Postcard from the Slope

GOSSIP GIRL’S BROOKLYN

Gossip Girl, the new show by the makers of the OC is definitely going to be the new show you’ll love to hate.

Its depiction of the upper-crust teenage crowd on the Upper East Side is silly and fun. The real New York locations give the series the only verisimilitude it’s got. These kids are like no teenagers I’ve ever met but I can’t decide if that’s because I didn’t go to Brearley or they’re just written all wrong.

Half the fun of the show for me is that the narrator (Gossip Girl) is an un-seen blogger. No one knows her identity, but everyone in this fancy, shmancy, Upper East Side prep school circle relies on her website and text messages for the latest  dish. 

There’s nasty nasty stuff going on between social butterfly Serena and closest friend, Blair Waldorf. You see, Serena slept with Blair’s boyfriend and Blair is a vindictive, mean-spirited, Beyatch. 

The cute, smart outsider is Dan from BROOKLYN. A middle class kid (ha), he has a nice sister and a rock ‘n roll dad and they live in a "funky" artist’s loft in WILLIAMBSURG or DUMBO (I don’t know what happened to his mom).

The father, who is very handsome in a manly New York artist sort of way, is always apologizing to his son for not having the right name or the cash that would make it easy for his son to survive among his snotty friends.

He also has tons of romantic back story with Serena’s super snotty, ultra bitchy mom who was once a rock and roll groupie.

You gotta get a load of their Brooklyn life-style. Their sprawling loft has brick walls, art all over the place, and lots of furniture from Design Within Reach and West Elm. They’re not poor by a long shot they’re just FUNKY Brooklyn folk.

Dan is, of course, the coolest, smartest, and most ethical character in the show (sort of the Seth of this show in OC-speak). Unlike the other kids, who go to the best colleges on the legacy plan, he really reads books and THINKS.

That’s Brooklyn for you.

The show is on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. on CW. So don’t call me then. I’ll be watching and I don’t want to be disturbed.

Postcard from the Slope

BLEND OF PROUST AND PAGE-TURNER AT THE COMMUNITY BOOKSTORE

The September of Shiraz takes place in Iran after the revolution and in Brooklyn. The author will be reading at Community Bookstore next Thursday. Hmmm. Will try to make it over there…

The Community Bookstore welcomes you to hear Dalia Sofer read from her debut novel, The Septembers of Shiraz.
Maybe you read Claire Messud’s glowing review in the New York Times
Book Review, or have heard the cloud of literary Park Slope chatter
it’s stirred up, or maybe you’ve already been taken in by its blend of
Proust and page-turner.  Set in Iran after the Revolution– and here in
Brooklyn–it is a family saga, a political thriller wrought rich and
real and sorrowful, and is beautifully detailed, full of luminous
images.

 
Please join us on Thursday, October 11th @ 7:30 p.m.
 
Community Bookstore
143 7th Avenue, Park Slope
(718) 783-3075
 
As always, refreshments will be provided…
Civics and Urban Life

PARK SLOPE 100: SEND IN YOUR CHOICES

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Send in your choices for the 2007 Park Slope 100, the highly opinionated, subjective, obviously controversial list of talented, energetic, ambitious, creative
individuals with vision in the Greater Park Slope area who reach
outward toward the larger community and the world to lead, to help, to create, to teach, to
improve, to enhance, to inform, to network, to make change.

Those chosen for THE LIST are community
activists, good neighbors, entrepreneurs, volunteers, spiritual leaders, publishers,
bloggers, leaders of organizations, social workers, therapists,
artists, writers,
educators, politicians, retailers, thinkers, chefs and restaurant owners and whatever else
I’ve left out.

In other words: we cast a wide net. No one who appeared on last year’s list can be on the new list. You can leave a comment or send me an email: louise_crawford(at)yahoo(dotcom).

The list will be rolled out on December 6, 2007

Civics and Urban Life

‘TIS THE WEEKEND

ANGELS AND ACCORDIONS at the Green-Wood Cemetery hosts a walk featuring dance and music. Noon and 3:30 pm. Meet at main gate, Fifth
Avenue and 25th Street. Reservations necessary. (718) 768-7300. Free.

HOUSE AND GARDEN TOUR: Crown Heights North Association hosts a tour. $20. Noon to 5 pm. For info visit www.crownheightsnorth.org. (718) 756-1920.

OPEN HOUSE NY: Visit Prospect Park’s
architectural treasures: The Litchfield Villa, Lefferts Historic House
and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch. For info on other locations all over the city go to: www.ohny.org. Free

FIRST SATURDAY AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM from 6 p.m. at the museum on Eastern Parkway.

Civics and Urban Life

WHAT IS THE BEST BLACK AND WHITE COOKIE IN BROOKLYN?

