And so continues the tale of our adoption of a dog originally named Roscoe and later renamed Stanley. We took him home from the Sean Casey Animal Rescue pet adoption truck in front of Animal Kind on Seventh Avenue. Charlie, who runs Sean Casey told us to give Roscoe a new name.

“A new home, a new name,” he said. And we believed him.

It was the evening of December 16. I remember the date because I had to run off to a Brooklyn Reading Works event while Hepcat and OSFO finished up in the truck.

“We just adopted a dog,” I nervously told my friend Kim, director of the Old Stone House. She smiled.

“I want a dog very badly,” she told me. “But my husband is allergic.”

I felt shaky and afraid for a number of reasons. I knew that dogs were not allowed in our building. I also knew that much of the daily responsibility would fall to me. Plus, I’d never in my entire life lived with a dog. I had no idea what to expect.

But my heart also pulsed in excitement. Our new dog was so cute with his white fur and his dark searching eyes. I was beginning to fall in love with him.

After the BRW event I raced home to see our new dog. When I walked through the front door he barked at me, frightened, unsure of the stranger in his midst. I hadn’t even thought about barking. So much for the incognito dog we would sneak in and out of our house for walks.

Thankfully OSFO quieted him down and he went back to lounging on the rug.

It was so strange to see a dog in our living room. Hepcat and OSFO seemed very relaxed with the dog. I walked into the kitchen and saw that a bowl for his water and dry food were already on the floor. There were even some doggy biscuits on the counter.

I went back into the living room and began to cuddle with Roscoe. I rubbed his back and his stomach and rolled around with him on the rug. I found reservoirs of playfulness within myself that I hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

It was cozy and fun. He was lovable. We were, it seemed, already becoming dog people.

Read the whole series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Read my article about Paola Corso, a Park Slope author, on today’s Park Slope Patch. Here’s an excerpt:

With long black hair and big expressive eyes, Park Slope author Paola Corso met me Saturday evening at the Community Bookstore on Seventh Avenue. Wearing a white down jacket and a fur cap, she led me to the children’s section in the back walking past a red velvet couch, a bed for two sleeping cats.

Sitting at a small table covered in books, she handed me a copy of her latest, Catina’s Haircut, which hit shelves in the fall.

“It’s a novel in stories,” she told me of the follow-up to her award winning Giovanna and the 86 Circles And Other Stories, also from University of Wisconsin Press.

The new book chronicles four generations of an Italian family from a town in southern Italy to Pittsburgh. The interlocking short stories are rooted in a family secret. Corso was always told that her great-grandparents were killed in a train wreck just after the World War I.

Years later on a trip to Italy, she was told by Italian cousins that her great grandparents were actually killed during a peasant uprising.

When she discovered this secret she wondered if she should investigate further to find out the true facts behind her great-grandparent’s death.

Instead, she decided to use her gift for fiction and tell the emotional truth of their lives through short stories.

SXSW is a festival in Austin, Texas next month in which 2000 bands will play over four nights.  792 of those bands have made mp3s available to the public on the SXSW website.  Information on how you can hear all those tracks is now available to you on Now I’ve Heard Everything by clicking here.

Kelly Willis lives down in Austin and I first got to see her in person at SXSW 2007.  I’m constantly amazed by her voice.  Her song, I Have Not Forgotten You, was originally released on Kelly’s album, What I Deserve, about a dozen years ago.  The song deals with a relationship that did not end in acrimony; and her performance of it from 2000 is still great and available for you to view by clicking here.

–Eliot Wagner

I just read that a recent episode of Fox’s  Fringe, one of Hepcat’s and my favorite TV shows, was set in Park Slope. The setting: a local apartment building where party-goers were “expelled against their will out a seventh-story balcony,” writes Ken Tucker on his blog.

To even begin to try to explain  Fringe episode to someone who hasn’t been following the science fiction series, which deals with parallel universes and scientific detective work, is just plain fruitless. Hepcat calls it “a mash-up of the Outer Limits, CSI, and Lost only weirder.” The show has been relegated to a rather lonely spot on Friday nights at 8PM on Fox.

Suffice it to say that Walter, the show’s brilliant paranormal detective played by John Noble, fears that there’s a vortex into which Park Slope might disappear.

You can watch the episode on-line here.

President’s Day and Monday is a holiday for some (no banks, no mail). Some of us get to sleep late. Nice. Some people actually are on vacation in warm places (grrrr lucky people). But there’s stuff to do around here…

Continue reading OTBKB’s Weekend List: Presidents’ Day Edition →

Video: The Jayhawks who either broke up or went on hiatus in 2004 have reformed, with both Gary Louris and Mark Olson back in the fold.  They have recorded a new record which will be out later this year.  When the band was in New York City recently, they visited WFUV and played some songs live in the studio there, including I’d Run Away, originally from Tomorrow the Green Grass.  The professionally shot, great sounding video of that song is available to you at Now I’ve Heard Everything if you click here.

Photos: We were promised two sets by Li’l Mo and The Monicats Tuesday night.   What we got was one very long set; it ran almost two hours.  It was a bit past the 10pm time scheduled end time when Rosie Flores, Austin’s electric blues guitar wiz came into Banjo Jim’s and joined the band for three songs or so.  To see some shots of that night, just click here.

–Eliot Wagner

Here we are at February Residency Wednesday again. Two are on the Lower East Side at 9pm, and one is in Williamsburg at 10pm. And despite what I said previously, Serena Jean swears that you can get from the Lower East Side to Pete’s Candy Store in Williamsburg by cab in 10 minutes. Tonight’s selections: Milton,  Aaron Lee Tasjan and Serena Jean.  Details about times, venues and public transportation can be found at Now I’ve Heard Everything by clicking here.

–Eliot Wagner

Fun for fans of memoir, Jamie Livingston’s Photo of the Day and Hugh Crawford’s No Words Daily Pix: Don’t miss the Memoirathon on Thursday at 8PM. The above photo of Keith Haring is from “Photo Address Book (1979-1984) by Hugh Crawford.

On February 17th at 8PM, Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House presents its 4th annual Memoirathon: Experience and Expression curated by Branka Ruzak with poet Howard Altmann, prose writers Mindy Greenstein, Chris Macleod, Sue Ribner, Andrea Rosenhaft, Elena Schwolsky, Beverly Willett and Annalee Wilson AND exhibition of works by photographers Jamie Livingston and Hugh Crawford and painter Kathleen Mackenzie.

The English noun memoir, comes from the French mémoire and the Latin memoria, meaning memory. In its very simplest form, one can look at memoir as a remembrance of something meaningful or significant in one’s life. Artists capture and explore personal memories in unique ways, dependent on how they choose to express themselves, whether it’s through painting, photography, poetry, essay, etc. This evening celebrates the expression of memoir in just a few of its many forms.

Click on read more to read about the  prose writers, poets, photographers and painters, who will participate in this year’s Memoirathon.

Continue reading The Memoirathon This Thursday →

To see more gorgeous pictures go to Stylefile NYC.