Monthly Archives: March 2009

real estate

Secret {Real Estate} Agent: Not All Gloom and Doom

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Secret {Real Estate} Agent is an exciting new feature on OTBKB. The writer will remain anonymous.

Who am I?

Are you sure you want to know? The stories I am about to tell are not for the faint of heart. I'm a
Park Slope resident over ten years and I've been selling real estate
about four. I'm "in it," as they say. When I started it was the hottest
of hot markets. That was back when being a real estate agent was sexy
and the topic was like crack. No one could get enough of it. I've been
riding the wave as it's gone from a seller's- market to a relatively
even-market to the buyer's-market we're in now. It's been a wild
journey so far and anything but boring. Real estate is still a hot
topic. People are skittish, holding their breath and waiting for the
bottom. But it's not all doom and gloom. People are looking and
transactions are happening. It's not going at the frenzied pace that it
once did. Now it's more like molasses.

But It’s not all doom and gloom.

There is good news out there. Mortgage interest rates are very low.
Asking prices are more flexible and there is usually room to
negotiate. But people are still collectively holding their breath.
When will we hit bottom? Should I buy? Should I wait? What do I do?

My opinion? Don't wait for that proverbial bottom. When that tipping
point happens, it may be too late. The frenzy will begin again and
buyers will swarm and drive the prices right back up. If you're
hedging your bets and waiting for the bottom, you could be left
behind. No fun!

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. And don't pay attention to asking price.


Why?

There’s wiggle room. Sellers may not reduce their asking price because they are anticipating people
will offer less. If they are serious, they’ll negotiate with you.

You’ll need to do a little homework before sealing your deal of the
century. Better yet, work with an agent and have him or her do it for
you. It's what we get paid to do, after all.


In any case, here are some negotiating tips:

1.     Find out length of time on the market.

2.     What are comparable properties on the market asking?

3.     What have comparable properties closed for recently?

4.     Have your financing ready (talk to a reputable mortgage broker
– you can be pre-qualified for free after about 15 minutes on the
phone)

5.     Depending on the info above, be bold. Serious sellers want to
make a deal, so start the conversation!

Don't forget. Park Slope is a desirable place to live and will likely
be for some time to come (you know that already if you live here).
It’s not likely you’ll get 20% off the asking price and there are  not
many fire sales out there. That said, there a lot of opportunity and
you might be able to afford something you didn’t think you could. Good
luck!

Civics and Urban Life

ABC Radio Reporter Murdered in Carroll Gardens

ABC radio reporter George Weber was found dead in his Henry Street apartment with multiple stab wounds to his neck. His 48th birthday was today. According to 7online.com, there was no sign of false entry and there are no arrests at this time. The following is a brief bio from 7online.com

Weber worked at WABC-AM for 12 years as the on-air reporter for popular shows such as "Curtis and Kuby."

Since last year, he had worked as a freelancer for ABC News Radio, the national network.

His last newscast was on March 15.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg says Weber will be deeply missed by millions of radio listeners – including the mayor.

ABC News Radio vice president and general manager Steve Jones released the following statement:

"We are shocked and deeply saddened by the death of our colleague and
friend George Weber, who was the victim of what police have deemed a
homicide at his home in Brooklyn. An investigation has been launched by
NYPD and we have been assisting them. Our condolences and prayers go
out to George's family and friends at this very difficult time.

VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Regulatory Systems

Regulatory Systems

 Forget Wall Street–let's fix Main Street!
 
Behind the wheel of your car, upbeat
 
And cheery, you motor through the city
 
Driving safely and humming a ditty,
 
A threat to no one anywhere–
 
And yet you're forced both here and there
 
To stop!  Again and again your path
 
Is blocked, inciting righteous wrath.
 
What for?  The other drivers, as keen
 
As you to keep the Main Street scene
 
Accident-free, avoiding crashes
 
That could result in dents and ashes,
 
Aren't dangers to nor you to them.
 
Self-interest always prevents mayhem!
 
So why in the world do urbanites
 
Have any need for traffic lights?
Civics and Urban Life

Bed-Stuy Meadow: Planting Wildflowers Everywhere!

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A woman by the name of Deborah Fisher has a flowering VISION and a lot of people are getting on board. She calls it Bed-Stuy Meadow and the goal is, in her words, "to sow wildflower seeds on every single patch of
abandoned soil in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bed-Stuy this April."

