Monthly Archives: March 2010
Brooklyn Flea All Over NYC
The Brooklyn Flea is a multi-platform enterprise. This spring and summer, it’s showing up all over NYC. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But the Flea is procreating like a pop-up chain. Here’s an attempt to outline all their iterations.
Bishop Loughlin HS: Brooklyn Flea kicks off its third season Saturday, April 10, at its Fort Greene flagship location at Bishop Loughlin H.S. with 140+ vendors of vintage/antiques, crafts/art/design, and delicious food. The Flea will also extend its residence at Skylight One Hanson at the historic Williamsburgh Savings Bank for the rest of the 2010 outdoor season, on Sundays only starting April 11. (Both markets are open 10am to 5pm.)
Summer Stage: The Flea is also taking over the food and beverage concession at the City Parks Foundation’s Central Park SummerStage concert series, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Five popular Flea food vendors—AsiaDog, Blue Marble Ice Cream, Pizza Moto, Red Hook Lobster Pound, and Soler pupusas—will join renowned Brooklyn butcher shop Marlow & Daughters to provide delicious, fresh, affordable, and distinctive meals and snacks, with the goal of establishing SummerStage as a top entertainment and culinary destination. Flea food will be available at all 40+ SummerStage events from late May through early October.
Fort Greene: In 2010, the Fort Greene outdoor market will feature an expanded food section, with 25+ vendors of prepared and cooked food. All unique to the Flea, all local, and all curated for quality and professionalism, these vendors have come to embody the Brooklyn artisanal food movement. Newcomers this season include Porchetta (the East Village Italian pork sandwich shop); The Good Fork (the Red Hook restaurant serves dumplings at the Flea); Salvatore Bklyn’s new imported olive oil (the ricotta makers will dispense their new house brand from a giant metal “fusto”); The Good Batch’s Dutch-style stroopwafels; Brooklyn Soda Works (carbonated beverages featuring 50%+ juice); and new Boerum Hill Montreal-style delicatessen Mile End (hand-slicing smoked salmon and sable with Ben’s cream cheese and fresh Montreal sesame and poppy bagels).
One Hanson: One Hanson market will continue to take over the gorgeous landmark bank space every Sunday, with 100+ vendors, including several top new vintage clothing, antiques, and furniture dealers, who prefer the indoor setting. Starting April 11, the market will spill over to the building’s back parking lot, where 25 vendors, including food, will be located, along with table seating and music to create a unique indoor-outdoor setting. (The main bank space is easily accessible from the parking lot.)
Both markets will feature dozens of new vendors for the launch of the new season—from antique rugs to stitched owls to starfish jewelry to Brooklyn watches to Swedish clogs to Mr. Potato Heads to a Greenpoint used-record shop.
Simone Dinnerstein Presents Youth Orchestra at PS 321
Simone Dinnerstein’s PS 321 Neighborhood Concerts presents Face the Music, an ensemble of 20 classically-trained musicians ranging from sixth to twelfth grade in a concert called “Beating Down the Doors.” In residence at Kaufman Center and founded in 2005 by Music Director Jenny Undercofler and composer Huang Ruo, Face the Music breaks the boundaries of classical music education and performance.
“Beating Down the Doors” brings Face the Music’s youthful energy to works by five living composers. The centerpiece of the concert is the world premiere of Liquid Timepieces by composer and PS 321 faculty member Joseph C. Philllips, Jr. Commissioned for Face the Music by Simone Dinnerstein and PS 321 Neighborhood Concerts, Mr. Phillips’ piece is cinematic in its intensity and expansive sound.
The teen members of Face the Music will also present four of their favorite works: Graham Fitkin’s sax-heavy Mesh (1992); Marcelo Zarvos’ foot-stomping “Memory” from Nepomuk’s Dances (2002); Nico Muhly’s stop-and-start How About Now (2006); and Jacob TV’s Lipstick (1998), with a playback mix based on clips from American talk shows.
Face the Music’s young players will talk to the audience between pieces and take questions at the end of the concert, making this an excellent opportunity for families with children.