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Lucy Baker in the Brooklyn Paper asks the question and tries to eat her way to the answer. Every morning I see the very sophisticated version of the B/W cookie at Cousin John’s. I see but don’t eat. It looks good.

If there were such a thing as an official borough cookie, Brooklyn’s
would be the black and white. Part cake, part cookie, half chocolate
and half vanilla, the black and white has been my favorite dessert
since I was a little girl. On top of all that, the rumor that the
cookie was invented in Brooklyn makes it that much sweeter.

Brooklyn Papers

MASTER PLAN FOR GRAND ARMY PLAZA TRAFFIC

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This from the Brooklyn Paper

The city started work last week on a master plan that could
transform the dizzying chaos of Grand Army Plaza into a well-engineered
traffic circle worthy of Western Europe, by taking 11,000 square feet
of street space and giving it to pedestrians and cyclists.

The “Big Dig” was cheered by traffic activists as “a great first step in the right direction.”

“The
changes are really indicative of how much the Department of
Transportation itself has changed since Janette Sadik-Khan came in as
commissioner,” said Aaron Naparstek, a member of the Grand Army Plaza
Coalition, which has lobbied — and is still lobbying — for a more
radical transformation of the so-called “Circle of Death.”

Civics and Urban Life

GROUP PROTESTS THE “MANHATTANIZATION” OF BROOKLYN

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This from New York 1:

They may live in different buildings, in different neighborhoods, but some Brooklyn tenants share a common fear – displacement.

They gathered for a town hall meeting organized by local elected
officials and housing advocates Wednesday night in Fort Greene to share
their complaints and seek help.

"You have an affordable housing crisis that began in Fort Greene
and it’s sweeping eastward through Clinton Hill into Bedford
Stuyvesant,” said Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries. “What started
in Prospect Heights is sweeping eastward into Crown Heights, and
long-term residents are being put out by landlords who are seeing
dollar signs."

Civics and Urban Life

GERSH INTERVIEWS TWINS SEPARATED AT BIRTH

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This from Brooklyn Paper:

Spy magazine used to have a popular segment called “Separated at
birth” that featured pictures of celebrities who bore an uncanny
resemblance to each other. Forgive real-life twins Paula Bernstein and
Elyse Schein if they fail to find humor in the photographic
juxtaposition — after all, “Separated at birth” is their life story.

The
twins, adopted by different middle-class Jewish families in the 1960s,
were the victims of a New York adoption agency’s bizarre — and since
repudiated — theory that identical twins would flourish if raised
separately.

EDUCATION

FYI: MIDDLE SCHOOL OPEN HOUSES I’VE HEARD ABOUT

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MS 447 Math & Science Exploratory School sometimes referred to as Upper Carroll is having an open house on Saturday October 6 at 10 am. You can just show up.

This will be a good way to hear about the school. Not a good way to see the school in action. But you will, most likely, get to meet administration and teachers and hear the talk.

This is a very hot school in Boerum Hill and this open house should attract quite a crowd of nervous parents.

MS 447 Math and Science Exploratory School.
345 Dean Street Brooklyn, NY 11205
Phone: (718) 330-9328 | Fax: (718) 330-0944 Principal: Lisa Gioe-Cordi
Parent Coordinator: Julia Castro (347) 563-4908

Every Wednesday at 9:30 am I hear that the Urban Assembly for Arts and Letters in Ft. Green is having an open house for parents. A few friends have gone and they’ve been exceedingly impressed.

The Urban Assembly of Arts and Letters
225 Adelphi Street Brooklyn, NY 11205
Phone: (718) 222-1605 | Fax: (718) 852-6020 Principal: Allison Gaines Pell

             

Civics and Urban Life

GROW, WATERMELON, GROW: COMMUNITY BOOKS THIS SUNDAY

Wonderful Things Are Sprouting at the Community Bookstore!!!

GROW, WATERMELON, GROW author Charlotte Noruzi will visit the
Community Bookstore as part of our ongoing Sunday Children’s Reading
Series this Sunday, October 7, at 3:00 p.m.

The book is beautifully
illustrated (by Noruzi herself) and very funny, and is about a girl
and her patience (or impatience) at planting a watermelon seed and
watching (and watching…and watching…) it grow.

So park your strollers this Sunday at the Community Bookstore, and
pick up a signed copy of Grow, Watermelon, Grow. As always, this event
is free and open to the public.

Seed-spitting contest to follow.

Sunday, October 7th
3:00 p.m.
Community Bookstore
143 7th Avenue, Park Slope
(718) 783-3075

New York Times

HERBERT MUSCHAMP DIES: TIMES’ ARCHITECTURE CRITIC

I admired Muschamp’s writing and always enjoyed his personal and effusive style. On visiting Frank Gehry newly opened Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Muschamp had this to say in the New York Times. He was 59 years old and the cause of death was lung cancer.

