Monthly Archives: July 2012

arts and culture

Magical Mermaid Mayhem at Mini Jake’s in Williamsburg

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade was a few weeks ago. But here’s a mermaid parade for hipster kids that might be just as fun.

This Saturday from 11AM until 3PM  there’s going to be Magical Mermaid Mayhem at Mini Jake’s on North 9th Street in Williamsburg.

Children (and grown ups?) are being asked to show up in their mermaid or sea related costume for mermaid snacks, mermaid games, mermaid art activities, mermaid raffle and making up mermaid poems.

Melanie Hope Greenberg, a mermaid fanatic and Park Sloper, will be there reading from her picture book, Mermaids on Parade at 11AM.

At 2PM, you’ll have the chance to meet Janna Kennedy, Coney Island Mermaid Parade costume designer and prize winner. And at 2:30, the shop will be having a mermaid parade of its own.

 

arts and culture

Peripatetic Weekend: Southern Wild, Xanadu, Waterfront Walk, New York Poets

MOVIE TO SEE

Beasts of the Southern Wild is playing at BAM starting Friday, July 13th. I saw the film last weekend and loved it. It is worth the price of admission just to see the performance by 8-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis. For all of its magical realism and visual “tropes” it manages to convey the gritty survivalistic life of the impoverished inhabitants of the Bathtub outside of New Orleans nd the horror of Katrina. This visually and viscerally powerful film will make you understand Katrina in a new way.

MUSICAL THEATER AL FRESCO

Friday, July 13 at 8PM: Piper Theatre presents Xanadu, a theatrical reimagining of the Olivia Newton John movie with a young, enthusiastic cast, flying beachballs, and roller skates. 8PM in Washington Park in Park Slope.

WATERFRONT WALK

Sunday, July 15 at 2PM: Francis Morrone, an architectural historian who has written for The New York Sun, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal begins a three-part Walking the Waterfront series (sponsored by the Municipal Arts Society).  It starts at the base of Manhattan, where the initial phase of the new East River Waterfront Esplanade opened in July 2011, and continues through undeveloped sections of the South Street Seaport. The other two tours examine development along the Hudson (Aug 18 at 2pm) and the Brooklyn shorefront (Aug 25 at 6pm).

POETRY AND MUSIC

Sunday, July 15 at 6PM: The Return of Urban Michef with poets Bill Evans, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Joanna Sit, Michele Madigan Somerville and Mike Sweeney will read with percussionists Peter Catapano and Tony Cenicola. Cornelia Street Cafe

 

 

Food and Drink

Coffee at Forty Weight, Lunch at Sweet Wolf’s in Without Moving

Forty Weight Cafe is fast becoming my favorite Park Slope cafe. What’s cool is that it’s also a restaurant called Sweet Wolf’s and the smells from the kitchen as they prep food for lunch and dinner are positively sumptuous.

The Forty Weight/Sweet Wolf’s double name thing is a tad confusing. But no biggy. The double duty of cafe by day, restaurant by afternoon and evening makes a ton of sense.

The Forty Weight cafe and wi-fi crowd has to clear out at 3:30. That is when the cafe closes AND the restaurant closes for a couple of hours to make way for the evening to prepare for the dinner crowd. Sweet Wolf reopens at 5PM with a dinner menu.

I’ve been here since 8:45 or so. I ordered an iced coffee and a muffin and plugged in my computer. Yes, plugged in my computer. The outlet is a lovely thing.

I met a friend for coffee and we talked and talked…Now it’s lunch time and the waitress just showed me the menu. There’s no pressure to stop using the space at the cafe, but the menu looks great. Vegetarian french onion soup, borscht, veggie chili, roasted cauliflower, hummus and olives, crab cake sandwich, pulled pork on brioche, shrimp with piquante sauce, BBQ pulled tempeh…

I ordered the cold borscht because I am a HUGE fan of cold borscht.

I’m eating the borscht now. It’s a classic Jewish/Eastern European borscht with sour cream. Perfect summer soup. Brings me back. The soup is $7. They also have burgers for the whopping price of $18.

arts and culture

Triple Canopy: Dissolving the Boundary Between the Visual & Literary

 Triple Canopy is a Greenpoint-based online magazine, workspace, and “platform” for editorial and curatorial activities. They work collaboratively with writers, artists, and researchers and try to facilitate projects that “engage the Internet’s specific characteristics as a public forum and as a medium, one with its own evolving practices of reading and viewing, economies of attention, and modes of interaction.”

