals and small gangs, elders and twinks, the sacred, the profane, the bitches and the brew.
SIGN UP TO PERFORM AT THE EVENT
FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED

Ed Malone is a playwright, director, actor and clown. Born and raised in Cork City, Ireland, he emigrated to New York City in 2007 and never intends to leave. Ed’s play The Three Irish Widows Versus The Rest of the World is a cult classic and is about to become a global smash hit.”

Zhe Zhe. Look and learn.

Drew Bell is a full-time painter and Bureau volunteer happy to be making his contribution as an event organizer. (Photo by GAYLETTER)

Book reading and Q&A with Hans M. Hirschi, author of “The Fallen Angels of Karnataka” and three other contemporary gay novels
2014-12-21 16:00 - 17:30 | NY
Hans M. Hirschi will read from his recently published novel The Fallen Angels of Karnataka, loved by readers and reviewers alike. Come and listen to the “Queen” of unconventional happy endings and join him through tears, laughter and blushing.

Hans M Hirschi (b. 1967) has been writing stories ever since he was a child. Adulthood and the demands of corporate life efficiently put his fictional writing on hold for over twenty years.

A global executive in training and channel development, Hans has traveled the world and had previously published non-fictional titles.

The birth of his son and the subsequent parental leave provided him with the opportunity to unleash his creative writing once again. With little influence over his brain’s creative workings, he indulges it, going with the flow. A deeply rooted passion for faith in a better world, in love, tolerance and diversity are a red thread throughout both his creative and non-fictional work. His novels might best be described as “literary romance, engaging characters and relevant stories that won’t leave you untouched, but hopeful.”

Hans is a proud member of the Swedish Writers’ Union, the Writers’ Center in Sweden and serves as chair of the Swedish Federation of Self- & Independent Publishers.

Orgasm: Photographs and Interviews, Daylight 2014 - Contemporary Photography on Sexuality by Linda Troeller
2014-12-21 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
Orgasm: Photographs and Interviews involved the participation of 25 women of different ages, nationalities, sexuality including pan sexual to lesbian to many religions and social backgrounds who opened their bodies and minds to share intimate stories about their own experiences achieving orgasm independently and with their partners.
The event will include a 30 minute visual lecture, Q & A, an Orgasm Dance by performer/signer, Michelle Joni Lapidosa, a portfolio viewing of prints from Linda Troeller’s new book, and a book signing.
Copies of the book as well as photographs will be available for purchase.

Linda Troeller is an award-winning photographer known for her Polaroid collage series, TB-AIDS Diary, and co-authoring two books with Marion Schneider – the pioneering volume, Erotic Lives of Women (Scalo, 1998) and Orgasm: Photographs and Interviews (Daylight, 2014). A documentary on her photography, Inside the Frame: Linda Troeller, will be released in winter, 2014 by Canadian filmmaker, Jeff McKay. Her new book, Living In the Chelsea Hotel, Schiffer, will be out Spring, 2016.

“There are very few people who, in our pornified society, can visually capture and eroticize the female and feminine body without objectifying it. In her photographs, Linda Troeller captures the confidence, strength, and power in women’s erotic lives.” — Mimi Schippers, Associate Professor and Director, Women’s Studies Program, Tulane University.
Photograph: Annie, USA, by Linda Troeller

HOLIDAY HOURS ON DECEMBER 24TH: 11 AM - 4 PM
2014-12-24 11:00 - 16:00 | NY
HOLIDAY HOURS
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24TH—11 AM—4 PM
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25TH—CLOSED
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31ST—CLOSED
THURSDAY, JANUARY 1ST—CLOSED

HOLIDAY HOURS: CLOSED ON DECEMBER 25TH
2014-12-25 | NY

HOLIDAY HOURS: CLOSED ON DECEMBER 31ST
2014-12-31 11:00 - 16:00 | NY

HOLIDAY HOURS: CLOSED ON JANUARY 1ST
2015-01-01 | NY
HOLIDAY HOURS
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24TH: 11 AM—4 PM
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25TH—CLOSED
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31ST—CLOSED
THURSDAY, JANUARY 1ST—CLOSED

Bureau Book Club #5: White Girls, by Hilton Als
2015-01-04 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
The Bureau Book Club is a home for freewheeling discussion about the books and the issues that captivate us. Inspired by the conversations that break out after so many of the Bureau’s more formal events, we’ll have a one-hour session each month about a different work of fiction or non-fiction. Buy the book from the Bureau and get a 10% discount. We know you have busy lives: if you can’t finish the whole book, or read it a while ago, why not come and talk about however much you’ve read/can remember? Just come prepared with a favorite quote.
Bureau Book Club #5 will discuss: White Girls, by Hilton Als and will be moderated by Ben Miller.
Hilton Als’ memoir-essays in White Girls mostly concern themselves with a category of “white girl” that encompasses Andre Leon Talley, Truman Capote, Michael Jackson, Diana Vreeland, Louise Brooks, Malcolm X, and Flannery O’Connor. Fictional or nonfictional, these essays are true and vivid and compelling.
Purchase White Girls from the Bureau before January 4 and receive a 10% discount!
———–
Ben Miller is a Brooklyn-based writer working on a variety of projects including LGBTQ historical research surrounding activist Harry Hay for publication in OutHistory and elsewhere and talks cross-country; dramaturgy, playwriting, and direction of plays and opera in Boston and New York; and short fiction. He works at Lambda Legal Education and Defense Fund, and Groupmuse, a new project bringing live classical music to living rooms and offices nationwide. He tweets @benwritesthings.

