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Civics and Urban Life

Tupper Thomas, Saviour of Prospect Park, To Retire

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Tupper Thomas, president of the Prospect Park Alliance, is set to announce her retirement int he next day or so. Today the New York Times ran an article saluting her magnificent efforts on behalf of the park we love. Here’s an excerpt from the Times’ article.

Drugs were sold at the carousel. Muggers used the cover provided by the park’s shrubs and foliage. One year, near the skating rink, a man was found shot to death, and another year, the acting supervisor of the zoo was arrested and charged with shooting animals.

Three decades later, Ms. Thomas, who plans to announce her retirement on Tuesday, has become a Brooklyn institution and is widely seen as the park’s indefatigable savior.

In the 1970s, Prospect Park in Brooklyn looked more like a crime scene than the pastoral refuge imagined a century earlier by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

As if to advertise the woeful state of the park, in 1976 Columbia, the figure driving atop the arch at Grand Army Plaza, fell over in her chariot, a victim of disrepair.

Four years later, perhaps not fully aware of the mess the park had become, a 35-year-old former city bureaucrat and urban planner named Tupper Thomas answered a newspaper ad for a job as the park’s administrator. She was from Minnesota, knew nothing about parks and even spelled Mr. Olmsted’s name wrong on her application.

“This apple-cheeked young woman came into my office,” said Gordon J. Davis, the former parks commissioner who hired Ms. Thomas. “She looked nothing like a New Yorker, and sounded nothing like someone from Brooklyn. She giggled the whole time. Tupper seemed to have come from the moon.”

Civics and Urban Life

Coney Island in Transition

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Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn ventured out to Coney Island recently and was in for a surprise. Here’s an excerpt from his blog:

Despite the intermittent media coverage regarding pending development,   it was still a bit of a surprise, visiting Coney Island yesterday,  to see the huge swath of the Boardwalk, from Stillwell Avenue east, fenced off, shops closed, as reconstruction of the Boardwalk, and presumably further development, commences.

While it was still early in the season, only a couple of food stands were open, west of Stillwell. I didn’t realize that the impact of the development would be felt so soon, it seems clear that that the fenced off area precludes business in this section over the summer, if, as the sign indicates, work will be completed in Fall 2010.  While it is possible to walk the length of the shore, much of the trip to Brighton Beach would have to be made either on the street or on the sand, since the Boardwalk no longer serves as a thoroughfare…

Food and Drink

Undomesticated Brooklyn: The Taste of Life

By Paula Bernstein

As I’ve said before (and I’ll say it again and again), Brooklyn is the place to be for foodies — or anyone who appreciates a good deal (and a tasty meal), scintillating conversation or all of the above.

Today is my hubby’s birthday, so I plan to cook him something special and stay home to celebrate. But if you’re in the mood to go out on the town and do something fun and food-related, you’re in luck since there are plenty of events to choose from tonight (April 6):

1.  Melt’s “Taste of Life Tasting Menu”

Melt Brooklyn 5-course Tasting Menu $30

TEMPURA FRIED OYSTER
Soy and Dashi Dipping Sauce

ATLANTIC SALMON CEVICHE
Avocado, Wasabi, Salmon Roe

POTATO AND LEEK SOUP
Garlic Croutons

KIWI BURGER
Grass Fed Lamb Burger, Sunny Side Egg, Beet Relish on Brioche.

GRANNY SMITH APPLE TART
Butter Pecan Ice Cream

created by Mark Simmons, Executive Chef

Pair each course with a taste of 5 carefully selected wines $20

Call 718.230.5925 to secure a table as seating is limited.

2. Edible Brooklyn & Edible Manhattan Magazines Present
GOOD SPIRITS, a cocktail celebration, at The Bell House, 6-9 pm

Brooklyn-based mixology-minded chefs will strive for liquid symbiosis, cooking up perfect pairings for cocktails made with storied spirits. They’ll be pouring Empire State favorites like Tuthilltown Spirits and Warwick Valley Winery and Distillery, as well as small batch selections from Vertical Vodka, Chartreuse and Ilegal Mezcal.

The Vanderbilt, No. 7, James, Walter Foods, The Farm on Adderley and Palo Santo will be on hand to prepare food.

