The Piper Theater, under the creative leadership of John McEneny (MS 51 drama czar) will perform Midsummer Night’s Dream and A Winter’s Tale on July 26 and 28 in JJ Byrne Park.

Piper was established in 2001 by
John and Rachel McEneny to develop arts and culture in the City of
Yonkers as a way to foster economic development, tourism, and an
enhanced quality of life.

Now in Season 6:  Piper has been invited to be part of Brooklyn at the Old Stone House in on 5th Avenue. Last week, professional adult actors performed a spirited and delightful production of Much Ado About Nothing.

This week, it’s the kid’s turn to wow the Park Slope audience. It should be inspiring for kids and adults alike.

Piper Theatre at the Old Stone House. Midsummer Night’s Dream
5 pm.  Free.

The Winter’s Tale
7 pm.  Free.

Concession by Stone Park Cafe

Twice a day the turtles, which are actually the size of a large bagel, need our attention: breakfast and dinnertime. We sprinkle various kinds of dry, fishy food into their tank. I don’t really know what it is but it stinks. They get very excited when we come downstairs. But all they want is their food. Then they get back to swimming around and playing together.

I forget their names. I think it’s Spotty and Stripes. Something like that. But it doesn’t really matter. They look alike and don’t answer when you call their names.

But boy do they lead a very active life in their big tank. They’re fast and graceful swimmers. Fun to watch swishing this way and that. And they’re so interesting to look at: they each have a bright red spot on their ears. Hepcat says that they’re called "Red Eared Turtles" but he’s not sure that turtles have ears (all of a sudden he’s a turtle expert).

He just told me that Red Eared Turtles are notorious for spreading Samonella. Great. He’s always such a bringer of good news. We never touch the water but boy will we ever avoid it now.

We must wash our hands after feeding them. We must wash our hands after feeding them.

Those turtles don’t seem to want attention from us. They do, however, follow us. If we’re on one side of the tank, they come to that side. It’s kinda cool.

This weekend we’re back on guinea pig duty. OSFO can barely wait. The guineas enjoy being petted and held. And she loves to pet their soft fur and hold them. When we get there, they’re usually hiding in their "furniture." Cool plastic shapes that look like they were made in the 1960’s. Very mid-century modern.

I forget their names, too. Furry and Softy or something like that.

It feels nice to be needed by those turtles. Twice a day, we pay a  visit, feed them, say good bye. They have a bright florescent light. We can’t decide if we should turn it off at night. When do they sleep. Do they need it to be dark in there?

Questions, questions. We are just learning to take care of turtles.

DON’T MISS: THE DESIGN COLLECTIVE’S BROOKLYN DESIGNER MARKET

10 AM to 6 PM:  At the Old Stone House (J.J. Byrne Park, 5th Ave.
between 3rd St. and 4th St., 718-768-3195), Park Slope’s first, indie
designer market will be showcasing Brooklyn’s hot, new, design stars
with a sale. The indoor, air-conditioned, market offers apparel,
handbags, jewelry, children’s clothing, accessories, and paper and
lifestyle goods.

The Kravitzes went to the Red Hook Pool a few weeks ago and then went to the soccer field where they enjoyed excellent Mexican cuisine sold on food trucks. I see today that Gowanus Lounge has a guide to these delicious dining options.

Sure, there are dining options on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook. But for a real Red Hook treat, take thee to the Red Hook soccer fields. Maybe you’ve heard about the little gathering at the soccer fields at Clinton and Bay streets every weekend? Perhaps you’ve wandered past or driven by and wondered what all those little tents were about?

Well,
every weekend dozens of vendors set up these tents and they constitute
a virtual culinary tour of Central America. It may be New York City’s
most incredible and authentic street food experience, and one that you
probably won’t find replicated elsewhere. (We say "may be" and
"probably" only because we don’t know what other treats may lurk
somewhere else in Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx about which we don’t
know.) Some of the weekend restaurants at the soccer fields have been
doing business in the same spot for years.

Ran into a friend on the F-train this morning. We talked all the way to 59th Street (we both changed trains at Jay Street Boro Hall). She’s a journalist and we talked about her work, my work. It was a great way to pass the time. She told me two things I was glad to hear about. One: Park Slope new mom Amy Sohn, formerly New York Magazine’s sex columnist, ranted on her blog about Park Slope Stay-At-Home-Moms (SAHM). Needless to say, I was dying to read it.  My friend, who was a SAHM for eight years, said it was mean, mean, mean. Two: She also told me about her friend’s blog, Mr. Nice Guy. He’s a Stay-At-Home-Dad who is also a journalist. It’s a great blog and he’s part of a group called The Blogfathers.

What I didn’t know is that Mr. Nice Guy, on his blog, took Amy Sohn to task for her anti-SAHM rant. And boy, the sparks did fly. Here are some excerpt from Sohn’s piece and Mr. Nice Guy’s response.

AMY SOHN: Here in my neighborhood, Park
Slope, I am constantly encountering insane stay at home moms (SAHMs).
And I have come to the all too un-PC conclusion that stay-at-home
motherhood, despite the way our culture lionizes it, is bad for the
child and bad for the mom. And bad for society. It’s just plain bad.