If all goes according to plan, Bed-Stuy will be in bloom by early summer. And there will be flowers everywhere, including treepits, vacant lots, half-built developments and "other tiny
scraps of neglected soil in Bed Stuy that the whole neighborhood
effectively turns into a meadow."

It's an inspiring vision. And she's really doing something about it on April 11th from 11 am until 3 pm. In her own words:

I want there to be so many wildflowers on the streets that the
summer of 2009 is remembered very fondly by every single resident of the
neighborhood. I want the continuity of the Meadow to be so strong that
Google Earth is compelled to re-photograph Bed Stuy. I want people who
don't even live within the five boroughs to visit Bed Stuy for the
first time so that they can see the Meadow with their own eyes, and I
want people who will never even come to be so inspired by the Bed Stuy
Meadow that they make their own amazing neighborhood project and share
it on 21st Century Plowshare.

Yesterday I got an email from her saying that the plan is now to do the entire job in one day–Saturday,
April 11th, 11am-3pm! There are that many volunteers. There's an alternate rain date on Sunday April 12th.

If you want to get involved, you should RSVP as soon as possible (Once you've confirmed, Deborah will assign you to a planting zone and give you directions abotu where to meet on Planting Day.

You'll need to
wear comfortable walking shoes and prepare to be outside for a few
hours. You will be give seeds and a very quick lesson about how to throw the seed.


Smartmom

Smartmom: So What If Smartmom Ain’t So Smart?

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Smartmom_big8
Here's this week's Smartmom from the Brookyn Paper.

Smartmom is terrified. What if people find out what a bad mom she really is?

Will she be fired from the now-Murdoch-owned Brooklyn Paper? Will
Dumb Editor accuse her of being a hoaxer? Will her readers finally stop
reading?

Well, it’s not like she’s a really bad mom. It’s just that, as you
know, she has this job writing a column called “Smartmom.” Which might
lead people to believe that she’s smart about being a mom.

And maybe she is. Sometimes.

All of this came to mind the other night, when the Oh So Feisty One
and Smartmom went to see the fluffy and fun, “Confessions of a
Shopaholic,” about a writer named Rebecca Bloomwood, who
writes a popular column in Successful Saving Magazine called “The Girl
in the Green Scarf” about the economic perils of debt and instant
gratification.

But Rebecca has a secret: She has $16,000 on her credit cards
because of her incorrigible need to splurge on Christian Louboutin
heels, knee-high red Pucci boots and a glittery array of designer
handbags.

Smartmom could relate.

No, Smartmom isn’t a compulsive shopper (if anything, she
pathologically hoards boxes of Amy’s frozen pizza and macaroni and
cheese in the freezer).

And she truly is a mom; her children really are 12 and 17. And
believe it or not, everything she writes in these columns is true — if
sometimes amplified a bit.

But it’s the mistakes, the constant parenting mistakes, that lead
her to wonder what she’s doing with her byline on a column named
“Smartmom.”

It all goes back to that fateful day at the now-defunct 10th Street
Tea Lounge, when Dumb Editor offered her the promise of fame and
fortune as a Brooklyn Paper columnist.

During that hyperactive interview, Smartmom never pretended to be a great mom or anything.

She told Dumb Editor that she and Hepcat were just muddling through.

She didn’t soup up her resume to include degrees in early childhood education or psychology.

She explained to Dumb Editor that the column would not be portrait
of successful parenting. Quite the contrary: Smartmom and Hepcat were
making every mistake in the book — and their kids were thriving anyway.

He seemed to be OK with that. Something about Smartmom being the
“everywoman, struggling with career, family, volunteer work, fame,
need, anxiety, etc.” Smartmom recalls Dumb Editor being a bit more
eloquent, but you get the idea.

Still, sometimes Smartmom wonders if the parenting police are going
to come after her for all the big ticket mistakes she’s makes on a
regular basis. The cops will be like Derek Smeath, the debt collector
in “Confessions of a Shopaholic.” Like Smeath, the parenting cops could
really have a field day with Smartmom’s recent transgressions:

• Smartmom actually likes those shorty-shorts that OSFO wears with
the Aeropostale logo on the butt. She even allows her to wear them. But
maybe that’s not such bad parenting after all. Smartmom believes in
letting OSFO define her own style and be herself, which is actually
good parenting (phew). Goodbye, 1970s-era feminist values. Hello,
healthy self-esteem.

