Monthly Archives: February 2008

Postcard from the Slope

“DEFINITELY, MAYBE” SHOT BY PARK SLOPE CINEMATOGRAPHER

“Definitely, Maybe” is a smart, funny, romantic comedy now playing at the Pavilion. Park Sloper Florian Ballhaus shot the movie which was written and directed by Adam Brooks.

Even A.O. Scott, the New York Times film critic and Leffert’s Gardens resident enjoyed this romantic tale with Abigail Breslin of “Little Miss Sunshine” fame.

“Definitely, Maybe,” a nimble and winning little romance written and directed by Adam Brooks, begins with one of those awkward Important Talks that parents are sometimes required to have with their children. In this case Maya Hayes (Abigail Breslin) needs some debriefing after a sex education class at her Manhattan elementary school. She’s acquired some technical vocabulary but not a lot of context, and so it falls to her dad, Will (Ryan Reynolds), to do the necessary explain.”

When Maya, who’s parents are divorced, asks her dad to tell her how he met her mother, he decides to tell the complicated story of his complicated love life like a mystery—changing the names of all the women involved. The film becomes a guessing game/mystery a “Who’s my mother?” challenge for Maya.

Part of the fun of the film is that much of it takes place during the 1990’s and it evokes that Clintonian time before and after cell phones with an expert hand. Again, A.O. Scott from his review:

Ah, the ’90s. Among the many charms of “Definitely, Maybe” is the way it evokes the recent past without drowning in fussy period detail. Will, ambitious and idealistic, has come east from Madison, Wis. (leaving Emily behind), to plunge into the world of electoral politics; and while this movie is hardly an incisive political satire, it does capture some of the flavor of the times and, more generally, the headiness of youthful commitment to a cause

Did you ever think you’d be nostalgic for the 1990’s of the “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” and the dot com boom?

Well, the film manages to paint it in interesting (primary) colors and it makes for a fun backdrop for this charming, well-acted and well-written story.

More Brooklyn fun: There’s a scene with Kevin Kline as a funny and pompous intellectual author and drunk doing a book reading at The Montauk Club. The second floor ballroom looks gorgeous all decked out like a real bar.

A wonderful new actress (to me) Isla Fisher, plays one of Will’s numerous loves, who lives in a funky Greenpoint building with a great view of the Empire State Building.

The film is wonderfully shot by the masterful Florian Balhaus, who also shot Flight Plan, The Devil Wears Prada and Secret Lives of Dentists. Check out Florian’s IMDB page to see all the films he has worked on in his 20+ years in the business.

Watch for his signature 360 shot using a steady-cam like dolly in the Clinton headquarters scenes.

Civics and Urban Life

SMARTMOM: PRIVATE SCHOOLS, PUBLIC CHATTING

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Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the award-winning Brooklyn Paper.

Last week, while the rest of the city buzzed about the Giants, Hillary vs. Obama or whether kids should be allowed at Union Hall, a certain echelon of Park Slopers obsessed over which PS 321 fifth graders got into local private middles schools.

Smartmom had this thought: Who cares? It’s your business if you want to send your kid to private school. But it’s really creepy when everyone has to know who got in and who didn’t.

Then again, it’s probably human nature, sour grapes and just the Park Slope envy thing:

Doesn’t everyone want to spend $26,000 on private school?

Doesn’t everyone want to know that her kid measures up to the rarified standards of local private schools?

Doesn’t everyone want to exit the diverse and sometimes messy world of the New York City public school system and enroll in a private Nirvana?

Smartmom is, of course, being facetious. There are plenty of parents around here who, like Smartmom, can’t afford to send their kids to private school. And even if they could afford it, probably wouldn’t do it because they believe in the benefits of a public education.

Still, last week, Smartmom found her mood swinging faster than a cab on Fourth Avenue.

On the one hand, she was fascinated with all the stories about who got in and who didn’t. In fact, she couldn’t get enough of it.

On the other hand, she found herself getting agitated again and again when she heard about children having emotional meltdowns over their rejection letters.