After my first visit to the building, I went back to the hotel to
write notes. It was early evening and starting to rain. I took a break
to look out the window and saw a woman standing alone outside a bar
across the street. She was wearing a long, white dress with matching
white pumps, and she carried a pearlescent handbag. Was her date late?
Had she been stood up?

“When I looked back a bit later, she was
gone. And I asked myself, Why can’t a building capture a moment like
that? Then I realized that the reason I’d had that thought was that I’d
just come from such a building. And that the building I’d just come
from was the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe.”

"…What twins the actress and the building in my memory is that both of
them stand for an American style of freedom. That style is voluptuous,
emotional, intuitive and exhibitionist. It is mobile, fluid, material,
mercurial, fearless, radiant and as fragile as a newborn child. It
can’t resist doing a dance with all the voices that say ‘No.’ It wants
to take up a lot of space. And when the impulse strikes, it likes to
let its dress fly up in the air.”

Continue reading HERBERT MUSCHAMP DIES: TIMES’ ARCHITECTURE CRITIC →

Civics and Urban Life

ATLANTIC YARDS REPORT ON: IS NEW YORK LOSING ITS SOUL?

Atlantic Yards Report reports on  “Is New York Losing Its Soul?” the first in a series of public programs connected to the  Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York
exhibit and sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Read more at AYR.

The panelists at the
Donnell Library auditorium, facing an audience of some 250 people,
expressed varying degrees of dismay over homogenization and rising
rents, as well as feelings of impotence in a developer-friendly city.
And Atlantic Yards was again the poster child for unwelcome development.

Leading
off, moderator Clyde Haberman, a New York Times Metro columnist,
brought up the relentless march of chain banks and chain drugstores. “I
suspect history will smile on the Bloomberg administration,” he said,
but “it has yet to meet a developer to which it will say no.” (That’s
not quite true, given the administration’s posture
toward Joe Sitt’s Thor Equities in Coney Island.) The one example he
referenced—noting that panelist Alison Tocci of Time Out New York
wanted to discuss it—was Atlantic Yards.

STUFF AND THINGS

FIDELIO IS HERE

The Brooklyn Repertory Opera (www.bropera.org) and Hellgate Harmonie (www.hellgateharmonie.com) will be performing Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Brooklyn Lyceum (www.brooklynlyceum.com) six times over the next few weeks.  Stephen Francis Vasta conducts.

This is the complete opera with full orchestra, chorus, and innovative staging (taking advantage of the Brooklyn Lyceum’s dungeon-like, former public bath house infrastructure).  Performances will be sung in the English language.

Here’s the schedule:

Wednesday, October 10 — 7:30 PM
Sunday, October 14 —– 4:00 PM
Sunday, October 21 —– 4:00 PM
Wednesday, October 24 — 7:30 PM
Sunday, October 28 —– 4:00 PM
Saturday, November 3 — 4:00 PM

Tickets $20 – Students/Seniors $10

For more information, or to reserve tickets please go to www.bropera.org, or call 718-857-4816.

Civics and Urban Life

STILL LOOKING FOR PRINCIPAL FOR KHALIL GIBRAN SCHOOL

The New York Post reports that Department of Education is looking for applicants to serve as
permanent principal of Khalil Gibran International Academy.

People are wondering whether the school’s former principal, Debbie Almontaser, is going to apply for the position at the school, which she helped to develop. She resigned from the position, which pays $120,000 a year, after a controversy over "Intifada NYC." t-shirts, in August. Just weeks before the start of the school year.

Fluency in Arabic is preferred, but is not required

Postcard from the Slope

PARK SLOPE IN TOP TEN OF GREAT AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOODS

Park Slope has made the 2007 list of great American neighborhoods put together by the American Planning Organization, which had this to say about its new national program:

"The American Planning Organization celebrates the first 10 Great Streets and 10 Great Neighborhoods
designated through its new national program, Great Places in America.
Launched last spring, Great Places in America celebrates places of
exemplary character, quality, and planning. Places are selected
annually and represent the gold standard of communities, offering
Americans better choices for where and how to work and live."

 The other 9 neighborhoods are:

Chatham Village in Pittsburg***Eastern Market in Washington, DC***Elmwood Village in Buffalo, NY***First Addition in Lake Oswego, Oregon****Hillcrest in San Diego****North Beach in San Francisco***Old West Austin in Austin, Texas***Pike Place Market in Seattle***West Urbana in Illinois.

Congratulations to all the nabes who made the list.   

Postcard from the Slope

RED HOOK SCHOOL SWAMPED BY BOOK OFFERS

4 Comments

I got an email from someone at the Red Hook school I mentioned yesterday. They don’t want any more books and don’t want to be mentioned on the blog.

OTBKB would like to personally thank everyone who heeded the call. The Community Bookstore is setting up a library in a school in New Orleans. I will get more info on this and let you all know.

