BGSQD

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

***

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

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

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

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

The January edition of DEADLINE will feature:

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

Nefertiti Asanti (spoken word)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacob Steinberg was born in Stony Brook, New York, in 1989. His Spanish-language poetry collections include Magulladón (2012) and Ante ti se arrodilla mi silencio (2013). In 2014, Scrambler Books released both volumes in an English edition titled Before You Kneels My Silence. As a translator Steinberg has worked with Cecilia Pavón, CAConrad, and Mario Bellatin, among others. He currently lives in New York.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HOLIDAY HOURS ON DECEMBER 24TH: 11 AM - 4 PM
2014-12-24 11:00 - 16:00 | NY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zhe Zhe. Look and learn.

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

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

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

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

B. Proud, photograph by Victor Rodriguez

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo of Copenhagen power plant by Flo Maak

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

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

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

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

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

NYC Launch of Diana Cage's Lesbian Sex Bible
2014-12-13 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Celebrate the LESBIAN SEX BIBLE as it is written in this book of DIANA CAGE
Come into her presence with Julia Bloch Ella Boureau Stephen Boyer Elizabeth Koke Rachel Levitsky Sarah Schulman Others
There you will seek TOYS IN BABELAND, and you will find them.
Rumor will be added to rumor; then they will seek a vision from a prophet.
2. First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people! If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask DIANA: Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet? Can you loose the belt of Orion? Who told you you were naked? Are you hiding in the bushes, sewing together fig leaves in an attempt to cover your nakedness?
3. Call unto DIANA and she will tell you remarkable secrets about things to come. She is writing these things to you now, even though she hopes to be with you soon:
as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them
join them in the same flood of debauchery
embrace the bosom of an adulteress
be intoxicated always in her love
let her breasts fill you at all times with delight
4. And DIANA has appointed in the BGQSD first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues, for of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. If DIANA is for us, who can be against us?
5. Hard drinking, riotous feasting, orgies, and things like that.
6. Yea though we walk through the darkest valley, BABELAND’s rod and BABELAND’s staff, they comfort us.
DIANA CAGE formed The Lesbian Sex Bible from the dust of the ground. She spends a lot of time thinking and writing about sex and desire. She is the former editor of the lesbian porn magazine On Our Backs and host of the Diana Cage show on Sirius XM. The Lesbian Sex Bible is her eighth book.
JULIA BLOCH begat Letters to Kelly Clarkson and will bring forth Allison Corporation in 2015.
ELLA BOUREAU brings to pass the monthly reading series and online magazine In the Flesh. She is working heartily on her first full-length play, It Helps to Hate You a Little.
STEPHEN BOYERcreated the novel Parasite and the chapbook GHOSTS.
ELIZABETH KOKE commits her work unto the Feminist Press, where she has proudly worked on several Lambda Literary Award-winning titles including Justin Vivian Bond’s Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels and Laurie Weeks’ Zipper Mouth.
RACHEL LEVITSKY wrote all the words of The Story of My Accident is Ours (Futurepoem, 2013), as well as two other full-length books of poetry, Under the Sun (Futurepoem, 2003) and NEIGHBOR (UDP, 2009). She was the founder of the feminist avant-garde covenant, Belladonna*.
SARAH SCHULMAN has multiplied novels and increased nonfiction books and films upon the earth.
“I hope it will eventually replace the Gideon’s bible. Needs to be the in the nightstand of every hotel room” – Holly Hughes
AMANDA, DIANA, MAXE, co-hosts, enthusiasts.

Bi Book Club: Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men
2014-12-12 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets once a month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise. People of all orientations and genders welcome! Dinner after nearby.
Our current book is Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men edited by Robyn Ochs & H. Sharif Williams (Dr. Herukhuti.) For the Dec meeting we will read the Preface, the Intro and the 1st section, “Identity.” For the next several meetings we will read two sections per month. Pick out some phrases or paragraphs that you’d like to discuss, that inspired you, or that struck you because of their elegant turn of phrase or the meaning behind it.
Getting Books: We urge you to purchase your print copy at BGSQD and support the only LGBT bookstore in New York City. Especially since they are hosting us in their space! Copies of Recognize should be in stock by Wed Nov 26 but you can call to check (646) 457-0859. If you prefer e-books, just get them your usual way.
Deciding Books: The group votes on what book to read next.
Venue: Bureau of General Services Queer Division Bookstore at the LGBT Center, 2nd fl. Rm. 210
Future Bi Book Club meetings at the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division:
Thursday, January 22
Thursday, February 26

TELL 8: Holidays Shmollidays
2014-12-11 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Holidays Shmollidays is the theme of the eighth installment of TELL, featuring Bevin Branlandingham, Robin Cloud, Kelli Dunham, and Topher Gross!

