BGSQD

Contributors to Who's Yer Daddy? Read at the Bureau
2013-04-07 15:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Readings by contributors to Who’s Yer Daddy? Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners
Readers: Peter Covino, David Groff (co-editor), Ben Grossberg, Dave King, Michael Klein, Brian Leung, Paul Lisicky, Timothy Liu, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, and Ellery Washington.

Peter Covino is the author of the poetry collections, both from Western Michigan University/New Issues Press, The Right Place to Jump (2012) and Cut Off the Ears of Winter (2005), winner of the 2007 PEN/America Osterweil Award and a finalist for the Publishing Triangle Thom Gunn Award, and the Paterson Poetry Prize. His chapbook, Straight Boyfriend (2001), won the Frank O’Hara Poetry Prize; and recent poems have been published or are forthcoming both in America and Italy in such places as the American Poetry Review, Cimarron Review, Colorado Review, Connecticut Review, Gulf Coast, The Paris Review, tutteStorie, The Yale Review, and The Penguin Anthology of Italian-American Writing, among others. His translations of Italian poets have been featured in Atlanta Review, Italian Americana, Italoamericana, The Journal of Italian Translation, and the anthology New European Poets, Graywolf Press 2008. Covino is also one of the founding editors of the literary press, Barrow Street Inc., and the Barrow Street Books; and in 2009, he was appointed poetry editor for VIA: Voices in Italian Americana. He is an Associate Professor of Literature with Creative Writing at the University of Rhode Island.

David Groff is an independent writer and poet, is author of Theory of Devolution and coeditor of Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS and Whitman’s Men: Walt Whitman’s Calamus Poems Celebrated by Contemporary Photographers. Groff’s work was published in American Poetry Review, Bloom, Chicago Review, Christopher Street, Confrontation, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, Men on Men 2, Men on Men 2000, Missouri Review, New York, North American Review, Northwest Review, Out, Poetry, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, Poz, Prairie Schooner, QW, Self, 7 Days, 7 Carmine, and Wigwag. Groff graduated from the University of Iowa, with an MFA, and MA. He has taught at University of Iowa, Rutgers University, and NYU, and at William Paterson University.

Benjamin S. Grossberg is an associate professor of English at University of Hartford. His books are Sweet Core Orchard (2009), winner of the 2008 Tampa Review Prize and a Lambda Literary Award, and Underwater Lengths in a Single Breath (2007). His poems have appeared in many venues including New England Review, Paris Review, Southwest Review, and the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. Space Travelor, his third collection, will be published in 2013.

Dave King holds a BFA in painting and film from Cooper Union and an MFA in writing from Columbia University; he taught English at Baruch College and Cultural Studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York before moving to New York University’s Gallatin School of Interdisciplinary Studies. Of his bestselling debut novel, The New York Times Book Review wrote, “The Ha-Ha is full of emotional truth and establishes King as a writer of consequence.” The Ha-Ha was a finalist for Book of the Month Club’s best Literary Fiction Award and the Quill Foundation’s award for Best Debut Fiction and was named one of the best books of 2005 by The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Amazon.com’s Best Books of 2005. Several foreign language editions are in print, and a film version was optioned by Warner Brothers Pictures. In addition, The Ha-Ha earned Dave King the 2006 John Guare Writers Fund Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
King’s poems and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, The Village Voice and Big City Lit, and in the Italian literary journal Nuovi Argomenti. He divides his time between Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley of New York. He is a translator of the Italian poet Massimo Gezzi, and a new novel, tentatively entitled The Beast and Beauty, is forthcoming.

Michael Klein has written three books of poetry, the most recent of which is “The Talking Day” (Sibling Rivalry Press). His first book, “1990” (Provincetown Arts Press) tied with James Schuyler to win a Lambda Literary Award in 1993. He is also the author of a memoir, “Track Conditions”, a Lambda finalist and “The End of Being Known” a book of linked essays about sex and friendship, both published by the University of Wisconsin Press. His poetry, essays and interviews with poets have been published in American Poetry Review, Provincetown Arts, Court Green, New England Review, Ploughshares , Tin House, Fence, Poets & Writers and many other publications. His collection of lyric essays, “States of Independence” won the inaugural BLOOM Chapbook prize judged by Rigoberto Gonzalez and he received a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he also taught poetry and memoir in their summer program for 15 years. He has also taught writing at Sarah Lawrence College, Binghamton University, Manhattanville and, since 1994, in the MFA Program at Goddard College, in Vermont. He lives in New York and Provincetown.

Brian Leung’s short story collection World Famous Love Acts won the Asian American Literary Award in 2005 and the Mary McCarthy Award for Short Fiction in 2002. He has published two novels Lost Men (Three Rivers Press) and Take Me Home (Harper Collins). Brian’s fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in Story, Crazyhorse, Grain, Gulf Coast, Kinesis, The Barcelona Review, The Bellingham Review, Blithe House Quarterly, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, and in the short story anthology The Habit of Art. He is also the coauthor of the nonfiction humor title Not Another Feel Good Singles Book. Since 2000, Brian has taught in Cincinnati and Los Angeles, and now in Louisville, where he is an Associate Professor at the University of Louisville. The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, Brian earned his B.A. and MA. at California State University, and an M.F.A from Indiana University.

Paul Lisicky is the author of Lawnboy (1999), Famous Builder (2002), The Burning House (2011) and Unbuilt Projects (2012). His recent work appears in Fence, Tin House, The Iowa Review, The Rumpus, Story Quarterly and elsewhere. He has taught in the writing programs at Cornell University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He is currently the New Voices Professor at Rutgers University. A memoir, The Narrow Door, is forthcoming in 2014.

Timothy Liu has three new books forthcoming: Kingdom Come: A Novel (Talisman House, 2013), Don’t Go Back To Sleep: Poems (Saturnalia Books, 2014) and Let It Ride: Poems (Station Hill, 2015). He lives in Manhattan with his husband.

Charles Rice-Gonzalez is a writer, LGBT activist and the co-founder and executive director of BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. His debut novel Chulito (Magnus Books) has received several awards including a 2013 Stonewall Book Awards – Barbara Gittings Literature Award Honor from the American Library Association. He co-edited, From Macho To Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction with Charlie Vazquez and his work has appeared in several anthologies including Love, Christopher Street, Ambientes: New Gay Latino Writing also released by University of Wisconsin Press and Who’s Yer Daddy. His award-winning play, I Just Love Andy Gibb, will be published Blacktino Queer Performance: A Critical Anthology co-edited by E. Patrick Johnson and Ramón H. Rivera-Servera. University of Michigan Press.

Ellery Washington teaches fiction and creative nonfiction at the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of Buffulo, a novel, forthcoming from Creston Books. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Ploughshares, The International Review, The Frankfurter Allgemeine, The Berkeley Fiction Review, Out Magazine, the National Bestseller State by State—A Panoramic Portrait of America, and numerous literary journals and anthologies. As a screenwriter and script consultant, his credits include work with Paramount Pictures, Tristar and Fox Searchlight, as well as a wide variety of independent directors and producers. He is the recipient of a PEN Center West Rosenthal Emerging Voices Fellowship and the IBWA Prize for short fiction. He currently divides his time between Oakland, CA, and New York.

