Yearly Archives: 2010
World Science Festival in Brooklyn This Week
The 2010 World Science Festival starts in New York on Tuesday (going through Sunday) and a couple of the most interesting events will be held in Brooklyn at the Galapagos Art Space.
The Search for Life in the Universe, takes place Thursday evening, is an event that goes into the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the universe. We’re going to have a number of very accomplished participants, including Jill Cornell Tarter, who was portrayed by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact, and Sir Paul Nurse, a Nobel Laureate. Full details, including ticket info, can be found at: http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/the-search-for-life-in-the-universe.
The Science of Star Trek, taking place on Friday evening, will discuss whether the seemingly science fiction elements of the show – time travel, humanoid aliens – could actually become reality. I’ve provided additional details on this event below as well with full details available at: http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/the-science-of-star-trek.
RIP: Louise Bourgeois
Artist Louise Brougeoise died over the weekend at 98. She was an “overnight” sensation at the age of 70, when she was “discovered” by the artworld after a lifetime of making art.
I loved her work when I first saw it in person at a Brooklyn Museum exhibition in the 1990’s. Her gorgeous sculptures and “installations” in wood, steel, stone and cast rubber had organic, sometimes sexually explicit shapes, that were formal but with strong personal, psychological and historical themes centering on the human body.
Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn wrote about the artist in 2008, when she had a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. Here is an excerpt. Read more here.
Louise Bourgeois is widely considered to be one of the greatest artists of the 20th Century. Although it could appropriately be called a retrospective, Bourgeois was already the subject of a previous retrospective, in 1982. Louise Bourgeois’s exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York was the first retrospective given to a woman artist at that institution. According to the current exhibit’s notes, the artist took the MOMA retrospective as a challenge since she did not wish to be categorized by her retrospective as being at the end of her career. So, at age 71, Bourgeois changed direction and began exploring new subjects, new materials, new media and new ideas, absorbing from the changes occurring all around her in the art world so that she could head off in new directions.
Among these new directions was her move, in the early 1980s, to a large studio space in Brooklyn. Louise Bourgeois began working in a studio in a converted garment factory at 475 Dean Street, between 5th and 6th avenues, near Flatbush Avenue. An interesting choice, since her family in France had been involved in a tapestry restoration business for many, many years. (See”Art kaleidscope” link below for more details.)
She will celebrate her ninety-seventh birthday on December 25th, 2008. She still holds Sunday gatherings with emerging artists and remains as demanding and challenging to younger artists, as she has been toward her own work.
Brooklyn Leads City in Stalled Construction Sites
From the Brooklyn Paper:
Brooklyn is pockmarked by a disproportionate number of abandoned development sites compared with the rest of the city, according to a report released last week by Eastern Consolidated, an investment services firm in Manhattan.
The boom years of 2005-7 went bust when the global financial crisis hit, causing financing for new development to dry up, leaving half-started brick husks and empty lots as a lasting reminder of the blind exuberance that characterized the boom.
As of May 25, there were 279 stalled sites in the borough out of 615 citywide.
North Brooklyn has been hardest hit by the downturn: Of the 264 stalled Brooklyn sites in April, 73 were in Williamsburg and Greenpoint — neighborhoods that were the stars of the boom, thanks to a 2005 rezoning that had facilitated new residential and commercial development.
Current Weather in Park Slope: Glorious
Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their Park Slope weather tower.
Park Slope Teachers To Perform at Apollo Amateur Night
This was the announcement on the Department of Education website:
The Office of Arts and Special Projects in partnership with the Apollo Theater is pleased to announce the first NYCDOE Amateur Night at the Apollo to be held on June 2, 2010 at the world famous Apollo Theater to highlight the extraordinary talents of our teachers. Auditions for individual or group acts in dance, vocal and instrumental music, spoken word and comedy are scheduled for three consecutive Saturdays at sites in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.
All you had to be was a current New York City Department of Education public school teacher, a legal resident of the United States and available on the performance date, June 2, 2010.
A group of teachers from Park Slope’s PS 321, who perform at school events frequently, decided to audition. Only 16 acts were chosen and this group made the cut.
No surprise there. This is a veritable super group of PS 321 teachers (some of whom teach music) including John Allgood, kindergarten teacher; Bill Fulbrecht, kindergarten teacher; Elizabeth Heiser, 2nd grade teacher; Adam Lane, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade music teacher; Frank McGarry, 1st and 2nd grade music teacher; and Joseph C. Phillips, who is a teacher and a serious composer in his own right. He also has a blog and wrote the following about the experience thus far.
