BGSQD

Tom Bianchi book signing, Fire Island Pines: Polaroids, 1975-1983
2013-11-15 20:00 - 22:00 (America/New_York)
Join us for a book signing with photographer Tom Bianchi for his recent book:
Fire Island Pines: Polaroids, 1975-1983
Published by Damiani
Edited by Ben Smales. Introduction by Edmund White. Text by Tom Bianchi.
Growing up in the 1950s, Tom Bianchi would head into downtown Chicago and pick up 25-cent “physique” magazines at newsstands. In one such magazine, he found a photograph of bodybuilder Glenn Bishop on Fire Island. “Fire Island sounded exotic, perhaps a name made up by the photographer,” he recalls in the preface to his latest monograph. “I had no idea it was a real place. Certainly, I had no idea then that it was a place I would one day call home.” In 1970, fresh out of law school, Bianchi began traveling to New York, and was invited to spend a weekend at Fire Island Pines, where he encountered a community of gay men. Using an SX-70 Polaroid camera, Bianchi documented his friends’ lives in the Pines, amassing an image archive of people, parties and private moments. These images, published here for the first time, and accompanied by Bianchi’s moving memoir of the era, record the birth and development of a new culture. Soaked in sun, sex, camaraderie and reverie, Fire Island Pines conjures a magical bygone era.

Tom Bianchi was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago and graduated from Northwestern University School of Law in 1970. He became a corporate attorney, eventually working with Columbia Pictures in New York, painting and drawing on weekends. His artwork came to the attention of Betty Parsons and Carol Dreyfuss and they gave him his first one-man painting show in 1980. In 1984, he was given his first solo museum exhibition at the Spoleto Festival. After Bianchi’s partner died of AIDS in 1988, he turned his focus to photography, producing Out of the Studio, a candid portrayal of gay intimacy. Its success led to producing numerous monographs, including On the Couch, Deep Sex, and In Defense of Beauty.

Tim Teeman presents his new book In Bed with Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood, and the Private World of an American Master
2013-11-07 19:00 - 21:00
Gore Vidal, who died in July 2012, claimed there was no such thing as “gay,” only gay sexual acts. But what was the truth about his sex life and sexuality—and how did it affect and influence his writing and public life? In In Bed with Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood, and the Private World of an American Master, Tim Teeman interviews many of Vidal’s closest family and friends, including Claire Bloom and Susan Sarandon, as well as surveying Vidal’s own rich personal archive, to build a rounded portrait of who this lion of American letters really was away from the page.
Here, revealed for the first time, Teeman discovers the Hollywood stars Vidal slept with and the reality of his life with partner Howard Austen—and the hustlers they both enjoyed. Was Gore’s true love really a boy from prep school? Was he really, as he said, bisexual, and if so how close did he really get to marrying women, including Claire Bloom and Joanne Woodward? And if Vidal really was gay, why did he not want to say so – was it more personal than an intellectual objection to being defined? Did his own sex secrets underpin a legal fight with adversary William F. Buckley, still being played out after his death?
Much as Vidal fought against being categorized, Teeman shows how he also proved himself to be a pugnacious advocate for gay sexual freedom in his books, articles, and high-profile media appearances. Teeman also, for the first time, vividly and movingly evokes the final, painful and tragic years of Vidal’s life, as he descended into alcoholism and dementia, his death, and the bitter, contentious legacy he has left behind.

Michelangelo Signorile:
“Tim Teeman addresses some of the most fascinating questions about Gore Vidal, including how he identified himself. Was he gay? Bisexual? Why did he have a problem with the idea of sexual identity and with campaigning for equal rights? Teeman not only gives us lots of rich detail on Vidal’s life and loves, contrasting his private and public lives; he helps us to see how Vidal actually embraced being gay in unexpected ways. This is a timely and riveting account of a man who, perhaps unwittingly, contributed enormously to the movement for equal rights, as well as offering a blueprint for how LGBT people are viewed by others and view themselves.”
Tim Teeman: “How Gay Was Gore Vidal?” in The Daily Beast
Doug Ireland: rave review of In Bed With Gore Vidal in Gay City News
William J. Mann talks to Tim Teeman about Vidal’s sexuality in The Huffington Post

