Monthly Archives: June 2010

Civics and Urban Life

Time Warner Internet Service Restored After Two Day “Outage”

1 Comment

Sometime Friday a little before noon Con Ed cut the Time Warner cable that serves this area. There was the following sign:

“CUSTOMERS IN OR AROUND THE FOLLOWING AREAS MAY BE IMPACTED: THE 400-500 BLOCKS OF 3RD ST, THE 400-600 BLOCKS OF 2ND ST,  THE 300 BLOCK OF 6TH AVE” 

The Time Warner cable crew has been working on restoring service. It seems that not only is a cut cable involved but also freshly poured concrete on top of it.

As a temporary fix the Time Warner crew re-routed the cable to a lamppost, across the street to another lamp post, and then under a steel plate on the sidewalk. Of course in the middle of all this outage there was the gay pride parade on seventh avenue between the aforementioned lamp posts.

Now we are getting our Internet via this cable tied to two lamp posts getting pinched by a steel plate. That pinched coax can’t be very good for impedance, and every time someone steps on that plate it probably gets pinched some more. I guess it will have to do for now. I wonder, will they have to dig a new trench to fix this correctly?

H.C. on Sunday morning

Civics and Urban Life

BP Oil Spill on Fourth Avenue

1 Comment

The old BP gas station on Fifth Street at Fourth Avenue is raising the ire of Park Slopers. The Daily News has the story. Here’s an excerpt:

Residents say the dilapidated site of an old BP service station on Fourth Ave. reeks of oil and gasoline they want cleaned up.

“It’s a smelly example of urban decay,” said Jeremy Friedman, 27, a grad student who lives on Sixth St. near the vacant lot. “I wish somebody would take responsibility for it.”

For more than a decade, the BP service station leaked gas and oil into the ground, said state Department of Environmental Conservation spokeswoman Maureen Wren.

Now the oil company is on the hook for cleaning it up.

“We’re supervising BP’s cleanup of the site,” she said. “It’s an ongoing project.”

Neighbors say the trouble started in 2008, when Brooklyn-based Tona Development purchased the lot and demolished the BP gas station, releasing noxious fumes from the contaminated soil.

Tona planned to seal the oily ground with a 12-story condo built on a concrete foundation, but the project stalled last year when the developer ran out of money.

“Since then it’s been a stinking empty lot and an eyesore,” said Friedman. “You can smell it for blocks.”

Residents say the lot has stunk worse since the winter, when noxious fumes began wafting from an oily puddle.

arts and culture

The Sunday List: Bklyn Film Fest, American High Style, Urban Glass

Film:

The 13th Brooklyn International Film Festival continues into the weekend: For a full schedule of the screenings go here. Films are shown at Brooklyn Heights Cinema and indieScreen in Williamsburg.

Please Give, Solitary Man, Sex and the City at BAM.

Dance:

This weekend and next at BAM: Alvin Ailey “By Popular Demand” Program. Jun 11, 12, 16 & 17 at 7:30pm. Jun 12 & 19 at 2pm (ING Family Matinees)* Audience favorites including: In/Side by Robert Battle; Uptown by Matthew Rushing; Revelations by Alvin Ailey

Music

This Sunday and every Sunday at 8PM at Issue Project Room: Share Free Audio and Video Jam. Share is an open jam, not just for digirati, but for all new culture lovers. Participants bring their portable equipment, plug into IPR’s system, improvise on each others’ signal and perform live audio and video. IPR will furnish the amplification and projection. Share happens every Sunday.

Art

At the 440 Gallery in Park Slope:  “Ezra, zichrono l’vracha, May his memory be a blessing” is a powerful installation that chronicles a year of mourning and a painfully altered family life.

At the Brooklyn Museum of Art: “American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection” Featuring over 80 dressed mannequins and a selection of hats, shoes, sketches, and other fashion-related materials. 10 am–5 pm.