Now this was not some group we threw together at the last minute to do the audition. We’ve been playing and performing for a number of years now and actually have done a few gigs. Our repertoire usually consists of old folk, rock, and bluegrass tunes and my role is as clarinet and (sometimes) saxophone player and percussionist. It is great fun and a chance for me to be in the band performing the music instead of in my other musical life, of composing and conducting (although that is great fun as well, just a different experience). So for our audition we performed the song Glendale Train, and things went pretty well. While there were a few judges and one did offer a suggestion after the performance, there was no Simon or Paula critique of our “NYC Teacher Idol” worthiness.
Wednesday is the big night when these teachers step onto the stage at the Apollo and show their stuff. We wish them all the best. 
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Cafe Martin
Yesterday I went into the brand new Cafe Martin on Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets. And a lovely place it is run by two Irish gentlemen, one of whom is the barista Martin O’Connell, formerly of Cafe Regular on 11th Street.
It was great to see Martin, wearing his signature blue striped button down shirt, in the big, bright space that used to be the Pink Pussycat. In renovating the space, he and his partner tore down the drop ceiling, which revealed a gorgeous tin roof. They put in a beautiful dark wood floor, added church pew seating, cafe tables and black and white photographs.
Voila. A perfect cafe.
There’s no seating at the coffee bar, just a high counter suitable for standing while drinking a cup of strong espresso, reading the newspaper and conversing with the barista.
And that would be Martin, who, it is no surprise, has a following of sorts. For his coffee, of course. But also for his droll wit and wisdom.
Rev. Daniel Meeter: Atlantic Yards Confession
On May 21, Daniel Meeter, pastor of Old First Church in Park Slope, participated with Eleni Zaharapoulos and some Fine Arts students from Brooklyn College in a ritual of blessing for the Atlantic Yards. Zaharapoulos led a small procession around the site with incense and music. She asked Rev. Meeter to do the Confession for reconciliation and to offer a blessing. Then a choir sang Alicia Keyes’ New York State of Mind. “It’s hard to imagine at this distance how moving and wonderful the whole thing was, and I consider it a privilege to have been asked. (Full disclosure: I am a strong and loyal supporter of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.)” he wrote on his blog. Here is an excerpt from his confession. You can read the rest here.
There were trees here once. There were woods and meadows and animals. They are gone, we removed them all. Once the native tribe of the Canarsees lived here. What form their violence and violations took we do not know, but we know that they died from our diseases and we removed the few who did survive. We took the land and we felled the trees and spread our pastures and our sweet little farms on the sandy soil, and we used the labor of our slaves. After some years we covered the ground with our houses and our streets, and the native animals were gone. Let their memory rest in peace. Requiescat in pace.
The railroad came and the streets were widened and we built our shops and factories and tenements. We paved the ground over to be hot in the summer and lifeless in the winter. The flowers and the fruits were gone, and the birds all fled. That’s what we did here, but we are the beneficiaries. If not for that we could not have come here. The loss of the land was in our interest, and the grief of the ground for our prosperity. We confess our complicity, and we ask forgiveness. Let the lives beneath us rest in peace. Requiescat in pace.
And then this city became despised and rejected, and it suffered the distresses of racism and poverty and violence, the long slow poisoning of the soil and the water and the air, the sadness of the buildings, the garbage on the ground, the evaporation of community, and the emptiness of love. And underneath it all a spirit of frustration, a spirit of bitterness and loss and unrequited grief, a simmering spirit of anger and resentment. These spirits have had their power here.
But then people came back with love, and people came back here with hope, and people came here with faith, looking for each other, looking for new life on this land, a city on a human scale, of small shops and of local enterprise and ownership, a city of people for each other here…
And then others came looking for power and prestige and wealth and fame. The Empire State Development Corporation had visions of empire. They wanted not community but evidence of empire. They used the power of empire over enterprise. They overpowered the small things that were growing here. What they did here was immoral, according to the standard of the laws of God. They coveted this neighborhood, and they coveted their neighbors’ houses, and they did not love their neighbors as themselves. There were spirits here at work. The spirit of possession took over here, and the spirits manipulation and deceit.
The Monday List: Memorial Day
BROOKLYN MEMORIAL DAY PARADE
The 143rd Kings County Memorial Day Parade, the nation’s oldest continuously run Memorial Day parade begins at 11am on Monday, May 31 in Bay Ridge on 91st Street and Third Avenue and travels along Third Avenue to Marine Avenue, up to Fourth Avenue and concluding in John Paul Jones Park on 101st Street and Fourth Avenue. Immediately after the parade, a ceremony will be held in the park.
“GREATER NY” AT PS 1 IN LONG ISLAND CITY
Every five years, the PS 1 Contemporary Art Center assembles a gigantic group show of artists working in and around the city for its “Greater New York” show. Always worth a trip. “Spanning a broad variety of artistic processes and practices today, the works in Greater New York range from explorations in color and form, to examinations of ecological, geopolitical, and sociological interests, to meditations on race, gender, and generational identifications, to discussions of recent trauma and the building boom in New York.”
