Andy Bachman, the rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, reflects on Xmas Eve at Old First Dutch Reformed Church on his blog Water Over Rocks.

It’s hard enough to keep on top of the Oscar race, but any serious film fan who is a Werner Herzog completist, has been especially busy this season.  My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?, the latest Herzog-directed work, comes less than a month after the delirious unrecognizable sequel/remake Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call: New Orleans , Further immersion into American crime and investigation, this film focuses on one murder case at the crime scene.  The investigation here is no mystery, rather we seek to understand the murderer’s reasons.  In this way, the how-did-this-happen narrative style recalls Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, but with a look that is considerably more DIY; it seems like it was made to play on late-night cable.

Herzog’s double shot in 2009 seem like films he should have or–had his career taken a more well-worn path–would have made as an entry into the American cinema 20-30 years ago after his early masterworks such as Aguirre, Wrath of God.  Both these films brought to my mind Abel Ferrara (Bad Lt. is of course a re-working of a Ferrara film) in that they seem to tip-toe on the fence between the grindhouse and the arthouse.  Bad Lt. was a fun throwaway, but My Son aims to make more serious statements.  Unfortunately the effort is often ham-fisted.  Even things that would be typically, wonderfully Herzogian—the ostrich farm shots come to mind—feel forced here.  Werner Herzog is a filmmaker who is always willing to take it over the edge, but his work has rarely been so strained.

I got this note from Rev. Billy Talen. He is friends with the father and daughter victims of the Third Street  fire and had this to say about how they are doing.

As always, Kristin Goode, who writes the about.com Brooklyn site has info-a-rama about New Year's Eve and fun ways to ring in the New Year.

Thanks to Rev. Daniel Meeter of Old First Dutch Reformed Church for providing me with the biographical information that enabled me to write the following obituary.

An amazing and accomplished member of the Park Slope Community died yesterday. Marlene Clary, a gifted teacher and leader in musical and theatrical endeavors was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She attended Northwestern University on a full scholarship as a voice major, Goodman Memorial Theater School of the Art Institute of Chicago and later received a MA from New York  University.

She was hired by the Berkeley Carroll School in October 1976 in the preschool, and eventually taught Lower, Middle, and Upper School. Besides a variety of duties and responsibilities, she directed the Upper School plays and conducted the Upper School chorus. In 1994 she received the Dexter Earle
Award as Outstanding Teacher.

She also created and directed the Creative Arts Program at Berkeley Carroll from 1982-2008.

In 2001, Marlene founded and directed the Brooklyn Community Chorus, a group dedicated to including singers from diverse
backgrounds, ages, and musical experiences. She would end every concert with the singing of Set Me As A Seal with a text from the Song of Solomon.

also acted and sang professionally off-Broadway, in regional theater,
and summer stock, and was the soprano soloist for the Lafayette Avenue
Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene.

Clary is survived by her husband, Roy Clary, whom she married in 1964 and two grown children, Megan and Ethan.

Judging from the outpouring of tributes from students, parents, friends and colleagues sent to OTBKB, Marlene spread her gifts widely and will be greatly missed. A funeral service will be held on Monday, December 28th at 4 PM at the Old First Church on Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street in Park Slope.

According to information kindly provided by an OTBKB reader: the condition of Kate, the daughter of the owner of the Third Street condo where there was a serious fire early Wednesday morning, is improving at Methodist Hospital. Michael, the father, is undergoing therapy in a barimetric chamber.

A barimetric chamber is a high-pressure atmosphere primarily used for medical therapy so that you can breathe air or oxygen up to three times the normal pressure, which helps to increase the oxygen level in tissues. This is
used treat carbon monoxide poisoning.

Our thoughts and best wishes go out to Michael, Kate and  all the families that were displaced by the fire.

A funeral service for beloved teacher and founder of the Brooklyn Community Chorus will be at Old First Dutch Reformed Church on Monday December 28th at 4 PM.

Old First Dutch Reformed Church
729 Carroll Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215-2101
(718) 638-8300

So this is the final day before Xmas. And you know what that means: last minute mayhem. Here are some suggestions:

Save on Fifth:
I was just in there yesterday and they've already got their New Year's
Eve stuff on dispaly. Get your hats, get your horns. But they've still
got chocolate Santas and plenty of practical gifts, including the
Simple Human touch hands free sensor soap pumps: a perfect gift in these
times.