$5-10 suggested donation – no one turned away for lack of funds

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Besides winning the 2011 Miss LEZ title, Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in fesivals globally. She just won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. Drae was dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell throws a monthly party in Brooklyn called PRIME. Check her out online (her reel and her website www.draecampbell.com) and around town.

Photo by Grace Chu
Bevin Branlandingham is an ultra rad warrior for self-acceptance. She is a writer, performer and cultural producer in Brooklyn, NY who believes that all bodies are good bodies and works to make the world safe for people to love themselves. She blogs at queerfatfemme.com and offers body liberation coaching one on one and through workshops.

Robin Cloud is a New York City-based TV host, comedian, and writer. She is the host of BK Live, a daily show that showcases Brooklyn’s art, culture, and political scenes. She has been featured in Diva Magazine, GO magazine’s “Top 100 Women We Love,” Time Out New York’s “Quote of the Week”, and the Washington Post. Her festival appearances include the Women in Comedy, Ohio Lesbian, Fresh Fruit, Emerging Artists, and Hot! Festivals. Frequently booked to be the Master of Ceremonies, she is proud to have teamed up with fantastic artists and organizations such as the Hetrick-Martin Institute, The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, NYC Pride, Mr. Murray Hill, Toshi Reagon, Doria Roberts and many more!As a college speaker, Robin tours the country with her talk “Accept Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself” which aims to inspire audiences to transform their fears into acts of courage. She is thrilled to be represented by OUTmedia and The Contemporary Issues Agency.

Kelli Dunham [https://kellidunham.com/] is the genderqueer nurse-comic-author-ex-nun hybrid so common in modern Brooklyn. Kelli was one of Velvet Park Magazine’s 25 Significant Women of 2011, was named to the 2012 Campus Pride Hotlist and has appeared on Showtime and the Discovery Channel and nationwide at colleges, prides, fundraisers and even the occasional livestock auction. Kelli’s fifth book, Freak of Nurture [https://freakofnurture.org/] a collection of humorous essays published by Topside Press caused award-winning author Barbara Carellas to give Kelli the moniker “the David Sedaris of the queer world.”

Photo by Sophia Wallace
Close your eyes and picture a short, furry, charming, charismatic gentleman. You’ve just pictured hair-stylist, blogger and sometimes go-go dancer Topher Gross!

Annie's Audiobook Thunder Party
2014-12-10 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Performance / Fundraiser / Not-so-silent Auction for book access for all – to support the audio book recordings of Annie Lanzillotto‘s books for visually impaired audiences, and for all for whom reading a book is too arduous.
Performances by Annie Lanzillotto and special guests.
As Frank Sinatra’s birthday and Our Lady of Guadalupe Day quickly approach on 12/12, so does Annie’s kickstarter campaign deadline. We gather on 12/10 to celebrate and make sure it’s a success so Annie can record the audiobooks of L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoir (SUNY Press) and her poetry collection Schistsong (Bordighera Press, 2013).
Click here to donate.
Thank you!
Come raise a glass of vino or Pellegrino, get a book signed dance add a buck
Annie Lanzillotto is the author of the books L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoir (SUNY Press), and Schistsong (Bordighera Press). She’s the singer/songwriter of the albums “Blue Pill,” “Eleven Recitations,” and “Carry My Coffee” StreetCry Productions.