Jacob Steinberg ~~ Before You Kneels My Silence ~~ w/ Carina Finn & Lonely Christopher
2015-01-08 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Please join us for this reading in celebration of Jacob Steinberg‘s new full-length poetry collection Before You Kneels My Silence (Scrambler Books)! Featuring performances by Jacob Steinberg, Carina Finn, and Lonely Christopher. Hosted by Lucas Baumgart.
~~~
“Within an absolutely concrete framework, the author of this book gives shape to those intangible things that exist in our daily lives. Following a fantastic tradition of American literature, Steinberg gets into the greatest of mysteries through the most mundane elements of daily life. He makes it possible for a phone call, a synagogue visit, or a thermometer crashing to the floor and the mercury spillage that follows to become allegories for those immense celestial questions. Never before as now… does a text show for me—furthermore, in a simultaneous way—the author’s both existence in and absence from this world.” —Mario Bellatin, author of Beauty Salon
“Jacob Steinberg has a colossal heart; he uses it for breaking and exploration. His words read me—I am their golem, granted life. These poems are gently wounding, darkly adorable, and tragically perceptive. Before You Kneels My Silence introduces to the reading public a foxy new voice—an adroit and necessary one in this emerging moment.” —Lonely Christopher
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Jacob Steinberg was born in Stony Brook, New York, in 1989. His Spanish-language poetry collections include Magulladón (2012) and Ante ti se arrodilla mi silencio (2013). In 2014, Scrambler Books released both volumes in an English edition titled Before You Kneels My Silence. As a translator Steinberg has worked with Cecilia Pavón, CAConrad, and Mario Bellatin, among others. He currently lives in New York.

Carina Finn is the author of INVISIBLE REVEILLE (Coconut Books, 2014), LEMONWORLD & Other Poems (Co.Im.Press, 2013), and The Grey Bird: Thirteen Emoji Poems in Translation with Stephanie Berger (Coconut Books, 2013), MY LIFE IS A MOVIE (Birds of Lace, 2012), and I HEART MARLON BRANDO (Wheelchair Party Press, 2010). She is also a playwright and multimedia artist, and is the pastry chef at Alta Restaurant in NYC.

Lonely Christopher is a poet and filmmaker. He is the author of the poetry collection Death & Disaster Series (Monk Books, 2014) and the short story collection The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse, which was a 2011 selection of Dennis Cooper’s Little House on the Bowery imprint of Akashic Books. His plays have been produced in New York City and China. He wrote and directed the feature film MOM (Cavazos Films, 2013) and his stories have been adapted for the screen in Canada and France. He lives in Brooklyn.

Lucas Baumgart is a recent graduate of Bard College and the author of Flights of Gravity (89Plus/LUMA Foundation 2014). He lives in New York.

Author event, reading and book signing by Joe Wenke, author of the new thriller, “The Talk Show.”
2015-01-10 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Join us for Joe Wenke‘s reading from his new thriller, The Talk Show

Someone is following Jack Winthrop—most likely the gunman who tried to kill America’s most controversial talk show host, Abraham Lincoln Jones. Ever since that fateful night when Jones called Winthrop with his audacious proposal, life has never been the same. Winthrop, an award-winning New York Times reporter who calls the Tit for Tat strip club his second home, agreed to collaborate on Jones’ national “Emancipation Tour.” The plan is to bring Jones’ passion for radical change to the people and transcend television by meeting America face to face. Now Winthrop has to survive long enough to make the tour a reality in Joe Wenke’s intellectual thriller, THE TALK SHOW (TransÜber, October 15, 2014, $9.99).

As the reach of his stalker spreads, so does the fear that Winthrop’s unconventional family is also in danger—Rita Harvey, the gentle transgender ex-priest and LGBT activist; Slow Mo, the massive vegetarian bouncer; and Donna, stripper and entrepreneurial prodigy—as well as the woman who is claiming his heart, media expert Danielle Jackson.
Steeped in the seamy underbelly of New York City, The Talk Show by Joe Wenke is a fast-paced and mordantly funny thriller that examines how the forces of nihilism threaten our yearning for love, family and acceptance.

Joe Wenke was born in South Philadelphia. He attended St. Monica’s and Our Lady of Fatima elementary schools. He went to high school at Cardinal O’Hara in Springfield, PA. He received a B.A. in English from the University of Notre Dame, a Masters in English from Penn State and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Connecticut.
He was a speechwriter for CEO Tony Hamilton at Avnet and a speechwriter at IBM for George Conrades when he was the head of IBM US. He was also a Senior Vice-President at Caribiner International, which at the time was the largest event marketing company in the world. He is Owner and Managing Partner of Xperience, a leading event marketing company. He is also a Partner with Gisele Alicea (aka Xtravaganza) in Gisele New World, an event production initiative that is merging the worlds of the ballroom and fashion and attracting audiences that include all sexual identities and orientations.
Joe lives in Connecticut with his son, Mark, his daughter, Olivia, and her two nannies, Hollie and Amy Hills.

Queering the Lines: A Conversation with Rebecca Levi and John Chaich