• Smartmom actually let Teen Spirit order a mushroom and onion
hamburger from the Purity with extra BBQ sauce when he was hungry at 11
pm after missing dinner at 7 pm. Yeah, she knows, she’s reinforcing one
bad behavior with another. But a boy’s gotta eat.

• She even knows that Teen Spirit is a smoker, but she doesn’t know
what to do about it. It brings her pain and anguish especially since
her father died of cancer. It’s not that she doesn’t talk to him about
it all the time. But what’s a mom to do?

The mistakes that Smartmom makes are all over the map and she’s the
first to admit them. There was the time she let Teen Spirit miss a day
of school because he thought he needed a “mental health day.” Or when
she encouraged OSFO and a pal to watch “Slumdog Millionaire,”
forgetting just how dark and sad that movie can be.

And who can forget the time she went to the Grand Cascades, that hotel in New Jersey with OSFO and neglected to bring a first-aid kit and basics like children’s chewable Motrin?

And there’s more. She and Hepcat could be firmer in the discipline
department. They could say “no” far more often. They could worship
their children a little less.

Indeed, they are guilty of just about all the sins of contemporary
parenting over-attachment, enmeshment, and too high an opinion of their
spawn (a word Wise Gal would use).

So maybe there’s a lesson in all this. The fictional column, “The
Girl in the Green Scarf,” struck a chord with her “readers” — even
though it was written by a chronic over-spender.

In the same way, Smartmom strikes a chord with the readers of The
Brooklyn Paper precisely because she’s not perfect and knows she
doesn’t do the parenting thing that well.

Maybe the imperfection allows the readers to recognize parts of
themselves in her, which enables them to empathize a bit. Smartmom
discusses universal concepts and no matter how she deals with them,
people can learn a thing or two about what they’re doing right — and
wrong. They can sit back, relax and realize that maybe, just maybe,
everything’s going to turn out alright.

Not a bad trick. Anyone want to make a movie?

Civics and Urban Life

Spring at Dweck: Roz Chast, Care Bears, Adrienne Rich and More

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It's a culture-packed spring at the Brooklyn Public Library's  Stevan Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture (at the Central Library on Grand Army Plaza) which features an ambitious offering of literature, music, film and children's programming.

Ambitious.

Wednesday's, Thursday's, Saturday's and Sunday's: the joint is hopping with a really well-curated assortment of events, which are divided into various categories, including Classical Interludes, Russian Literary Series, Silent Film, Brooklyn Sings, Brooklyn Swings, Families and Children, Brooklyn Independents, Jewish Heritage Month, Final Thoughts to name a few.

–Adrienne Rich is May 6th at 7 p.m.
–Roz Chast, the great New Yorker cartoonist is May 9th at 4 p.m.
–Care Bears on Fire are performing outdoors on June 4th at 3:30 p.m.

But that's just a tiny taste. There is so, so much more. I don't know where to begin. Okay, below is a random list of random highlights. Check the Dweck schedule for details.

Anne Waldman (4/22), 10th Annual Central Brookyn Jazz Festival (4/1), Orchestra of St. Lukes presents Young Composers (4/2), Jane Brody (5/13), Brooklyn Funeral Home Directors Discuss Local Customs of Mourning and Remembrance (5/20), The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus (5/9), Yale Strom and Hot Pstromi (5/14), Manze Dayila and the Nago Nation (6/6).

real estate

Exciting New Feature on OTBKB: Secret Agent

Secret_agent_ver2
Secret Agent: Notes from the Trenches of Park Slope Real Estate is an exciting new weekly feature on OTBKB. Here's a little tease about our brand new real estate insider/writer who's identity will remain anonymous.

Who am I?

You sure you want to know? The stories I am about to tell are not for the faint of heart.
  
I’m a Park Slope resident over ten years and I’ve been selling real estate for about four. I’m “in it,” as they say. When I started, it was the hottest of hot markets. That was when being a real estate agent was sexy and the topic was like crack.

No one could get enough of it.
   
I’ve been riding this wave as its gone from a seller's-market to a relatively
even-market to the buyer’s-market we’re in now.

It’s been a wild journey so far and anything but boring.
   
Real estate is still a hot topic. People are skittish, holding their
breath and waiting for the bottom. But it’s not all doom and gloom.
People are looking and transactions are happening. It’s not going at
the frenzied pace that it once was. Now it’s more like molasses…
   
–Stay tuned for more on Monday March 23rd.