Opening reception for Seconds, an exhibition of photographs by Alesia Exum
2013-04-04 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Seconds is an exhibition by New York based photographer Alesia Exum. The exhibition runs from April 4-April 28.
In these instant portraits, Alesia captures a private moment in a public place, showing a quiet beauty amidst the chaos.
Alesia Exum is a New York based artist. Her working method is interdisciplinary and recent projects take the form of photographic, text, lighting installations, super 8 film, sound sculptures, curating and collaborating. She is creative director and co-founder of Strange Loop Gallery, New York City.
Her photographs have been published in numerous magazines, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, US News & World Report, New York, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Exit, PDN. She has received commissions for projects with Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, Adidas, Kodak, Nike, MTV, Sony, Columbia, Atlantic Records, Warner Brothers, Knopf, Random House, Penguin.
Select group exhibitions: Jack Tilton Gallery, New York; Wessel O’Connor Gallery, New York; Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York; Aperture Gallery, New York; New York Art Directors Club

Last day of Alice O'Malley: Kenny Kenny 13
2013-03-31 20:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
March 31 is the final day of the exhibition KENNY KENNY 13, photographs of Kenny Kenny by Alice O’Malley curated by Claire Fleury and Alesia Exum of Strange Loop Gallery.
Alice O’Malley lives and works in New York City. Her photographs have appeared in various publications including Art in America, I-D Magazine, Flash Art and New York Times Magazine. O’Malley’s first monograph, Community of Elsewheres, was published by Isis Editions in 2008 in conjunction with a solo exhibition by the same name.
She has exhibited at AIR, Participant, ICP and PS1, and other galleries in NYC.
Alice O’Malley on Kenny Kenny:
“Kenny Kenny assisted Leigh Bowery in London in the early eighties and he is a legendary stylist in his own right.
Like Bowery, his body is his palette. He also hosts the best nights in New York City. We did a series of portraits called ’13 looks’…a study of Kenny Kenny in his many guises.”

David McConnell Reading & in Conversation with Zachary Pace & Lonely Christopher
2013-03-31 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
David McConnell will be reading from his new book, American Honor Killings: Desire and Rage Among Men. He will be joined in conversation by Zachary Pace and Lonely Christopher.
—
In American Honor Killings, straight and gay guys cross paths, and the result is murder. But what really happened? What role did hatred play? What about bullying and abuse? What were the men involved really like, and what was going on between them when the murder occurred? American Honor Killings explores the truth behind squeamish reporting and uninformed political rants of the far right or fringe left. David McConnell, a New York-based novelist, researched cases from small-town Alabama to San Quentin’s death row. The book recounts some of the most notorious crimes of our era.
Beginning in 1999 and lasting until last year’s conviction of a youth in Queens, New York, the book shows how some murderers think they’re cleaning up society. Surprisingly, other killings feel almost preordained, not a matter of the victim’s personality or actions so much as a twisted display of a young man’s will to compete or dominate. We want to think these stories involve simple sexual conflict, either the killer’s internal struggle over his own identity or a fatally miscalculated proposition. They’re almost never that simple.
Together, the cases form a secret American history of rage and desire. McConnell cuts through cant and political special pleading to turn these cases into enduring literature. In each story, victims, murderers, friends, and relatives come breathtakingly alive. The result is more soulful, more sensitive, more artful than the sort of “true crime” writing the book was modeled on. A wealth of new detail has been woven into old cases, while new cases are plumbed for the first time. The resulting stories play out exactly as they happened, an inexorable sequence of events—grisly, touching, disturbing, sometimes even with moments of levity.
—
DAVID McCONNELL is the author of the acclaimed novels The Silver Hearted (a finalist for Lambda and Ferro-Grumley awards) and Firebrat. His short fiction and journalism have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including the Literary Review (UK), Granta, and Prospect magazine (UK). He is the former cochair of the Lambda Literary Foundation, and lives in New York City.
ZACHARY PACE works at Grove/Atlantic and lives in Brooklyn.
LONELY CHRISTOPHER is the author of the short story collection The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse. He wrote and directed the forthcoming film MOM and lives in Brooklyn.

BAD GRAMMAR Zine reading
2013-03-28 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Taking its name from assumptions and stereotypes of inarticulacy surrounding Black English and culture, BAD GRAMMAR Zine provides a platform for queer artists of color to document and discuss the artwork of their peers on their own terms, with their own language and in relation to their own culture. Started by Yulan Grant, Justin Allen, and Brandon Owens as an in-house publication to accompany gallery shows at Culturefix bar and gallery in the Lower East Side, the zine is looking to branch out beyond the boundaries of the downtown NYC art world, publishing online and providing a limited edition of print copies of three of its issues at the zine’s showcase. The event will feature a reading of an interview from one of the issues by Justin Allen, a DJ Session by Brandon Owens, and Projections by Yulan Grant.
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Queer Playwrights Collective: Short Plays by Local Queer Playwrights
2013-03-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Queer Playwrights Collective presents a handful of 10-minute plays by Local Queer Playwrights. Organized by photographer and writer Jeffrey James Keyes.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT WILL BEGIN PROMPTLY AT 7 PM.
Works by the following playwrights will be presented:
Clarence Coo
Thirza Defoe
Paul Hagen
Jeffrey James Keyes
David Koteles
Mariah MacCarthy
Christopher Oscar Peña
Rob Rosiello
Actors:

Jody Christopherson
Matt W. Cody
Jon Cooper
Sanam Erfani
Andrew Glaszek
Yeauxlanda Kay
Joshua Levine
Libby Winters

Filip Noterdaeme presents his new book The Autobiography of Daniel J. Isengart, with Penny Arcade
2013-03-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Filip Noterdaeme reads from his new book The Autobiography of Daniel J. Isengart
This conceptual memoir written in the style of Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, was published in March 2013 by Outpost19.

Filip Noterdaeme is the founder and director of the Homeless Museum of Art (HOMU), a pastiche of the contemporary art museum. He lives in New York City, where he teaches art history at the New School and CUNY, gives gallery lectures at the Guggenheim Museum, and writes a blog about art for The Huffington Post.
https://www.outpost19.com/Autobiography/index.html
https://www.homelessmuseum.org/
Penny Arcade reads from her forward to The Autobiography of Daniel J. Isengart and from her book Bad Reputation:
Performances, Essays, Interviews

Penny Arcade aka Susana Ventura is an internationally respected writer,poet, actress, director and one of the handful of artists who created and continue to define Performance Art for nearly three decades. Her unique voice and magnetic stage presence have given her mainstream career recognition far beyond America’s shores, from Brazil to Austria, Australia to Britain to Mexico.
Penny Arcade debuted with John Vaccaro’s explosive Playhouse of The Ridiculous at 18 years , and was a Warhol Factory superstar at 19, featured in the Warhol film Women In Revolt, available on DVD .
With an artistic career spanning 40 years, Penny Arcade occupies a unique position in the American counter-culture and the American Avant-Garde. HM Koutoukas referred to her as “The Little Sister of The Avant-garde” because of her long association with the architects of the American counter culture including Andy Warhol, Charles Henri Ford, John Vaccaro, Judith Malina, Ellen Stewart, Jackie Curtis, HM Koutukas, Taylor Mead, Jonas Mekas, Jack Smith, Harry Smith, Tom O’Horgan, Charles Ludlam, among others.
Penny Arcade’s work has long focused on the other and the outsider, giving voice to those marginalized by society and her decades long focus on the creation of community and inclusion as the goals of performance. Her efforts to use performance as a transformative act mark her as a true original in American theatre and performance art. Many of her theatrical innovations have passed into the mainstream of both American and international theatre and performance.
In 1991 Quentin Crisp identified Ms Arcade as his soul mate and anima figure , the woman he most identified with and their friendship became professional and they presented performances together for close to a decade.
Her highly praised, award winning documentary project The LES Bio Project, “Stemming The Tide Of Cultural Amnesia” which she co-creates with long time collaborator video producer Steve Zehentner has been broadcasted weekly in NY since 1999 every Wednesday at 11pm on Ch 34 Time /Warner and RCN 112 and cybercasts each wed at 10:30 at www.mnn.org
Visit www.pennyarcde.tv , pennyarcadesuperstar FB
Twitter pennyarcadenyc