2015-01-14 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Artist Rebecca Levi will talk about her work with John Chaich, curator of the recent exhibition Queer Threads, on Wednesday, January 14, at 7:00 PM at the Bureau.
Rebecca Levi’s thread-based and pen & ink work is influenced by images in found photography, mid-century magazines, and 1970s porn. In her embroidered portraits, she subverts the norms of the medium with the unexpected, inviting a playful collision between traditional handicrafts and the untraditional themes of queer identity and gender performativity.
John Chaich featured Rebecca Levi’s work in the exhibition Queer Threads: Crafting Identity & Community, which debuted at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art last year and is traveling to MICA, Baltimore in December 2015. He also selected her work as one of the artworks in the recently released Visual AIDS “Play Smart” trading cards series.
John Chaich is a curator, designer, and writer based in New York City. He holds an MFA in Communications Design from Pratt Institute. Chaichcreative.com
Rebecca Levi is a New York City born and based embroidery and pen & ink artist. She received her BA from McGill University in Montreal. www.rebeccalevi.com
The exhibition Queering the Lines: Rebecca Levi – Thread & Ink is showing at the Bureau until February 1, 2015.

DEADLINE: Works-in-Progress from Cutting-Edge Queer Artists: January Edition!
2015-01-15 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Sabrina Chap brings you this works-in-progress series featuring new work from cutting-edge queer artists. Built on the notion that there’s no greater inspiration than a deadline, this series forces renegade artists to bring new and developing work to an audience for the first time. Part experimentation + part guaranteed failure = 100% awesomeness.
Check out this article on the August edition of Deadline in Next Magazine: “BGSQD’s Deadline Gives Queer Artists Room To Create And Grow” by Chris Hernandez

The January edition of DEADLINE will feature:

Zavé Martohardjono (theatrical movement work)
Adam Chad Brody (music video)
Courtney Gillette (literary memoir)

Nefertiti Asanti (spoken word)

Que(e)rying Theory #2 “Sex, or the Unbearable” by Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman
2015-01-18 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Que(e)rying Theory is a discussion group about queer theory and critical theory for thinkers from all contexts. Reading texts both vintage and new, we will ask questions such as: What is queerness? What do queer politics look like? How do we find the tools for living in a precarious world? And finally, what can theory mean in our own lives? In dialogue with one another, we will fearlessly relish in the complexities of theory, and collectively work towards richer understandings of our past, present, and future. Discussions will be moderated by Connor Spencer, and for a small donation, wine, beer, and sparkling water will be available to help lubricate our conversations.

***

How does negativity structure our politics, thinking, and relationships? Is it an affect that we can live with? In Sex, or the Unbearable, queer scholars Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman consider the “unbearable” desires attache to sex, the social, and relationality. Through readings of film, art, theory, and literature–including Lydia Davis’s story “Break It Down”–the two thinkers trace wildly divergent paths through thorny fields of inquiry. Featuring two eminent scholars in conversation, the book is a glimpse into cutting-edge conversations in queer theory, and a perfect read for the busy holiday season.

Our conversation will first touch on the previous work of these notoriously dense scholars, and then strive towards unpacking the core arguments of the text. Come with questions, thoughts, and ideas–even if you didn’t have a chance to finish the entire book!

Connor Spencer is a writer living in New York City. He graduated with a BA in English from New York University, where he conducted bi-coastal archival research on the artists David Wojnarowicz and Gary Fisher. Recently, he was a finalist for the Marshall Scholarship. Connor tweets about leftism, queer politics, and dog costumes @conneriks.

EXPLORING QWEER EROS
2015-01-21 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
EXPLORING QWEER EROS

This five week communal exploration of qweer erotic myths and mysteries will utilize the Heart Circle and Plato’s Symposium to explore the unique power of qweer erotic ethos and its importance in our world today.

The Symposium was chosen for this workshop because in its five speeches Athenian philosophers at a drinking party express in depth their thoughts concerning erotic love. Although specific to the time and place – eros between adult men and youth – The Symposium provides an excellent platform for contemporary discussion. Themes we will cover include the nature of eros, desire, attraction, loss, coupling, erotic friendship, fear, death and HIV/STIs. We will delve into the connection between eros and psyche, eros and thanatos, and eros as a community builder and binder. Using the Heart Circle approach will allow participants to explore these strong subjects in a safe, confidential and non-judgmental space.

These Heart Circles will be conducted every Wednesday evening, 7-10 p.m., beginning January 21, ending February 18, and will be facilitated by Rosie Delicious. All circles will be held at the Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, in the LGBT Community Center, 208 w. 13th St, NYC.