Of his new piece, Liquid Timepieces, Mr. Phillips says, “The years 2010 and 2011 are anniversaries of composer Gustav Mahler’s birth (1850) and death (1911). I wanted to celebrate these ‘Jubilee Years’ by writing a work that honors the profound influence Mahler’s music has had on my musical thinking. Liquid Timepieces is my hommage to Mahler.”
A chart-topping pianist, Ms. Dinnerstein founded the PS 321 Neighborhood Concerts series at the public school her son attends and where her husband teaches. The performances, which feature musicians she has admired and collaborated with during her career, is open to the public and raises funds for the school’s Parent Teacher Association. The musicians performing donate their time and talent to the program.
Vegas in Park Slope?
Here is an excerpt from Repeat Until Rich, a new memoir by Brooklyn’s Josh Axelrad about winning and losing $700,000 as a card counting Blackjack player. It was reviewed and excerpted in today’s New York Times.
They called themselves Mossad after the Israeli intelligence agency. The key honcho was a guy named Jon Roth. I met him just once, and then everything started. I took the subway one evening to Park Slope in Brooklyn, buzzed at the address my contact had given, and was let in by a tiny brunette who introduced herself as Bridget Gould.
She showed me up the stairs. The building was a brownstone, singleresidence — all Roth’s. He was a retired millionaire from Wall Street. Israeli-born, charismatic, three to six years older than myself. I knew these things from Garry Knowles, my mentor.
At the second fl oor, I saw a person dealing cards. A dining-room table had been converted into a blackjack table. There was green felt spread over it like a partial tablecloth. Two strangers sat on the player side, chips in the betting squares in front of them. The dealer was Roth, to whom Bridget presented me.
“You’re Garry’s guy?”
“Right.”
He shrugged in response — not without warmth, I thought.
I can’t say what I expected, but he was certainly a human being: large head, heavy build. Either he was muscular or he used to be. His hair was a few inches long, and his brow was pronounced. He might in a previous life have been some kind of ape king, a silverback.
The others sat watching me quietly.
Roth said to one of them, “Chuck, you want to check this guy out?”
“For spotter?”
Roth gave the thumbs-up. The person named Chuck was dark-eyed, perhaps Greek or Latino. He was physically attractive, and it bothered me. My habitual nervousness had been about doubled since I got off the subway, but as I shook Chuck’s hand, it grew worse. I would never fit in with these people.
He led me to a sofa at the end of the room, where he handed me a “shoe” to count down. That’s a big deck made of multiple decks mixed together, six in this case. As we sat, he went over the rules. He would remove a dozen cards or so, then time me as I counted the rest. I had to do it ten straight times, pretty fast, with a limited number of errors.
I passed this test. Shortly after that we had a pizza break. Roth ate standing up, as did Chuck and a bearded guy, Aldous. They were discussing an upcoming trip.
No one addressed me again until Roth had finished his pizza and lit a cigarette. “Ready for the table test?” he asked.
“I hope.”
This was the final exam. Crusts and paper towels were stuffed into the grease-bruised pizza box. Roth began stacking the deck. The Aldous guy sat on one side of me, Chuck on the other.
OTBKB Music: They Tried to Kill Us (We Survived Let’s Eat)
Over at Now I’ve Heard Everything, check out the very funny video by Jewmongous performing They Tried to Kill Us (We Survived Let’s Eat) which claims to explain the story of Passover “according to Wikipedia.” Jewmongous will be appearing at 92Y Tribeca on Saturday, April 3.
Appearing tonight at The National Underground will be The Demolition String Band who go from country to flat out hard rocking. Details here.
–Eliot Wagner
Barneys Co-op Coming to Atlantic Avenue
First there was the Park Slope Food Coop and now there’s the Barneys CO-OP.
As reported in Racked NY and the Brooklyn Bugle, Barneys CO-OP is coming to Atlantic Avenue between Court and Clinton right next door to Trader Joe’s, near Urban Outfitters and across the street from Brooklyn originals, Sahadi’s and Damascus Bakery. Soon the western end of Atlantic will lead to an entrance of Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Barneys New York is a chain of luxury department stores based in New York City. The chain owns large stores in New York City, Beverly Hills, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Scottsdale, and smaller stores in other locations across the United States.
