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The right wing's hoping That it'll go globus By puffing Palin The bogus rogus. |
Monthly Archives: December 2009
Shaya Boymelgreen Real Estate Empire Is Close To Extinction
From Leon Freilich, Verse Responder:
Long New York Times piece says his real estate empire is in shambles,
his children are hunting for jobs and he's even being evicted
from his office, in Prospect Heights.
his children are hunting for jobs and he's even being evicted
from his office, in Prospect Heights.
Shaya Boymelgreen's condos sold for millions in the financial
district, TriBeCa and Park Slope.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/nyregion/02developer.html?_r=1
Efrain Gonzalez: What You May Find in Prospect Park
Vermont Balsam Comes to Park Slope
Trees, wreaths, garlands, winterberries, pinecones, maple syrup…
IDanika and Anners of Vermont Balsam will be set up on Union Street between 7th and 6th Avenues (just past the Park Slope Food Coop as one walks towards 6th Avenue) to sell trees, wreaths, garlands, maple syrup and other holiday products from Vermont.
Greetings from Scott Turner: Doorbusters
Here's today's screed from Scott Turner, the quizmaster at Rocky Sullivan's in Red Hook brought to you by Miss Wit, the t-shirt queen of Red Hook. Greetings Pub Quiz Holiday Bargain Hunters…
Doorbusters.
Doorbusters!
Doorbusters!!!!!
DOORBUSTERS!!!!!
DOORBUSTERS!!!!!
DOORBUSTERS!!!!!
DOORBUSTERS!!!!!
DOORBUSTERS!!!!!
It's the worst concept, construct, idiom, catchphrase, buzzword and social ideology ever.
Well, not worse than genocide.
But close.
That's the descriptive being deployed for all the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales, deals and enticements this holiday shopping season.
Now, I like the season's trappings. The trees, lights, excitement. Until they start admitting that Jesus was,
at heart, a socialist, I won't spend much time on the guy's birthday.
That, and his actual birthing being sometime in the spring. That's the
shepherds watching over their flocks is really part of the story.
(That's when the lambies are born.) December 25th didn't even come
into play until 325 CE, in Rome — and that was only because the Romans needed a holiday to counter the winter solstice soirees all over the empire.
Digression concluded. The joviality this time of year is fun. But
goodness, is it concurrently depressing. The amount of money spent on
gifts, for starters. What's the absolutely unmeasurable percentage of
gifts bought because someone has to, not wants to? The frenzy to shop,
score big deals, line up in the early morning gloom to be first inside
a big box store before the Thanksgiving meal is even digested.
Last year it was so bad Jdimytai Damour, a security guard at WalMart's Valley Stream, Long Island
location, was killed in the stampede for savings. Shoppers pushed their
way past the dying Damour, and store officials let them. Sadly, Damour
was a footnote the moment he died — the bigger story being the
hand-wringing over sales figures in the debris of last year's fiscal
meltdown.
Jdimytai Damour, and doorbusting for real
And now we have "doorbusters."
Whatever one's view of the holiday season, this can't be the right call.
"Doorbusters"
conjurs chaos, fury, consumer madness and physical violence. How
comforting the phrase must be for Jdimytai Damour's family and
friends. I get corporations, box stores and the media embracing such a
counter-holidays formulation. That's the nature of the myriad beasts.
But us? It'd be nice to slow down and breathe. There should be a sign: No Running On The Edge Of The Shopping Pool.
With doorbusting taking root this holiday season, I feel like this this guy:
Bob Marley once sang "If you are the big, big tree/We are the small axe/Ready to cut you down." Real good David and Goliath stuff.
I like being a small axe, but for the holidays, I like cozying up with
my sad little tree, calling some friends over, and giving it a boost.
Giving us all a boost.
…without a single door busted.
Dec 5: Youthworks at BAX
CALL FOR YOUNG ARTISTS
YOUTHWORKS 2010
A FREE Performance Program for Young Artists to Create and Present Original Work
YOUTHWORKS is a unique opportunity for young people ages 7- 18 to imagine, create and perform original short plays, dances, songs, poetry, and more. Each young performer or group works with various coaches to help develop their work. All of our coaches are professional artists working in their fields. BAX provides FREE rehearsal space to these young artists and the program culminates with a professionally produced performance.