At UrbanGlass: “Parenthetical Admission (Things Eventually Recognized After the Fact…)” Artist David Schnuckel presents works based on human fallibility. 647 Fulton St. at Rockwell Place • Tel: 718.625.3685

Theater

Tiny Toy Theater Festival at St. Ann’s Warehouse is a big festival of tiny films.
Sunday, June 13, 11 am
Sunday, June 13, 2 pm
Sunday, June 13, 7:30 pm

Civics and Urban Life

With Smartmom Children are Seen and Heard

The sounds of childhood. It’s not just the giggles and squeals of joy that warms the hearts of parents everywhere. Kids make a lot of racket, and from time to time, it can cause parents—neighbors and strangers—much consternation.

For 19 years, Smartmom has been trying to control the sound level in her apartment. Sure, the noise is sometimes just the effusive energy and activity of childhood. But there’s also the fighting and the crying and the yelling and the …

It’s been a while, but Teen Spirit and the Oh So Feisty One were crying babies once. Neither of them were particularly colicky, but they did do their share of crying. In the first few weeks of his life, Teen Spirit would get so hungry that he’d launch into an ear-piercing wail. Usually it would start with a benign whimper (hungry baby here), but it would quickly develop into an angry roar (HUNGRY BABY HERE!).

The Oh So Feisty One was also a big screamer. On her first morning home from the hospital, she woke with a huge shriek.

“Hey, mom, I like your new alarm clock,” the then-5-year-old Teen Spirit memorably said.

But you can’t really complain about a crying baby. It’s all part of the life cycle, the essential way that babies make their needs know before they learn language: dirty diaper, hunger, pain, fear, a call for love and attention.

But that doesn’t mean people don’t complain. Smartmom remembers airplane trips when a crying Teen Spirit or OSFO would inspire carping from other passengers.

“Can’t you do something about your baby?” another passenger once grumbled her way.

Truth be told, Smartmom now rolls her eyes (inwardly) when she hears the sharp cry of a baby on an airplane. It may be perfectly natural, but it does put her nerves on edge when she flies.

And what about tantrums? The sound of a toddler wailing and hollering in fury must be one of the most unpleasant sounds of childhood — and a cause for neighbor’s complaints a-plenty. But what’s a parent to do? Tantrums also represent an important stage of growth and childhood expression.

But that’s nothing compared to the pitter patter of little feet also known as the unbridled — and high volume — energy of youth. Teen Spirit loved to run up and down the hallway playing his imaginary superhero games. The downstairs neighbors used to call him Thumper. Their chandelier would shake when Teen Spirit careened through the living room. At high speed.

“There goes Thumper,” they’d say.

But they didn’t complain too much because they had their own brood of three boys and one very active girl running up and down their hallway.

They were living in their own private cacophony — and causing havoc for their own downstairs neighbors.

Lucky is the family that lives on the top floor.

Kids growing up in apartment buildings have as much raw energy as their suburban (and brownstone) counterpoints. But they don’t have the backyards or the one-family houses to run wild in. In the cold weather, especially, it can be hard on the neighbors when kids use their apartments as winter playgrounds.

Active playdates and slumber parties also test neighborly patience. Smartmom remembers the time OSFO and Teen Spirit spent an evening making a action adventure movie in the apartment with friends, which entailed moving furniture, dramatic screams and leaping from one end of the apartment to the other.

ACTION.

Smartmom is humiliated at the thought that her neighbors had overheard all the parent/child battles of Teen Spirit and OSFO’s childhood and adolescence.

“I SAID WAKE UP!” and “I’M GOING TO GET THE ICE” and “DID YOU DO YOUR HOMEWORK, YOU LITTLE SO AND SO…”

Each age of childhood has its own distinctive racket. These days, Teen Spirit and his friends gather in the living room and have rowdy sing-a-longs. Then there’s the welcome sound (and racket) of OSFO practicing the piano and Teen Spirit recording his multi-track songs and singing in a loud stage voice while he’s doing it.

