Check out Listen Missy.

I’m dreaming of Richard Serra…

It must be PMS season at Listen Missy headquarters, because I’ve noticed myself being a little aggressive…

Nice photo of a hammock in Ft. Greene Park.

I’m the person the reporter quoted asking another parent: “You don’t happen to be a graphic designer, by any chance?” Pandamonium, the school’s poetry magazine, always needs parents who are graphic designers, scanners, typists, or proof readers.

By DAVID K. RANDALL
Published: June 12, 2007

IT was 30 minutes before the open microphone part of the show was to begin, and one poet was already nervous.

“I don’t feel like doing it,” he said, tugging at his shirt while eyeing the microphone.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” his mother answered.

“O.K., I’ll do it,” he replied.

Last Friday night, about 50 pupils and their parents were tucked into a corner of a Barnes & Noble store in Park Slope, Brooklyn, for Public School 321’s first open mike night. The students were there to read their original poems as part of a three-day fund-raiser in which the bookstore donated some of its sales to the school.

In a neighborhood known for its concentration of writers and editors, poetry nights like this may be the urban equivalent of the neighborhood car wash.

John Ellrodt, an educational consultant whose children attend P.S. 321, served as the night’s M.C. He briefed students on the protocols of poetry nights, and offered them a backward baseball cap or black beret to wear while they read.

“The Beats used to wear these hats,” he said. “As you get a little bit older, I encourage you to look them up.”

Mya Brady, a third grader, walked up to the microphone to read the night’s first poem. She began:

The owl books are boring

Nothing’s fun

Since Henry moved away

Nothing’s fun to play.

Children came up one by one, reading poems about the ocean, giant bugs and an older man named Tony who sits on the stoop smoking every night.

A group of adults gathered around a table stacked with books on money management, and one parent asked another if she might be able to volunteer to work on the school’s literary magazine.

“You don’t happen to be a graphic designer, by any chance?” she was asked.

“No, I’m an editor,” she replied.

“That’s good, too!”

After the children who wanted to come up had read their first poems, Mr. Ellrodt opened the floor to parents and teachers. Parents took turns walking to the microphone and reciting poems they memorized when they were their children’s ages, and walked back expressing amazement at how they were able to recall rhythm and meter from long ago.

“You see, poetry helps set a rhythm for how you live,” Mr. Ellrodt told the children on the floor at his feet. “There’s no doubt that the days you remember your poems beat the ones that you don’t, because the poetry you love sets a nice pace when yours might need changing.”

Anyone know of one that’s free or inexpensive that when checked out by a piano tuner/repair person will elicit cries of: "THIS IS A GREAT PIANO!!!"

Let me know: louise_crawford@yahoo.com

Rooftop Films will be holding its first screening of the summer season at its Brooklyn location this Saturday, June 16th (same night as Louis and Capthia).

Rooftop screenings are always great opportunities for communities to get together and meet each other; last week’s show in Manhattan’s Lower East Side drew about 600 people to a beautiful rooftop location.

We’d really appreciate it if you could possibly post on your blog about this event. I’m pasting the copy for the screening below.

Industriance Shorts: Disaster Management
The Space Age goes terribly wrong. Short, funny, bizarre films.

SAT., JUNE 16, 2007 (dang same night as Old Stone House event)
8:00 – Doors open
8:30 – Live Music by Zeke Healey (click for details)
9:00 – Movies Begin
11-1AM -FREE Wine reception in the courtyard,
C ourtesy of Beaujolais and licensedtochill.org.

On the roof of The Old American Can Factory
232 Third Street @ Third Avenue
Gowanus, Brooklyn (Between Carroll Gardens and Park Slope)
In the event of rain the show is indoors at the same location.
Tickets -$8 at the door or $5 online HERE with code: RFJUNE
Presented in partnership with – IFC.com, New York magazine &
XØ PROJECTS INCORPORATED.
More information about the shorts available at www.rooftopfilms.com

Thanks to  NY Magazine’s Intelligencer  for the funny headline in response to OTBKB’s piece about Park Slope being #1 in Recyling.

CITY ENCOURAGES PARK SLOPE’S SUPERIORITY COMPLEX

Park Slope: Another thing to feel superior about: recycling more than any other neighborhood in the city. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]

Finally, something to be proud of feeling smug about. I’m proud of us but we could do SO MUCH BETTER.

If we’re the best — imagine the worst.

If we’re the best, imagine how much better we could be.