On Saturday December 5 from 2:30-4:00 PM, there will be a mandatory orientation meeting for interested young artists, their parents, and coaches to learn about the program and the process of developing original work into a professional performance.
Coaching sessions will take place on Saturday and/or Sunday afternoons in December and January. Youthworks performances will be Saturday January 30 at 7 PM and Sunday January 31 at 5 PM.
Tonight: The Topic Is Death at Adult Ed at Union Hall
ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: DEATH
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 – 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover
http://www.adult- ed.net
Adult Education is a Brooklyn-based monthly lecture series devoted to
making useless knowledge somewhat less useless. Each month is devoted
to a given theme, and 4 speakers will address some aspect of that theme
using visual aids.
DORIAN DEVINS, MARGARET MITTELBACH, & ANDREW TEMPLAR
(SECRET SCIENCE CLUB)
"Death and Taxidermy: The Ape That Launched 1000 Quips"
Devins, Mittelbach, and Templar discuss observations gleaned from four
years of Carnivorous Nights, an annual taxidermy contest held in
Brooklyn.
ALEX PAREENE
"Everyone Is Trying To Kill You: Analyzing Homicidal Tendencies In Electronic Information Networks"
The most dangerous people in America today are celebrities. And Arianna
Huffington is letting them blog. Alex Pareene assesses recent threats
to our national health from Suzanne Somers and Canada.
KATHARINE HELLER
"Le Petit Mort: Death as a Metaphor for Orgasm in Popular Culture and Literature"
Heller looks at the various ways in which death, much like everything else, is tied to sex
JOANNA EBENSTEIN
"Morbid Anatomies and Anatomical Theatres: A Guided Tour through the Macabre World of Medical Museums"
What is the difference between a wet and a dry specimen? Why did people
make life-sized, recumbent wax women whose insides could be taken apart
into dozens of pieces? Where did Gunther von Hagens (Body Worlds
exhibit) get his schtick? Joanna Ebenstein presents a virtual tour of
great medical museums of the western world.
WITH HOST CHARLES STAR
Brooklyn Back in the Day
According to Claude Scales over at Brooklyn Heights blog: Friday, December 4, from 7 to 9 p.m., the Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival, in conjunction with the Brooklyn Historical Society, will present a Brooklyn-themed documentary film festival, Brooklyn Back in the Day. The festival will be held at BHS, located at 128 Pierrepont Street (corner of Clinton).
According to BHS:
The films in Brooklyn Back in the Day depict the
transformations and challenges faced by Brooklyn residents in the late
1960s and early 1970’s. This screening has been curated by Aziz Rahman,
director of the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival and will feature
special guest speaker Professor Joe Dorinson, Long Island University.The films include: “The Boys of 2nd Street Park”, “The Cities;
Dilemma in Black and White,” “The Romeows” and the short vintage films
“Brooklyn Vintage Trolleys on the Streets of Brooklyn”, “Heel and Toe
Artists Hoof it to Coney Island” and “War on the Roof”.
H1N1 Shots Available in Brooklyn Heights Today
Brooklyn Heights pediatrician Stephen Turner,
MD, will conduct an additional session of H1N1 vaccination for children
AND adults. There is a $20 administrative fee.
Location: 185 Montague St., 4th floor
Time: 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2009
No appointment is necessary.
A Homily for World AIDS Day by Park Slope Minister
Pastor Daniel Meeter, of Park Slope's Old First Dutch Reformed Church, preached last night at the Interfaith Memorial Service for World AIDS Day at St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church in Park Slope .
"People I meet in Park Slope often tell me they can't believe in God because of all the suffering in the world. Consider the Holocaust, or the suffering of so many innocent people from AIDS – how can we believe in God? I cannot finally solve this problem, but I also know that unbelief has no better solution to suffering than belief does, and unbelief adds other problems of its own. In the same way, gay men and lesbian women and bisexual and transgendered people are asked how they can go to church when the church has been the institution that has most excluded and even persecuted them. But this problem is not solved by not going to church. Indeed, the fact that the frequency of church attendance and intensity of religious devotion is higher in the gay community then in the population at large is in itself an evidence for God, if not a proof, and it certainly is evidence that the Son of God is wounded.