Judging by the way the parents were reacting to the news, it’s no wonder that the kids were taking it so hard.

When Smartmom’s friend told her that her son didn’t get into a certain local private school, she could tell that both of them were deeply hurt. To console her, Smartmom told her friend that she wanted to send a particularly nasty letter to the admission’s department. And she meant it.

Do people actually think this stuff is meaningful? A kid is not smarter, more desirable and more interesting than another kid just because a private school wants him or her.

At Sweet Melissa’s on Friday morning, the air was thick with admissions gossip. “So and so got into Berkeley Carroll.” “So and so got into Poly-Prep and Packer.” “So and so didn’t get into any of the schools she applied to.” “So and so got into all the schools he applied to. With financial aid.” Blah, blah, blah.

One friend’s son didn’t get into one of the private schools on his list. It’s not like he wanted to go there or anything. It’s just that it made him wonder why he wasn’t good enough for that school — he’s got plenty of friends who go there and he just can’t figure out why he can’t go there, too.

Life lesson, some would say. But don’t you think fifth grade is a little young for life lessons? Fifth grade is too early to feel like the jury has already decided that you’re on the B-list and someone else is on the A-list. All of this comparative babbling made Smartmom want to stand on one of the calico-covered banquettes at Sweet Melissa’s and scream, “Stop it! This competitive culture is disgusting!”

And it’s not just private school.

Last week, the public middle school applications were due. With Smartmom’s help, OSFO decided on schools she is interested in. The night before it was due, OSFO filled out the form. In ink. With great seriousness, she selected her first, second, third, fourth and fifth choice.

Now the waiting game begins. In a few months, the talk of Seventh Avenue will be who did and who didn’t get into the hot public schools.

There are going to be hurt feelings and deep dips of self esteem (for parents and children).

Smartmom isn’t looking forward to it. In the meantime, she can try to teach OSFO how subjective and shallow all of this is, how important it is to not let yourself feel judged by others, how important it is to feel strong within yourself.

It’s going to be a hard lesson to teach because Smartmom is still trying to learn that life lesson herself.

Every day. Maybe they can work on it together.

VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

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How about this appeal for safety?   (The father of a friend was killed
doing what Krauss did.)  And following, a view unpopular in the
Democratic Republic of Park Slope.

For Nicole Krauss, observed on 7th Ave. at St. John’s Place.

   READ AT YOUR PERIL

Books are a treasure

Always a treat

But a book needs closing

Crossing the street.

OBAMA-BOUND

A hope pedlar in the White House–

Appealing to green youth

And scrambled eggheads who mistake

Amorphous wishes for truth?

Postcard from the Slope

RULES OF THE SIDEWALK FROM DOPE ON THE SLOPE

A_pui
Dope on the Slope has done it again. I am only showing you one of Dope’s fabulous creations. Go to his blog to see the rest. Real signs and t-shirts, please. Do you think the Park Slope Civic Council might be interested…

It was with great dismay and a sense of deja vu that I learned the stroller feuds
continue unabated in our fair neighborhood.  I’ve recently become a
prammer myself, and, while the overwhelming majority of Park Slope
parents drive with care and consideration, there are enough jerks out
there to give us all a bad name. To combat these sidewalk simpletons, I
propose the following pramming penalties be implemented immediately.

Postcard from the Slope

SIGNAGE ON FIFTH: SLOPE TRAIL

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Hepcat and I saw this sign on a lamp post—a  real metal sign—on Fifth Avenue and Union Street last night.Img_0161_2

He didn’t, ahem, have his camera. So I jotted these notes down. It was a sign like you might find on the Appalachian Trail with instructions to the nearest lean-to. Slope-style,

It had a funny icon – sort of like Dope’s – a stick figure sloper pushing a stroller and holding a coffee cup.

Hepcat did snap a shot using his iPhone camera. Wonder if he’ll post it up here. Unfortunately someone has already graffitied the sign as if it were a real road sign.