A special guest bartender will provide bite-by-sip commentary.

Tickets are just $40 for an evening of food, drink and merriment.

Information at www.ediblebrooklyn.com and www.ediblemanhattan.com or contact Samantha Seier, sam.edible@gmail.com.

3. The powerHouse Arena is hosting a book release party:

Gristle: From Factory Farms to Food Safety (Thinking Twice About the Meat We Eat)
Edited by Moby with Miyun Park

Tuesday, April 6, 7–9PM

For more information, please call 718.666.3049
RSVP: gristle@powerHouseArena.com

Multi-platinum musician Moby has compiled writings from 15 of the country’s leading food-minded folks who lay out a hard-hitting and eye-opening guide to the meat you eat.

Moby and co-editor Miyun Park, Executive Director of Global Animal Partnership, as well as a selection of Gristle’s contributors, will be present to discuss and sign the book. Refreshments will be served.

Just because I’m staying home doesn’t mean you have to! Now I’ve got to figure out what to cook for Avo’s birthday dinner tonight.

arts and culture

Drinking With Divas – Judith Berkson

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Sarah met singer, composer, and instrumentalist Judith Berkson at Barbes to talk about her beautiful new CD Oylam, due out next month on ECM Records.  Stay tuned for news about her upcoming shows, including a May record release at Joe’s Pub.

Sarah: What was your earliest exposure to music?

Judith: My dad is a cantor, and he was teaching me all the prayers by ear starting at age three.  We had a family band – my mom played piano and we sang three-part harmony.  My dad was really strict.  He forced me to listen to opera, which at the time I resented, but now I’m sort of glad, because I love it.  All the music we had growing up was Jewish music, cantorial recordings, klezmer.  Those things stuck with me.

Sarah: When you sing, what kind of sound are you aiming for?

Judith: I want it to sound like someone is talking to you right in your ear.  Simple, like recordings from the fifties.  Now we have all this modern recording technology, but I love that old sound.  It’s like you were right there.

Sarah: Your new CD has a lot of eclectic material.  What’s the connecting thread?

Judith: It’s the culmination of four or five years of work.  I wanted to explore all the forms I enjoy – lieder, jazz, cantorial music, and the quirky, atonal songs I write – to take them and make them personal.  I want to connect directly to the essence of each thing.  The editing process was very important.  I was trying to cut out anything inessential, like whittling down a piece of wood.

Sarah: I love the Yiddish piece “Hulyet, Hulyet.”  It’s stunning.

Judith: Gebirtig is the shit.  He was a Polish songwriter, killed during WW2 in the ghetto.  In my arrangement I tried to go for an austere feeling to  contrast with the lyrics.

Sarah: Is it hard being a singer and having your instrument inside your body?

Judith: It’s not comparable to any instrumentalist.  It’s a whole other level of maintenance and neurosis.  Obviously you have to practice every day.  Not smoke, not drink too much.  Not talk too much.  It’s a battle.

Sarah: Do you have any rituals before you perform?

Judith: Yeah, I take a Klonipin!

Sarah:  What’s more important to you, vowels or consonants?

Judith:  What an interesting question!  Why do you ask?

Sarah: I guess I really noticed the clarity of your consonants.

Judith: I take that as a compliment.  Vowel sounds are so important in the classical way of singing.  The vowel is what carries the sound.  But I think the consonant is what sets up the vowel to be pure and to be understood.  It’s what communicates.

Sarah: Tell me about the cantorial tradition.  What is it all about technically?

Judith:  It’s modal music, and it’s part of the Ashkenazic tradition.  There are different modes for the different services and times of day.  Within that, it’s improvised, and each culture and each individual cantor had their own way of using the modes, so there are Polish, German, Romanian styles, etc. Opera was a big influence as well.  When I sing this music I don’t even have to think about it.  In a way I’m always sort of doing it for my father.  I knew he’d get a kick out of the piece I put on the CD because I’m adding chords that are very atypical.

Sarah: How do you use your voice in cantorial music?

Judith: I hear the man sound.  It’s not feminine.  It’s kind of deep and aggressive.  At the same time, you have to be flexible and have a voice that can carry.  They do this thing they call a “kvetch” which is when your voice cracks or breaks before a note and it feels like you’re almost crying.

