This from the New York Times:

A small group of active-duty military members opposed to the war have
created a Web site intended to collect thousands of signatures of other
service members. People can submit their name, rank and duty station if
they support statements denouncing the American invasion. “Staying in
Iraq will not work and is not worth the price,” the Web site, appealforredress.org,
says. “It is time for U.S. troops to come home.” The electronic
grievances will be passed along to members of Congress, according to
the Web site. Jonathan Hutto, a Navy seaman based in Norfolk, Va., who
set up the Web site a month ago, said the group had collected 118 names
and was trying to verify that they were legitimate service members.

First Pete Seeger, now Al Gore. Who’s going to be in my inbox next. Only 14 Days until election day. Support Democrats!

Dear MoveOn members,

If you want to solve the Climate Crisis, if you want accountability for Iraq,
if you want to regain our nation’s moral authority in the world, I have one request
for you—help us win on November 7th.

You can make a difference by supporting candidates who are in neck-and-neck races.
Can you contribute $25?

https://pol.moveon.org/give/keyraces6.html?id=9238-205923-n75tOyYx0vc1XCAVr6CDtA&t=2

After Katrina, after the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and
2,799 of our own men and women in Iraq, after six years of policy failures, and denial
of the climate crisis, it is time to hold the leaders of our nation accountable.

The opportunity for accountability is only 14 days away. If we want to change
course, we need to act right now.

I know firsthand how important your last-minute support can be—especially
to candidates like these who have the courage to say what they believe.  These
are good people and they will serve our country with integrity. By helping elect
them, you can help change everything.

Please contribute to these candidates. Just click here:

https://pol.moveon.org/give/keyraces6.html?id=9238-205923-n75tOyYx0vc1XCAVr6CDtA&t=3

To those who say that the problems we face are too big for us, I say that we have
accepted and successfully met such challenges in the past.

We declared our liberty, and then won it. We designed a country that respected
and safeguarded the freedom of individuals. We freed the slaves.  We gave women
the right to vote. We took on Jim Crow and segregation. We have won two wars in the
Pacific and the Atlantic simultaneously.

This is another pivotal time.  We need leadership that can rise to the demands
of history. That leadership is waiting to serve—but they need our help.

Help us take back our Congress and our country today. You can contribute right
now at:

https://pol.moveon.org/give/keyraces6.html?id=9238-205923-n75tOyYx0vc1XCAVr6CDtA&t=4

The Bible says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Together,
we have built a progressive vision—a vision for our country and our world—and
on November 7th, we must make that vision a reality.

Sincerely,

Al Gore

I found this on my friend’s blog, Urban Seashell. It’s on Sunday the 29th of October (I know this is such a busy weekend).

I checked out Olive Design’s website, and her lamps looked fun.  What do people do at a lamp salon – talk about lamps? Buy them. I’m willing to find out…

Olive Design 2nd Fall Lamp Salon!
Sunday, October 29th
Brooklyn, NY
Oops there’s no time or address. I will add as I find it.

You’ve seen the double-decker tour buses on Flatbush Avenue.

And last night, I saw a Domino’s Pizza commercial about their new "Brooklyn-style" pizza. The ad is very New Yawk with taxi drivers and heavily accented New Yawkers.

Now this: Travel and Leisure has an article in its November issue about Brooklyn as a travel destination. I saw this excerpt on Gowanus Lounge (who found it via  Dumbo NYC).

I admit the borough’s new cachet comes as some vindication. (Taste it,
212!) And, sure, I love braised squid and fancy cocktails as much as
the next yuppie arriviste. Happy they showed up. But I wonder if
curious visitors aren’t coming with misplaced expectations. If someone
told you Brooklyn is "the next Manhattan," they got it dead wrong.
Brooklyn is nothing like Manhattan. Brooklyn looks and feels and is
like no place else.