SLIPPERY: A Sit Down Reading
2014-12-07 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
SLIPPERY: A Wintry Tale spun from Shakespeare’s THE WINTER’s TALE
Nine characters [6 men, 3 women]
A queer post modern take on jealousy, homophobia, betrayal, reconciliation and redemption
You’re invited to Monty’s 16th birthday barbecue…
Bring your appetite for family dysfunction
RSVP on Facebook

Patrick Thomas McCarthy is an actor/director/playwright who has called NYC home since 1995. The Fresh Fruit Festival NYC has been his proving ground for the past two seasons with awards as Best Playwright and Best Ensemble Acting for both PRIDE RIVER CROSSING: A Spoon River for a New Century; and sExtOrtiOn a cautionary tale of teen sexting suggested by national news making events. His Midwestern roots include high school English teaching, and a start to his playwriting at Chicago Dramatists Workshop. His 12th NIGHTed, mined from Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT, had its most recent read at the old BGSQD space on Hester St.
www.ptmcplaywriting.com

The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South - A Reading by Contributors
2014-12-06 20:30 - 22:00 | NY
Join contributors to The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South for a reading at the Bureau. Featuring Matthew Hittinger, Stephen S. Mills, Joseph Osmundson, Douglas Ray (editor), Jeffery Berg, Perry Brass, and Rangi McNeil.
The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South, edited by Douglas Ray, published by Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013.
This anthology, dreamed up and edited by Douglas Ray, features poetry and prose that sings of and explores the queer experience of the American South. Included are Dorothy Allison, Shane Allison, John Andrews, Derrick Austin, Jeffery Berg, Richard Blanco, Perry Brass, Dustin Brookshire, Jericho Brown, Joey Connelly, William Cordeiro, C. Cleo Creech, James Croteau, J.K. Daniels, Nick Dephtereos, David Eye, Jason K. Friedman, D. Gilson, Ellen Goldstein, Miriam Bird Greenberg, Elizabeth Gross, Johnathan Harper, Scott Hightower, Matthew Hittinger, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Rex Leonowicz, Sassafras Lowrey, Tyler Lynn, Bo McGuire, Rangi McNeil, Kelly McQuain, M. Mack, Ed Madden, Jeff Mann, Randall Mann, Mary Meriam, Stephen S. Mills, Cameron Mitchell, Foster Noone, Joseph Osmundson, Eddie Outlaw, Seth Pennington, Evan J. Peterson, Kenneth Pobo, Brad Richard, Hannah Riddle, Laurence Ross, Liana Roux, Kevin Sessums, Del Shores, Erin Elizabeth Smith, Will Stockton, Dan Stone, Christine Stroud, Billie Tadros, TC Tolbert, Dan Vera, Annie Virginia, Valerie Wetlaufer, C.T. Whitley, Scott Wiggerman, Cristan Williams, and L. Lamar Wilson.

Matthew Hittinger is the author of two poetry collections, The Erotic Postulate (2014) and Skin Shift (2012) both from Sibling Rivalry Press, and three chapbooks. He received his MFA from the University of Michigan where he won a Hopwood Award for poetry. His work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, has been adapted into art songs, and in 2012 Poets & Writers Magazine named him a Debut Poet on their 8th annual list. Matthew lives in Astoria, Queens.

Stephen S. Mills is the author of the Lambda Award-winning book He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices(Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012) and A History of the Unmarried (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014). He earned his MFA from Florida State University. His work has appeared in The Antioch Review, PANK, The New York Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Knockout, Assaracus, The Rumpus, and others. He is also the winner of the 2008 Gival Press Oscar Wilde Poetry Award. He lives in New York City. Website: https://www.stephensmills.com/

Joseph Osmundson is a writer, educator, and scientist based in New York City. His writing has appeared in The Rumpus, on Gawker.com, and in The Feminist Wire, where he is an Associate Editor. He completed graduate studies in Molecular Biophysics at The Rockefeller University and is currently a post-doctoral fellow at New York University.

Douglas Ray is author of He Will Laugh and editor of The Queer South. A former Lambda Literary Fellow, he received his B.A. in classics and English and M.F.A. in creative writing from The University of Mississippi, where he edited The Yalobusha Review. He is Poet-in-Residence at Indian Springs School, an independent boarding and day school in Birmingham, Alabama.sdouglasray.com

Jeffery Berg grew up in Six Mile, South Carolina, and Lynchburg, Virginia. He received an M.F.A. from New York University. His poems have appeared in Court Green, The Gay & Lesbian Review, Map Literary, Assaracus and Harpur Palate. He has written reviews for The Poetry Project Newsletter and Lambda Literary. A Virginia Center of the Creative Arts fellow, Jeffery lives in New York and blogs at jdbrecords.