Sarah: When you work as a cantor, do you feel like you have to be holy?

Judith:  I’m only the assistant cantor.  Belief? I don’t even want to go there.  The music is what I focus on.  When I sing, I’m trying to create a connection to the beautiful traditions of the past.  Institutions are broken.  I’m just trying to make people feel good.  That’s the only thing that matters to me.

THE VESPER MARTINI

Judith likes vodka and I like gin.  Next time we drink martinis, which I hope will be soon, we’ll have to have vespers.  The delicious compromise is as follows…

“A dry martini,” [Bond] said. “One. In a deep champagne goblet.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?”

“Certainly, monsieur.” The barman seemed pleased with the idea.

“Gosh, that’s certainly a drink,” said Leiter.

Bond laughed. “When I’m…er…concentrating,” he explained, “I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink’s my own invention. I’m going to patent it when I can think of a good name.”

-Ian Fleming, Casino Royale

Civics and Urban Life

Crime Up in Brooklyn

Brooklyn fears crime wave as nearly all precincts report spike in felonies. That’s a headline in the Daily News today and here’s an excerpt from the story:

Just three months into 2010 robberies, burglaries, grand larceny and car thefts are on the rise in much of the borough, especially in some traditionally safe neighborhoods, NYPD statistics show.

“It’s terrifying,” said Lauren Bousquet, 24, who just after midnight last Sunday was robbed at gunpoint along with two friends by a trio of young thugs on Joralemon St. in Brooklyn Heights.

“I don’t feel like we were doing anything that risky. It was fairly well-lit,” said Bousquet. “It was a reasonable time and in a safe neighborhood. How do you stay safe?”

Bousquet and her friends were mugged in Brooklyn’s sleepy 84th Precinct, where there was a 104% increase (from 24 to 49) in robberies through March 21.

Read more here

Civics and Urban Life

Learn How to Blog with OTBKB Starts This Wednesday!

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!

At BAX on Fifth Avenue and 8th Street in Park Slope

Wednesdays | April 7, 14, 21, 28 | 7:30 – 9:30 PM

$50 for workshop | No drop-ins

Learn how to blog in a hands-on workshop covering technical, creative and conceptual issues. In this class we will discuss blog design, how to write a great blog post, top-ten tips for new bloggers, search engine optimization, social networking platforms and more. You don’t need to know a thing about blogging. All you need is the desire to blog!

Louise Crawford runs Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and is the Smartmom columnist for the Brooklyn Paper. She produces the annual Brooklyn Blogfest and Brooklyn Reading Works, a montly literary reading series at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. A freelance writer her work has appeared in Newsweek, the Associated Press and BKLYN Magazine. She has taught How to Blog workshops at BAX, Adelphi University, Baruch College and at Writers-at-the-Beach in Rehobeth, Delaware.

Civics and Urban Life

Buds & Bulbs Thief on the Loose in Park Slope

Beware there’s a horticultural thief in Park Slope and he or she is grabbing plants, flowers, buds and bulbs from local gardens and stoops. From the Brooklyn Paper:

A green-thumbed burglar is on the loose in Park Slope, striking fear in the roots of plants, and forcing owners to safeguard their property by any means necessary.

Victims say that the bandit has been stealing buds and bulbs for some time in and around an the area where Sixth, St. Marks and Flatbush avenues converge.

And the thief isn’t discriminating, snatching all manner of flora from stoops or front gardens, and forcing owners to tether their pots with sturdy cables, or even cement them firmly to the ground.

arts and culture

OTBKB Music: Go Out and See Sasha Dobson Tonight or Stay In and Hear James Maddock Live on The Radio

Sasha Dobson, who has been opening for Norah Jones is back in town and is playing a free show tonight.  Details at Now I’ve Heard Everything.  But if you prefer not to leave the comfort of your own home, you can still hear live music as WFUV (whose signal is now actually listenable in Park Slope) will be presenting James Maddock live from City Winery tonight and an interview and performance with Peter Wolf, formerly the lead singer for the J. Geils Band, tomorrow night.  Details here.

