GREAT NEWS: There’s going to be one more show on the big outdoor screen in JJ Byrne Park on August 1st at 8:30 p.m. Should be a really interesting one, too. It was directed by local Brooklyn filmmaker, Charles Libin.On the night of Black Monday in October of 1987, a group of self-styled revolutionaries led by Paula, their ruthless and ravishing ringleader,
stage a coup d’etat at their World Trade Center firm.

AMERICAN COMBATANT
Officially Selected for the 30th São Paulo International Film Festival (Oct/Nov 2006). It will be screened on Tuesday August 1, 2006 in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue and Third Street.

SYNOPSIS:
On the night of Black Monday in October of 1987, a group of self-styled
revolutionaries led by Paula, their ruthless and ravishing ringleader,
stage a coup d’etat at their World Trade Center firm.

A board member is killed and the band of malcontents take-off with a bag of pistols and millions in stolen bearer bonds. One member, Fred White, leads them to hole-up at a Ludlow Street tenement belonging to his sister Maude. After a nerve racking game of cat and mouse with Paula, Maude is shot and killed on the roof of her building.

Almost two decades later, alcohol-soaked and guilt-ridden, Fred drives a film student and his camera on a twenty-four-hour odyssey through through the rolling golf courses of Westchester, to Lower Manhattan then Brownstone Brooklyn with a visit to Fred’s estranged family.

Tormented, Fred is convinced of the link between Maude’s death in 1987
and the events of 9-11. He confronts his enemy as dawn breaks over
Gardiner’s Bay on the Eastern End of Long Island. 

Thanks to OTBKB reader Krisin for writing in. Needless to say she didn’t buy the rat, which made it possible for my son to hand over thre bucks for that thing. BTW, that video was never made. Teen Spirit didn’t came home that night (slept over at a friend’s house). Next day he told us that he bought it for his friend, the drummer in his band, for his 16th birthday. The friend REFUSED to take it. Such a nice gift. grrrrrr. No Words Daily Pix promises a picture.

i saw this rat!! at the stoop sale! and i ogled, oohed and ahhed, was
grossed out and incredulous and laughing along with all those around
me. so happy this nasty plastic critter found its home in your home and
blog. . . don’t you think it’s a little tiny bit cute? ha! hardly, i
know–it’s ghastly. i’m thinking this disgusting plastic rat is
chuckling at starting yet another conversation. . . i would love to see
the video documenting this rat’s existence, come to think of it!

File this under: keeping abreast of what the other Brooklyn bloggers are up to:

A Brooklyn LIfe has a really nice new banner at the top of their page.

Continue reading NEW LOOK AT A BROOKLYN LIFE →

So I’m a den mother now. Am I the last to know that Time Out has a cover story called, "The War For Brooklyn?" The article includes a box called: The Embeds: Brooklyn’s intrepid bloggers send continual dispatches from the front lines.

Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn: Louise Crawford is a den mother for bloggers in these parts—she recently arranged a "Brooklyn Blogfest" party. Her Park Slope-centric site is cozy, unpretentious, and well informed, always siding with the little guy in the development wars.

That’s a nice couple of sentences. I’m thrilled, of course. Reporter Sarah Goodyear also wrote  about B61 Productions, Brooklyn Record, Brownstoner, Gowanus Lounge, Planet PLG, and Set Speed. Is it possible she left out No Land Grab and Atlantic Yards Report. That’s not possible. Is it?

Just heard about this today. Sounds fun.

The third annual Tiger Beer Singapore Chili Crab Festival will bring sizzling Southeast Asian cuisine and culture to the streets of Brooklyn’s waterfront on Sunday, August 6 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The free street festival will celebrate Asia’s premier lager and the unofficial national dish of Singapore—Chili Crab cooked in a fiery sauce blended with chili peppers, soy, ginger, garlic and onion. Event admission is free with charges for Chili Crab, beer and other food and drink items.