Perry Brass, from Savannah, GA, has published 17 books; Lambda Literary Award finalist 6 times; finalist Ferro-Grumley Fiction Award; won 4 “Ippy” Awards; appears in 30 anthologies of poetry, fiction, and essays; and has been involved in the LGBT movement since 1969, when he co-edited Come Out!, the world’s first gay liberation newspaper. In 1972, he co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Project Clinic, first clinic for gay men on the East Coast, still operating as New York’s Callen-Lorde Clinic. perrybrass.com

Rangi McNeil is author of The Missing (The Sheep Meadow Press, 2003), a poetry collection. An Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow at The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church, he holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University School of the Arts and teaches at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Queering the Lines: Rebecca Levi - Thread & Ink
2014-12-05 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Please join us for the opening reception of Queering the Lines: Rebecca Levi – Thread & Ink
The exhibition will run from Friday, December 5th, 2014-February 1, 2015.
Rebecca Levi will talk about her work with John Chaich, curator of the recent exhibition Queer Threads, on Wednesday, January 14, at 7 PM, at the Bureau. Stay tuned for more details.

My thread-based and pen & ink work is influenced by images in found photography, mid-century magazines, and 1970s porn. In my embroidered portraits, I subvert the norms of the medium with the unexpected, inviting a playful collision between traditional handicrafts and the untraditional themes of queer identity and gender performativity. In my Bear Series, I reinterpret the art of vintage homoerotic physique magazines for contemporary “bear” gay male culture, substituting hirsute and hefty for smooth and svelte. In Wrestling Girls and the Bad Romance Series, I explore the dynamics of female desire and hidden queer histories from vintage pin-up pics and mid-century romance comics. Other pieces in the show play with source material from news reels, statuary, and internet memes.
–Rebecca Levi

Rebecca Levi is a New York City born and based artist. She received her BA from McGill University in Montreal. Her embroidery and pen-and-ink work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions including “Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community” at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (New York), Soho Gallery for Digital Art (New York), Four Eleven Studio (Provincetown), Deluca Gallery (New York pop-up), Galapagos Art Space (Brooklyn), and Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Arts Projects (Toronto). Her embroidered work “Breakfast Boy” is one of the artworks featured in the just released Play Smart trading card series from Visual AIDS. www.rebeccalevi.com

Cancelled! Adult Contemporary Presents: Morgan Bassichis, Jibz Cameron & Jack Halberstam
2014-12-04 20:30 - 22:00 | NY
Morning of December 4
Organizers Katherine Brewer Ball and Svetlana Kitto write:

In light of the Eric Garner non-indictment, and the huge protests planned in NYC and across the country, we are canceling tonight’s Adult Contemporary. To honor the lives of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and the countless others who have lost their lives to the violent system of white supremacy in this country, and to participate in this extraordinary movement that we are so inspired by, the organizers and readers of this week’s Adult Contemporary will be in the streets tonight. We are so grateful to our readers and BGSQD for all their work and want to thank everyone who planned on coming tonight—we will keep you posted on future events.

#BlackLivesMatter #ShutItDown

Join us for the Holiday Spectacular event of ADULT CONTEMPORARY, featuring Morgan Bassichis, Jibz Cameron & Jack Halberstam at BGSQD!
ADULT CONTEMPORARY is an experimental non/fiction salon series featuring readings, lectures, performances and interviews with and by established and emerging writers. We seek out first person perspectives characterized by the urgent and the everyday; true stories that connect us to the big by way of the small, uneventful, and unexpected. Readings will be followed by informal conversations.
Organized by Katherine Brewer Ball and Svetlana Kitto.

