[July 2] The Queer Issue X: A Reading and Party

Join Words Without Borders at Unnameable Books Tuesday July 2nd at 6:30pm for a reading of queer writing from around the world, in celebration of the 10th edition of our annual Queer Issue. 

The event will be hosted by Jeremy Tiang with readings by Tiang, Claudia Salazar Jiménez, Amanda Lee Koe, John Keene, and other writers to be announced.

From 2010-2019, the Queer Issue has given a platform to 89 queer writers from 48 countries writing in 32 different languages, from Arabic to Serbian to Spanish to Thai. Many of these writers were given their first exposure to English-language readers in this issue, and some are not free to discuss their queerness in their home countries or languages.

Help us close out Pride month with a celebration of this milestone. Refreshments will be available. After the reading, there will be an afterparty at Soda Bar across the street.

***SUGGESTED DONATION: $5***
All proceeds will be donated to All Out, an organization fighting for international queer rights.

https://www.facebook.com/events/722855644834728/
https://bit.ly/2WgHysS

[June 18] Art Workers' Inquiry

As workers in the NYC's arts industry, we deal with exploitation, coercion, and extreme alienation on a regular basis. As communists, socialists, and anti-capitalists, we want to build a struggle for worker power in the arts. The first steps in that struggle are coming together and learning about where power resides in our industry. So, you're invited...

To an art workers inquiry gathering! Red Bloom has created an Art Workers' Inquiry based on the Workers' Inquiry Marx developed in 1880. The idea then and now is to use a questionnaire about working conditions both as a means of developing a record of the working class by the working class and also to use as an organizing tool. At this gathering there will be an opportunity to use the inquiry to share your working conditions and learn about those of other art workers.

Come to Unnameable Books on Tuesday, June 18 from 7-9pm to meet up with other arts workers and discuss how we can build a cross-craft, cross-media arts workers struggle. There will be drinks!

[June 23] Robert Musil's Unions--Book Release Soirée

Robert Musil Unions Book Release Soirée

with Genese Grill (translator), Prof. Nicholas Birns (moderator), and Jason Mears (saxaphone)

Sunday June 23rd (7pm) at Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn

In 1911, following his 1906 debut, The Confusions of Young Törless, Robert Musil published the two experimental stories that make up Unions. “The Completion of Love” and “The Temptation of Quiet Veronica” were some of Musil’s earliest forays into what would become a life-long exploration of the life, adventures, and psychological processes of his fiancé, Martha Marcovaldi — the future Martha Musil.

The stories in Unions explode conventional morality; explore questions of self, union, and dissolution of self; and approximate exceptional sensations of erotic and intellectual perception in a shimmering and exceedingly dense proliferation of metaphors.

This is a new English-language translation from Contra Mundum Press of the two stories and the first one to appear — in the form of Musil’s original publication — as Unions. A scholarly introduction by the translator, Genese Grill, explains the provenance of the stories and the need for a new approach to this book so central to his oeuvre.

http://contramundum.net/2019/03/17/unions/
https://jmearsmusic.com/

[June 16] Queer and (Anti-) Capitalism Education Event

Join us Sunday, June 16th from 2-4 PM. 

Salih Alexander Wolter`s und Heinz-Jürgen Voß’s book “Queer and (Anti-)Capitalism” has caused major debates in Germany. It productively brings together Marxist, queerfeminist and anti-racist perspectives, and the third German edition has just been printed.

Now the American translation has been published. It is included in the book “The Queer Intersectional in Contemporary Germany: Essays on Racism, Capitalism and Sexual Politics," ed. by Christopher Sweetapple. You can get the free Open-Access version here: https://www.psychosozial-verlag.de/7444 .

Heinz-Jürgen Voß will give a short overview of some of the main ideas in “Queer and (Anti-)Capitalism," and then we will break out into small discussion groups. Typically we go for food and drinks after.

Please note that this venue is unfortunately not wheelchair accessible.

[June 12] Feral Voices: The Other Brooklyn Reading Series VIII

                 
Join us next Wednesday, June 12th at 7 PM to listen to some more local writers share their work! 

Feral Voices is a monthly reading series that focuses on celebrating a selection of writers who work and struggle outside of the typical institutions of the writing community.

A night for those who work one or more "day jobs," but have a voice to share that goes against the grain or upends capitalist, patriarchal understandings of the label "author."

If your writing is proactively weird, if you are part of a marginalized group, and/or if you struggle with the financial insecurity that stems from pursuing writing outside university funding or published manuscripts then submit your work to feralvoicesreadingseries@gmail.com. We accept short stories, poetry, essays, plays, scripts, novel excerpts, and anything genre-bending and mind-altering.

Join us in an event hosted by T. A. Stanley at Unnameable Books. Come to share, read, listen and build something new!


