BGSQD

Local Color: A Writing and Solo Performance Workshop with Thom Vernon
2013-11-03 16:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York)
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

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).

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

Tom Bianchi book signing, Fire Island Pines: Polaroids, 1975-1983
2013-11-15 20:00 - 22:00
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.

The Bureau's 1st Birthday!
2013-11-15 21:00 - 2013-11-16 00:00
On November 15, 2012 the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division was born at Strange Loop Gallery. Let us now celebrate the first anniversary of this momentous event! Following the book signing with Tom Bianchi please stick around for the party! Featuring performances by Buzz Slutzky and Stephen Boyer at 9. And then we will dance to DJ Dandylion‘s beats!

Buzz Slutzky is a Brooklyn-based artist, writer, and curator. Buzz works in a range of media, particularly in drawing, video, and performance. They are a former Curator of the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, and currently work as a student and Research Assistant in the Parsons MFA Fine Arts program. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Buzz’s work has been shown at La Mama’s SQUIRTS: New Voices in Queer Performance, The MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival, Dixon Place, and Ed. Varie Gallery. Their projects have been written about by Artforum.com, The Huffington Post, TimeOut NY, and NEXT Magazine. Buzz’s collaboration with LJ Roberts The Queer Houses of Brooklyn is the permanent collection of the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Stephen Boyer, photograph by Amos Mac
Stephen Boyer is a writer, performer, curator, painter, activist, etc…. best known for working in porn, working to compile the Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, and for their novel Parasite, available at the Bureau. Form more Stpehn, visit Stephen’s blog Minor Progression.

DJ Dandylion
Visit Dandylion’s website spintuition.com

The Bureau On Hand at Situational Junta #2: An Unlikely Diplomatic Alliance
2013-11-18 18:00 - 20:00
The Bureau will be on hand to sell books at the second installation of 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 second Situational Junta, on Monday, November 18, will feature:
Emcee: DW Gibson (of the Kristiania Collective)
Main Dish: Lee Ann Norman’s ‘This is Our House: On music, memory, and the politics of culture’
Time: 6-8pm
$10
{Each evening begins with a happy hour from 6pm to 7pm, and a live radio broadcast from 7-8pm.}

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.

Queerocracy Monthly Meeting
2013-11-21 19:00
This month QUEEROCRACY will host a meeting that interactively attempts to map out the diverse overlapping ways in which we respond to HIV/AIDS through the use of imagery. We hope that these conversations and art-related activities facilitated throughout the night will lead us to conceive of how we can produce our own unique AIDS iconography.
Each meeting QROC will be teaming up with a new organization or individual within NYC AIDS activism to workshop with meeting attendees creative and alternative ways of participating actively in the movement to end HIV criminalization and related issues. The meetings will be hands on and will allow anyone attending to leave the meeting with a task and project at hand to stay connected and as involved as they feel comfortable and capable
The group/individual we will be workshopping with this month is: THEODORE KERR
Canadian born Theodore Kerr, is a New York based writer, artist and organizer. He works with Visual AIDS, a non profit which supports artists living with HIV/AIDS, and uses art to tell the world that AIDS is NOT OVER.

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.

Book launch for The Seventh Pleiade, by Andrew J. Peters
2013-11-22 20:30 - 22:30
Description of The Seventh Pleiade (Bold Strokes Books, 2013):
Atlantis is besieged by violent storms, tremors, and a barbarian army. For sixteen-year-old Aerander, it’s a calamitous backdrop to his Panegyris, where boys are feted for their passage to manhood.
Amid a secret web of romances among the celebrants, Aerander’s cousin Dam goes missing with two boys. With the kingdom in crisis, no one suspects the High Priest Zazamoukh, though Aerander uncovers a conspiracy to barter boys for dark spiritual power. Aerander’s proof—an underground vault that disappears in the morning—brings shame on his family and charges of lunacy. The only way for Aerander to regain his honor is to prove what really happened to the missing boys.
Tracking Dam leads Aerander on a terrifying and fantastical journey. He spots a star that hasn’t been seen for centuries. He uncovers a legend about an ancient race of men who hid below the earth. And traveling to an underground world, he learns about matters even more urgent than the missing boys. The world aboveground is changing, and he will have to clear a path for the kingdom’s survival.

Andrew J. Peters likes retold stories with a subversive twist, particularly when that twist turns heteronormativity on its head. The Seventh Pleiade, the story of a gay teen who becomes a hero during the last days of Atlantis, is his first novel. A 2011 Lambda Literary Foundation Fellow, Andrew has written short fiction for numerous publications. He lives in New York City with his partner and their cat, Chloë.
Photo Credit: Larry Black

Book launch for Dominick Reading for Filth
2013-11-23 19:00 - 21:00
Dominick Reading for Filth
Live Transcripts 2007-9
Written by Ask Dominick.
Art work by Scott Hug, Paul Gellman, Carlo Uranus,
Damani Moyd, Miguel Libarnes, and Alice O’Malley.
Cover art by Gio Black Peter.
Edited by Dale Corvino.
Available at the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division.
An illustrated chapbook, a collection of transcripts from staged public readings performed by Dominick, a former kept boy and escort. The readings took place in New York City beginning in 2007 at the now-defunct Rapture Café. His appearances were part of the weekly series ‘Dean Johnson’s Reading for Filth: Queer Writers Reading about Sex’ with contributors Edmund White, Eileen Myles, Craig Seymour, and Mike Albo. The readings are tales from the life, drawn from the diaries Dominick kept when he embarked on a career as a full-time escort, serving the greater NYC metro area. Also included: a reminiscence of his kept boy existence with his Sugar Daddy, the late English society decorator Stuart Greet; and his tribute, on the occasion of his untimely death, to downtown legend and queercore rocker Dean Johnson, the founder of the series. The readings are lurid and frank confessions of a sexual outlaw, and trace a heat map of desire through the vast field of longing that is New York City. Dominick is a Brooklyn-born Italian. He spent his twenties as the kept boy to an aristocratic British decorator of some renown. In the wake of his Sugar Daddy’s alcohol related death, he was left a modest fortune that fueled his own addiction. In recovery, he embarked on a career as a full-time escort, an effort to redeem his kept boy past. After a busy three years, he retired from escorting to take a management position in real estate, where the art of the sell is supreme. He now writes the ‘Ask Dominick’ posts on blog.rentboy.com for their audience of 30,000 subscribers, offering escorts and clients alike advice drawn from the diary he kept while escorting. He’s a frequent presence at the Red Umbrella Diaries, a series of live readings from people who have tangled with the sex industry. Dominick has appeared on Dan Savage’s podcast and is a guest contributor to Savage’s beloved ‘Savage Love’ column. His writing appears in the Anthology Prose & Lore, a publication of the Red Umbrella Project, and the 2013 Soft Skull Press Anthology Johns, Marks, Tricks and Chickenhawks, edited by David Henry Sterry. He lives in Hell’s Kitchen and most enjoys long hikes in the city and the wilds, and body surfing in the ocean.
74 pages. Paperback. Color cover, B&W interior. US Retail $9.00
ISBN-10: 1490467025 ISBN-13: 978-1490467023
Available at the Bureau.
For reviewer copies and wholesale inquiries: askDominick@gmail.com

