Baking a demon cake with two angels: A Cake Bakes in Brooklyn
My favorite flexible fall soup: 2 Cooks in the Kitchen
Osso Buco: A Kitchen in Brooklyn
Dinner at Locanda Vini e Olli: Eat It
Kappa Sake House in Park Slope: NY Times
Farmers Market Video: All About Fifth
Today, Wednesday, October 27th, President Bill Clinton will be in Brooklyn for a get out the vote rally for Democrats up and down the ballot. He will be joined by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is running for governor of New York.
Where:
New York City College of Technology
Klitgord Center
285 Jay Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
When:
Wednesday, October 27th
Doors open: 3:00 p.m.
Joyce Szuflita, who runs NYC School Help, attended a Meet and Greet with Chancellor Klein sponsored by the District 15 Community Education Council on October 26th. Parents asked why students from Brooklyn were no longer being accepted at Millenium High School in Lower Manhattan. Here is an excerpt from her recap of that meeting. You can read the rest on Inside Schools.
Last night, schools chancellor Joel I. Klein participated in a town hall style meeting sponsored by District 15’s Community Education Council. The large crowd of parents, students and teachers that gathered inside Sunset Park Prep Academy’s auditorium grilled the chancellor on a range of topics affecting District 15 families and those citywide.
Klein opened with a brief PowerPoint presentation demonstrating rising test scores and a shrinking achievement gap. His conclusions invited considerable dissent by CEC members over how to interpret the test results. Klein also told the crowd that 2162 new seats were created recently in District 15. Both CEC members and parents questioned why District 2 has small, selective high schools that give priority to District 2 residents (Manhattan has no zoned options for high school), while in other parts of the city there are few small, screened programs that offer in-district priority. Some spoke of the heartbreak felt by many Brooklyn students over not being admitted to Millennium High School last year. In previous years, Millennium, also a District 2 school, routinely accepted Brooklyn students despite its policy of giving top priority to residents of lower Manhattan.
Klein responded that the schools were zoned by the old District 2 School Board long before his tenure and that Millennium was built after 9/11 to support and revitalize the downtown neighborhoods. He voiced his interest in providing schools that are open to students citywide.
Funding was on the minds of teachers who asked where Race to the Top money was being spent, and if “high priced consultants” and charter schools had their budgets slashed as much as DOE schools.
Klein said that most funding cuts happened at central office and administrative levels and that charter programs are funded at a lower level per student than DOE schools…
Here is a semi-comprehensive list of the major events going on this Halloween in Park Slope, Prospect Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park. As the week progresses, as Halloween nears, I will add events as I hear about them. For now, here’s a lot to do. Click on read more…
Continue reading Halloween in Park Slope, Prospect Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park
Craig Hammerman, District Manager of Community Board 6, sent me a sad note about the passing of Robert Makla, a familiar face at Community Board 6 meetings.
Always dressed to the nines, with his signature bowtie and suspenders, Robert Makla was a familiar attendee, avid supporter and eager participant at Brooklyn CB6 general meetings. He often started off by reminding us that he was born at NY Methodist Hospital, and with the exception of serving our country oversees in the armed forces, spent his whole life living in Park Slope.
Bob’s message was often simple, and eloquently delivered. To paraphrase…Parks are special places, where people of all races, incomes and interests mix. They reconnect people to nature. They feed the soul serving as inspiration to artists and dreamers, poets and planners. They provide a source of jobs, particularly maintenance jobs, which are harder and harder to come by. Jobs, he often said, were the key to restoring a sense of pride and productivity to the least fortunate among us. And, once park space is gone, it is not so easily replaced. It is therefore the job of every citizen to defend, preserve and care for the wonderful green and open spaces throughout our City. Of course, his favorite spot was his beloved Prospect Park, the crown jewel of all of New York City’s parks.
Bob’s presence was electric, his words were stirring, and he will be sorely missed. I, for one, will especially miss his periodic call to conscience, which always seemed perfectly timed to fit into the Community Board’s 3-minute speaking limit at general meetings.
Please note the charities listed in the New York Times death notice below.
MAKLA–Robert M., of Brooklyn, NY passed away on October 14, 2010. Bob was beloved by his sisters Grace and Alice and his nieces and nephew. A tireless and inspiring advocate for the city’s parks, Bob founded several park conservation organizations to provide tree care and maintenance to the park’s natural treasures. He was known for introducing cyclists to the wonders of the city through his middle-of-the-night bike tours. Bob served in WWII and the Korean War, graduated from Princeton and Yale Law, and was an active and devoted partner at the law firm of D’Amato & Lynch. Contributions may be made to the Prospect Park Alliance, Development Office, 95 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, NY 11215 (designate “tree care”) or to The Tree Trust, Central Park Conservancy, 14 E. 60th St., 8th Floor, New York, NY 10022.