It’s fancy fancy. Brands sold include Giorgio Armani, Manolo Blahnik, Fendi, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Prada, Jil Sander, Dries van Noten, Diane von Furstenberg, and Ermenegildo Zegna, as well as Barneys private label.
Barneys CO-OP is designed for the younger and hipper crowd with an emphasis on beauty products, bags, jewelry, shoes and clothing by young designers. It originally began as a department within the larger Barneys New York stores, but is now a freestanding store located throughout the US. CO-OP stores average around 8,000 square feet.
Park Slope Eye Robbed
From the Brooklyn Paper’s Crime Blotter:
A thief with an eye for quality eyewear stole an assortment of sunglasses from the Park Slope Eye Optometrist on Union Street.
An employee of the optometrist, which is between Fourth and Fifth avenues, told cops that the slick eye gear was last seen on a display at around 7 pm on March 20. Two days later, at around 8 am, they noticed that a whopping $11,000 in “Chrome Hearts” shades had vanished.
Passover & Easter: Parking Regulations Suspended
From NYC.gov
Alternate side parking (street cleaning) regulations will be suspended Tuesday and Wednesday, March 30-31, for the first and second days of Passover, Thursday and Friday, April 1-2, for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, and Monday and Tuesday, April 5-6, for the seventh and eighth days of Passover. All other regulations, including parking meters, remain in effect.
Bklyn Bloggage: food & drink
Passover food update: All About Fifth
Dine in Brooklyn 2010 follow-up: All About Fifth
Fornino Pizzeria opening in Park Slope: Slice
Best hot dogs in NY: Manhattan Style
Boston Cream Pie: A Cake Bakes in Brooklyn
Scenes from Grillin’ on the Bay: Serious Eats
The vegetarian option at Al Di La: Serious Eats
The Brooklyn brunch experiment at the Bell House: Serious Eats
Bark has great hamburgers (see pix): A Hamburger Today
5th Annual Brooklyn Blogfest on June 8th
Find out why Brooklyn is the bloggiest—and most creative—place in America at the Fifth Annual Brooklyn Blogfest 2010 on June 8th, 2010 at 7:30 PM. Doors open at 7 pm. Location TBD.
“Where better to take the pulse of this rapidly growing community of writers, thinkers and observers than the Brooklyn Blogfest?” ~ Sewell Chan, The New York Times
Brooklyn Blogfest 2010 presents: CREATE. INSPIRE. BLOG: A PANEL DISCUSSION; the popular BLOGS-OF-A-FEATHER, special small-group sessions led by notable bloggers in a wide variety of blog categories; and A VIDEO TRIBUTE TO PHOTO BLOGGERS.
Whether you live to blog, blog to live or are just curious about this thing called blogging, you won’t want to miss Brooklyn Blogfest 2010, the best Blogfest yet. Truly.
The 5th Annual Brooklyn Blogfest
June 8th, 2010 at 7:30 PM
Location TBD
For information and interviews contact Louise Crawford (e:louisecrawford(AT)gmail(DOT)com, c: 718-288-4290).
New Mom Website from Former Cookie Editor
Pilar Guzman, formerly the editor of Cookie, Conde Nast’s now-defunct parenting magazine is starting a new parenting website called Mom Filter from her Park Slope home.
Here’s the story from the NY Observer sent to me by Verse Responder, Leon Freilich.
“It was definitely a tough experience,” said Pilar Guzman—the popular editor of the mom magazine Cookie, which folded in October—from her place in Park Slope. “I was the rookie who got to do it for five solid years without interruption. It was definitely rough having the rug pulled from under you.”
Ms. Guzman said she’s been concentrating her efforts on two pursuits: wrapping up a cookbook for Cookie and creating a Web site.
The Web site will be called momfilter.com, which she described as a lifestyle site for the modern mom. She’s looking for funding now, and is hoping for a launch date in the fall. She’s working on the site with Yolanda Edwards, another former Cookie editor.
She said she’s excited about the prospect of turning herself over to the Web, and said Cookie could have survived if Condé had invested significantly in the magazine’s Web site. “We had sort of a limited capability of what we could do online, as I’m sure you’re well aware,” she said.