Phew. That’s a mouthful. But interesting, very interesting. I get email from TC from time to time and I finally decided to take a look. I was very intrigued by the folded poem (see left) by Erica Baum.

On Friday July 20, Triple Canopy and Siglio are presenting an evening with artists/writers, Amaranth Borsuk and Erica Baum,  “who dissolve the boundaries between the visual and the literary, the digital and the analogue, by probing the spaces of the in-between.

Baum is a poet who makes poems by folding the pages of old paperbacks (see picture) and Borsuk has created a epistolary romance that can only be read “in augmented reality.”

This multi-media evening is sure to be interesting and will include performances and a discussion moderated by Triple Canopy editor Dan Visel.

The Details:

155 Freeman Street, Brooklyn, NY

Friday, July 20

Doors 7:00 p.m., performance and discussion 7:30 p.m.

$5 suggested donation

arts and culture

Spike Lee’s Red Hook Summer

Every since the madness, mayhem and fun of Brooklyn Blogfest 2010 which was sponsored by Absolut Brooklyn with Spike Lee and Lemon Andersen as keynote entertainment, I’ve been curious about Spike Lee and his latest exploits.

Full Disclosure: Blogfest 2010 was sponsored by Absolut Brooklyn. (Did I already say that?)

Sure, he was a tad officious towards me during the Q&A, but he’s an interesting  guy, it can’t be denied. Here’s a quote from a recent NY Magazine Vulture Page’s interview. In it he talks about teaching at NYU. At the Blogfest, he spoke about teaching and delivered words of encouragement to an audience member who wanted to apply to the film school. Seems he has a new film called Red Hook Summer coming out on July 30. In this interview, he says he wants to be to Brooklyn what Martin Scorsese is to Manhattan.

“I am glad you asked that, because I am going to try to shake the narrative as much as I can. This is not Spike going back to his roots. Red Hook Summer is another chapter in my chronicles of Brooklyn. I am a professor at NYU—I’ve been one the last fifteen years—and one of the courses they are teaching in cinema studies this summer is “Scorsese’s New York.” The postcard has a map of Manhattan and a dot where each Scorsese film took place. For me, it’s Brooklyn. She’s Gotta Have It, Do the Right Thing, He Got Game, Clockers, Crooklyn, and Red Hook Summer.””

 

Food and Drink

Free Frozen Yogurt at Pinkberry Opening Celebration on July 19

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A representative from Team Pinkberry wrote in to OTBKB to say that there will be FREE frozen yogurt at Pinkberry during the Opening Celebration of the first Brooklyn store which happens to be in Park Slope on Seventh Avenue and Garfield Place. The festivities begin at 6PM on July 19th.

I’m not saying you’re gonna get BIG free sundaes and stuff. It might just be little taster cups. Maybe a rep from Team Pinkberry can chime on in.

But you don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Civics and Urban Life

de Blasio’s List of City’s Worst Landlords

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio released his Worst Landlords Watch List. There are now 330 landlords listed who own a total of 360 buildings.

See if your landlord made the cut. It’s a dubious distinction I’d say.

The site, which is featured on Craigslist.org to assist apartment hunters, also includes an updated list of 255 buildings that have been officially removed from the Watch List because of violations like lead paint, infestations and mold have been addressed.

Four of the landlords are in Park Slope. Watch out.

arts and culture

Vera Trombonita: The Story of a Girl and Her Trombone

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This is a story of a girl (who plays at Rocky Sullivan’s in Red Hook every Wednesday night) and her trombone. Her name is Vera Trombonita and she hails from Germany. It all started with a dream. And a question: ”Daddy I wanna play trombone!”

“But there were no trombones around and no teacher to be found so the young girl’s  dream had to be put to sleep. What a crazy wish the family thought, where did she pick that up?” Vera writes on her website. 

So Vera did the practical thing. She studied to be an engineer and moved to Berlin, where she worked in engineering. And it was there that she rediscovered the trombone.