"It is Christlike and wonderful that the very persons who have suffered oppression in the church respond by intercession in the church, as you are doing tonight. Tonight is an act of healing and of being healed. For those who are hurt by the church to claim their place in church is an act of healing. For us to pray not only for ourselves but also for sick little children of undetermined orientation, that is an act of healing. For us to pray not only for ourselves but also for addicts in their self-destruction and outcasts in their misery, that is an act of healing. For us to pray not only for ourselves but also for mothers in the brothels of India and children in the clinics of Africa, that is an act of healing. For us to pray not only for ourselves but also to name before God those who have died, that is an act of healing.
"AIDS does not discriminate. Would that our churches were as indiscriminate as AIDS. But to offer intercessions that are indiscriminate and inclusive is an act of healing. For us to hold up to God the individual names of those we know who have died from AIDS and the also the nameless of the world we do not know, who have the condition of AIDS, is both to touch the wounds of Christ and to be Christlike, and also to demonstrate, if not to prove, what God is like, which you are doing here tonight. God bless you."
Thursday: 3rd Annual Snowflake Celebration
The 3rd Annual Snowflake Celebration begins this week! The first
two Thursday evenings in December, Park Slope businesses will light up
with special sales and festivities like a [insert holiday-themed
light-up icon of your choice], all in the spirit of getting holiday
shoppers to spend more of their gift-dollars locally.
Our
website, www.buyinbrooklyn.com, has a list of participants (and their
enticements), hard copies of which will be available at all Snowflake
Celebrating businesses. Highlights include:
Free childcare at Juguemos Spanish Institute from 5:30-8!
Free wine and snacks, and a food drive at 4PlayBK!
20% off all merchandise and free gift-wrapping lessons every half-hour at Lion in the Sun!
15% storewide discount on women's clothing, and a free raffle on a
women's custom design outfit of the winner's choice (have to choose
from the collection) at My Passion Fashion Designs!
Some of Brooklyn's finest mobile food vendors (aka “gourmet trucks”) will make a special appearance in the Slope!
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Pechefsky Was Right: Those 400 Votes Belong to the Greens Not The Libertarians!
On election night David Pechefsky, Green Party candidate for City Council in the 39th district, came back from the polls with numbers that were somewhat higher than what was being reported in the media.
Well, it turns out that Pechfsky's numbers were right!!!!
The Board of Elections erroneously gave about 400 of his votes to the Libertarian candidate, including those in Pechefsky's very own election district. "By their initial count I voted against myself," Pechefsky wrote in an email.
"Only by asserting ourselves in the Board of Elections recanvassing process through actually going out to Red Hook to look at the machines again, and then following-up with numerous phone calls and visits to their offices, did we get them to fix their mistake," he writes.
Last week the Board certified the correct numbers: And here they are: David Pechefsky received 2,024 votes representing 9% of the total.
Pechefsky, who ran a creative and energetic race for Bill deBlasio's seat, is a teacher at heart. He had this to say.
"The lesson is that having poll watchers at every site is essential. Without having people at the polls we would have never known about the problem and without us pushing after election day it seems unlikely anything would have been done about it.
"Thanks to all our poll watchers and to everyone for all your support. At the very least you deserved to have an accurate count."
Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: The House & The Big House
The father of Chelsea Clinton's fiance
was a Member of Congress, then
a Federal prisoner. — news item
(today's NYT)
THE HOUSE & THE BIG HOUSE
In Congress and the slammer,
At home with all the gents.
Can't help it if I wonder,
Is there a difference?
Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Donut, Don’t Ask
Real cops have taken to wearing fake badges.
–news item
DONUT, DON'T ASK
New York's finest these days
Also snack on lite buns,
Ploys to fool bad guys.
Coming soon–toy guns?
Flock of Canadian Geese at Parade Grounds
Katia Kelly of Pardon Me For Asking, the indispensable Carroll Gardens blog, came across a flock of Canadian Geese at the Parade Grounds.
I know that this has nothing to do with Carroll Gardens, but on an early morning walk on Monday, I came across this large flock of Canadian geese at the Parade Ground, next to Prospect Park.
In the spring and fall, kids play soccer here. Now, the geese have taken over.
The sight was a bit unexpected, this being the city, after all.
Miracle Grill Post-Mortem
Miracle Grill closed on Sunday but they weren't serving dinner on Saturday night so it was empty all weekend except at the bar.
I am wondering if the ever-crowded Barrio right across the street put them out of business or if it's just a sign of the economic times that they couldn't make it. I had lunch there in October and had an inkling that things weren't going well.
What's your theory?
