Monthly Archives: October 2013

arts and culture

Nov 14: Writing War, Fiction and Memoir by Veterans at The Old Stone House

 

Brooklyn Reading Works presents WRITING WAR: Fiction and Memoir by Veterans curated by Peter Catapano of the The New York Times with Phil Klay, Kevin R. McPartland, Maurice Emerson Decaul and Lynn Hill. This is the third time we are presenting this event and we always get a huge crowd. As always, it will be at The Old Stone House, 336 Third Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues. A $5 donation includes wine and snacks.

The drawing is by Jess Ruliffson, who wrote about last year’s WRITING WAR event on her blog Calling the Dog: 

 “I had the pleasure and good fortune to meet Peter Catapano at the Joe Bonham Project exhibition reception this past weekend and he told me about a reading he was co-hosting at The Old Stone House. Presented by Brooklyn Reading Works, the reading showcased the incredible writing talents of several young writers who are recent alumni of the NYU Veterans Writing Workshop and have been using their war experiences to inform their creative writing. It was an incredible evening and I am looking forward to hearing more from this group of great writers.”

arts and culture

Mike Sorgatz; One of a Kind (and Affordable) Monster Prints

Mike Sorgatz, artist and founder of the websites Art in Brooklyn and Art in New York City is selling these wonderful prints of Frankenstein and other monsters.

Of the print above, Mike writes: “He’s simply called “The Monster” in Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel Frankenstein, but you can call him Frank. Wanted by angry villagers everywhere, this adorable face can now be hanging on your own wall. Printed with a ghoulish green on a pumpkin orange background.”

Mike started Art in Brooklyn in 2008 as a way to make art more accessible to the public. As an extension of this mission, he’s been creating a series of handmade prints at extremely affordable price.

All of the works are made from original drawings and printed individually from blocks carved by hand. Each piece has unique characteristics created during the printing process – no two are exactly the same.

Works are printed on high quality, acid free paper and signed by the artist. More designs will be added to the collection over time.

Mike lives in Brooklyn with his wonderful wife Eleanor (who runs a blog called Creative Times). He works at an art studio in Red Hook. His paintings, which I love, can be seen at www.MikeSorgatz.com.

arts and culture

Park Slope Author Cliff Thompson Wins Whiting Award

I’ve been a fan for quite some time. I loved Cliff Thompson’s novel Signifying Nothing, which he read at the Brooklyn Reading Works event called Young, Gifted and Black Men curated by Martha Southgate a few years back. And when Love for Sale, his award-winning collection of essays from Autumn House Press came out I was over the moon.

I guess you could say I feel good about the Whiting Award coming Cliff Thompson’s way.

The Whiting Writers’ Awards is given annually to 10 writers who have “exceptional talent and promise in early career.” The awards were announced Monday. Each writer receives $50,000 from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, established in 1963 by Flora E. Whiting. The awards honor fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays and are intended to identify writers, the foundation says, “who have yet to make their mark on the literary culture.” The 2013 winners are Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams (“The Man Who Danced With Dolls”), Amanda Coplin (“The Orchardist”), Jennifer duBois (“Cartwheel”), Virginia Grise (“Making Myth”), Ishion Hutchinson (“Far District: Poems”), Morgan Meis (“Ruins”), C. E. Morgan (“All the Living”), Rowan Ricardo Phillips (“The Ground”), Clifford Thompson (“Signifying Nothing”) and Stephanie Powell Watts (“We Are Taking Only What We Need”).

Yay.

 

Civics and Urban Life

Oct 30 at 9:30: Zipper at Nitehawk (Buy Tickets Now)

One night only. On October 30th at 9:30 catch Zipper at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg.

Zipper, directed by Amy Nicholson,  is a tale of Coney Island told through the story of a small-time ride operator Eddie Miranda who operates a  carnival contraption called the Zipper in the heart of Coney Island’s gritty amusement district.

When his rented lot is snatched up by a real estate mogul, Eddie and his ride become casualties of a power struggle between the developer and the City of New York over the future of the world-famous destination.

Be it an affront to history or simply the path of progress, the spirit of Coney Island is at stake. In an increasingly corporate landscape, where authenticity is often sacrificed for economic growth, the Zipper may be just the beginning of what is lost.