–Eliot Wagner

arts and culture

April 15: Truth & Money at the Old Stone House

On April 15, 2010,  Brooklyn Reading Works presents its monthly writers’ program on “tax day.”  This happy accident, observed last summer in a casual conversation over coffee with John Guidry of the blog, Truth and Rocket Science,  resulted in the idea for a panel called “The Truth and Money,” a reading and Q & A with three authors whose work has taken on money in some significant way.

Our three panelists are:

Elissa Schappell, a Park Slope writer, the editor of “Hot Type” (the books column) for Vanity Fair, and Editor-at-large of the literary magazine Tin House. With Jenny Offill, Schappell edited Money Changes Everything, in which twenty-two writers reflect on the troublesome and joyful things that go along with acquiring, having, spending, and lacking money.

Jennifer Michael Hecht, a best-selling writer and poet whose work crosses fields of history, philosophy, and religious studies.  In The Happiness Myth, she looks at what’s not making us happy today, why we thought it would, and what these things really do for us instead.  Money—like so many things, it turns out—solves one problem only to beget others, to the extent that we spend a great deal of money today trying to replace the things that, in Hecht’s formulation, “money stole from us.”

Jason Kersten, a Park Slope writer who lives 200 feet from our venue and whose award-winning journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, and Maxim.  In The Art of Making Money, Kersten traces the riveting, rollicking, roller coaster journey of a young man from Chicago who escaped poverty, for a while at least, after being apprenticed into counterfeiting by an Old World Master.

Please join us for the event at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 15, 2010, at the Old Stone House in Washington Park, which is located on 5th Avenue in Park Slope, between 3rd and 4th Streets, behind the playground.

arts and culture, Civics and Urban Life

Excerpts From Local Easter Sermons

Do you ever wonder what goes on behind  church doors on Easter? Here are two sermons from local churches, one a Dutch Reformed Church in Park Slope, the other a Unitarian church in Kensington.

On Easter morning, Rev. Daniel Meeter of Old First Dutch Reformed Church spoke about the church’s painting, The Empty Tomb by Vergilio Togetti. Here is the ending of his sermon.

How do you see your life? How do you summarize the meaning and purpose of your life? The message of this painting today is that the ultimate meaning of humanity comes from outside of humanity and our broken history. The meaning of human life is a surprising gift of God to us. The meaning of your own life. You come like the women, with your need, your loss, your grief, whatever your need may be, and you are given something else, not what you came for, but more, we are surprised by God, a greater gift, the new life of the world. It is for you. Its energy is love.

It strikes me that the women have been captured in a dance. The power of the resurrection has transformed their grief into a dance. Look, the resurrection is about our souls but even more about our bodies, in all their pain and pleasure, and about the place and purpose of our bodies in the kingdom of God. You will need your body for eternal life. For all the dancing. I hope that all the exercise will be dancing.

The ultimate purpose of your body, no less than your soul, is to glorify God and enjoy God forever. So God will let your body dissolve in death, and then raise you again on that great day, reconstituted and reconditioned, without spot or wrinkle, without compromise or weakness, so that you may do what you were given your body to do, to enjoy God forever within the moving circle of humanity. You can practice those steps right now. Read more here.

Here is an excerpt from the sermon delivered by Minister Tom Martinez of All Souls Bethlehem Church in Kensington, an ecumenical community of faith with ties to three liberal denominations: the Unitarian Universalist Association, the United Church of Christ, and the Christian Church, Disciples

Do you believe in a love bigger than death?

I like that question a lot more than the more typical, “Do you believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus?”  In certain religious circles that’s often used to weed out unbelievers.  Somehow the notion that there may be more than on interpretation of the resurrection story is so threatening the matter gets reduced to an either/or, a “You’re either with us or your against us,” kind of thing.

But asking whether or not you believe in a love that’s bigger than death comes at things from a slightly different perspective.   A couple of weeks ago we saw some forebodings of this in the passage in which Mary Magdalene anoints Jesus, pouring expensive oil onto his feet and rubbing it in with her hair.  That was an anticipation of the cleansing of his body after death.  She clearly loved Jesus deeply.