Tim Teeman is a journalist, author, and broadcaster.
For fourteen years he worked as an editor, feature writer, and interviewer for The Times of London, most recently as their US Correspondent, in which he covered stories like Hurricane Sandy and profiled many celebrities and public figures including Woody Allen, George Clooney, and Liza Minnelli. He was previously the paper’s Arts and Entertainment Editor.
Tim began his career as editor of Britain’s Pink Paper. He has also contributed to publications including Elle, The New Statesman, The Guardian, The Independent, Independent on Sunday, Attitude, and Time Out, and has appeared on BBC radio and TV, Channel 4 and Sky as a commentator on news events and popular culture.
His first book, In Bed With Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood and the Private World of an American Master, is published in November 2013.
He lives in New York City.
Picture of Tim Teeman by Juan Bastos

Remember the Upstairs Lounge: A Slideshow Talk by Skylar Fein
2013-11-06 19:00 - 21:00
New Orleans-based artist Skylar Fein gives a slideshow talk on the 1973 fire that killed 32 patrons of the Upstairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans.
On June 23, 1973, an arsonist set fire to a New Orleans gay bar with everyone inside — 32 people died in what is still the biggest mass killing of queer people in US history. This Wednesday, artist Skylar Fein, visiting from New Orleans, will give a slideshow talk on a pivotal event in queer history that is still largely unknown. He’ll show crime scene photos that were considered too graphic for 1973 and have never been made public. And he’ll reveal who set the fire: a man who was never charged.

Skylar Fein (b. 1968, New York, NY) lives and works in New Orleans, LA. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at The Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; The New Orleans Museum of Art, LA; No Longer Empty Project, New York, NY; The Phoenix, New Orleans, LA; and Western Projects, Los Angeles, CA. Fein has been featured in numerous group exhibitions including The World According to New Orleans, Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, TX; Deutsche Bank’s 60 Wall Gallery, Deutsche Bank, New York, NY; and Prospect.1 Biennial, New Orleans, LA, among others. His work is included in many public and private collections including The Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA; The Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans, LA and The Whitney Museum of America Art, New York, NY.
Skylar Fein’s exhibition, The Lincoln Bedroom, is currently on view at C24 Gallery through December 21st. C24 Gallery, 514 W. 24th St., every day from 10 am-6 pm (closed Sun-Mon).

Local Color: A Writing and Solo Performance Workshop with Thom Vernon
2013-11-03 16:00 - 18:00
In town to perform The Drifts Live: the novel onstage at the United Solo Festival, queer, positive exiled writer/performer Thom Vernon (Seinfeld, Grace Under Fire, General Hospital, The Fugitive, etc.) leads a two hour writing/performance workshop. Using writing exercises and performance techniques, the workshop will mine town secrets, local legends, old wives tales and all the things said, and not said, to create short original solo pieces. Under the threat of erasure or rejection, these little ditties let us know just how far we can flaunt it before we get shut down. They tell what it is to be a man, a woman —or the ‘local color’. Participants might create a monologue, a scene, a song, a movement piece or some other trouble-making device. Includes a teaser performance and readings from The Drifts Live: the novel onstage at United Solo Festival, Nov. 6, 7 pm (thedriftslive.com) based on the novel The Drifts (Coach House Books, 2010) lauded by the Globe and Mail as “magnificent.” (The Drifts is available at the Bureau.)

As queers, activists, outsiders and outlaws we’ve often come up against town taboos, dirty little secrets, neighborhood gossip, warnings, unexplained events, song lyrics that shape how we can, or can not, live our lives. Everybody knows that boys don’t wear dresses, no one finds love in a park, that sissies get beat up after school and what happened to you-know-who when she got too big for her britches. Shape up and fly right or else. “Or else” means rejection, abandonment or violence. In this hands-on workshop, artists and explorers at any level will learn new ways to unlock and transform the ties that bind into creative writing and performance. Bring your photos, stories, unexplained events, local legends, song lyrics, things not/said that queered you, marked the line of trespass and/or changed your experience of who you are. Using his own work to demonstrate, Thom Vernon leads us through the minefield of erasure as we pick up writing and performance tools that any artist in any medium can use. A previous workshop participant appreciated, “Thom’s willingness to believe in my story—my ability to tell it. He didn’t treat me like an amateur. He helped me to care about writing.”