The weekly Heart Circles will integrate this classic text with contemporary practices that integrate mind, body and spirit in a rejuvenated erotic life for participants. We will be using Plato’s Erotic Dialogues, translated/edited by William C. Cobb, 1993, SUNY Press. You may read it online or purchase a hard copy, available through the Bureau of General Services – Queer Division at the LGBT Community Center.

It is advised that participants attend all five weeks as each week will cover different sections of the text. Pre-registration is encouraged via email to houseofdelicious@gmail.com. An additional text describing the Heart Circle process will be sent to all registrants. This series is free although we will pass a hat for donations to be shared by the Bureau and the facilitator.

Rosie Delicious, a Radical Faerie sex magician, has co-facilitating Sex Magick Workshops in the Radical Faerie tradition since 2000. This workshop was initiated by Harry Hay and John Burnside in 1990, and Rosie encountered this most efficacious work in 1996. Using the Heart Circle technique as a way of exploring these classic texts will enable participants their own unique experience of their qweer sexuality in a safe and confidential environment.

www.faeriesexmagick.org

Interested participants can also register to attend a week-long sex magick retreat using this experience as a cornerstone.

Harry Hay asked 3 essential questions for qweer men to explore:

Who are we?
Why are we here?
What are we here for?

Hay argued that to answer these questions for ourselves, each of us needs to dig deep into our consciousness to find our unique narrative, both for our personal benefit as well as for the gifts that we bring to society at large. The best way to explore this was through sharing in the Heart Circle practice. Through the use of a talisman or talking stick, the Heart (or Talking) Circle is a process that allows each participant to share their experience and perspective in an uninterrupted flow. Harry gleaned this means of communing from his lifelong study and work with Native Americans. Heart Circle practice also grew out of the new consciousness movements of the 1960’s and 70’s and has become a hallmark of communing in Radical Faerie circles.

Bi Book Club: Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men
2015-01-22 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets once a month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise. People of all orientations and genders welcome! Dinner after nearby.
Our current book is Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men edited by Robyn Ochs & H. Sharif Williams (Dr. Herukhuti.) For January, we’ll be reading the last five pieces of the section on Identity. Plus the sections on Challenging Labels and Liminality. [We plan to continue reading 2 sections per month of Recognize until we’re done with the book.] Pick out some phrases or paragraphs that you’d like to discuss, that inspired you, or that struck you because of their elegant turn of phrase or the meaning behind it. If you havent had time to finish the readings, come anyway because we read passages from the book aloud for discussion. As usual, we’ll also be using the text as a jumping off point to further discussion of bisexual issues and personal experiences.
Getting Books: We urge you to purchase your print copy at BGSQD and support the only LGBT bookstore in New York City. Especially since they are hosting us in their space! If you prefer e-books, just get them your usual way.
Deciding Books: The group votes on what book to read next.
Venue: Bureau of General Services Queer Division Bookstore at the LGBT Center, 2nd fl. Rm. 210
The Bi Book Club meets at the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division on the last Thursday of each month.

TELL 9: Surprises
2015-01-24 19:30 - 22:00 | 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.
Surprises is the theme of the ninth installment of TELL, featuring Becca Blackwell, Harvey Katz, Elana Lancaster, and Katia Perea!
$5-10 suggested donation – no one turned away for lack of funds

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Besides winning the 2011 Miss LEZ title, 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, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in fesivals globally. She just won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. Drae was dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell throws a monthly party in Brooklyn called PRIME. Check her out online (her reel and her website www.draecampbell.com) and around town.

Becca Blackwell is a NYC based performer. They act in a lot of stuff and make their own work.

Harvey Katz is a spoken word artist and storyteller who became a woman in front of a seated congregation in Miami before becoming a man in the Deep South. Currently he travels the country providing educational workshops on transgender identity and performing on stages large and small under the pseudonym Athens Boys Choir.

Elana Lancaster is an LGBT health advocate and occasional storyteller who lives in Brooklyn. He is a Moth StorySLAM winner, and has been featured on the Story Collider podcast. The two best compliments he’s ever received were “You talk to people about sperm like you were teaching them how to make waffles,” and “I would trust you with my life if I didn’t know you so well.”