RSVP on Facebook

Morgan Bassichis is a writer and performer whose plays include When the Baba Yaga Eats You Alive and The Witch House. Morgan has performed at Dixon Place, the MIX Festival, the HOT! Festival, the Wild Project, Recess, and the Garage (San Francisco), and in films by Dia Felix and Maria Breaux. Morgan is the author of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project’s 2007 publication, “‘It’s War in Here:’ A Report on the Treatment of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People in New York State Men’s Prisons.” Morgan’s essays have appeared in the Radical History Review, Captive Genders, and other anthologies. Morgan is former staff member of Community United Against Violence (CUAV), and is a graduate of Brown University.

Jibz Cameron is a performance/video artist and actor who lives and works in New York City. Her work as alter ego Dynasty Handbag has been presented at many international dives both great and small. She has produced numerous video projects and two albums of original music. In addition to her work as Dynasty Handbag she has also been seen acting in work by The Residents, Kalup Linzy, The Wooster Group and in many a web series that remain unpopular. She also works as a professor of various performance and comedy related subjects. Her third evening length performance Soggy Glasses, recently premiered at BAM’s Next Wave Festival. She is currently in development on a television series with Electric Dynamite. dynastyhandbag.com

Jack Halberstam is a provocateur, blogger and writer and officially makes mischief at USC in the department of American Studies and Ethnicity. Jack has written books on queer genders, failure, monsters and feminism and is currently working on something mad and monstrous titled The Wild.

Poetry Reading with Adam Fitzgerald, Maureen McLane, and Stephen Burt
2014-12-04 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Lawrence Kaplun hosts a poetry reading with Adam Fitzgerald, Maureen McLane, and Stephen Burt. Put it in your calendar. Come hear these incredible poets. Not to be missed.

Adam Fitzgerald is the author of THE LATE PARADE (Liveright / Norton) and serves as editor of the literary journal, Maggy. He also serves as Director of The Ashbery Home School in the Hudson Valley. His poems have appeared in many journals such as Poetry Magazine, Boston Review, Fence, A Public Space, and elsewhere. He teaches in the creative writing program at Rutgers and The New School, and lives in New York City.

Maureen McLane is the author of three books of poems, most recently, THIS BLUE (FSG) which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2014. MY POETS (FSG), an experimental hybrid of memoir and criticism, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her poems have appeared in many journals such as The New Yorker, Paris Review, Boston Review, Slate and elsewhere. She teaches in the English Department at NYU, and lives in New York City.

Stephen Burt is the author of three books of poems, most recently, BELMONT (Graywolf). He’s one of the most exciting literary critics in the United States, and his essays appear in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, Yale Review and elsewhere. His essay collection, CLOSE CALLS WITH NONSENSE (Graywolf) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His Ted-Talk, “Why People Need Poetry” appeared in 2013. He teaches in the English Department at Harvard, and lives in the Boston area.

Releasing the Monster: Murder Most Queer Book Launch Party
2014-12-03 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
A reading and reception to celebrate the release of Murder Most Queer: The Homicidal Homosexual in the American Theater (University of Michigan Press) by Jordan Schildcrout
The “villainous homosexual” has long stalked America’s cultural imagination, most explicitly in the figure of the queer murderer, who has appeared as a character in dozens of plays. But as society’s understanding of homosexuality has changed, so has the significance of these controversial characters, especially when employed by LGBT theater artists themselves to explore darker fears and desires. Murder Most Queer examines the shifting meanings of murderous LGBT characters in American theater over a century, showing how these representations wrestle with and ultimately subvert notions of queer villainy. [www.murdermostqueer.com]

RSVP on Facebook

Jordan Schildcrout is Assistant Professor of Theater and Performance at Purchase College-SUNY, where he teaches courses in theater history, theory, and dramaturgy, including seminars in LGBT Theater and American Drama. As a dramaturg and literary manager, he has worked for Manhattan Theatre Club, Adobe Theatre Company, and Denver Center Theatre Company. His articles on theater, film, and popular culture have appeared in Theatre Journal, The Journal of Popular Culture, The Journal of American Culture, and The Oxford Handbook of American Drama.