Did you know that term limits will be decided on Election Day? FYI: the term limits question is on the back of this year’s ballot, which you will see next Tuesday, November 2nd, WHEN YOU VOTE.
You’re voting, right?
Of course you’re voting and when you do: Turn Over Your Ballot and Vote on Term Limits.
“Voters have waited two years to have their voices heard on term limits. With one week until Election Day, no one cannot take this outcome for granted,” writes Public Advocate Bill de Blasio in the press release he sent today.
You are voting, right?
I think de Blasio is doing a good thing. People might not notice that this important question is on the back of the ballot. For that reason, dozens of volunteers and staff from de Blasio’s office passed out flyers and held large-format ballots showing voters where to find the term limits question on Election Day.
“My office took to the streets this morning to make sure every voter knows to turn over their ballot and make their voice heard on term limits,” he writes.
You’re gonna vote, right?
Personal Ad
Handsome, youthful,
Richest of guys,
Seeks a beauty
Who also lies.
Two very good but very different acts have each released a track off of their new records for you to download for free.
First up is Resolution, the lead track off of Northern Aggression, the record by Steve Wynn and The Miracle 3 scheduled to be released on November 30. The other freebie today comes from Harper Blynn, and the soon to be released EP with the same name. The freebie off of the Harper Blynn EP is titled Every Impulse. Get your free and legal copies of these songs here at Now I’ve Heard Everything.
For those of you who want or need to plan your music going in advance, the November Music calendar is available today here at Now I’ve Heard Everything. And don’t just look once; I do update this calendar often, and any updates are marked.
–Eliot Wagner
Fourth Avenue is changing by the day. All you have to do is take a walk on that wide Avenue to see that it is undergoing a major evolution that will have a major impact on life in all the surrounding neighborhoods.
That’s why on Saturday, November 6th, the Park Slope Civic Council is organizing a Walkabout on Fourth Avenue as a way to inform neighbors about these prospective changes, and get input from the community.
On November 6th at 9:30 AM meet at Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street, under the east underpass of the subway station
(Rain date: Sunday, November 7, 2:30 PM)…
Softball fuels Kingsborough programs: Sheepshead Bites
A forest grows: Gerritsen Beach
Bushwick weekly culture picks: Bushwick BK
Dumbo links: Dumbo NYC
Significant increases in robberies in 76th pct: Pardon Me for Asking
Pre-Halloween stroll around Heights: McBrooklyn
New espresso bar on Fifth Avenue: Here’s Park Slope
Some locals who want to scare you: The Local (Ft. Greene)
Marisa Catalina of Starting Artists: Cobble Hill Blog
Bagel market quickie review: Effed in Park Slope
On Veteran’s Day, November 11 at 8PM: Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House presents Writing War: Fiction and Memoir by Veterans of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan including Matt Gallagher, author of Kaboom, Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War, Juri Jurjevics, Roy Scranton, Philip Klay and Jacob Siegel.
The reading begins at 8PM and there will be a Q&A following the readings. A $5 suggested donation includes refreshments and wine.
The Old Stone House is located at Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn. 718-768-3195.
Click on read more for bios of the authors:
Continue reading November 11 at BRW: Writing War: Fiction by Vets of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan
Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.
Since 2004, I’ve run this post about Jamie Livingston called On Polaroids and lasting friendships on October 25th, his birthday and the day of his death (in 1997). There is now a website devoted to Jamie Livingston’s Polaroids called Some Photographs of that Day.
When Jamie Livingston, photographer, filmmaker, circus performer, accordian player, Mets fan, and above all, loyal friend, died on October 25th (his birthday) in 1997 at the age of 41, he left behind hundreds of bereft friends and a collection of 6,000 photographs neatly organized in small suitcases and wooden fruit crates.
Jamie took a polaroid once a day, every day, including his last, for 18 years.
This photographic diary, which he called, “Polaroid of the Day,” or P.O.D., began when Jaime was a student at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. The project continued when he moved to apartments in New York City including the incredible circus memorabelia-filled loft on Fulton Street, which he shared with his best friend Chris Wangro. That loft was the site of many a Glug party, an “orphans thanksgiving,” a super-8 festival of Jamie’s lyrical films, and a rollicking music jam.