MR. NICE GUY: hmm,
yes. our culture lionizes stay-at-home moms. simply adores them. gives
them health insurance and writes songs about them. and the moms i met
in the nine months i was a stay-at-home dad? totally insane. we’re
talking feces-throwing multiple personality-having batshit bananas.
clearly this is the beginning of a well-reasoned and researched,
articulate treatise on parenthood.

AMY SOHN: Most
of the SAHMs I know are really miserable. The working moms I know hate
their jobs and hate working but they’re not miserable in the kind of
extreme and neurotic, soul crippling, Zoloft inducing Yellow
Wallpaper-type way the SAHMs are.

MR. NICE GUY: let’s
stop here a moment and marvel. the moms i know–and boy do i know me
some moms–tend not to have crushed souls or zoloft-stocked medicine
cabinets. they, in fact, tend to be smart, rational, funny people who
are candid about the trade-offs of stay-at-home parenting. oh, also,
they actually like parenting. talk about crazy!

AMY SOHN: When
you spend all day with a baby you go a little crazy and I don’t think
the SAHMs realize how crazy they are. All these college-educated smart
women who once had opinions about things and read the newspaper now can
only talk about poop and pancakes with kale and Veggie Bootie and
natural Cheerios versus regular ones.

MR. NICE GUY: first of all, what’s
wrong with talking about poop? poop is funny. second of all, kale
pancakes? ca-ca-crazy! i’m starting to rethink my affinity for some of
these moms and start to hating on them too!

Read more at Mr. Nice Guy

 

The Empire State Development Corporation signed off on the plan to turn the Atlantic Yards into a stadium and high rise development. It now goes before the public for review.

It’s gonna cost $4.2 billion, which is nearly $700 million more than last predicted due to rising construction costs.

From the city and state: $100 million for infrastructure improvements. On top of that, the state will kick in $637 million in tax-exempt bonds to help the developer move forward with construction, which will create a new home for the New Jersey Nets.

The state think the investment is worthwhile saying that Ratner’s project would create $1.4 billion in tax revenue above the public contribution.

The plan calls not just for an 18,000-seat arena, but for 16 buildings that would be used for housing, offices and stores.

In order to do this, developers have proposed seizing buildings through eminent domain.

For More: Gowanus Lounge

Brooklyn Film Works went ahead as planned on Tuesday night despite reports of a 40% chance of showers after 8 p.m.

In the scorching hot weather, our teenage tech crew worked quickly and got everything set up.

Raising the screen is always an adventure. It takes about six strong people to lift it off the ground and position it against Greg’s Rubbish Removal truck. Dan, who is one of the teens, likes to secure the screen from the top of the truck.

A nice sized crowd gathered to watch Duck Amuck and Moonstruck. About ten minutes into Moonstruck, we noticed lightening in the distance. Ever optimisitc, we hoped that the storm wouldn’t start until after the movie. Then the wind started and there was the rumble of distant thunder.

About one hour into the movie (Cher and Nicholas Cage were at the Metropolitan Opera together) Kim Maier announced that we were going to have to turn off the movie. The audience got off the lawn in the nick of time. Our tech team quickly moved the equipment indoors just before the big rain came.

A large group of us were standing under the projection cabana. Someone said, "Why are we out here, why aren’t we in the house?" Then someone said, "Why don’t we carry this cabana to the house." So everyone grabbed pole and the entire group moved across the lawn underneath the cabana, which was like a gigantic umbrella. It was funny.

During the lightening storm, a large group of us waited inside the house before taking the screen down.  "We don’t want to be handling tall aluminum poles during a lightening storm," Hepcat said. The kids were getting tired. Finally, in the hard rain, the group of us went out to the truck and carried the 12 x 15 ft frame away from the truck and let it drop onto the lawn. Then the screen, which has about 80 webs and gromits, needed to be untied from the frame.

We all got soaking wet. But it was kinda fun in a way. OSFO said she’d rather be boiling hot than soaking wet." We walked back home in the rain vowing to watch the rest of Moonstruck someday soon.

The Park Slope Food Coop rarely ever closes. But on Tuesday it was closed due to a power outage.

Monday evening, the lights in the Coop started flickering. Then they went out. The cause: a fire below street level caused by the heat conditions. There were 100 people in the Coop but noone could take their food because the cash registers weren’t  working. There were shopping carts full of food all over the place.

On Tuesday there was a sign on the door that said: Coop Closed. Some staff members came to work to give perishables to City Harvest and CHIPS and to do what work they could without electricity: no air conditioning, no computers. The Coop reopened at 4 p.m

Today at the Coop, everything seemed back to normal but it was more crowded than usual for a Wednesday mid-day.

The New York Sun seemed to think the Coop’s power outage was noteworthy. They put it on the front page of Wednesday’s newspaper.