And how has she taken to the transition from 4 Times Square to life at home in Park Slope? “I wasn’t Anna or Graydon, I rode the subway every day!” she said. “If you have your feet on the ground, then that fall from grace is not a fall from grace. It’s like a loss of any job.”
http://www.observer.com/2010/media/exiled-cond%C3%A9-editors-lost-years
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
April 15: Truth and Money
On April 15, 2010, Brooklyn Reading Works presents its monthly writers’ program on “tax day.” This happy accident, observed last summer in a casual conversation with John Guidry of Truth and Rocket Science over coffee, resulted in the idea for a panel called “The Truth and Money,” a reading and Q & A with three authors whose work has taken on money in some significant way.
Our three panelists are:
Elissa Schappell, a Park Slope writer, the editor of “Hot Type” (the books column) for Vanity Fair, and Editor-at-large of the literary magazine Tin House. With Jenny Offill, Schappell edited Money Changes Everything, in which twenty-two writers reflect on the troublesome and joyful things that go along with acquiring, having, spending, and lacking money.
Jennifer Michael Hecht, a best-selling writer and poet whose work crosses fields of history, philosophy, and religious studies. In The Happiness Myth, she looks at what’s not making us happy today, why we thought it would, and what these things really do for us instead. Money—like so many things, it turns out—solves one problem only to beget others, to the extent that we spend a great deal of money today trying to replace the things that, in Hecht’s formulation, “money stole from us.”
Jason Kersten, a Park Slope writer who lives 200 feet from our venue and whose award-winning journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, and Maxim. In The Art of Making Money, Kersten traces the riveting, rollicking, roller coaster journey of a young man from Chicago who escaped poverty, for a while at least, after being apprenticed into counterfeiting by an Old World Master.
This event is at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 15, 2010, at the Old Stone House in Washington Park, which is located on 5th Avenue in Park Slope, between 3rd and 4th Streets, behind the playground. $5 donation includes refreshments.
Read about all the Brooklyn Reading Works events at Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and the BRW website. For info on the Old Stone House, its role in the Battle of New York (1776) and contemporary life in Park Slope, go here.
First Annual May Day Family Dance & Jam at Old First
It’s the first annual May Day Family Dance and Music ‘Jam’! on Saturday, May 1st – 6-10pm (or later if it’s ‘jammin!).
Organizers invite you to come sing, dance, and party at Old First. The event features: Music jammin’ with Ethan S. and the Bilger Family Rockin’ Dance Party Express!! There will be a DJ during breaks and other special musical guests!
This is a family friendly event. So bring the Kids! Bring the Neighbors! Bring the whole family (child care provided upstairs for kids under 5).
70,000 High School Letters In The Mail
It sounds like the high school letters have been mailed. Anxious students and parents should be getting them soon. Here from Inside Schools:
As thousands of anxious 8th-graders and their families await word on high school placement, Chancellor Klein today announced that acceptance letters have been sent to more than 70,000 students, about 90% of those who applied for next September. For the remaining 8,500 students, who listed one of the schools originally slated for phase-out as one of their 12 choices, the matching process will be done again, this time including those schools.
The chancellor’s statement follows Friday’s court ruling in a lawsuit brought against the Department of Education by the teachers’ union, the NAACP, and parents, which held up the mailing of high school acceptance letters. The state Supreme Court ruled that the DOE failed to follow requirements in issuing Environment Impact Statements on how school closings would affect their communities.
Students who applied for schools originally slated for closure will receive two match letters at the same time, the “main round match and a ‘December match,’ which would be the school originally slated for phase-out,” the DOE said. The student will be able to choose between the two matches. Some 916 students listed one of the “phase-out” schools first on their application. (See the full statement after the jump.)
What will happen if last Friday’s court ruling is overturned on appeal and the schools actually close? In that case, the student will attend the school he or she was matched to in the main round, according to the DOE.
Ringling Brothers to Return to Coney Island this Summer
From Memorial Day to Labor Day, Ringling Brothers will be a the beach. The beach at Coney Island, that is.
This year’s show is called “Illuscination” The Ringling Brother’s Web site describes the show as a “fantasy-filled world … with eye-popping illusions, mind-blowing transformations.”