” The old dream popped up as a refreshing invitation to new adventures and experiences,” she writes. While working as an engineer she started to take lessons…

Vera moved to New York to learn from the best, including Art Baron, Jack Gale, Douglas Purviance, Conrad Herwig, Joe Fiedler and Marcus Rojas. She got her master’s in music at Queens College. Now she plays bass trombone, tenor trombone and also tuba.

Tuba.

Vera writes and composes her own music. She loves Latin rhythms and lived for four years in the Bronx to study it. She also loves Motown, Funk and R&B. Best of all, she plays EVERY Wednesday night Rocky Sullivan’s in Red Hook . Thankfully,  OTBKB Witness photographer Tom Martinez was there last night shoot these pictures.

And that, my friend, is the story of Vera and her Trombone.

 

Civics and Urban Life

Amy Sohn’s Motherland Out on August 14

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It’ll be a big day in Park Slope the day the sequel to Prospect Park West, Amy Sohn’s satiric novel about Park Slope moms and dads, comes out.

Her new novel is called Motherland and it’s about five mothers and fathers in Cape Cod, Park Slope, and Greenwich Village, according to the Amazon blurb, “who find themselves adrift professionally and personally.”

This week in The Awl, Amy Sohn has written an essay called “The 40-Year-Reversion” about what happens to contemporary parents when they need to chill out from all the stress and boredom of contemporary parenting.

“Why do moms in my generation regress, whether by drugging, cheating, or going out too late and too often? Because everything our children thrive on—stability, routine, lack of flux, love, well-paired parents—feels like death to those entrusted with their care. This is why they start drinking at wine o’clock, which is so dubbed not only because it coincides with whine o’clock but because it can begin at six p.m., or five, or even four. (Though the four o’clock mothers wind up in A.A.) I know a mom who drinks only on the weekends because she thinks it’s more responsible… but she starts with a mimosa at brunch on Saturday at eleven, and doesn’t stop until her Sunday night television shows are over.

She goes on to discuss her new novel, “The characters are inspired by my neighbors, who seek liberation not through consciousness-raising and EST the way their mothers did, but through Fifty Shades of Grey and body shots. They arrive home from girls’ nights at three a.m. on a weeknight and then complain about hangovers at school dropoff.”

Motherland comes out on August 14th.

 

arts and culture

Telettrofono: Worth a Trip to Staten Island

Poet Matthea Harvey and sound artist Jusin Bennet are the creators of Telettrofono, a “soundwalk” sponsored by stillspotting nyc, a two-year multidisciplinary project that takes the Guggenheim’s Architecture and Urban Studies programming out into the city’s five boroughs..

It opens this weekend and will be open through August 5, 2012.

Telettrofono is a site-specific artwork that, from the sounds of it, is worth a trip to Staten Island. And what could be better than a brief voyage on the Staten Island Ferry?

Here’s what you do: Take the ferry to S.I.; then go to kiosk where you will get a special iPod and take a 90-minute soundwalk along the shore and into the St. George neighborhood.

Telettrofono is about Antonio Meucci, the inventor of the telephone decades before Bell, and his mermaid wife, Esterre. Meucci invented a marine telephone so that divers could speak to ship captains, flame-retardant paint (which he advised using on your underwear),  and improved effervescent drinks, among other things.

For Telettrofono, Bennett and Harvey meld ambient sounds from the borough with invented noises such as pianos of stone and glass, or a bone-xylophone, with a poetic script for an audio walking tour that weaves Meucci’s tragic true-to-life story together with fantastical elements.

Bennett and Harvey envision Meucci’s wife, Esterre – a mermaid who leaves the water for land because of her love for the sounds above ground.

The walk in search of this storied couple meanders along the waterfront, past salt mounds and industrial sites, through historic residential neighborhoods and into places of discovery. The route is designed as a spiral to lead visitors out from the coast into the land, while the recorded story transports listeners out from the external urban environment into a state of introspection.

Participants will listen to the narrative soundscape through an imagined present-day telettrofono, a phone that is “smart” in the sense that it can enable listening under and across the water, dialing into fairytale and fact, mermaid choruses, and real and invented patent applications.

The Telettrofono will guide the listener through changing perspectives on sound and place within the tale of the Meuccis from Florence and Havana, as well as the stories, sights, and silences distinct to Staten Island.