Miracle Grill made a decent go of it for quite a few years. But prior to that, its location on Third Street and Seventh Avenue has had a high turnover. It was almost considered a doomed restaurant spot. Does anyone remember the names of all the now-defunct restaurants that have been in there going back to the 1980's. I barely remember any names at the moment but I remember the ethnicity of the food…
–Miracle Grill
–a Peruvian place.
–a Vietnamese place called Nam.
–a bar, burger and bistro kind of place (good for brunch).
Friday at 8 PM: Contra Dance and Fundraiser at the Old Stone House
On Friday, December 4, 2009 from 8-11 PM there's an Old Stone House Fundraiser that sounds like a lot of fun:
Bring your dancing shoes and celebrate the season!
8:15 pm Contra Dance* lessons
8:45 pm Contra Dance
Live music with caller,
festive drinks and dessert
$45/person
to benefit the Old Stone House
& Washington Park
RSVP by December 2
info@theoldstonehouse.org or 718-768-3195
Look who's sponsoring:
Bar Reis, Bierkraft , Perch
Picada y Vino, Press 195 &
Trois Pommes
8:15 pm Contra Dance* lessons
8:45 pm Contra Dance
Live music with caller,
festive drinks and dessert
$45/person
to benefit the Old Stone House
& Washington Park
RSVP by December 2
info@theoldstonehouse.org or 718-768-3195
Look who's sponsoring:
Bar Reis, Bierkraft , Perch
Picada y Vino, Press 195 &
Trois Pommes
Do You Hate Time Warner Cable?
Fucked in Park Slope isn't very fond of them:
"All weekend long, our internet has been out.
So that's like going on SIX DAYS now. It was Thanksgiving weekend, and
my ass was stuck at home. There's only so much fucking leftover and
stuffing one can eat before feelin' the itch to watch Youtube videos
about cats or download porn, know what I'm sayin? Unfortch, that was
not an option.
"Ok, so let's play: guess who our cable provider is!???"
Where Can I Buy Girl Scout Cookies in Park Slope?
Anyone know? We're dying for some Thin Mints and Samoas.
Brooklyn Frugal Family Examiner: Cutting Corners at Home
Wendy Ponte, Brooklyn Frugal Family Examiner, has some great ideas for living on the cheap during the holidays. Even a simple Christmas costs some money, so take stock now and cut
some corners in preparation for the holiday frenzy. Here a host of
ideas to…
Keep Reading »
some corners in preparation for the holiday frenzy. Here a host of
ideas to…
Keep Reading »
Tues: Interfaith Memorial Service on World AIDS Day
An Interfaith Memorial Service at St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church on Tuesday, December 1 (World AIDS Day) starting at 7 PM. 116 Sixth Avenue in Park Slope.
–Preparation Series, an exhibition of paintings by artist and educator, Maureen Mullen (left).
–Talks
by Pastor Daniel Meeter (of Old First Dutch Reformed Church) and Sister
Citarella (of the Gay & Lesbian Ministry of St. Francis Xavier
Church in Manhattan).
–Music by NYC Outloud
Learn How to Blog with Louise Crawford at BAX in Park Slope
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! Wednesdays | December 2 – December 16 | 7:00 – 9:00pm
Click here for more information. $45 for the workshop (no drop-ins)
Learn how to blog with Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, in a hands-on
workshop covering technical, creative and conceptual issues. In this
class we will discuss blog design, how to write a great blog post,
top-ten tips for new bloggers, search engine optimization, social
networking platforms and more.
You don’t need to know a thing about blogging. All you need is the desire to blog!
Louise Crawford
runs Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and is the Smartmom columnist for the
Brooklyn Paper. She produces the annual Brooklyn Blogfest and Brooklyn
Reading Works, a monthly literary reading series at the Old Stone House
in Park Slope. As a freelance writer her work has appeared in Newsweek,
the Associated Press and BKLYN Magazine. She has taught How to Blog
workshops at BAX, Adelphi University, Baruch College and at
Writers-at-the-Beach in Rehoboth, Delaware.
Tom Martinez, Witness: World March For Peace on the Bridge
The international World March Team arrived in Brooklyn on Monday, November 30: 35 countries, 4 continents and 60 days after setting out from New Zealand in support of "a new global consciousness based on nonviolence & the rejection of all forms of violence."
Efrain Gonzalez: Grand Army Plaza in Fog