Expect clowns, acrobats, animals and more.
MTA Cuts to Brooklyn’s Buses and Subways
The MTA cuts will affect life in Brooklyn. That’s for sure. They say they’re saving $93 million. But their “gain” is definitely going to hurt straphangers. Here’s an excerpt from the Brooklyn Paper:
Lowlights of the agency’s most austere plan in 30 years include:
• The M train, which previously shuttled riders from Essex Street in Manhattan and Bay Parkway during the rush hour, will be eliminated entirely.
• Express bus lines in Williamsburg, Downtown and Bay Ridge will have their weekend service slashed, or be eliminated entirely.
• A bus line in Bay Ridge will be reorganized.
• Bus lines through Downtown, Red Hook, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Windsor Terrace will be reorganized, forcing straphangers to add an extra transfer to complete some trips — or hoof it.
• A bus line that connects Kensington to Borough Park will be eliminated entirely.
• A bus line connecting Homecrest and Marine Park to the Kings Plaza shopping mall will no longer operate on weekends.
Bklyn Bloggage: neighborhoods
Disgusting illegal dumping: Gerritsen Beach
Williamsburg furniture du jour: NY Shitty
Green Week at Pratt: The Local
Watercolor classes with Bonnie Steinsnyder: Pardon Me for Asking
Lana’s Barber Shop: The Carroll Gardens Diary
The matzo rush: Ditmas Park Blog
Brooklyn Bowl accepting summer interns: Free Williamsburg
Passover & Easter Parking
From NYC.gov:
Alternate side parking (street cleaning) regulations will be suspended Tuesday and Wednesday, March 30-31, for the first and second days of Passover, Thursday and Friday, April 1-2, for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, and Monday and Tuesday, April 5-6, for the seventh and eighth days of Passover. All other regulations, including parking meters, remain in effect.
Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Eat, Drink & Make Worship
With both Passover and Easter approaching, I’d like to point out
that over two millennia 52 great visual artists painted the Last Supper–including Leonardo, Titian and El Greco–and all got it wrong.
They depict Jesus at the First Seder sitting over a loaf of bread.
As every every Jew knows, the seder plate is filled with unleavened
bread that’s flat–matzo.
And when Jesus tells his twelve disciples, “This is my body, given
for you. Do this in remembrance of me,” he’s offering each a piece
of matzo, as is the custom at the seder. This transformed over the centuries into a wafer, the host, that Catholic priests at Easter place on the tongue of celebrants receiving Holy Communion.
So no matter the color or size, the Passover and Easter symbol–of affliction to Jews, of resurrection to Christians–is the ecumenical matzo.
Undomesticated Brooklyn: The Kugel Conundrum
“Yay! Mommy doesn’t have to make any more kugel!” Ruby cheered yesterday when we arrived home from our “early bird seder” weekend adventure.
Both of my girls were clearly tired of hearing about my kugel conundrum — not to mention the sound of the food processor chopping all of those carrots, potatoes, and onions!
I can’t say I blame them. Quite frankly, I was relieved to finally be done with the whole production myself.
Do you want to know how the kugel turned out? In short, it was a hit — all my hard work paid off — and there was more than enough to go around. I ended up making about four batches of the recipe so we had enough for leftovers. My best friend Dori will be pleased to hear that the “muffin kugels” she suggested were the most popular. She was right — making the kugel in muffin tins kept it crispy.
The rest of the family pitched in to make it a lovely seder meal.
My cousin Marla made matzoh ball soup that was better than the one they serve at The Second Avenue Deli; Claudia made homemade gefilte fish and mouth-watering brisket; My brother made carrot kugel (he vowed next year, he’d add garlic to spice things up a bit); and cousin Tina baked desserts that were so outrageously delicious, you’d swear they were made with flour (she swears they weren’t!)
When I bought the matzoh meal for the kugel, I noticed Streit’s slogan is “The Taste of a Memory…” Isn’t holiday cooking all about revisiting old memories and creating new ones? Maybe my girls will one day aspire to recreate their mom’s kugel.
I can just picture Ruby asking her sister, “Remember when mom nearly went crazy making all that kugel one year?”
How could they forget?