Queer Division III: celebrating the release of Rachel Levitsky's new book, The Story of My Accident Is Ours, just out from Futurepoem
2013-03-21 07:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Andrew Durbin presents Queer Division III: celebrating the release of Rachel Levitsky‘s new book, The Story of My Accident Is Ours, just out from Futurepoem
+ + + READERS + + +

Besides her first novel, brand spanking newly out from Futurepoem, and called The Story of My Accident is Ours, Rachel Levitsky is the author of two previous books called poetry, Under the Sun (Futurepoem, 2003) NEIGHBOR (UDP, 2009). She is the founder of the feminist avant-garde network, Belladonna* Collaborative. In 2010 with Christian Hawkey, she started The Office of Recuperative Strategies (OoRS.net), a mobile research unit variously located in Amsterdam, Berlin, Boulder, Brooklyn, Cambridge, NYC and the Universität Leipzig in Leipzig. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Pratt Institute.

erica kaufman is the author of censory impulse (Factory School 2009) as well as several chapbooks. her most recent project is called INSTANT CLASSIC. she lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Baruch College and the Institute for Writing & Thinking at Bard College.

Michelle Betters is a poet living in Brooklyn. She’s a student at Pratt Institute where she curates Ubiquitous, the literary and arts magazine. Since moving here from Georgia in 2010, she’s been involved in various projects with OWS, the Office of Recuperative Strategies, and Jennifer Miller’s Circus Amok. Her most recent project was a chapbook entitled OCD the Vampire Slayer, which Joss Whedon has yet to respond to despite the multiple copies she’s sent to him.

In the Flesh monthly reading: Transitional Life
2013-03-16 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The queer online zine In the Flesh returns to the Bureau for its fifth consecutive monthly reading at the Bureau!

Transitional Life
Maybe you’ve just moved to a new city and are staying with your cousin in his one bedroom at the exact moment that he and his girlfriend are trying to get pregnant and you are frequently asked to leave the apartment because she is ovulating. “No problem. So, I’ll just step out for a half hour or so?”
Or perhaps you’ve started a temp job in Midtown and find yourself staring into a bowl of beernuts at PJ Moran’s with your co-workers, seriously considering going home with Awkward John, just to confirm your lesbianhood once and for all.
OR Maybe you finally worked up the nerve to wear those new stockings and short skirt out in public, and you notice there is a tiny hole in the stockings and how could that be possible because you just bought them so you are too busy being upset about that damn hole and how it could have gotten there to be nervous about whether you pass or not.
It’s a tricky business starting something new, and the force of change often pushes us into bed with strange fellows. Sometimes literally. The phrase “How did I get here” was made for such times, and at this month’s ITF you will hear ALL about those sweaty moments that helped our readers get them to where they are.
Readings will begin PROMPTLY at 7:30, so be sure to arrive early to grab a drink and find yourself a seat next to that special someone.
READERS:
Ariel “Speedwagon” Federow– is a performer whose work has been seen on Broadway, Lafayette, Chrystie, East 4th Street, Fulton, Vanderbilt, and other streets and avenues around New York City. She blogs for dapperQ.com and Velvet Park, was once Miss Jew-S-A, spent her youth as a ballerina, and can be tracked down at https://www.arielspeedwagon.com/.
Hana Malia
Aldrin Valdez– is an artist and writer who grew up in Manila and Long Island. He studied painting and writing at Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts. Aldrin’s writing has been published in Art:21 Blog, The Brooklyn Rail, BRIC Contemporary Art, Art Slant, and In the Flesh. He is a 2011-2012 Queer/Art/Mentorship fellow. Along with artist Ted Kerr, he organizes Foundational Sharing, a salon of performances, readings, and visual art. www.aldrinaldrin.com

Readings by Martin Hyatt, Luis Jaramillo, and Andrew Zornoza
2013-03-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Meet three of NYC’s freshest, most buzzed about, original literary voices when Martin Hyatt, Luis Jaramillo, and Andrew Zornoza take the stage at the Bureau to share their latest work.

Martin Hyatt is the recipient of an Edward F. Albee Writing Fellowship and The New School Chapbook Award for fiction. His debut novel, A Scarecrow’s Bible, was published May 2006. It was named a Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association and won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. In addition, it was nominated for the Ferro-Grumley Award, a Lamda Literary Award, and the Violet Quill Award. He was named a “Star of Tomorrow” by NY Magazine. His new novel, Beautiful Gravity, is forthcoming. He is also currently completing a memoir entitled Greyhound Boy, 1976. His work has appeared in several award-winning anthologies. He has taught writing at such places at Hofstra, Parsons, and St. Francis College. He is currently Associate Professor and Founding Coordinator of The Writing Center at ASA College in NYC.

Luis Jaramillo is the author of The Doctor’s Wife, winner of the Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Contest, an Oprah Book of the Week, and one of NPR’s Best Books of 2012. Luis’s work has also appeared in Open City, Gamers (Soft Skull Press), and Tin House Magazine. He is the Associate Chair of the Writing Program at the New School, where he teaches courses in fiction and nonfiction, and is co-editor of the journal The Inquisitive Eater: New School Food.

Andrew Zornoza is the author of the novel Where I Stay. His short fiction, essays and photography have appeared in BOMB, the Poetry Foundation, Gastronomica, Sleepingfish, and CapGun, among many others. He has taught at Gotham Writers’ Workshop and in Parsons Design & Technology MFA program. Born in Houston, Texas, he currently works out of New York City.

Cynthia Carr reads from Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz
2013-03-14 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Cynthia Carr was a columnist and arts reporter for the Village Voice from 1984 to 2003. Writing under the byline C. Carr, she specialized in experimental and cutting-edge art, especially performance art. Some of these pieces are now collected in On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century. She is also the author of Our Town: A Heartland Lynching, a Haunted Town, and the Hidden History of White America. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Artforum, Bookforum, Modern Painters, the Drama Review, and other publications. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007. Carr lives in New York.

About Fire in the Belly
David Wojnarowicz was an abused child, a teen runaway who barely finished high school, but he emerged as one of the most important voices of his generation. He found his tribe in New York’s East Village, a neighborhood noted in the 1970s and ’80s for drugs, blight, and a burgeoning art scene. His creativity spilled out in paintings, photographs, films, texts, installations, and in his life and its recounting—creating a sort of mythos around himself. His circle of East Village artists moved into the national spotlight just as the AIDS plague began its devastating advance, and as right-wing culture warriors reared their heads. As Wojnarowicz’s reputation as an artist grew, so did his reputation as an agitator—because he dealt so openly with his homosexuality, so angrily with his circumstances as a Person With AIDS, and so fiercely with his would-be censors.Fire in the Belly is the untold story of a polarizing figure at a pivotal moment in American culture—and one of the most highly acclaimed biographies of the year.