Civics and Urban Life

Coming Soon: Breakfast-of-Candidates (39th Edition)

I've had breakfast with 4 out of the 6 democratic candidates for the City Council in the 39th district. It's  Bill deBlasio's seat they're after and he's running for public advocate. The democratic primary is 6 months away and that's THE big day in a primarily democratic district. He (and they're all hes) who wins the primary will more than likely win the general election.

The next milestone for the candidates is getting the necessary number of signatures to get their names on the ballot. The deadline is June. Many of these guys will be going door to door to meet the citizens and to get signatures.

So far, I've met with "front runner" Brad Lander, Craig Hammerman, Bob Zuckerman and Gary Reilly. I've yet to meet with Josh Skaller and John Heyer.

I will also be meeting with David Pechefsky but he's the Green Party's candidate; he won't be in the democratic primary and will be in the general election regardless of the democratic outcome.

I am also starting to meet with candidates in the race for city council in the 33rd district,which is David Yassky's district. In that race there's a female candidate name Joanne Simon. Park Slope is carved up into the 39th and the 33rd district.

More about the way the districts were carved up in a highly political way is forthcoming.

First up: Read all about candidate Gary Reilly on OTBKB next week.

Civics and Urban Life

Coming to the Community Bookstore: Scavengers, Subway Novelists, and Jonathan Lethem

–Tuesday March 24th at 7:30: Low Boy, is the third novel by John Wray, the coolest writer you’ve never heard of takes place almost entirely
underground—specific ally, in the tunnels and trains of the Manhattan
subway system—as William Heller, a sixteen year-old schizophrenic,
attempts to save the world from global warming. Wray will be reading and signing books.

–Wednesday March 25 at 7:30: The Modernist Book Club tackles Some Tame Gazelle, a senstation when
it was originally published, it is a story of two middle aged women,
written by a young Barbara Pym while at Oxford.

–Thursday March 26 at 7:30: The Scavenger's Manifesto, which is about the philosophy, spirituality and practice of "scavenging" —
e.g., any legal means of acquiring stuff that doesn't involve paying
full price, from thrift-shopping to yard-saling to Dumpster-diving to
curb-surfing to coupon-clipping to Freecycling. After two thousand
years of prejudice (hey, it's reviled in Leviticus!), scavenging is
finally beginning to gain respect as a socially conscious, green and
ultimately clean way of life. We see ourselves as nature's cleanup crew. Authors Anneli Rufus and Kristan Lawson will read and sign books.

–Tuesday March 31 at 7 p.m. Jonathan Lethem and LJ Davis will team up to discuss the New York Review of Book’s re-release of Davis’s 1971 novel: a blistering black comedy about the American quest for redemption via real estate and a gritty picture of New York City in collapse. Through the purchase and renovation of a rotting Brownstone mansion in  Brooklyn,  failed   writer (and general flop) Lowell Lake attempts to make good on everything that's gone wrong with his pathetic life, and he will even murder to do it.

The Community Bookstore is located on Seventh Avenue between Garfield and President Streets in Park Slope.

Civics and Urban Life

What? Brooklyn Museum Raises Admissions

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The Brooklyn Museum just sent out an email saying that they are raising the price of admission to $10 for adults and $6 for for older adults and students.

The admission is currently $8
for adults and $4 for seniors and students. Thanks to funds from a major endowment from the Wallace Foundation, Target First Saturdays will continue to be free.

This is obviously a sign that the museum, like everyone else, is suffering in these tough economic times. Even at $10, the museum is, if not a bargain, one of the cheaper admissions in the New York museum world.

Still, the increase comes at a bad time and it sure isn't great publicity for a museum that purports to be interested in diverse attendance. Understandably, the museum is facing tough financial decisions. But why should the Brooklyn public, who deserve access to the world-class collection and innovateive shows at their local museum have to provide the shortfall? Dr. Arnold
Lehman, director of the Museum had this to say.


"We truly regret that the challenges created
by the economic downturn have made it
necessary to modestly increase the admissions
fee at the Brooklyn Museum. We are grateful
to the Department of Cultural Affairs for its
support as we move forward with this
suggested admissions increase. However, the
Brooklyn Museum and our colleague cultural
institutions throughout New York City still
represent extraordinary enriching value for
all visitors, particularly in this difficult
and distressing time."
Election

David Pechefsky is the Green Party’s Candidate for City Council District 39

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A big field of good candidates (all white guys) to fill Bill de Blasio's City Council seat in the 39th District just got bigger.