See more at: http://www.nitehawkcinema.com/movie/zipper/#sthash.W3sG2nn7.dpuf

Civics and Urban Life

Red Bows for the Teddy Bears on Prospect Park West

I  didn’t know where they came from: the identical teddy bears that appeared on lamp posts on Prospect Park West after the death of Sammy Cohen-Eckstein, the 12-year old boy who was run over by a van a few weeks ago.

I’d seen the make-shift memorial for Sammy. Flowers, notes, stuffed animals at the entrance to Prospect Park on Third Street. Heartbreaking.

Then I heard that it was a student at Park Slope’s MS 51, an eighth grader like Sammy, who put up the bears. Alison Collard de Beaufort bought forty of them to put up as a way to remind drivers to slow down. She also wanted to remind people about the senseless loss of her friend and fellow classmate.

On Saturday, a friend of mine decided that the teddy bears needed bows. Red bows. She asked my sister and her 9-year-old daughter to help her place handmade ribbon bows on twenty of the bears on Prospect Park West. I thought it was a beautiful gesture, one that perfectly compliments the initial gesture by Alison, as it honors Sammy with love, beauty and a message to us all to slow down.

arts and culture

Oct 22 at 7PM: Literary Heroes of New York at KGB Bar

On October 22 at 7PM at KGB Bar, three successful writers who give back by teaching workshops through the New York Writers Coalition, will be reading from their recently published works. The special workshops they teach are for at-risk and disconnected youth, the homeless and formerly homeless, the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated, war veterans, people with disabilities, cancer and major illness, immigrants, seniors and others. These workshops are led by wonderful writers, a few of whom will be at KGB this Tuesday night.

Ben Dolnick will read from his novel At the Bottom of Everything. Avra Wing will read from her award-winning new young adult novel After Isaac, and Judy Chicurel, will read from a forthcoming book.

The event is called NYWC Inside Out, a benefit reading and artist round table at KGB Bar (85 E. 4th Street, Manhattan), featuring a few of the talented poets and writers that make up NYWC’s arts and social justice circle.This is a small benefit for the Coalition, with a suggested donation of $10-$20.

arts and culture

Bianca Stone: Elegy with a Tiny Darkness in my Palms

An excerpt from Sink Review

I feel no sense of religion except this.

Each hand like

a bastard on my lap.

I am thinking of the size

of a tiny darkness

in my palms

that shake out verse

like emerald hummingbirds.

I keep thinking of the word Rhododendron.

In my mind there is only this word

in different sentences.

I plant a rhododendron where your head should be.

It is Christmas Eve in Brooklyn.

I peal an orange in the nebulous vapor

and everything is quiet.

I take toast to the window

and throw the rind at the moon

that recedes into the clouds

like an iridescent testicle into the holy lap of the atmosphere—

I am thinking of the body again.

Tonight at 8PM: Poetry by D. Nurkse, MRB Chelko, Bianca Stone and music by Caitlin Claessens at The Old Stone House (336 Third Street, between 4th and 5th Avenues in Park Slope).

arts and culture

MRB Chelko: Manhattations

An excerpt from Pool Poetry

I get it Big City; there’s no end

to your street light, what

lies beyond (nothing) lurks

out there, but now you must wait

(forever) until morning as I have waited

(forever) to fall asleep, and wait

still and wait now and wait just

a second. It takes two of me to screw

in a light bulb: one to keep my eyes closed

(forever) and one to be open eyed and

satisfied when the switch works just fine.

Now look how the apartment becomes

a box of light; it burns like the others.

Be (forever) grateful. It takes each photon

1 million years to escape the sun.

Tonight at 8PM: Poetry by D. Nurkse, MRB Chelko, Bianca Stone and music by Caitlin Claessens at The Old Stone House (336 Third Street, between 4th and 5th Avenues in Park Slope).

arts and culture

D. Nurkse: The Dead Reveal Secrets of Brooklyn

An excerpt from A Night in Brooklyn (Alfred A. Knopf)

We are frequently asked, What is death like?

Like tossing a frisbee in Prospect Park,

making sure the release

is free of any twitch or spasm—

any trace of the body’s vacilation—

will the disc to glide forward

of its own momentum never verring,

in a trance of straight lined.

Like waving in traffic at Hoty-Fulton

waving away the squeegee man

with his excessive grin and red-veined eyes.