Reviews

“12 Best Books of 2012” – Newsday

“10 Favorite Books of 2012” – Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Carr’s biography is both sympathetic and compendious; it’s also a many-angled account of the downtown art world of the 1980s . . . [Carr] has seized upon a vivid and peculiarly American story.” – Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Heartbreaking and unflinchingly honest. Carr has managed to create not only an essential biography but required reading for anyone interested in the ‘80s art world” – Christopher Bollen, Interview

“A vivid portrait of the artist as a young man . . . It’s no surprise that Carr writes perceptively about Wojnarowicz’s art and the era’s ‘culture wars.’ But she also is exceptionally good at fleshing out her subject as a person . . . Carr has resurrected him . . . fully and hauntingly.” – Tom Beer, Newsday

“A beautifully written, sympathetic, unsentimental portrait of one of the most lastingly influential late 20th century New York artists.” – Chris Kraus, Los Angeles Times

Contributors to The Letter Q: Queer Writers' Notes to Their Younger Selves
2013-03-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Readings by contributors to The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to Their Younger Selves, edited by Sarah Moon.

Confirmed readers:
Sarah Moon is a teacher, writer, and translator. She is a graduate of Smith College and Columbia University. She teaches at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn.
James Lecesne is an actor, writer, and activist. His Academy-Award winning short film, Trevor, inspired the founding o the The Trevor Project. In addition to his career as an actor, he has written for TV and he performed several of his own one-man shows, including Word of Mouth, which won a New York Drama Desk Award.
An essaysit and reporter, Paula Gilovich has contributed to the New York Times, Allure, and the Stranger. Her plays include Le Roy, Le Roy, Le Roy; Water to Breathe; and Queertopia. At About Face Theatre, she worked as a writer and director for the creation of new main-stage and touring plays about the lives and experiences of queer youth.
Linda Villarosa runs the journalism program at the City College of New York in Harlem. Her novel Passing for Black was published in 2008.

Description of The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to Their Younger Selves

Life-saving letters from a glittering wishlist of top authors. If you received a letter from your older self, what do you think it would say? What do you wish it would say?

That the boy you were crushing on in History turns out to be gay too, and that you become boyfriends in college? That the bully who is making your life miserable will one day become so insignificant that you won’t remember his name until he shows up at your book signing?
In this anthology, sixty-four award-winning authors such as Michael Cunningham, Amy Bloom, Jacqueline Woodson, Gregory Maguire, David Levithan, and Armistead Maupin make imaginative journeys into their pasts, telling their younger selves what they would have liked to know then about their lives as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgendered people. Through stories, in pictures, with bracing honesty, these are words of love and understanding, reasons to hold on for the better future ahead. They will tell you things about your favorite authors that you never knew before. And they will tell you about yourself.

Poet Dean Kostos reads at the Bureau
2013-03-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Dean Kostos will read from his recent book of poetry, Rivering, and from a forthcoming book.
Dean Kostos’s collections include Rivering, Last Supper of the Senses, The Sentence That Ends with a Comma, and the chapbook Celestial Rust. He co-edited Mama’s Boy: Gay Men Write about Their Mothers (a Lambda Book Award finalist) and edited Pomegranate Seeds: An Anthology of Greek-American Poetry (its debut reading was held at the United Nations). His poems have appeared in over 300 journals and anthologies, such as Boulevard, Chelsea, Cimarron Review, The Cincinnati Review, Mediterranean Poetry (Sweden), Southwest Review, Stand Magazine (UK), Stranger at Home, Token Entry, Vanitas, Western Humanities Review, and on Oprah Winfrey’s Web site Oxygen.com. His choral text, Dialogue: Angel of War, Angel of Peace, was set to music by James Bassi and performed by Voices of Ascension. His literary criticism has appeared on the Harvard UP Web site, in Talisman, and elsewhere. He has taught at Wesleyan, The Gallatin School of NYU, The City University of New York, and he has served as literary judge for Columbia University’s Gold Crown Awards. A recipient of a Yaddo fellowship, he also serves on the editorial board of Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora. His poem “Subway Silk” was recently translated into a film by Canadian filmmaker Jill Clark.
Read Michael T. Young’s review of Rivering in Taos Journal of Poetry and Art.

Jillian McManemin and Rbt. Sps. hosted by Joseph Whitt
2013-03-09 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Jillian McManemin and Rbt. Sps.
An Evening of Recitation and Song
hosted by Joseph Whitt
Jillian McManemin (b.1989 Englewood, New Jersey) is a multimedia artist who utilizes spoken word, video, and performance. Her work investigates the emotional structure of specific, often colorful characters in an attempt to reveal the ubiquity of heartache within a society of desire and longing. She graduated with a BFA from Pratt Institute, and has presented work at Anthology Film Archives (NYC), Brooklyn Fireproof (Brooklyn, NY), and Glasslands (Brooklyn, NY). She also starred in a feature film called “The Cruel Tale of The Medicine Man” (2012) written and produced by “The Slipper Room”’s James Habacker and directed by Maria Beatty. She is currently co-creating a play and short film under the alias “The Honeymoon Heart Revival.”
Rbt. Sps. (b. 1984, Paducah, Kentucky) is a multimedia artist, writer and performer. As a lifelong resident of the Deep South, Sps.’s work deals predominately with rural eccentricities and extremes viewed through an autobiographical lens. His work has been featured in the Wiener Künstlerhaus (Vienna, Austria), P.P.O.W. Gallery (NYC), Interstate Projects (Brooklyn, NY), Antena Gallery (Chicago, Illinois), and Space 204 at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee). His video series, This New Sitcom, will be featured in NYC’s Moving Image Contemporary Art Video Fair, March 7-10, 2013.
During the evening, Sps. will be offering his zine “Selected Video Stills 2004-2012” (signed/numbered in an edition of 50) for sale.

Opening reception for Alice O'Malley: Kenny Kenny 13
2013-03-08 18:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
KENNY KENNY 13 is an exhibition of photographs of Kenny Kenny by Alice O’Malley curated by Claire Fleury and Alesia Exum of Strange Loop Gallery. Opening reception on Friday, March 8, 6-9 PM.
Alice O’Malley lives and works in New York City. Her photographs have appeared in various publications including Art in America, I-D Magazine, Flash Art and New York Times Magazine. O’Malley’s first monograph, Community of Elsewheres, was published by Isis Editions in 2008 in conjunction with a solo exhibition by the same name.
She has exhibited at AIR, Participant, ICP and PS1, and other galleries in NYC.
Alice O’Malley on Kenny Kenny:
“Kenny Kenny assisted Leigh Bowery in London in the early eighties and he is a legendary stylist in his own right.
Like Bowery, his body is his palette. He also hosts the best nights in New York City. We did a series of portraits called ’13 looks’…a study of Kenny Kenny in his many guises.”