RSVP to contact@bgsqd.com Suggested $10 donation to support BGSQD

Andrew Durbin Presents Rob Halpern, Melissa Buzzeo, and Ian Hatcher
2013-11-02 19:30 - 21:00
ROB HALPERN is the author of several books of poetry, most recently Music for Porn (Nightboat 2013). Together with Taylor Brady, he also co-authored the book-length poem Snow Sensitive Skin, which has been reprinted by Displaced Press. Recent essays and translations appear in Chicago Review, Journal of Narrative Theory, and The Claudius App. Rob currently splits his time between San Francisco and Ypsilanti, Michigan.
MELISSA BUZZEO is the author of three full length books: What Began Us (Leon Works 2007), Face (Bookthug 2009) and For Want and Sound (Les Figues 2012). Her current work Chasm explores negation, the legacy of performance art, and the concept of the social body. She has taught at Brown, Iowa, and Naropa and currently teaches at Pratt Institute. She lives in Brooklyn.
IAN HATCHER is a text, sound, and code artist from Seattle USA. Recent poems have appeared in The Claudius App, Dear Sir,, LIT, and Web Conjunctions. Along with Amaranth Borsuk and Kate Durbin, he is co-author of the book/app Abra, forthcoming from the Center for Book and Paper Arts, Chicago. He is the primary composer and accompanist for the Moving Architects dance company. He lives in NYC, where he works a day job as a software developer.

QUEEROCRACY Monthly Meeting
2013-10-30 19:00 - 21:00
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30th AT 7 PM.
Join QUEEROCRACY for its monthly meeting. Meetings are currently focused on organizing the Prevention vs. Prosecution Project.

QUEEROCRACY is an activist organization cultivating the leadership of queer folks and people living with HIV/AIDS in NYC. Through direct action organizing, membership led advocacy campaigns, educational trainings and political art and media we challenge and fight back against the existing structures that thrive on the punishment of positive and queer folks. QUEEROCRACY is dedicated to ending the AIDS crisis and the stigma, discrimination and criminalization that fuel its existence.

Visual AIDS presents: Fairyland Book Club
2013-10-29 18:30 - 20:30
In her book Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, Alysia Abbott writes about growing up in San Francisco in the 70s and 80s with her father, the writer Steve Abbott. She explores what it was like having a gay dad and the experience of losing him to AIDS just as she was coming into adulthood.
Join Visual AIDS as we discuss the book and talk about the issues the memoir brings up.
RSVP with Ted at tkerr@visualaids.org to receive the discussion guide.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
After his wife dies in a car accident in 1973, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco. There they discover a city bustling with gay men in search of liberation—few of whom are raising a child.
Steve throws himself into San Francisco’s vibrant cultural scene. He takes Alysia to parties, pushes her in front of the microphone at poetry readings, and introduces her to a world of artists, thinkers, and writers. But the pair live like nomads, moving from apartment to apartment, with a revolving cast of roommates and little structure. As a child Alysia views her father as a loving playmate but as she gets older Alysia wants more than anything to fit in. The world, she learns, is hostile to difference.
In her teens, Steve’s friends—several of whom she befriended—fall ill as “the gay plague” starts its rampage through their community. While Alysia is studying in New York and then France, her father comes to tell her it’s time to come home; He’s sick with AIDS. She must choose, as her father once did, whether to take on the responsibility of caring for him or to continue the independent life she worked so hard to create.
Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father is available at the Bureau.
https://www.alysiaabbott.com/books.html
Read an interview between Alysia Abbott and Ted Kerr, programs manager at Visual AIDS: https://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/08/03/alysia-abbott-a-trip-to-fairyland/

Book Club Discusses Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes
2013-10-28 19:00 - 21:00
The next Book Club selection is The HARE WITH AMBER EYES: A HIDDEN INHERITANCE by Edmund de Waal (available at the Bureau). Come discuss the book at the Bureau on Monday, October 28th, at 7!

The NY Queer Open Mic
2013-10-27 19:00 - 21:00
Introducing a new monthly reading series at the Bureau: The NY Queer Open Mic! We’re shaking things up a bit / trying to create a space where the community can share poetry and politics.
The first half of the event will be dedicated to folks who come early and scribble on the sign-up list. The second half of the mic will go to our features- Tommy “Teebs” Pico & Alok Vaid-Menon.
Tommy “Teebs” Pico is the founder and editor-in-chief of birdsong, an antiracist/queer-positive collective, small press, and zine that publishes art and writing. He was a Queer/Art/Mentors inaugural fellow, 2013 Lambda Literary fellow in poetry, and has been published in BOMB, [PANK], and THEthe poetry blog. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now lives in Brooklyn and is working on Messy Faggot— his first collection of poetry.
Alok Vaid-Menon is a South Asian artivist who has performed & organized with queer movements around the world. They are committed to building radical queer movements and bodies that resist white supremacy and imperialism and like making art that thinks about these, and other what ifs. You can read some of their work at returnthegayze.tumblr.com and queerlibido.tumblr.com.
Your host for the night is Christopher Soto, a queer latin@ poet and current MFA:Poetry candidate at NYU. Event starts at 7pm on Sunday, October 27th, we hope to see you there!