FILM
Babies, Please Give and Sex & The City 2 at BAM; Iron Man 2, Sex & The City 2, Shrek Forever After at the Pavilion
MUSIC
Monday, May 31, 2010 at 2:30: A Memorial Day concert at Green-Wood Cemetery by the ISO Symphonic Band, featuring select compositions by Green-Wood Cemetery’s permanent residents Fred Ebb, Leonard Bernstein, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Paul Jabara. Bring a folding chair, a blanket and a picnic lunch. Cookout food, snacks and drinks, as well as Historic Fund books and apparel will be for sale. Admission to this event is FREE. Location: The Grounds of Green-Wood Cemetery at The Gothic Arch of Green-Wood Cemetery.
DANCE
It wouldn’t be Memorial Day Weekend in Brooklyn without DanceAfrica at BAM, presenting troupes from Zambia, Dallas, Philadelphia and Brooklyn’s own BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble will entertain at the Fort Greene venue, performing traditional dance and music to hip hop. The day will also feature film screenings, an art exhibition, and an outdoor bazaar, with nearly 300 vendors from around the world transforming the streets around BAM into a global marketplace offering African, Caribbean, and African-American food, crafts and fashion.
ART
Also part of DanceAfrica at BAM: an exhibition of works in BAMcafe by artists Bara Diokhane, Duhirwe Rushemeza, Francis Simeni and Ezra Wube, who all originally hail from various nations on the African continent, will be featured. Each will choose a piece from their oeuvre and pair it with a piece from BAM’s own collection of predominantly American artists. Organized by BAMarts and MoCADA.
FOOD & FESTIVITY
Monday, May 31: The BKLYN Yard in Gowanus is sponsoring PARKED, a festival of the city’s best food trucks, including traveling pizza vendor Pizzamoto, selections from the Greenpoint Food Market vendors, and Rickshaw Dumplings for the main event. For dessert, there’s almost too much to choose from, from Steve’s Key Lime Pie to Robicelli Cupcakes to Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream and the Green Pirate Juice Truck.
OTBKB Music: June Music Calendar
It’s the end of May, which means it’s time for the June Music Calendar over at Now I’ve Heard Everything. Highlights for the beginning of June include:
The day that every band I like plays in New York (this Friday, June 4th),
Camera Obscura playing a free show in the vault at the Williamsburg Bank Building (Sunday June 6th),
A celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the old Greenwich Village club Folk City (Monday June 7th), and
Norah Jones coming to the nabe to open Celebrate Brooklyn 2010 (Wednesday June 9th).
–Eliot Wagner
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
The Sunday List: Sunday Best, 25 Cent Opera, Coney Doc
BKLYN YARD
Sunday, May 30 3-9PM: Sunday Best is a BKLYN Yard party on Sunday afternoons and evenings produced by resident DJs Doug Singer, Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin. Each weekend, they are joined by incredible guests while we get busy eating huaraches, drinking sangria, and dancing it all off. This weeks guest -Michael Mayer (who plays a warm, melodic version of techno) . $8 before 4pm with RSVP@sundaybestnyc.com. $8 tickets available at Resident Advisor. $12 at the door www.SundayBestNYC.com. See Food and Festivity below for what’s going on at BKLYN Yard on Monday.
“GREATER NY” AT PS 1 IN LONG ISLAND CITY
Every five years, the PS 1 Contemporary Art Center assembles a gigantic group show of artists working in and around the city for its “Greater New York” show. Always worth a trip. “Spanning a broad variety of artistic processes and practices today, the works in Greater New York range from explorations in color and form, to examinations of ecological, geopolitical, and sociological interests, to meditations on race, gender, and generational identifications, to discussions of recent trauma and the building boom in New York.”
THEATER AT BARBES
Sunday, May 30 at 7PM at Barbes: The Twenty-Five Cent Opera Company of San Francisco: theater slash performance slash entertainment brought to you once monthly. Featuring new works for the tiny stage by landscape artist Erin Courtney, theater architect Yelena Gluzman, & word contstruction worker Kristen Kosmas.
A FILM ABOUT CONEY ISLAND
Sunday, May 30 at 7:30 pm. “Last Summer at Coney Island” a benefit at UnionDocs [322 Union Ave. at Maujer Street in Williamsburg, (718) 395-7902]. Tickets $9-$20 (sliding scale donation). For info, visit www.lastsummeratconeyisland.com.
THE STATE OF CONEY ISLAND ADDRESS
On Sunday May 30 at 4:30PM at the Coney Island Museum (1208 Surf Ave between Stillwell Ave. and West 12th Street) hear Dick Zigun, the Officially Unelected Mayor of Coney Island, give his annual overview of the current state of affairs in America’s Playground. Zigun is expected to highlight the launch of the New Luna Park, the excitement of the long-anticipated “rebirth” of the amusement area, and the remaining questions about the future of the important historic structures that remain intact in Coney Island’s historic district.