Meanwhile, I promise not to write anymore about kugel…until next year.
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
OTBKB Music: Breaking – Norah Jones to Open Celebrate Brooklyn 2010
She was born in Brooklyn, she’ll be moving here soon and best of all she’ll be opening Celebrate Brooklyn in 2010. It has just been announced that Norah Jones will be performing at the first show of the Celebrate Brooklyn 2010 season, on Wednesday June 9th at 8pm. As always, the show is free with a $3 suggested contribution.
–Eliot Wagner
Drinking With Divas – Alicia Villarosa
No one embodies the principal of “a sound mind in a sound body” more than this week’s diva, Alicia Villarosa. Sarah Deming chatted with the Pilates instructor, author, competitive speed skater, and bargain-finding genius over scrumptious mint juleps at the Vanderbilt.
To experience Alicia’s tougher side, show up for her Boot Camp Fitness Class in Prospect Park, Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:15 AM (class meets inside the park at the stairs across from the picnic house near the 3rd St entrance).
Sarah: Congratulations on your Image Award nomination for Down to Business! How was the ceremony?
Alicia: More fun than humanly possible. When we got there, there was this lovely women’s tea and a fashion show of the work of Stevie Wonder’s wife. The whole thing is a drunken blur of high-end food and cocktails. Unfortunately, our award was announced while we were still outside; this happened for a lot of the nominees in categories that weren’t televised. We knew we probably weren’t going to win anyway because the comedian Steve Harvey had written a dating book in our category. We had fun on the red carpet, though. Celebrities at the front were holding things up, like Eve from America’s Next Top Model. The rapper Xzibit was in line behind us and he flirted with me. He was in a good mood because he ended up winning for his show “Pimp My Ride.”
Sarah: What was it like co-writing the book with your mom?
Alicia: Tough. My mother isn’t really a writer. She’s fabulous at giving workshops and doing speaking engagements on her 10 steps of entrepreneurship for women, which is how we got the book deal. My sister’s agent helped us write the proposal and steered us away from memoir and toward the self-help genre. My mother sent me the first drafts and I revised them. She’s a bit of a drama queen and required hand-holding, but we have a very good relationship, so it could withstand it. I’m so happy for my mother now. She’s 80 and it’s important for her at this point in her career to have a book.
Sarah: What are you going to write next?
Alicia: I’m doing some freelance health pieces for the Root, which is an African American news website founded by Skip Gates and sponsored by Newsweek. I’m also co-writing a book proposal with a financial fund manager. It’s a self-help book on the correlation between debt and obesity. It can be a cycle for people, where depression about money problems leads to overeating. We want to help people break that cycle through healthy exercises like spending fasts.
Sarah: With so many talents, what do you say at a party when someone asks you what you do for a living?
Alicia: Usually I say that I’m a Pilates teacher first, but it depends on what I did that day. If I spent a lot of time writing I might say I’m a journalist.
Sarah: What do you bring personally to the teaching of Pilates?
Alicia: A very athletic bent, which is what Pilates started as. Some contemporary Pilates has become a little watered down, but if you watch old footage of Joseph Pilates, he was really hardcore. This was rehab for people with injuries, and if you’ve ever had rehab, you know that it hurts. You hate your PT! I bring some of that rigor and rehabilitative focus back to the teaching.
Sarah: Do you think that people with a background in competitive athletics have an advantage in business?
Alicia: That’s a great question! I think they do, definitely. Athletes are used to a cutthroat environment. They’ve had to be extremely internally motivated in order to survive, and they’re used to having to step up and produce on a regular basis. The confidence of that can take you very far. It’s like a card you always have in your pocket. Also, exercise is good for the brain. It gets the blood flowing and helps with creativity. When I’m riding my bike and I need an idea for an article, I’ll tell myself to think about the problem on the ride. You have to stay focused on your surroundings while you bike, but there’s a back part of your brain that is always free to think.
Sarah: What is your favorite sport right now?
Alicia: Speed skating, because you can go super fast. Downhill, in a tuck, you’re faster than a cyclist. It’s a fabulous feeling.