It’s 1,400 pages long and the Environment Impact Statement for the Atlantic Yards Development Project is in and it sounds BAD. Some of the findings: a new school would be needed to handle all the
children. The buildings will block views of the Williamsburg Bank building. Dozens of crowded intersections would be choked with more
traffic. Brownstone neighborhoods would find themselves in shadow. The
city’s sewer and water systems would face new challenges. Need a parking space on one of the game days: Forget it.

All in all: not a pretty picture. And the costs are astronomical.  Read more at

The New York Times

No Land Grab

Gowanus Lounge

The Crown Princess, a cruise ship based in Red Hook, Brooklyn, experienced some massive difficulties in the high seas yesterday. This from the NY Times.

In an instant, passengers aboard The Crown Princess cruise ship went
from sunbathing to clutching whatever they could as the massive ship
rolled heavily to its side, throwing everything not nailed down against
the deck and walls.

”Another 20 degrees and I would have been in
the water,” said Alfred Caproni, of North Adams, Mass., who was on his
balcony on the ninth deck. ”All the water from the pools was coming
right over the edge. It was like Niagara Falls. There were dozens of
people with bleeding noses.”

The Crown Princess was 11 1/2 miles
southeast of Port Canaveral en route to New York late Tuesday afternoon
when its crew reported problems with the steering equipment and the
113,000-ton ship listed hard to one side, Coast Guard Petty Officer
James Judge said.

It slowly came back up, leaving a scene of
terrified passengers scattered across its decks, halls and casino, then
headed for the port.

The fact of the matter is this: it was a sweltering hot day on a Sunday in the middle of July. That 2000 people felt passionately enough to come out and protest Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project is a big deal.

I ran into a friend today who said he just couldn’t get himself over to the rally.  I was also unable to attend. But Hepcat did go over and took pictures. I’m sure a lot people felt the way my friend did. They may oppose the plan but that doesn’t translate into showing up at a demonstration.

Some people don’t like being part of demos. They don’t like chanting or singing "We Shall Not Be Moved." Some don’t believe demonstrations do anything. Some feel helpless; that the Ratner project is a fait accompli.

Hey, I was a kid in the sixties and I went to many anti-war rallies and later pro-choice demos in Washington. I get teary singing, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

But not everyone is comfortable with that, not everyone can identify with the activist mentality.

Apparently DDDB was expecting many thousands more people. But I have to say, the scheduling of the demo on a Sunday in the summer may not have been the best idea.

It’s New York. In July. People can barely drag themselves out of their air-conditioned apartments. And many more were away for the weekend or at the beach.

Apathy?  Maybe. People will come out for an anti-war protest. But an anti-development rally might be a harder thing to get passionate about.

And yet, many of us are passionate about this community, the architecture, the scale, the history, and the quality of life. All of these things are worth being passionate about.

And we certainly don’t think a for-profit developer should be allowed to determine the future of Brooklyn. What about traffic? What about scale? Quality of life? The historical architecture in downtown and brownstone Brooklyn? What about affordable housing?

Developers shouldn’t have the power to do this. It’s disgusting and yet it is the way things have always gotten done in New York CIty.

I am proud that so many Brooklynites are rising up to say: ‘We’re sick and tired and we can’t take it anymore.’ Stop destroying our city for your profits! Let’s have parks not condos. Let’s think about the future of our borough and shape it in a meaningful and livable way.

There are other ways people can register their opposition to the Ratner plan. They can give money in support of DDDB. They can go to No Land Grab and find out how to write to politicians, etc.

There are ways other than demonstrations that people can be counted as part of the cause.
In this age of inclusivity, there must be many points of entry for people to get involved in something they believe in. Even from afar.

No Land Grab blogger, Lumi Rolley, appeared at the rally in full colonial garb and on horseback (left). Her sash said: "One if by land grab."

Lumi attended the Brooklyn Blog Fest with her blogging partner-in-crime, Amy. It was great to meet them. Their spirited and activist blog is a major player on the Ratner opposition front, which provides daily  information and news that most of the media neglects.

Photo and info found on Atlantic Yards Report

A stylish and tasteful antique furniture store has arrived on Fifth Avenue. Specializing in mid-century Swedish furniture, as well as a hand-picked selection of other periods, Posey Baker, also features large figurative paintings and abstracts. The new store is located at 167 Fifth Avenue near St. John’s in the space that used to be what I called the Frida Kahlo store.

Talk about a change of atmosphere. The Frida Kahlo Store was all about deep reds, Frida’s intense, somber image, Mexican pottery, and Day of the Dead objects d’art.

Posey Baker, named for the owner’s grandmother, is a whole ‘nother ballgame. On display in the shop are light woods, beautiful colors and patterns, polka dot pillows, appealing letter press stationary, and crystal wine glasses. Karin McNair, the shop’s owner, even has some kitchy American glass swans that somehow manage to look very elegant in her shop.

Worth a visit, the prices are reasonable (not cheap, mind you). But McNair  obviously has a great eye and will be bringing in an ever-changing selection of interesting antique furniture.

The look: Mid-century Swedish with other periods mixed in. Some whimsy. Lots of color. Very appealing.  And don’t buy that chair I want to buy. Oh go ahead, I don’t think we have room for it.