If you would like to know more about the soundwalk, go here for information, tickets and an audio preview.

http://stillspotting.guggenheim.org/visit/staten-island/

Says Mattea, who is a wonderful poet: “I promise it’ll be a unique and wild experience (I don’t want to give away all the surprises…).”

arts and culture

Cobble Hill Video Store Tries Crowd-Sourcing to Raise Cash

Jim Hanas, the Social Media Editor of the New York Observer just got in touch via email to tell me about an interesting article today about Cobble Hill’s Video Free Brooklyn by Kim Velsey; it’s one of the last video rental shops in Brownstone Brooklyn.

Sigh.

But this is a video store with social media and crowd sourcing smarts. Rah. They’re using a  Kickstarter-like service called Indiegogo to raise money so they can afford much needed renovations to their shop. Here’s a quote from the Observer article.

“I don’t think it’s any different or less valid than when PBS or NPR ask people to donate for a free tote bag, or the Kickstarter campaign in Detroit to build a life-size statue of RoboCop,” said Mr. Hillis, who has thus far raised about $7,000 (with two weeks to go on a $50,000 campaign) on Indiegogo. “As long as you’re transparent about where the money is going, you’re putting together something that people want to be a part of.”

Anything to keep a real video rental place in business. We miss Video Forum in Park Slope for the convivial conversation and tips about movies.

Sigh.

Here’s the link to Video Free Brooklyn’s Indiegogo page. 

 

arts and culture, Civics and Urban Life

Dear Listen: Should We Be Breastfeeding 7-Year-Olds?

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DEAR LISTEN:

I just read in the New York Post today that the production company behind “Dance Moms” and “American Stuffers,” is developing a reality series based on mothers who breastfeed older children. The Post article included a picture of a Park Slope mom breastfeeding a 3-year-old. What do you think of this phenomena?

Thanks,

Should We Be Breastfeeding 7-year-olds?

DEAR SHOULD WE BE:

Years ago, I remember reading about Viva, one of Andy Warhol’s Superstars (and member of the Factory) in the Village Voice. She said she’d breastfed her son until he could ask for it himself, “Hey mom, give me some tit!”

I remember thinking: that is just so weird. That was, of course, before I had my own children in Park Slope in the 1990’s when attachment parenting was all the rage.

Time’s front cover photo of a toddler boy standing on a chair drinking from his mother’s breast has caused a torrent of opinionating and hyperventilating. I think it’s pretty rare for 7-year-olds to be breastfed.

That said, when is enough enough?

That’s a damn good question. Oh yeah, that’s the one you asked me.

For health and nurturing, breast feeding is the best thing ever during the first couple of years of a baby’s life. It’s fairly easy to do if you’re staying home with the infant. It’s not so easy if you have to go to work. Office pumping is a bit of a nusiance but it is doable if you have a private place to do it at your work place. I was lucky to have an office to myself and I’d just shut the door, put up a sign “pumping in progress” and my co-workers would leave me alone.

But I was lucky to work for a great company at the time. Sad to say, that company is no longer around.

I believe that parenthood is a slow, gradual process of letting go and creating an independent creature that can survive and thrive away from you. That said, a cozy, loving, attentive beginning is fundamental to create a strong, healthy human being.

So, when is enough enough?

Damn it, I don’t know. I think it’s an intuitive thing. My children seemed to lose interest at a certain point. They were each different. If the mom isn’t enjoying it anymore, it’s probably a good time to stop. If the child can ask for it like Viva’s kid and even be spoiled about it I think he or she has had enough. I don’t think you’re doing your kids any favors by prolonging what is essentially an important mother-infant bonding into later childhood.

But hey, I’m not one to legislate what others do. I didn’t breast feed past the age of two but that’s just me.

Sincerely,

She Who Listens

Note: Dear Listen is OTBKB’s new advice column. Send your questions about anything to dearlisten@gmail.com

 

arts and culture

July 15: Spoken Word & Percussion by Poets Who Studied with Allen Ginsberg

I thought the Allen Ginsberg part might get your attention. I know that most of these poets studied with him. Not sure about the musicians.

Poetry, percussion, and poets who stick together through thick and thin. Who can resist? This is a fun-sounding reading with music by a group of excellent New York poets who studied with Allen Ginsberg at Brooklyn College.