POZ - a fundraiser for {Your Name Here} A Queer Theater and Bureau of General Services-Queer DIvision
2013-12-02 20:00 - 22:00
Come support {Your Name Here} A Queer Theater Company and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, two of the most exciting institutions in the Queer NYC scene, by attending a star-studded reading of a new play: POZ, by Michael Aman and directed by Michael Bush.
The star studded cast is to include: Veanne Cox, Christian Coulson, Penny Fuller, Randy Harrison, Lou Liberatore, and Jay Rogers. The reading will be directed by Michael Bush.

According to press notes, POZ concerns “a young man in 2003 with tuberculosis discovers that if he was HIV+ he would be covered by insurance for chemo. He meets an HIV+ man with the idea of being infected. The play examines an unconventional love between the two men and an odd family of characters, each dealing with their own demons: an aging actress who struggles with asthma, an eccentric woman who speaks with angels, a middle aged flamboyant queen with a dying father, and a young man who died of AIDS early in the health crisis.“

The Playroom Theater is located at 151 West 46th Street, 8th Floor.

Tickets are a suggested donation of $20 and can be purchased in advance at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/517519.

For more information on the companies please visit {Your Name Here} – www.yournamehereqtc.org
and Bureau of General Services-Queer Division – www.bgsqd.com

CONTACT- Jeremy Bohmstein jeremy@yournamehereqtc.org 908-227-907

Opening Reception for Queen of Hearts, an Exhibition of Photographs by Quito Ziegler
2013-12-09 18:00 - 21:00
Queen of Hearts
Q.Z. @ the Bureau
December 9, 2013
Opening reception 6 to 9 PM
Slideshow + stories at 7:30

December 19th
reading + zine release party

After one year of photography and three years of wandering, pieces of this hermit work are now beginning to surface.

Darkly glam and quietly intense, The Queen of Hearts, Quito’s upcoming book of photography and writings, is set in the nightclubs and fire escapes of Brooklyn before dawn.
The images were shot over one year, 2010/11, as a collection of queer artists and performers coalesced in the dark–contributing to the cultural explosion we are living through now. Relying on the moon and the disco ball for light, the images are grainy and seductive, dreamy and tender. B&W prints were subsequently hand-painted, hand-sewn, and are presented in hand-made frames.
The writings attempt to articulate the wordlessly complicated evolution from person to tranimal and the lessons one learns in the process. The writings and layered prints were carefully constructed in shadowy corners and private haunts of Brooklyn and Berlin, Vermont and Tennessee.

A limited-edition zine will be released in conjunction with this exhibition on the evening of Thursday, December 19th.

Quito Ziegler is an urban faerie, a radical tranimal, an activist pirate explorer of worlds. Quito is known for their moonlight beach parties, Pony adventures and producing the occasional art/performance/community happening like the Forest of the Future (2013) or the MIXploratorium (2011). This spring they will be organizing an intergenerational mentorship program with the queer youth at Sylvia’s Place.

Bureau offsite event: Perry Halkitis presents his new book The AIDS Generation at the Center
2013-12-10 18:30 - 20:00
Join the Bureau for a presentation by Perry Halkitis of his new book The AIDS Generation: Stories of Survival and Resilience at the Second Tuesday Lecture Series at the LGBT Center. The Bureau will sell copies of the book before and after the presentation.
The AIDS Generation: Stories of Survival and Resilience examines the strategies for survival and coping employed by these HIV-positive gay men, who together constitute the first generation of long-term survivors of the disease. Through interviews conducted by the author, it narrates the stories of gay men who have survived since the early days of the epidemic; documents and delineates the strategies and behaviors enacted by men of this generation to survive it; and examines the extent to which these approaches to survival inform and are informed by the broad body of literature on resilience and health.
The stories and strategies detailed here, all used to combat the profound physical, emotional, and social challenges faced by those in the crosshairs of the AIDS epidemic, provide a gateway for understanding how individuals cope with chronic and life-threatening diseases. Halkitis takes readers on a journey of first-hand data collection (the interviews themselves), the popular culture representations of these phenomena, and his own experiences as one of the men of the AIDS generation.
This riveting account will be of interest to health practitioners and historians throughout the clinical and social sciences — or to anyone with an interest in this important chapter in social history.

Perry N. Halkitis, PhD, MS, MPH is Professor of Applied Psychology and Public Health (Steinhardt School), and Population Health (Langone School of Medicine), Director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies, and Associate Dean (Global Institute of Public Health) at New York University. Dr. Halkitis’ program of research examines the intersection between the HIV epidemic, drug abuse, and mental health burden in LGBT populations, and he is well known as one of the nation’s leading experts on substance use and HIV behavioral research. Dr. Halkitis hold degrees in psychology, education, and public health.
For more information about the evening click here.
The Second Tuesday Lecture Series is the longest running program at The LGBT Center. Since 1985, more than 140 speakers have made presentations in the arts, academia, and politics. Speakers representing every major cultural award, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Grammy Award, the Academy Award (The Oscars), Broadway’s Tony Awards, the Lambda Literary Award, and the National Book Award, as well as the UK Booker Literary Award, have made presentations. Through this program, Larry Kramer spoke about the plight of the AIDS Crisis in March 1987, thus beginning ACT-UP, the largest direct action AIDS organization in the world.