Still, it feels good to be cited for something like this instead of the usual snarky references to us as  hipster, helicopter parents with  bratty kids munching on Pirate Booty walking down family-centric Seventh Avenue with Bugaboos drinking over priced coffee holding Brooklyn Industries bags on our way to the Food Coop reading Jonathan Safran Foer books and….

Props to Park Slope for being numero uno. But let’s try harder.

PO, one of my favorite restaurants restaurants in New York City, the place I recommend to tourists on the subway when they ask for a real quality (but not too pricey) restaurant suggestion, was started by celebrity chef Mario Batali on Cornelia Street (pre-celebrity). They have now opened a Brooklyn outpost on Smith Street.

No longer connected to Mario, the food is still fabu, fabu, fabu. All I can say is this:  ORRECHIETTE WITH SWEET SAUSAGE RAGU AND BROCCOLI RABE.

Hepcat and I were there a few months back after seeing Spring Awakening (good night) and Po is still po-sitively great. So excited.

Oops. I forgot. I’m on a diet. No homemade orrechiette (ear shaped pasta) for me.  Go to Gowanus Lounge for menu.

The crime rate is down. Two dozen extra cops on duty in Prospect Park this summer. And Marauding chickens.

I’m sorry you’ll have to go to Gowanus Lounge for that story.

Upcoming Screenings of Brooklyn Matters:

Wednesday, June 13, 6pm.
Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV).
87 Lafayette Street. Manhattan.
6:00 pm reception (and cash bar). 6:30 pm screening
Sponsored by Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project

Followed by a discussion with filmmaker Isabel Hill and other guests.
RSVP: info@nedap.org or (212) 680-5100.

Friday, June 15, 7pm.
Spoke the Hub Recreation Center
748 Union Street (btwn 5th and 6th avenues, closer to 6th), Bklyn
RSVP: 718-408-3234

Tuesday, June 19, 7pm.
Fifth Avenue Committee
621 DeGraw Street (near 4th Avenue). Park Slope
RSVP: 718-237-2017 ext. 171

Wednesday, June 20, 6:45pm
St. Gregory’s Roman Catholic Church
991 St. Johns Place (Near Brooklyn Avenue). Crown Heights.
Sponsored by the Crown Heights North Association

Thursday, June 21, 7pm
Park Slope Jewish Center
1320 Eighth Avenue (at 14th Street) Bklyn.
Sponsored by the Park Slope Jewish Center , Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and Kolot Chayeinu

Panel discussion to follow with:
— City Council Member Letitia James
— Ron Shiffman, FAICP, Former City Planning Commissioner
— Michelle de la Uz, Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Committee
— DDDB Spokesman Daniel Goldstein
— Filmmaker Isabel Hill

Found this in my inbox from Emily Ferris.

Most of you already know, but I wanted to make a semi-official (read: mass-email) announcement now that I’m back from my trip: I sold my contemporary casserole cookbook, tentatively titled "Hot Stuff: Not Your Mama’s Casserole" to Perigee, a division of Penguin Books.

It will be published in Fall 2008 (which is technically January 2009; I don’t get it, but that’s the book world, I guess).

To get the buzz going, I’ve started a casserole website, casserolecrazy.com which (now that I’m back from my European Adventure), I will try to update every day. I hope you’ll visit often. I’d love for it to be really interactive, so when I try to make things that do—or more likely, don’t—go well, you’ll know and can make fun of me all you want.
Thank you all for your support and encouragement with this book/project.

Join Council Member David Yassky, Parks Commissioner Benepe, and Brooklyn Borough Commissioner Julius Spiegel for the grand opening of Cadman Plaza. The ceremony will take place tomorrow, Tuesday the 12th, at 11:00. It will be on the Tillary end of Cadman Plaza.

Mindful Eating Lecture:
Learn the basics of mindful eating.  Dr. Susan Albers, psychologist and author, has new tips for under, over and choatic eaters.
by Susan Albers PsyD the author of Eating Mindfully and Mindful Eating 101: A Guide to Healthy Eating in College and Beyond www.eatingmindfully.com 
Friday June 15th 2007  6:30 P.M.
East West Bookstore
78 Fifth Avenue @ 14th Street
New York , New York 10011
Phone: 212-243-5994.
Subways: 2 blocks from Union Square station

Any ideas? Available immediately. louise_crawford@yahoo.com

Seeing Green was sad to read (in OTBKB) that Seventh Avenue Books will be closing.

