Daily Archives: March 30, 2010
April 15: Truth and Money
On April 15, 2010, Brooklyn Reading Works presents its monthly writers’ program on “tax day.” This happy accident, observed last summer in a casual conversation with John Guidry of Truth and Rocket Science over coffee, resulted in the idea for a panel called “The Truth and Money,” a reading and Q & A with three authors whose work has taken on money in some significant way.
Our three panelists are:
Elissa Schappell, a Park Slope writer, the editor of “Hot Type” (the books column) for Vanity Fair, and Editor-at-large of the literary magazine Tin House. With Jenny Offill, Schappell edited Money Changes Everything, in which twenty-two writers reflect on the troublesome and joyful things that go along with acquiring, having, spending, and lacking money.
Jennifer Michael Hecht, a best-selling writer and poet whose work crosses fields of history, philosophy, and religious studies. In The Happiness Myth, she looks at what’s not making us happy today, why we thought it would, and what these things really do for us instead. Money—like so many things, it turns out—solves one problem only to beget others, to the extent that we spend a great deal of money today trying to replace the things that, in Hecht’s formulation, “money stole from us.”
Jason Kersten, a Park Slope writer who lives 200 feet from our venue and whose award-winning journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, and Maxim. In The Art of Making Money, Kersten traces the riveting, rollicking, roller coaster journey of a young man from Chicago who escaped poverty, for a while at least, after being apprenticed into counterfeiting by an Old World Master.
This event is at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 15, 2010, at the Old Stone House in Washington Park, which is located on 5th Avenue in Park Slope, between 3rd and 4th Streets, behind the playground. $5 donation includes refreshments.
Read about all the Brooklyn Reading Works events at Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and the BRW website. For info on the Old Stone House, its role in the Battle of New York (1776) and contemporary life in Park Slope, go here.
First Annual May Day Family Dance & Jam at Old First
It’s the first annual May Day Family Dance and Music ‘Jam’! on Saturday, May 1st – 6-10pm (or later if it’s ‘jammin!).
Organizers invite you to come sing, dance, and party at Old First. The event features: Music jammin’ with Ethan S. and the Bilger Family Rockin’ Dance Party Express!! There will be a DJ during breaks and other special musical guests!
This is a family friendly event. So bring the Kids! Bring the Neighbors! Bring the whole family (child care provided upstairs for kids under 5).
70,000 High School Letters In The Mail
It sounds like the high school letters have been mailed. Anxious students and parents should be getting them soon. Here from Inside Schools:
As thousands of anxious 8th-graders and their families await word on high school placement, Chancellor Klein today announced that acceptance letters have been sent to more than 70,000 students, about 90% of those who applied for next September. For the remaining 8,500 students, who listed one of the schools originally slated for phase-out as one of their 12 choices, the matching process will be done again, this time including those schools.
The chancellor’s statement follows Friday’s court ruling in a lawsuit brought against the Department of Education by the teachers’ union, the NAACP, and parents, which held up the mailing of high school acceptance letters. The state Supreme Court ruled that the DOE failed to follow requirements in issuing Environment Impact Statements on how school closings would affect their communities.
Students who applied for schools originally slated for closure will receive two match letters at the same time, the “main round match and a ‘December match,’ which would be the school originally slated for phase-out,” the DOE said. The student will be able to choose between the two matches. Some 916 students listed one of the “phase-out” schools first on their application. (See the full statement after the jump.)
What will happen if last Friday’s court ruling is overturned on appeal and the schools actually close? In that case, the student will attend the school he or she was matched to in the main round, according to the DOE.
Ringling Brothers to Return to Coney Island this Summer
From Memorial Day to Labor Day, Ringling Brothers will be a the beach. The beach at Coney Island, that is.
This year’s show is called “Illuscination” The Ringling Brother’s Web site describes the show as a “fantasy-filled world … with eye-popping illusions, mind-blowing transformations.”
Expect clowns, acrobats, animals and more.