Penny Arcade and Alexander Alvina Chamberland Perform at the Bureau
2013-12-12 19:00 - 21:00
Penny Arcade has invited performance artist and writer Alexander Alvina Chamberland to New York City from Sweden and they will be performing together on the 12th of December at BGSQD. Join us for a very special evening of reading and performing. Penny will be doing a reading of excerpts from her forthcoming memoir in progress or whatever strikes her at the moment. Alexander Alvina will be reading from their forthcoming transfemme-inist gurlesque novel with the working title “Bitchslutcuntfaggotladyboy” – a satirical parody of the genre of novels about growing up. They will also be reading a few selected poems from their collections “The revolutionary audacious fruition…” (2012) and “Too Intense Femme-inist Poetry Pornography (Texten är jättejaget)” (Due for release: January 2014) and doing another toomuchtoointenseinyerface-performance monologue & song with lots of tears and shouts (twists and shout), and trans-femme ways in and out – AS WELL AS an Olympic Figure Skating Competition for AMATEURS because PROFESSIONALS are not allowed to compete in the olympics!

Photo credit: Alex Oliveira.
ABOUT ALEXANDER ALVINA CHAMBERLAND:
Alexander Alvina Chamberland is a 27 year old performance artist and writer based in Stockholm, Sweden but born and raised north of San Francisco in California. They completed their bachelors degree in gender studies at Lunds University in the spring of 2011.
Alexander Alvina is co-founder of The Queertopia Festival and has had article’s publicized in many of Sweden’s largest newspapers (DN, Aftonbladet, Svenska Dagbladet, Göteborgs Posten and Sydsvenska Dagbladet etc) as well as more specialized academic & activist-oriented magazines such as Bang and Ottar. Chamberland has also taken part in tv- and radio-programs like Lantz i P1, Ligga med P3, Studio Ett, Generation Z, SVT Debatt, Aktuellt and SVT:s morning program, where they once arrived dressed as a Black Swan. As a lecturer they have spoken at venues such as Uppsala University, the swedish parliament and the anarchist space Café 44.
Their solo-production ”In Burning – In Bashing Back – In Burning,” a one person performance play on surviving and processing rape, premiered at Stockholm City Theatre in August of 2011 and toured around Sweden, Europe and the United States from 2011-2013. In 2012 ”The Revolutionary Audacious Fruition…” (35-word title all in all) an audio collection of 21 of their poems was released on spotify, itunes and Amazon. Alexander Alvina has performed on stages in Berlin, Paris, New York, San Francisco, London, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Manchester, Malmö, Istanbul, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam and had their first film-role in the Berlin-movie ”Performance” which is in production and scheduled for release in 2014. Much of their performance work focuses on their experiences of oppression & empowerment as femme and genderqueer/trans, as well as failure as a means of resistance to obligatory capitalist success. They have been a member of the performance group TIR since the autumn of 2012.
At the moment they have just finished recording their second audio poetry collection called “Too intense femme-inist poetry pornography (texten är jättejaget)” and is working on a novel.
Link to the spotify album and youtube clips of some of their past performances:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/355npkjuVjCWWiGnKBBuwa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duiz5ku__NQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73vLPO9rxkE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HYfRAqMcw8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9V7_pcmk1w

Photo credit: Timothy Greenfield Sanders
ABOUT PENNY ARCADE:
Penny Arcade is one of the most influential performance and theatre artists in the world and her work has influenced several generations of artists seeking to bring their own voice to the stage. She is also a respected poet and essayist. As a writer she has written aboutDavid Wojnarovich, Jack Smith and Marilyn Monroe.
Penny Arcade is one of America’s most prolific, articulate and outspoken independent artists. She is also a tireless artist’s advocate and an outspoken advocate of free speech and all the quintessential democratic and anarchist American values. Penny Arcade’s contributions to American experimental theatre began in her teens and she has left her mark on every decade from the 1960’s to the 2000’s.
Her work has long focused on the ‘other’ and the outsider in society and her work has long given voice to those marginalized by society. Her decades long focus on the creation of community and inclusion as the goals of performance and her efforts to use performance as a transformative act mark her as a true original in American theatre and many of her theatrical innovations have passed into the mainstream of both American and international theatre and performance. Known for her wit and aphorisms, many of her one liners and bon mots have entered into popular usage.
Born to immigrant Italians in the factory town of New Britain, Connecticut, she ran away from home at 13 and wrote her first play at 14 while incarcerated at Sacred Heart Academy for Wayward Girls. At 17 she came to NY and entered into the downtown art scene debuting at 18 in John Vaccaro’s explosive Playhouse of the Ridiculous, the seminal, glam and glitter, rock and roll, political theater that influenced everyone from Charles Ludlam to Hair to Rocky Horror Show to David Bowie.At 18 Penny Arcade became a teenage superstar for Andy Warhol’s Factory featured in the Morrissey/Warhol film “Women In Revolt” now available in video. Penny Arcade worked with and collaborated with many of the greats of American experimental theatre including Vaccaro, Jack Smith, Taylor Mead, Charles Ludlam, H.M.Koutoukas and Tom O’Horgan among others. HM Koutoukas refers to Ms Arcade as “The Little Sister of The Avant-garde” because of her long apprenticeship to the major architects of the counter culture and American experimental theater.
After her 15 year apprenticeship in the work of other major theatre makers, Arcade began creating her own solo work in 1983 and becoming one of the most original voices in contemporary theatre and one of a handful of New York artists who defined performance art in the 80’s and 90’s. She began creating group work in 1989. She has written 10 full length performance plays, numerous solo shows as well as poems, spoken word pieces and essays “BITCH !DYKE! FAGHAG! WHORE!’ Her 1990 sex and censorship show began as an audit for a solo fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts during the Helms-NEA censorship crisis in 1990. The initial four day run at Performance Space 122 segued into two months which by public demand went on to a year long run (1992-1993) at the legendary Village Gate. “B!D!F!W!” a blend of political humanism, freedom of expression and erotic dancing, has toured the world twice as both an international festival and commercial hit in 25 cities around the world including two tours of Australia and left an international burlesque movement in it’s wake that still looks to Arcade as the master of combining political content and erotica, never stooping to the vulgar or sensationalistic. In 2012 she completed 46 highly praised, high profile performances of Bitch!Dyke!Faghag!Whore! in London Penny Arcade’s theatre writing has been commissioned by Austria, Germany, England, Brazil, and Mexico.
In the early 90’s Quentin Crisp publicly named Ms Arcade as his soul mate and anima figure in the London Telegraph Magazine. Their friendship then become professional as Ms Arcade undertook a series of interviews with the legendary Edwardian raconteur and they performed together many times. Penny Arcade created “The Last Will and Testament Of Quentin Crisp” in 1996 which they performed together up to his death in 1999. In 2011 Cynthia Nixon star of “Sex in The City“ portrayed Penny Arcade in the film Englishman IN NY about their relationship at the end of Mr. Crisp’s life.
Penny Arcade has a long history as a Lower East Side activist beginning in her teens working with The Hog Farm, UATWMF and with Abby Hoffman in the Yippies at the Lower Eastside Suicide Hotline (1967) and all the way to the present having spent August 1996 thru January of 1998 hosting a 3 hour radio show for the Lower Eastside pirate radio station Steal this Radio 88.7. She continues to lend her artistry to numerous socio- political endeavors.
In 1989, shortly after the death of performance great Jack Smith of AIDS, Penny Arcade, who had served Mr. Smith during his last illness, created and formed the Jack Smith Archive, fulfilling Mr. Smith’s death bed directive.
In 1990 The Plaster Foundation, the complete archive of Mr. Smith’s work was founded with the help of Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman. Mr. Hoberman and Ms Arcade worked tirelessly for 2 decades to preserve and promote Mr. Smith’s legacy.
In 1997 she was given the complete works of photographer Sheyal Baykl before Ms Bayka’s death and formed The Sheyla Baykal Archive to preserve and promote the work of Sheyla Baykal.
Since 1992 she has collaborated with former architect video artist and producer Steve Zehentner, who works with her as a dramaturge, co-designs set, sound, video and as a co-director.
In 1999 Penny Arcade and Steve Zehentner formed The Lower East Side Biography Project, “Stemming The Tide Of Cultural Amnesia , a much emulated video oral history project that broadcasts every Wednesday at 11 pm on channel 34 Time /Warner as well as on RCN . It also cybercasts at the same time at www.mnn.org. They currently have 4 new works in various states of pr-production. For weekly updates see and subscribe to
https://www.facebook.com/LowerEastSideBiographyProject?ref=nf
Penny Arcade is a gifted, committed lecturer in performance, live art, memoir and writing from oral history. She also works as a mentor and coach. Penny Arcade welcomes communication from all by personal email at mspennyarcade@gmail.com. Subscribe to her Facebook Page for updates: pennyarcadesuperstar. Follow her on Twitter at pennyarcadenyc.
Penny’s website: www.pennyarcade.tv