BROOKLYN MEMORIAL DAY PARADE
The 143rd Kings County Memorial Day Parade, the nation’s oldest continuously run Memorial Day parade begins at 11am on Monday, May 31 in Bay Ridge on 91st Street and Third Avenue and travels along Third Avenue to Marine Avenue, up to Fourth Avenue and concluding in John Paul Jones Park on 101st Street and Fourth Avenue. Immediately after the parade, a ceremony will be held in the park.
FILM
Babies, Please Give and Sex & The City 2 at BAM; Iron Man 2, Sex & The City 2, Shrek Forever After at the Pavilion
MUSIC
Monday, May 31, 2010 at 2:30: A Memorial Day concert at Green-Wood Cemetery by the ISO Symphonic Band, featuring select compositions by Green-Wood Cemetery’s permanent residents Fred Ebb, Leonard Bernstein, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Paul Jabara. Bring a folding chair, a blanket and a picnic lunch. Cookout food, snacks and drinks, as well as Historic Fund books and apparel will be for sale. Admission to this event is FREE. Location: The Grounds of Green-Wood Cemetery at The Gothic Arch of Green-Wood Cemetery.
DANCE
It wouldn’t be Memorial Day Weekend in Brooklyn without DanceAfrica at BAM, presenting troupes from Zambia, Dallas, Philadelphia and Brooklyn’s own BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble will entertain at the Fort Greene venue, performing traditional dance and music to hip hop. The day will also feature film screenings, an art exhibition, and an outdoor bazaar, with nearly 300 vendors from around the world transforming the streets around BAM into a global marketplace offering African, Caribbean, and African-American food, crafts and fashion.
ART
Also part of DanceAfrica at BAM: an exhibition of works in BAMcafe by artists Bara Diokhane, Duhirwe Rushemeza, Francis Simeni and Ezra Wube, who all originally hail from various nations on the African continent, will be featured. Each will choose a piece from their oeuvre and pair it with a piece from BAM’s own collection of predominantly American artists. Organized by BAMarts and MoCADA.
FOOD & FESTIVITY
Monday, May 31: The BKLYN Yard in Gowanus is sponsoring PARKED, a festival of the city’s best food trucks, including traveling pizza vendor Pizzamoto, selections from the Greenpoint Food Market vendors, and Rickshaw Dumplings for the main event. For dessert, there’s almost too much to choose from, from Steve’s Key Lime Pie to Robicelli Cupcakes to Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream and the Green Pirate Juice Truck.
BRW Presents “People Make Mistakes” Fiction Curated by Martha Southgate
Thursday, June 10th at 8PM, 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, 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. She is currently editing her first short story collection, tentatively titled Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, and working on a novel titled The Empire Has No Clothes. Both are forthcoming from Riverhead Books.
Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House on June 10 at 8PM. $5 suggested donation includes refreshments. Books will be offered for sale.
Absolut Blogfest
The Fifth Annual Brooklyn Blogfest, an event I created five years ago, is just around the corner (on June 8th at 7PM at the Brooklyn Lyceum in Park Slope). This year it’s going to be bigger and better than ever and that is, in large part, due to the involvement of Absolut Vodka.
When Absolut set out to capture the unique flavor of Brooklyn for its city-themed vodkas, inviting acclaimed film director and Brooklyn native son Spike Lee (Crooklyn, Do the Right Thing) into the mix was a slam dunk. And when it came time to settle on who should take the first sips the choice was just as obvious.
Brooklyn bloggers.
Alot of you are probably wondering how the collaboration came about. Here’s the story:
Note added June 10th 2010: Absolut got in touch with me in February about being a Blogfest sponsor. It sounded like an interesting experiment because I needed some kind of funding for the event, which is an expensive endeavor. Later on, Absolut also asked some bloggers to write a post defining stoop life in Brooklyn (literally or metaphorically) that would be posted on the day of Blogfest. They offered those bloggers a bottle of the $29.99 vodka and a $129.99 Flip camera (and an invite to the consumer release gala). I’m not sure who signed on for this. Quite a few bloggers refused to get involved. These posts are not meant to be about the vodka but about the Brooklyn stoop. There will be a link to these posts on the Absolut Facebook page. It is important that these bloggers acknowledge this on their blogs and be completely transparent about this so that their readers understand that this transaction occurred.
