An OTBKB reader and a "frequent" contributor to Bob Guskind's Gowanus Lounge wrote in to say that my story about tini wine bar may have contained a tiny (or not so tiny) inaccuracy. The writer suggests that it is not "greedy landlord syndrome" that is responsible for tini's relocation. According to the writer, tini never had a lease on the space in question:

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Donating One's Body to Medical Education and Research
Sunday, March 29, 2009
1:00 pm, Park Slope United Methodist Church (PSUMC)
410 6th Ave. @ 8th Street

Special Guest: Jane Brody
Health columnist for The New York Times, and Park Slope neighbor 
Author of the just-released Jane
Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond: A practical primer to help you and
your loved ones prepare medically, legally, and emotionally for the end
of life, which will be available for purchase (signed by the author)

(March 21, 2009) Several members of our PSUMC community are
planning on leaving their bodies to a local medical school when they died. 
For some of us it is a spiritual act; for others, an earthly and
practical step at death.  Either way, it's a gift that enables the next
generation of doctors to learn more about life. 

How does such a donation take place and when is the decision made?  
Does it conflict with signing on as an organ donor on one's driver's
license?  How do families experience a loved one's body donation?  How
does one select a recipient institution? PSUMC invites you to hear more
about this death option, including legal and logistical considerations
and personal reflections.

Brief presentations will be given by representatives of a consortium of
NY medical school anatomical donation programs, and  family members of
donors who will talk about their families' experiences. Information
will be available about contacts for programs.

No need to RSVP.  All are welcome.  There is no charge for this event. 

Park Slope United Methodist Church
www.parkslopeumc.org
410 Sixth Avenue (at Eighth Street), Brooklyn, NY

Fare increases take place on May 31st. Single fares will rise to $2.50 (from $2) and a monthly MetroCard will go up to $103 (from $81).

There will also be wide service cuts. A total of 35 bus routes will be eliminated along with the W and Z subway lines. Off-peak service is also to be reduced on subways, buses, LIRR; many bus routes will be cancelled on weekends. The MTA will also lay off 1,100 transit employees.
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This is being called the most drastic cuts to service since the  mid-1970's.

The MTA is looking to Albany for a rescue package to help with their $1.2 billion budget deficit. What's known as the Ravitch Plan would funnel revenue to the MTA from bridge and tunnel tolls. The plan is tied up in the senate over disputes about the tolls.

The White House is open for questions. You can post your questions on the economy and vote on submissions from others. The President  will answer some of the most popular on Thursday. The online town hall is at 11:30 am Thursday. The voting will close at 9:30 am.

Brownstone Voyeur is a joint project of casaCARA and OTBKB, taking you behind Brooklyn’s intriguing facades to see what’s inside. Look for it every Thursday on both sites. Go to casaCARA for more text and pix.

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Rebecca Cole, a well-known, Manhattan-based garden designer and sometime interior designer, decorated the hell out of this 3-bedroom pre-war apartment on Eastern Parkway, with the blessings of her adventurous clients.

A couple in their 50s with grown kids, this is their empty nest. They moved from Connecticut and settled in Brooklyn to enjoy city life, calling on Rebecca to create a place that would be so much fun to live in they wouldn’t regret leaving their former home.

Among the standout features:

• Brave, bold color in unusual combos like pink, brown, and chartreuse
• Hand-stenciling on walls instead of wallpaper
• The use of garden furniture indoors
• Thrift shop pieces re-upholstered in serious fabrics
• Playful light fixtures and accessories
  

If you mention OTBKB

It's Wednesday night. That means you shoul get on over to Bar Reis, have a cold beer and listen to the Tin
Roof Trio, they're hot. Fronted by violinist Monica Smith, they're darn good doing that gypsy jazz, standards and originals. True, there's only
the slightest chance that bartender Moe will sing "Honeysuckle Rose."

Then again, she just might.

And here's the recession  busting deal: $1 dollar off on any $5 dollar draft if you mention OTBKB while the band is playing.

It's
a very hot club vibe over there at a very cool bar –  with
a really high level of civil discourse, reasoned debate and unabashed
revelry.

They band plays until 11:30 p.m. and by then things are pretty sublime but nobody is afraid to to flirt with the ridiculous.

Lucky we to once again have the talents of writer/designer/pub quizzer Scott Turner on this page.

Greetings, Pub Quiz Bonus Returners…

A few things this week I just can't figure out:

AIG got $170 or 180 billion in federal bailout
money.  The controversial bonuses were $165 million — less than one
percent.  Rather than all of these contortionist moves to recoup the
bonus money — taxes, lawsuits, pleadings on bended knees — can't the Geithners, Bernankes and Franks just, you know, demand one-percent back?  One frakkin' percent?

hexxes, tears and the stinkeye — things can't help but look up.

Speaking of AIG's bailout money, why isn't Barney Frank — who made a big deal and justifiable deal out of Citi spending $400 million to slap their dopey name on the Mets' new stadium — not shooting the same stinkeye AIG's way?  AIG handed $8 billion to the British bank Barclays, who's also paying $400 million to slap their dopey name on Bruce Ratner's proposed basketball arena here in Brooklyn.  Or, if you prefer, why is U.S. bailout money going to a British bank that participated in the slave trade, supported South African apartheid, helped the Nazis freeze French Jews' money during WWII, bankrolled Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe and was an enabler for the Congo civil war and is paying $400 million to slap their dopey name on Bruce Ratner's proposed basketball arena here in Brooklyn?

Why didn't the t.v. show Life on Mars garner enough viewers to keep its New York 1973 head off the Nielsen
ratings chopping block.  Clever show, great actors, compelling stories,
social commentary, funny lines, and groundbreaking.  Okay, I know the
answer to this one: it's not a reality show about models in kitchens
getting screamed at by a master chef while he's swapping wives with a
nanny on an island in Borneo staffed with apprentices trying to win a record contract.

