All posts by louise crawford

Civics and Urban Life

FIVE PLAYWRIGHTS AT THE OLD STONE HOUSE!

On Thursday, February 16, 2012 at 8 p.m., Brooklyn Reading Works presents the 2012 edition of New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights, an annual event curated by playwright Rosemary Moore.

New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights brings together five accomplished playwrights presenting their latest works-in-progress. Here's your chance to look behind the curtain of the creative process and find out what these artists are up to.

Another year, another great selection of staged readings of new plays (and a musical) by Trish Harnetiaux, Marian Fontana & Leah Gray Mitchell, Karen Hartman, and Joseph Goodrich. Introduced by Rosemary Moore.

Suggested donation of $5 includes refreshments. For information or interviews call Louise Crawford 718-288-4290 or louise_crawford@yahoo.com

Marian Fontana is a playwright and performer whose plays and one-woman shows have been performed at Playwrights Horizons,the Vineyard Theater, Variety Arts and more. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Her memoir "A Widows Walk" was published by Simon and Schuster in 2005 and was chosen as People Magazines "Top Ten Reads" for that year. She recently finished her second memoir, Middle of the Bed.

Joseph Goodrich is an Edgar award-winning playwright and the editor of Blood Relations: The Selected Letters of Ellery Queen, 1947-1950 (Perfect Crime Books). His plays have been produced across the United States and in Austrialia, and are published by Samuel French, Playscripts, Inc., The Padua Hills Press and others.

Trish Harnetiaux is a Brooklyn based playwright. Her most recent full-length plays include Your Pretty Little World, adapted from Shirley Jackson's novel, The Bird's Nest, Welcome to the White Room, and Mr. Bungle and the Incident on Lambdamoo. She has been a two-time fellow at both the MacDowell Colony and The Corporation of Yaddo. Harnetiaux received her MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College and currently, she is a member of the 2011/2012 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab where she is writing her new play, an unconventional love story, titled The Convention.

Karen Hartman's Goldie, Max, and Milk premiered last season at Florida Stage and the Phoenix Theater, and was nominated for the Steinberg and Carbonell Awards. Wild Kate opened at ACT in San Francisco ,and will be published by Playscripts this month. An alumna of New Dramatists, Karen has taught playwriting extensively, including at the Yale School of Drama, and currently leads popular writing workshops in New York. Her prose has been published in the New York Times.

Leah Gray Mitchell graduated from the NYC High School of Performing Arts as a music major and received her BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase. She has performed in numerous films and theatre projects, as well as composing and performing original music.

Rosemary Moore's Side Street, Slight Kidnapping, The Bar Play, Aunt Pieces, Pain of Pink Evenings and Pineapple have been read or staged at the Cherry Lane Alternative, The New Group, New York Theater Workshop, New Georges, Manhattan Theater Source, The Old Stone House, Barbes and Here. Her play The Pain of Pink Evenings was published in The Best American Short Plays of 2001 by Applause Books. During the day she teaches writing at Rutgers University. Rosemary holds an MFA from the Dramatic Writing Program of Tisch School of the Arts at New York University where she studied with Maria Irene Fornes and Tony Kushner

2011-2012 SEASON

September 15, 2011: Italian Americans: History, Politics and the Everyday curated by Joanna Clapps Herman

October 6, 2011: Tranformations on the Tongue curated by Pat Smith

November 17, 2011: Make Mine a Double (Why Women Like Us Like to Drink) curated by Gina Barreca

January 19, 2012: The Truth and the Ghostwriter curated by John Guidry

February 16, 2012: New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights curated by Rosemary Moore

March 15, 2012: The Year of the Dragon: Voices from the East curated by Sophia Romero

April 19, 2012: An event curated by Marian Fontana

May 10, 2012: Edgy Mother's Day curated by Louise Crawford and Sophia Romero

Film

OTBKB Film by Pops Corn: It’s Complicated

021
OTBKB film critic Pops Corn begins the new year with a review of the Meryl Street/Alec Baldwin "comedy" It's Complicated. Read Pops' best of the decade and best of 2009 columns. His unusual lists provide great suggestions for your Netflix queue.