 

Tonight at 8PM: Poetry by D. Nurkse, MRB Chelko, Bianca Stone and music by Caitlin Claessens at The Old Stone House (336 Third Street, between 4th and 5th Avenues in Park Slope).

arts and culture

October 17 at 8PM: Dennis Nurkse and Other Poets at Old Stone House

On Thursday, October 17 at 8PM, Brooklyn Reading Works presents Holiday in Reality, an evening of poetry curated by Patrick Smith at The Old Stone House (336 Third Street, between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, F Train to Fourth Avenue, R Train to Union Street).

Smith is thrilled to present Dennis Nurkse, the acclaimed author of A Night in Brooklyn (Alfred A. Knopf) a magical and haunted collection of poems, that is something like a love letter to our fair borough. Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang wrote of the book:  “…as much a celebration of the borough as it is a meditation on history, time and the furious love of the places the poet inhabits.”

Sensual, urgent and fierce, Nurkse’s language evokes a white alley cat that mysteriously survives a Bensonhurst winter; the narrow bed where young love took place; the wild gardens behind tenements. In the title poem” We undid a button, turned out the light and in that narrow bed/we built the great city—/water towers, cisterns, hot asphalt roofs, parks/septic tanks, arterial roads, Canarsie, the intricate channels…

Nurkse is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including The Rules of Paradise (2001), The Fall (2003), and The Border Kingdom (2008). His parents escaped Nazi Europe during World War II—his Estonian father worked for the League of Nations in Vienna, his mother was an artist—and moved to New York. Nurkse’s family moved back to live in Europe for a number of years, returning to the United States around the time of the Vietnam War. Nurkse lives in New York and teaches at Sarah Lawrence. He was at one time Poet Laureate of Brooklyn.

Also reading on Thursday night: MRB Chelko, Bianca Stone and Pat Smith. Music by Caitlin Claessens. A $5 donation includes beer, wine and snacks.

Highly recommended.

Civics and Urban Life

Oct 17 at 7PM: What Do Women Want? at Babeland

On October 17 at 7PM, Edgy Moms and Babeland Present: What Do Women Want?  Author Daniel Bergner in conversation with Babeland founder Claire Cavanah (462 Bergen Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn)

When it comes to SEX, common wisdom holds that men roam while women crave closeness and commitment. But in his provocative new book, Daniel Bergner turns everything we thought we knew about women’s arousal and desire inside out.

Drawing on extensive research and interviews with renowned behavioral scientists, sexologists, psychologists, and everyday women, Bergner forces us to reconsider long-held notions about female sexuality

Claire Cavanah co-founder of Babeland and the co-author of Moregasm, will interview Bergner about his journey into the world of female desire and ask him thought-provoking questions such as: Are women perhaps the less monogamous sex? What effect do intimacy and emotional connection really have on lust? What is the role of narcissism-the desire to be desired-in female sexuality? And is the hunt for a “female Viagra” anything but a search for the cure for monogamy?

DANIEL BERGNER is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and the author of four books of nonfiction: What Do Women Want?, The Other Side of Desire, In the Land of Magic Soldiers, and God of the Rodeo. In the Land of Magic Soldiers received an Overseas Press Club Award for international reporting and a Lettre-Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage and was named a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. God of the Rodeo was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

CLAIRE CAVANAH and Rachel Venning opened the first Babeland store in 1993 in response to the lack of women-friendly sex shops in Seattle. The store offered top quality products, a pleasant place to shop, and most of all information and encouragement to women who wanted to explore their sexuality. The store’s popularity with both women and men has led to three more stores in New York, plus a thriving and educational website.

EDGY MOMS is the brainchild of Louise Crawford, artistic director of Brooklyn Reading Works, a monthly thematic reading series at The Old Stone House in Park Slope. Edgy Moms presents smart, powerful, funny, whiny, non-sanctimonious writing about mothers and motherhood. She runs Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, a popular Brooklyn blog and Brooklyn Social Media, smart social media, publicity and special events for authors and entrepreneurs.

Civics and Urban Life

Sad

Very sad news.

A 12-year-old boy in Park Slope was hit and killed by a van on Third Street and Prospect Park West when he ran out into the street chasing a soccer ball in front of his apartment building. His name is Samuel Cohen-Eckstein.

Note from City Council Member Brad Lander:

“Like many of you, I am heartbroken over the death of our neighbor, Sammy Cohen-Eckstein, a 12-year-old boy who was hit and killed by a van last night on Prospect Park West. Sammy could have been any of our kids. There are no words for a senseless loss like this, but I know our whole community is praying for his friends and family.

Condolences to his family and friends.

