Author Marian Fontana knows funny and she is bringing together a great group of comic writers for this night of hilarity with Marian, Don Cummings, Ellen Ferguson, Gianna Messina, Billy Frolick, and Blair Fell.

DON CUMMINGS’ critically acclaimed plays have been produced on both coasts: His play, The Fat of the Land was a semifinalist for the Kaufman & Hart Award for new American comedy. A Good Smoke was a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill theater conference. It had a reading at The Public Theater in New York starring Meryl Streep and Debra Monk and has been optioned for Broadway. Piss Play is about Minorities so it’s Really Important was produced in the Summer Cringe Festival of 2009 where it received the Golden Pineapple award for best play. His latest play, Live Work Space, opens soon in Los Angeles. His collection of nonfiction essays are loosely held together in his yet-to-be-published memoir, Open Trench, named after his blog. He has acted in a lot of plays and been on a lot of sitcoms and writes movies and TV shows. Mr. Cummings is a graduate of Tufts University, The Neighborhood Playhouse and a member of The Dramatists Guild and the Ensemble Studio Theater Writer’s Unit. www.doncummings.net

ELLEN FERGUSON writes the “Diversity in the News” column for McSweeney’s, and her nonfiction has also been published in Diversity Prep, Publisher’s Weekly, and SPY.  Her McSweeney’s column has been widely reprinted online.  Her poetry can be found online on identitytheory and the Brooklyn Reading Works, and in print in Long Island Quarterly.  Before she started teaching English, Satire and Nonfiction in New Jersey and New Hampshire, she worked at The New Yorker Magazine and SPY.

BLAIR FELL has written for the television series Queer As Folk, andthe emmy-award winning Public Television show California Connected.His plays Naked Will, The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun,From The Hip, Bargains and Blood, The Ballad of Little Girl Jesus etal have been performed around the world and have received numerousawards.  He has written charity and award show speeches for hundredsof celebrities, as well as the GLAAD Awards, Vimeo Awards and TheTrevor Project.  Along with writing for a number of pop culturewebsites, he writes a fiction blog called subwaysaints.com and the webseries Burninghabits.com.  His work can also be seen on blairfell.com.

MARIAN FONTANA has been a writer and performer for over 20 years. Her articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and most recently in the Guardian and on Salon.com. Her memoir, A Widows Walk published in 2005 by Simon and Schuster, was chosen as the Top Ten Great Reads of 2005 by People magazine and the Washington Post’s Book Raves of 2005. She most recently completedher second memoir, The Middle of the Bed.

Her essays have appeared in the anthologies Money Changes Everything and The Time of My Life for Random House. She is currently collaborating on a musical.

BILLY FROLICK’S screenwriting credits include DreamWorks Animation’s MADAGASCAR.  He has written for The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times and Salon.com, and is the author of four book-length parodies, including The Ditches of Edison County, a national bestseller.

GIANNA MESSINA is a writer, producer and comedian who got her start as a baby model. Her work has appeared in  Dossier and Atlanta Style & Design magazine. She has performed stand-up at the Punchline in Atlanta and at the Metropolitan Room in New York and co-hosted the No Rules radio show with comedian Stu Levine. She is a graduate of Syracuse University Crouse College of Art and the High School for the Performing Arts where she majored in Drama. Gianna lives with her cat Clementine in Brooklyn in order to be closer to good bread and cannoli. She is gluten-free intolerant, enjoys the 3rdperson format of biographies and blogging on giannamessina.com.

In the cozy upstairs room at the Old Stone House, experience the reading series that Conde Nast Traveler called: “The Best Place to Chase Fiction with a Bit of History.

“Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House: Reconstructed from a 1699 Dutch farmhouse that played a key role in the Revolutionary War. Once a month you can hear up-and-coming Brooklyn writers discuss themes ranging from “Make Mine a Double”—on women and drinking—to books by war veterans (336 Third St.; 718-768-3195).”

It’s great night out for anyone who wants to be entertained and enlightened by acclaimed and emerging artists, and meet others who enjoy the same.

The Old Stone House

336 Third Street

718-768-3195 or 718-288-4290 for information and interviews

Between Fifth and Fourth Avenues

Due to construction in the park, enter from the Fourth Avenue side of the house.