MTA Cuts to Brooklyn’s Buses and Subways
The MTA cuts will affect life in Brooklyn. That’s for sure. They say they’re saving $93 million. But their “gain” is definitely going to hurt straphangers. Here’s an excerpt from the Brooklyn Paper:
Lowlights of the agency’s most austere plan in 30 years include:
• The M train, which previously shuttled riders from Essex Street in Manhattan and Bay Parkway during the rush hour, will be eliminated entirely.
• Express bus lines in Williamsburg, Downtown and Bay Ridge will have their weekend service slashed, or be eliminated entirely.
• A bus line in Bay Ridge will be reorganized.
• Bus lines through Downtown, Red Hook, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Windsor Terrace will be reorganized, forcing straphangers to add an extra transfer to complete some trips — or hoof it.
• A bus line that connects Kensington to Borough Park will be eliminated entirely.
• A bus line connecting Homecrest and Marine Park to the Kings Plaza shopping mall will no longer operate on weekends.
Bklyn Bloggage: neighborhoods
Disgusting illegal dumping: Gerritsen Beach
Williamsburg furniture du jour: NY Shitty
Green Week at Pratt: The Local
Watercolor classes with Bonnie Steinsnyder: Pardon Me for Asking
Lana’s Barber Shop: The Carroll Gardens Diary
The matzo rush: Ditmas Park Blog
Brooklyn Bowl accepting summer interns: Free Williamsburg
Passover & Easter Parking
From NYC.gov:
Alternate side parking (street cleaning) regulations will be suspended Tuesday and Wednesday, March 30-31, for the first and second days of Passover, Thursday and Friday, April 1-2, for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, and Monday and Tuesday, April 5-6, for the seventh and eighth days of Passover. All other regulations, including parking meters, remain in effect.
Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Eat, Drink & Make Worship
With both Passover and Easter approaching, I’d like to point out
that over two millennia 52 great visual artists painted the Last Supper–including Leonardo, Titian and El Greco–and all got it wrong.
They depict Jesus at the First Seder sitting over a loaf of bread.
As every every Jew knows, the seder plate is filled with unleavened
bread that’s flat–matzo.
And when Jesus tells his twelve disciples, “This is my body, given
for you. Do this in remembrance of me,” he’s offering each a piece
of matzo, as is the custom at the seder. This transformed over the centuries into a wafer, the host, that Catholic priests at Easter place on the tongue of celebrants receiving Holy Communion.
So no matter the color or size, the Passover and Easter symbol–of affliction to Jews, of resurrection to Christians–is the ecumenical matzo.
Undomesticated Brooklyn: The Kugel Conundrum
“Yay! Mommy doesn’t have to make any more kugel!” Ruby cheered yesterday when we arrived home from our “early bird seder” weekend adventure.
Both of my girls were clearly tired of hearing about my kugel conundrum — not to mention the sound of the food processor chopping all of those carrots, potatoes, and onions!
I can’t say I blame them. Quite frankly, I was relieved to finally be done with the whole production myself.
Do you want to know how the kugel turned out? In short, it was a hit — all my hard work paid off — and there was more than enough to go around. I ended up making about four batches of the recipe so we had enough for leftovers. My best friend Dori will be pleased to hear that the “muffin kugels” she suggested were the most popular. She was right — making the kugel in muffin tins kept it crispy.
The rest of the family pitched in to make it a lovely seder meal.
My cousin Marla made matzoh ball soup that was better than the one they serve at The Second Avenue Deli; Claudia made homemade gefilte fish and mouth-watering brisket; My brother made carrot kugel (he vowed next year, he’d add garlic to spice things up a bit); and cousin Tina baked desserts that were so outrageously delicious, you’d swear they were made with flour (she swears they weren’t!)
When I bought the matzoh meal for the kugel, I noticed Streit’s slogan is “The Taste of a Memory…” Isn’t holiday cooking all about revisiting old memories and creating new ones? Maybe my girls will one day aspire to recreate their mom’s kugel.
I can just picture Ruby asking her sister, “Remember when mom nearly went crazy making all that kugel one year?”
How could they forget?
Meanwhile, I promise not to write anymore about kugel…until next year.