I tell all my friends to avoid our local Barnes and Noble and shop at 7th Ave Books or the Community Bookstore, the two shops which are right there and locally owned. Most of my friends still go to B & N; in fact, for the Dillster’s birthday he received three book certificates from there. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but if enlightened locals don’t shop locally, what chance is there for these small stores?

Bill T. Jones is an amazing, amazing dancer and choreographer. I was lucky to take classes with him when I was in college in Binghamton, New York. He, Arnie Zane and Lois Welk lived and danced in an old YMCA or school building in the wilds of Binghamton called, the American Dance Asylum. They were in Binghamton from 1973 until at least 1980.

I used to bike over there and take classes; I’d go to performances of things like contact improvisation. I saw Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane perform their work there and am forever the happier; Jones performed a solo work called Monkey Run Road there and it was like entering a sacred palace of intimate art — he talked while he danced about his family, his life, the world beyond — the likes of which I had never been exposed to.

Arnie Zane died of AIDs in 1988. The two were partners, as well as intense artistic collaborators so the company is named for the both of them. I’ve managed to make it to a few Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company performances over the years. I saw the piece, Still/Here at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and was blown away.

Jone’s choregraphy in Spring Awakening is wonderful, as is the show.

And it was oh so surreal. But he wanted to tell Design Sponge, Park Slope’s famous design blogger, about a book about an interesting artist named Charlie Harper.

a few weeks ago i was walking the aisles at the stationery show and one of the most surreal events of my life took place. my cell phone rang and todd oldham was on the other end. instantly my head was filled with visions of afternoons spent in front of the tv watching todd and cindy crawford on house of style. todd is such a fixture of my memories when it comes to design that i just about passed out. as it was he was calling to talk about a new project of his, a book on the life and work of charley harper. i’ve heard about a lot of projects over the past 3 years but it’s not often that you hear someone discuss something with the sort of passion that comes only from truly living and breathing a project. todd discussed mr. harper’s work with such reverence and admiration, it was easy to see why he would embark upon a book celebrating his career and dedication to art.

Check out the Stoopendous web site for ideas about what to do on your block for Stoopendous, a celebration of the summer solstice on June 23rd.

On 14th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, plans are afoot for a Stoopendous ice cream party. Here’s an email that went around to people on the block.

We’ve got 2 families bringing ice cream and we need more. Anyone interested in bringing syrup and sprinkles and other toppings? Does anyone have scoopers that we can borrow?
I can try to get a commitment as to what flavors folks will bring so have a variety and ditto for toppings, so please report back if you want to bring sundae ingredients…

Here are details about a Kid’s Art Show planned for Stoopendous, a celebration of the summer solstice in Park Slope on June 23.

Park Slope Parents is now accepting art from local, young artists for the PSP Sunshine &
Solstice themed Children’s Art Exhibit. All entries receive a ribbon and a spot in our art show
(NOTE: This is not an art competition)
WHAT: Solstice, Sunshine Themed Children’s Art Show
WHO: Park Slope Children, 18 and younger
WHERE: Lion in the Sun: the exhibit will be at the old location on 453 4th Street (between 7th
and 8th Avenues)
WHEN: Friday, June 22nd from 4 to 7 and Saturday, June 23rd from 1pm to 4pm
HOW: ENTRY GUIDELINES
– Sunshine or solstice themed (abstract and realistic art accepted)
– Art is to be presented on 11×14 or smaller paper or canvas
– Artists must title their work
– Artists must be 18 or younger
– Art must be dropped off with a PSP entry form attached
– For privacy, we recommend you do not sign your art on the front. Please put your name on
the entry form and back of the art.
– Artists may use any medium as long as it is on paper or canvas, 11/x14 or smaller.
Acceptable mediums include (but are not limited to): crayons, marker, oil pastel, watercolor,
tempera, acrylic, computer-generated art, collage.

…and quite a few OTBKB readers, including Richard, Lumi, Eric, Naomi, Susan and a few other people I don’t know who heard about the event on OTBKB. It was great to see all of you and thanks for coming out on a rainy Monday night in June.

I got this in my in-box this morning. I never know what I’m going to find. “i know your kids may or may not be in this age range, but… thought it would be fun for you (they are looking for kids): its for a band playing Union Hall on friday night called the EAMES ERA from new orleans….”

What:
A music video shoot about a kid’s birthday party. There will be food, music, games and a clown. And it takes place in a cookie factory.