The storyline of a woman who falls back into an affair with her re-married ex-husband should provide plenty of comedic fodder.  The middle-aged love affair should have been refreshingly adult and the love triangle cast of Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin is irresistible. But It’s Complicated, the new movie from writer-director Nancy Meyers, is rarely funny, often childish and consistently sour with nearly every character being unlikeable.  On the surface, there’s really nothing to like.  So if you, like me, ignore the comments of critics and friends and decide to see it yourself, here’s a guidebook of subtext to ward against brain rot or thinking of your shopping list. 

1.    Characters You Can’t Like – Meyers’ chief concern seems to be to show her characters flaws and neuroses.  This may seem like a bold choice to make a picture about unlikeable people, but truthfully it seems that Meyers just went overboard in demonstrating the flaws and neuroses of the film’s inhabitants.  Based on the wall-to-wall music seemingly programmed by a Clear Channel robot, it’s obvious that the film is simultaneously trying to pander to its audience, so why is every character worse than the next?
2.    Women Don’t Know Their Own Bodies –One comedic conversation in which a gaggle of middle-aged women demonstrate their lack of female anatomy knowledge may send feminists and post-feminists running from the theater.
3.    Millenials Can’t Grow Up – The adult-age children of the Baldwin and Streep characters are unable to comprehend adult emotions (hey, it’s complicated).  Only John Krasinski, as the beau of one of the daughters possesses the emotional depth to comprehend the situation, clearly indicating that either divorce is impossibly hard on kids or that they were raised in a home where emotions are not to be explored.  In one disturbing scene the kids are so freaked at their parents’ relationship complexity that all three of them sleep in the same bed. 

Civics and Urban Life

George Will: A Blight Grows in Brooklyn

Nationally-syndicated columnist George Will takes aim at the absurd
"blight" designation used to justify eminent domain abuse in Prospect
Heights.

British forces routed George Washington's novice army in the Battle
of Brooklyn, which was fought in fields and woods where today the
battle of Prospect Heights is being fought. Americans' liberty is again
under assault, but this time by overbearing American governments.

The
fight involves an especially egregious example of today's eminent
domain racket. The issue is a form of government theft that the Supreme
Court encouraged with its worst decision of the last decade — one that
probably will be radically revised in this one.

The Atlantic
Yards site, where 10 subway lines and one railway line converge, is the
center of the bustling Prospect Heights neighborhood of mostly small
businesses and middle-class residences. Its energy and gentrification
are reasons why 22 acres of this area — the World Trade Center site is
only 16 acres — are coveted by Bruce Ratner, a politically connected
developer collaborating with the avaricious city and state governments.

 No Land Grab has an excerpt and a link to the actual column.

Civics and Urban Life

The List: What To Do on New Year’s Day

1. Bowery Poetry Club: Word and Performance Extravaganza, more than 150
poets and performers are scheduled to take the stage from 2 p.m. to
midnight in what is always a day for New York to show off. There will
also be a collection for Books Through Bars, who donate paperback books
to prisoners, and for Urban
Pathways, who provide food and other services for the homeless. Bring paperback books and canned food.

2. Poetry Project at St. Marks Church 36th Annual Poetry Marathon starts at 2 PM.

3. Brief Encounter, acclaimed multi-media piece based on David Lean's film at St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO at 8 PM.

4. The Last Days of the Myrtle Avenue El, photos from 1969 at the Transit Museum.

5. At Barbes the Quavers coax a luminous sound out of decayed samplers, walkmans, vibraphone,
low-tech loopers, tape-echo violin and homespun harmonies. Like a
space-age Carter Family, they weave grainy electronics around songs
sturdy enough to stand up even if the power goes out. 8 PM

6. Who Shot Rock & Roll exhibition of rock photography at the Brooklyn Museum

7. 2009 in Review at the Bell House with Pub Trivia, Dick's Sudden Death Game Show and The
Family Feud. That's right a regular game show triathlon. Teams will be
made up of 3-5 players. Combined scores of all three challenges will
decide the winning team at 6:30 PM.