Smartmom wonders what it will be like next year without Teen Spirit. What will life be like with one less child to make noise? Will it be hard to get used to? Will it make her sad?

Let’s just say, there are some noises she’ll miss and others she won’t. But it remains to be seen. Or heard.

Civics and Urban Life

Erratum

2 Comments

I want to make it very clear that Norman Oder did not suggest NEVER SUGGESTED that the Blogs Aloud excerpts—and the panelists—were chosen by Absolut. I know that Oder is dedicated to accuracy and I fully respect that. I am sincerely sorry that I did not issue this full correction earlier. I’ll let Norman Oder speak for himself:

This is the fifth time in two days–two emails, three comments–I’ve had to point out that you *invented* this sentence: “Norman Oder’s accusation that the bloggers on the panel and those included in the Blogs Aloud section were chosen by Absolut is patently ridiculous.”

I never made that accusation.

In the Times’s CityRoom blog, you said “I make every effort to attribute quotes accurately and not misrepresent people’s point of view” and “I love it when people fact-check me or send me typos. That’s a big help because I’m working very fast and mistakes do get made.”

Making such corrections–especially when the underlying error has no basis in fact–is not just a professional obligation. It’s a legal one.

Civics and Urban Life

Acceptance Rate at PS 321 Pre-K Hits New Low

Unlike kindergarten, public pre-kindergarten programs are not mandated by New York State so admissions are very limited and often by lottery. The program at PS 321 is very small (only one full day class and two half-day progarms) Still the acceptance rate hit a new low this year according to the NY Post:

…the acceptance rate at some schools hit record lows — with PS 321 in Brooklyn’s Park Slope at a jaw-dropping 2.5 percent. Ivy League Harvard accepted 6.9 percent of its applicants this year.

“This is such a great program, and I really hoped he would have gotten in,” said Mary Thaman, whose son was not among the 12 lucky tots — out of 475 applicants — to land spots at PS 321.

“We’re scrambling to see if we can find someplace else for him,” she added.

Families who snagged seats at the well-regarded school — which, like all of the programs, gives priority to kids who rank it as their top choice and have siblings attending the school — were shocked by their good fortune.

“It was just disbelief when we heard the news,” said David Criste, whose 3-year-old son, Neal, got into PS 321 with the aid of his older brother, a first-grader there.

“We decided to play Powerball the next day, just in case we were on a lucky streak,” Criste said. “But we weren’t that lucky.”

Among the 25,000 applicants for public-school pre-K slots, more than 18,000 got offers from at least one program, Department of Education data show. As for the 7,000 families that were shut out, they’ll get a new shot next month — when a second round of applications gets under way.

arts and culture

The Saturday List: Pride, Allen Toussaint, Tiny Toy Theater

Pride Day in Brooklyn

–Multicultural Festival (11:00a – 6:00p)
It’s more than your usual street fair featuring stage performance, family zone, shopping and great food. Most importantly, it provides opportunities for the community to come through to learn about community organizations, issues and business.

–Kids Space (12:00p – 4:00p)
Kids come join the fun at Brooklyn Pride with your own Space! We will have sing a song, puppet making workshops, story time, bookmaking and much much more!

–Night Pride Parade (7:30p Kick Off)
Come join the fun with the one and only “Night Time Parade in the Northeast, a celebration of our Pride and Heritage.

Celebrate Brooklyn

On Saturday, June 12 at 7:30 PM (doors open at 6:30PM) Allen Toussaint and Davell Crawford bring the sounds of New Orleans to Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park. One of the true architects of New Orleans music and a national treasure, Allen Toussaint has produced, arranged for, or collaborated with everyone from Dr. John to the Neville Brothers to Irma Thomas (not to mention the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello, and The Band). Performing on his own, “the generosity and grandeur of his melting pot vision…invokes nothing but joy.” (Down Beat) The electrifying piano player and singer Davell Crawford is a direct descendent—he’s often referred to as “The Prince of New Orleans.”