SLOPE TRAIL

Pricey BKT’s: .02

Gentrified Playground: .02

$$$$Condos: .16

Doggy Bakery: .34

AU CONTRAIRE: THE OCCASIONAL NOTE FROM PETER LOFFREDO

AU CONTRAIRE: THE OCCASIONAL NOTE FROM PETER LOFFREDO

Here’s  a thought provoking post from our pal Pete of Full Permission Living on the recent murders on the campus of Illinois State University.

Here we go again! Ugh!

A few years ago, I was invited to be a guest on a national radio program because I had written about the school shootings in Jonesboro and Columbine in 1998 and 1999. I was thought to have an "unusual" perception of these tragic events because I stated that the murderous perpetrators were not normal kids suddenly gone bad, as the media was portraing them, but rather, I said, these were very disturbed individuals that could have been identifed easily by a trained mental health professional who was really looking. (You can find a letter I wrote to the NY Times at the  time at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803EED8173BF934A15750C0A96E958260)

Here – Look at some of the ridiculous being things written about the current related tragedy, the killings and suicide at Northern Illinois University this past week:
"Steve Kazmierczak, the man who walked silently into a classroom here on Thursday and opened fire, was not seen as struggling in college. He was not an outcast. And until recently, at least, he was not brooding."
"Mr. Kazmierczak, 27, was described Friday as a successful student — ‘revered,’ the authorities said, by his professors — who had served as a teaching assistant and received a dean’s award as an undergraduate here at Northern Illinois University, where he returned Thursday, killing himself and five students and wounding 16 others."

"He was personable, easy to talk to, an excellent student, said his professors."
(See the article today in the NY Times at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/us/16gunman.html?hp)

WHAT?!

How can anybody say those things with a straight face? When’s the last time anyone of you reading this blog was in a really bad mood and randomly went out and killed a bunch of people? And more importantly, why are we so invested in the idea that an otherwise healthy, successful, friendly young person can suddenly go off and decide to mow down a couple of dozen human beings? Here’s why: we don’t want to take responsibility for our society’s mental health, especially our children’s, and ultimately for our own. We would rather believe that mental illness is genetic, hormonal, chemical, a product of aging or otherwise mysteriously caused. Anything other than the result of our own neglect and abuse of ourselves, our kids and each other. All we really want to hear in these situations was that we had nothing to do with it. "It’s life." "It’s nature gone bad." "It’s God’s will." "It’s Murphy’s Law." "Something." "Anything." "Please, don’t make me look at myself. Just give me a drug. There’s got to be a drug for this!" Oh, yeah, this is from the same Times article today: "Family members told the authorities that Mr. Kazmierczak had stopped taking his medication. Law enforcement authorities would not say what the medication was for, but said Mr. Kazmierczak had grown erratic, according to his family, in the days after he quit taking the drugs."

Oops! Now why would a "personable, easy to talk to, revered" young person be on prescription drugs for a mental probem, first of all? And why would stopping those drugs make him SHOOT TWENTY-ONE PEOPLE?!!?

Anyway, on a related subject, and as a follow-up to my comments yesterday about the drugging of our kids, I’d like to relate two stories. One took place at a GAP store, where I got to talking to a young man working there. When he found out that I was a psychotherapist, he told me that he’d seen shrinks as a kid and that he took ritalin while in elementary school. He wanted to know what I thought about that. When I told him that I was very outspoken back in my social worker days against ritalin for kids, he started to cry. He told me that he felt like he didn’t have a childhood, that he "felt like a zombie" all throughout the years of taking the drug. He thanked me for being against the heinous, irresponsible and greedy acting out of our doctors and Big Pharma.