Launch of David Eye's chapbook of poems Rain Leaping Up When a Cab Goes Past
2013-12-13 17:30 - 18:30
Join us at the Bureau for the launch of David Eye‘s chapbook of poems Rain Leaping Up When a Cab Goes Past.

David Eye left New York City and a 17-year career in the theatre in the fall of 2005 to earn an MFA in Creative Writing at Syracuse University. Since graduating in 2008, his poems have appeared in in Bloom, Cider Press Review, Consequence Magazine (finalist, 2010 Consequence Prize for Poetry), Lambda Literary, The Louisville Review, Puerto del Sol, Stone Canoe, among other journals and anthologies. His short collection of poems, Rain Leaping Up When a Cab Goes Past, has just been published by Seven Kitchens Press. As an actor, in addition to Off-Broadway productions (and even more Off-Off‑), David appeared in the Broadway tour of Cats, and on television in Law and Order and Special Victims Unit. Before moving to New York, he was an officer in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. David has taught at Syracuse University, St. John’s University, Manhattan College, and Cazenovia College, where he now teaches academic writing. David grew up in rural Virginia.

Following the launch of David Eye’s Rain Leaping Up When a Cab Goes Past, please stay for the discussion of The Missing Myth: A New Vision of Same-Sex Love with the author, Gilles Herrada, at 7 PM.

Gilles Herrada Discusses His Book The Missing Myth: A New Vision of Same-Sex Love
2013-12-13 19:00 - 21:00
What is gay spirituality? And is it a crucial or even relevant question anyway? Gilles Herrada, author of The Missing Myth: A New Vision of Same-Sex Love, argues that spirituality is the context in which any other type of knowledge (like science) and self-knowledge (like psychology) unfolds. Tonight Herrada will engage in a conversation about the different forms and meanings that gay spirituality can take, the various paths that have been pursued since gay liberation, and the alternative vision that he offers in his book The Missing Myth.

Gilles Herrada, Ph.D., is a research scientist, a writer, and life coach at LifeAsacreation. He has worked at the universities of Nice, Paris, Columbia, and Harvard and is published internationally. While at Harvard, he discovered a large family of genes involved in the detection of pheromones, those “secret” odors that trigger animal sexual and social behaviors.
Gilles also attended and facilitated programs in what is commonly labeled as “personal development.” These workshops gave him the rare opportunity to discuss with homophobic men in an open and intimate setup. This offered him a unique chance to inquire into the mechanisms of homophobia empathically, that is from a homophobic standpoint.
Part of his research work regarding homosexuality’s history was presented at the First Integral Theory Conference in 2008 and will soon be published in an anthology titledEmerging Visions of Women and Men: An Integral Exploration of Sex, Gender and Spirituality at the SUNY Press.
Today Gilles Herrada lives in New York City.

Situational Junta #3
2013-12-16 18:00 - 20:00
The Bureau will be on hand to sell books at the third and final installation of Situational Junta: An Unlikely Diplomatic Alliance
Location: The Bowery Arts + Science at The Bowery Poetry Club

308 Bowery, between Bleecker and Houston
Emcee: Bob Holman
Musical Guest: Papa Susso
Main Dish: Willing Participant
With: Sparrow, Violet Snow, Abigaile Levine, Dave Ruder, Chloe Bass, Wen-Shuan Yang, Lawman Lynch, Brian Holloran, Niki Singleton, and the Bureau of General Services Queer Division
Time: 6-8pm [6-6:40 mixing/mingling; 6:40-8pm radio broadcast]
Suggested Contribution: $10 (no one turned away)

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.

Mancaster interviews Stephen Boyer and Nicholas Wilson
2013-12-17 19:00 - 21:00
Join Chad Edmonds and Eddie Cuneo of The Mancaster for interviews with and performances by writer, performer, artist, and activist Stephen Boyer and violinist Nicholas Wilson. The evening will be recorded for a podcast.
The Mancaster is a series of podcast interviews with the “mom & pop” business owners, the behind-the-scenes workers, the musicians, the artists, the drag queens, the go-go boys, those who make entertainment possible; hear their voices and listen to their journeys.