The picture taking continued as Jamie traveled the world with the Janus Circus, the circus-troupe founded by Chris Wangro, and later when he became a much-in-demand cinematographer and editor of music videos back in the early days of MTV. He contributed his talents to the ground-breaking Nike “Revolution” spot and many other commercials, too. Through it all he took pictures, made movies, and loved his friends. And the Polaroids reflect all of that: a life bursting with activity, joy and sadness, too.
Continue reading Jamie Livingston: On Polaroids and Lasting Friendship
This week, OSFO, Hepcat and I will attend the open house at Bard High School Early College in Queens. We will once again take the G train as we did last week to get to Frank Sinatra School of the Arts to the Queens campus of Bard High School Early College (BHSEC), which is located on the lower east side. Both schools offer students two years of high school education in the 9th and 10th grades. During the final two years at BHSEC, students are enrolled in an early college program rather than in 11th or 12th grade.
According fto the BHSEC website:
BHSEC students take college courses and are offered intellectual challenges equivalent to those found on college campuses across the country—be it a First Year Seminar course in the humanities or a course in Organic Chemistry. The unique partnership between Bard College and the New York City Department of Education allows us to offer this kind of education at no cost to eligible students who are enrolled in the New York City public school system.
Graduates of BHSEC leave after four years with a high school Regents diploma and an Associates degree from Bard College. Nearly all BHSEC graduates transfer to a four-year college to complete a Bachelor’s degree. The BHSEC Queens campus opened in 2008, and we will be proud to graduate our first class of students in June 2010.
In the meantime you can read about our tours of Brooklyn Latin, Edward R. Murrow High School, Midwood High School, the NYC iSchool, Frank Sinatra High School for the Arts and an article about the specialized schools test.
Tina Chang, poet laureate of Brooklyn and author of Half-Lit Houses (Four Way Books, 2004), was one of four poets who participated in the Brooklyn for Peace sponsored event, “Poets Against War.” Sapphire, whose novel Push was made into the Oscar-winning movie Precious, also read, along with Donald Lev and Dayl Wise. The event was co-hosted by the Social Justice Committee of the Park Slope Methodist Church, where the reading took place.
Multiple homicides make for bloody weekend: Gothamist
Municipal Arts Society Summit: Atlantic Yards Report
Indomitable Freddy’s to open in Fifth Avenue space: Develop Don’t Destroy
Sheepshead Bay mosque is back on: Brooklyn Paper
Public hearing on Slope landmark expansion: Brad Lander’s website
Your personalized subway map: City Room
Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.
There’s a nice double feature tonight. It’s early enough (8 to 10 pm) that the fact that it’s a school night should not interfere. The show consists of Sasha Dobson, long an OTBKB Music fave, and Poundcake, Teddy Thompson‘s early rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly cover band. For the details see Now I’ve Heard Everything.
There is also some news about the latest doings of musicians James Maddock, Leslie Mendelson and Emily Zuzik over at Now I’ve Heard Everything.
–Eliot Wagner
Here’s an excerpt from the NY Times’ Sunday column called (appropriately enough) Sunday Routine. The article is called: A Day Without a Train and it’s about Park Slope’s Gene Russianoff, who has been the staff lawyer for New York Public Interest Research Group’s Straphangers Campaign for thirty years.
He has championed the rights of subway riders. Most days, he is one: He and his wife, Pauline Toole, the program director of the We Are New York Community Leadership Project, do not own a car. But on Sundays, Mr. Russianoff, 57, Ms. Toole, 54, and their daughters, Jennie, 14, and Natalie, 11, who all live in Park Slope, dash around Brooklyn on foot, by bus and, if they are late to a soccer game, by car service. “Taking the train on the weekend,” Mr. Russianoff said, “is like Russian roulette.”
So much to do, so little time. That’s why I scour the listings to find the best and the brightest things to do every weekend for readers of OTBKB.
In the mood for a 5 hour movie about a Venezuelan terrorist?
Today at 3PM at BAM: Carlos, Special Roadshow Edition, a 5-hour series directed by Olivier Assayas for French Television in its complete form. “How good is Olivier Assayas’ Carlos? Think of The Bourne Identity with more substance, or Munich with more of a pulse, and you begin to have a sense of what the French filmmaker accomplished with this globetrotting and epic look at one man’s rise to the station of international guerrilla leader and terrorist celebrity.” —Los Angeles Times
Other Movies
This weekend at BAM: Hereafter, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, The Social Network
This weekend at Brooklyn Heights Cinema: Howl, The Town and Wall Street Money Never Sleeps
Theater
This weekend at St. Ann’s Warehouse: Druid Penelope by Edna Walsh: “Based on the final chapter of Homer’s The Odyssey, Penelope is the newest play from Ireland’s Druid Theatre Company, written by 2010 OBIE winner Enda Walsh. This American Premiere marks St. Ann’s third collaboration with Druid and Enda Walsh, following the critical and popular productions of The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom at St. Ann’s Warehouse.”