PROPHET HAS ARISE. a one-night fright by ricci ryder & friends. seating is limited
2013-10-26 19:30 - 21:00
Watch the trailer here.
Performance begins at 8 sharp.

Joanna Hoffman, Stephen S. Mills, and Robert Siek Read at the Bureau
2013-10-25 19:00 - 21:00
Join us at the Bureau for a reading by three Sibling Rivalry Press poets: Joanna Hoffman, Stephen S. Mills, and Robert Siek.
JOANNA HOFFMAN is a poet and teaching artist living in Brooklyn. She is a ten-year veteran of the slam poetry community, and is a four time National Poetry Slam finalist. Her work has appeared in decomP, PANK, The Legendary, Spindle, Sinister Wisdom, and in the anthologies Women’s Work (GirlChild Press) and Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry (MidSummer Night’s Press). Her full-length book of poetry, Running for Trap Doors, was recently released by Sibling Rivalry Press.

STEPHEN S. MILLS holds an MFA from Florida State University. His work has appeared in The Antioch Review, The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, PANK, The New York Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Knockout, Assaracus, The Rumpus, and others. He is also the winner of the 2008 Gival Press Oscar Wilde Poetry Award. His first book, He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices, is out from Sibling Rivalry Press and was a finalist for the Thom Gunn Poetry Award and won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. He currently lives in New York City. Website:https://www.stephensmills.com/

ROBERT SIEK is a poet who lives in Brooklyn and works as a production editor at a large publishing house in Manhattan. His poems have appeared in journals such as The Columbia Poetry Review, Lodestar Quarterly, Court Green, Mary, Assaracus, and Chelsea Station. The New School published his chapbook Clubbed Kid, and his short story “Sixteen” appeared in Userlands: New Fiction Writers from the Blogging Underground. Purpose and Devil Piss is his first full-length collection of poetry, released by Sibling Rivalry Press on October 8, 2013.

Enjoy the Silence
2013-10-23 18:30 - 21:00, 2013-10-09 18:30 - 21:00, 2013-10-02 18:30 - 21:00
Enjoy the Silence.
A new weekly event at the Bureau. Come read whatever you’re reading in collective silence from 7 to 8. This hour of silent reading will be followed by casual conversations over beer, wine, and sparkling water, by donation as always. Bring your own book or you can borrow or buy a book at the Bureau. The hour of silence will begin promptly at 7, so please arrive early!
Photograph by Ourit Ben-Haim from the photo-blog Underground New York Public Library

The Bureau On Hand at Situational Junta: An Unlikely Diplomatic Alliance
2013-10-21 18:00 - 20:00
The Bureau will be on hand to sell books at Situational Junta: An Unlikely Diplomatic Alliance
Location: The Bowery Arts + Science at The Bowery Poetry Club

308 Bowery, between Bleecker and Houston
Dates: Mondays, Oct 21, Nov 18, Dec 16
The first Situational Junta, on Monday, October 21, will feature:
Emcee: Negin Farsad
Main Dish: Artefacting
{Each evening begins with a happy hour from 6pm to 7pm, and a live radio broadcast from 7-8pm.}
Time: 6-8pm
$10
ABOUT THE SERIES

The United States Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC) and the Associação Espaço Cultural Lanchonete (aka Lanchonete) are taking over Bowery Poetry for a series of evening encounters and exchanges, one part happy hour and the other part radio talk show… shaken, stirred, and served straight up on the airwaves! For three evenings this Fall, Situational Junta poses a simple question: If artists are empowered to innovate on a large enough scale to interrupt the status quo, what would that look like?
Antonio Gramsci wrote that “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Situational Junta convenes a cast of unlikely midwives to cross borders and spark whimsy as they search for workarounds (or gambiarra) to the present condition and stoke a hunger for something new. Equal parts salon, happening, cabaret, and fireside chat, Situational Junta is a mash-up of ideas and forms building new alliances and bridging Bowery Poetry’s past to the future.
Description: Each evening is designed as a radio talk show, hosted by an emcee, and featuring a main guest or guests. In addition to their interview-conversation or performance, guests may prompt the audience to speak amongst themselves as music takes over the broadcast. A rotating, intergenerational, interdisciplinary cast of characters round out the hour through a tightly choreographed sequence of commentary, artist work, news flashes, and ‘commercial breaks’. People and projects emerge in unlikely proximity. Music, ideas, and drinks flow and the evening culminates with a soapbox open mic that invites audience members to join the broadcast. The <<main dish>> is surrounded by a sequence of newsflashes, ‘commercial breaks’, and urgent interventions by a retinue of creative schemers and artful dreamers.