Poets Bill Evans, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Joanna Sit, Michele Madigan Somerville and Mike Sweeney will read with percussionists Peter Catapano and Tony Cenicola (of The Unfortunate Buzz Trio).

Every single one of these artists (except Tony Cenicola) has appeared at  Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House over the last few years!

And it’s at the Cornelia Street Cafe (Owned by Park Slope’s Robin Hirsch) at 6PM on Sunday, July 15th. See you there.

Continue reading July 15: Spoken Word & Percussion by Poets Who Studied with Allen Ginsberg →

arts and culture

What I Read & Watched: Cool Culture Blog

Photo by Dijkstra Rineke

I just discovered What I Read And Watched (notes on what I read and watched and saw). It is a cool NYC blog about arts and culture that’s been around since 2007. The blog is almost like an annotated list of the things that interest the blogger, a she, written as a way to keep track of it all.

I notice that she frequents Celebrate Brooklyn and writes about the shows which is another plus. She seems like a really interesting person and she has excellent and expanisve taste in books, movies and art shows. She’s someone to “follow.” Here are some examples.

WIRW on Keith Haring: “One thing that I really enjoyed, this exhibition completely brought me back to NYC in the early 80s. I could FEEL the city, what it was like back then. It was a special time, a special creative moment, and in that way it made sense to focus on those four years of his work.”

WIRW on The IHOP Papers (a novel): “A wry and amusing voice, very self aware. Great story about a terribly nervous/neurotic young lesbian in San Francisco back in the days where people left messages on each others answering machines.”

WIRW on Dijkstra Rineke show, which is soon coming to the Guggenheim Musuem: “These large, bold, dramatic portraits simultaneously suggested emotional intensities and human frailties.  Photographed in the US and Europe, they depict young subjects. Large-seeming heads and soulful eyes look out over lanky awkwardness and precise stillness.

Bookmark What I Read & Watched. Now.

arts and culture

New York Philharmonic in Prospect Park Tonight

It should be quite a night. Music, fireworks and thousands of your neighbors on the grass.

Each year, the New York Philharmonic graces Prospect Park’s Long Meadow Ballfields with its presence. An amazing free concert on the grass, under the, ur, stars. Bring a blanket, a picnic, a bottle of wine and head on over there They are, after all, one of the world’s greatest orchestras and they’re in our park.

Here’s what’s on the program:
Tchalkovsky, Symphony No. 4
Respighi, Fountains of Rome
Respighi, Pines of Rome
The concert will be conducted by Alan Gilbert.

A fireworks display rounds out the evening. The concert space features a state-of-the-art sound system with a wireless broadcast network and 24 15-foot speaker towers. Park concessions will be on hand, selling hot dogs, ice cream, and other great summertime refreshments.

PHOTO from What I Read and Watched

 

Civics and Urban Life

A Year in The Park: For Jeffrey, Who Did Not Want to Die

Brenda Becker writes today about a young man named Jeffrey Jeune, age 19, who died in Prospect Park on Sunday. Here’s an excerpt. Read the rest at her blog Prospect: A Year in the Park. 

“When a neighbor dies within our realm of “Victorian Flatbush” homes, we e-mail one another, send condolences, reminisce together, attend the wake. If the unthinkable happened and a young person were to perish as Jeffrey did, we would have no need of e-mail; it would be headline news. (In fact, it was, in 2005, when a young man from outside the neighborhood was killed within the historic district of Prospect Park South.)…

“But Jeffrey Jeune vanishes into an ambulance two blocks from my front door.  The crime scene tape flutters and is gone; a few extra cruisers patrol the Parade Grounds for awhile…”

arts and culture, Civics and Urban Life

Brooklyn Reconstructed: New Film Series at Ethical Culture in Park Slope

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I just learned about Brooklyn Reconstructed, a new and ongoing film series at  The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture at 53 Prospect Park West in Park Slope, that addresses issues of gentrification, eminent domain, public subsidies for luxury developments, political corruption, rising rents and neighborhood revitalization in Brooklyn.

Says Adam Schartoff, organizer of the series, “it taps into the borough’s zeitgeist, its wealth of local filmmakers and their recent output of documentaries that address these issues.”