Asian entertainment will be featured throughout the afternoon including kickboxing demonstrations, lion dancers, carnival games, pedicab rides and live bands. Visitors can enter to win a trip to Singapore and learn all about the exotic island-nation. The festival will be held in front of
Location: The Water Street Restaurant & Lounge at 66 Water Street, between Dock and Main Streets, DUMBO, Brooklyn.

Terrible things happened to a friend of mine on July 27th for three years
running. It was many years ago when we were both teens. But I still
think of her every year on that day. No matter where we are. She’s
always in my thoughts on that day.

This year she is in the south of France, one of her favorite places
to be. You can bet that she’s taking it easy. After the third incident
all those years ago, she vowed never to even move on July 27th;
I’m sure she doesn’t take it that far any more. But I’ll bet she
doesn’t fly on airplanes  or do anything risky. I just have a feeling.
The day has that kind of power over her. And me, too.

The first incident occurred on a hosteling trip in Camden, Maine.
The group was hiking when the group-leader fell off a mountain to his
death. That’s all I know. The teenagers had to find their way out of
the park to get help. I remember she told me about it a few weeks after
it happened and I was stunned that something so dramatic, so real could
have happened to her. And it seemed unspeakably sad.

The second incident came a year later. She was also on a hosteling trip. A
friend of hers fell into a glacier lake in Rocky Mountain National
Park. He couldn’t get out for more than an hour and nearly died.
Fortunately, he was saved and lived to tell the tale.

The third incident occurred in a national park in Washington State.
Again she was on a hosteling trip. This time the group was poncho
sliding down an icy pass. My friend went flying into a tree and broke
both of her legs. She had to be helicoptered out of the park (strapped
to the outside of the helicopter) to a hospital in Port
Angeles where she was wrapped in body cast; she couldn’t leave the
hospital for three months. Eventually, she was able to fly back to New
York having missed three months of eleventh grade.

The year after that, we were together on July 27th, which felt sort
of exciting and scary, too.  We didn’t do anything on that day and
joked that we were just going to sit very still. Afterall,
the day was cursed. We were in a summer arts program in North Carolina
feeling far away from home and family and spent the day in a local park
having a picnic, swimming, taking it very easy.

When I was a teenager, I really looked up to this friend (and still
do) for her sense of adventure, her fearlessness, her drive. Some
people might say that going on hosteling trips three years in a row was
pushing it a bit. Strange to say, I think I actually envied her these
disasters:  they seemed so dramatic  even if they were tragic. Isn’t
that what teenagers live for: drama, the real stuff.

I imagined losing someone I’d only known for a few weeks but had
grown quite attached to and even called by a cute nickname. I pictured
her trying to save her friend who nearly died in that icy Colorado
lake. And her stories about the park ranger who visited her at the Port
Angeles hospital…It was all so…grown up and, dare I say it,
exciting. My life paled in comparison.

Ah, the strange logic of a teenage girl. But that’s how I thought
about things then. And I still take it easy on July 27th, try to
anyway. I wouldn’t want my life to take a dramatic turn. Not now
anyway.

On Saturday, I went to the Design Collective Market, the brainchild of clothing designer Kathy Malone, at the Old Stone House.

On two floors, more than 20 of Brooklyn’s hot, new, design stars were selling their indie handbags, jewelry, children’s
clothing, accessories, and paper and lifestyle goods.

Here’s what I got: a lovely quilted blue skirt with a red floral lining by Fofolle for 2-year old Ducky.

Lot and Lots of cool things to buy. Here were some of my faves:

–Beautiful skirts in beautiful fabrics and great t’s and tanks with appliques by Fofolle

–Loved Elaine Perlov’s clothing and her obie belts. She was featured on Daily Candy and Lucky Magazine’s Pick of the Day.

–Pretty, pretty necklaces with glass beads and baubles by Kristin Eno

–Cool name and cool stuff from Slope Suds

–Beautiful hand-screened goods by Foxy & Winston

So much more — I just don’t remember all the names. Special, special things and a great way to support local, indie talent and own something beautiful and unique in the process.