Civics and Urban Life

The List: Things to Do on New Year’s Eve

1. Fun Run in Prospect Park; Ring in the New Year in a healthy and fun way! Costumes welcome! Runners, walkers and all paces welcome! Presented by Brooklyn Road Runners Club and Slope Sports. 3 mile course. Start at 9th Street, down around the Lake, turn Left on
Center Drive. At the end of Center Drive, turn right back onto West
Drive to the Finish line at 9th Street. Runners, please make note of
your times at the end of the race. There will be an unofficial timing
and this is an un-scored Fun Run. More info at Slope Sports. 

2. The 28th annual New Year’s Eve
fireworks spectacular at Grand
Army Plaza .
The free celebration, sponsored by the Brooklyn Borough President’s
Office and held in partnership with the Prospect Park Alliance, starts around
11 p.m. with musical entertainment and hot refreshments. Best locations for viewing the midnight fireworks include anywhere in
Grand Army
Plaza , inside the Park on the
West Drive , and along Prospect Park West
between Grand
Army Plaza
and 9th Street .

3. New Year's Eve at Vox Pop: The Cortelyou Road cafe reopens tonight with a big New Year's Bash.

4. The pub quiz with Scott Turner is just part of Rocky Sullivan's New Year's Eve Extravaganza in Red Hook.

5. Dinner at Bussaco with jazz by Josh Shneider and friends. Second seating includes jazz and dinner. Starts at 8:30 – 11 PM.

6. A full list of special New Year's Eve menus at Fifth Avenue restaurants is on the blog, All About Fifth. 


Scott Turner of Rocky Sullivan's

Greetings from Scott Turner: A Little Summation and New Year’s Eve at Rocky’s

Greetings, Pub Quiz Year Enders…

Overwhelmed by Year In Reviews?  Best Of?  Worst Of? 
Even worse, the prognostications for the coming year?  And worst of
all, the coming year's predicted Year In Review for stuff that hasn't
happened yet — more Shecky Green than Nostradamus.

Even worse, we get a double-dose: Year in Review and Decade in Review.

This ain't no disco, and it ain't my call to make.  The best of the year, best of the decade, is whatever you say it is.

This little summation is just stuff that makes me smile or sticks in my craw — sometimes at the same time.

And what, exactly, is a craw?  It's the crop of a bird or an
animal, or an animal's stomach.  And, idiomatically, the place where
really annoying stuff goes and sticks.  And doesn't come out — not
with the wash, not with scholastic remediation, and not with the
healing qualities Time is supposed to be so good at.

2009…the last year of this terrible decade.  We should've known
it would be bad — any decade that lends itself to the spectacle known
as New Year's Eve Spectacles was bound to go off the rails.

http://sherrifoxman.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834cbf07753ef01156ff9035b970c-500piGlasses.jpg image by Thousandbarshttp://www.fenichel.com/TimesSqGlasses2.jpg
yes, yes…it's a new year AND you can see us!

And it did.  Spectacularly at the outset and grindingly for the rest of the way.  The '00s were mostly the dark days of the Bush era.  Really, really dark.  At the end, the disappointment (thus far) of the Obama administration's
hold-hands-circle.  Dude, you were elected with a huge mandate — end
wars and give everyone health coverage and encourage queer rights and
all the other stuff we talked about!

Also, people now say "dude" more than ever.

Hard to believe this is the same decade as 9/11 and the big tsunami and the end of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Since he's still in office, it's sadly not hard at all to believe Michael Bloomberg
is mayor.  It's cruel to wake from the nightmare of W and still be in
Bloomy's New York — like a sci-fi plot where the character opens her
eyes only to discover by the next ad break that she's still in a
terrifying dream.

Assuming he doesn't buy his way into a fourth term, we'll
discover that we can't even afford to leave the Bloomberg's frightful
nightmare — sky-high rents, box-stores, wrecked subway and school
systems, deference to the wealthy, trite initiatives that ignore the
city's real problems.

If Bloomberg's such a "good businessman," how come the city's in
such bad shape financially?  And no, you can't give his alleged
business acumen credit when times were good but, now that times are
bad, blame events somehow beyond the mayor's control.

There were bright spots — political movements and new politicians
that could bend the steel bar enough to make a difference, bands and
movies and t.v. shows we loved, medical advances (though, good luck
paying for them), and technology that has us at the crossroads — this
way, radical new possibilities to improve our quality of life; that
way, a planet so self-absorbedly addicted to Twitter and celebritydom that when we finally look up and see the giant asteroid about to destroy Earth, we won't have time to use all 140 characters to scream.