Bureau closed on Thursday and Friday, 11/27 & 11/28
2014-11-27 - 2014-11-28 | NY

Bureau Book Club #4: Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
2014-11-23 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
The Bureau Book Club is a home for freewheeling discussion about the books and the issues that captivate us. Inspired by the conversations that break out after so many of the Bureau’s more formal events, we’ll have a one-hour session each month about a different work of fiction or non-fiction. Buy the book from the Bureau and get a 10% discount. We know you have busy lives: if you can’t finish the whole book, why not come and talk about the parts you’ve read? Just come prepared with a favorite quote.
Bureau Book Club #4 will be moderated by Ben Miller and Ben González.

Bureau Book Club #4 will discuss: Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Winner of the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction!
Benjamin Alire Sáenz‘s stories reveal how all borders—real, imagined, sexual, human, the line between dark and light, addict and straight—entangle those who live on either side. Take, for instance, the Kentucky Club on Avenida Juárez two blocks south of the Rio Grande. It’s a touchstone for each of Sáenz’s stories. His characters walk by, they might go in for a drink or to score, or they might just stay there for a while and let their story be told. Sáenz knows that the Kentucky Club, like special watering holes in all cities, is the contrary to borders. It welcomes Spanish and English, Mexicans and gringos, poor and rich, gay and straight, drug addicts and drunks, laughter and sadness, and even despair. It’s a place of rich history and good drinks and cold beer and a long polished mahogany bar. Some days it smells like piss. “I’m going home to the other side.” That’s a strange statement, but you hear it all the time at the Kentucky Club.

Purchase Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club from the Bureau before November 23rd and receive a 10% discount!
———–
Ben Miller is a Brooklyn-based writer. Current projects include award-winning biographical research on early gay activist Harry Hay that has taken him to archives in California and conferences from Pennsylvania to New Mexico, an adaptation of an early Mozart libretto for performance at Carnegie Hall, serving as dramaturg for Circuit Theatre Company’s production of The Walk Across America for Mother Earth, and new short fiction influenced by his historical research. His teachers in history and writing have included Linda Gordon, K. Kevyne Baar, Marcelle Clements, and Jonathan Safran Foer. Ben is the winner of New York University’s Bessie and Louis Levy Prize for Excellence in American History, and was named Steffi Berne Research Scholar in the Humanities by the same institution. He is a co-founder of Squid Ink Magazine (launching soon), works as Web Associate at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and serves on the communications committee of the New York City LGBT Anti-Violence Project. He tweets @benwritesthings.

From King Edward II to Sir Ian McKellen: the world's gayest National Portrait Gallery
2014-11-21 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
The lecture by Andrew Lear is principally a slide show, with commentary, in which Lear shows people a small part of the astonishing gay history hanging on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery in London. This includes men, women, at least one trans person, couples, men portrayed by the “queer eye”, and people involved in important gay historical events, such as the Oscar Wilde story; many of them (e.g. Shakespeare, Byron, Aubrey Beardsley) are famous, but others are far less so, at least in the US today. The lecture also raises many key issues in gay history, the difficult evidentiary record, the difficulty of establishing transhistorical categories for same-sex desire, and so on–but it confronts these indirectly, through images and biographies, rather than focusing directly on them.
Q&A and reception to follow the lecture.

Andrew Lear (born December 21, 1958) is a Classicist and scholar of gender history and the history of sexuality. His research focuses on ancient Greek poetry and art.[1] His book on male-male erotic scenes in ancient Athenian vase-painting (Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods, co-authored with Eva Cantarella, Routledge 2008), was positively reviewed: it greatly expanded the number of known scenes and proposed a sophisticated framework for their interpretation.[2][3][4][5] He has written articles on topics including the Greek poets Anacreon and Theognis, as well as book reviews for Classical World.[6] His poems and translations have appeared in such journals as Persephone, the Southern Humanities Review, and Literary Imagination. He has taught at Harvard, Columbia, Pomona College,[7] and NYU. In addition to his academic career, Lear is the founder of Oscar Wilde Tours, the first company to offer multi-day guided tours focused on gay history: www.oscarwildetours.com.[8] (From Wikipedia)

Image:
Chevalier d’Eon, by Thomas Stewart, after Jean Laurent Mosnier, oil on canvas, 1792, 30 1/8 in. x 25 1/4 in. (765 mm x 640 mm). National Portrait Gallery, London.