So much in fact that she was the first person at the tomb and she had more oil.  She was prepared to anoint his body again, even after it had been disgraced on the cross.  But instead she has an epiphany and sees a living Jesus.  Laying aside our scientific minds and embracing the mythopoetic truth of the story, I’d like to suggest that it was at this point that Mary discovered her love was bigger than death.

As a general rule I think it’s always a good idea to ground our theological meditations in the real world.  For me, when I think of love and life and death I think of my friend Rob.  Many of you know that I go out to Pennsylvania about every other week to visit Rob, who’s  been battling Lou Gehrig’s disease for about ten years now and he’s nearing the end of that battle.  He spends most of his time in bed, though he can still talk and he’s breathing on his own.  Beyond that he needs help to get dressed, to move from his bed to his wheelchair, to do almost anything.  But mentally he is completely there, which is one of the maddening aspects of this disease.  While your body slowly stops working, your mind observes without losing a beat.

Continue reading Excerpts From Local Easter Sermons →

Smartmom

Teen Spirit Learns the Lessons of the Road

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Smartmom was happy to learn that Gap Year University has a “study-abroad” component.

Teen Spirit didn’t exactly go to Europe or South America. He went on a road trip to Texas, which is, in a way, a foreign country.

There were no teachers on this trip. No itineraries. No syllabus of appropriate literature. It was, you could say, an independent project. Life was the teacher, and whatever happened on the way would surely be a life lesson of sorts.

On a rainy Saturday morning in March, Teen Spirit set off with three other friends in a Toyota.

“A Toyota,” Smartmom thought. “Oh, great.”

After days of preparation, Smartmom was stressing. She helped Teen Spirit make a list of what to take. How much money would he need? What was the weather down in Texas? Did he need a sleeping bag? A raincoat? An umbrella, for Buddha’s sake?

About the driving, Smartmom had moments of panic imagining a car accident on the Interstate (the Toyota, remember?). She reminded herself that the driver, a suburban girl, is confident and has many miles under her belt. But she still couldn’t quell the fear that something might go wrong.

And where would they stay? What if they happened upon some weird Bates Motel-type of place or decided to camp out in some scuzzy campground?

It was all possible, but Teen Spirit and his friends were on their own, and there was no way she or any of the parents could micromanage this trip. That was the point.

Smartmom thought back to the trip she took when she was 16. She and two friends biked from North Carolina to the Appalachian Folk Life Festival in West Virginia. Her father almost didn’t let Smartmom go.

“It’s dangerous in the South,” he told Smartmom. “You’ve seen ‘Deliverance.’ ”

Thankfully, after much pleading, he let her go. Smartmom still can’t believe it. It really was a potentially dangerous trip: three 16-year-old girls alone on a bike trip, staying at campgrounds and weird motels. At one place, the woman at the desk asked if they were runaways.

But it was the adventure of a lifetime, which built self-confidence and many memories. Smartmom is grateful to this day that the late great Groovy Grandpa said yes.

That’s why Smartmom was open to Teen Spirit’s request to go down to Austin in a car. She knew it would be a great adventure and something he’d remember for the rest of his life.

The night Teen Spirit left, it was raining in Park Slope and Smartmom had a panic attack while watching “The Crucible” at the Old Stone House.

“What if they’ve been in a car accident? What if they’re dead by the side of some road?” she thought during the play’s witch trial scene. Her heart ached for her son. She should never have let him go away.

As soon as she got out of the show, Smartmom called Teen Spirit. Her panic melted away when she heard his voice on the phone.

“We’re in Kentucky,” he said cheerfully. “We’ll be stopping for the night in an hour or so.”

Smartmom tried not to think too much about Teen Spirit in the coming days. She did feel a pang when she came across his skinny jeans with the huge holes in the backside lying in the hallway.

During the first week of Teen Spirit’s trip, Hepcat got a text message from his boy. He called Smartmom excitedly.

“He wrote: ‘Been to Sun Records, On my way to Graceland. Life is good.’ ” Hepcat told Smartmom.

“He didn’t text me,” she told him.

Still, she was delighted with his message. Life really is good when you’re 18 and on the road. A few days later, Smartmom called Teen Spirit’s cellphone.