Janis Joplin tribute: Travis Laughlin does Pearl
2013-03-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Travis Laughlin has been paying tribute to Janis Joplin as Pearl for over 20 years. Pearl debuted at a high school drag show in Ossipee, North Carolina and she hasn’t looked back! Since that stunning debut Pearl has performed in such venues as the Wayne Newton Theatre in Las Vegas, Snug Harbor in Charlotte, Joe’s Pub, and, of course, The Cock. Pearl is about celebrating the legacy of Janis Joplin and, in Janis’ words, inspiring people to “get off [their] butt[s] and feel things!”

Annie Lanzillotto reads from her new novel L Is for Lion
2013-03-02 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Annie Rachele Lanzillotto is the author of L IS FOR LION: AN ITALIAN BRONX BUTCH FREEDOM MEMOIR (SUNY Press 2013), and the book of poetry SCHISTSONG (Bordighera Press 2013). She is the songwriter and vocalist of the albums BLUE PILL (Annie Lanzillotto Band / StreetCry Productions) a rock and blues collaboration with Adeel Salman, ELEVEN RECITATIONS,(StreetCry), and CARRY MY COFFEE, (StreetCry), a duet with cellist Lori Goldston. Lanzillotto was born and raised in the Westchester Square neighborhood of the Bronx, and in Yonkers, New York, of Barese heritage. She received a B.A. with honors in medical anthropology from Brown University and an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poem Triple Bypass won the Italian American Writers Association Paolucci Award in Poetry, and was published in the 2002 anthology, THE MILK OF ALMONDS: ITALIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ON FOOD AND CULTURE, edited by Edvige Giunta and Louise DeSalvo. Her poems Manhattan Schist, and My Grandmother’s Hands both won Rose and John Petracca Awards second place from Philadelphia Poets. Lanzillotto made her acting debut in 1993 with her solo show, CONFESSIONS OF A BRONX TOMBOY: My Throwing Arm, This Useless Expertise at Under One Roof Theater and Manhattan Class Company in New York City. Lanzillotto received fellowships and performance commissions from New York Foundation For The Arts, Dancing In The Streets, Dixon Place, Franklin Furnace, The Rockefeller Foundation. Her shows include: Pocketing Garlic (Franklin Furnace), How to Wake Up a Marine in a Foxhole (The Kitchen), a’Schapett, at The Arthur Avenue Retail Market in the Bronx. (Dancing In The Streets, Rockefeller MAP Fund), The Flat Earth: Wheredddafhuck Did New York Go? (Dixon Place). Lanzillotto teaches master classes in solo performance for the Acting Apprentice Company at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and guest lectures in Theatre Outreach at Sarah Lawrence College.

Special Guest: Rose Imperato, saxophonist, clarinetist and painter, illustrated the drawings in L is for Lion and plays in the Annie Lanzillotto Band. Imperato is a labor activist and is on the executive board for Remember The Triangle Fire Coalition, dedicated to making a permanent memorial a reality in NYC for the victims of the Triangle Factory Fire. Imperato works at the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies.

Story Time with Que(e)ry Librarians
2013-03-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join the Que(e)ry Librarians for Story Time at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division!

Gather around and hear queer literature for children and young adults, read by librarians and authors (to be announced), enjoy some kool-aid and animal crackers beer and wine, and browse the bookstore! RSVP on Facebook
Que(e)ry’s goals are:

to provide a safe and fun social space and to encourage community among queer information professionals and their friends and allies;
to raise financial support and awareness for queer libraries, archives and museums;
to celebrate and encourage diverse representations and contributions of queer people in the cultural record and in the information professions;
to demystify and challenge stereotypes about libraries and librarians;
to demonstrate the relevance and accessibility of library collections and services to queer communities;
to highlight information philosophy and policy issues affecting queer communities and collections, such as censorship, bias, terminology, equal access, freedom of expression, obscenity, and privacy.

Bushwick Book Club performs songs inspired by Mx. Justin Vivian Bond's Tango
2013-02-28 20:00 - 22:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Mx. Justin Vivian Bond’s Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in Heels serves as the inspiration for the original songs that the Bushwick Book Club performers will debut at the Bureau on Thursday, February 28, at 8 PM.
The Bushwick Book Club is a series of new music inspired by literature. Each month, local songwriters plumb the depths and scrape the ends of a chosen literary gem to create that rare and beautiful thing – a new song. All songs are then displayed, spread wide, in one hour. It’s an hour-long orgy of book-related songs and book-inspired food and drink. If that doesn’t sound indulgent enough, I don’t want to know you, you sick, sick bastard.
bushwickbookclub.com
bushwickbookclub.bandcamp.com

Featuring performances by Susan Hwang, Ellia Bisker, Natti Vogel, Dan Fishback, Justin Vahala, Stacy Rock, Davi Cohen, Santiago Venegas, Hilary Downes, and Jonathan Wood Vincent.
SUSAN HWANG is a New York performer, musician and songwriter. She performs her original music as a solo artist as well as with her band The Relastics. She’s also one third of New York’s favorite accordion/cello/bari-ukelele power trio, The Debutante Hour. Susan founded, curates and hosts The Bushwick Book Club – a monthly series of new music inspired by literature. For more information and performance calendar, visit susanhwanglalala.com.

Ellia Bisker is a songwriter who fronts the indie-rock-meets-cabaret band Sweet Soubrette and performs in the duo Charming Disaster. She also sings backup with Stacy Rock, co-hosts the Super Fun Variety Show (coming up at the Living Theatre on Feb 24), and works behind the scenes at the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. She is currently working on Sweet Soubrette’s third album, and is writing or recording a new song every day this month for Fun-A-Day.

Natti Vogel – Combining “the swagger of Jim Morrison with the honky-tonk piano of an old-timey saloon” (WeLiveInBeijing.com), 25-year-old “indie rock fusion virtuoso” (New York Press) Natti Vogel is not above “throwing your own overpriced cosmopolitan in your face from behind his piano” (the Onion). Possible side effects include re-evaluation of music and your self (“Natti Vogel is an artist who can transform you” – Diane Taha of Associated Content, “Natti Vogel and his band do a wild part-vaudeville, part-pop, part-classical act that made me think about what music does” -the Brothers Frank).

Photo by Allison Michael OrensteinDan Fishback‘s major theatrical works include The Material World (2012), thirtynothing (2011) and You Will Experience Silence (2009), all directed by Stephen Brackett at Dixon Place. Time Out New York called The Material World “the best downtown musical” in years, and named it one of the top ten plays of 2013. Fishback curates and hosts the queer theater series La MaMa’s SQUIRTS. As a singer-songwriter, and with his band Cheese On Bread, he has toured internationally and released five albums, including his latest, The Mammal Years (2012). Fishback is currently an artist-in-residence at Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania.

Hailing from the bright lights of Dallas, Justin Vahala is a Brooklyn-based musician and performance artist. Justin’s unicorn folk is a blend of country, Americana, and straight up Lilith Fair realness. For links to Justin’s music, upcoming shows, and innermost thoughts, check out his website: www.justinvahala.com.