NYC Writers Coalition Marathon

The NYC Writers Coaltion Marathon provides an opportunity for people to spend the day writing, meet other writers, attend free creative writing workshops, attend a  lunch time talk with Nicholas Dawidoff, bestselling author of The Crowd Sounds Happy, and help NYWC’s free creative writing programs for the formerly homelss, at-risk youth, seniors & others.

Film:

The 13th Brooklyn International Film Festival continues into the weekend: For a full schedule of the screenings go here. Films are shown at Brooklyn Heights Cinema and indieScreen in Williamsburg.

Please Give, Solitary Man, Sex and the City at BAM Screenings are in

Dance:

This weekend and next at BAM: Alvin Ailey “By Popular Demand” Program. Jun 11, 12, 16 & 17 at 7:30pm. Jun 12 & 19 at 2pm (ING Family Matinees)* Audience favorites including: In/Side by Robert Battle; Uptown by Matthew Rushing; Revelations by Alvin Ailey

Music

Saturday, June 12 at 8PM at Barbes: Gato Loco plays arrangements of early Cuban son dance hits from the 1920s-1940s. The quartet plays the great compositions of Ignacio Pinero, Arsenio Rodriguez, Chano Pozo, Quarteto Habanero, Casino De La Playa, Maria Teresa Vera, as well as traditional folk songs, all filtered th0rough subsonic instruments played as delicately as possible. tuba, bari sax, baritone acoustic guitar, and acoustic bass guarantees that you feel the music, rather than hear it.

This Sunday and every Sunday at 8PM at Issue Project Room: Share Free Audio and Video Jam. Share is an open jam, not just for digirati, but for all new culture lovers. Participants bring their portable equipment, plug into IPR’s system, improvise on each others’ signal and perform live audio and video. IPR will furnish the amplification and projection. Share happens every Sunday.

Art

At the 440 Gallery in Park Slope:  “Ezra, zichrono l’vracha, May his memory be a blessing” is a powerful installation that chronicles a year of mourning and a painfully altered family life.

At the Brooklyn Museum of Art: “American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection” Featuring over 80 dressed mannequins and a selection of hats, shoes, sketches, and other fashion-related materials. 10 am–5 pm.

At UrbanGlass: “Parenthetical Admission (Things Eventually Recognized After the Fact…)” Artist David Schnuckel presents works based on human fallibility. 647 Fulton St. at Rockwell Place • Tel: 718.625.3685

Theater

Tiny Toy Theater Festival at St. Ann’s Warehouse is a big festival of tiny films.
Saturday, June 12, 1 pm
Saturday, June 12, 4:30 pm
Saturday, June 12, 7:30 pm
Saturday, June 12, 10 pm
Sunday, June 13, 11 am
Sunday, June 13, 2 pm
Sunday, June 13, 7:30 pm

Civics and Urban Life

Important Correction about Norman Oder and Blogfest Blogs Aloud & Panelists

6 Comments

Norman Oder did not suggest NEVER SUGGESTED that the Blogs Aloud excerpts—and the panelists—were chosen by Absolut. I’ll let Norman Oder speak for himself. I know that Oder is dedicated to accuracy and I fully respect that. I am sincerely sorry that I did not issue this full correction earlier.

This is the fifth time in two days–two emails, three comments–I’ve had to point out that you *invented* this sentence: “Norman Oder’s accusation that the bloggers on the panel and those included in the Blogs Aloud section were chosen by Absolut is patently ridiculous.”

I never made that accusation.

In the Times’s CityRoom blog, you said “I make every effort to attribute quotes accurately and not misrepresent people’s point of view” and “I love it when people fact-check me or send me typos. That’s a big help because I’m working very fast and mistakes do get made.”