The first thing you need to know about Brooklyn
is that it is huge: New York’s most populous borough, home to nearly a
third of its citizens. An independent Brooklyn would be the nation’s
fourth-largest city. Brooklyn is a vast metropolis blessed and cursed
to lie 500 yards from Manhattan.

The second thing you need to
know about Brooklyn is that it is small. Big in breadth and attitude,
but intimate in the height of its buildings, the modesty of its
storefronts, the compactness of its communities. Defined by the stoop,
the bodega, the bocce or basketball court, Brooklyn has an enduring
neighborhood-ness. Come to my block next month and they’ll be decking
the stoops for Christmas; come in June, and the kids next door will be
manning a lemonade stand.

This story from the New York Times about meditation. Does it help people feel more focused and energetic, but are the benefits measurable?

 

A new study suggests that they
are. When researchers tested the alertness of volunteers, they found
that the practice proved more effective than naps, exercise or
caffeine. The results were presented at a recent conference of the
Society for Neuroscience.

The researchers, led by Prashant Kaul of the University of Kentucky, took 12 students who did not meditate and taught them the basics in two short sessions.

Then,
over a series of weeks, the students were asked to come in and take a
test devised to measure skills like reaction time. The tests involved a
series of visual cues on a display screen that the volunteers had to
react to by pushing the correct button.

The students were asked
to take the tests in mid- to late afternoon, when people tend to be
sleepiest. They did so before and after 40 minutes of meditating,
napping or exercising, or after taking caffeine. Napping produced poor
results, presumably because of “sleep inertia,” the researchers said.

Caffeine helped, and exercise was unpredictable.

Earlier
studies have found that people are awake while meditating but that
their brains undergo changes similar to patterns found in sleep. Some
studies have found that people who meditate a lot report sleeping less,
so the researchers were curious to see if meditation could serve the
same function as sleep. The results support the idea that it can.

In
fact, when some of the students were asked to skip a night’s sleep and
then take the test, the researchers said, meditation was even more
helpful.

They said they did not know if caffeine and meditation combined would be even better.

Then,
over a series of weeks, the students were asked to come in and take a
test devised to measure skills like reaction time. The tests involved a
series of visual cues on a display screen that the volunteers had to
react to by pushing the correct button.

The students were asked
to take the tests in mid- to late afternoon, when people tend to be
sleepiest. They did so before and after 40 minutes of meditating,
napping or exercising, or after taking caffeine. Napping produced poor
results, presumably because of “sleep inertia,” the researchers said.

Caffeine helped, and exercise was unpredictable.

Earlier
studies have found that people are awake while meditating but that
their brains undergo changes similar to patterns found in sleep. Some
studies have found that people who meditate a lot report sleeping less,
so the researchers were curious to see if meditation could serve the
same function as sleep. The results support the idea that it can.

In
fact, when some of the students were asked to skip a night’s sleep and
then take the test, the researchers said, meditation was even more
helpful.

They said they did not know if caffeine and meditation combined would be even better.

In today’s Science section, a study gauges the risk to hearing posed by use of iPods.

The key to avoiding hearing damage, the researchers say, appears to
be limiting not so much how long one listens to music but how loud it
is played. The study was presented at a recent conference on
noise-induced hearing loss in children.

The researchers, who are
audiologists, concluded that the average young person could listen to a
player at 70 percent of full volume for four and a half hours without
much risk. They also said that if people used the earphones that come
with the devices they could listen to music at an 80 percent level for
90 minutes a day without great risk.

But listening to the music full blast for just five minutes can affect hearing, they said.

Dear Blog,

Chock Full o’Nuts is NOT coming to the store of the old Cinematique video store.
I know this because:

I OWN THE BUILDING.

please stop spreading silly rumors.

Thank you.