Date:
Saturday, June 16th

Time:
Noon

Location:
Eleni’s bakery
47-25 34st btw 47th & 48th ave.
Long Island City

Dress:
The video is about hipster kids, so kids should dress stylish, punky, retro, anything a 22 year old on the lower east side would wear to an indie rock show. Western shirts, hoodies, track jackets, cool t-shirts, funky bracelets, trucker hats, colorful skirts Converse, Vans, little Member’s only jackets(they exist!). Just give it your best shot and we’ll have plenty of other stuff for them at the shoot.

Questions/RSVP:

Jonathan Emmerling
jonemmerling@hotmail.com
917-841-4480

The talented duo are performing Southside Stories and an excerpt from Giovonni Songs at the Old Stone House on June 16th at 8 p.m. 40 bucks supports programs at the Old Stone House (including Brooklyn Reading Works) and gets you great music, champange and dessert.

There is some confusion about how to get tickets. Here’s the correct information.

Advance tickets can be purchased online at
www.nycharities.org. Go
to its Events
Calendar listing, look to the right and click on View All, then
click on June 16. You can also call the Old Stone House: 718-768-3195. Tickets are $40 in advance and $45 at the door.

The Department of Sanitation has the stats on all the nabes in the city and Park Slope rates the hightest with a  30% recycling rate, that’s capturing 60-65% of recyclable waste.

Clearly we are doing much better than the rest of the city. But as those of us who look at local garbage know, we could be doing better. 

There are still common mistakes when it comes to reclycing: People shouldn’t be using blue bags. People still don’t know that glass is recyclable again (it’s been 3 years) and combining bottles and paper.

There is still some confusion and there’s a real need for basic and advanced recycling education. And that’s what the new Office of Recycling Outreach and Education, a part of the Council of the Environment,  is set up to do. Just opened and fully staffed in February of 2007, the office is selecting  districts and doing city-wide education, presentations, and training. Check out their nice website (above).

Christine Salzi works for the Office of REcycling Outreach and Education and wants to do a fun recycling teach-in as part of Stoopendous. Are you planning a Stoopendous event that could use a speaker expert n the ins and outs of recycling? How about composting? She has a fun recycling game she’s happy  to teach you and your friends.

If you are interested, email Christine at csalvi (at) cenyc.org

Gowanus Lounge reports on the latest in the fight to save the Red Hook food vendors. He’s got pix, too.

Will the beloved Red Hook vendors be subjected to a competitive bidding
process that could result in the loss of yet another Brooklyn
institution? Cesar Fuentes, the head of the vendor’s group will be meeting on Tuesday with Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe
(who has so far been silent on an issue that has been prominent in the
media and on which even U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer has weighted in), Brooklyn Borough Commissioner Julius Spiegel, City Council Member Sara Gonzalez and others. Food blogger Porkchop Express,
who has reviewed all of the Red Hook food stands in detail, has also
apparently been invited in order to offer his perspective on the
vendors and their importance to the community.

This from Kensington Blog:

We’re pretty happy about the press our local peeping Tom has received. Because of the post done here both channel 9 news and Courier Life (June 8th
print edition) have completed stories on the "Tom". We think its great
that the word has gotten out and hope the guy gets caught!

For information leading to the arrest of the "Tom" or to report an incident call Detective Dawson at the 66th Precinct at (718) 851-5611

OTBKB reader Peter Loffredo sent this post by Jamie Lee Curtis from Arianna Huffington’s blog.

As
the denouement of a really upsetting celebrity scandal came to its
close, a tearful child pleaded to her mother… "Mom, it’s not right."

It was a painful episode to watch. A young woman, begging her mother,
the person who should have taught her right from wrong, to help her, to
teach her the rules of life. It was a little too late. And so she wept
as the Universe was bringing the teaching and settling the score.

I’m in no glass house. I understand only too well the pitfalls of
maternal amnesia and denial. I am not throwing stones but merely a
lifesaver, a buoy of sanity and understanding.

"My analyst told me, that I was right out of my head," Joni Mitchell
sang in the song "Twisted." I was twisted. I am twisted. I am deluded
that my attempts at being liked and loved by my children and friends
with them — all at the same time — were going to result in "well
raised children." We were the generation that would take the job of
raising our children and turn it into… PARENTING.

We were the
generation who applauded every move they made. Every step they took.
"Good climbing, Brandon" was our hue and cry. We were raised by people
who didn’t "understand" us and now we don’t "understand" why our
children are so messed up.