Of course, humans being humans, it'll be somewhere in the middle. 
It always is.  We somehow always recover from doing terrible things to
one-another.  The worst things possible — genocide, torture, t.v. shows about the Kardashian sibblings — and still we continue.

What we do to each other is one thing.  What we're doing to the
planet…that's another story.  There's a desperate push to name the
'00s.  Could be hard, because we can't even agree on the prosaic
numerical nickname — Zeroes? Aughts? Pre-Teens?.  Still, I nominate
this clunker: The We've Known We're Killing Our Planet And
Destroying Humanity One Hummer Meat-Cattle-Raising Acre Rampant Western
Consumer Thirst Slaked But Not Enough By Emerging Factory States At A
Time And We Can't Get Our Shit Together To Save The Only Home We've Got
Decade.  It's not as catchy as the Me Decade, but at least it's too long for a tweet — and that's a start.

Upon further review, how about the Toxic Decade.  "A lie
told often enough becomes the truth," so the insidious insist.  These
last ten years, lies didn't even have to be said that often before we
caved in and took them at face value.

http://blogs.citypages.com/food/bloomberg%20hot%20dog.jpghttp://www.treehugger.com/china-multinationals-breaking-pollution-law-greenpeace.jpghttp://www.skinnyvscurvy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/the-kardashian-sisters-line-up-on-the-red-carpet.jpg
http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xc/81108626.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF1933F549535AE5A47FC3888F222EB25EE59B01E70F2B3269972http://desedo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/bush-cheney.jpghttp://antwerp.files.wordpress.com/2006/07/enron.jpg
Michael Bloomberg, China's quest to satisfy Western urges, the Kardashians, Bruce Ratner and Jay-Z, W & His Number 1, Enron — the forefront of the Toxic Decade.  An incomplete list.

We've fought our way through the Toxic Decade.  That says a lot.  We allowed it to become this toxic.  That says a lot more.

The obvious retort here is "Dude, every
decade's been toxic."  True — nuclear proliferation, world wars,
depressions greater than this one, bubonic plagues (that's a lot of
decades ago, but still…).  What makes this last one so toxic is that
by now, we should know better.  Know better than to wage stupid wars,
pollute the planet, build superblock projects and give wealthy
developers public money to destroy neighborhoods, allow fiscal
corruption to run rampant, piss off the world with hubris and
arrogance, and pull cover after cover over our head instead of letting
the warm sunshine of resistance heat us up.

Fact — fighting the power is more fun than DVDing another season of America's Next Top Model.

So onward to 2010.  My one moment of Nostradamual prognostication:

Things are gonna change…

* * * * * * * *

…starting with the best way to celebrate New Year's Eve this Thursday evening:

The Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz Quizzin' New Year's Eve Extravaganza!

Film

OTBKB Film by Pops Corn: The Best of 2009

Defining any year in cinema is a difficult task.  And if one’s personal taste is involved, it can be downright impossible.  I’ve rediscovered this truth looking at my 10 favorite films from 2009.  It’s  a diverse collection of ignored and the celebrated films, notable for their range of parental figures, immoral enforcers, fringe dwellers, educational institutions and questions so difficult to answer that they often remain unsolved.  My 2009 favorites, I hope you will discover them as well.