Book Launch for Ben Fama's Cool Memories
2013-10-19 19:00 - 21:00
Soak a sugar cube in bitters
And place it in a glass
Fill the glass with champagne
The decade happens
Join BGSQD and Spork Press in releasing Ben Fama‘s Cool Memories, featuring readers Corina Copp and Stephen Boyer.
https://sporkpress.com/things/books.html
Ben Fama is the author of Mall Witch (Wonder 2012) as well as several chapbooks, including Odalisque (Bloof Books 2014) and Cool Memories (Spork Books 2013). With Andrew Durbin, he edits Wonder, an open-source publishing and events platform for poetry, performance, and new media art. He lives in New York City.
Corina Copp is the author of The Green Ray (forthcoming, Ugly Duckling Presse 2014), and chapbooks Miracle Mare (Trafficker Press 2013) and Pro Magenta/Be Met (UDP 2011). Recent work can be found in ANCIENTS, Triple Canopy’s Corrected Slogans: Reading and Writing Conceptualism, The Claudius App, Hi Zero, and elsewhere; and critical writing in SFMOMA’s Open Space, BOMB, and Cambridge Literary Review. She is currently working on The Whole Tragedy of the Inability to Love, a three-part play inspired by the work of Marguerite Duras. Its first installment, SUSANSWERPHONE, was presented at the 2012 New York City Prelude Festival, and is in development. Copp is a curator at the Segue Foundation and a 2013-2014 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace resident.
Stephen Boyer is the author of “Parasite,” (Publication Studio 2013), “Ghosts” (Bent Boy Books 2008), and he’s published in art gallery’s and various anthologies; they also actively compiled the OWS Poetry Anthology and worked as an OWS People’s Library librarian. Their blog is minorprogression.com

FUR + bOObs
2013-10-18 19:00 - 21:00
FUR + bOObs = Full frontal fun!
Join us for a top-heavy evening with Robert Neu, author of the new novel, bOObs, and Ron Suresha, coauthor of the coffeetable art book, FUR: THE LOVE OF HAIR. These two guys really have a lot to get off their chests!

bOObs, a novel by R.E. Neu
Martin Brown Publishers, ISBN 978-1937070410

Harlan Flueharty makes a bet to get breast implants, sending his life spiraling out of control. He’s fired from his job, sexually harassed by his brother, written off as an object by the world. His girlfriend Ursula is the sole life saver on this leaky raft, but even she wonders if his gender identification is a game of musical chairs and somebody stole the one marked “DUDE.” His bank account and ego explode as he cluelessly exploits his voluptuous new figure, but with Gomer Pyle’s brain, Marilyn Monroe’s cleavage, and enemies piling up left and right, it will take more than a sturdy bra to get him through the next thirty days.

FUR: The Love of Hair, by Ron J. Suresha & Scott McGillivray

Bruno Gmuender, ISBN 978-3867872423

A Rainbow Book Award winner! This spectacular coffee table artbook homage to the masculine hirsute physique brings you hundreds of illustrations and photographs from 50+ artists around the world, as well as commentary in English and German on men’s body and facial hair, quotes from the artists, and other features. FUR was featured this April in a Logo documentary, “The Long & Short of Body Hair.” Artists include: Jack Fritscher, Patheon Studios, Gengoroh Tagame, Rex, Rolando Merida, BearFilms, Blade Bannon, Tom Bianchi, InkedKenny, Angel Colon, BearFilms, Mascular Studios, Michael Kirwan, and Exterface.

Seanchai Justin Sayre
2013-10-17 19:00 - 21:00
Gearing up for his new piece with The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History (10/26), Rite of Water, based on the life and work of the Poet Hart Crane, Justin Sayre (The Meeting*, Night of a Thousand Judys) reads selections from a collection of his own poetry.
Justin Sayre – best known as the creator and writer of the hit downtown comedy/variety show The Meeting*(2012 Bistro Award, 2011 MAC Nominee) and its annual benefit “Night of A Thousand Judys” – was described by Michael Musto in The Village Voice as “Oscar Wilde meets Whoopi Goldberg.” In a recent story for Edge New York, Steve Weinstein said “Comedian, raconteur, performing artist, gay rights activist and sexual outlaw: I’m not sure Justin Sayre is classifiable. The veteran performer is on his way to becoming a Downtown Manhattan institution along the lines of Charles Ludlum or Charles Busch.” An evening of his short plays, “Justin Sayre Is Alive and Well… Writing” – called one of the “Top 10 Events on the New York Stage” by the New York Daily News – sold out two shows at Ars Nova last April. A reading of his play, The Click of The Lock, is set for this November.