MINT JULEPS
The bar manager at the Vanderbilt, Floyd, juices up his juleps with apricot nectar and a rye-cognac base. I’m grateful to him for sharing the innovative recipe. Julep days are here again.
Prepare a simple syrup by mixing 1 C sugar, 2/3 C water, and 1/3 C apricot nectar together. Heat, stirring, until sugar melts. Add a bunch of chopped mint and let cool. Strain before using.
To serve, pour about 3/4 ounces of the minted syrup into a chilled julep cup or rocks glass. Top with crushed ice and a handful of fresh mint leaves, which you have “spanked” between your hands to release oils. Pour over ice 1 ounce rye whiskey and 1 ounce cognac. Sip through a straw.
OTBKB Film by Pops Corn: The Runaways
Joan Jett was my Bowie.
In fact, when my orthodontist asked which band I’d like to see play my small town, I offered Bowie instead of Jett, whose mid-80s were so unpopular outside of my home I wasn’t sure he would remember who she was.
I have the greatest admiration for Kristen Stewart (more below). Dakota Fanning has long been a source of fascination. Since she was the youngest star in Hollywood, I’ve pretended she was my favorite actress as some sort of running gag. Friends I’ve lost touch with have been known to reach out to me after seeing her on a talk show the act was so strong.
Kim Fowley, the music biz figure who assembled The Runaways is on my short list of people I’ve most wanted to see a movie about because of his career on the edge of greatness and his over-the-line scumbag persona he perpetuates. Fowley is played by another actor I greatly admire – Michael Shannon. So, even the Twilight-obsessed have nothing on me when it came to waiting for The Runaways, the film about the teen girl rock pioneers. And the movie gets so much right. Carol Beadle’s costumes and Benoit Debie’s cinematography get the look and feel. But it’s the toilets and trailers, the chain link and leather that capture the real story. A perfectly framed gate closing on Cherie Currie (Fanning) once she’s stepped into the rock world, indicates director Floria Sigismondi understands that rock music is not only about fulfilling your dreams, but also that those dreams are usually phony and often misguided.
The film also gets the music just right, celebrating the jams and providing the perfect links of glam and punk that define the sound of the Runaways and Jett’s career that would follow. Unfortunately, the movie hits a little soft. It’s more Almost Famous than Sid and Nancy – not necessarily a bad thing – but when we should be feeling the gut-punch of Currie’s family struggle, we’re back to everything since Jett’s own acting debut Light of Day. Likewise, Currie’s addiction story comes a few years after the parody Walk Hard confirmed that this has been overdone. But there is no denying Kristen Stewart. Rarely do rock biopics feature lead performances, like Joaquin Phoenix in Walk The Line, who created a real character rather than offering two hours of one spotlight-grabber impersonating another. Stewart manages both a spot-on recreation of Jett while also fleshing out a real character. I’m convinced she’s the future of Hollywood.
OTBKB Music: Double Bass, Advance Planning and Handkerchiefs
This past Saturday, musician, educator and long-time Park Slope resident Adam Bernstein and Ween bassist Dave Dreiwitz brought their basses to the performance space at Perch Cafe on 5th Avenue and played hits from the 60s and 70s rearranged for two basses. Full details at Now I’ve Heard Everything.
It’s almost April and for those of you who want to plan you musical adventures in advance, there’s an April music calendar over at Now I’ve Heard Everything for your perusal.
If you didn’t make it over to The Living Room last Friday, you missed the Winterpills‘ set made up mainly of older material. To make up for that there’s a video of Winterpills singing Handkerchiefs at Now I’ve Hear Everything.
–Eliot Wagner
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Crazy Lady on the Warpath
Crazy Lady has been busy lately. Just minutes after Teen Spirit left the apartment for his road trip to SXSW in Austin, Texas, she went into his room, popped his window open and unmade the bed.
“We need to fumigate in here,” she wailed.
Crazy Lady was right. But Smartmom promised Teen Spirit that she wouldn’t do anything drastic to his room. He was very firm with her.
“I will kill you if you redecorate,” he said.
Smartmom swore that she wouldn’t redecorate. But she did tell him that she had to do some cleaning in there. It had been ages since the floors were washed, the walls scrubbed and the whole room sanitized. He agreed, warily, to let her do some cleaning.