The Design Collective has a large membership and Kathy Malone has many more shows planned for this eclectic group of artisans and designers. Stay tuned for more shows.

here are the links that might not be working:
http://www.elaineperlov.com/
http://www.k-b-e.net
http://www.foxyandwinston.com/

and a link to more designers featured at the Design Collective shows:
http://www.fofolle.com/bim/designer.html
(please check back here, this will continue to be updated with more links added)

She’s at it again. This week Amy Sohn has a piece in New York Magazine (her column is now called Breeding). The pull quote: When every restaurant and coffee bar doubles as a playroom, is there such a thing as adult space anymore?

But the piece is about so much more than public space. It’s about one woman’s need to be perceived as cool even though she’s doing that most uncool of things: being a mommy.

But first let me say this: what Sohn has to say about public space is pretty much on the money. Now that I’ve got "older kids" I get crazy when I go out to a nice place for dinner with Hepcat and there’s a screaming baby nearby. Hate it. It rattles my nerves; I’ve really lost my tolerance for that sort of thing.

But thank god I had tolerance for it when my kids were babies. We obsess over them and love their every poop, their every scream because we are madly in love. Sure, they drive us to near nervous breakdown. But the perpetuation of the species is dependent on parent adulation of their offspring.

The reason this generation of moms have brought their kids into public spaces is because they recognize the need for connection, the need to get out and be part of the world. What’s the alternative? For moms to be contained in a special mommy ghettos?

It’s noisy, smelly, and nerve rattling, but having babies among the general population means that moms don’t have to endure solitary confinement with child during the early years.

In her column,  Amy Sohn is expressing a lot of the sames things that got said a few months ago ad nauseum when the "No Stroller Manifesto" came out.

Remember that? A bartender  at Fifth Avenue’s Patio posted a rant against parents bringing kids to bars.

Sohn’s piece is basically a rehash of a lot of the blogging, commenting and conversation that went on back then. I even wrote a Smartmom piece for the Brooklyn Papers about the baby backlash.

Clearly, Sohn is trying to carve out some editorial space for her "self-hating mom" stance. You can bet there’s going to be yet another book out about the totally cool mom who doesn’t want to be identified as a mom (see hippie mom, boho mom, counterculture mom 1960’s and 1970’s).

New York Magazine is obviously eating it up. They ran a piece last week about Urban Baby, an on-line community of moms that delves into some of that territory, too.

I’d say 2006 is becoming the year of the Anti-Mom, the cool mom, the anti-SAHM, the mom who has disdain for other moms and the culture’s current obsessions with mommydom. It’s the backlash backlash.

Clearly, Sohn doesn’t want to be identified as a Park Slope mom. When she goes to the Tea Lounge she wants to say, "I know I look like one of them, but I am NOT!

She does what she can visually to differentiate herself from the pack. "My goal is not to look like a mother so much as a still-young, still-cool person who just happens to have a child."

Ah, the young still-cool person. Sohn may not mommydom, but she’s obsessed with our culture’s preoccupation with youth and coolness. She wants to be perceived as young and cool – in spite of her baby.

How do you spell D-E-N-I-A-L ?

Doesn’t the need to be cool, to be perceived as an urban hipster get annoying, too?

I’m sure a lot of people perceive me as a typical Park Slope mom. But I am so much more detailed and interesting. Which isn’t to say that being a mom isn’t interesting. It’s just we’re all about so much more.

And some of us are cool moms.

When you first have a kid, your tiny little dumpling takes over all your thoughts like any life-changing, milestone experience would. They are more fascinating than anything else in your life because they are life just beginning. It’s miraculous and wonderful.

Over time you come back to your old life. Except it’s never the same; your life is forever changed. You can be hipster cool or anything else you wanna be.

Seems to me, the coolest people don’t worry about being cool all the time. And don’t worry so much about what group they are being identified with. If you’re a cool person you’ll be a cool person – mother or not.

Yesterday I came into the apartment at dusk with my friend Red Eft. All the lights were out. When I walked into the dining room, I saw what looked like a huge rat sitting on the dining room table.