Melissa Lopata and her husband Larry have done just that. They left Brooklyn and are living on a farm in Connecticut. Okay, I will admit, I was a bit shocked to hear that these city slickers (and longtime supporters of the Brooklyn Blogfest) have pulled up roots and are doing the Green Acres thing. But then I read the following written by Melissa and I am wholeheartedly intrigued.

Melissa completely changed pace, stopping not only to smell the roses, peaches, pears and apples that she picks daily around her farm when in season, but also re-experiencing the wonders of birth with baby cows, and barn yard kittens, and this spring, building a huge, experimental biodome to grow the family’s food year round. Melissa is also working on becoming a certified organic farmer and Non-GMO food advocate and speaker. She has also set up a painting studio in her house and is re-discovering her artist within.

The good news is that Melissa is coming back to Brooklyn for a visit AND an event. Did I mention that Melissa also runs Momasphere with author Ellen Bari? Momasphere is an organization that produces innovative events and programs for moms of all ages and stages, in and out of the workplace, while also giving back to the community.

Proceeds of their events go to various charities that help women, children and families.  After a busy one year hiatus, Melissa and Ellen plan to continue Momasphere from Brooklyn and Connecticut. They will also provide consulting, niche marketing and event planning services to businesses that want added exposure to the dynamic mom market, as well as customized, targeted in-house programming for their mom employees.

This Thursday in Park Slope, come to Momasphere’s 2012 kick-off event called, appropriately enough, (Re)Discover Your Life Purpose with Anne Baker, certified life and career coach. Baker will share proven exercises, tips and steps in this interactive, two hour workshop to help you make a head start this year to achieving greater success and fulfillment in your life. The event is only $20 and Momasphere’s events are always well run and interesting. Even better, a percentage of the admission fee will go towards benefiting Women In Need, Inc. (WIN), providing New York City’s homeless women and their families with safe, clean housing; support and the skills to become self-reliant.

Best of all, you will walk away from the session with a greater awareness of what will bring more meaning to your life; which life areas to prioritize; and a new and creative approach to setting and achieving goals to live your purpose. Plus, every participant can sign up to receive a complimentary coaching session with Anne Baker.

DATE: Thursday, March 22, 2012

TIME: 7:00pm – 9:30pm

PLACE: Park Slope Eye, 682 Union St. (betw. 4th & 5th Ave), Brooklyn, NY. Phone: (347) 560-8393
PRICE: General Admission is $20 online and $30 at the door (cash only at the door)

Space is limited so RSVP by purchasing tickets online. Tickets at the door are cash only and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Wine & snacks will be served. Receive a free Momasphere / Park Slope Eye tote bag for your workshop handouts.

In the Year of the Dragon”, a reading celebration of Asian and Asian-American writers presented by Brooklyn Reading Works at  the Old Stone House on Thursday, March 15th at 8PM.

Hear…

Novelists SUSAN CHOI, CATHERINE CHUNG, SABINA MURRAY, HOONG YEE LEE KRAKAUER, playwright LINDA FAIGAO-HALL and Brooklyn’s Poet Laureate, TINA CHANG.

Curated by...

Novelist Sophia Romero, author of “Always Hiding” (William Morrow) who also blogs as “The Shiksa From Manila”.

Brooklyn Reading Works is on its sixth year and is a monthly thematic reading series  in Brownstone Brooklyn. Last year, “Voices from the East: In the Year of the Rabbit”  featured poet Joanna Sit, playwright Diana Son, and novelists Bino Realuyo, Thad Rutkowski and Ronica Dhar.  There will be a Q&A and mingling with the artists at the end.  The Old Stone House is located at J.J. Byrne Park on 5th avenue between 3rd and 4th streets.

I saw this and I couldn’t resist because Allan Sherman is such a classic. And the Famous Accordian Orchestra is such a class act (and a fave of OTBKB). They’re doing a tribute to Allan Sherman of “My Son, the Folksinger” Fame. He’s the guy who wrote, “The Ballad of Harry Lewis”, “Beautiful Teamsters” and “Don’t Buy the Liverwurst”.  There was a time you couldn’t walk into a thrift shop and not see that album in the LP bin. I know my family had a copy of it at one time.

On Sunday, March 4 at 5PM, Bob Goldberg and Mark Nathanson of the Famous Accordion Orchestra are going to performa their favorite songs by the great Allan Sherman including, “Hello Muddah Hello Faddah”, “The Streets of Miami”, “The Ballad of Sir Greenbaum”, “Sarah Jackman” (rumored to be a fave of JFK), “If I Were a Tishman” and of course “Seltzer Boy”.