The second story involves my own step-son, who saw a "learning specialist" when he was 8 years old. At some point, when said specialist gave us his evaluation of our boy, he brought up medication as a possible aid to help the child focus better. When we indicated that we didn’t approve of medicating children, he told us an anecdote – that was supposed to encourage us – about another 8 year old he knew , a girl. He said that the girl, similar to our boy, had a tendency to daydream and drift off, etc., when in school or when approaching homework. But she began taking a drug for her attention problem, and voila! You ready? These are the learning specialist’s exact words, and he delivered them proudly: "She lost a little of her spark, but she got a lot done!"
We fired him.
PL

Postcard from the Slope

BROOKLYN ARTIST SHOWS GOWANUS LANDSCAPES ON THE UPPER EAST SIDE

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The Gowanus seems to endlessly inspire. Real estate speculators. City historians. Mafia hit-men. Artists.

Ah yes. The light of the Gowanus has been compared to Venice. Even Hepcat, who takes many a picture there, says so.

What is it? The romance of the industrial landscape? The Kentile sign? The view of Manhattan and the elevated subway train?

And now, a well-known Brooklyn artist is showing her pictures of the Gowanus on the Upper East Side. Here’s the blurb from the tony gallery where she is showing her work.

On Thursday, February 14, Hirschl & Adler Modern will open Diana Horowitz: Recent Paintings. The artist’s second solo exhibition at the gallery will feature close to twenty new paintings in oil, ranging in size from 8 x 10 inches to 22 x 34 inches. This exhibition is an exciting departure from her last show, as Horowitz presents, for the first time, a series of purely abstract paintings. These abstractions will be shown alongside the open-air landscapes depicting the familiar urban panoramas of Brooklyn and Manhattan, for which the artist is well-known.

Painting intimate landscapes from direct observation, Ms. Horowitz returns repeatedly to a chosen site to complete each work, usually limiting the size of her canvas or masonite panel for easy carrying. However, the resulting works are much more than “oil sketches”, for these small, rigorous, quasi-panoramic views convey a surprising amount of information about her subjects.

Out to the Bay explores a historic section of the Gowanus Canal, with its loading platforms, storage containers, and machinery, while Green Tanks features a rhythmic row of mint-green silos, quietly heroic and bathed in sunlight, as reflections dance in the water below. In From 7 World Trade, Horowitz presents the geometric intricacy of the roofs, streets, reflections, and gleaming facades of urban citysprawl as orderly, natural, and calm. Whether a serene view of a commercial waterway or a bird’s-eye view of city rooftops, Horowitz floods her intensely observed studies with light and atmosphere, making palpable the summer haze and city smog.

Horowitz’s new abstractions share many of the same basic elements as her structured landscapes. Each chockablock construction is a celebration of paint–a geometric patchwork of planes of color–inspired by the built environment captured in her landscapes. In them, the artist continues to explore how atmosphere influences the properties of color and light and produces a particular tonal range and mood. Horowitz creates tension through balance and counterbalance, manipulating the space until the painting, as she states, “resolves into something that seems both surprising and inevitable.

Postcard from the Slope

FIBER NOTION: NEW STORE ON UNION NEAR 7TH AVENUE

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Hey, there’s a new shop on Union Street just west of Seventh Avenue (around the corner from the Bank of America). From the description below, I’m guessing it’s a fabric and notions shop for quilters and crafters. But I think they will also be featuring one craft artist a month.

We haven’t had a sewing shop on 7th Avenue since the dearly beloved Sew Brooklyn on Seventh Avenue near 4th Street went under (Cocoa Bar is in that storefront now). Last year the fabric store on Berkeley Place went out of business after many years of business— I forget the name of that shop. Peek-a-Boo Kids took over their space). Brooklyn Mercantile is partly a fabric and sewing shop but also home goods and furniture. Apparently, being crafty is good business these days.

The owners sent me this email yesterday. I’ll be going in there today for a fuller report.

Have you heard of the new shop in town?….. Fiber Notion™.

By the way, my name is Alain. Kat, my wife, (or the boss as I refer
to her since the early days of the venture) owns the store.

Fiber Notion is located at 849 Union Street, Brooklyn NY 11215.
We’re a little shop around the corner from Bank of America located on
the corner of 7th Ave & Union St.