Respectfully,

Nicholas G Kotsonis

BAM is presenting a selection of Brooklyn-made indies: to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Mayor’s Office of Film,
Theatre, and Broadcasting, as well as the publication of "Scenes from
the City: Filmmaking in New York, 1966-2006 (Rizzoli)"

Letter from Greenpoint with Williamsburg, Brooklyn 95min
Mon, Oct 23 at 7pm
Directed by Jonas Mekas
Arriving in Brooklyn after WWII, Mekas began shooting film diaries that would make him New York’s resident cinema-poet-laureate. This program spans his life in the borough, from 1949 Williamsburg streets scenes shot on 16mm to his recent move to Greenpoint, shot on newly embraced digital video.

She’s Gotta Have It (1986) 88min
Tue, Oct 24 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm
› Buy Tickets
Directed by Spike Lee
With Tracy Camila Johns, Tommy Hicks, Spike Lee

“Lee’s first feature posed him as a rival to Woody Allen, nearly equaling him in psychological authenticity, perhaps bettering him in virtuosity and sheer creative glee.”—Chicago Reader

Lee’s breakthrough remains a touchstone for New York film, and the street humor and Brooklyn flavor come through in every frame. Johns plays Nola Darling, who must choose between three distinctly different suitors.

Love & Diane (2002) 155min
Wed, Oct 25 at 7pm*
*Q&A with Jennifer Dworkin
Directed by Jennifer Dworkin

“immerses you so intensely in the problems of the Hazzards, a troubled New York family living on public assistance, that by the end of its two and a half hours you feel almost like a member of the household.”—The New York Times

An epic documentary, filmed in East New York, that centers on three generations: Diane, a guilt-racked mother whose daughter, Love, was placed in foster care, and Love’s own newborn son Donyaeh. Dworkin’s film probes the emotions of this family, while also presenting a harsh view of race, class, and government bureacracy. Q&A with Jennifer Dworkin.

Blue In the Face (1995) 83min
Thu, Oct 26 at 7pm
Directed by Wayne Wang, Paul Auster
The flipside to Wang and Auster’s Smoke, Blue in the Face is a free-form tribute to the joys of Brooklyn. Filmed off-the-cuff for a week after Smoke wrapped, the film weaves together a string of vignettes and characters, including appearances from Harvey Keitel, Lou Reed, Madonna, Lily Tomlin, and Jim Jarmusch. NOTE: Q&A with Paul Auster has been cancelled.

This from Atlantic Yards Report:

The Walk Don’t Destroy 2 walkathon
fundraiser for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) yesterday raised
more than $100,000 toward legal battles over the Atlantic Yards plan.
The event at Prospect Park generated nearly double the amount raised at
the first walkathon last November. Organizers said that some 1100 people contributed, with more than 300 participants.

That
money should (presumably) help build a legal fund sufficient to get
fights against eminent domain and perhaps other issues off the ground.
But lawyers are expensive, so fundraising undoubtedly will continue.

I
missed the walkathon, so when I arrived at the corner of 9th Street and
Eighth Avenue–a block from the park bandshell–many people in yellow
DDDB t-shirts were making their way down the block to catch trains,
walk home, or go to a restaurant. So I missed the person who dressed up
as a Brooklyn bride–in a wedding dress–a commentary on Frank Gehry’s
planned "Miss Brooklyn" tower. A crew from the Castle Coalition, which takes a hard-line view against eminent domain abuse, showed up with t-shirts saying "Blight me."

(Top photos by Amy Greer. Castle crew photo by Daniel Goldstein.)

I like the sounds of this. I found it on the DDDB website. But I saw something about it in the Village Voice or was it the New York Times?

Tuesday, October 24, 8pm. Heather Woodbury’s
Tale of 2Cities: An American Joyride on Multiple Tracks

Tale of 2Cities is a collision of life-stories from New York and Los Angeles spun into an epic mix by a young Echo Park DJ mourning his grandmother’s death. Flashing back to 1957 when the Brooklyn Dodgers abandoned one neighborhood while in LA another was lost to make way for the transplanted team’s new stadium, Tale creates a live séance among generations of interwoven characters on both coasts. From the rise of Senator McCarthy to the fall of the twin towers. Tale swoops through cities and drops into the minds of a mini-series worth of major and minor characters.