Stephen Boyer, photograph by Amos Mac
Stephen Boyer is a writer, performer, curator, painter, activist, etc…. best known for working in porn, working to compile the Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, and for their novel Parasite, available at the Bureau. For more about Stephen, visit their blog Minor Progression.

Nicholas Wilson began studying violin at 10 years old. He studied throughout middle school and in high school was accepted into an arts program called Governor’s School, which focused its curriculum on each artist’s respective art.
Nicholas earned his Bachelor’s degree from George Mason University, majoring in Music. During and after his degree the Washington Metropolitan area afforded opportunities in performance and education. Nicholas has been teaching privately for 8 years.
Nicholas moved to NYC 6 months ago and will be applying for his Master’s degree soon.

Mancaster interviews actor, director, and nightclub performer Joshua Warr
2013-12-18 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for Mancaster‘s interview of Joshua Warr
The Mancaster is a series of podcast interviews with the “mom & pop” business owners, the behind-the-scenes workers, the musicians, the artists, the drag queens, the go-go boys, those who make entertainment possible; hear their voices and listen to their journeys.

Joshua Warr is an actor, director, and nightclub performer who lives in NYC. Joshua most recently directed the NYC premier of David Schulner’s An Infinite Ache which had a limited run downtown at the Access Theatre and garnered rave reviews. He can also be seen in the gay hit web series ‘Hunting Season’ guest starring as “Harris.” He’s a recipient of a 2013 Fruitie Award for his work in the Fresh Fruit Festival premiere of Patrick McCarthy’s Pride River Crossing and is a MAC Award and two time BroadwayWorld Award nominee for his nightclub acts. EntertainmentWeekly.com calls him “wickedly funny”, watch out, this Warrior shows no signs of slowing down.

For more information about The Mancaster click here.

Launch Party for Quito Ziegler's Zine THROUGH
2013-12-19 18:00 - 21:00
In conjunction with the photography exhibition QUEEN OF HEARTS and in the general spirit of Getting Shit Done before the year ends, Quito Ziegler (recently proclaimed hermit artist of the year by SF’s Museum of Transgender Hirstory & Art) will miraculously complete a zine they’ve been writing for over a year and read selections from it, along with other stories from the Queen of Hearts.
In early 2011 Q.Z. came out as trans, experienced trauma, abruptly stopped taking pictures, became a hermit and hit the road in an unmarked white van called the Pony, taking occasional breaks to organize large-scale queer art happenings with an amazing cast of characters. Beyond these pretty pops of public glamour, their time was mostly spent wandering off in an anti-social haze, generally going through it.
THROUGH is the story-behind-the-story of these past three years, an attempt to articulate their complicated evolution from person to tranimal and the lessons they learned in the process. What begins as an individual story of crisis and resilience evolves into a series of reflections on queer interdependence, structural transphobia, physical transition, and DIY recovery strategies.The writings emerged during travels through dark corners of Brooklyn and Berlin and the sunny meadows of Vermont, with a stint at the fancy MacDowell Colony in winter.
Reading at 7 PM.
A limited-edition zine of this story will be available for sale at the event.
This event is in support of QUEEN OF HEARTS, a photography exhibition at the Bureau.
Darkly glam and quietly intense, The Queen of Hearts, Quito’s upcoming book of photography and writings, is set in the nightclubs and fire escapes of Brooklyn before dawn.
The images were shot over one year, 2010/11, as a collection of queer artists and performers coalesced in the dark – contributing to the cultural explosion we are living through now. Relying on the moon and the disco ball for light, the images are grainy and seductive, dreamy and tender. B&W prints were subsequently hand-painted, hand-sewn, and are presented in hand-made frames.
Images will be on view at the Bureau from December 9 – 31.
after-party : punk/queercore/goth/powerpop gala @ Hank’s!
https://www.facebook.com/events/690092554349186/

The Mancaster Talks with the Organizers of 20SOMETHING
2014-01-04 14:00 - 16:00
The Mancaster will be talking with the organizers of the Meetup group Gay 20Somethings of NYC. Listen to their chat about the group’s history and what their plan is for the future!
20SOMETHING is a social events organization for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgender people in New York City, aged 18 to 33. We are focused on providing a safe space at the LGBT Center for the discussion of topics relevant to people in and around their 20s. Topics vary widely, but the discussion is always lively. While we are based at the LGBT Center, we also host a plethora of other social activities such as movie outings, dinners, coffee, and bar nights.
The Mancaster is a series of podcast interviews with the “mom & pop” business owners, the behind-the-scenes workers, the musicians, the artists, the drag queens, the go-go boys, those who make entertainment possible; hear their voices and listen to their journeys.

Stories & Queer with Steven Cordova, Shelley Ettinger, Christopher Soto, and Rosebud Ben-Oni
2014-01-06 19:00 - 21:00
Stories & Queer will hold its first event in NYC at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division on Monday, January 6, 2014 at 7:00pm (EST). The event will feature Steven Cordova, Shelley Ettinger, Christopher Soto, and Rosebud Ben-Oni.
The live event will be streamed and archived to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR-34__YD3WJ9FTGh_E1pwg?feature=
The virtual components of this series are unique and allow us to reach beyond the local borders of the event.
S&Q is a traveling reading series that aims to provide a space for local & national readers/listeners to connect with queer & queer-friendly writers. Our mission is to provide a space for underrepresented voices to be heard and to connect writers and audiences no matter where they are. This series makes a positive contribution to the literary and LGBTQ community by encouraging all people to tell their stories without shame or fear.
S&Q is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.
Please note: the Bureau is closed on Mondays, but we will open at 6 pm for this event.

Steven Cordova is the 2012 first-place winner of the International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize. His first full-length poetry collection, Long Distance, was published by Bilingual Review Press in 2010, and his poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. A selection from Long Distance was recently set to music for the AIDS Quilt Songbook. Steven lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Shelley Ettinger‘s work has been published in Nimrod, Cream City Review, Liberation Lit, Blithe House Quarterly, Lodestar Quarterly and other journals. She has been awarded residencies at the Saltonstall Foundation Arts Colony, Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Norcroft Writing Retreat for Women, and, in 2007, a full scholarship to the first Lambda Literary Foundation Writers’ Retreat. An activist all her adult life, Shelley is a partisan of political poetry and fiction. She’s currently working on a novel suggested by the famous death and secret lesbian life of Kitty Genovese.