Katia Perea lives in Brooklyn and is a serious cartoon fan. She has a PhD in Sociology from the New School for Social Research specialized in television girl cartoons, popular culture theory and media studies. She is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at CUNY (City University New York) and is currently researching the Brony community for her upcoming book, “Girl Cartoons” due out soon.

Stone Butch Blues Book Club
2015-01-25 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Whether you loved it, hated it, or never even read it, why not join us for a discussion of Leslie Feinberg‘s Stone Butch Blues (1993)?
Stone Butch Blues is no longer in print, but the organizer of the event, Lana Povitz, will happily send you a free digital copy if you email her at lpovitz at gmail.com.

From Minnie Bruce Pratt’s Obituary in The Advocate:
Leslie Feinberg, who identified as an anti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist, died on November 15. She succumbed to complications from multiple tick-borne co-infections, including Lyme disease.
Feinberg was the first theorist to advance a Marxist concept of “transgender liberation,” and her work impacted popular culture, academic research, and political organizing.
Her historical and theoretical writing has been widely anthologized and taught in the U.S. and international academic circles. Her impact on mass culture was primarily through her 1993 first novel, Stone Butch Blues, widely considered in and outside the U.S. as a groundbreaking work about the complexities of gender. Sold by the hundreds of thousands of copies and also passed from hand-to-hand inside prisons, the novel has been translated into Chinese, Dutch, German, Italian, Slovenian, Turkish, and Hebrew (with her earnings from that edition going to ASWAT Palestinian Gay Women).
From 2004-2008 Feinberg’s writing on the links between socialism and LGBT history, “Lavender & Red,” ran as a 120-part series in Workers World newspaper. Her most recent book, Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba, was an edited selection of that series.
Feinberg authored two other non-fiction books, Transgender Warriors: Making History and Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue, as well as a second novel, Drag King Dreams.
For more on Leslie Feinberg check out this article by KaeLyn on Autostraddle.

EXPLORING QWEER EROS: Second Meeting
2015-01-28 19:00 - 22:00 | NY

NEW YORK WRITER DYKES at BUREAU OF GENERAL SERVICES-QUEER DIVISION
2015-01-29 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
FIVE NEW YORK WRITER DYKES READ FROM THEIR LATEST NOVELS & DISCUSS THE EXPERIENCE OF
WRITING QUEER FICTION IN THE BIG CITY

Ann Aptaker
R.G. Emanuelle
Jane Hoppen
Susan X. Meagher
Cindy Rizzo

THURSDAY, JAN. 29TH, 2015
READINGS, DISCUSSION, Q & A 7 p.m.
BOOKSIGNING, 8 P.M.

Native New Yorker Ann Aptaker has earned a reputation as a respected if cheeky exhibition designer and curator of art during her career in museums and galleries. Taking the approach that what art authorities find uncomfortable the public would likely enjoy, exhibitions Ann has curated have garnered favorable reviews in the New York Times, Art in America, American Art Review, and other publications.

She brings the same attitude and philosophy to her first love: writing, especially a tangy variety of historical crime fiction. Ann’s short stories have appeared in two editions (2003 and 2004) of the noir crime anthology Fedora. Her flash fiction story, “A Night In Town,” appeared in the online zine Punk Soul Poet. In addition to curating and designing art exhibitions and writing crime stories, Ann is also an art writer and an adjunct professor of art history at the New York Institute of Technology. CRIMINAL GOLD is her debut novel.

Ann can be contacted at writer.aptaker@gmail.com, on Facebook at Ann Aptaker, Author, and on Twitter @AnnAptaker

R.G. Emanuelle is from New York City, and spent more than 20 years as an editor, writer, and typesetter. When she was child, a neighbor called her a vampire because she only came out after dark, so it’s fitting that her first novel, Twice Bitten, is about creatures of the night. When she’s not writing or editing, she can usually be found cooking or developing recipes, as she is also a culinary school graduate, which is what inspired her to write her romantic novella, Add Spice to Taste, starring a love-burned chef. She is co-editor of All You Can Eat: A Buffet of Lesbian Erotica & Romance, Unwrap These Presents, and Skulls and Crossbones: Tales of Women Pirates, and her short stories can be found in numerous anthologies.Blog: www.rgemanuelle.com
Email: rgemanuelle@gmail.com
Facebook: R.G. Emanuelle
Twitter: @Rgemanuelle

Jane Hoppen‘s fiction has been published in various literary magazines, including Story Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, Feminist Studies, The Dirty Goat, PANK, and Superstition Review. Her novel, In Between, was published by Bold Strokes Books, December 2013. Her novella, The Man Who Was Not, was published as an e-book by Bold Strokes Books, June 2014.

Susan X. Meagher lives in Brooklyn with her wife, Carrie. Born in East St. Louis, Illinois, she has lived in both Chicago and Los Angeles for significant periods, but New York fits her very well. She has over thirteen novels in print along with the seventeen and counting novels in the “I Found My Heart in San Francisco” series. Her latest novel is Out of Whack.You can find out more about Susan at her websitewww.susanxmeagher.com All of her books and eBooks are available atwww.briskpress.com