For more information about Feral Voices: https://tastanley.com/feralvoices or message me on FB. If you want to submit to be a reader please send any poetry, fiction, nonfiction, etc to feralvoicesreadingseries@gmail.com. Submissions are always open

[June 8] Soo Yeon Lyuh w/ Rosenberg, Snyder, Roberts, Ilgenfritz

Please join us for Saturday, June 8th at 8 PM for an evening of performances by west coast musician Soo Yeon Lyuh and friends

8pm Jonah Rosenberg/Jeff Snyder/Mariel Roberts/James Ilgenfritz
8:30 Soo Yeon Lyuh solo
9pm Soo Yeon with guests (duo/trios, etc)

Soo Yeon Lyuh is a master of the haegeum, a two-stringed Korean bowed instrument. She possesses not only flawless technique and a full command of the haegeum’s traditional repertoire, but is also widely recognized for promoting the creation of new pieces for haegeum. For twelve years, Lyuh was a member of South Korea’s National Gugak Center, the foremost institution for the preservation of Korean traditional music. Since then, Lyuh has endeavored to weave authentic styles into new musical domains, relocating to the Bay Area and drawing inspiration from its dynamic improvised music scene. Her contributions have sparked the creation of new repertoire for haegeum—the lifeblood of any instrument. She has premiered dozens of new works and recently made her debut as a composer with the Kronos Quartet.

[May 30] Greetings from Rogal // Poppick // Pearl // Millstein // Spotless Leopards

To All the Children Of Spring That Have Not Yet Sprung & Then Some,   

And even to those who feel they've Sprung their last Spring - ho! You've got more left in that poetry machine than you know & nothing can put a flower tiger in your tank like some open air Spring in the World of Poor Mutts like some just right or wrong poetry can, so don't stay home & eat that leftover corn-dog alone- bring ye over to the delightful basement / backward of enigmatic realization & imbibe the night's spirit with us at Unnameable Greetings Readings. for the penultimate installment of Unnameable Greetings this  Thursday, May 30th, @ 7:30 pm featuring four poets & music: (please note earlier 7:30 meet - n - greet time in order to respectfully mind the neighbors' wish to have a crowd free space from 10 pm on - which means we'd like the first poet to go on as close to 8pm as possible & do our best to finish up by 9:30 so we can have a lil' hang time before departing to establishments possibly nearby  ) Now ya'll be aware that Mother Natural is calling for lovely rain & perhaps a few bolts of Zeus - which means we be gathered down below closer to Vulcan's stithy where we can get cozy with the built in library sensation awaiting us... 

Lisa Rogal - treads lightly in verse that at first feels floating then drifting then anchors us into clouds that are really masses of land we passed through not knowing where we were going until we got there & then by gum we were there & a pleasant sensation passed through us where it remains till this day like a smile we take out in the rain. 

Rachel Pearl - shhhh... Rachel is almost here.... she'll be here soon...you'll know her when she walks in... her voice will carry beyond her.... it is the voice you will know... the pages of pomes that walk out of her... the city in disguise... there once was a poet... & now there is too... & know you will hear her... & she will hear you 

Denise Milstein  - islands of fire surround her... the tale travels & so too the pome... where too?... where now?... who go?... why you ask?... what you say?... hit.. the... road?... or stay, sit & contemplate the neat rip in time you've made as Denise's verse takes a needle to the mess & sews it up only to have her lines bust the seams & pour forth like a biker scorning data for the whipping wind

Dan Poppick  - pops that top, pilfers the pedagogy of poetry, ponders period pieces then peels a pear without so much as a lazy adjective, pronto! poof! per annum, no no no - try daily! through a praxis of time-delayed performance, placed periodically on pivotal shelves, unlike the Po-po-police, not preening but productive, nothing out of the ordinary prurient but provoking nonetheless a pointed effort, not puritanical mind you but freedom inducing - like a drug you didn't know you needed till it opened the door inside you.  

Also on the bill - most likely strumming up a mood to set the meet & greet on its lively ear, dear, will be the return of the Greetings House Band OAE posing as SPOTLESS LEOPARDS recent escapees from mad King Leopold's deadly Congo catastrophe we'll be soothing souls of all traumatized Trumpe l'oeil victims who still have trouble believing that Trump actually exists in his present unreal-all-too-real form.

So hope to see you at the Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Ave, near the corner of St Marks in burgeoning Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Meet n' Greet begins at 7:30 pm to be followed shortly thereafter by performances 8:00=ish. In what's left of the white stone backyard we'll be, (Tho it may be cold rainy thundery blurry & / or hairy) but if the weather does indeed turn inclement there's the snug book-lined basement. Either way the event is free. Listen for the drum then strum.

X's to Your O's

Jeffrey Joe