Christopher Soto (aka Loma) is a queer latin@ punk poet who is concerned with dismantling patriarchy and white supremacy. They are currently curating Nepantla, an e-journal dedicated to queer poets of color, in collaboration with The Lambda Literary Foundation. They have work forthcoming from Columbia: A Journal, Acentos Review, Anti-, Wilde Magazine and more. They are an MFA candidate in Poetry at NYU.

Born to a Mexican mother and Jewish father, Rosebud Ben-Oni is a 2013 CantoMundo Fellow. A graduate of the 2010 Women’s Work Lab at New Perspectives Theater, her plays have been produced in New York City, Washington DC and Toronto. Her work is forthcoming or appears in American Poetry Review, Arts & Letters, Bayou, Puerto del Sol, among others. Her debut book of poems SOLECISM was published by Virtual Artists Collective in March 2013. Rosebud is a co-editor for HER KIND (herkind.org) at VIDA: Women in Literary Arts (vidaweb.org). Find out more about her at 7TrainLove.org

Lonely Christopher's DEATH & DISASTER SERIES Launch with Uche Nduka and Ariana Reines
2014-01-08 19:00 - 21:00
Monk Books is proud to present the launch event for Lonely Christopher’s debut poetry collection, Death & Disaster Series. Join Lonely Christopher, Uche Nduka, and Ariana Reines for a poetry reading at the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division, with revelrous partying to follow!

YOUR READERS:
Uche Nduka was born in Umuahia, Nigeria. He earned a B.A. in English from the University of Nigeria. His volumes of poetry include Flower Child (1988), Second Act (1994), The Bremen Poems (1995), Chiaroscuro(1007), for which he was awarded the Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize, If Only the Night (2002),Heart’s Field (2005), Eel on Reef (2007), Tracer (2010), Ijele (2012), and Nine East (2013). His work has been translated into German, Serbo Croatian, Romanian, Spanish, and Dutch. He is a member of the Association of Nigerian Authors and American PEN. He lived in Germany and Holland for over a decade and was the recipient of a Goethe Institut Fellowship and Heinrich Böll Haus Guest Author Fellowship. He currently lives in Brooklyn.
Ariana Reines is author of The Cow (2006), winner of the Alberta Prize from Fence Books, Coeur de Lion(2007), and Mercury (2011). Her play Telephone was produced at the Cherry Lane Theater and won several Obie awards. Her translations include a version of Baudelaire’s My Heart Laid Bare (2009); Jean-Luc Hennig’s The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal: Days and Nights of an Anarchist Whore (2009); and Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials Toward a Theory of the Young-Girl (2012). Reines was 2009 Roberta C. Holloway Lecturer in Poetry at the University of California Berkeley; she has taught master classes at Pomona College, the University of California Davis, and the University of Pittsburgh.
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.

THE BOOK:
Lonely Christopher’s debut poetry collection is a sprawling and melancholic confrontation of death in the context of late capitalism. The poet writes through the premature end of his mother’s life and the aftermath, investigating and raging against tragedy and loss. Infused with grief, sorrow, and anger, the series is a raw and deeply personal reckoning with the romantic and profoundly dark themes that crawl under the surface of quotidian awareness, waiting to bleed forth in the wake of death and disaster. Arch and penetrating, these poems collapse attraction and repulsion, joy and misery, origination and destruction—ultimately portraying some of the most underlit elements of our human experience with imaginative clarity.

“Aesthetically and polemically these poems heft joy and grief and fury. Politics, romance, wonder suffuse them. Lonely Christopher is a fearless poet par excellence. ‘I am the star of my own truncated privacy’ says the poet. What choice do we have but to heed his appeal: ‘Do not face eternity with your brain.'” – Uche Nduka (author ofIjele and Nine East)

“OH GOD, I’ve started this blurb so many times! HOW TO SAY HOW essential this writer Lonely Christopher is for our lives!? It’s all between the words, this pressure he builds behind the eyes. Stand anywhere you want with this book inside our headache age of information fatigue, ‘anything in the orange light / of my word for you / anything / to excuse / all the pain.’ DON’T BE STUPID you know as well as I do these poems boil to the top of the gravy!!” – CAConrad (author of The Book of Frank and A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon)

“‘I/ don’t belong in America I belong/ in love,’ says this provocative poet, but it’s not true: at the same time minimal and raw, smart-set knowing and uninhibited weird, Lonely Christopher belongs anywhere that his poetry can be read. He knows too much and wants to reveal it all (fans of Ariana Reines, or of Eileen Myles, take note). The lines get rough and bloody, rehearsing and repurposing queer revolutions. This book lays bare secrets of our time, halfway between the compression of (say) Robert Creeley and the unmade bed at 3am, from which he looks out the window at (variously) the blank walls that model his free verse, the window of the day before, and the fire across the ledge, the one he almost ‘started/ as a conduit for my love/ and rage.'” – Stephen Burt (author of Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry)

Barry Stewart Levy reads from his book European Son: a novella
2014-01-11 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for a reading with Barry Stewart Levy from his book European Son: A Novella.
Barry Stewart Levy is a former English teacher who also worked as a Literary Artist for the Cultural Council Foundation/CETA Artists Project, co-authoring the topical revue “New Living Newspaper, Vol. 1, No. 2” (Playwrights Horizons), writing poetry for the anthology “Words to Go” and conducting interviews for the publication Art Workers News. He was a reporter for Gotham Newsmagazine and a freelance game show writer for NBC’s “Shoot for the Stars.” He is the recipient of the Clarence Kline Essay Prize and was a semi-finalist in the Writers Guild of America, East, Fellowship Competition. “European Son: a novella” is his first work of fiction.

Dictionary--Stephen Boyer presents ben rosenberg, Clara Lipfert, Chelsea Tadeyeske, David J. White, edwin r. perry, Kayla Morse, Lara Weibgen, and Tommy "Teebs" Pico
2014-01-14 20:30 - 22:30
Dictionary is a reading/performance/film/whatever-yr-medium showcase curated by Stephen Boyer, hosted by the Bureau of General Services–Queer Division. This month ben rosenberg, Clara Lipfert, Chelsea Tadeyeske, David J. White, edwin r. perry, Kayla Morse, Lara Weibgen, and Tommy “Teebs” Pico will be sharing their work.

Please note: The Bureau will be closed on Tuesday, January 14th, but we will open at 8 pm for this event.

Reading by Elliot DeLine and Musical Performance by Audrey Zee Whitesides
2014-01-17 19:00 - 21:00
Join Elliot DeLine and Audrey Zee Whitesides for an evening of stories and songs at the Bureau!