Lion in the Sun: Moleskin notebooks in all sizes. Acme pens. Great place to find gifts for the writer in your life.

Matter: This shop is a beautifully curated selection of modernist and contemporary high design objects for life and home. Still life fruit bowl — ceramic and wood; rainbow of 13 colored sake or shot glasses; cork chair and much, much more.

Bob & Judi's Coolectibles: How many times have you walked by this shop and not gone in? Well, go in. They've got a lot of cool stuff inside (just like their name says). Wide
variety of laminated posters that are ready to hang: Mighty Mouse Float
Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee film about Mohammad Ali by William
Klein ($13). Locker baskets.

Extraordinary: I've bought their key rings
with small metal high heels, wing tips, ballet slippers, high tops as gifts for colleagues and friends.

4-Play BK: For the tweens and teens on your list: hppy-chic brands like Free People and Blue Platealong with urban
essentials like Puma kicks, designer jeans and Paul Frank t-shirts and more.

From the Brooklyn Paper:

The 16 dancing teenagers of Dancewave, the Fourth Avenue-based
instructional studio, have been selected to perform at the Aberdeen
International Youth Festival in Scotland next June — but the group
still needs to raise roughly $29,000 to get them across the pond.

“We applied and when got accepted, we thought, ‘We’ll find someway
to do this,’” said Princeton Spicer, 17, the troupe’s sole male.

This week, Dancewave just might have found that way. Nick Kotsonis,
the owner of Park Slope Health and Fitness, stepped forward with a
pledge to match up to $10,000 in donations.

—The group was the only American group selected, Dancewave would represent not only Brooklyn, but the entire United States.

While it is still uncertain what caused the fire on Third Street in Park Slope that sent two people to the hospital and dislaced six families, there has been some speculation that it was an overloaded power strip. 

An overloaded power strip? This alarmed me because we have power strips all over our apartment and I know very little about the proper usage of power strips. I found this information about surge protector and power strip safety online:

From the Brooklyn Paper:

Here’s our gimlet-eyed view on the year that was:

ABC News reports that the FDNY is speculating that it was an overloaded power strip that caused the fire in the Third Street condo early Wednesday morning. A father and his visiting daughter fled the flaming scene. Today he was in critical condition at the Cornell Burn Center due to burns but is expected to survive. His daughter was at Methodist Hospital in stable condition.

I walked by that building at around 7 PM this evening and saw that there were lights on in the other fourth floor apartment. The windows of the burned apartment are boarded up. The rest of the building is dark .Six families were displaced and there are 8 units in the building. I think that two of the apartments were unoccupied.

Marlene Clary, a beloved teacher and the founding director of the Brooklyn Community Chorus, died this morning at Calvary Hospice at Lutheran Hospital in Sunset Park. The cause was cancer.

In 2001, Clary founded The Brooklyn Community Chorus (BCC), a group committed to including singers from diverse
backgrounds, ages, and musical experiences.

One member of the chorus writes: "Marlene was the ultimate teacher and she brought out the best in
everyone – English students, actors, singers - she pushed hard and
demanded the best, but always with tremendous love and spirit.  She was
so full of love and a love for life - and fortunately, because she was
such a giving person, her life touched so many people."

Clary also touched many lives as a highly respected teacher of English literature. One former student writes:

As a former student of hers I can say that Marlene treated every
student in the same tough but loving way. In her English class, while
the work was plenty, and the level of academic output and class
participation she demanded of us was high, she showed all of us a true,
motherly sort of love. She loved and respected us, and from this we
were able to trust, love, respect, and admire her. She truly was an
amazing woman. I only wish I had had more time to learn from and grow
under the tutelage of a woman of such valor.

Clary was an actor, director, and soprano soloist, who appeared in leading
roles in summer stock, Off-Broadway and regional theaters. For many years she taught English at the Berkeley Carroll School, where she was honored with the Dexter
D. Earle Award for Excellence in Teaching. She is  survived by her husband and two grown children.

A funeral service will be held on December 28th at 4 PM at Old First Dutch Reformed Church in Park Slope. .

I just got word that one of the victims of last night's fire at 392 Third Street was rushed to the Cornell Burn Unit. According to CBS 2 HD, he is in critical condition and is fighting for his life.

Another victim, a woman, is still at Methodist Hospital but she is in stable condition.