David Pechefsky, the Green Party Candidate for City
Council District 39 (and one of the Park Slope 100) just invited me, you and anybody to a kick-off
party for his campaign with suggested donation prices of $25-$175 at
Barbes on Friday, March 27th from 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. That's 376
Ninth Street near Sixth Avenue.

In today's email blast, he opens with: "Interested in a greener, more equitable, more democratic city?"

I'm not sure if you have to make a donation to take a look-see at the candidate. Donation is suggested not mandatory. If you want to RSVP for the event, email Jonathan@pechefskyforcitycouncil.com

Civics and Urban Life

Snowglobe Snow

It's snowing in Brooklyn on the first day of spring and everyone's saying that. At Ozzie's the barista suggested that we think of the snow as blossoms falling from the sky.

A woman standing on line said, "I like the snow. It's snowglobe snow."  I liked the image and for a moment saw all of us inside a plastic bubble, a big hand shaking us to and fro.

But I wasn't feeling nearly as upbeat as the woman on line at Ozzie's. The gloppy, wet snow put me in a bad mood as I stepped out of my building this morning. But she persisted. "I heard birds singing in my backyard," she said.

And then I remembered: I saw a sparrow dining on a snowflake on Third Street. Spring is coming.

Civics and Urban Life

Today in Brooklyn: Final Hearing On Mayoral Control of Schools

Should there be mayoral control of the schools?

During the 2002 and 2003 Legislative sessions, the Legislature approved
the most comprehensive governance changes to the New York City School
District in over three decades.

This meant that the mayor was given control of the
management of the City's schools through the ability to appoint the
Chancellor of the City District and a majority of the members of the
City Board of Education.

This also gave the mayor control over educational standards,
curriculum requirements and mandatory educational objectives and much more.

The public is invited to express their point of view today in Brooklyn.

The Where and When

Friday, March 20, 2009
10:00 a.m.
New York City Technical College
Klitgord Auditorium
285 Jay Street
Brooklyn, NY

Food and Drink

Sunday at 4 p.m. Save Vox Pop Town Hall Meeting

Yesterday I got an email from Debi Ryan, a member of the Vox Pop Collective, that there's going to be a Save Vox Pop Town Hall Meeting on Sunday, March 22nd at 4:00 pm at the Vox Pop Café, 1022 Cortelyou Road, Brooklyn.

For those who don't know the phenomenon that is Vox Pop: it is a cafe, performance space, and community  hang-out with a decidedly progressive political vibe in the Ditmas Park/Flatbush neighborhood. I've been there numerous times and it's a great place for a cup of coffee and a chance to read some of the self-published books they carry over there.

Save Vox Pop? I didn't know they were in trouble. I guess I'm just not up to speed about what's been going on over there. I think I heard out of the corner of my ear that there was trouble but I'm not really sure if it's economic or otherwise. Here's the email from Debi:

Thanks so much for giving us the opportunity to share
our vision going forward. Our goal is to rebuild, using the foundation
that is already in place to foster an even stronger sense of

community.
Vox Pop is a coffee house/bookstore/art gallery/music venue located on Cortelyou Road in Ditmas Park/Flatbush, Brooklyn. Our vision is to
stand for democracy, equality and peace in the way we treat each
other, our employees and the community. We want to be a true community

center where all members of the neighborhood feel welcome and comfortable, and all points of view are respected.

Vox Pop is a collective. There is no one owner of Vox Pop. There are over 50 shareholders, most members of the community we serve, but some
living as far away as California. Under our new model, there is no
majority shareholder. Our hope is that everyone who loves Vox Pop becomes a part of Vox Pop. If the entire community owns the place, it
will surely be a staple of the Cortelyou Road scene for many, many
years.

Food and Drink

Obamas to Plant Organic Vegetable Garden at the White House

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The New York Times reports that the Obamas are planting an organic garden on the White House lawn. Well, they're not doing it themselves, but members of the kitchen staff are.

That should be like organic music to the ears of local gardeners and locavores in Brooklyn and elsewhere.The last time there was a garden at the White House was in the 1930's when Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden.

The Obamas are heeding the call of many, including Alice Waters, Michael Pollan and thousands on Facebook who joined an online group in support of this idea, to plant a garden on the White house lawn to provide food for the family and formal dinners.