My heart started to beat and I yelled for Red Eft, "What is that? What is IT?"  The rat was black with huge, sharp looking white teeth. It was truly disgusing.

Red Eft said, "It’s a rat but it’s not moving." At which point I ran into the kitchen and sort of danced around in a panic. I tried to get Hepcat’s attention by intercom because he was downstairs at the Third Street Cafe. Instead some guy from Fresh Direct was waiting at the downstair’s door.

Couldn’t reach Hepcat.

I peeked back out at the rat on the dining room table and it was still in the exact same spot. "It’s a very realistic looking plastic rat,"  Red Eft screamed. Still I couldn’t look at it, it was too disgusting.

Phobia of rats, anyone?

I got a large garbage bag in the kitchen and thrust it toward Red Eft who agreed to bag the rat.

I am going to kill Teen Spirit is what I was thinking. Somehow I knew it was him who’d bought the thing at a stoop sale. I haven’t a clue why he’d want it in the first place. It occurred to me that maybe someone had left it in our apartment as a prank, a nasty gesture.

But who would do that?

I was going to just toss the damn thing in the garbage but I decided to call Teen Spirit who was at a concert with friends.

"I found your friend, the rat. I’m going to throw it out. It’s disgusting," I said.
"Don’t throw my rat out," he said. "My mom wants to throw out my rat," he said to friends who were standing by. "You can’t do that. I bought it at a store."

"What kind of store?" I said.

"The stoop sale store…" he said.

And so it went. After I hung up with my rat-buying son, I decided to leave the rat in the black garbage bag in Teen Spirit’s room. But when OSFO and friends came upstairs they were fascinated by the disgusting thing and placed it in a strategic spot in Teen Spirit’s room.

"When he comes home he’s gonna be really surprised to see that rat sitting there," Red Eft’s nine year old son, a budding filmmaker, said: "I’m going to videotape his reaction."

Well, Teen Spirit slept over at his friend’s house. So we haven’t seen his reaction yet. Can’t wait.

Our favorite houseguests, a family of four who live in upstate New York, are visiting. They moved away from Prospect Heights four-and-a half years ago and whenever they come to visit they stay with us.

Fun as it is to have them, there just isn’t enough room in our apartment to comfortably sleep them. They used to stay in the living room but we recently put up a partial wall in there so Hepcat can have an office. That means: a smaller living room.

Great solution: Remember those guinea pigs we’re taking care of. Their owner said we should just stay at her house. So last night, Hepcat and I went out for dinner with our friends and then walked over to our little brownstone away from home.

What a treat. Guinea pig friend has a  jacuzzi in her bedroom and I made a b-line for it when we got to the house last night.

There’s something about being in a place that is not home, a place where the clutter has nothing to do with you, that is so relaxing. It’s so easy to ignore.

Woke up this morning in someone else’s life. Washed my face at a lovely Kohler sink that is like a ceramic bowl. Sat in the quiet living room that overlooks the garden.

By 8:30 a.m., I felt compelled to return home. Stopped at Cousin John’s for croissants, danish and turnover. Everyone was up: the honored house guests were getting ready to take a walk in the old neighborhood. They like to take their kids to see where they lived when they were younger. My friend was bracing herself for seeing the construction site where the Richard Meier is going to be.

Lots of changes in the last four years in their old neighborhood. They don’t miss Brooklyn much: their new surroundings are quite spacious and pleasant. They certainly don’t miss nthe  noise, the fast speed of life, the garbage. But they do miss the people.

This from NY1:

The Crown Princess cruise ship that rolled sharply to its side off the coast of Florida Tuesday arrived in Red Hook Saturday morning.

No passengers were on board. All had disembarked in Florida and found other ways home.

After the terrifying ride, the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board cleared the Crown Princess to sail.

Dozens of passengers were hurt in the incident, two critically.

The ship is expected to head back out to sea Saturday evening, bound for Grand Turk and Bermuda.

No word on what caused the ship to tilt to its side.