BROOKLYN WEATHER: Dreamy like yesterday. In a word: SUNSHINE. Unseasonably warm temperatures are going up to 50 degrees. Another day to enjoy Prospect Park, the streets, the Chinese New year

NEWS: Read about the elections in Iraq

DAILY DISC: Elliott Smith From a Basement on a Hillf

BLOG TIP: Sleeping Bunnies

SILVER SCREEN: Hotel Rwanda at the BAM Rose Cinema

GOOD EATIN’: The Stone House Cafe. 324 Fifth Avenue at 3rd Street. Unbelivably good french toast with mixed berry compote. Excellent service. Sunlight pours into this corner restaurant.

TODAY: Year of the Rooster: Brooklyn Public Library, Central branch, hosts "Music, Magic and more," an event which features Chinese dance, acrobatics and magic. 2:30-4 p.m.. Grand Army Plaza.

HEADS UP: New School Information Fair. Find out about the 52 new high schools
being opened in September 2005.  2/12 – 2/13 at Brooklyn School for the Arts. 345 Dean Street. 10 a.m. until 3 p.m.for more info:   Inside Schools

AND DON’T FORGET: "Angela Ashes" author Frank McCourt will be reading from his at a MS 51 fundraiser on 2/9. 7 p.m. Fifth Avenue between 5th and 6th Streets. A meet-the-author
reception follows at the Old Stone House in the Third Street and Fifth
Avenue park.

HEAR/SAY: "Actually Brooklyn has a long literary history, and we shouldn’t forget
it, Walt Whitman being the most important. Quite a few of the great
20th century poets, the Objectivists, lived in Brooklyn, Louis
Zukovsky, George Oppen, Charles Reznikoff, and probably one of the
great 20th century poems, The Bridge, written by Hart Crane, was
composed in Brooklyn. In fact there are few places in America with a
greater poetic tradition than Brooklyn." – Paul Auster