The planting of this garden sends out a strong message to the nation and the world about the importance of healthy and locally grown food. It will also be an important educational tool for school children and those who get a chance to visit the White House.

The New York Times reports that the Obama's will be planting 55 varieties of vegetable on the 1,100-square-foot plot of lawn. There will also be a large assortment of lettuce, including red
romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead, red leaf and galactic; spinach, chard, collards and black kale; fruits and a patch of berries.

“My hope is that
through children, they will begin to educate their families and that
will, in turn, begin to educate our communities," Michele Obama told a New York Times interviewer.

Current Affairs

Big Cuts to City’s Public Hospitals

This is bad news for Brooklyn neighborhoods where people depend on the public hospitals for health care and mental health services. Here's an excerpt from the article in the NY Times today:

New York City’s publi hospital system announced  Thursday that it
was cutting 400 jobs and closing some children’s mental-health
programs, pharmacies and community clinics that serve more than 11,000 patients.

Alan D. Aviles, president of the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, blamed reductions in state reimbursement, a sharp increase in uninsured patients and the rising cost of labor, drugs and medical supplies for the cuts.

He warned that he would probably announce further job and service cuts in a month or two. The hospitals face a looming $316 million budget shortfall for the coming fiscal
year, which begins in July, and the current plan would save $105
million.

Postcard from the Slope

Brooklyn Creative League

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Brooklyn Creative League offers works space to  freelancers and small business people (work space and community for independent professionals). On the top floor of a building on Carroll Street in the Gowanus/Park Slope neighborhood, it looks quite nice in photos. Here's what the founders have to say about what they're doing:

"We founded Brooklyn Creative League because we
wanted to give independent professionals, small-shop companies, and
nonprofits the tools they need to get their work done: affordable,
green, shared workspace and a community of professional colleagues.

"Before our daughter, Leigh, was born, we assumed that we’d found
professional and familial nirvana: working from home while the baby
played happily in the next room with a loving babysitter. But we soon
realized the downsides: The constant interruptions and distractions of
being at home. The aggravation of spilling spaghetti sauce on your
keyboard because your desk is in the kitchen. The hours lost because
the Internet goes down. The interminable line at the post office. And
the plain old boredom and isolation of the same four walls — day in,
day out.

"That’s why we created Brooklyn Creative League.  Simply put, we wanted a cool, productive space to work in — someplace where we could meet with clients, host a conference call, and make a pitch. And we wanted to work around fun, interesting people who shared our passion for creativity, hard work, new ideas, and a good cup of coffee in the morning."

Food and Drink

Kappa Sake House: Tokyo Style Food and A Huge Selection of Sake and Beer

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A Park Sloper who invested in the new Kappa Sake House wrote to tell me his reasons for wanting to invest money in a small restaurant on Fifth Avenue. Obviously he isn't objective about the food and sake over there but it's interesting to hear his take on things and his obvious passion for the place.

Chef/Owner Fumiko Akiyama, originally from Tokyo, has lived and raised her daughter in Park
Slope over the last 15 years, is the owner of Kappa Sake House. 

I live
and own a business in Park Slope and was a customer who fell so in love with the food, and people that I became an investor.  The place
used to be Sakura Cafe and is now Kappa Sake House with a great friendly
staff, all from Tokyo.

I have spent time in Tokyo and enjoyed this
kind of delicious food. The restaurant is serving great Tokyo style cooked food, most of which are Fumiko's recipes, as well as sushi from the talented Ikeda-san, and a large and
great array of sakes and
interesting Japanese beers that you don't usually see.  We hope to have
some Japanese wine soon. 

Try the amazing spicy miso soup, great
homemade gyoza dumplings, perfectly cooked saba shio and much much
more.  All the dishes on the menu are paired with sake or beer.  Kappa
carry's a wide range of sakes from all regions in Japan while the beers, all of which are fantastic, are from small speciality Japanese
breweries.  There is Sapporo draft on tap, although technically its
from Canada but still a good inexpensive beer. 

The range of sake is
similiar to wine with dry, fruity, flowery, smooth etc., It is sold by the
glass, or by small, medium and large bottle sizes.  There's even aged
sake, which is much like port wine and very good with dessert. Fumiko carries an amazing aged eight-year-old sake which you must try. 