Making such corrections–especially when the underlying error has no basis in fact–is not just a professional obligation. It’s a legal one.

arts and culture

Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Only the Know-Nothings Stealthily Bite

1 Comment

Note: I guess I haven’t been posting enough of Leon’s wonderful verse responses lately. Chalk that up to some kind of madness or just being busy with that confounded Blogfest.  I am so, so sorry to have neglected our Mr. Freilich. Don’t think this is the last you’re gonna see of our verse responder.  No Way! — Louise

Only the Know-Nothings Stealthily Bite

Bloggers with no names–just tags,

Like a heap of garbage bags

Ready to be dumped on any

Who’s the envy of the many;

Hiding behind their sticky keyboards

(Substitute for kiddie peeboards),

Losers of the highest degree

Stew in their nonentity,

Listened to by none of their peers,

Hungry for some squeaky cheers

From like-mindless flips and flops

Who’ve made no splash, only plops.

Grunts that leap from monsters’ green-eyes

Are the easiest to despise;

Rants without substance or honest aims,

Typical poison pen–no names.

arts and culture

June 12th is Pride Day in Brooklyn

And there’s a lot going on. Get more information here.

–Prospect Park at Bartel-Pritchard Circle
15th Street and Prospect Park West
Pride Fun Run (Registration begins at 8:00a), a fun charity sporting event held each year in the morning of Pride for the LGBT community and friends in a festive, healthy and inclusive environment. Fifty percent of the proceeds from the event benefit one local organization.

–Multicultural Festival (11:00a – 6:00p)
It’s more than your usual street fair featuring stage performance, family zone, shopping and great food. Most importantly, it provides opportunities for the community to come through to learn about community organizations, issues and business.

–Kids Space (12:00p – 4:00p)
Kids come join the fun at Brooklyn Pride with your own Space! We will have sing a song, puppet making workshops, story time, bookmaking and much much more!

–The Amazing Brooklyn Race: Brooklyn Pride Edition (12:30p – 4:30p)
Brooklyn Pride 2010 in conjunction with POGO Events presents:  The Amazing Brooklyn Race:  Brooklyn Pride Edition – Part Scavenger Hunt, Part Obstacle Course and ALL BROOKLYN!

–Night Pride Parade (7:30p Kick Off)
Come join the fun with the one and only “Night Time Parade in the Northeast, a celebration of our Pride and Heritage.

There’s even an Official After Pride Party

arts and culture

June 12: Hermaphrodite at Zora Art Space and Cafe

I just got an email from Zora Art Space and Cafe about something that might be interesting on June 12th at 7:30 PM.

In this collaboration, Aphrodite Désirée Navab and Chervine Dalaeli, artists who are from Iran and based in NYC, explore the gender stereotypes and pressures of Iranian patriarchal culture. Chervine photographs Aphrodite as she transforms herself into a Hermaphrodite, wearing a traditional shalwar chemise, mustache and turban and follows her as she interacts with the public for several weeks. For the event at Zoraspace, Hermaphrodite will perform the exclusively male Persian ritualized exercise tradition called Zurkhaneh, “house of strength”.

Hermaphrodite 2010 critiques gender expectations at the same time that it is a metaphor for the condition of exile, neither here nor there, but both, neither Iranian nor American, but both. To be ‘unhomed’, as cultural studies theorist Homi Bhabha puts it, does not mean that Hermaphrodite is ‘homeless’. Nor does it mean that s/he can be accommodated easily. By occupying two places at once, Hermaphrodite is a hybrid who becomes difficult to place. It is within this ‘third space’ of working, contesting and reconstructing that hermaphrodite creates an opening for other positions to emerge.  Hermaphrodite’s performances and the resulting photographs and videos from these interventions allow for a space of ‘unhomeliness’–a space of trans-national and cross-cultural initiations.

arts and culture

Write by the Seat of Your Pants at the Writers Coalition Marathon

I love the idea of this annual event (now in its fifth year) and I am tempted to participate tomorrow. I really need a day of writing and it’s for a great cause.