At Fiber Notion™ we are bringing the world of fashion to craft one
maker at a time! Our rescued fabrics are a labor of love. We recycle
trend and forecast fabrics into charm packs for quilters and
crafters. these charm packs feature the latest in European fashion!
Our appliqués, ribbons and trims are culled from the world of
design. Please stop in the store and check us out!

Civics and Urban Life

AU CONTRAIRE: THE OCCASIONAL NOTE FROM PETER LOFFREDO

Here’s something new from our pal Pete of Full Permission Living:

Please read this!
Judith Warner writes: “Americans are being vastly overmedicated for often relatively minor mental health concerns. This over-reliance on quick-fix medication is numbing our nation and dulling our awareness of real and pressing social issues and of non-psychopharmacological therapies and treatments. The notion that American children and adults are being over-diagnosed and overmedicated for exaggerated or even fictitious mental disorders has now become one of the defining tropes of our era.”
Go to Judith Warner’s article called “Overselling Overmedication”

Civics and Urban Life

DID RECESSION TALK HURT VALENTINE’S DAY?

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Did recession talk hurt Valentine’s Day on Seventh Avenue? From anecdotal evidence: maybe.

At 4:30 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, there was a long line at Key Food’s outdoor flower stand, where they were selling two dozen roses for under $30. The Apple Market on Garfield was selling a dozen red roses with baby’s tears wrapped in green tissue paper for $25.

There seemed to be far more pre-prepared bouquets than customers.

The Park Florist, the high-end Seventh Avenue flower shop. seemed to be doing a busy delivery business—I saw workers loading gorgeous arrangements into a van. But the store didn’t seem as busy as previous Valentine’s Days.

Over at Mr. Choi’s Lingerie Shop on Seventh Avenue, one of the owners told OTBKB that it wasn’t a very busy Valentine’s Day.

“Recession,” she said with a frown. “Not a busy day. Same with the flower shop across the street.” She pointed to a gorgeous vase of flowers that her husband had bought for her at the Park Florist. The store was decorated with red cardboard hearts and silky lingerie.

At Possibilities, the card and knick-knack shop on Seventh Avenue near President Street, there were more than ten people waiting on line to buy last-minute cards, balloons and Valentine’s Day gifts. The store was quite crowded.

As for me, I bought Whitman’s valentine’s boxes from Neergard and card and “string doll gang” dolls (from Scaredy Kat) for OSFO and Teen Spirit.

Diaper Diva and Bro-in-Law got a 5:30 reservation at Po on Smith Street. It was the only restaurant where Bro-in-Law could get a reservation a week ago. And at 5:30.

Hopefully Seventh Avenue/ Fifth Avenue/Smith Street restaurants were doing well last night. DD said Po was fantastic. It is now one of her fave Brooklyn restaurants.

We had dinner at home. Hepcat made a chicken dish using the Tikka Masala Indian sauce they sell at the Food Coop and Back to the Land. He added almonds. It was delicious.

EDUCATION

LARGE GROUP FROM PS 321 JOINS PROTEST AGAINST SCHOOL BUDGET CUTS

A large group of PS 321 parents, teachers and administrators joined hundreds of others in protest against recent school budget cuts in front of the Department of Education in Manhattan Thursday afternoon.

The school’s PTA leaders encouraged parents to make their voices heard at the protest or with letters and calls to their city council members. This from NY 1:

Hundreds of students, teachers, parents, and lawmakers gathered outside the Department of Education headquarters in Manhattan Thursday to protest Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $100 million education cut.

They denounced the budget plan — which is part of the mayor’s plan to cut spending citywide.

High school students at the protest said the cuts will make it harder for them to finish school.

“I want to graduate,” said one student. “I want to get an education. I don’t want my money to be taken away for this. I need my education so I can go somewhere in this world.”

“It affects the students, it affects the teaching skills,” said another. “We need that money and they can’t take it away from us because it’s the only thing we have.”

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein says he’s redirected $230 million from the head office into city classrooms over the last two years, and he’s looking to continue that trend.