The first film in the series is My Brooklyn directed by Kelly Anderson and produced by Allison Lirish Dean. It screens on Wednesday, July 25th, 7PM. The evening includes a post-film discussion with members of event co-sponsor organization FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality), Urban Studies Professor and community planning expert Tom Angotti, journalist Alyssa Katz, Urban History Professor Karen Miller and Kelly Anderson.

The schedule for Brooklyn Reconstructed series (all films shown The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture) includes the following dates and titles: July 25th: My Brooklyn (Kelly Anderson and Allison Lirish Dean), August 29th: The Domino Effect(Brian Paul, Daniel Phelps and Megan Sperry), September 26: Battle for Brooklyn (Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley), October 24: The Vanishing City (Fiore DeRosa and Jen Senko), November 18: Made in Brooklyn (Isabel Hill), date TBA: Gut Renovation (Su Friedrich).

 

Civics and Urban Life

A Friend Moves From Park Slope

First it was just talk. “I think I’m going to sell the house,” she said. And I didn’t really believe her. We were sitting in Cafe Regular Nord and I thought to myself: Why would you move away from here? What about your friends, the brownstone, the park, the cafes and bars where we’ve been having intense conversations for more than a decade.

What could be better than here? I wondered in my Brooklyn-centric way.

Over time it became obvious that she was serious—and motivated. She was eager to move and she had her reasons. Good ones. She found a realtor, she touched up the house—a little paint here, a little staging there. She scheduled an open house; there was a buyer.

It happened quickly. Elation. Nerves. Excitement. Anxiety. The contract was signed. Then, she had to find a new place to live, in a new town, a new state, more than two hours away.

As the weeks passed, I knew that her excitement was peppered with fear. I saw that her immense energy and bravery was partial cover for the pain of letting go. It wasn’t easy to relinquish the life she’s known for more than twenty years: selling the house where she raised her 16-year-old daughter, leaving the block where she pushed a McClaren stroller, where she helped plan an annual autumn block party, where she walked her dogs, where she had many friends and familiar faces.

Continue reading A Friend Moves From Park Slope →

Civics and Urban Life

Deadline Midnight Tonight To Register for GO Brooklyn Open Studio Weekend

Calling all artists.

The Brooklyn Museum is organizing GO Brooklyn Art, a gigantic open studio weekend with a twist.

Brooklyn-based artists are asked to open their studios to the community on September 8–9, 2012. Community members registered as voters will visit studios and nominate artists for inclusion in a group exhibition to open at the Brooklyn Museum on Target First Saturday, December 1, 2012.

Originally the deadline was June 29 but it has been extended and tonight (July 10) is the DEADLINE. Hurry.

You can find out more here. But you must do it quickly. Like I said, the deadline is at midnight tonight.

arts and culture

Greta Gertler and the Universal Thump at Barbes

Greta Gertler sends me press releases from time to time and I read them. At first I read them because of the last name that we share. Her’s, however, is spelled without the annoying—and distinctive—h as in Ghertler.

Now I read her press releases because I know how very talented she is.

Gertler will be  performing with her band, The Universal Thump at Barbes in Park Slope on Thursday, July 26. They will be joined onstage by special guests Alec Spiegelman & Kristin Slipp (Cuddle Magic) and Byron Isaacs (Ollabelle).

The Universal Thump performed an acclaimed “All Things Must Pass” benefit concert/recording project on the anniversary of the release of that incredible record with special guest Rick Moody, Missy Higgins, Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), John Wesley Harding and many others.

Read my ecstatic review of that show here: http://onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.com/tag/the-universal-thump/ Here’s an excerpt:

“Only in Brooklyn could a super group of stellar musicians calling themselves The Universal Thump come together to recreate the Phil Spector-style wall of sound that enhanced George Harrison’s 1970 All Things Must Pass.

“Only in Brooklyn could this dizzying array of vocalists and instrumentalists, perform the entire, yes, the entire three-album set.  In the process they brought down the house not once but numerous times during the three-hour show at The Bell House last night, November 29th, the 10th anniversary of Harrison’s death from cancer and just days away from the albums release date in 1970.”

At Barbes, the band will preview songs from their forthcoming eponymous double orchestral whale-pop album, to be released in the US on October 2, 2012.