Spunk: Words & Music
2013-10-12 19:00 - 21:00
Spunk [arts] Magazine presents
SPUNK: WORDS & MUSIC
Performance begins promptly at 7:30!
featuring:

WILLIAM JOHNSON
— reading “Speaking Camp” from Spunk issue no.7

Photo by Gerry Visco
JOSEPH KECKLER
— reading “Andragon” from Spunk issue no.8

Photograph by Amos Mac
MAX STEELE
— reading “King” from Spunk issue no.9

Photograph by Scooter LaForge
AARON TILFORD
— reading “I’ve Chosen Disco” from Spunk issue no.9

and a solo musical performance by EVRIPIDIS AND HIS TRAGEDIES
— art contributor to Spunk issue no.8

copies of SPUNK 8 & 9 will be available for purchase ($9)
https://spunkartsmagazine.wordpress.com/
http://www.bgsqd.com/
https://www.lambdaliterary.org/
https://www.josephkeckler.com/
https://fagcity.blogspot.com/
https://www.evripidisandhistragedies.com/
beverages (beer, wine, sparkling water) by donation

Bureau at the LGBT Center for Reading by Ayana Mathis from Her Debut Novel The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
2013-10-08 18:30 - 20:30
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division will be at The LGBT Community Center for Ayana Mathis‘s appearance at the Second Tuesday Lecture Series. We will be selling copies of Mathis’s debut novel The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. Mathis will read from the book, talk about writing the book and her appearance on the Oprah show to discuss it, and answer questions.
Reception at 6:30
Presentation at 7
The Center is located at 208 W. 13th St., between 7th and 8th Avenues.

Women and Performance presents Born in Flames
2013-10-03 19:00 - 21:00
New event added for this Thursday! Presented by Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, Cage, and the Bureau.
Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory invites you to celebrate the release of our special issue
featuring a discussion and clips from the film Born in Flames with
• Craig Willse
(George Mason University)
• Dean Spade
(Seattle University and Columbia University)
• Christina Heatherton
(CUNY Graduate Center)
• Eva Hageman
(New York University)

Queer Division 8: Core, Kotecha, Lepri
2013-09-30 07:00 - 21:00
Nicole Eisenman painting

A reading series for queer writing and performance practice, Queer Division is curated by Andrew Durbin at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

LEOPOLDINE CORE was born and raised in Manhattan. Her poems and fiction have appeared in Open City, The Literarian, Drunken Boat, Sadie Magazine, Harp & Altar, The Brooklyn Rail, Agriculture Reader, and No, Dear among others. She is a 2012 Fellow at The Center for Fiction and at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her chapbook “Young Friend” is forthcoming this year from Perfect Lovers Press. “And Satisfaction,” her first full-length book, will be published in 2015 from Coconut Books.

SHIV KOTECHA is the author of PAINT THE ROCK (TROLL THREAD, 2011) and OUTFITS (TROLL THREAD, 2012). Other work appears in P-Queue and on Gauss PDF. He currently lives in New York City and is a PhD candidate at NYU.

KAREN LEPRI is the author of Incidents of Scatttering (Noemi, 2013) and the chapbook Fig. I (Horse Less Press, 2012). Lepri was the recipient of 2012 Noemi Poetry Prize. Lepri holds an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University. Her poems, translations, & reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in 1913, 6×6, Beloit Poetry Journal, Boston Review, Best New Poets, Chicago Review, Conjunctions, Horse Less Review, Lana Turner, Mandorla, Shearsman, TYPO, & Vanitas, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She lives in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and teaches at Queens College while working forward her PhD in English at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Please note: The Bureau is closed on Mondays. We will open at 6 PM on Monday, September 30th, for this event.

Que(e)ry: Overdue
2013-09-28 21:00 - 2013-09-29 04:00
Benefit for the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division and The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History.
Dance party for queer librarians and those who love them!
***DJs***
accident report and the warm leatherettes
DJ Shomi Noise
Shade Parade
At Cake Shop
Suggested donation: $10; 21+; 9pm-close.
More info at www.queeryparty.org