It is a national epidemic. Omnipotent children running amok or sitting
amok as they watch TV and play electronic games and shop on eBay.

The sad paths of the three most popular young women — privileged but
from varying backgrounds, talented, beautiful and spectacular — have
ended in prison, rehab and mental illness. I hope their mothers are
worried sick and wondering, "What could I have done differently?"

And
our culture should be asking the same question too.

What we need to do is look long and hard at our part in all this. Where
did our children get the message that the rules don’t apply to them?
And where did we, the Mothers, get the message that if we abdicate our
responsibilities as Mothers, the Universe will do our job for us? And
it does, but without any of the love and tenderness and compassion that
we could have given, along with the lessons.

Now it’s just the cold hard facts of a jail cell or the emptiness of a rehab room.

I’m not pointing fingers. I’m asking questions.

Can we take the wrenching sight of Paris asking her mother, "why?" and ask it of ourselves?

My analyst told me this: "Children are paparazzi. They take your
picture mentally when you don’t want them to, when you don’t look good,
and show it back to you in their behavior."

Let’s hope that we all learn what is RIGHT and what is so WRONG. Wake up, Mothers and smell the denial.

Pack a picnic, grab a blanket, and experience opera under the stars
as the Metropolitan Opera returns to Prospect Park with Gounod’s Faust.

A summertime tradition in New York since 1967 and in New Jersey since
1987, the series opens with back-to-back concerts in Manhattan’s
Central Park on June 12 and 13, with six additional performances in
each borough of the city and two locations in New Jersey.

All performances begin at 8pm and are free of charge.

For more information and a full schedule, visit our Met
in the Parks web page.

For tips on what to bring and when to show up, read our parks primer

Two events at the Old Stone House on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets in beautiful JJ Byrne Park.

***10th Anniversary reading of the 808 Union Writing Group at 8 p.m. on June 11th.  Good writing, cocktails and fun people.  Just come. Did I mention cocktails?

***Capathia Jenkins and Louis Rosen perform Southside Stories excerpts from Giovonni Songs at 8 p.m. on June 16th (Saturday night).  Enthralling music, champagne, social hoopla. RESERVE TICKETS AT theoldstonehouse.org

The 10th Anniversary Reading of 808 Union Writer’s Group features:

Kevin McPartland reading a novel about pre-gentrified Park Slope gangs and all by someone who lived it.

Marian Fontana reading from her hilarious new memoir about dating.

Louise Crawford, AKA Smartmom, reading a short story called "Halloween Blonde."

Mary Crowley reading a beautiful set of poems.

Wendy Ponte reading from novel about a woman in search of her Portugese identity.

Barbara Ensor, author of "Cinderella (As if you didn’t already know the Story)" reading from her forthcoming young adult book, "Thumbelia, Runaway Tiny Bride."

Playwright Rosemary Moore presenting scenes from a new play with actors.

An OTBKB reader and frequent commenter had this to say about the Soprano’s just hours before many Park Slopers settled in for a night of great television. He wrote this letter to the New York Times in response to Dick Cavett’s Op-Ed, “Soprano’s Grief.”

To the Editor:
I guess I must be a lone voice in the wilderness who does not find a connection with the kind of accolades Dick Cavett showers on the HBO show, “The Sopranos.” Having watched it sporadically over the years, each time hoping to find what Mr. Cavett did, I always came away disappointed. Well-written and well-acted the show definitely is, but for me that is part of the problem.

The mobster culture is presented very realistically in the series, much moreso than in any of the “Godfather” movies, for example. As such, these sociopathic men, and their masochistic women, reveal no redeeming qualities, just like their real-life counterparts do not. They are gluttonous, ruthless, bigoted, misogynous, violent, crass and incredibly self-righteous to boot. Mr. Chase and company have indeed quite skillfully depicted an accurate portrayal of the psychopathy of the hard-core criminal personality, but for me, that ultimately made The Sopranos too much like a reality show.

What does it say about our culture that such a show is so wildly popular, even to intellectuals like Mr. Cavett? That in our harried, stressed, guilt-ridden lives, we vicariously admire those without conscience or empathy? Among other things, it explains to me how George “The Smirk” Bush and Dick “The Scowl” Cheney were elected twice to be the heads of our American “family.”

Sincerely,
Peter Loffredo

Three Gemini’s in one family. Three birthdays in one week. It’s always a festive week full of celebration, gifts, and cake.

Hepcat: June 6
Manhattan Granny: June 10
Teen Spirit: June 12th.