Music
Sunday, October 24 at 8PM at Sycamore: Underground Works is a new jazz series curated by the members of the Brooklyn Jazz Underground and Connection Works. “The focus of the series is to create a greater awareness of the depth of creativity in composition and improvisation that exists in Brooklyn and extends beyond the scope of any one organization.”
Last night at 7PM I knew I had to get myself over to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) to see Brooklyn Omnibus, which is part of their Next Wave Festival at the Harvey Theater. I didn’t have a ticket, I didn’t have anyone to go with but I felt compelled. It felt necessary.
I didn’t even know that show started at 7:30 PM and it was pure luck that I got there, by Eastern car service, just in the nick of time.
Pure luck, too, that there were still tickets. When I finally sat in my seat the lights dimmed immediately and the show began.
Stew, an attractive and rotund African American composer/musician/performer, was front and center in a kilt (a kilt!) with a bright red electric guitar. He was surrounded by his 12-piece band, The Negro Problem, which includes his co-writer/composer Heidi Rodewald on guitar, vocalist Eisa Davis, who starred in Passing Strange, the composers’ Tony and Obie award winning musical and players on tuba, accordion, sitar, sax, trumpet, drums and keyboards by Joe McGinty, of Loser’s Lounge fame.
I may have been expecting more of a character-driven musical theater piece. Instead, Brookyn Omnibus is a song cycle with a slew of hyperactive, inter-connected short stories on the theme of Brooklyn, from the vantage point of the composers, who are newly settled in the borough. As Stew says on a video on the BAM website, “We’re not experts on Brooklyn, we bring to it who we are.”
And that really is the fascination of the piece. Stew, who is now living in Ft. Greene, and Rodewald, who lives in Park Slope, have been living their lives in Brooklyn and they’re mirroring back what they see and feel about this place. In the process they have become a part of this place.
The Brooklyn Omnibus is their invented car service (a la Eastern), which takes them around the borough. They’ve even composed telephone hold music called “Five minutes.”
Continue reading Tonight: Last Chance to See Brooklyn Omnibus
So much to do, so little time. That’s why I scour the listings to find the best and the brightest things to do every weekend for readers of OTBKB.
Movies
This weekend at BAM: Hereafter, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, The Social Network
This weekend at Brooklyn Heights Cinema: Howl, The Town and Wall Street Money Never Sleeps
Theater
Saturday night only at BAM: Brooklyn Omnibus by Stew, the Tony Award-winning creator and star of Broadway’s Passing Strange, joins his band The Negro Problem and co-creator Heidi Rodewald for an irreverent, genre-bending song cycle that considers what it means to call Brooklyn home.
This weekend at St. Ann’s Warehouse: Druid Penelope by Edna Walsh: “Based on the final chapter of Homer’s The Odyssey, Penelope is the newest play from Ireland’s Druid Theatre Company, written by 2010 OBIE winner Enda Walsh. This American Premiere marks St. Ann’s third collaboration with Druid and Enda Walsh, following the critical and popular productions of The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom at St. Ann’s Warehouse.”
Music
Saturday, October 23 at 8PM at Barbes: Andy Statman, klezmer artist extraordinaire.
Saturday, October 23 at 9PM at the Jewish Music Cafe: Rav Schlomo Carlebach’s 16th Yartzheit with Soulfarm’s C Lanzbom and Noah Solomon.
Saturday, October 23 at 9-11 PM at Zora Space: “Guitarist Oscar Peñas epitomizes a new wave of emerging artists who are an integral part of New York’s flourish “unofficial” music scene.”
Sunday, October 24 at 8PM at Sycamore: Underground Works is a new jazz series curated by the members of the Brooklyn Jazz Underground and Connection Works. “The focus of the series is to create a greater awareness of the depth of creativity in composition and improvisation that exists in Brooklyn and extends beyond the scope of any one organization.”