This was the first year that the Brooklyn Blogfest had a paid sponsor. It was an experiment of sorts and a gamble. There is certainly a steep learning curve when you take on a sponsor and it’s a balancing act to retain the true essence of the event and not tip over into the promotional realm. I acknowledges that the inclusion of Absolut came with mixed results and plenty of mixed drinks. I loved the brilliant Lemon Andersen, a spoken word artist, who performed his ode to Brooklyn and was a big hit with the crowd. Spike Lee, who “collaborated” with the vodka company on the vodka, also spoke at the event. The party was lavish and fun. — Louise Crawford
By adding Brooklyn to the list of cities (Los Angeles New Orleans, and Boston), Absolut tapped into the same rich source of material and inspiration powering all the blogs that will be represented at Blogfest.
There’s a creative energy in Brooklyn and a sense of open-ended possibility. Blogs are just one of the many creative endeavors that have flourished here, but they’ve also been really important vehicles for getting the word out about these new ventures. That’s why it makes perfect sense that Absolut would choose the Brooklyn Blogfest as a medium for broadcasting the message about their collaboration with Spike Lee.
I’m proud to say that since it was founded in 2005, the Brooklyn Blogfest has established itself as the nexus of creativity, talent, and insight among the blogosphere’s brightest lights. This year will be no different as a panel of blogging’s best dissect the unique brand of creativity flourishing here (moderated by WNYC’s award-winning Andrea Bernstein). Also on tap: Lemon Anderson, acclaimed spoken word artist and performer, a video tribute to Brooklyn’s most visionary photo bloggers, special networking sessions for like-minded bloggers (i.e. Blogs of a Feather), the return of the ever-popular Shout-out, when bloggers are invited to share their blogs with the world, and a roof-raising after-party with ABSOLUT® VODKA cocktails, food and music.
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
“People Make Mistakes” Curated by Martha Southgate at BRW
Thursday, June 10th at 8PM, Brooklyn Reading Works presents People Make Mistakes 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.
Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House (Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street) in Park Slope. $5 suggested donation includes refreshments.
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Bussaco Brunch With Buscemi To Benefit Issue Project Room
It’s a little pricey but it’s for a great cause and how often do you get to have BRUNCH with STEVE BUSCEMI???
Join Steve Wax, Managing Partner of Campfire, and Board Chair of ISSUE Project Room with a special entertainment event featuring Steve Buscemi and John Hockenberry on Sunday, June 6, to benefit Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room.
Hockenberry, the Emmy Award-winning journalist and Host of WNYC’s The Takeaway, will screen clips of Steve Buscemi’s most important films, probing Steve about his impact on films like Fargo, Reservoir Dogs, The Big Lebowski, Living in Oblivion, and Ghost World – all over a gourmet brunch at bussaco restaurant and wine bar in Park Slope.
John says: “Buscemi is a quiet tyrant of artistic fury who threatens to overrun every frame he’s in with the inner desperation he projects even in his most subtle performances”. So we’re calling this unique event Actor as Auteur, looking at how powerful performances can influence a film’s narrative.
All proceeds from the event will benefit ISSUE Project Room, one of the country’s preeminent centers for experimental culture.
“Actor as Auteur” Brunch To Benefit ISSUE Project Room
Presented in Collaboration with SAGIndie
Sunday, June 6
12 pm – 2 pm
bussaco
restaurant wine bar
833 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215
$125 Per Person ($95 tax-deductible, three-course brunch is included.)
Seating at this intimate event is extremely limited! Buy Tickets Here!
For more information please call 718-330-0313.
The Worst Cellphone Dead Zones
I think the deadest cellphone zone is in my apartment, and in my office (all the places I need to use my cell phone). But Park Slope is full of dead zones. I’ve got an AT&T iPhone and that could be part of the problem.
There’s a cool article in today’s issue of The Wall Street Journal, “The Worst Cellphone Dead Zones.” It inclues an INTERACTIVE feature online that lets users check the coverage on a block-by-block basis.
Here is a link to the article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704269204575270562789713490.html
Lucas Foods is Open on Union Street
Union Street is now The Park Slope Foodie Triangle (see below for explanation).
Lucas is the nabe’s new prepared foods shop run by Misty Kurpier (pictured above). a Park Sloper, who’s yummy sounding food offerings include grilled chimichurri hanger steak, gazpacho with grilled shrimp, roasted beets with mustard seed, lentils and onions, as well as pasta and fish entrees. Also available: espresso drinks and drip coffee. She’s also got: mac-and-cheese, Balthazar pastries and Ample Hills Creamery ice cream (made in the shop).
The shop is located at 847A Union Street (between 7th and 6th Avenues) which happens to be across the street from the Park Slope Food Coop and not far from the famed Blue Apron Foods.
I’m calling it the Park Slope Foodie Triangle.
Bored to Death Filming at the Brooklyn Lyceum
The other day I planned a Brooklyn Blogfest planning meeting at the Brooklyn Lyceum except we couldn’t get into the Lyceum because it was filled with Bored to Death actors and production crew.