Civics and Urban Life

ONLY THE BLOG LINKS

Everyone wants the Book Nerd’s bookshop in their nabe (Brooklyn Paper)

Ice skating rink on First Street (Brooklyn Paper)

Changes to the Parachute Jump (Gowanus Lounge)

Marty: More bling, less art at Parachute Jump (NY Post)

Legendary Staubitz butcher (Brooklyn Paper)

Daily News to be produced in full color by 2009 (NY Daily News)

Renderings of the redesign of McCarren Pool (Curbed)

Coney Island photos in the New Yorker (for this you have to get the magazine)

A Saudi blogger has disappeared (Self-Absorbed Boomer)

Brooklyn Iconography (Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn)

ONLY THE BLOG KNOWS BKLYN RESTAURANTS

THE DRAM SHOP: NEW NABE BAR ON 9TH STREET

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The Yelpers are yelping about it. I stopped in for a look yesterday and it looked like a fun bar with good-sounding food (I read the menu).

The Dram Shop is located on 9th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue (is it the old pet shop?) They’ve got loads of beers on tap, burgers, board games, and shuffle board?

Dram shop is a legal term referring to a bar or a place where beverages are sold. According to Wikipedia, “traditionally it referred to a shop where spirits were sold by the dram, a small unit of liquid.”

I was wondering.

I got a good vibe about the place, which has a dark, comfortable, nicely designed bar and restaurant seating in the back.

I’m guessing that the food is good because the bartender was talking it up…

If anyone has been there let me know.

The Dram Shop
339 9th Street
between 5th and 6th Avenue

Civics and Urban Life

LAST MINUTE VALENTINE’S DAY TIPS

Cards: Great cards at Scaredy Kat and A Lion in the Sun at 232 Seventh Avenue (at 4th Street)

Gifts: The Clay Pot, Brooklyn Mercantile, Loom, Rare Device, Diana Kane, and Community Bookstore

Lunch: Elementi or Sweet Melissa’s. 

Candy: Chocolate Girl, Cocoa Bar, Chocolate Room, Neergard for large selection of Whitman’s.

Cookies and cup cakes: Sweet Melissa’s and Cousin John’s, International Taste has their homemade nuts, dried fruit and seed cakes in the shape of HEARTS.

Sexy: Pink Pussycat and Diana Kane

Dinner: Cocotte (Fifth Avenue and Fourth Street) Stone Home Wine Bar in Ft. Greene

Movie: Definitely, Maybe" is playing at the Pavilion. Romantic comedy with Abigail Breslin. 4:40  7:10  10:00 tonight.

Civics and Urban Life

L’ATALANTE ON HEART’S DAY

This is the story of a great Valentine’s Day staged by Hepcat many years ago.

Hepcat once staged the most wonderful Valentine’s surpise. Part of the surprise was that he even did something at all—usually he’s a Valentine’s Day Scrooge, the guy who gets really put out with the whole idea of this Hallmark holiday. But that year he really rose above his own objections to it and planned something big. He told me that he was taking me somewhere but he wouldn’t say where. Ever curious, I kept asking. “You’ll ruin the surprise,” he said again and again.

My expectations rose sky high. Then he told me the location of where we were going — somewhere downtown on the far west side. Hmmm. I didn’t have a clue where he had in mind.

That night, we drove down the West Side Highway and parked on Varick Street near Houston. When we turned down a side street, I saw a small movie marquee in the distance. It said, “Grand Opening on Valentine’s Day. Now Showing: L’Atalante by Jean Vigo.”

I thought I was dreaming. This tiny, recently refurbished movie theater, then called the Soho Cinema, was playing my favorite movie of all time, L’Atalante, on their opening night. Made in 1934, this black and white french movie is the story of Juliette who marries Jean. She comes to live on his river barge along with a cabin boy and the strange old second mate Pere Jules. Soon bored by life on the river, she slips off to see the nightlife when they get to Paris. Angered by this, Jean sets off, leaving Juliette behind. Overcome by grief and longing for his wife, Jean falls into a depression and Pere Jules goes and tries to find Juliette. When he finds her she too is eager to return to the barge. Back together again, they resume life on the river.