But Crazy Lady was going wild. She pulled all of his black-and-white marbled elementary school notebooks out of his closet. Same for his grade-school chapter books, video games that he doesn’t play anymore, clothing from when he was 8, infant snow boots, broken board games, jigsaw puzzles and ancient computers.
“Crazy Lady, don’t throw anything away. All that stuff needs to be packed up,” Smartmom warned her.
Crazy Lady had already created a mountain of detritus outside of Teen Spirit’s door.
Ever so carefully, Smartmom went through everything that Crazy Lady had thrown into the hallway. While she organized the clutter into piles, Crazy Lady moved the bed away from the wall, where she found all manner of food and garbage. She pulled his bookcase and his desk away from the wall and started scrubbing.
At one point, Crazy Lady went halfway under his bed, and pulled out a huge plastic box of action figures.
“Don’t throw those away. Those are his treasures,” Smartmom screamed from the hall. Smartmom was doing nothing wrong — it was Crazy Lady she had to worry about. Everyone knows that in order to clean, things must be temporarily moved; everything would be back to “normal” by the time he returned.
Meanwhile, Crazy Lady was tearing through weeks of dirty socks and clothing that carpeted Teen Spirit’s bedroom floor. It was like an archeological dig. She found dozens of ties; leather jackets and eight pairs of skinny jeans buried in the mess.
No wonder he told Smartmom that he needed new jeans. His “old ones” were lost inside his room.
Crazy Lady found enough quarters to buy a week’s worth of breakfast at Daisy’s.
When Crazy Lady saw Smartmom neatly packing up all of Teen Spirit’s clutter, she looked aghast.
“You should toss that in a garbage and pour kerosene on it,” Crazy Lady said with a demonic look on her face.
That scared Smartmom. What if Crazy Lady went too far? What if she did something that would compromise her delicate relationship with Teen Spirit?
“Back off, Crazy Lady,” Smartmom said. Every item was infused with memories from Teen Spirit’s childhood. It wasn’t up to Smartmom to decide what to keep and what to throw away. She could, however, organize it in such a way that Teen Spirit could look through it and decide for himself.
“But this is junk, garbage, things he clearly doesn’t need,” Crazy Lady told Smartmom.
“But it’s his junk,” Smartmom replied. “Hands off.”
Crazy Lady rolled her eyes and went back to work in Teen Spirit’s room. Now that there was less clutter, she could really clean.
At times like this, life with — or as — Crazy Lady is a mixed blessing. She’s a good motivator when a job needs to be done. But sometimes she goes too far. Smartmom has to keep her in line so she doesn’t destroy the family’s ever-tenuous dynamic.
In the days that followed, Smartmom and Crazy Lady worked side by side in Teen Spirit’s bedroom, which smelled of Meyer’s soap, Fantastic and Pledge. For the most part, they got along well, but there were some touchy moments. Smartmom thought she saw Crazy Lady eyeing Teen Spirit’s collection of Tintin books,
“Don’t touch those,” Smartmom told her.
“Just dusting around them,” she told Smartmom.
By the time Teen Spirit gets home from Texas, he may not even notice how extensively the room was cleaned. Smartmom will show him the boxes of childhood stuff that he can go through. No pressure. He can take his time. Just as long as Crazy Lady isn’t around
She gets a little carried away sometimes.
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Save the Date: June 8th is the 5th Annual Brooklyn Blogfest
Save the date. The 5th Annual Brooklyn Blogfest is on Tuesday, June 8th at 7:30 PM.
For the 5th year in a row: Find out why Brooklyn is the bloggiest place in America on Tuesday, June 8th at 7:30 PM. Doors open at 7 pm. Location TBD. Admission: $10.
This year the theme is CREATIVITY and how Brooklyn and blogging inspires that.
Here’s your chance to meet your favorite bloggers; learn about blogging; be inspired to blog. This event is for anyone who blogs, who reads blogs, who wants to blog. It is also for those interested in the creative potential of blogging.
“Where better to take the pulse of this rapidly growing community of writers, thinkers and observers than the Brooklyn Blogfest?” ~ Sewell Chan, The New York Times.
Spread the word.