 

Food and Drink

Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt Coming to Park Slope on July 20th

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Pinkberry has chosen Park Slope as the location of its first Brooklyn shop. An honor, I’m sure. The official opening day is July 20th. Shhhh, I  think there’s going to be a grand opening event on July 19th. Keep your eyes open, there  just might be frozen yogurt coming out of those spigots.

Pinkberry isn’t just a national yogurt chain, it’s global with outposts in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Russia, Turkey and Bahrain among others. On their website they say they originated the tart frozen yogurt that everyone serves now. They also serve smoothies, fruit parfaits, waffle cookies, cones and fruit bowls with a wide variety of toppings.

The new Park Slope location is 161  Seventh Avenue on the corner of Garfield Place. For many years, there were various Japanese restaurants in that spot. Most recently there was the Seventh Avenue Wine Bar. Upstairs is Rancho Alegre, the Mexican restaurant I’ve only been to once many years ago.

Nuff said.

Park Slope is becoming something of a frozen yogurt mecca. There’s the very popular Culture: An American Yogurt Company on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. This company, which originated in Park Slope, makes their yogurt in-house from live probiotic cultures. Toppings like key lime and blackberry pie are pretty wonderful.

There’s also Yogo Monster, now a serve-it-yourself establishment on Seventh Avenue near Union Street with a “salad bar” of  fruit, nut and candy toppings. The make-it-yourself aspect is really fun and easy.

So get ready for the frozen yogurt Olympics. Pinkberry, Culture, Yogo Monster. Let’s see who wins our vote.

arts and culture

Tonight: Short Films in Washington Park

Tonight Brooklyn Film Works in Washington Park presents its annual evening of  Asbury Shorts, an exhibition of award-winning short films specially selected from major US & International film festivals by Doug LeClaire. I went last year and was very impressed and entertained by the selection of short films. The program features films that have won Academy Awards or “Best of Show” honors from such festivals as Sundance, Chicago International, Aspen Shorts,The Berlin Film Fest, Melbourne and South by Southwest.

Asbury’s purpose is to present these highly entertaining films to the general public in a real theater setting and not on an iPod or computer.

AT 8PM before the show starts, enjoy special musical guests: CUMBIAGRA @ 8 PM.

The films start at 8:40 PM:

“Friends and Strangers”, directed by Ed Caban

“The Lost Thing” directed by Andrew Ruhemann & Shaun Tanand

“Bye Bye Now” directed by Aideen O”Sullian/ Ross Whitaker

“While the Widow was Away” directed by Adam Reid

“She’s a Soul Man” directed by Caitlin Byrnes

Civics and Urban Life

The Heat Has Broken

It’s a lovely summer day. The heat has broken, you can finally turn your air conditioner off. We will, anyway. It’s lovely, lovely day.

According to the weather tower in Park Slope (and there is one), it is currently 80.6 degrees. Go to Current Weather in Park Slope for more info.  This is a community service provided by radio station KK2QQ.

Good Morning! The current weather condition is overcast and Dry.
The current temperature is 80.6° F (High 83.1° F / Low 73.4° F).
The wind is out of the North Northeast at 1.7 mph, gusting at 9.4 mph.
The heat index makes it feel like 79.9° F. The UV index is 8.1.
The humidity is 34%. The barometer is at 29.920 inHg and is Steady (hourly change of +0.00 inHg).

arts and culture

OTBKB to The Guardian: Yes, Brooklyn is a Writer’s Mecca

It seems that across the pond, they’ve discovered that Brooklyn is quite the writerly place. I guess when Brit author Martin Amis buys a house in Cobble Hill, it becomes news over there. I did, however, enjoy the Guardian article and especially this paragraph, which reminded me of what happened when Jonathan and Nicole spent 3.5 million on their house. That sounds like chump change these days.

“Today Sunny’s is popular for bluegrass sessions and literary salons that attract aficionados from across the borough. There is not a night of the week when you can’t attend a reading in Brooklyn, or several. Many take place at the independent bookstores that have proliferated in the last few years, or – like BookCourt in Cobble Hill, where I remember waiting in a long line of young tattooed men and women to hear Bret Easton Ellis read – doubled in size. And writers aren’t just coming here to read; they are flocking here to live. Some, such as Paul Auster, have been here for decades; others, like Martin Amis (a stone’s throw from BookCourt), are fresh off the boat. On Saturdays you can go Pulitzer spotting at Fort Greene’s farmers’ market, where both Jhumpa Lahiri and Jennifer Egan may be found perusing the vegetables. When Jonathan Safran Foer and his wife Nicole Krauss, author of The History of Love, brought a Park Slope townhouse in 2005, bloggers gasped at the $3.5m [£2.26m] price tag.”