Cindy Rizzo is an author of lesbian fiction. Her first novel, Exception to the Rule, won the 2014 award for Best Debut Fiction from Golden Crown Literary Society and was a finalist for the Rainbow Book Awards. In September 2014, her second novel, Love Is Enough, was released. A short story, The Miracle of the Lights, appeared in the anthology Unwrap These Presents (Ylva Publishing). Earlier writing includes essays in the anthologies, Lesbians Raising Sons and Homefronts: Controversies in Non-Traditional Parenting. Cindy was also the co-editor of a fiction anthology, All the Ways Home, published in 1995 (New Victoria) in which her story Herring Cove was included.Cindy has worked in philanthropy for many years and has a long history of involvement in the LGBT community. She serves on the boards of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York and Funders for LGBTQ Issues. She lives in New York City with her wife, Jennifer, and their two cats. They have two grown sons, a wonderful daughter-in-law, and a baby granddaughter.
You can contact Cindy by email at cindyt.rizzo@gmail.com, via Facebookwww.facebook.com/ctrizzo, through her blog, www.cindyrizzo.wordpress.com, or on Twitter @cindyrizzo.

Live from the Bureau! An Open Mic Night
2015-01-31 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
LIVE from the BUREAU! An Open Mic Night
Organized by Andrew Bell
The January installment of LIVE from the BUREAU! will be hosted by Ali Dineen and will feature guests from The Love Yourself Project.

LIVE from the BUREAU! is a program featuring the original work of fledgling, emerging, established and seasoned live-performers, poets and visual artists. Come for songs, burlesque, spoken word, diary musings, violin solos, puppetry, and other queer induced happenings, including a pop-up gallery, with the overarching theme of: Oppression and Resistance/Fear and Hope. Expect individuals and small gangs, elders and twinks, the sacred, the profane, the tragic, the hilarious and everything in between, and come ready for anything.

SIGN UP TO PERFORM AT THE EVENT
FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED

Ali Dineen is a human being, artist, musician, traveler, activist, resident of Queens, eater of pasta and other foods, listener of music and other sounds, amongst other things. She hopes sincerely that you’re having a good day.

​The Love Yourself Project exists​ to inspire people to build a strong relationship to the self, mindfully creating a future with loving regard for all living beings and the environment; ultimately, manifesting a humanity that declares itself unwavering in its commitment to peace, loving-kindness, compassion, and harmony.

Drew Bell is a full-time painter and Bureau volunteer happy to be making his contribution as an event organizer.

regrets4context
2015-02-01 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
__4__ is a series presenting queer and trans words and performance, curated by Abigail Lloyd and Charles Theonia.
Regrets: Cat Fitzpatrick is a poet and essayist, she teaches at Rutgers University- Newark, she facilitates the Trans Poets Workshop NYC, and is one of the editors at Topside Press. You can read her work in places like Asylum, Glitterwolf and, forthcomingly, EOAGH. And also in her zine. “At Least It’s Short”, which she is happy to sell you tonight for anything you are prepared to pay. She lives in New Jersey, and she is very sorry about
everything.
Context: Tommy “Teebs” Pico is the author of absentMINDR (VERBALVISUAL, 2014)—the first chapbook APP published for iOS mobile/tablet devices—was a Queer/Art/Mentors inaugural fellow, 2013 Lambda Literary fellow in poetry, and has poems in BOMB, Guernica, and [PANK]. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now lives in Brooklyn. With Morgan Parker he curates the reading series Poets With Attitude (PWA).

EXPLORING QWEER EROS: Third Meeting
2015-02-04 19:00 - 22:00 | NY

Opening Reception of David Lavine: Collage
2015-02-06 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
David Lavine, Sploosh!, hand-cut paper collage, 6 1/4” x 6 1/4”

Join us for the opening reception of David Lavine: Collage on Friday, February 6th, 7 to 10 PM.
The exhibition has been extended through Sunday, March 29!

David Lavine, Seascape (Krakt), hand-cut paper collage, 7 5/8” x 6 1/4”.

Artist’s Statement:
All works are one-of-a-kind paper collages, hand-cut with scissors and assembled with archival tape and glue. There is no scanning, reprinting or photocopying, or any type of digital manipulation. All printed matter is fair game: textbooks, posters, magazines, catalogs, coloring books, maps, comic books, art books, etc. Working from a quarry of several thousand cut elements, form and color relationships serve as a starting point for each collage; eventually narrative threads appear as disparate elements begin to relate. Sometimes the finished collages are explosions of shape and color in hyper-dynamic compositions and seamless spatial interplay, other times they are minimal landscapes or seascapes resulting from the simple pairing of two cut pieces.

Selected group exhibitions:
“Art From The Boros II,” Denise Bibro Fine Art (New York)
“Art From The Boros,” Denise Bibro Fine Art (New York)
“Green Acres & Simple Pleasures,” Piermont Straus (Piermont, NY)
Dealers’ Lounge, PS Project Space (New York)
“A Minor Inconvenience,” Pierro Gallery of South Orange / Montclair Art Museum Young Curators (South Orange, NJ)
“Scapes,” Brooklyn Artists Gym (Brooklyn)
“Intimate: Small Works,” Brooklyn Artists Gym (Brooklyn)
Publication/Web:
“New Works by David Lavine,” aarting (aarting.com)
“David Lavine”, aarting (aarting.com)
Featured work, Indiewalls (indiewalls.com)
Featured work, The Atomy (theatomy.com)