You
can even buy the enormously large bottle of sake, and they will keep it
for you until you return, if you're  unable to finish drinking it.

Duringh Happy Hour: Sapporo draft is $3.  On Tuesday nights:  DJ Tako spins vintage
Japanese/world music.  Nightly Japanese movies, and live performance
Thursday night.

Kappa Sake House, 388 5th ave, btw 5th&6th tel: 718 832 2970 email: www.facebook.com (kappa sake house)

Civics and Urban Life

BAX: Workshops and Classes for the Curious, Creative Adult

Workshops and Classes for the Curious, Creative Adult, is a cool new workshop series at BAX (Brooklyn Arts Exchange on 421 Fifth Avenue and 8th Street).

Hey, I'm in it. I'm doing a blogging workshop. It's called How To Blog.

Learn how to blog with blogger Louise Crawford of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, a
hands-on workshop for anyone interested in becoming a blogger and those
who already blog but need to know more. Learn from a pro the do's and
don'ts of blogging.

Session 1: Introduction to Blogging. This session will cover the basics and history of blogging.
Session 2: A hands-on, make-your-own blog session.
Session 3: Next Steps. To include a gentle critique of the blogs created and discussion of next steps.

Three sessions: Wednesdays: 7 – 8:30 p.m. April 29, May 6, 13. And it costs $45 for the whole workshop. Sign up at BAX.

There are other great workshops, too. Playwright Rosemary Moore is teaching Process and Playwriting;  Marian Fontana is doing a memoir workshop called, Your Stories; poet Michele Madigan Somerville is teaching Conceiving a Collection; Victoria Libetrore is teaching burlesque and there's Acting with Michael Wiggins and Yoga for the Non-Profit Community with  Ani Weinstein.

For info and to sign up go to the BAX website.

Scott Turner of Rocky Sullivan's

Greetings from Scott Turner: What a Frakkin’ Show!

Once again a wild and crazy missive from our friend writer/designer Scott Turner who runs the pub quiz at Rocky Sullivan's every Thursday night (there's one tonight!).

Greetings, Pub Quiz Superlucky Charmers…

Happy day after St. Patrick's Day. 
This e-mail is late — could be the week's worth of St. Pat's revelry. 
It might be beyond my purview to divulge the exact reasons for this Quizmail's tardyness.

BONUS POINTS FLASH QUIZ:  If your team can answer this at tomorrow evening's Quiz, you earn five (5) points at the outset:

What city did this St. Patrick's Day decidedly lack-of-celebration take place in yesterday?

Now, wordiness…

It's not often one can predict a death in the family, but there's one coming up this Friday evening.

…and no, it's not another sad observance of Shea Stadium's
demise — which, unbelievably, keeps demising.  Earlier this week, the
littlest and last remaining Shea — the model that's sat in the Queens Museum of Art — was taken away. [The Queens Museum, by the way, resides in the former New York City Pavilion from the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs — a building that also housed the UN in its early days.]

Nestled right where it was in real life, the little Shea could be spotted from the balconies that overlook the New York City Panorama, a scale model of every building, park, road and contour in the five boroughs.

Dave Howard, Exec. VP, Business Operations for the NY Mets takes back Shea Stadium and hands Claudia Ma the new Citi Field that she designed and built.
space-age, schmace-age — contrivance is the new adventurousness

Much like census takings, the Panorama updates itself after lengthy intervals.  It's a big job, one can imagine.  The Giuliani/Bloomberg
orgy of big-developer steamrolling will only make this a tougher task
in the years to come.  That the Queens Museum of Art is selling naming
rights to each of these little models and even littler components
makesthe tough task sadder.  [How little can you buy naming rights
for?  According to the Daily News, for $50 you can name an apartment (!).  $250 gets you a single-family home, and for the moneybag set,  $10,000 lands you a landmarks.]

But the Museum wasted no time in removing little Shea.  You can hear Jeff Wilpon, the Mets'
owner's intemperate mercurial brattish son, berating his minions to
remove all vestiges of Shea from the city's consciousness.  To that
end, Mets officials were on hand for little Shea's removal.

But NO, this missive is not about Shea.

This death in the family comes this Friday evening, 9pm, on the Sci-Fi Channel.  (Which is renaming itself the SyFy Channel in a branding strategy known as the Treat Viewers Like Idiots Paradigm.)

Battlestar Galactica's last-ever episode.

