Keeping versed on Vito: Bushwick BK
Greenfield Clothiers: Bushwick BK
Dunkin’ Donuts Conversion: Gerritsen beach
PSA: NY Shitty
Winner of Senior Idol: Sheepshead Bites
People at Food Coop hire hookers: Effed in Park Slope
The great pupkin: Clinton Hill Blog
Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.
The Brooklyn Rail, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a fiction anthology, a non-fiction anthology and live special events.
Just out is The Brooklyn Rail Fiction Anthology edited by Donald Breckinbridge and Jen Zoble. The collection includes some familiar names like Jonathan Baumbach, Sharon Mesmer, Aaron Zimmerman (who runs the NY Writers Coalition) and Albert Moblilio and many more.
Here’s who’s included in the fiction anthology: Diane Williams, Brian Evenson, Caila Rossi, Lynda Schor, John Yau, Barbara Henning, Michael Martone, Jacques Roubaud (translated by Guy Bennet), Susan Daitch, Jim Feast, Martha King, Lynn Crawford, Lewis Warsh, Pat MacEnulty, Will Fleming, Carmen Firan (translated by Dorin Motz), Bart Cameron, Constanza Jaramillo Cathcart, Aaron Zimmerman, Sharon Mesmer, Jeremy Sigler, Jill Magi, Blake Radcliffe, Meredith Brosnan, Evan Harris, Douglas Glover, Johannah Rogers, Jonathan Baumbach, Marie Carter, Doug Nufer, Leslie Scalapino, Robert Pinget (translated by Barbara Wright), Elizabeth Reddin, Kenneth Bernard, Jean Frémon (translated by Brian Evanson), R. M. Berry, Thomas D’Adamo, Albert Mobilio, John Reed, and Kurt Strahm.
Also out is Pieces of a Decade: Brooklyn Rail Non-fiction edited by Theodor Hamm and Williams Cole
“Now I’m not going to tell you everything that’s in the collection, but I will say that it offers: Howard Zinn’s prophetic critique of the war in Iraq before it happened; Reverend Billy’s gospel alongside that of hardened, unrepentant Marxists; and a wide variety of Whitmanesque odes to Brooklyn’s past and present, as well as to the borough’s future that never shall be. Besides that, it’s the only time that Jane Jacobs and Jason Flores-Williams have been bound between the same two covers. And rest assured that Anders Goldfarb’s photos capture our world. So if you have balls, you’ll buy this book. And if you don’t have balls, you’re still welcome to purchase it.”
Cool headed appraisal of weather weirding: Noticing NY
Chinese investors in AY project: Atlantic Yards Report
A gooseless city?: Brooklyn Paper
Gov’t puts $25 in Vito’s pacts on ice: NY Post
Developers, architects and more cash in after writing Vito checks: Daily News
Upstart winner challenges Brooklyn Democratic leadership: NY Times
Sorry for the dearth of content.
I know what you’re thinking: Thunder Road solo on a ukulele? Really? Yes, really. Jim Boggia played The Living Room Friday night, where this video was shot by Jamie Eng in glorious black and white. I think this is just a terrific performance of an amazing song. Watch it over at Now I’ve Heard Everything by clicking here.
–Eliot Wagner
First I thought it was thunder. Then it sounded like an explosion that went on and on and on. Then I thought it was drumming, really, really loud drumming.
According to the Brooklyn Bugle the sound emanated from the Deepavali Festival put on by the Association of Indians in America at the South Street Seaport.
Fireworks, I guess.
Brooklyn Reading Works presents New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights on October 21 at 8PM. Curated by Rosemary Moore, the evening will include readings of three plays and a musical theater work by Barbara Cassidy, Joseph Goodrich, Lizzie Olesker and Mary Lloyd Butler and C.F. Peters.
Brooklyn Reading Works is a monthly reading series at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn (Fifth Avenue and Third Street). All the readings are at 8PM. Suggested donation of $5 includes wine and snacks. Books are usually sold and there is often a Q&A after the reading.
BRW in November:
I am also excited about the Veterans Day reading on November 11, 2010 that I am curating: Writing War Fiction by Vets of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan featuring Juri Jurjevics, Roy Scranton, Matt Gallagher, Philip Klay and Jake Sigal
On the horizon:
December 16, 2010: Feast: Writers on Food. Curated by Michele Madigan Somerville (an annual benefit for the soup kitchen at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church in Park Slope)
January 20, 2011: The Truth and Oral History (the double life of the interview) Curated by John Guidry
February 17, 2011: Memoirathon
Curated by Branka Ruzak
March 17, 2011: Blarneypalooza
Curated by Michele Madigan Somerville
April 14, 2011: In the Year of the Rabbit: Voices from the East
Curated by Sophia Romero
May 19, 2011: Edgy Mother’s Day
Curated by Louise Crawford and Sophia Romero
June 16, 2011: Fiction in a Blender
Curated by Martha Southgate
You can catch the second day of the annual Citywide High School Fair today, Sunday, October 3, at Brooklyn Technical High School (29 Fort Greene Place off DeKalb Avenue)
The fair is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on both days.
This fair tend to get crowded and is a tad overwhelming and exhausting (for parents, anyway). However, it’s a good opportunity for parents and students to speak with representatives from the City’s public high schools.