Featured work, Zealous (www.zealous.co)
Education:
University of Pennsylvania, BA Fine Arts

davidlavinecollage.com

Reading with Erica Doyle, Ron Palmer, and Peter Nickowitz
2015-02-07 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Join us for a reading with Erica Doyle (Proxy), Ron Palmer (Prick Queasy), and Peter Nickowitz (Cinema Vernacular).

r. erica doyle was born in Brooklyn to Trinidadian immigrant parents, and has lived in Washington, DC, Farmington, Connecticut and La Marsa, Tunisia. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry, Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Gay and Lesbian Writing from the Antilles, Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade and Voices Rising: Celebrating 20 Years of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Writing. Her poetry and fiction appear in various journals, including Ploughshares, Callaloo, Bloom, From the Fishouse, Blithe House Quarterly and Sinister Wisdom.
Her articles and reviews have appeared in Ms. Magazine, Black Issues Book Review and on the Best American Poetry and Futurepoem blogs. She has received grants and awards from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Humanities Council of DC and Poets and Writers, and she was a New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow. Erica is also a fellow of Cave Canem: A Workshop and Retreat for Black Writers.
In addition, she has read her work at the Kennedy Center, the National Black Arts Festival, Joe’s Pub, the Nuyorican, the Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica, WI and various colleges and universities. Erica received her MFA in Poetry from The New School, and lives in New York City, where she is an administrator in the NYC public schools and facilitates Tongues Afire: A Free Creative Writing Workshop for queer women and trans and gender non-conforming people of color.

Her recent book of poetry, Proxy (Belladonna*, 2013) was the winner of the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America and a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.

Peter Nickowitz is a poet, playwright, and screenwriter. He is the author of Cinema Vernacular (Publication Studio, 2014) and Rhetoric and Sexuality: The Poetry of Hart Crane, Elizabeth Bishop, and James Merrill (Palgrave, 2006). He lives in New York City and teaches at NYU.

Photograph by Kevin Killlian

Ronald Palmer is the author of Prick Queasy (Publication Studio) www.publicationstudio.biz/books/244 and LOGICALOGICS (Counterpoint / Soft Skull Press). He has taught poetry and prose writing at NYU, Binghamton University and Framingham State University.

He lives in San Francisco with his fiancé Kevin Rolston.

Prick Queasy was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award

EXPLORING QWEER EROS: Fourth Meeting
2015-02-11 19:00 - 22:00 | NY

PDF Club: Forgetting ACT UP by Alexandra Juhasz, Hosted by Theodore Kerr
2015-02-12 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
In her essay “Forgetting ACT UP” (Quarterly Journal of Speech, 2012), filmmaker, activist and academic Alexandra Juhasz explores the idea that, “When ACT UP is remembered—again and again and again—other places, people, and forms of AIDS activism are disremembered.”
At this event we will explore Juhasz’s essay, as well as discuss what her argument means at this moment when some responses to early AIDS activism are being remembered, while much of what has happened has yet to be remembered, reclaimed, and acknowledged. How does this lack of remembering fit into current discussion and action around #blacklivesmatter and how does it impact work being done presently around HIV/AIDS?
Everyone is welcome. People are encouraged to read the essay beforehand. Email the organizer if you do not have access to a copy.
kerr.theodore@gmail.com

Theodore Kerr is a Canadian born, Brooklyn based writer and organizer. He was the programs manager at Visual AIDS. He is currently doing his graduate work at Union Theological Seminary.

Ted Kerr writes:
“On February 12th I will be hosting an event called PDF Club: Forgetting ACT UP by Alexandra Juhasz. To be clear: Alex is not coming. I am sorry if the title is misleading. It was never the plan. Since she wrote the essay I thought it was important her name be in the title. Alex has a full and busy life in California where she is a filmmaker, academic, and more. Instead I will be facilitating a conversation where we discuss Juhasz’ 2012 essay where in which—as an early member of ACT UP—she explores the ongoing important and warranted historicization of the activist group by tapping into her own thoughts and feelings and those of others who were not members around the revisitation. A key line of the essay is when she asks: “ When we continue to remember ACT UP, whom do we forget and how does this feel?”
Neither the essay nor our event is a slight against ACT UP. Rather both are opportunities to ask questions: Why do histories – if told at all – often get reduced to one story? What is lost when we simplify history? Whose histories are remembered? How does our awareness of the past impact our present?
To prepare I have compiled a bookshelf of suggested titles (most of which are currently available at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division) that you may have already read, or may want to look at before or after the event.
Head, Bill Kushner
Long Distance, Steven Cordova
Viral, Suzanne Parker