I guess I shoulda checked with the Lyceum first.
For the past few weeks they’ve been shooting that popular (and I imagine very funny) show written by Jonathan Ames in Park Slope. I imagine it’s been a good thing for the Lyceum. In fact, I hear the new floor in the downstairs “auditorium” has something to do with Bored to Death.
Bored to Death: we love you.
Since we couldn’t get in, we had our meeting sitting on the stoop of the Lyceum. While we talked technical details of the upcoming Blogfest, the show’s stars Ted Danson, Zach Galifianakis and Jason Schwartzman came out of the building. Exciting. Is that a cool cast or what. Extras dressed as The Green Hornet and Ghostbuster entered our frame of vision as well. It was really hard to concentrate.
Really hard to concentrate. We were trying to have a serious meeting about Blogfest and all these actors were distracting us.
Yeesh.
Our producer said it was like some kind of vaudeville routine. The whole thing was kinda funny.
The Weekend List: Luna Park, Parade, Please Give
OPENING DAY AT LUNA PARK
Saturday, May 29th, 2010 the NEW Luna Park opens with a unique collection of state-of-the-art amusement rides and attractions.
THE STATE OF CONEY ISLAND ADDRESS
On Sunday May 30 at 4:30PM at the Coney Island Museum (1208 Surf Ave between Stillwell Ave. and West 12th Street) hear Dick Zigun, the Officially Unelected Mayor of Coney Island, give his annual overview of the current state of affairs in America’s Playground. Zigun is expected to highlight the launch of the New Luna Park, the excitement of the long-anticipated “rebirth” of the amusement area, and the remaining questions about the future of the important historic structures that remain intact in Coney Island’s historic district.
BROOKLYN MEMORIAL DAY PARADE
The 143rd Kings County Memorial Day Parade, the nation’s oldest continuously run Memorial Day parade begins at 11am on Monday, May 31 in Bay Ridge on 91st Street and Third Avenue and travels along Third Avenue to Marine Avenue, up to Fourth Avenue and concluding in John Paul Jones Park on 101st Street and Fourth Avenue. Immediately after the parade, a ceremony will be held in the park.
FILM
Babies, Please Give and Sex & The City 2 at BAM; Iron Man 2, Sex & The City 2, Shrek Forever After at the Pavilion
MUSIC
Monday, May 31, 2010 at 2:30: A Memorial Day concert at Green-Wood Cemetery by the ISO Symphonic Band, featuring select compositions by Green-Wood Cemetery’s permanent residents Fred Ebb, Leonard Bernstein, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Paul Jabara. Bring a folding chair, a blanket and a picnic lunch. Cookout food, snacks and drinks, as well as Historic Fund books and apparel will be for sale. Admission to this event is FREE. Location: The Grounds of Green-Wood Cemetery at The Gothic Arch of Green-Wood Cemetery.
THEATER
Sunday, May 30 at 7PM at Barbes: The Twenty-Five Cent Opera Company of San Francisco: theater slash performance slash entertainment brought to you once monthly. Featuring new works for the tiny stage by landscape artist Erin Courtney, theater architect Yelena Gluzman, & word contstruction worker Kristen Kosmas.
DANCE
It wouldn’t be Memorial Day Weekend in Brooklyn without DanceAfrica at BAM, presenting troupes from Zambia, Dallas, Philadelphia and Brooklyn’s own BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble will entertain at the Fort Greene venue, performing traditional dance and music to hip hop. The day will also feature film screenings, an art exhibition, and an outdoor bazaar, with nearly 300 vendors from around the world transforming the streets around BAM into a global marketplace offering African, Caribbean, and African-American food, crafts and fashion.
ART
Also part of DanceAfrica at BAM: an exhibition of works in BAMcafe by artists Bara Diokhane, Duhirwe Rushemeza, Francis Simeni and Ezra Wube, who all originally hail from various nations on the African continent, will be featured. Each will choose a piece from their oeuvre and pair it with a piece from BAM’s own collection of predominantly American artists. Organized by BAMarts and MoCADA.
FOOD & FESTIVITY
The BKLYN Yard in Gowanus is sponsoring PARKED, a festival of the city’s best food trucks, including traveling pizza vendor Pizzamoto, selections from the Greenpoint Food Market vendors, and Rickshaw Dumplings for the main event. For dessert, there’s almost too much to choose from, from Steve’s Key Lime Pie to Robicelli Cupcakes to Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream and the Green Pirate Juice Truck.
OTBKB Music: Sister Sparrow to Start The Weekend
It’s the Memorial Day Weekend! If you are staying in the city and would like to stay up late and celebrate the official unofficial beginning of summer, I can think of no better way to do that then with Sister Sparrow and The Dirty Birds who will be playing The Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2 (also affectionately known around here as The Rockwood Colosseum) Friday night into Saturday morning from midnight to 2am. Details over at Now I’ve Heard Everything.