The NYC Writers Coaltion Marathon provides an opportunity for participants to spend the day writing, meet other writers, attend free creative writing workshops, attend a  lunch time talk with Nicholas Dawidoff, bestselling author of The Crowd Sounds Happy, and help NYWC’s free creative writing programs for the formerly homelss, at-risk youth, seniors & others.

I’ve never done it but it sounds fun to me. Anyone want to do it with me? It’s on Saturday, June 12th, 2009 from 10:30am-6:00pm. There’s a free lunch and light breakfast will be served!

And it all takes place at the NY Center for Independent Publishing
20 West 44th Street, NYC

arts and culture

The Weekend List: Ailey, Brooklyn Film Festival, Allen Toussaint

Celebrate Brooklyn

On Saturday, June 12 at 7:30 PM (doors open at 6:30PM) Allen Toussaint and Davell Crawford bring the sounds of New Orleans to Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park. One of the true architects of New Orleans music and a national treasure, Allen Toussaint has produced, arranged for, or collaborated with everyone from Dr. John to the Neville Brothers to Irma Thomas (not to mention the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello, and The Band). Performing on his own, “the generosity and grandeur of his melting pot vision…invokes nothing but joy.” (Down Beat) The electrifying piano player and singer Davell Crawford is a direct descendent—he’s often referred to as “The Prince of New Orleans.”

NYC Writers Coalition Marathon

The NYC Writers Coaltion Marathon provides an opportunity for people to spend the day writing, meet other writers, attend free creative writing workshops, attend a  lunch time talk with Nicholas Dawidoff, bestselling author of The Crowd Sounds Happy, and help NYWC’s free creative writing programs for the formerly homelss, at-risk youth, seniors & others.

Film:

The 13th Brooklyn International Film Festival continues into the weekend: For a full schedule of the screenings go here. Films are shown at Brooklyn Heights Cinema and indieScreen in Williamsburg.

Please Give, Solitary Man, Sex and the City at BAM Screenings are in

Dance:

This weekend and next at BAM: Alvin Ailey “By Popular Demand” Program. Jun 11, 12, 16 & 17 at 7:30pm. Jun 12 & 19 at 2pm (ING Family Matinees)* Audience favorites including: In/Side by Robert Battle; Uptown by Matthew Rushing; Revelations by Alvin Ailey

Music

Saturday, June 12 at 8PM at Barbes: Gato Loco plays arrangements of early Cuban son dance hits from the 1920s-1940s. The quartet plays the great compositions of Ignacio Pinero, Arsenio Rodriguez, Chano Pozo, Quarteto Habanero, Casino De La Playa, Maria Teresa Vera, as well as traditional folk songs, all filtered th0rough subsonic instruments played as delicately as possible. tuba, bari sax, baritone acoustic guitar, and acoustic bass guarantees that you feel the music, rather than hear it.

This Sunday and every Sunday at 8PM at Issue Project Room: Share Free Audio and Video Jam. Share is an open jam, not just for digirati, but for all new culture lovers. Participants bring their portable equipment, plug into IPR’s system, improvise on each others’ signal and perform live audio and video. IPR will furnish the amplification and projection. Share happens every Sunday.

Art

At the 440 Gallery in Park Slope:  “Ezra, zichrono l’vracha, May his memory be a blessing” is a powerful installation that chronicles a year of mourning and a painfully altered family life.

At the Brooklyn Museum of Art: “American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection” Featuring over 80 dressed mannequins and a selection of hats, shoes, sketches, and other fashion-related materials. 10 am–5 pm.

At UrbanGlass: “Parenthetical Admission (Things Eventually Recognized After the Fact…)” Artist David Schnuckel presents works based on human fallibility. 647 Fulton St. at Rockwell Place • Tel: 718.625.3685

Theater

Tiny Toy Theater Festival at St. Ann’s Warehouse is a big festival of tiny films.
Saturday, June 12, 1 pm
Saturday, June 12, 4:30 pm
Saturday, June 12, 7:30 pm
Saturday, June 12, 10 pm
Sunday, June 13, 11 am
Sunday, June 13, 2 pm
Sunday, June 13, 7:30 pm

Civics and Urban Life

Trees as Permanent City Furniture: Writings by Frederich Law Olmsted

Full Disclosure: I received a promotional copy of Frederick Law Olmsted, Essential Texts Edited by Robert Twombley from W.W. Norton in the mail.

