Office-scape, used as a symbol or stand-in for contemporary culture: Art in Brooklyn

Harvard Law Dean on on Stevens’ succession: Self-Absorbed Boomer

The truth and every purpose: Truth & Rocket Science

Omer 36: Landscape: Water Over Rocks

Faith, hope and love: Old First

Brooklyn College reacts to Kent State 40 years ago: Dumbo Books of Bklyn

Brought to you from the Feldman Family weather tower in Park Slope.

Does the name J. McLaughlin ring a bell? It’s a store that sells classic clothing and
accessories for women nationwide, including Madison Avenue, Palm Beach, Edgartown, Nantucket and places like that.

Now they’re gonna be in Brooklyn. Interestingly the clothing is manufactured in Greenpoint.

Kevin McLaughlin, chief creative director of J. McClaughlin, fell head over heels with the  historic Brooklyn Heights neighborhood.

“The vibrant, charming and historic community of Brooklyn Heights felt like the perfect fit for us. We saw a apparent disconnect in the area which is filled with stylish consumers but few appropriate retail spaces, so when something became available on Hicks Street we jumped at the chance to open a new store,” he said in a recent store press release.

The new store is located on Hicks Street between Montague and Remsen and is approximately 420 square feet.

A little off the beaten path, the tiny new shop is full of charm. This location will sell women’s and men’s clothing and accessories including grosgrain ribbon belts, hand-quilted jackets and their best selling brightly colored Catalina T-shirts.

I haven’t been to the shop yet but apparently the space was redesigned in the spirit of Brooklyn Heights’ architectural history,  including touches of exotic Orientalism of the high Victorian era to the neoclassical grandeur of the Beaux Arts period.

“We want the shop to feel like a Brooklyn brownstone on the inside and
on the outside,” architect and designer Doug Larson explains.

Take the Bensonhurt pizza tour with Jeffrey Tastes (Experiences in Eating in Queens, Brooklyn, NYC and Long Island).

I knew it wouldn’t be remarkable as I approached. Drab floors, an insipid counterman, quiet dining area with a delivery boy just hanging out, and a history dating to around 18 years, all signs of mediocrity. But I tried it anyway. For these exploratory tours, I have […]

Read more at his blog

I saw one of these posters on 10th or 11th Street east of Fifth Avenue in Park Slope and it caught my eye.

It’s an image of a cartoon boy seen shouting “DON’T DRINK &#%+! DRINK WAT-AAH!”

I thought it might have something to do with that soft drink tax Paterson is proposing.

Then I thought it was an ad for a new product called WAT-AAH.

But now I get it. It’s a public service announcement encouraging people to drink water. Is WAT-AAH water with a Brooklyn accent or a baby crying or…

This campaign has an interactive element. You can fill in the blank…

“Don’t Drink ____, Drink WAT-AAH!” is WAT-AAH!’s new advertising campaign. This campaign encourages parents and children to fill in the blank with words such as “Soda,” “Sugar,” “Junk,” and even “&#%+!”

Someone is taking a stand against childhood obesity and other health issues, WAT-AAH! says that there is an alternative to soda and other sugary drinks… all while being fun, too!

FILM

Please Give, Babies, and Exit Through the Gift Shop at BAM.

Free movie at BAX on May 7th at 7PM: Sugar, The story of a Dominican pitcher’s journey to NYC to try to make it in the big leagues. (In Spanish with English subtitles.). Part of the Films on Fifth Festival.

EVENTS

On Saturday, May 8th BAM Block party and groundbreaking, an vent-packed neighborhood block party filled with outdoor performances, food vendors, arts & crafts, and more to celebrate the groundbreaking for BAM’s newest addition—the Richard B. Fisher Building. Located at the former site of the Salvation Army (321 Ashland Pl), the BAM Fisher Building will be dedicated to arts, education, and community programs.