Manuel A. Lopez reads from Room at the Top
2013-09-28 19:00 - 21:00
Manuel A. Lopez reads from his recent book of short stories, Room at the Top (Eriginal Books, 2013).
Manuel A. Lopez (Manny) was born in Moron, Cuba in 1969. He came to the USA in 1980 via the Mariel boatlift with his parents and siblings, and raised between Florida and California. He is a bilingual poet, writer and cultural promoter. His poetry in Spanish has been published in various magazines, such as: Arique, Baquiana, Contratiempo, La Peregrina Magazine, LaFanzine, Linden Lane and Ventana Abierta. His first book of poems, Yo, el arquero aquel was published in 2011 by Editorial Velámenes. His short stories in Spanish have also been published by Baquiana and Linden Lane Magazine. His poem, A Calling was chosen along with the work of other 40 poets by Broward County Poet in Residence Anastasia Clark for the Our Poetic Tribute to Amelia Earhart, and published in a leather-bound volume permanently displayed at the Amelia Earhart Museum in Kansas. He has also participated in Cristina Garcia’s, Las Dos Brujas Writer’s Workshop with California’s Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. This June a book of short stories in English, titled Room at the Top was published by Eriginal Books. A second book of poetry in Spanish will be published this August by Editorial Betania in Spain.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/VUCLMHCUQpg

Lambda's 2013 Emerging Voices: The New York Edition
2013-09-26 19:00 - 21:00
A literary showcase featuring members of NYC’s LGBT community who were named Lambda’s 2013 Emerging Voices.
Readings in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, by Marcie Bianco, Stephan Georgiou, Stephen Ira, Bryn Kelly, Matthew Phillp, and Tommy Pico.

Marcie Bianco, Queer Public(s) Intellectual, PhD, is a columnist and contributing writer at AfterEllen and Lambda Literary, as well as an adjunct associate professor at John Jay College at Hunter College Her current projects include a scholarly manuscript about the anti-humanist, materialist ethics of English Renaissance Drama, and a memoir about lesbian academic affairs. She lives in Brooklyn with her pup, Deleuze. Tumble4Her at marciebiancoqpi@tumblr.com.

Stephan Georgiou is a writer, organizer, performer and troublemaker. When not dancing naked in congressional offices, they can be found eating their way through an existential crisis at a bagel store near you. Stephan seeks to contribute to a collective of voices working to build queer community, emancipation and revolution.

Stephen Ira‘s poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard, Spot Lit Mag, Specter Magazine, The St. Sebastian Review, LGBTQ Nation, and the online edition of Original Plumbing. He is currently pursuing a BA in Literature, Queer Studies, and Critical Theory at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, NY.

Bryn Kelly has shared her written work at NYC-based performance series Gayety!, Low Standards, and Queer Memoir; on Showtime Network’s OurChart (dot) com; in Original Plumbing magazine; as a regular columnist at the digital literary magazine PrettyQueer.com; and in the anthology, Trans/Love: Radical Sex, Love and Relationships Beyond the Gender Binary, edited by Morty Diamond. She was a cofounder of Theater Transgression, a transgender multimedia performance collective, and studied playwriting at Brooklyn College. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Matthew Phillp’s writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The New York Sun, Gay Times UK, City Magazine, VIVE and DNA Magazine Australia, for which he was the New York Editor at Large. His commentary on American politics and culture has been featured on Radio 2UE and Vega FM in Australia and he has produced and co-hosted several radio programs including the syndicated New York nightlife talk show D List Radio for East Village Radio and the Q Network. For the past three years he has maintained a fairly consistent dance between writing his first novel and composing marketing paragraphs that don’t bear his byline. In 2013 he was awarded an Emerging Writer’s Fellowship by the Lambda Literary Foundation.

Tommy “Teebs” Pico is the driving force behind birdsong, an antiracist/queer-positive collective, small press and zine that publishes art and writing. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now lives in Brooklyn and has been published in BOMB, [PANK] and THEthe poetry blog. heyteebs.tumblr.com

Enjoy the Silence
2013-09-25 18:30 - 21:00
Enjoy the Silence.
A new weekly event at the Bureau. Come read whatever you’re reading in collective silence from 7 to 8. This hour of silent reading will be followed by casual conversations over beer, wine, and sparkling water, by donation as always. The first session of Enjoy the Silence will take place on Wednesday, September 25th. Bring your own book or you can borrow or buy a book at the Bureau. The hour of silence will begin promptly at 7, so please arrive early!
Photograph by Ourit Ben-Haim from the photo-blog Underground New York Public Library

NYC Book Launch of Joon Oluchi Lee's Lace Sick Bag
2013-09-20 19:00 - 21:00
The Bureau and Publication Studio proudly present the NYC book launch of Joon Oluchi Lee‘s Lace Sick Bag.
With Lace Sick Bag, Joon Oluchi Lee offers thirteen hard, delicate, and sweet stories for you to wear close to your skin. Borne from a desire to embody femininity, these are stories that sound and feel like women. They traverse opposite coasts of bodily existence, as men turn into women, women turn into men, children become mothers, mothers become children. (And geographic coasts as well: New York and San Francisco turn into each other.) They burrow deep into the psyche and then spring out to teach you how to glimmeringly show your insides on the outside.
Joon Oluchi Lee (@girlscallmurder) is a feminist text and body maker, and a professor of Gender and Performance at Rhode Island School of Design. He is the author of “The Joy of the Castrated Boy” and lipstickeater.blogspot.com. Joon was grown and educated in Seoul, Iowa City, Charlottesville, and San Francisco. He lives in Providence and Brooklyn with his partner.