 

arts and culture

What My Daughter Wore

 

Fashion blog meets mommy blog: What My Daughter Wore presents gorgeous illustrations by a Brooklyn mom of her daughter’s daily sartorial choices.

The drawings are simply gorgeous and the outfits are wonderful, too. To me, it feels like a collaboration between mother and daughter—but who knows. Some of the outfits feel mildly subversive on the part of the daughter, like the one where she’s wearing a colander on her head.

In a way it’s so representative of what’s interesting and questionable about a certain strata of Brooklyn at this time: the look-at-my-fabulous-kid thing; the sense of “we’re so ultra cool”; the need to shout it out.

But isn’t that the pot (me) calling the kettle black. The drawings are truly lovely and the mom and daughter are equally gifted.

As a former mommy columnist myself I wonder if the blogger’s kids are turned off by the entire endeavor. Mine certainly were. That said, this blog is done with such love and beauty. Wouldn’t anyone be thrilled to have such a record of their lives?

 

Civics and Urban Life

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Washington Square Park

Friend and fellow blogger Cathryn Swan has a book coming out, an event which always calls for a celebration. Especially a book about an important New York City space.

This Thursday October 10th, Bluestockings Books hosts the official release party for Tales of Washington Square Park (and a few other places), a book/zine written by Swan, the editor of the Washington Square Park Blog.

The book includes some of her favorite stories from the blog. At the event, there will be a reading by Swan, conversation about the famous Greenwich Village park and more, and discussion of New York City’s privatization of public space.

In the book, Swan touches on the following interesting factoids and more:

Why was the fountain moved 23 feet east to line up with the Arch at Fifth Avenue after 137 years in its previous location?

Did cars really run through the Arch?

What is the story behind the “Hangman’s” elm at the park?

Why did Henry James hate the Arch?

From Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Jacobs, Bob Dylan, Dave Chappelle to today, the park remains the heart of Greenwich Village. It is a constant reminder of the magical commons in the midst of the privatized city

WHEN: Thursday, October 10th @ 7 pm

WHAT: Reading+Discussion: Cathryn Swan’s Tales of Washington Square Park (and a few other places)

WHERE: Bluestockings Books, 172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington (which is 1 block south of Houston and 1st Avenue).

By Train/Bus: Take the F train to 2nd Ave, come above ground at 1st Ave, and walk one block south along Allen Street. The Delancey-Essex JMZ stop is also nearby, and the M15 bus has a stop on Allen at Stanton.

The event page is here: http://washingtonsquareparkblog.com/official-release-event-for-tales-of-washington-square-park-at-bluestockings-books-thursday-october-10th-reading-discussion-with-cathryn/

Photo by Ron Saari

Civics and Urban Life

Park Slope’s Chris Hennessy: I Ride with MS

Here’s a big shout out to Park Slope’s Chris Hennessy, who has Multiple Sclerosis. This weekend he will be riding his bike along with nearly 5,000 people from the tri-state area, up to 100 miles to raise money for support programs, services and research sponsored by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

This year for the first time ever, riders with MS, such as Chris, will be provided extra support during the event through a program called “I Ride with MS,” a bike series designed specifically to empower cyclists with MS by providing visibility and support tailored to their needs.

You can donate to “Team Hennessy” and help those with MS

Many people with MS experience a temporary worsening of their symptoms when the weather is very hot or humid, or they get overheated from exercise, the program will provide body-cooling neck wraps for these riders to use throughout their journeys, as well as special jerseys that identify them as “I Ride with MS” participants.

Good luck, Chris. Park Slope is rooting for you.

 

arts and culture

October 17: What Do Women Want AND Holiday in Reality with D. Nurkse

On Thursday October 17, Brooklyn Reading Works present TWO events:

WHAT DO WOMEN WANT? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire. A conversation with author Daniel Bergner and and Babeland co-founder Claire Cavanah (author of Moregasm). Presented Babeland and Edgy Moms.

Where: Babeland, 462 Bergen Street in Park Slope at 7PM

HOLIDAY IN REALITY: An evening of poetry curated by Pat Smith with acclaimed and award winning poet and former Brooklyn Poet Laureate D. Nurske, author of A Night in Brooklyn (Knopf) joining a fabulous and festive roster of poets and performers, including MLB Chelko, Pat Smith, Bianca Stone and  Caitlin Claessons.

Where: The Old Stone House, 336 Third Street in Park Slope at 8PM.

Do them both! A Lit crawl from Babeland to The Old Stone House.