What a frakkin' show.  Based only tangentially on the schlock-fi series from the '70s, BSG
revolutionized television, even if television doesn't know it yet. 
This has been a series filled with human frailty, the constant battle
of humanity vs. technology and the uneasy allliances we all make with
machines, the reaches both short and long of theology, and every
hot-button topic America's dealt with since the early '00s.

http://blog.dailycal.org/arts/files/2009/01/battlestar_galactica.jpg
more popular than Jesus?  No…but it's a better story.

The acting has been stellar, from old hands Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell
to unknowns that are now firmly known.  The photography is cinematic, a
rare descriptive for a television show.  And the show has never fallen
off the razor's edge between making us watch uncomfortable things and
entertaining us.

The show's creator, Ronald D. Moore, has led us to humanity's cracks and fissures before — Deep Space Nine, Roswell and the extraordinary Depression-era carnival-troupe good vs.evil epic Carnivale.  BSG tops them all.

Rarer still is a multi-season
show ending right when it should.  Friday night we find out where the
last 39,000 humans came from, whether they can survive, and what it
really, really means to be human.

The
vast majority of television is junk, a somnambulant we willingly ingest
time and again.  But every so often in TV land, inexplicably, a fertile
field appears, planted with sustenance that challenges us and shakes
us.  It's a rare and good thing.

Over the past five years, Battlestar Galactica has left
viewers breathless.  That's alright.  It means we're breathing, a basic
physiology television overlords would prefer we forget forever.

What a frakkin' show…

Brooklyn Blogfest

Spread the Word: Brooklyn Blogfest 2009 on May 7th

BLOGFEST_LOGO_RGB(2)
Find
out why Brooklyn is the bloggiest place in America at the Fourth Annual
Brooklyn Blogfest on May 7, 2009 at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO.

Brooklyn Blogfest 2009, an exciting, idea-filled
event for bloggers, blog readers and the blog curious is where you'll
find: Insight. Advice. Inspiration. Resources.

Here's your chance meet your favorite bloggers; learn about blogging; be inspired to blog.

"Where
better to take the pulse of this rapidly growing community of writers,
thinkers and observers than the Brooklyn Blogfest?" ~ Sewell Chan, The
New York Times

This year's event will take place on May 7, 2009 at 7 p.m. at the powerHouse Arena in DUMBO.

The Details

Fourth Annual Brooklyn Blogfest
May 7, 2009
Doors open at 7 p.m.
powerHouse Arena
37 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Admission: $10

Brooklyn Blogfest after-party
Galapagos Art Space
16 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
(right across the street from powerHouse Arena)
Cash Bar and refreshments


Brownstone Voyeur

Brownstone Voyeur: The Unexpected

1-exterior
Brownstone Voyeur is a joint project of casaCARA and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. This is a regular Thursday series walking you through brownstones, brick row houses, pre-war apartments, Victorians, carriage houses, lofts, and other Brooklyn abodes to see the colorful, creative, clever, cost-conscious ways people really live in New York City’s hippest borough.
Go to CasaCARA for more pictures and text.

TODAY we’re peeking into the c.1904 bowfront brownstone French-born interior designer Caroline Beaupere shares with her husband, photographer Matt Arnold, in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens.

They bought the house in 2005, added a new kitchen and two new bathrooms, and brought all the original woodwork (of which there is plenty) back to life by stripping off dozens of coats of old stain.

Caroline
worked with designer Philippe Starck on the avant garde Hudson Hotel in
the Manhattan’s West 50s, and has just finished decorating the
Presidential suite at the New York Grand Hyatt, but the bulk of her
studio’s work is residential.

Caroline’s style is eclectic, a bit exotic, and most UNexpected, but grounded in the classics. There’s a free flow between modern and traditional. Colors are rich and deep. Accessories tend toward the ethnic. Bold ceiling fixtures dominate each room.

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Kitchen
Dining

Postcard from the Slope

Brooklyn House of Detention: Back in Business

The Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue and Boerum Place is back in business. The business of being a jail, that is.

The New York Times reports that Justice Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix, a Brooklyn judge ruled that the city should resume sending
inmates to the Brooklyn House of Detention, which stopped housing them
overnight in 2003.

But there's more. Judge Hinds-Radix also ruled that the city's effort to double the size of the jail will require environmental and land-use
reviews.

That's a win for neighborhood groups who opposed the expansion. Read the NYT article here.