Six  families, who live in the 4-story, 8 unit condo apartment building, were displaced when a fire whipped through one of the top floor apartments. I am not sure if all the apartments were occupied.

According to CBS 2, the fire started in the living room and quickly became out of control. It was a 1-alarm fire and trucks from Squad 1, 122 and 105 responded quickly. It was an icy, cold night with temperatures in the low teens.

The Red Cross was on the scene and today they are helping the 6 families relocate. Two of the families have been taken in by friends or relatives.

The cause of the fire is as yet unknown. 

HD video is on the way

Because police were not allowing people to cross Sixth Avenue and walk towards the fire scene, I had to walk down Second Street to Fifth Avenue and around  to Third Street to get to 392 Third Street, a 4-story, 8-unit limestone condo, where the fire took place. 

By the time I got near the building, the flames were out but smoke was emanating from the burned-out apartment. The rest of the building was evacuated except I could see that lights and a television set were on in the first floor apartment on the right. There were no lights on in any of the other apartments. 

A ladder from Ladder 122 reached up to the fourth floor apartment on the right; I could see from the sidewalk that firefighters were hard at work inside hosing the apartment down. The pump truck was from Squad 1. 

An EMT worker standing on the north side of Third Street told me that three victims from the building were taken to the hospital. One person had burns and the other two had smoke inhalation. "One was a Code 3," he told a reporter from the NY Daily News who was also trying to get information.

"Do you know which house got the grab?" the reporter asked the EMT. 

"Whoa. You know the lingo. I haven't heard that since the 1970's," he told her. 

None of the firefighters or EMTs, who were standing on the north side of Third Street, knew the cause of the fire. 

"Does anyone know where the Chief is," the Daily News reporter asked. 

"He's over there but he's a little busy right now," the EMT told her. 

A resident of Fourth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues didn't smell smoke from his home, which is right around the corner, but he heard the sirens and "the sounds of axes and  saws coming from the burning building," he told me. "The smoke smell is much worse up by 6th Avenue," he said. 

The Red Cross was on the scene helping out the displaced residents of the building. Adults and children were evacuated from the other apartments and taken in by people in neighboring buildings,  According to one EMT, none of the other residents of the building suffered injuries, burns or smoke inhalation.

He did, however, offer one bit of advice:

"It's important this time of year that people make sure their smoke detectors are working and especially their carbon monoxide detectors. It's a cheap device but it can save lives," the EMT told me. 

Residents of Third Street in Park Slope were awakened by the sound of firetruck sirens and the smell of smoke at 3 AM Wednesday morning. The fire was in the top floor apartment of 392 Third Street, a 4-story, 8-unit limestone condominium building on the south side of Third Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Three residents of Third Street (between Sixth and Seventh Avenues) braved the icy sidewalks to see what all the commotion (and smoke) was about on this frigid night with temperatures hovering around 21 degrees but with a wind chill that made it feel more like 14 degrees. 

One Third Street resident told me:  "I saw flames blazing out the top floor windows of that building. I think it's 392 or 394,  I'm not sure." Trucks from 122, Squad 1 and 105 and EMTs were already on the scene when he got outside. "The response time was extremely quick," he said. Standing near the building minutes after the blaze was put out he said, "I saw two people naked and unconscious being taken out of the building," he said. "That apartment is completely destroyed."

Standing on 6th Avenue and Third Street we watched as an unconscious person on a gurney was wheeled by EMTs and put in an ambulance.

At approximately 3 AM,  I woke to the sound of sirens and actually smelled smoke in my apartment, which is in the middle of the block between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. The smell got more intense in our public hallway and I walked up to the doors of all the apartments in my building to make sure the fire wasn't coming from our building.

When I got downstairs I saw the flashing lights of fire trucks on Sixth Avenue and more trucks between Sixth and Fifth Avenues. Numerous residents of my block were outside because they had smelled smoke and thought the fire was in their building or one nearby. One woman who lives closer to 7th Avenue told me: "I thought my building was on fire." When she tried to cross the street at Sixth Avenue to get a closer look at what was going on a policeman jumped out of his squad car and ran across the street. "Lady, do not go there. Get back. You are not to go down there," he yelled. 

"I just wanted to see what was going on," she told him as she walked back to the east side of Sixth Avenue and walked home.

Greetings, Pub Quiz Way More Than Two Turtle Doves…

No Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz this week.  It's Christmas Eve, and, well, it's Christmas Eve.  NORAD will once again be issuing updates on a strange airborne vehicle under the power of — yes, yes, reindeer.