ART

The Muriel Guepin Gallery at 47 Bergen Street in Cobble Hill has q show or paintings that will be open through May 31st.  “Looking In,” features paintings and mixed media works by Pauline Galiana, Hovey Brock, and Robert Szot. Hovey Brock’s paintings (one is pictured above) are composed of many layers of transparent washes of intense colors. His goal is for viewers to release the habits that govern the way they look, and to get “lost” in his paintings.

MUSIC

Sunday, March 9th at 7PM, Barbès and the Concert Artist Guild present a classical music concert featuring some of the best new talent in the classical world. This month: THE AFIARA STRING QUARTET. The all-Canadian Quartet (Valerie Li and Yuri Cho, violins; David Samuel, viola; and Adrian Fung, cello) is the graduate resident string quartet at The Juilliard School in New York, where they serve as teaching assistants to the celebrated Juilliard String Quartet.

Saturday, May 8th at 7:30PM at the Bell House: The Primitives emerged from the UK independent scene of the mid-80’s that spawned The Jesus and Mary Chain & My Bloody Valentine. Their sound distilled the shimmering guitar jangle of the Byrds with the buzzsaw style of The Ramones and 60’s girl group melodies, into two and a half minute pop gems. Morrissey named them his favourite band & a widely acclaimed first album, made them the UK’s indie-darlings. The huge success of Crash, saw them cross-over to a mass audience.

DANCE

May 8th at 7:30 PM at BAX: Dissonance Dance Theater presents: “What the Eye Sees,” a dance work compiled of specifically themed works that focus on the human perception of observed emotion and day to day situations. The work, musically, is a fusion of classical structure, with rock and hip hop ornamentation with the dance vocabulary ranging from contemporary ballet to hip hop. Inspired by the way we view familiar subjects.

The Red Door: CasaCara

Which shade of gray should I paint my kitchen?: Apartment Therapy

Big show this weekend: BKLYN Designs

Arty hangouts for birds in Brooklyn: Daily News

Room re-dos Recap: A Brooklyn Limestone in Progress

From the Brooklyn Paper:

The hair-raising traffic pattern on the western side of Grand Army Plaza will soon be tranquilized by a new red light to deter drivers from jockeying for position at the most dangerous point in what easily could have been Dante’s 10th circle of hell.

Currently, all Prospect Park West- or Union Street-bound cars traveling northbound inside the white-knuckle roundabout must wait for the briefest of moments to scurry across at least four lanes of traffic to get across Flatbush Avenue.

Transportation officials will fix this problem with a new traffic light on the southbound lanes of Flatbush midway between the top of the circle and the bottom.

“It’s a difficult weave,” said Ryan Russo from the Department of Transportation. “You might call it ‘hell behind the wheel.’ You pretty much have to get your ‘Brooklyn’ on every time you want to drive through.”

As part of the ongoing Census coverage, WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show presents YOUR ANECDOTAL CENSUS – a county-by-county look at the stories emerging from each neighborhood in 2010. The series debuted Tuesday with Manhattan , and continues each Tuesday at 11am through September. Guests will include county executives, mayors and other policymakers who matter in your community, as the program explores how the census affects policy.

On Tuesday, May 25th, tune in to Brian Lehrer for a special look at Brooklyn, New York . You and your readers are invited to share your stories about the county of Kings by visiting its homepage at http://beta.wnyc.org/shows/bl/blogs/scrapbook/2010/may/04/your-anecdotal-census-schedule/.

Sample questions include:
How has the housing boom changed your community?
How have the politics of your community changed? If power has shifted in your community, how and why?
What’s an untold story of change in your community that needs to be told?
How is your community different today than it was 10 years ago?

These questions lead to interesting anecdotes indeed. In the Manhattan segment, a listener mentioned being able to order brown rice in Chinese restaurants in his West Harlem neighborhood –  above 96th Street! For him, this was unheard of before 2001.