“We’re in Austin,” he told her. “And we’re not going to that music festival in Monterrey, Mexico. There’s a drug war and it doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

Smartmom was relieved beyond words. The group planned to go to MtyMx a music festival on the heels of SXSW, organized by Todd P, an all-ages event organizer in Brooklyn. They were going to take a six-hour bus ride from Austin to Monterrey, Mexico. But in Austin, they’d heard reports about drug cartels and the violence.

Smartmom felt relief. She was awed by the fact that Teen Spirit and his group had made the decision to avoid what was a potentially dangerous situation.

A few days later when Teen Spirit got back from his trip, Smartmom was away at a writers conference in Delaware.

“The Prodigal Son returned at three in the morning,” Hepcat told Smartmom the next morning.

Smartmom was happy. Her son was back from his trip of a lifetime, yet another feature of his year at Gap Year University. They had trusted him and he rewarded their trust with good decision-making and a really good experience.

Now the big question: How many credits did he get?

Civics and Urban Life

Egg Hunts in Brooklyn

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EASTER (with thanks to the Brooklyn Eagle)

–The Annual Brooklyn Heights Spring Egg Hunt takes place Saturday, April 3, 10 a.m. sharp at Pierrepont Playground (Columbia Heights and Pierrepont Streets on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade). Every spring, hundreds of little bunnies and their families turn out to participate. Candy, treats, balloons and good friends have made this a holiday tradition for many families. A bake sale will be held to benefit the Brooklyn Heights Playground Committee.

–Senator’s Easter Egg Hunt: Saturday, April 3, 2 to 4 p.m. in McKinley Park, Bay Ridge Parkway and Fort Hamilton Parkway. Participation is free; the egg hunt will feature music and prizes for the youngsters, who will be occupied searching for the over 1,000 candy-filled eggs. Also part of the fun will be races, face painting and entertainment provided by clowns. (Note: there are long lines and a limit of eggs per child.) For further information, call Senator Golden’s office at (718) 238-6044.

–Urban Meadow’s Second Annual Spring Egg Hunt: Red Hook, 11 a.m. for children 0-4; noon for children 5 and up. Face painting and a real bunny. Bring a basket. Corner of President and Van Brunt streets.

–Prospect Park Audubon Center’s Unscrambling the Egg, from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 3, and Easter Sunday, April 4. Free. The event will feature crafts, games and special exhibits. Enter the park at Lincoln Road and Ocean Avenue, at Parkside and Ocean avenues, or at Flatbush Avenue and Empire Boulevard. 718-287-3400 or www.prospect park.org.

–Easter Egg Hunt and Party: Ms. J’s Gymnastics and Dance at 289 Kent Ave Brooklyn, Saturday, April 3, 4:30-6 p.m. Family Fun time after you find all the eggs; limit three eggs per child. (718) 218-7065. Free for registered families, $10 for non registered families.

–Sunday, April 4: Park Slope Parents All Volunteer Easter Egg Hunt: Meet at Third Street and Prospect Park West entrance. 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Greeters will send groups of up to 20 people into Prospect Park. Each group appoints a hiking leader, entertainers, egg-hiders, etc. The group will keep their kids occupied with music, tattoos (provided by PSP) or other activity. The last group will be sent off at 11:30. Bring: 1) a dozen or so plastic Easter eggs filled with goodies. 2) props (Easter books, guitar players, shakers, etc.) 3) lunch and a blanket if you want to enjoy the park afterward.

–Meet Your Neighbors Breakfast and Easter Egg Hunt: 10 a.m. Organized by the Friends of Underhill Playground group in Prospect Heights, this potluck breakfast of coffee and bagels will include an Easter egg hunt, rain or shine. Some eggs provided, but bring your own plus baskets. Free, just show up! For more information: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/underhillplayground/.