…not so much with the standing-a-chance.

How come, when
we pass someone on the street and our eyes meet, we often make that
pursed-lip/tough-up face.  It's like we're saying "yes, we must
acknowledge each other, it's a tough task but here we are knowing what
the other is going through and it's not your fault or mine, I blame
society and you're probably a good person so I don't blame you and
we're caught in this conundrum of confused confrontation but we're
bearing up all the same, good work"?  Next time I'm just saying "good
morning."

face it — saying hello has become a really tough task

Why don't autumn leaves in New York city turn colors 'til November these days, and why aren't there any buds on the trees, even though it's now officially springtime?

Are there really very few people that don't know about this two albums:  Ali Farka Touré's Niafunke and The Levellers' Letters from the Underground? 
It's a good thing CD players are sealed shut, 'cause these two discs
would go flying out, scaring the dogs and putting gashmarks in the
walls around here, I've been playing them so much.

How come the Mets' owners are disconnected from the human condition in such an imbecilic and soul-masticating fashion?

Why is healthy food expensive and crappy food cheap?  Okay, that's solidly rhetorical, but still…

And, bringing us full circle, why were the AIG bonuses unassailable
because they were part of some inviolate contract, but the Big Three
car companies were told to renegotiate contracts with their blue-collar
assembly line workers if they wanted some of that yummy-good TARP money?

AIG's Hank Greenberg, a UAW member.  Contracts are contracts, except when they're not.

Luckily for you, these are not the questions I'll be asking at this Thursday's Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz.  No, these are left for me to consider from deep in the inner recesses here at Pub Quiz Actual.

But if you can shed some light on these issues of the day, let me know.  It is, after all, the Season of Renewal.

Contact Store for More Information

Another installment from Rose Marie Hester, Learning Specialist, who enjoyed this event at the Public Library on 6th Avenue.

 If you enjoy talking bout books, this monthly program is something to consider.   The public library on Sixth Avenue sponsors a monthly “Evening With a Book.”  The format is simple:  bring a book and talk about it. 

I had the pleasure of attending last night.  It turned out that the librarian, Janet, and I were the only ones who braved the March evening.  But, no matter—it was wonderful.  Janet discussed “Born Digital” about how adults can understand, support and guide children’s use of technology.  I discussed “The UltraMind Solution,” which presents a hopeful view of what we can all do to prevent—even reverse—the brain diseases with which we are familiar—autism, Parkinson’s, ADD and Alzheimer’s.

Janet hopes that people will come to share important information and maybe also make some new friends.

The next “Evenings With a Book” are on April 28 and May 26.  April 28 features the speaker, Sheila Singleton.  

I should have posted this earlier. But this show by Ellen Kahn at 440 Gallery closes on March 29th so there's still some time to catch it at. 440 Gallery is on Sixth Avenue near 9th Street in Park Slope. 

Ellen Kahn presents Alice Revisited, a collection of paintings and works on paper. Alice Revisited is influenced by Kahn’s fascination with the renowned books by author Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

Kahn’s work combines elements that are both personal and universal while exploring the confluences and associations between intellect and intuition, waking and dreaming, fantasy and reality. The work interweaves layers of images derived from botanical prints, childhood photographs, linear elements, text, and illustrations—including those based on John Tenniel’s original ones from Carroll’s books—to create evocative drawings and paintings that have an edginess camouflaged by a deceptively innocent nostalgia. Color is muted in both the paintings and works on paper, implying a dream state, a delicate place in which images dance and collide, forever recombining to make new impressions.

Kahn’s paintings and works on paper focus on the psychological struggle that is involved with trying to break free from childhood and move out into the world to discover one’s own identity. As in the famous Sisyphus myth, where Sisyphus keeps trying again and again to push a heavy boulder up a hill only to be pushed back continually by its weight, Alice tries to journey forward and explore wonderland only to continually be pushed back again and again by all of the strange and unexpected barriers that try to stop her. The text in these works references two specific passages from the Carroll books: one from Through the Looking-Glass, in the chapter called “The Garden of Live Flowers,” where no matter which path Alice chooses it always twists back to her house, and the other from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, right at the beginning where Alice falls down the rabbit hole only to discover that she cannot get through the little doors into the garden beyond.

Ellen Kahn’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States and abroad. Her most recent solo exhibitions were at Graficas Gallery, Nantucket, MA, and Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, NY. She has been in many group exhibitions, including Von Lintel Gallery, New York City; National Library of Argentina, Buenos Aires; Centro Cultural San Angel, Mexico City; Museo Regional de Michoancan, Morelia, Mexico; Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY; and The Drawing Center, New York City. She has had many notable residencies, including ones at the Fundacion Valparaiso, Vermont Studio Center, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Kahn studied at Carnegie Mellon University and received her BFA from the Boston Museum School and her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Alice Revisited is on view at the 440 Gallery from February 19 to March 29, 2009.

Brownstone Voyeur is a joint project of casaCARA and OTBKB taking you behind Brooklyn’s intriguing facades to see what’s inside (admit it, you’re curious!)  Look for it every Thursday on both sites.

This week: from dull to dazzling in Prospect Heights. See the boring before and the gorgeous after.

Your subway fare hangs in the balance. The MTA board is set to approve a fare increase. Starting in June, the single fare for a subway ride will rise to $2.50. A monthly MetroCard will cost  $103. up from $81. Fares for buses and LIRR will also go up.

I didn't make it over to Vox Pop, the cafe, performance space and community hang-out in Ditmas Park, on Sunday afternoon but would love to hear what went on. Send a comment or a story.