You gotta love it.

Best of all, it’s a benefit. Proceeds from this performance will support the Famous Accordion Orchestra’s 2012 World Tour of Brooklyn, an annual series of free concerts in community gardens and other public spaces.

Even better, Manischewitz, Seltzer, and noshes will be served.   Special guests may appear!

Sheva Fruitman, a talented photographer, jewelry designer, and an old friend of OTBKB,  sends word of the opening of her jewelry exhibition in Paris tonight (Naila de Monbrison, 6 Rue de Bourgogne, Paris 75007).

Doesn’t that sound lovely? We so wish we could be there.

please join me on september 20th from 5pm-9pm for the opening of my jewelry exhibition at naila de monbrison 6 rue de bourgogne, paris 75007 avec l’aimable participation de la maison veuve clicquot http://naila-de-monbrison.com This is one of her bracelets Sheva also sends these photos she took in Paris while setting up her show

At the Dr. S. Stevan Dweck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, The Sherman Chamber Ensemble played a program of elegiac music by 18thand 19th century composers, including Gabriel Fauré, Felix Mendelssohn, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

“I didn’t want it to be all lugubrious. I wanted to combine memory with works of mourning and rebirth,” said Eliot T. Bailen, co-founder of the ensemble and cellist.

Bailen and his wife, flutist Susan Rothholtz, founded the Sherman Chamber Ensemble in 1983. They perform nearly two-dozen concerts a year, including a subscription series in Sherman and Kent, Connecticut.

To prepare for the concert, Bailen listened to radio interviews with survivors and family members who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks.

“I tried to keep my focus on the day and the meaning of it,” he said.

Probably the most unusual piece on the program was the “Piano Trio” by Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884), a Czech composer who was championed by Franz Lizst. Introducing the piece, Bailen told the audience “to listen to the contours of the music and the way that it alternates between beautiful melodies and turbulence.”

Smetana’s composition, he explained, was written after the death of the composer’s 4-year-old daughter.

“It was very specifically written after tragedy and that is why it is appropriate for today,” Bailen explained.

The performance of this piece with Bailen on cello, Michael Roth on violin and Margaret Kampmeier on piano, was virtuosic and highly emotionally as it sonically conveyed what Bailen called “the incomprehensible train of thought between anger and beauty and the heroic aspect of dying.”

The audience seemed moved by the music and cheered for the performers who appeared equally exhausted and exhilarated.

A woman sitting next to me said that she worked in the financial district on September 11, 2001 and knew that listening to music would be a “healing” way to spend the day.

“I listened to the names this morning, but I wanted to spend the afternoon listening to music,” she explained.

After the show, Bailen commented on whether or not music has a healing power. “For some people it does. It takes things we can’t explain or resolve on our own and creates a framework to re-experience it.”

To illustrate this, Bailen said that he made a mistake while playing the first piece of the program, “Elegie Op 24” for cello and piano.

“Sitting in the front row I watched a man grab his companion’s hand during the piece and that moved me,” he said. The emotion he experienced caused him to drop a note, something he rarely does.

When Jay Kaplan, director of programs & exhibitions at the Brooklyn Public Library decided he wanted to present a special program to honor September 11, he tapped Peter Weitzner, curator and host of the BPL Chamber Players in Residence, to produce it on short notice.

“I knew I wanted to get the Sherman Chamber Ensemble and that Eliot Bailen would put together something very special for the occasion,” Kaplan said.

–Eliot Wagner

Hayes Carll and his band played a fun set this past Saturday at Stuyvesant Town Oval which included this song.  It’s the title track from his recent album, and its narrator is a US soldier in Afghanistan.  KMAG YOYO is military speak for kiss my ass guys, you’re on your own.  Just click here to see it.

–Eliot Wagner

–Eliot Wagner

I know, posting Heat Wave given last week’s scorching weather is kind of obvious.  But why not take this opportunity to see two version of this song.  The first is by Martha and The Vandellas, who had the original hit with this way back in the early 60s.  The group is obviously lip synching, but that’s OK.  It still gives us the opportunity to see the Motown choreography.  Next up is Linda Ronstadt.  This live performance of her reinterpretation of the song from 1976 absolutely smokes as well.  Just click here to see both videos.

–Eliot Wagner