There will also be various information sessions related to the high school admissions process. Translated materials and interpretation services will be available. For more information, visit the High School Admissions website.
Coming soon to a space on Seventh Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets in Park Slope: King of Cupcakes. The expensive-looking, well-designed signage has the look of a national chain. Their single-page and uninformative website says they’ve been in existence since 1979.
It does say that they’ll be selling cupcakes, of course, cookies, pies, pastries, bagels, gelato and “the best damn coffee in Brooklyn!”
I like their attitude.
The Ensemble Studio Theater’s Octoberfest 2010 presents an unstaged reading of a new play called Finks by Joe Gilford on Thursday, October 14th at 7PM.
Directed by Lonny Price, Finks is a drama about New York actors during the dark years of the 1950s blacklist. It is based on true events in the lives of Jack and Madeline Gilford. Admission is by your generous donation. For reservations & information: 212-247-4982 or at the EST website.
Interesting story in the Brooklyn Paper about a chemical company with plants in Red Hook that has agreed to help pay for part of the Superfund cleanup. Trouble is: the comapny is bankrupt. So how are they going to pay? Here’s an excerpt from the BP story:
A chemical company with two dirty Red Hook plants agreed this week to help foot the bill for the $1-billion Superfund cleanup of the Gowanus Canal — oh, but there’s one catch: the company is bankrupt.
Chemtura Corporation, a Connecticut-based specialty chemicals maker, agreed on Thursday to pay $3.9 million toward cleansing the fetid waterway, the Department of Justice announced.
No timetable was given for when Chemtura would pay, but the feds cheered the agreement — and said that they expect the sum to be “fully paid in cash.”
Last night, Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson and Gus Seyffert, a band Norah dubbed The Rams, played a secret show. I was there and have a review and a whole bunch of photos and set list here at Now I’ve Heard Everything.
Just a week ago, I mentioned the song Don’t Call Them Twinkies, an ode to the Minnesota Twins by The Baseball Project and Craig Finn, the lead singer of The Hold Steady. Now that song has a great video with clips and stills which include Sandy Koufax, Jim Kaat, Kirby Puckett, Jane Fonda, and of course, Twinkies. You can see it at Now I’ve Heard Everything by clicking here.
–Eliot Wagner
Movies
The Social Network, Wall Street Money Never Sleeps, The Town at BAM
The Social Network, Wall Street Money Never Sleeps, The Town, Easy A, Let Me In at the Pavilion
Next Wave Festival at BAM:
Now through October 9 at BAM: Pina Basuch’s Vollmond: “This season, Bausch’s splendid company Tanztheater Wuppertal (Bamboo Blues, 2008 Next Wave; Nefés, 2006 Next Wave) returns to BAM with the arresting Vollmond (Full Moon). The work shimmers—literally—as water runs in manic rivulets over a giant rock, rushes across the stage, and rains down, drenching the dancers. A study in Bausch’s unparalleled mix of abandon and supreme control, Vollmond is at once urgent, athletic, and sensual—channeling the unrelenting energy of its maker.”
Music:
Here is Brooklyn Vegan’s list of what’s going on Friday in the NYC music scene.
Friday, Oct 1 at 7PM at Barbes: Opera on Tap. “Most people don’t seem to realize how much fun it really is. In order to prove it, Opera on Tap has taken its act to barrooms where they found out that beer on tap enhances the operatic experience. The company is made up of young singers and instrumentalists who relish the direct contact with audiences not inhibited in their reactions by the looming menace of giant chandeliers.”
Saturday, Oct 2 at 7:30 PM at The Bell House: Van Dyke Parks. “Besides being Brian Wilson’s collaborator during the Beach Boys’ psychedelic period, he has worked with performers including Grace Kelly, the Byrds, Loudon Wainwright III, Ry Cooder and Joanna Newsom, and has released several of his own records (and a new record is in the works).”
Saturday, Oct 2 at The Rock Shop: Czech Legends Uz Jesme Doma
Stay tuned for more…
Here is an excerpt from Rabbi Andy Bachman’s powerful reaction to the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University. It is a direct address by the Rabbi of Park Slope’s Congregation Beth Elohim, to the youth of this community (and other communities around the world). You can read the rest at his blog Water Over Rocks.
I’m your Rabbi. As such, I am occasionally asked to share a few words or thoughts when bad things happen to good people. In this case, I want to write some words, directly to you, about Tyler Clementi’s tragic suicide last week. If you haven’t read about it, you can read the story here from today’s New York Times.
Tyler was secretly filmed having a sexual encounter with another guy on the Rutgers campus and that scene was broadcast on-line, to his own humiliation, which authorities think was the major factor in deciding to take his own life. Rutgers University, where Tyler was a talented, quiet and kind student, and the local police, are in charge of an investigation, the results of which we’ll keep reading about in the coming days.
But I want to address you directly, whomever you may be. If you’re gay or straight or bi or transgender or you just don’t know, as a Rabbi in the community, I care about you as a person made in the Image of God. It really truly doesn’t matter what other people think about your struggle to be who you are in the process of becoming.
Painter Arthur May: Art in Brooklyn
The golden apples: Brooklynometry
Awards, books, posters: Do the Math
Becoming a kidney donor: The Spiral Staircase
Prayer is asking for help: Old First Blog
What’s going on Friday: Brooklyn Vegan
Comic social club: Ditmas Park Blog
Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.