Stacy Rock has toured the country several times playing hundreds of shows in support of her debut album, One Way Home. She has been compared to a baffling variety of artists including Tom Waits, Feist, Jeff Buckley, Regina Spektor, Aimee Mann, Stevie Nicks and even Queen. Gabriel Levitt of Brooklyn’s Jezebel Music wrote that her live performances are “unequivocally enchanting”. She is a two time award winner of the AscapPlus Award for accomplishments as a songwriter and was the resident piano player at NYC’s Monkey Bar for two years. She recently fan funded an EP through the great platform of Kickstarter. It is currently being mastered and soon to be released. Also an actress, Stacy has appeared in numerous theatrical production through out the United States. She was a principle player in the cult film hit Murder Party and recently wrapped a film with Eve Plumb called Blue Ruin. www.stacyrock.com

Davi Cohen is a Bushwick-based actor, singer, dancer, writer, producer. She’s performed in some large venues with Taylor Mac and the SITI Company, donned head-to-toe fetish wear as a mime/acrobat for the San Francisco Opera, and given birth to a live lobster by self-caesarean on a very tiny stage in Ditmas Park. She also helps organize the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History and is a founder of the New York Abortion Access Fund.

Santiago Venegas is a singer, songwriter and performer from Bogota, Colombia He has performed previously in Erin Markey’s Puppy Love: A Stripper’s Tail (P.S 122, 2010), Justin Vivian Bond’s Re:Galli Blonde (A Sissy Fix) (The Kitchen, 2010) and most recently in Viva Ruiz’s Immigrantula (Moma PS1 2011). Santiago studied Fashion Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He enjoys knitting, crocheting, stressing about environmental deterioration, and immigrant’s rights!

A native of Portland, Oregon, Hilary Downes knows how to ‘just put a bird on it.’ Hilary successfully integrated front lawn dance performances, piano recitals and auditions for high school musicals with her long-time residence in New York City, and allowed her love of music to reign. To date, Hilary has co-written and recorded three albums with Brooklyn stalwarts, The Snow, and continues to perform with them live. In addition to regular gigs in the New York area, The Snow have also performed in Los Angeles, Scandinavia and Russia.   C. Gibbs, Les Bandits and Bad Reputation are among the other artists Hilary collaborates with – sometimes as volunteers at the New York Methodist Hospital. Hilary is a writer, world traveler, multi-linguist, and a practitioner and teacher of both yoga and martial arts.

Jonathan Wood Vincent is a composer/pianist/singer who straddles chaos and order, confusion and calculation, imagination and sensation, art and torture, dream and sleep. Listen to more at jonathanwoodvincent.bandcamp.com

Queer Lives in Print: A Memoir-writing workshop
2013-02-26 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The instructor’s goal is to collect enough pieces over a year or so to include in an anthology to be published be Queer Street Books, Inc. Participants will need to bring pen and paper or an electronic device on which they can write. About the instructor: Hal W. Lanse, PhD is an author, educator and literacy coach. His education book Read Well, Think Well (Adams Media) was hot-listed on Amazon.com. His book The Rainbow Curriculum (Queer Street Books) is designed for educators who want to teach queer history to adolescents.

Samantha Box in conversation
2013-02-25 20:00 - 22:00 | NY
Photographer Samantha Box will discuss her photographs with Alexis Heller. Box’s exhibition Invisible, currently on view, is presented by Strange Loop Gallery and the Bureau of General Services–Queer Division.
Since 2005, Samantha Box has dedicated herself to documenting New York City’s community of homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth.
Her on-going project, INVISIBLE, has been recognized by the Anthropographia Award for Photography and Human Rights, EN FOCO, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. It has been widely exhibited, most notably, in 2010 at The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, NY, and in 2011 as part of the Open Society Institute’s “Moving Walls #18” exhibition. INVISIBLE is fiscally sponsored by the Blue Earth Alliance; images from this project are part of EN FOCO’s permanent collection.
INVISIBLE has been featured on The Raw File, 100eyes Magazine, and on TIME magazine’s LightBox blog.
Samantha was born in Kingston, Jamaica, was raised in Edison, New Jersey and is now based in Brooklyn, New York.

Alexis Heller is a social worker, storyteller and advocate who has worked to empower LGBTQ youth in settings such as foster care, shelters, drop-in centers and schools. She is currently the founder/director of The Hear Me ROAR! Project and Coalition for Queer Youth, and is curating an LGBTQ homeless youth focused exhibition at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art this July.
Please note that the Bureau is closed on Mondays. We will open at 7 PM for this event, which will begin at 8 PM.

Queer Division: Readings by Max Steele, Sophia Le Fraga, and Julian Talamantez Brolaski
2013-02-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
QUEER DIVISION is a reading series of queer writers who queer writing to engage all things pretty, ugly, and in-between hosted by Andrew Durbin at the Bureau of General Services–Queer Division.

Photograph by Amos Mac

Max Steele is a performer and writer. He has presented work at the New Museum, Rapture Cafe, Deitch Projects, Envoy Enterprises, and the Queens Museum of Art. He writes the psychedelic porno poetry zine Scorcher, and is an Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange.

Sophia Le Fraga‘s poetry has appeared in Lambda Literary Review’s Poetry Spotlight, The Broome Street Review, and Lemon Hound, among other publications. It has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and the Corcoran Gallery, and in 2011, her Whitman erasure Song of Me and Myself was shown throughout Berlin. Her chapbook I DON’T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE INTERNET (Keep This Bag Away From Children) was exhibited in Valle Ortí’s Online/Offline: Encoding Everyday Life show in Valencia, Spain. Her collection, I RL, YOU RL is forthcoming.

Julian Talamantez Brolaski is the author of Advice for Lovers (City Lights 2012), gowanus atropolis (Ugly Duckling Presse 2011) and co-editor of NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards (Litmus Press / Belladonna Books 2009). Julian lives in Brooklyn where xe is an editor at Litmus Press and plays country music with Juan & the Pines (www.reverbnation.com/juanandthepines). New work is on the blog hermofwarsaw.

Andrew Durbin co-edits Wonder, a publisher of art books, ephemera, pamphlets, and glossies. He is the author of the chapbook Reveler (Argos Books, forthcoming January 2013). His writings have appeared (or are forthcoming) in the Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Conjunctions, Maggy, and elsewhere. He is an associate editor of Conjunctions, and lives in New York City.

Artemis Smith (Annselm Morpurgo) at 5 PM, Queer Division: Readings by Max Steele, Sophia Le Fraga, and Julian Talamantez Brolaski at 7 PM
2013-02-24 17:00 - 18:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
5 PM: Artemis Smith (Annselm Morpurgo), author, activist, futurist, artist, poet, and playwright, will read from her pre-Stonewall lesbian pulp fiction classic novels, archival reprints, and newer fiction at BGDQD bookstore 2/24/13 at 5pm. This will be Artemis Smith’s first public reading since 1973.
Artemis Smith is best remembered for her historic lesbian pulp fiction novels but started publishing gay fiction in ONE Magazine in the early 1950s. A pioneering activist, she was elected vice president at the first meeting of Mattachine Society of New York and introduced the slogan “Come out of the Closet” at the 1968 ECHO meeting.
7 PM: Queer Division: Readings by Max Steele, Sophia Le Fraga, and Julian Talamantez Brolaski

Readings by Laury Egan and Shelley Marlow--Musical performance by Scott Matthew
2013-02-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Laury A. Egan is the author of a collection, Fog and Other Stories, (May 2012, StoneGarden.net Publishing) and a psychological suspense novel set in Venice, Jenny Kidd (Vagabondage Press), from which she will read. Her two poetry collections, Snow, Shadows, a Stranger and Beneath the Lion’s Paw, were issued by FootHills Publishing. Her work has received nominations for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Web, Best of the Net, and has appeared in over 35 literary journals. Web site:https://www.lauryaegan.com/

Shelley Marlow is an artist and writer. Marlow’s latest manuscript Two Augusts in a Row in a Row, from which she will read, blends new magic with a story about gender identity, with Phillip, born Philomena, in search of love, in 2001. Marlow’s novella, Lesbians of Arabia, is set in an imagined feminist world, circa 1990.
Marlow’s nonfiction essay, Notes in Kyzyl, about a trip to meet shamans in Siberia, appears in the St. Petersburg Review,https://drupal.stpetersburgreview.com/drupal/?q=issue3. Marlow’s visual art was recently shown at Valentine Gallery, and published in Drunken Boat issue # 16; LTTR journal; The Literary Review; and Zingmagazine.