The featured counties – including NYC’s five boroughs and the metropolitan area – are listed in order of on-air schedule at the link provided above.

Brian is known for crowd-sourcing and collaborating with his listeners for the show. He asked me to get the word out to my readers and encourage them to help develop this series. No doubt there are endless stories just waiting to be told.

And it looks like a blog.

Wonder if he’s coming to Blogfest to “shout out” about it.

Councilmember Steve Levin (D-33^rd) launched his new website this week, a blog aimed at updating constituents on all the latest events and news in the district.

The site, stephenlevind33.wordpress.com, contains detailed information about the district, the councilmember’s legislative record, events and related news articles. Constituents can subscribe to the blog, leave comments or contact Councilmember Levin directly via email. The site also provides links to the Councilmember’s Facebook Page and official City Council site.

Councilmember Levin serves the 33^rd Council District of Brooklyn, which includes DUMBO, Vinegar Hill, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights , Park Slope, Williamsburg , Gowanus, and Greenpoint.

Twas a rainy Monday morning and I was moving some things into my mother’s basement storage room. Wearing rubber rain boots, I walked on a wet rubber ramp, when — splat — I violently twisted my ankle and it was as if my foot folded beneath me. I found myself lying on my back screaming: “I think I broke something. I think I broke something.”

“Did she break something valuable?” my mother apparently said to my sister (they were in the storage room).

“No I think she means she broke herself,” my sister reports telling her.

The pain was excruciating but somehow I was able to go upstairs to my mother’s apartment. Within a half hour my foot had swollen to the size of a nerf football and my mother and I went cross town to have it x-rayed.

“It’s not fractured,” the radiologist told me. “You can go now.”

“But what do I do? ” I asked plaintively.

“We can’t help you. You’ll have to call your primary care doctor.”

I wanted to cry. Sure, I was relieved that it wasn’t broken or fractured but clearly there was something wrong with it and I needed some advice about what to do.

Standing on the corner of 84^th Street and Lexington Avenue in the cold rain with a throbbing foot, I called my primary care physician who told me to “go home and if you can’t walk tomorrow call an orthopedic doctor.”

That seemed exceedingly unhelpful at that moment. Finally the doctor gave me the number of a nearby orthopedic practice (“the only one who will take your insurance,” she grumbled). My mom and I  went into a restaurant, ordered some pizza and dialed the number she gave me.

“We can’t see you until later in the week,” the receptionist told me.

“What should I do in the meantime?” I asked tearfully, my foot still radiating pain.

“I can’t tell you anything until the doctor examines you,” the receptionist said coldly.

Tears filled my eyes. I tried not to sob into my pizza. But I felt helpless. My foot was becoming black and blue…

“Excuse me,” a beautiful Indian woman walked over to their table holding a small, white business card. “I’m sorry to eavesdrop but it was awful what you just went through on the phone,” she said.

The woman’s kindness made me WEEP with gratitude.

“Why don’t you go around the corner to see the doctor I work for. He’s a Physiatrist and he’s wonderful. Tell them Samantha sent you.”

I did just as good fairy Samantha told me to do. We walked around the corner and Dr. Loren Fishman, an elfish man in a red bow tie and round glasses, was able to see us almost immediately.

When I told Dr. Fishman what happened he measured the good ankle and the sprained ankle and concluded that, indeed, my ankle was very, very swollen.

Fishman, the author of Yoga for Osteoporosis, and many other books and papers, told me to keep my foot elevated. He said the best thing  I could do was lie on my back and put my leg up against the wall.

My mother and I were both enchanted by Dr. Fishman. We spent close to an hour with the good doctor (my mother told him about all of her foot problems…). He told me to come back in a few days for physical therapy “so as to preserve your range of motion” and gave me prescriptions for an anti-inflammatory and an air cast…

Thanks to caring practitioners like Samantha and Dr. Fishman.  I needed to be taken care of and they took care of me. Mucho gratitude.