It is a simple story told with grace and poetry. It may be one of the most romantic movies of all time. Jean Vigo had tuberculosis when he made it, and was dead just after its release. He was only 29, and had made only four films. A romantic until the end.

We were the only ones in the theater other than the usher and the popcorn guy. Sitting in our own private movie palace watching a treasure of French cinema, it was a Valentine’s Day impossible to forget

Civics and Urban Life

BEAGLE ADVOCATES ARE WORRIED

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NPR’s Morning Edition story about one beagle’s triumph at the Westminister Dog Show cautioned against running out to adopt a beagle. They’re not the dog for everyone.

Beagle lovers are celebrating the triumph of one of their own this week at the Westminster Dog Show. A beagle named, Uno, made history as the first beagle to win the “Best in Show” crown. The result could be a surge of beagles in animal rescue shelters.

ONLY THE BLOG KNOWS BKLYN RESTAURANTS

JOLLYBE BAKERY: DECORATIVE AND DELICIOUS CAKES

In case you’re wondering who made the Chagall cake in today’s No Words_Daily Pix.

Just like this cake based on a painting by Marc Chagall created for a friend’s 20th anniversary, your Jollybe Bakery cake can be a work of art! Designer/baker Ruth Seidler will work with you to create the altogether perfect cake for your special occasion.

For Hepcat’s 50th, she did a photography cake. Probably the first birthday cake ever with a Diane Arbus photo painted on in frosting.

For a friend’s 40th, she did a North by Northwest cake. And for my father’s 75th, she created a beautiful cake based on Matisse’s jazz series.

Take a look at some of the most recent cakes on these pages and contact JollyBe for more information. Jollybebaker(at)gmail(dot)com

Civics and Urban Life

TOUGH ELECTRONIC RECYCLING BILL APPROVED

Our man City Coucil member Bill De Blasio is the sponsor of this bill. This from the New York Times:

New York City is a step closer to adopting one of the toughest electronics recycling laws in the nation, despite strong objections from manufacturers and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

The City Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would impose a $100 fine on anyone who throws an old computer, printer or other electronic gadget into the trash. Recycling the electronic waste will become mandatory, and manufacturers will be required to take back their own products as well as those made by companies that have gone out of business.

The Council estimated that New Yorkers purchase more than 90,000 tons of electronic products every year. The gadgets contain hazards like lead and mercury, and most end up in the trash.

EDUCATION

BIG MARCH TO PROTEST SCHOOL CUTS TODAY

It’s not just about our school. It’s about all the schools in NYC. The president of the PS 321 is encouraing everyone to come to the march today in front of the DOE in Manhattan. Here are the details.

Join citywide students, parents, teachers, and principals for a march on the Department of Education to demand a restoration of the cuts. The march will take place on Thursday, February 14th at 4 p.m. at DOE Headquarters, 52 Chambers Street.

If you can’t make it to the march, you can write letters of protest to Joe Klein, or council members Bill De Blasio, David Yassky, Robert Jackson or Christine Quinn.

jklein@school.nyc.gov

deblasio@council.nyc.ny.us

yassky@council.nyc.ny.us

jackson@council.nyc.ny.us

quinn@council.nyc.ny.us

Community Bookstore

LONELY HEARTS AND “PARIS, TEXAS” AT THE COMMUNITY BOOKSTORE

The Lonely Hearts Valentine’s Day party is on for tonight at the Community Bookstore on Seventh Avenue between Garfield and President. Stop in to see the red and pink themed party. They’re also showing movies and serving red food.

Here it is, late Wednesday night . . . . . we’re sitting around, talking about . . . . .oh, stuff, but tomorrow night, we’re having this red and pink party. Sam Greenhoe has made sure the projector works, and we’re scheming red food . . . . all we need is . . . . YOU! Please come.