Elliott DeLine (born 1988) is an independent writer from Syracuse, NY. He is the author of the novel Refuse and the novella I Know Very Well How I Got My Name. His work has been featured in several publications, including the Modern Love essay series of The New York Times (2011),The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard, and a blog for the magazine Original Plumbing (2012-present). Elliott attended Purchase College and graduated from Syracuse University in 2012 with a BA in English. Elliott currently lives in Syracuse, where he is involved with several local advocacy groups, volunteers at a queer youth center, and is hoping to open a used bookstore/cat cafe. He is the co-founder, promoter, and general coordinator of Queer Mart, an LGBTQ arts and crafts fair.

AUDREY ZEE WHITESIDES is a poet and musician born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Her poetry and cultural writing has appeared in/on Autostraddle, WONDER, and Bone Bouquet among others, and she’s the author of several DIY chapbooks, most recently i’m the POTE. She also leads Brooklyn trans punk band Little Waist.

The Mancaster interviews Bill Thomas, founder of New York City Gay Craft Beer Lovers
2014-01-22 19:00 - 21:00
The Mancaster interviews Bill Thomas, founder of New York City Gay Craft Beer Lovers

Bill Thomas is the founder of the New York City Gay Craft Beer Lovers group. A beer enthusiast who enjoys seeking out local beers where he goes, he lamented the dearth of quality beers at bars and restaurants catering to LGBT clientele, so in response he started the group to share his love of beer and create a comfortable, open and welcoming environment for beer education and fellowship.

The Mancaster is a series of podcast interviews with the “mom & pop” business owners, the behind-the-scenes workers, the musicians, the artists, the drag queens, the go-go boys, those who make entertainment possible; hear their voices and listen to their journeys.

Sean Strub Presents His New Book Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS and Survival
2014-01-24 19:00 - 21:00
The Bureau is proud to host Sean Strub for a reading from his new book Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS and Survival (Scribner, January 14, 2014). Following the reading, Strub will engage in a discussion with the audience.
BODY COUNTS is a powerful report from the front lines, a deeply personal testament from a veteran AIDS activist. Not merely a nostalgic look backwards, Strub’s book assesses today’s AIDS epidemic and offers powerful strategies for curbing new transmissions, while also demanding an end to AIDS criminalization.
As personally powerful as Paul Monette’s Borrowed Time and as historically important as Randy Shilts’s And The Band Played On, Body Counts provides invaluable insight into where we are today in the AIDS epidemic, how we got there and what must be done next. Body Counts has already drawn plaudits from prominent LGBT community historians Martin Duberman, John D’Emilio, and Jonathan Ned Katz, as well as Gloria Steinem, Mary Frances Berry, John Berendt, Lily Tomlin, Judith Light, Bill T. Jones and Rory Kennedy, among others.
In 1976 at the age of 17, Sean Strub left his native Iowa and arrived in Washington, D.C., to take a patronage job running a “Senators’ Only” elevator in the U.S. Capitol building. He was charming and precociously ambitious. As he explored the corridors of power in D.C., he also was drawn to another, hidden DC: the super-closeted world of powerful gay men in the nation’s capital. The subterfuge was ultimately untenable for an idealist who yearned to live his life openly, so Strub moved to New York City in 1979.
As a Manhattanite, Strub immersed himself in metropolitan life — from partying at Studio 54 to the liberating demimonde of gay bathhouses. He discusses his swift rise in business circles as a visionary direct-mail marketer and award-winning theatre producer. In BODY COUNTS, the author fondly recalls the friends and lovers who enriched his days and nights as a New Yorker. Significantly, Strub recounts the life-changing experience of being one of the first on the scene when John Lennon was murdered at the Dakota in 1980.
Not long after the first reports of a “gay cancer” surfaced, Strub launched into action. Strub became a pivotal force in AIDS activism through volunteering and fundraising for organizations. These included GMHC, the PWA Coalition and ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). For the street activist group, Strub raised crucial funding and took part in their most notorious demonstrations. Strub was involved in putting a giant condom on then-U.S. Senator Jesse Helms’ house (an event funded by David Geffen) and took part in the infamous 1989 protest inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He would become, in 1990, the first openly HIV- positive person to run for the U.S. Congress, and later become founder, publisher, and executive editor of the groundbreaking POZ magazine. BODY COUNTS documents the author’s own near-death struggle with AIDS and his Lazarus-like recovery in the mid-1990s after the discovery of protease inhibitor therapy.
We watch Strub build a life and legacy that sees him crossing paths with a veritable who’s who of prominent gay men, including Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Vito Russo and Larry Kramer.
The author’s tale names names, identifying the villains and hypocrites who thrived during this era, and acknowledges the heroes who battled ignorance and apathy to bring the AIDS epidemic to the forefront. The author spares nobody in his assessment, offering a candid critique of where America fell short in its vision for ending the epidemic, including the government, the gay community and the so-called AIDS, Inc.
BODY COUNTS is a portrait of one man driven by passion and principle to make a difference in the world during a tumultuous era of great change and tragedy.

Sean Strub is an activist, writer, and executive director of the Sero Project, which combats the criminalization of people with HIV. He founded POZ magazine, the leading publication providing information about HIV, and is a frequent speaker about HIV/AIDS, selfempowerment, and the intersections of sex, public health, and the law. A native of Iowa City, Strub attended Georgetown and Columbia universities. He and his partner, Xavier Morales, live in New York and Milford, Pennsylvania, where he co-owns the historic Hotel Fauchère and is active in historic preservation.