Looking past Memorial Day, June is shaping up to be quite a busy month musically. It will include the return to performing (after a six month break) of singer-songwriter-pianist Leslie Mendelson. To celebrate, there’s a video of Leslie playing Shine on Me here at Now I’ve Heard Everything.
–Eliot Wagner
Michele Madigan Somerville: Sex and the City of God
Michele Madigan Somerville, a Park Slope poet/blogger/literary impresario has written a 3-part essay for the Huffington Post about the sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church. It is very much worth reading. Here’s an excerpt frm part 3 Homophobia and the War on Eros.
To say that Roman Catholic practice is sensual is an understatement. People with little interest in God travel great distances to sit within Catholic houses of worship so as to be moved by their beauty. It is not unusual for even poor Roman Catholics to worship in architectural masterpieces, in perfumed air, as colored beams descend in streams from leaded windows. At the fore of every Catholic church in the world, one beholds an image of Jesus spread open, nearly naked on a cross. Creamy angels and a God we eat. Could a religion be more carnal, more sensual? Almost every poem St. John of the Cross wrote in praise of God reads like an erotic poem. St. Therese of Lisieux is often characterized in art as being in an orgasmic state. Eros has its place in faith and religion. Tamping it down doesn’t eliminate it. Ignoring it doesn’t neutralize it. Our liturgies and temples are designed to arouse us, to bring the beauty of the created world into focus. But the Magisterium clamps down, ruling by fear when it should be guiding with love.
It is inevitable that the tension between Catholic sensuality and its hierarchy’s commitment to repression should give way to perversion. Why does the Catholic hierarchy devote so much ritual and design to awakening sensuality in us, only to clobber it out of out of us? How do we Catholics square naked cherubs in the Sistine Chapel with learning to bring a copy of the Yellow Pages to the high school dance in case the need to sit on a boy’s lap in the car arises (so to speak)?
Why does a religion so erotically charged condemn healthy sexuality in so many ways when it is entirely possible that sexual longing and ecstasy are the closest human beings ever truly get to experiencing the kind of desire and joy we are taught to feel for God? How did sex become more sinful than holy? And if Christ is love, as we Catholics are taught, why must so many women, gay Catholics, and victims of abuse continue to live as collateral damage in the Church hierarchy’s unholy war on Eros?
Spike + Lemon = Brooklyn Blogfest
Introduction to Birdwatching
My father was a birdwatcher so I am fascinated not so much by birds as by the people who watch them. Truth be told, I was never any good at birdwatching, a pastime that requires a good deal of patience and steady hand/eye coordination. Even being the child of a birdwatcher required patience. From time to time in my Manhattan youth, my father would take me to the Ramble in Central Park where I would, patiently, watch him birdwatch and talk to other “birders.”
Occasionally my father would try to teach me how find a bird through the binoculars. “Find the bird with your eye,” I remember him saying. “And then quickly lift the binoculars to your eye.”
Again and again I’d try it. Again and again the bird would fly away before I got to see it magnified in those fancy Zeiss lenses.
I’d grow frustrated. He’d grow eager to use his binoculars for the serious pursuit of a seasonal bird. It just never added up to a strong lesson in birding I guess.
Those birders were a strange breed to my child’s eyes. We’d run into others of this breed in Central Park and their conversations with my father seemed to go on forever. Serious, somewhat dour, single-minded in their ways, they wore khaki vests and pants with black binoculars swinging from their necks.
But love it he did. My father was a birder through and through. That’s why this weekly class in birdwatching in Prospect Park caught my eye.
Maybe you’ll have more success than I did at the art of finding a bird. You can tour and learn about the 250 species of birds that call Prospect Park home. Meet at the Audubon Center. They meet every Saturday at noon.
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Lemon Anderson to Appear at Brooklyn Blogfest
I am honored to announce that Brooklyn based hip-hop artist and spoken word performer LEMON ANDERSON will be at the Fifth Annual Brooklyn Blogfest.
Wow.
Lemon appeared at the Public Theater in County of Kings, his one-man show, in which his voice moved seamlessly from hard-edged drama to urban poetry, creating a vivid portrait of his difficult yet at times humorous experiences growing up in New York City during the birth of hip-hop.
Lemon is a regular on HBO’s Def Poetry presented by Russell Simmons, an original cast member and writer of Stan Lathan’s TONY award winning Def Poetry Jam on Broadway and a Drama Desk Nominee. On the screen, Lemon appeared opposite Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s Inside Man and is featured in the upcoming Dreamworks film The Soloist, starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.
Trust me: you won’t want to miss his appearance at Blogfest.