Scott Matthew
“For some it seems a mistake, for me it’s a way of life.”
It’s a lyric from Aussie-born New Yorker, Scott Matthew’s new album, which also tells the story of Matthews’ own journey. In a nutshell, it’s a life of tragically beautiful music, brimming with longing for a sanctuary; a place to wait for a love that will surely come some day.
For this bearded angel – whom Rolling Stone mag aptly likens to Antony Hegarty and androgynous-era Bowie – writing and recording third solo album, Gallantry’s Favorite Son, was the time “I came to terms with myself”. The result is a more confident, self-assured Matthew tackling issues like bigotry, intolerance and afterlives. With confidence comes joy too, so in first single “The Wonder Of Falling In Love” we find Matthew dancing in a more playful pop playground reminiscent of 2009’s “Thistle.” Together with newie “Felicty,” Matthew weaves connectors between Scott Walker and Devendra Banhart; Council-era Paul Weller and Burt Bacharach’s lush string pop.
But that doesn’t mean the goose bumps have diminished. Matthew’s emotive quiver still “cuts like lovingly administered razors” [Sydney Morning Herald]. In haunting new songs like “Sinking,” “Buried Alive” and “Black Bird,” the man whose worldwide mustering of hearts in queer-comedy-drama Shortbus [director John Cameron Mitchell’s follow-up to Hedwig & The Angry Inch] continues stealing breath. Administering to the listener’s innermost core, he offers an elixir of dark cabaret, restorative folk and gently caressing ballads.
It’s little wonder Rhythms Mag called Matthew’s last album “Mesmerizing,” while “Extremely Beautiful,” “Heartbreaking,” “Brilliant, Stunning, Haunting,” “Hypnotizing… Gorgeous… Heart-melting… Captivating” are just some descriptors proffered in other reviews.
By now it’s clear Matthew’s emotional investment in songs is huge: Matthew and the listener – it’s a heart to heart exchange. This may be more apparent now, than his earlier outings as a Brizzy punk protégé, or in first band Elva Snow with ex-Morrissey man Spencer Cobrin, but as we said at the start, it’s a lifetime’s work, a journey of commitment. “When friendship becomes family, it helps me with the mystery” sings Matthew. His music is like a diary whose secrets are shared with an intimate circle of friends. Welcome to the circle.

Comedians Paul Hallasy, Sandy Ehlers, and Alex Batcha perform at the Bureau
2013-02-22 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Paul Hallasy is a New York City-based comedian, writer, actor and singer. He performs regularly in New York City and has performed at clubs and colleges across the United States and around the world. A favorite of both gay and straight audiences, he was recently named one of “7 Funny LGBT Comics You Shouldn’t Have Missed” by The Advocate and has given gay travel advice to the travel web site Gridskipper. He has also appeared on such TV shows as the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s “Connect with Mark Kelley” and is the author of a book called New York Trilogy.
Sandy Ehlers is brassy, sassy and gassy with an upcoming one-woman show of the same name and just like baseball and Sinatra she hails from the one square mile of Hoboken, NJ. Please give it up for Sandy Ehlers.
Born and raised on a horse farm in New Jersey, or as he calls it, The Italian Section of Kentucky, Alex Batcha brings his unique experiences and point of view to the stage. He can be found performing all over New York City and the tri-state area, and is a regular on weekly radio show Watson and Watson.

Sassafras Lowrey reads from hir novel Roving Pack
2013-02-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
In conjunction with Samantha Box’s exhibition of photographs of homeless queer youth in NYC, Invisible, Sassafras Lowrey will read from hir novel Roving Pack.
Sassafras Lowrey is an internationally award-winning author, artist, and educator. Sassafras is the editor of the two time American Library Association honored, and Lambda Literary Finalist Kicked Out anthology (www.KickedOutAnthology.com), which brought together the voices of current and former homeless LGBTQ youth. Sassafras’ highly anticipated American Library Association honored debut novel Roving Pack (www.RovingPack.com) was released in autumn 2012. Roving Pack is set in an underground world of homeless queer teens searching for community, identity and connection amidst chaos. Sassafras is also the editor of Leather Ever After an anthology of BDSM fairy tale retellings to be released in early 2013. Sassafras regularly lectures and facilitates LGBTQ storytelling workshops at homeless shelters, colleges, conferences and community groups across the country and believes in the transformative power of storytelling for marginalized queer communities. Sassafras lives in Brooklyn with hir family. To learn more about Sassafras and hir work, visit www.SassafrasLowrey.com
Roving Pack
Called “Political, raucous, dark, and totally engrossing” by Lambda Literary and “a guiding light in the darkness of the false binary illusion of gender we’ve been too lazy to address” by the Huffington Post, Roving Pack, the debut novel by award winning queer author Sassafras Lowrey, is set in an underground world of homeless queer teens. Readers follow the daily life of Click, a straight-edge transgender kid searching for community, identity, and connection amidst chaos. As the stories unfold, we meet a pack of newly sober gender rebels creating art, families and drama in dilapidated punk houses across Portland, Oregon circa 2002. Roving Pack offers fast-paced in-your-face accounts of leather, sex, hormones, house parties, and protests. But, when gender fluidity takes an unexpected turn, the pack is sent reeling.
Kicked Out
In the U.S., 40% of homeless youth identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer(LGBTQ). Kicked Out brings together the voices of current and former homeless LGBTQ youth and tells the forgotten stories of some of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Diverse contributors share stories of survival and abuse with poignant accounts of the sanctuary of community and the power of creating chosen families. Kicked Out also highlights the nuanced perspectives of national organizations, regional agencies, This anthology, introduced by Judy Shepard, gives voice to the voiceless and challenges the stereotypical face of homelessness. To learn more, visit us online at KickedOutAnthology.com.