As for me, I am taking things slowly, trying to stay off my foot and feeling better day by day.

Kate and Alex (Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt) are vultures, preying on the dead, purchasing their furniture and selling it for profit. Like the vultures in the animal kingdom food chain, they serve a purpose as part of a financial subsistence.

The film capturing this ecosystem, Please Give, doesn’t make judgments about them. Kate, rather, judges herself. Her guilt, part of this cycle, is becoming a guiding principle in her decisions and her relationships with others. Her handouts to the homeless are increasing, she takes stabs at volunteering, she won’t give in about her daughter’s (Sarah Steele, perfect) wish for designer jeans, she purchases no-value furniture out of pity. Kate is wonderfully drawn and not always likeable, as is the case with many of the alive and layered characters in Please Give. While the film has been read by a lot of critics of a story about affluent guilt, it is so much more due to these deep characters and a story that is bursting with themes – age, beauty, guilt, value, family – and how they add up to a world that keeps New York’s heart beating.

The film opens with a sequence close-ups of mammograms and distinguishes itself immdediately as a film that will deal with women differently than other contemporary films. The film ends with a final scene that is truly brilliant, all the more so for being incredibly simple. Between these bookends is director Nicole Holofcener achieving beyond her previous works. While Lovely & Amazing and Friends With Money hinted at her gifts, Please Give is miles beyond. Tender and brutal, full of honesty and thoroughly engaging, Please Give is an important new American work.

One is silver, the other gold: A Cake Bakes in Brooklyn

Artists plant corn fields in Boerum Hill: Brooklyn Paper

Jacques Torres chocolates for Mom: NY Times

Happy hour and Mother’s Day brunch: BAM

Run your home kitchen like a restaurant kitchen: Purple Kale Kitchen

Brought to you from the Feldman Family weather tower in Park Slope.

The Famous Accordion Orchestra returns for its Spring Tour of Parks and Gardens!  The Orchestra has been working hard on new tunes, but hasn’t forgotten the old favorites.  Come on down, and you’ll hear us play tunes from the 18th Century to the 21st, with our characteristic flair and squeeziness.  It’s free, too!  Treats and plants will be sold.

Saturday May 8, 2010 – 3:00 PM (Rain Date: Sunday May 9, same time, same bat-channel)
6-15 Green Garden Spring Festival
6th Avenue and 15th Street
Park Slope, Brooklyn
nearest trains: F to 7th Ave/9th Street; R to Prospect Ave/4th Ave
nearest buses: B67 (7th ave) B63 (5th Ave)

This event is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC).

5/22: Moonlight Tour of Green-wood Cemetery
6/4: Red Hook Waterfront Arts Festival
6/6: Local Produce Festival
6/20:  Old Stone House
6/21: Make Music New York

Hit the Bayou Sauvage Wildlife Refuge yesterday, just fifteen minutes from the French Quarter.  Really beautiful.  The wind was apparently very mild out at sea so the oil hasn’t hit the shore.  So there was an eerie quiet hovering over the sanctuary.  Today I’m hoping to get to an animal rescue operation in Gulfport, Mississippi.

Here is the FULL Schedule of this year’s Celebrate Brooklyn concerts. All shows except for benefit shows are free with a $3 suggested contribution.

NORAH JONES

Wednesday, June 9, 8 pm

The pianist, singer and songwriter — and now, Brooklyn resident — performs her

first free outdoor show in the borough.

ALLEN TOUSSAINT/ DAVELL CRAWFORD

Saturday, June 12, 7:30 pm

An undisputed architect of New Orleans music and a national cultural

treasure.