Frederick Law Olmsted, with Calvert Vaux, designed both Central Park and Prospect Park. Central Park came about because their firm entered  a competiion to design it. In 1865 they collaborated on Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

Quite a career.

The editor, Robert Twombley, writes in the introduction,

“His reputation rests not only on the quantity but also on the quality of the work he produced, which, even when neglected, altered, or executed improperly in the first place, remains a constant source of public and private pleasure. But the work itself was informed by his social and design philosophies, which are not always obvious in his writing but are nevertheless embedded there.”

These essays, dating from 1850s to the 1890s reveals Olmsted’s thoughts on park design, theory, landscape gardening and cities, are written in a slightly formal but clear style, and are very forward thinking about the importance of nature in the city.

In an essay entitled Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns included in the collection Olmsted writes:

“What I would ask is whether we might not with economy make special provision in some of our streets—in a twentieth or a fiftieth part, if you please, of all—for trees to remain as a permanent furniture of the city? I mean, to make a place for them in which they would have room to grow naturally and gracefully. Even if the distance between the houses should have to made half as much again as is is required in our commercial streets, could not the space be afforded?

…The change both of scene and of air which would be obtained by people engaged for the most part in the necessarily confined interior commercial part of the town, on passing into a street of this character after the trees had become stately and graceful, would be worth a good deal.”

arts and culture

“People Make Mistakes” Fiction Curated by Martha Southgate

On Thursday, June 10th at 8PM at the Old Stone House in Park Slope Brooklyn Reading Works presents “People Make Mistakes,” an evening of fiction curated by Martha Southgate. Lauren Grodstein, author of A Friend of the Family, Danielle Evans, author of the upcoming short story collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, and Martha Southgate, author of Third Girl From the Left will read.

Martha Southgate is the author of Third Girl from the Left, which was published in paperback by Houghton Mifflin in September 2006. It won the Best Novel of the year award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. It was shortlisted for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy award. Her previous novel, The Fall of Rome, received the 2003 Alex Award from the American Library Association and was named one of the best novels of 2002 by Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post. She is also the author of Another Way to Dance, which won the Coretta Scott King Genesis Award for Best First Novel. She now teaches in the Brooklyn College MFA program.

Lauren Grodstein’s books include the novels A Friend of the Family and Reproduction is the Flaw of Love, and The Best of Animals, a story collection. Her pseudonymous Girls Dinner Club was a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. Her work has been translated into German, Italian, French, Turkish, and other languages, and her essays and stories have been widely anthologized. Lauren teaches creative writing at Rutgers-Camden, where she helps administer the college’s MFA program. She lives with her husband and son in New Jersey.

Danielle Evans was born in Northern Virginia in 1983. Her short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2008 and will appear in Best American Short Stories 2010, The Paris Review, Phoebe, Black Renaissance Noire, and The L Magazine. She received a BA in Anthropology from Columbia University, an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and the Carol Houck Smith Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. She has taught in the creative writing program at Missouri State University, and has recently joined the faculty at American University in Washington, DC. Her first short story collection, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, will be published in September and she is working on a novel entitled The Empire Has No Clothes. Both are forthcoming from Riverhead Books.

When: June 10, 2010 at 8PM

Where: The Old Stone House on Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope

$5 admissions inclues refreshments. Books on sale.