"Once again, Ms. Woodbury has built a sweet and sweeping play with breathtaking range"
-The New York Times

"Breathtakingly enthralling… bears comparison to the titanic undertakings of Anna Deavere Smith and Tony Kushner."
-The L.A. Times

"A triumph of unfettered creativity" – Variety

Heather Woodbury, winner of the inaugural Spalding Gray Award,
crafts an ambitious and touching journey animating the American Dream
and the immigrant

Tale of 2Cities is seen in two parts:

Part I "Grifters, Drifters and Dodgers"

Tuesdays and Thursdays:
Part 1 at 8 p.m.

$20, $15 (students/seniors),
$10 (members)

For Tickets:
www.theatermania.com or call 212-352-3101

More information:
www.ps122.org or 

www.heatherwoodbury.com.
PERFORMANCE SPACE 122
150 First Avenue

New York, NY 10009

This was in the Daily News. How did I miss this? I’m only human. But still…–OTBKB.

While Brooklyn’s trendy new restaurant scene sizzles, the borough’s old standards are still drawing top honors.

Williamsburg’s pricey Peter Luger Steak House was voted the fifth best
restaurant in the city in the just-released 2007 Zagat Survey.

The secret to their success?

"We put our heart and soul into it," said Marilyn Spiera, whose family owns the eatery, which opened in 1887.

"Being in Brooklyn makes it possible to take the money we save and put
it on the customer’s plate," she said, comparing overhead costs to
those at Manhattan’s steakhouses.

Zagat rates restaurants based on a survey of restaurantgoers. This
year, the survey’s 28th, more than 31,000 diners participated, and not
all the borough restaurants that received top marks are expensive.

Midwood’s Di Fara’s pizza scored near the top, ranking just below
trendy Smith St.’s Grocery and Saul, and Prospect Height’s Garden Cafe.

Di Fara’s, where a slice costs $2.50, is touted in the Zagat guide as "da best pizza in Noo Yawk."

"I’m very proud," said pizza shop owner Domenico De Marco, who has been
tossing dough for 42 years. "It’s all over the world. Everybody reads
Zagat."

Di Fara made the iconic red book’s top 50 list for the second year in a
row – along with some of the borough’s top spots, like Park Slope’s
elegant Al Di La, and DUMBO institutions Grimaldi’s and River Cafe.

Many of the top restaurants are expensive, but their owners defended the high prices.

"It’s not inexpensive, but it’s not outrageous," insisted River Cafe
owner Michael (Buzzy) O’Keeffe of his famously romantic restaurant.

"It’s something people should experience once in a while," he said.
"It’s like going to the Metropolitan Museum or like taking a trip to
see the leaves change."

While eight Brooklyn restaurants – two more than last year – ranked
among the best citywide, the slim red book also listed what survey
respondents consider the best restaurants in some Brooklyn
neighborhoods.

In Bay Ridge, the list was topped by Areo, which serves up "old-world" Italian.

"It doesn’t surprise me at all," said real estate agent Naya Jeladze.
"They have good food, service and atmosphere – I go there as much as I
can."

Bay Ridge newcomer Agnanti, a Greek restaurants with roots in Queens, was noticed.

"We already had established customers who came from Brooklyn to
Astoria," said manager Fay Lambrianidis. "It was their idea to open
here."

Staten Island’s Denino’s Pizzeria got a nod from Zagat, as did
Bensonhurst’s L&B Spumoni Gardens, which opened in 1939 and
"screams Brooklyn" according to the guide.

Some of the borough’s newer and trendier restaurants also made the grade.

Prospect Height’s Franny’s, which opened two years ago, scored higher than some longer established places.

"We work very hard," said Franny’s manager-owner Francine Stephens. "We never serve bad food. That is not what we do."

Originally published on  October 18, 2006