EUGENE MIRMAN & PRETTY GOOD FRIENDS

Thursday, June 17, 7:30 pm

Brooklyn comic and impresario Eugene Mirman has been described by Esquire as

“equal parts Andy Kaufman and Andy Warhol.” Spin has said that “Mirman has a

skewed observational wit rather than a sweaty Friar’s Club shtick — and kills

with self-deprecating ease.” Here he hosts a scaled-up version of his

regular comedy spectacular, which has become something of a local

institution. John Hodgman, Michael Showalter and Hannibal Buress are

scheduled to appear, along with others TBA, plus music and other oddball

surprises.

JG THIRLWELL’S STEROID MAXIMUS / DR. LONNIE SMITH

Friday, June 18, 7:30 pm

The prolific Australian composer, producer, performer, visual artist and

longtime DUMBO resident JG Thirlwell is an elusive but profoundly

influential presence in New York City’s underground music world. Working

under many pseudonyms, including Foetus, Manorexia, Baby Zizanie, Clint

Ruin, and Wiseblood, his varied body of work — which stretches the gamut from

orchestrations, big band, cathartic noise-rock to abstract electronics and

sound sculpture, chamber music, serial music and imaginary soundtracks

(sometimes all in the same album) — is linked by a dramatic intensity and an

evocative, cinematic quality. He has collaborated with the likes of Nick

Cave, Lydia Lunch and Soft Cell, done remixes for NIN and Pantera, scored

Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim series The Venture Brothers, and been

commissioned by Kronos Quartet and Bang on a Can. Celebrate Brooklyn! is

proud to present the New York debut of Thirlwell’s rarely heard large

ensemble Steroid Maximus, a big band/exotica mini-orchestra. The evening

will begin with a set by Dr. Lonnie Smith, the turban-wearing Hammond B-3

wizard.

Celebrate Brooklyn! & CareFusion Jazz Festival Present

BITCHES BREW REVISTED, WITH GRAHAM HAYNES, JAMES BLOOD ULMER,

MARCO BENEVENTO, DJ LOGIC, LONNIE PLAXICO AND

CINDY BLACKMAN / MIKE STERN TRIO

Saturday, June 19, 7:30 pm

This concert brings together a dazzling, multi-generational array of artists

to explore the legacy of the Miles Davis landmark on the 40th anniversary of

its release. The night begins with a performance by the virtuosic Mike

Stern, one of the premier jazz-fusion guitarists of his generation and a

veteran of Davis’s band.

ORQUESTA BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB FEATURING OMARA PORTUONDO / NELIDA TIRADO

Thursday, June 24, 7:30 pm

The great Omara Portuondo, the female voice of the original Buena Vista

Social Club, is a living legend of Cuban music. She now fronts the

extraordinary Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club, which on recent tours has

taken “the atmosphere up to a breathless level” (The Independent) in

performances that “left audiences awe-struck” (Financial Times). Opening

will be flamenco dancer Nelida Tirado, who moves, The New York Times says,

“as if her body were a medium for some unearthly force.”

Continue reading Celebrate Brooklyn Full Schedule →

Readings on the Fouth Floor, a benefit reading series for PS 107, presents Alexandra Styron reading from her forthcoming memoir about her father, the author William Styron AND Bliss Broyard (pictured above) reading from her memoir, “One Drop,” about her father, the author Anatole Broyard.

A discussion afterward will be moderated by memoirist and former PS 107 PTA president Nica Lalli.

Readings On the 4th Floor
Wednesday, May 5th
7:30 P.M.
$10 per ticket, online or at the door
www.ps107.org
Childcare is available

Up next: Jazz great Ravi Coltrane once again brings his band to PS 107’s 4th Floor to raise money for the PTA in a very special concert on Wednesday, May 12th/
7:30 P.M.
$20 per ticket, online or at the door
www.ps107.org
Childcare is available

Romance on the Sheepshead waterfront: Sheepshead Bites

Hell, No! show at St. Cecilia’s Convent: NY Shitty

Hipster break up text: Free Williamsburg

Fresh Direct accident on Union Street: Effed in Park Slope

Summer events in Carroll Park: Pardon Me for Asking