Readings by Sally Bellerose and Hilary Sloin
2013-02-16 07:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Sally Bellerose is author of The Girls Club, Bywater Books. The manuscript won the Bywater Prize, The Rick Demarinis Award, the Writers at Work Award and an NEA Fellowship. Excerpts have been published in Sinister Wisdom, The Sun, The Best of Writers at Work, Cutthroat, and Quarterly West.
Bellerose’s current project is a short story collection Fishwives which features old women behaving badly. The title story won first place in Saints and Sinners fiction contest.
Bellerose writes about class, sex, illness, absurdity, and lately, growing old.
Also a poet, she loves to mess with rhythm, rhyme, and awkward emotion – in her work.
Please visit her at https://sallybellerose.wordpress.com/

Hilary Sloin began her writing career as a playwright in the 80s. Her plays, which were mostly gay-themed and fairly subversive, were widely produced in the U.S. Lust and Pity was given main stage productions at the Westbank Café in NY, Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco, Alice B. Theatre in Seattle, Bailiwick Theatre in Chicago, and others. Other plays were produced in LA and at Smith College and received readings in NY. After a time, she switched to essays and short fiction, publishing in many small journals and anthologies and attending a number of residencies. Art on Fire was her first attempt at a novel and it took a long time to write. It garnered many accolades, including the bizarre honor of being mistakenly awarded prizes for non-fiction; there were those in the industry who wanted to publish it, thinking it was a biography, which, crazy as it is, attests to the success of the book’s intention. Sloin has recently completed a collection of short fiction entitled The Cure for Unhappiness and is currently at work on a manuscript about selling antiques, Pimpin’ the Frontier. When she isn’t writing she is usually refinishing or restoring antiques.

In the Flesh and Visual AIDS present LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN: ROMANCE STARTS AT HOME
2013-02-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The thought of Valentine’s Day getting you down? Us too.
Around this season of love, NYC splits into two decisive camps:
1.The candy-lovin’, heart-on-the-sleeve wearin’, de-thorned rose givin’, lacy craft makin torch holders of hetero-romance.
2. The angry, spiteful, lonely, depressed, vengeful cynics who say “Fuck love. pass me that Dario Argento dvd”.
What about the rest of us? Those of us who think love is something worth celebrating, but frankly, don’t want to be icky and boring about it?
This year In the Flesh and Visual AIDS invite you to take part in LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN: Romance Starts at Home. The International Community of Women Living with HIV‘s initiative is a weeklong celebration of positive women where you are encouraged to show your love for positive women, or if you are positive, how you will love yourself better.
On February 15th, In the Flesh’s monthly reading series will be devoted to positive women + allies and their stories on love.
Come join us at The Bureau!

Vladimir Cajkovac on Posters Addressing the AIDS Crisis
2013-02-14 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Vladimir Čajkovac, a curator from Zagreb, Croatia, will speak about his eighteen-month project in Dresden, where he works as a research fellow at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum on the project AIDS as a Global Media Event: An intercultural comparison of posters and their imagery, culminating in an exhibition and a series of related talks. Čajkovac’s residency in New York for the month of February is co-sponsored by Residency Unlimited and Visual AIDS.
The website of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum describes the project AIDS as a Global Media Event: An intercultural comparison of posters and their imagery and the related fellowship awarded to Vladimir Čajkovac in the following terms.

AIDS has radically transformed the world and become the focus of interdisciplinary study and research from a medical, cultural and media-historical perspective. Over the past 30 years, the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden has collected numerous items – predominantly posters – which have been used in the media campaign to combat the epidemic. It is the world’s largest collection of AIDS posters with over 9,000 specimens from 100 countries. As important media documents of our times, they convey traditional values and new attitudes concerning safe sex, homosexuality, discrimination, the desire for love, the solidarity with the afflicted and the fear of death. The images and visual composition of the posters offer insights into behavioral patterns, self-images and models of the 21st century, which the fellow from the United States, Eastern Europe or an African country will investigate by means of intercultural image analysis. He or she will be responsible for researching the concrete political, economic, aesthetic and social conditions in which the posters were created, and for interviewing the designers to learn more about the wishes and desires of the target group. Step by step, the fellow will build an international network and create a keyword catalogue which can serve as the basis for further research of the poster collection.

SATANICA Reading
2013-02-13 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Contributors to SATANICA read at the Bureau. SATANICA is a limited-edition publication curated by Gio Black Peter & Christopher Stoddard for those dedicated to a life of pleasure, excess & self-reflection. Gio Black Peter, Christopher Stoddard, Bruce Benderson, Slava Mogutin, Max Steele, and Micki Pellerano will read.
The 350 copies of SATANICA have sold out, but 25 prints of the cover photograph (above), Gio Black Peter’s Little Tiger on my bed, which is part of the Possession series, will be available exclusively at this event. The photograph is a 5.25″ x 7″ Chromogenic print signed on the back by Gio Black Peter. $150.00 each.

Christopher Stoddard
Christopher Stoddard is the New York-based author of the book, White, Christian (Spuyten Duyvil/Triton Books, 2010), which Bruce Benderson calls a “fascinating novel that intimately depicts the whirling frenzy of a soul with little insight into itself.” In December 2012, he launched the limited-edition magazine Satanica. He has written for Up and Coming, hello mr. and imfromdriftwood.com, and has recently completed his second novel, Limiters, which he plans to submit to publishers in 2013. www.antichrispress.com

Photo: Bertrand Le Pluard, copyright 2013

Bruce Benderson
Bruce Benderson is best known for his seventh book, a memoir called The Romanian: Story of an Obsession (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006), which won France’s prestigious literary award, the Prix de Flore, in French translation. As a journalist he has written for the New York Times Magazine, Paris Vogue, Vogue Hommes, GQ France, Blackbook, Libération and The Village Voice, among others. In the 90s, two books of fiction about urban life, Pretending to Say No and User, were published by Penguin USA to critical acclaim in the U.S. and France. He is a literary translator from the French of works by Grégoire Bouillier, Philippe Djian, David Foenkinos, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Tony Duvert, Virginie Despentes, Nelly Arcan and others. He writes a monthly column for the French magazine Têtu.

Gio Black Peter
Gio Black Peter (Giovanni Andrade Paolo Guevara) is a New York-based performance artist as well as an ardent visual artist. He examines text and subject, truth and fakery, rebellion and authority. His subversive work has quickly earned him a name in the downtown New York scene of young emerging artists who participate in today’s dialogue about the deconstruction of high profile, white box presentation and the desire to raise art awareness. Black Peter has performed and exhibited work worldwide, including: New York, Berlin, Madrid, Milan, Bergen, London, Antwerp, Tokyo and Paris. gioblackpeter.com

Micki Pellerano
Micki Pellerano is a New York-based artist and filmmaker. His films have screened widely across Europe and North America; his drawings and performances have exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Milan, and Mexico City. Micki received conservatory training at the NYU Tisch School’s Experimental Theater Wing whose teachings continue to influence his work, along with his scholarly accomplishments in the study of esotericism. Publications include The New York Times, Vice Magazine, Zing Magazine, K48, No Milk Today, Useless, Working Class, Dagobert’s Revenge, This is the Salivation Army and Nylon; as well as Disinformation, envoy enterprises, and Printed Matter Anthologies.

Slava Mogutin
Siberian-born artist, writer and activist Slava Mogutin was exiled from Russia at the age of 21 and granted political asylum in the US with the support of Amnesty International and PEN American Center. He is the author of two monographs of photography, Lost Boys and NYC Go-Go, and seven books of writings published in Russian. Mogutin’s photography and multimedia work have been exhibited internationally and featured in a wide range of publications including Flash Art, Modern Painters, i-D, Visionaire, L’Uomo Vogue, L’Officiel Hommes, Stern, and The New York Times. For more info please visit www.slavamogutin.com

Photograph by Amos Mac

Max Steele
Max Steele is a performer and writer. He has presented work at the New Museum, Rapture Cafe, Deitch Projects, Envoy Enterprises, and the Queens Museum of Art. He writes the psychedelic porno poetry zine Scorcher, and is an Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts
Exchange. www.fagcity.blogspot.com.
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