Literary
Saturday, October 23 at 7PM at the Park Slope United Methodist Church: Brooklyn Poets Against the War with Sapphire, author of the novel Push (Random House, 1996) which was made into the Oscar-winning movie Precious, Tina Chang, poet laureate of Brooklyn, Donald Lev and Dayl Wise
Steampunk Shopping
On October 24 Brooklyn Indie Market presents the third annual Steampunk Day at the Dumbo Loft (155 Water Street, Dumbo) from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Steampunk Shopping and Fashion Show at 4 p.m. $20 Victorian/Steampunk portrait sitting with vintage camera by Tsirkus Fotografika $5 entry. Take the F train to York Street Station and travel to a re-envisioned Victorian age that features retrofuturistic fashion, brass and copper clockwork, ray guns, jetpacks, bustles and inventions that go far beyond 19th century technology. Think steam-powered mechanical wonders, brass-fitted computers, dirigibles, goggles, airships, and clockwork inspired accoutrements.
Freddy’s Bar, the beloved Prospect Heights bar and performance space, which was in many ways the epicenter of Atlantic Yards activism is reopening on Fifth Avenue between 17th and 18th Street in South Park Slope.
For those who don’t remember, the original location was demolished in the name of eminent domain. In other words, because it was in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards project, it was deemed a blight to the neighborhood. Ha!
Seems that the previous owner of Freddy’s is no longer involved in this brand new endeavor and that the Freddy’s staff members have taken over.
The new owners are Donald O’Finn, previous manager and bartender, Matt Khun and Matt Kimmett, both previous Freddy’s bartenders. According to O’Finn, “they are all highly responsible for the success that Freddy’s enjoyed at it’s past location.”
O’Finn adds that the new Freddy’s team signed the new South Slope lease on the evening of Oct. 21, 2010. That’s last night so this is hot off the presses, folks.
Says O’Finn: “The opening of the doors is contingent on the speed and accuracy of both the State Liquor Authority and the Department of Buildings, as well as the embrace of Community Board.”
Let’s hope it all goes quickly. Good luck to all of you.
Seth thinks that his song, which has an island groove with some Afro pop thrown in for good measure, holds its own against the likes of Lou Reed and Herb Alpert. His band is called The Fancy Shapes. You be the judge.
When you finish listening to the song, click on read more to see a list of a lotta songs about Coney Island and Brooklyn.
A portion of the Berlin Wall is on display on the (inner) grounds of the UN. I was there, at the suggestion of a representative of Brooklyn for Peace, for a briefing on worldwide military spending called “Military Expenditure and Prospects for the Future” which included these interesting figures:
–Estimated total world military expenditures (or “milex”) in 2009 was: $1.5 trillion.
–The US continues to be the largest spender, with $661 billion, or 43% of the world’s share.
–Other big spenders: China ($100 billion), France ($63.9 billion), UK ($58.3 billion) and Russia ($53.3 billion).
Several groups collaborated to produce the briefing, including Religions for Peace and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Issue Project Room(IPR) has a brand new Executive Director, and that’s good news for Brooklyn’s innovative and experimental music and performance space that lost its founding director, Suzanne Fiol, to cancer last October.
This week the board of IPR announced the appointment of Ed Patuto as the new Executive Director for the organization. Patuto, who is moving back to Brooklyn from Los Angeles, will begin his official duties at ISSUE on November 1, 2010.
” I am honored to have the opportunity to advance Suzanne’s vision for experimental arts and help build a new home for ISSUE at 110 Livingston in Brooklyn,” said Patuto in ISSUE’s press release.
IPR is in the midst of an intensive $2.5 million capital campaign that will enable the experimental art space to move into large new quarters at 110 Livingston Street. Currently they are located at the American Can Factory on Third Street and Third Avenue in Park Slope/Gowanus. The group has already raised $1.2 million.
According to his bio (provided by IPR), Patuto has 20 years experience in fund-raising for artistic institutions, an incredibly important skill in these cash-strapped times. Most recently he was Co-Founder/Director of VOLUME, “a CA-based curatorial catalyst for interdisciplinary new media work concentrating on the nexus of music and visual arts practices ranging from the experimental to popular culture.”
He has also worked as development director for the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and the Montalvo Arts Center and has a long list of credits at a host of other arts institutions and programs.
New York City Councilmember Brad Lander is hosting the “School Food Rocks Conference” to get parents, educators, students and food activists talking about bringing healthy and sustainable school food to District 15 neighborhood schools.
The conference is a first step int he process to improve school food and help build networks for parents and school leaders who are interested in this issue.
The event will feature keynote speeches by Chef Jorge Collazo, the first executive chef of the New York City schools and celebrated author and “Renegade Lunch Lady” Chef Ann Cooper .
What: “School Food Rocks,” conference on healthy school food
When: Saturday, October 23rd. Conference 10-2:30pm (keynote speeches are scheduled between 10:30 and 11:30 AM).
Where: MS 51- William Alexander Middle School , 350 5th Ave , Brooklyn , NY 11215