A few years ago I heard Bill Kushner read his poetry. It was a pleasure to hear a grown man talk about lust, pain and living. Head is a collection of poems he wrote in the early 80s, giving a reader a sense of one man’s experience of bodies, streets and heat in New York City in the years before ACT UP. Fast forward and you get Long Distance, of which one reviewer said, “Those who have wondered how to write about AIDS now that it is a treatable disease need only to turn to Steve Cordova’s smart, funny and haunted poems.” Existing beyond these two moments and beyond is Viral by Suzanne Parker. Dedicated to Tyler Clementi, it is a collection that explores the webbedness of tragedy. Death has a way of bringing a community together, as ACT UP illustrates, but what about those on the margins of what we may understand as community? How does the experience of tragedy move?

Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill and the Battlefield of AIDS, Martin Duberman
Safe Sex Bang: Buzz Bense Poster Collection, Alex Fialho
Check Your Vernacular, Dirty Looks,
Shade: An Anthology of Fiction by Gay Men of African Descent, edited by Bruce Marrow and Charles H. Rowell
What does activism look like when it does not including ‘acting up’? Martin Duberman’s Hold Tight Gently is a dual biography of Michael Callen and Essex Hemphill, figures that loom large in the world of art, activism and HIV and who were around at the same time as ACT UP, but were not part of the group. In the Check Your Vernacular catalog, the fine people of Dirty Looks write about the amazing short film Liberaceón in which Liberace’s attempt at activism around HIV is imagined by filmmaker and star Chris E. Vargas. In Safe Sex Bang, another catalog, Alex Fiahlo interviews Buzz Bence about his extensive HIV/AIDS related poster collection. In reading the dialogue one gets an intimate story about the early days of the virus. The publication includes mention of “gay-staching”, a term coined by Fiahlo that is worth the price to learn it’s meaning. Uncovering other experiences from the time is Shade, a compilation of short works by African American men published in 1996, just as AIDS was changing. I think, in Michael Warner’s sense, we can understand AIDS as generating publics and counterpublics, including, but not limited to, ACT UP. What these books show us are other ways in which people organized around the virus. How silly of us to try and contain AIDS as a thing of the past, through the lens of only one group.

Duets, Visual AIDS
Memories Can’t Wait, edited by Malene Dam, Bridget de Gersigny, and Kate Levy
A few years ago I had the pleasure of interviewing writer David Deitcher about art, AIDS, and memory as part of a publication called Memories Can’t Wait. As a member of ACT UP himself Deitcher sheds light on memory, and how as we live the mind makes sense of the past in ways we need to be attentive to. Also in conversational form is Duets, a new series from Visual AIDS. Each title is a conversation with or about an artist with HIV. In the first book, Gregg Bordowitz and Stephen Andrews discuss living long term with HIV, the universe, and Frank O’Hara. The second Duets is a conversation between photographer Alice O’Malley and people’s academic Che Gossett discussing the life of artist, muse and legend Chloe Dzubilo. Getting a sense of Chloe and her impact through the conversation is one thing, getting to know Chloe through her work is another. These readable pocket-sized volumes are rich with details about life from the early days of the AIDS crisis to now, and in those stories are things we don’t even know we don’t know.

The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, Sarah Schulman
Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence, Christina Hanhardt
Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, Dean Spade
Anti-Black Racism and the AIDS Epidemic: State Intimacies, Adam Geary (unavailable at the Bureau—priced for academic institutions: $90!)
What Matters, Wrrqshop
Sarah Schulman’s The Gentrification of the Mind is a must read. She makes clear the ongoing and far reaching impacts HIV has on American life, not least of which is people choosing a narrow suburban idea of security over anything else. Dealing in similar yet divergent ideas, written in a different register is Christina Hanhardt’s Safe Space, which explores the relationship between race, class, gender, sexuality, activism, the government and development providing a foundation around which a reader interested in Forgetting ACT UP can see how HIV is exasperated by public policy, and ideas of whose comfort matters. Safe Space is part of the conversation Dean Spade initiates in his book Normal Life, which for me includes the take-away message that there is a thing called “administrative violence,” and when we name it and organize against it we are having a generous and productive conversation not about exclusion or equality but about liberation. Reading Spade’s book is helpful in understanding where Adam Geary is coming from in his book Anti-Black Racism and the AIDS Epidemic. Building on Cindy Patton, Geary is suggesting that instead of the AIDS movement continuing to focus on queer intimacies in a Spadian way, we should look at ways the state is responsible for the ongoing AIDS crisis. So enamored am I by Geary’s book I quote it in my contribution to WHAT MATTERS, the zine complied and created by the fine folks at WRRQSHOP.

I have not read everything at the Bureau, and the Bureau can’t possibly have every book known to humanity, so this is a biased, non-exhaustive bookshelf. Do you have titles you want to add? Contact us or join us on February 12th and be part of the conversation.”