Were NORAD really monitoring a BIFO – Barely Identified Flying Object – they'd shoot it down just after it had crossed the U.S.-Canada border between Saskatchewan and Plentywood, Montana.  St. Nick's sleigh has a lot going for it — tireless reindeer, one with a glowing beacon for a nose, a storage capacity that defies physics, and Santa's unmappable ability to bend the laws of time and space — but he doesn't have a transponder or a ship-to-ship radio system.

…Sarah Palin's not the only one who can see Russia from their front porch

That, or he'd wave and the Strategic Air Command pilots, reacting the way the New York cops did when Amadou Diallo went for his wallet, would open fire by the time Santa got halfway through "ho ho ho!" number two.

I might be divulging my ominous sense that the country, the world, our city, Brooklyn, are all careening toward a bad, bad end.  Or, the U.S. military shooting down Santa's sleigh might just be funny.

Although I've linked to NORAD, bear in mind that the U.S. military charming the yule-season pants off us is, in reality, a left-over relic from the golden age of the Cold War.

For a half-century, the U.S and Canada's air-defense mandate us undertaken this seasonal task.  According to the Norad Santa Tracker website,

The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief's operations "hotline."

Oops.

The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa.

NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa – radar, satellites, Santa Cams and fighter jets
.

Fighter jets?  Fighter jets?!

Why, yes.  Fighter jets.

Canadian NORAD fighter pilots flying the CF-18 intercept and welcome Santa to North America. In the United States, American NORAD fighter pilots in either the F-15 or the F-16 get the thrill of flying alongside Santa and his famous reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and, of course, Rudolph.

Of course, Rudolph.

 
Welcome to North America, Santa!  Canadian CF-18, American F-16 herald the birth of the baby Jesus

So be sure to log off whatever true meaning Christmas has for you, and log on to NORAD's Santa Tracker.  Because, really, if the U.S. military can't bring you Christmas, who can?

Merry Christmas, all, and in the wider realm, Happy Holidays.

Scott M.X.,
Rocky's Quizmaster

* * * * * * * *

Here's something NORAD won't be tracking…

The Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz Quizzin' New Year's Eve Extravaganza!

Thursday December 31, 2009
THE ROCKY SULLIVAN'S QUIZZIN' NEW YEAR'S EVE
9pm

That's right – New Year's Eve falls on a Thursday.  And we're ready.  Free champagne, pointy hats, a post-midnight DJ to make your feet happy, and an evening of questions, photo- and music rounds about the year Two Oh-Oh Nine!  The last one of the decade.

It's the perfect New Year's Eve event for folks who wanna go out but don't wanna deal with all the New Year's Eve nonsense — expensive clubs, packed dance floors and the frightening tag-team of Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest.

Babeland: Sex toys for women; great gifts!

From the Brooklyn Paper:

A state court has once again rebuffed an effort to throw a wrench in Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards machine, rejecting a lawsuit that accused the MTA of improperly selling its Vanderbilt rail yard by not seeking new bids after reopening the original 2005 deal with the developer this summer.

The suit, filed by panoply of elected officials and opposition groups, claimed that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority broke a state law that was passed in the wake of Atlantic Yards to curb abuses by state authorities through stricter transparency and ethics guidelines.

The plaintiffs pointed to the fact that the MTA renegotiated the deal with Ratner this summer, getting just $20 million up front instead of the $100 million originally promised. At the time, the transit agency did not seek new bids for its eight-acre train yard at the heart of the proposed arena, housing and commercial development.

But state Supreme Court judges did not agree with project opponents, ruling last Wednesday that the renegotiated deal did not warrant restarting the bidding process.

“If every change were to be viewed as a new plan so as to trigger anew each mandated review process, no development plan could ever reach final approval — let alone ultimate completion,” the ruling read. “The MTA had a rational basis for continuing to use the 2005 appraisal rather than ordering a new one in 2009.”

Opponents of the project called the ruling a sham, especially in light of the MTA’s just announced “doomsday cuts” in service thatwould affect everyone who uses public transportation.

“The MTA has no shame,” said Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the main Atlantic Yards opposition group. “While giving a sweetheart deal to billionaire developers … its board gives a big lump of coal to school kids, disabled New Yorkers and all transit riders.”