I was one of those  bloggers and I remember it well. Rad photo illustration from The Guardian.

Civics and Urban Life

Tree Cracks in Brooklyn (In Front of PS 321)

On Saturday at approximately 1:30 PM, a tree, of its own volition, cracked in front of PS 321 right near the main entrance on Seventh Avenue near Second Street. I spoke to a vendor at the flea market on Sunday and she told me that a huge branch cracked “just like that at 1:30 yesterday.”

It wasn’t a lighting storm or a tornado. Can a tree crack from heat exhaustion? Since Saturday, there’s been yellow police tape around the tree to protect the tree and passers-by. It’s quite a sight. Sorry, no pictures yet.

 

Civics and Urban Life

More on Seventh Avenue Fire in Park Slope

This morning I walked by Good Footing Adventure store at 196 Seventh Avenue in Park Slope (between 2nd and 3rd Streets), which has been closed since Friday afternoon when a roof fire resulted in substantial fire and water damage.

Seems that workers from First Response, flood and restoration specialists, are cleaning the upper floors now. I  heard from the boyfriend of a tenant that the roof fell in from fire and water damage. So there’s a big mess up there.

In front of the building there’s a growing mountain of black contractor bags. Good Footing is still closed, obviously. The tenants on the second and third/fourth floor duplex are not able to occupy their apartments.

The strangest thing. There was a roof fire in that very same building a year ago.

arts and culture

Xanadu: Have You Ever (Never) Been Mellow in Park Slope’s Washington Park

Inspired by Xanadu, a theatrical re-imagining by Piper Theatre of the Olivia Newton-John movie playing in Park Slope’s Washington Park on July 12 and 13th at 8PM, I’ve cut and pasted the lyrics to the hit song, Have You Ever Been Mellow, penned by Newton-John, which I can’t get out of my head.

I was like you

There was a day when I just had to tell my point of view

I was like you

Now I don’t mean to make you frown

No, I just want you to slow down

Have you never been mellow?

Have you never tried to find a comfort from inside you?

Have you never been happy just to hear your song?

Have you never let someone else be strong?

Continue reading Xanadu: Have You Ever (Never) Been Mellow in Park Slope’s Washington Park →

arts and culture

Xanadu: Happy, Campy Fun in Park Slope’s Washington Park

What a pleasure to join more than 400 neighbors on the Turf behind the Old Stone House  to watch Piper Theatre’s production of  Xanadu, the theatrically re-imagined 1980’s Olivia Newton- John movie.

Have You Never Been Mellow?

Props to cast, especially Alissa Laderer, MaryAnne Piccolo, who bring much in the way of  joy, talent and enthusiasm to their singing and dancing (sometimes on roller skates). They made it look easy and artful on an extremely humid night. What spirit!

Have You Never Been Mellow?

Truth be told, the show itself has few memorable songs (Have You Never Been Mellow?) but overall conveys a spirited disco feeling with soaring gospel harmonies. The set and costumes are colorful and  campy fun and the glittery, Spandex spectacle is a pleasure to watch from the plastic lawn sipping a beer from The Gate, munching on Starburst (bought at the concessions stand).

Have You Never Been Mellow?

Set in Venice Beach circa 1980, the story, by Douglas Carter Beane (the award-winning playwright of “The Little Dog Laughed” and “Lysistrata Jones”), is about Kira, a Greek muse who descends from Mt. Olympus to inspire Sonny, a street artist with a dream to open a roller disco.

Have You Never Been Mellow?

Silliness, satire and star-crossed love come together in a happy frolic directed by John Macinerney, who was kind enough to provide me with my very own day glow necklace. At the end of the show, the cast joyously tossed beach balls to the audience.

On a very hot Friday night, it felt like we were at Venice Beach being very mellow indeed.

Damn, I can’t get that song out of my head. Dates: July 12, 13, 19, 20 at 8 PM at the Old Stone House (The Turf).

The photo is  by my friend Josh Mack.