It’s silly, it’s something to do. We have great movies (Love Story, Jules & Jim, Dr. Zhivago, Shakespeare in Love, Paris Texas*) We have good company. We have an awfully nice space. We have some red food (maybe you’ll bring more?), and we have the great sincere desire to spend a nice evening together. No pressure, nice way to spend an evening . . . . please come?

Catherine, Rebekah, Abigail & Chris (Waltah, Lima etc)

* I have no idea what Paris Texas has to do with anything, but we have it. Much love

EDUCATION

WILL SCHOOL CUTS THREATEN PS 321’S REPUTATION?

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Today, Brownstoner ponders whether recent school budget cuts will threaten PS 321’s style. More to the point, he wonders what will be the effect on local real estate.

So how does all this circle back to real estate? This is no doubt overly simplistic, but is it possible for the budget cuts to make some would-be Slope buyers (who often move to the neighborhood because of schools like P.S. 321) reconsider, or think about shelling out for private school instead? Or do the strong voices of parents at P.S. 321 affirm the lure of the school and neighborhood?

Put that way, the budget cuts could be a good thing for the neighborhood—and PS 321. The school is already crowded. This year there are ten kindergarten classes. On the tour I was leading this morning, one OTBKB reader asked me, what happens when those buildings open on Fourth Avenue.

Good question.

Can the school acomodate that influx of students? It seems to me that District 15 needs another public school. Otherwise PS 321 is going to have to add a fourth floor or a new quonset hut in the backyard.

Do the budget cuts really threaten PS 321’s quality? Yes and no. That discretionary funding does add a great many bells and whistles to the school like literacy intervention, special teachers, paraprofessionals, school supplies, books, and furniture.

A school needs discretionary funding to run smoothly.

Of course, parents and teachers are upset. And they have good reason to be. But the thing that makes PS 321 great is the quality of its teaching staff, the administration and the curriculum that they’ve spent years developing.

Still, there is much to worry about. Budget cuts could affect one of the sacred proponents of the school: small class size. That’s what it’s all about. Small class size makes for better teaching and better learning, there’s no way around it. The kids get more attention; the teacher has more time to work with and know each student.

Intervention services and help for struggling learners are other important elements in the success of a PS 321 education.

In her letter to parents Principal Elizabeth Phillips writes,

“I fear what this means for next year in terms of class size, intervention services and arts programming, which is where we put the largest amount of our discretionary funds.”

Larger class size, less art, and intervention services. Say it isn’t so. If the budget cuts affect these important things, there will be much consternation among parents, administration and staff.

It’s hard to say what these cuts will mean in the long run. The school has been through budget cuts before and it has persevered. PS 321 is a strong, resilient and vital institution that will continue to prosper in spite of these DOE obstacles.

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EDUCATION

LATE START

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Late start today. And no, I didn’t oversleep.

This morning I was a tour guide at a PS 321 tour for prospective parents. It’s always an interesting thing to do.

Initially there were about 30 parents on my tour and they were most eager to see the pre-school and the kindergarten. A smaller group stuck it out as I took them to see the first through fifth grade.

The school is a pretty easy sell. As one person on the tour said, “The school really speaks for itself.” As a parent there for 11 years, I know the school very well. I have to admit I feel very sentimental that this is our last year at the school.

I’ve seen more than one fifth grade parent break down and cry at the thought that their child is about to graduate.

Indeed, OSFO is off to middle school and I will lose my connection to this wonderful school community. I feel sad but I haven’t cried yet. I cried a lot when Teen Spirit was in fifth grade.

I enjoyed showing my tour classroom of a teacher who has been teaching 3rd grade at PS 321 for 40 years. Teen Spirit had this teacher and she’s a pretty tough cookie; very old school. But as I told the group, “Your kid will know the multiplication tables cold with her. She really knows how to teach.”

It was fun to revisit the first grade. The kids looked so tiny sitting at their tables. The prospective parents didn’t seem that interested in the older grades. From the vantage point of pre-school, it’s hard to imagine that your kid will ever be THAT BIG. It’s scary, I guess.