–Prospect Park Audubon Center’s Unscrambling the Egg, from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 3, and Easter Sunday, April 4. Free: the event will feature crafts, games and special exhibits. Enter the park at Lincoln Road and Ocean Avenue, at Parkside and Ocean avenues.

arts and culture

The Weekend List: Pillow Fight, Greenberg, Bussaco, First Saturday

FILM

–Alice in Wonderland, The Ghost Writer, Greenberg at BAM; Tyler Perry’s Why Did We Get Married, How to Train Your Dragon, Care Bears Movie, The Last Song, The Bounty Hunter and More at the Pavilion

–Sat, Apr 3 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:30 PM The Landlord at BAM. Directed by Hal Ashby with Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, Diana Sands. Description: WASP-y rich kid Elgar Enders (Bridges) buys an apartment building in then-gritty Park Slope with plans to evict the current residents and turn it into a ritzy home for himself.

MUSIC

–Sat April 2 at 7PM at The Bell House in Park Slope: Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Penelope, a haunting 60-minute song cycle for female voice, chamber orchestra, and electronics composed by Sarah Kirkland Snider. The New York Times praised the work for having “an elegiac quality that deftly evoked sensations of abandonment, agitation, grief and reconciliation…ably [demonstrating] the poised elegance of Ms. Snider’s writing

–Sat, April 3 at 10PM Red Baraat Festival. Baraat is Hindi for a marriage procession. In North India, it is a tradition on the day of the wedding for the groom to travel to his bride’s home on a magnificently decorated horse, accompanied by family and friends. Red Baraat Marching Band, led by international drumming sensation, Sunny Jain, it is the first and only Indian marching band in the States. Comprised of dhol (a double-sided, barrel shaped drum from Punjab), percussion and horns, this NYC-based group plays traditional baraat songs, Punjabi songs, as well as classic Bollywood numbers and originals. $10

–Sat, April 3 , 10PM until 4AM at The Bell House: NEWMINDSPACE 5-YEAR ANNIVERSARY + PILLOW FIGHT AFTERPARTY

ART

–Saturday, April 3rd, 5-11PM: Target First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum. To Live Forever is this month’s theme in honor of the exhibition, To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt.  Lectures, film, hands-on art activities and dancing with Egyptian-inspired funk and Afro-beat music.

THEATER

–April 3rd & 4th at 8PM: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at the Gallery Players in Park Slope:  “As performed by The Gallery Players, The Crucible is one of the finest examples of [local] theater in recent memory. The ample cast gives strong performances all around. Add in atmospheric lighting and the audience’s rapt attention, and you have a show well worth the ticket.”
-The Brooklyn Paper

SHOPPING

–April 3rd and 4th marks the 4th grand reopening of Brooklyn Indie Market on Smith Street. Touted by Time Out New York, New York Magazine, Italian Marie Claire and fashion blogs as a beloved neighborhood style dealer for your fashion and design fix. Peruse your favorite indie designers of seasons past and get to meet some new-on-the-scene faces as well, offering the public a first glimpse of the many new names in fashion and product design. After a wintery, three month hiatus, Brooklyn Indie Market designers re-emerge with a new bag of design tricks Registration Now Open For New Vendors!

FOOD

–Easter dinner or brunch at Bussaco on Union Street just west of Seventh Avenue in Park Slope.

–Dine inside or out at Benchmark, the new restaurant on 2nd Street just west of Fifth Avenue in Park Slope.


arts and culture

Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Launchpad

Launchpad

Today is the day–

Hip, hip, hurray!

The launch of the millennium,

Biggest since selenium.

No need to name it,

For that would shame it.

Martians alone

(Sans iPhone)

Are in the dark

About this spark,

All Earth’s mobs

Will huzzah Jobs,

Every tot

Will cheer a lot,

Each alter kacker

And rickety rocker

Will play his part

And praise the art.

Here’s to reliance

On computer science!

The pad’s a maxi

And’s sure to taxi

Mankind to heights,

To the Northern Lights.

And six months from now–

The version with POW!

Half the price,

Twice as much rice:

New functions,

Fixed dysfunctions.

For men, a shaver

That’s a raver;

For women, makeup

For when they wakeup;

Girls’ll get dolls

Look like gunmolls;

Boys’ll love

The baseball glove,

Though oldsters won’t venture

If they’re in dementure.

Are doors open yet?

Get ready, get set!

Apple’s a-horning:

A new world’s aborning.

(Though Amazon’s warning

The thing is a-thorning–

Jeff Bezos says it’s

Really the iPits.)

http://open.salon.com/blog/leon_freilich