And you thought SPIKE LEE, iconic Brooklyn filmmaker extraordinaire, was the only big surprise at Blogfest this year. And there are more..
So if you haven’t registered for the Fifth Annual Brooklyn Blogfest it might be a good idea. We’d love to have a sense of how many of you are coming to our fabulous free event.
Free? Yes free thanks to our fabulous sponsors: Absolut Vodka.
It all happens on June 8th at 7PM at the Brooklyn Lyceum in Park Slope.
Also featured: The Big Picture, a video tribute to the great photo bloggers of Brooklyn, Blogging Aloud: a performance of great blog writing and the panel: Create, Inspire, Blog, with award-winning radio journalist Andrea Bernstein as moderator and a table full of interesting bloggers.
How many bloggers does it take to fill the Brooklyn Lyceum? Come find out on June 8 at 7:00 PM when the borough’s most opinionated and dedicated bloggers (and surprise special guests) step away from their keyboards to sound off about how and why Brooklyn remains such a rich source of material and inspiration.
But forget about filling the room. Here’s the real question the Brooklyn Blogfest will answer: How many bloggers does it take to wrap their arms around New York’s most happening borough? So, whether you are a blogger, wannablogger, reader, or media maven, you’ll want to come see for yourself. And meet up with this year’s most tenaciously keen tribe of bloggers as they gather to celebrate all the reasons Brooklyn is such a potent source of runaway creativity.
Since it was founded in 2005, the Brooklyn Blogfest has established itself as the nexus of creativity, talent, and insight among the blogosphere’s brightest lights. This year will be no different as a panel of blogging’s best disect the unique brand of entrepreneurial creativity flourishing here. Also on tap: a video tribute to Brooklyn’s most visionary photo bloggers, special networking sessions for like-minded bloggers (i.e. Blogs of a Feather), the return of the ever-popular Shout-out, when bloggers are invited to share their blogs with the world, and a roof-raising after-party with ABSOLUT® VODKA cocktails, food and music.
“The borough of Brooklyn has always been front and center in the world of blogging,” says Louise Crawford, founder of the Brooklyn Blogfest and onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.com. “Whether you live by a blog, blog to live, or live to blog, you’ll want to come out on June 8.”
June 8th, 2010 at 7PM
227 Fourth Avenue at President Street in Park Slope Brooklyn
THIS EVENT IS FREE
The Weekend List: Green-Wood Concert, DanceAfrica, Parked
FILM
Babies, Please Give and Sex & The City 2 at BAM; Iron Man 2, Sex & The City 2, Shrek Forever After at the Pavilion
MUSIC
Monday, May 31, 2010 at 2:30: A Memorial Day concert at Green-Wood Cemetery by the ISO Symphonic Band, featuring select compositions by Green-Wood Cemetery’s permanent residents Fred Ebb, Leonard Bernstein, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Paul Jabara. Bring a folding chair, a blanket and a picnic lunch. Cookout food, snacks and drinks, as well as Historic Fund books and apparel will be for sale. Admission to this event is FREE. Location: The Grounds of Green-Wood Cemetery at The Gothic Arch of Green-Wood Cemetery.
THEATER
Sunday, May 30 at 7PM at Barbes: The Twenty-Five Cent Opera Company of San Francisco: theater slash performance slash entertainment brought to you once monthly. Featuring new works for the tiny stage by landscape artist Erin Courtney, theater architect Yelena Gluzman, & word contstruction worker Kristen Kosmas.
DANCE
It wouldn’t be Memorial Day Weekend in Brooklyn without DanceAfrica at BAM with troupes from Zambia, Dallas, Philadelphia and Brooklyn’s own BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble will entertain at the Fort Greene venue, performing traditional dance and music to hip hop. The day will also feature film screenings, an art exhibition, and an outdoor bazaar, with nearly 300 vendors from around the world transforming the streets around BAM into a global marketplace offering African, Caribbean, and African-American food, crafts and fashion.
ART
Also part of DanceAfrica at BAM: May 27 – June 19 (open during BAMcafé hours and by appointment) an exhibition of works by artists Bara Diokhane, Duhirwe Rushemeza, Francis Simeni and Ezra Wube, who all originally hail from various nations on the African continent, will be featured. Each will choose a piece from their oeuvre and pair it with a piece from BAM’s own collection of predominantly American artists. Organized by BAMarts and MoCADA.
FOOD & FESTIVITY
The BKLYN Yard in Gowanus is sponsoring PARKED, a festival of the city’s best food trucks, including traveling pizza vendor Pizzamoto, selections from the Greenpoint Food Market vendors, and Rickshaw Dumplings for the main event. For dessert, there’s almost too much to choose from, from Steve’s Key Lime Pie to Robicelli Cupcakes to Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream and the Green Pirate Juice Truck.