Praise for Body Counts
“Strub paints a striking picture … A valuable document that gives an insider’s view into AIDS activism.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Sean Strub has written more than just a memoir. Body Counts pulls back the curtain on a hidden half-century of American history…. The tale of a life lived in high-resolution, high-intensity, saturated Technicolor.” —Ari Shapiro, NPR White House Correspondent
“Radicalized by the AIDS crisis and plunged into political activism for the LGBT community, Iowa-born Catholic-raised Strub chronicles the crucial years of AIDS awareness since the early 1980s, which parallels his own coming-of- age….Strub frankly and openly speaks about these painful and inspiring early years of the gay and lesbian movement, how the AIDS epidemic devastated the newly emergent community and ushered in a terrible backlash against gays.” —Publishers Weekly
“Read Body Counts by Sean Strub and share one American’s story of growing up with an instinct for justice, then finding oneself in an epidemic whose tragedy is multiplied by bias. As a man who survived sexual abuse, rape and an HIV diagnosis, Strub embodies the shared interest of women and men who fight for human rights, and against any government or person intruding on our bodies. By taking us with him on his journey from a conservative family in Iowa to the heart of a global movement for human rights, Sean Strub gives us ideas, strength and heart in our own journey.” —Gloria Steinem
“An absorbing read. It not only vividly recounts the personal odyssey of one man’s struggle with AIDS, but places it—with remarkable objectivity—within the larger story of those years. Strub is a dispassionate, reliable guide whose directness and honesty create considerable impact. Anyone would profit from reading this book.” —Martin Duberman, author of Stonewall
“This is the most personally powerful and authentic portrayal of our collective history that I have read since Paul Monette’s On Borrowed Time.” —Judith Light
“Body Counts is a powerful account of the epidemic’s early years and the subsequent three decades…a page-turner with moving insight and fresh analysis told in a compelling and highly personal style.” —Lily Tomlin
“Sean Strub’s Body Counts is an important document…fresh and compelling.” —Bill T. Jones
“This is the compelling life and near-death story of Sean Strub, of thousands lost to HIV-AIDS, and thousands more living with it whom his activism helped save. Wow.” —Andrew Tobias, author of The Best Little Boy in the World
“This take-no-prisoners memoir has the quality of a suspenseful page-turner, and will keep you reading until the final sentence.” —John D’Emilio, author of Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America
“From early struggles against AIDS to later collective acting up, Sean Strub’s lively, gossipy memoir is also deeply moving history.” —Jonathan Ned Katz, author Gay American History
“Strub’s memoir, like Strub himself, is an inspiration.” —Richard McCann, author of Mother of Sorrows
“The education and evolution of Sean Strub is a riveting and moving tale that needed to be told, and has life-lessons for us all. Body Counts is an important document in the history of our era that challenges conventional wisdoms and speaks truth to power.” —Doug Ireland, veteran political journalist
“A gripping story of a movement that changed the soul of our world.” —Kathy Boudin, Columbia University School of Social Work
“A compelling page-turner… To understand today’s HIV epidemic, read Body Counts. Sean is a born activist, widely revered by people with HIV and I’m glad he’s finally told his story.” —Rory Kennedy
“Elegantly written, moving and powerful, this book from one of the most important advocates for people with HIV/AIDS is eye-opening.” —Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine Segal professor of American Social Thought, University of Pennsylvania; past Chair U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
“This is obviously Sean Strub’s story and a very particular and personal history, but it’s also our story and our history. He is a wonderful storyteller … I very much admire his writing—how clean and powerful it is.” —Will Schwalbe, author of The End Of Your Life Book Club

The Mancaster Interviews Eli Lewis
2014-01-26 14:00 - 16:00
ELI LEWIS is a New York City-based ballet and contemporary dancer, porn performer, blogger, Rentboy, and pocket Gaysian. He is originally from the great country of Texas – specifically Austin – and has since toured and collaborated with renowned dance companies and choreographers, worked in a variety of events from New York Fashion Week to kink and adult performances at Folsom Street Fair and HustlaBall, go-go danced at some of the hottest bars and clubs around the States, and writes about how his adventures and sexcapades have shaped him into the man he is today. Whoever said you couldn’t have your cake and eat it too clearly hasn’t met this boy on fire!

The Mancaster is a series of podcast interviews with the “mom & pop” business owners, the behind-the-scenes workers, the musicians, the artists, the drag queens, the go-go boys, those who make entertainment possible; hear their voices and listen to their journeys.

The Mancaster Interviews Destiny Devine
2014-01-28 19:00 - 21:00
Destiny Devine began her career in 2009 when she landed a starring role in a show called “ICONS” in which she impersonated BEYONCE KNOWLES, JANET JACKSON,TINA TUNER, WHITNEY HOUSTON, RUPAUL, and NICKI MANAJ.
The Show ran in Provincetown Massachusetts for the summer of 2009 and 2010. The show quickly became a huge success, garnering awards including “Best new show of the summer” and Destiny was re-booked for the 2010 Season of ICONS, in the fall of 2010 Icons then hit the off-Broadway stage at the SNAPPLE CENTER in New York City.
Destiny Devine is constantly working on new and fresh projects.
The Mancaster is a series of podcast interviews with the “mom & pop” business owners, the behind-the-scenes workers, the musicians, the artists, the drag queens, the go-go boys, those who make entertainment possible; hear their voices and listen to their journeys.

When is White Girl – a Public Reading
2014-01-30 19:00 - 21:30
Hilton Als’s latest book, White Girls, is an essay collection (personal and critical) that takes the idea of “white girl” and twists it through the lens of American culture.

It is a book that defies an easy read, or contemplation in solitude. Is it a mess, a mockery, and brilliant? Is it confusing, contradictory, and liberating? Does it serve identity politics to itself on a platter? Is it post racial? Is it fierce?
Join curators and artists Malene Dam, Bridget de Gersigny, and Ted Kerr for a public conversation on the book. Participants will be invited to read passages that stuck with them and that they want to discuss, and as a group we will engage in a conversation about the book, its impacts and possible meanings.
When is White Girl is part of “NO NARRATIVE PRECEDED US” an ongoing collaboration between Dam, de Gersigny, and Kerr started in Oct. 2013 with public conversations and performances in New York and at CCS Bard. Using the format of a reading group the collaboration explores the intersections of identity politics with shared queer and feminist histories across time.
White Girls is available for purchase at the Bureau.

Bios:
Malene Dam is a Danish born artist and curator currently a student at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. She engages in an array of issues related to contemporary society, most recently with a strong focus on queer temporality, histories of feminism, education, and conflict. Her research-based practice addresses temporal and spatial notions of cultural collectivizations, inquiring how discourses situate themselves as knowledge. She holds a BFA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and a MFA in Photography and Media from CalArts.

Bridget de Gersigny is a South African born, visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Her work draws upon political history and technological communications, often related to shifting ideologies, through a post-colonial and queer lens. She is a 2014 Queer/Art/Mentorship Fellow and recently completed her MFA at ICP-Bard. She holds a BA degree from the University of Cape Town, in Psychology and Literature, and Art History from University of South Africa.

Canadian born Ted Kerr is a New York based artist, writer and organizer whose work focuses on queerness, HIV/AIDS and community. He was the 2011 Artist in Residence at the Institute for Art, Religion and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary, and is currently the programs manager at Visual AIDS.