Queer Silences
2013-09-18 19:00 - 21:00
Given that it’s that back-to-school time of year, the Bureau would like to host some classes. These might take the form of a single evening or perhaps two or three sessions. Please send us proposals at contact@bgsqd.com.
To get the ball rolling, Greg Newton, the Bureau’s Minister of Propaganda, will offer a class that will meet once with the option to continue indefinitely. The class, Queer Silences, will explore the subject of silence from queer perspectives. The first and possibly only class will take place on Wednesday, September 18th, from 7 to 9. In advance of the class, participants will read Jonathan D. Katz’s essay “John Cage’s Queer Silence: Or How to Avoid Making Matter’s Worse” and Caroline A. Jones’s “Finishing School: John Cage and the Abstract Expressionist Ego.” Greg will send PDFs of the essays to all who RSVP to contact@bgsqd.com.

The Bureau at Pussy Faggot!
2013-09-12 20:00
PUSSY FAGGOT! returns with a special end of summer edition hosted by Penny Arcade. Bring your campfire stories and sordid tales of summer!
Admission $10 / $6 with RSVP to
https://www.pussyfaggot.net/events/rsvp-for-reduced-guest-list-2
DJ Jo Equality Lampert ( AVAN LAVA)
8:00 pm- Bureau of General Services-Queer Division (BGSQD) reading featuring Ariel Speedwagon, Chavisa Woods, and poet Bobby Miller in his first NYC performance in 5 years!
Confirmed Performers Include:
✬ Champagne Jerry (aka Neal Medlyn)
✬ Fidel Cathro (aka Cath Alcorn – from Sydney, Australia!)
✬ Clay Aztec Dalmatians
✬ Glittered and Mauled
✬ Mss Vee
✬ Natti Vogel
✬ Ryan Landry (P-town’s “Showgirls” and Gold Dust Orphans)
✬ Sabrina Chap
✬ Shane Shane
✬ Tyler Ashley
✬ TURSI
and
✬ Needles Jones
*.☆。☆。*。☆。*。☆。☆。*。☆。☆。*。☆。☆。* 。☆.*
★。＼｜／。★★。＼｜／。★★。＼｜／。★★。＼｜／。★
…..CELEBRATING…DUSTY CHILDER’S………BIRTHDAY!…..
★。／｜＼。★★。／｜＼。★★。／｜＼。★★。／｜＼。★
* .☆。*。☆。☆。*。☆。☆。*。☆。☆。 *。☆。☆。*.☆.*

Opening Party at Cage with Annie Lanzillotto, Zee Whitesides,
2013-09-05 19:00 - 22:00
The Bureau will celebrate the beginning of our stay at Cage with readings by Annie Lanzillotto and Zee Whitesides and a musical performance by Brett Every!
Cage will host the Bureau for the months of September and October. Cage is a space for dialogue, mutual support and production located on the Lower East Side of New York, which involves changing membership in ongoing response to material conditions. Cage is located at 83A Hester St., between Orchard and Allen–around the corner from Strange Loop Gallery.
Photo: Carolina Kroon, 2011. carolinakroonphotography.com
Annie Lanzillotto is the author of “L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoir” SUNY Press 2013, and “Schistsong” a book of poems, Bordighera Press 2013. Her albums “Blue Pill” “Carry My Coffee” and “Eleven Recitations” are available on iTunes and webwide. Lanzillotto is a devotee of BGSQD

Zee Whitesides is a poet and musician born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Her poetry and cultural writing has appeared or is forthcoming in/on Autostraddle.com, Jughead’s Basement, and Seven Stamps among others, and she’s the author of two handmade chapbooks. She also leads Brooklyn trans punk band Little Waist.

Brett Every (brettevery.com) has won some awards (OutMusic, RightOutTV), been described as having “a voice that sounds like it’s been dipped in dark chocolate and steroids” (DNA Mag), and is thrilled and honored to be bringing his songs, guitar and throat to the Bureau’s housewarming.