Tags:
arts and culture

The Thursday List: Brooklyn Reading Works, Alvin Ailey, Ensemble Laboratorium

Readings:

On Thursday, June 10th at 8PM at the Old Stone House in Park Slope Brooklyn Reading Works presents “People Make Mistakes,” an evening of fiction curated by Martha Southgate. Lauren Grodstein, author of A Friend of the Family, Danielle Evans, author of the upcoming short story collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, and Martha Southgate, author of Third Girl From the Left will read.$5 donation includes refreshments. Books for sale

Film:

Please Give, Solitary Man, Sex and the City at BAM

Dance:

Alvin Ailey “By Popular Demand” Program. Jun 11, 12, 16 & 17 at 7:30pm. Jun 12 & 19 at 2pm (ING Family Matinees)*
Audience favorites including: In/Side by Robert Battle; Uptown by Matthew Rushing; Revelations by Alvin Ailey

Music:

On Thursday, June 10th at 7PM at  Issue Project Room: With members hailing from 14 countries on 5 continents, Ensemble Laboratorium presented its debut performance at the 2005 Lucerne Festival. A truly international ensemble, Laboratorium seeks to discover and develop an interactive exchange between the cultures represented by its members, often in the form of projects exploring a wide range of contemporary music.

Saturday, June 12 at 8PM at Barbes: Gato Loco plays arrangements of early Cuban son dance hits from the 1920s-1940s. The quartet plays the great compositions of Ignacio Pinero, Arsenio Rodriguez, Chano Pozo, Quarteto Habanero, Casino De La Playa, Maria Teresa Vera, as well as traditional folk songs, all filtered th0rough subsonic instruments played as delicately as possible. tuba, bari sax, baritone acoustic guitar, and acoustic bass guarantees that you feel the music, rather than hear it.

Civics and Urban Life

Tired

13 Comments

You gotta have a tough skin to be a blogger and you gotta have a tough skin to be the organizer of Blogfest. And that’s the truth as Lily Tomlin used to say.

The day after Blogfest I was under attack for having a sponsor and for not disclosing that I was given a bottle of vodka, a Flip camera, access to a VIP gala, and linkage from the Absolut Facebook page.

There. I did it. Again. Now you know. And if you didn’t already know: a well-known vodka company sponsored Blogfest and sent some swag my way.

Yesterday I was tired from the event and from months planning the event. A live event is stressful, you never know how things are going to turn out. I am always primed for disaster, for things going wrong, for chaos.

There was a big crowd and getting them into the space, tagging them, etc. was time consuming and stressful. The show started 30 minutes late.

The Spike and Lemon portion was unrehearsed and I had no real idea how long it would run or what Spike was going to do when he got up to the podium. The vodka company said he’d be there for five minutes. I’m sure he exceeded that. He sort of bit my head off (humorously) when I tried to move things along (“I’ve got this covered. Chill miss,” was what he said).

The party was lavish and fun. I had two drinks. The martini was tasty. The cocktail was not my kind of drink at all. The combination of ginger ale and apple/ginger vodka gave it a funny taste. People seemed to prefer the martini.

The food by Oaxaca, a new Fourth Avenue restaurant (chosen by me) was wonderful and I am very happy that I chose them to cater the event. Jake, who is a part owner, is a good guy and he really came through. The food was delicious, warm, fresh and plentiful. The restaurant has a catering arm and they really know what they’re doing.

My feeling during the show, the Blogs-of-a-Feather breakout groups and the party was that people had a great time. The next day the naysayers were more vocal.

Like last year, the Blogs-of-a Feather element impressed me. Bloggers and wanna-bloggers like talking to other bloggers to get advice, share insight and information. Some of the groups lasted until 10PM and I think that’s very cool.

Reading the comments on Brownstoner and the NY Times I found out what I already knew: some people like me (“You like me, you really like me,” as Sally Field famously said at the Oscars) and some people don’t (hey, what else is new? I’ve been slammed since I started this blog and the Smartmom column. I’m used to it).

Still you need a tough skin and fast fingers to defend yourself from unpleasant attacks of your character.

That said, it’s all food for thought. I got lots of useful comments, advice, criticism, complaints and compliments. I take everything that was said very seriously and I am really listening and wondering and pondering and thinking.

And that’s the truth.