It was called to my attention that there was mention of our book
drive on your Blog site.  I do not know who sent it to you.

Secondly, I am totally swamped by offers of books and
cannot keep up the demand so I would appreciate your removing that
notice.

Civics and Urban Life

MORE BUSY OCTOBER FOR OTBKB

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October 13: INNER LIVES, DEVELOPING CHARACTERS is Regina McBride’s monthly writing workshop in Park Slope. 10 am until 5 pm. To register: nightsea21@nyc.rr.com.

Using relaxation, sense memory, and emotional memory (Stanislavski
acting techniques transformed for the writer) a variety of exercises
will be offered to enable the student to find a deeper, richer
connection to the character he or she is creating.

Exercises will be followed by writing periods, and opportunities for
people to read and share their work. The atmosphere will be safe, with
the focus on exploration. The class is designed to help the student
break into new territory with the character, and with the story itself.

October 13: TEENS FOR DARFUR, a benefit concert at the Old Stone House
with Cool and Unusual, Dulaney Banks, Post No Bills, Banzai, and the
newly re-formed, The Floor is Lava. 6 p.m. $10 for adults. $5 for kids
and teens. All welcome. Funds will go to the American Jewish World Service  Refugee Relief Effort in Darfur. Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street in Park Slope.

Octobter 18: Centennial Celebration for Ladder 122. 11 am. In front of the firehouse on 11th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

October 18: BROOKLYN READING WORKS
at the Old Stone House presents Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn. Several
poets from this great collection of Brooklyn poems will be on hand at
the Old Stone House: Phillis Levin, Andrea Baker, Patricia Spears Jones, and Tom Sleigh.  Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street in Park Slope.

October 20: JAMIE LIVINGTON. PHOTO OF THE DAY 1979-1997. 6,697
Polaroids, dated in sequence. Exhibition runs from October 13-28, 2007.
Bard College. Bertelsmann Campus Center. Sponsored by the Bard-St.
Stephens’s Alumni/ae Assocationor more information, contact
info@photooftheday.net

October 20: BOB KLEIN AND THE ANCESTORS at the Cutting Room. 7 p.m.  19 West 24th Street.

October 21: BROOKLYN BLOGADE ROADSHOW in Bay Ridge. Location and time to be determined. Organized by Luna Park Gazette.

Other Bloggers

REDECORATING AT DESIGN SPONGE: NEW URL, NEW DESIGN

Thanks to Brklyn Stories I just got the news that Design Sponge has just redecorated.

A new URL, a new design, a new site. What fun. Check out her new design, which uses fabric and trim as a motif. Her site is really gorgeous.

Design Sponge is probably one of the biggest Brooklyn blog sauces stories. This blog has really become a major force in the design world. Grace, who runs Design Sponge, who was at the first Brooklyn Blogfest, really knows what she’s doing..

KUDOs to you, Grace.

And thanks to Brklyn Stories for telling this story. By the way, we missed you at the Blogade. So come "shout out" about yourself on  October 21 in Bay Ridge. Location and time TBD. It is being organized by Luna Park Gazette.

And here’s what BS had to say about the changes at Design Sponge. Now this is a big story in the Brooklyn blog world.

Yes, this wonderful site that sates any aspiring I.D.-er has moved to http://www.designspongeonline.com/ and has so much more to offer!

The
site converted on October 1st, 2007. Grace writes, "i’m so thrilled to
introduce you to the new design*sponge! i’ve been working all summer
with the team at also design
to update d*s in a way that makes the site easier to navigate as well as a
more accurate reflection of my current design aesthetic."

Postcard from the Slope

WANTED: WOMEN FOR A MAKEOVER SHOW WITH A TWIST

I got an email today from a casting director. She’s looking for a couple of dynamic women for an INTERNAL makeover television show for the Discovery channel.

I thought she was calling about using me. Who told her that I need a makeover?

But she’s looking for someone in her 30’s. Oh well. I don’t need an INTERNAL makeover anyway. Or do I? Here’s what she’s looking for:

This week and next we are casting women for a makeover show…. with a twist!

This makeover focuses on an INTERNAL makeover…. from an emotional and mental standpoint. You will be paired with a renowned life coach for 5 days.

We are looking for a vibrant, interesting, layered woman with family & friends close by. (We are looking for participation of family & friends if applicable).

Please send response with answers to the following questions:

Age? Location? Occupation?

Describe your family… you parents, siblings, and kids if you have any.

What’s your relationship status? Single, married, etc. Describe that area of your life.

What do you need help with? How could this experience benefit you? What do your family/friends think you need help with?

How’s your relationship with your mother and father?

What would those close to you say is "getting in your way"?

Describe your "everyday."

Please attach a picture of youself and send this in an email to casting at eliza.babcock(at)citylightsmedia(dotcom)

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