1.    Observe and Report – While Kevin James’ light mall cop movie was a surprise hit in January, a few months later Jody Hill’s irreverent comedy with Seth Rogen as a disturbed mall security guard was only noticed only for its notorious date-rape joke.  But, for me this was a truly unique work.  It aimed to create a new film experience and I walked out of the theater with that incredibly rare feeling that I had actually seen something I’ve never seen before.  An absurd take on Taxi Driver-like delusional hero redemption, it’s outrageous, satiric, funny, makes brilliant use of music on the soundtrack and gleefully breaks all kinds of rules of cinematic technique and storytelling. 
2.    A Serious Man – Trippy yet dramatic, snarky yet sincere, A Serious Man may be my favorite Coen Brothers film.  They brilliantly build the narrative tension around a story of faith and karma, wonderfully open to both atheistic and spiritual interpretations.
3.    Sugar – When telling an American story, baseball makes the perfect backdrop.  This American tale is a subtle meditation on the migratory pattern of a Domican baseball prospect discovering the promised land’s hard truths. 
4.    The Hurt Locker – I wish it didn’t start with a quote that sums up what the film so perfectly captures.  Still, Kathryn Bigelow’s film about war’s corruption of the human soul is a powerful statement and an incredible artistic and technical achievement, anchored by Jeremy Renner’s outstanding performance.
5.    Up – A cinematic journey that is as imaginative as it is heartfelt, this animated Pixar offering is thoroughly delightful.  One early sequence that depicts Carl and Ellie’s life together is the year’s most memorable, reminiscent of Buster Keaton with its warm comedic touch and aesthetic mastery.
6.    Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire – A film that simply does not get a disinterested reaction, Precious pushes all kinds of buttons, yet it’s ultimately a heartfelt tale of inspiration.  Director Lee Daniels’ stylized mayhem was finally applied with perfection.
7.    World’s Greatest Dad – Death’s false honor is explored in Bobcat Goldthwait’s black comedy.  Robin Williams stars as a failed writer father who exploits tragedy to turn his life around.
8.    An Education – A tacked-on ending enraged me, but otherwise Lone Scherfig’s film is smart, endearing and offers no easy answers. 
9.    Antichrist – While the violence, abuse in all forms and talking foxes got all the attention, Lars von Trier’s attack on the senses feels like the Dutch filmmaker’s most personal work.  Where will he go with these demons now exorcised?
10.    Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call: New Orleans – It may be a weak 10th-slot choice, but this B-movie curiosity piece is full of hammy acting, story dead-ends and bizarre moments. Its lack of quality is somehow also its substance

Film

OTBKB Film by Pops Corn: The Best of the O’s

If you had the ability and perseverance to do sift through the movies the decade we have just lived through, you may find, like I, that the 00s offered a lot of strong films, particularly by American filmmakers.  Asked by OKTBKB to compile a list of the best of the decade, I can only offer up my personal favorites.  I like to think that many of these films will be long remembered, although some, in fact, have already been positively ignored.  Still, these are the films that spoke the strongest to me over the last 10 years.  There are many more films I’m sure I have yet to discover, but this is the list I am passionate about today.

1.    The Weather Man (Gore Verbinski; 2005) – Critically dismissed and a box office bomb, this study of meaninglessness shocked me with its honest and profoundly sad depiction of how we live our lives today. Brilliantly conceived by screenwriter Steve Conrad, the titular character played by Nicolas Cage is one of the cinema’s most vapid protagonists, a disrespected mini-celeb whose useless existence becomes more and more evident as he balances family problems with a million dollar network job possibility.
2.    Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch; 2001) – Lynch’s techniques, once so secular, are now all over the edges of blockbusters and straight-to-video horror.  But no one does it like the master, probably our greatest living filmmaker.  A meta-mystery, Mullholand Dr. is a bizarre, dreamlike subconscious meditation and a definitive Hollywood satire.
3.    Capturing The Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki; 2003) – In a decade during which the face and status of the documentary changed, none so clearly re-defined my view of documentary filmmaking as Andrew Jarecki’s debut film.  The portrait of an accused pedophile and his family’s spiral amidst the crisis displays formal brilliance and benefits from incredible, powerful archival footage.
4.    Sideways (Alexander Payne; 2004) – Depicting the middle-aged male psyche with painful humor and emotional tenderness, Sideways is a complex character study, superbly performed. Alexander Payne’s film manages to be an entertaining blast and a time capsule of human behavior.
5.    Human Nature (Michel Gondry; 2002) – Months before screenwriter Charlie Kaufman was celebrated for his personal, audacious Adaptation script, this hilarious take on a Brave New World-like scenario was also ignored. One of Kaufman’s strengths is that he shoots for the moon with existential searches and raw exposure of human foibles and failures. Riotously funny and absurd, it is a rare, unique film in many ways, including turning off audiences with excessive leading lady body hair.

Below are some additional 00s favorites, organized by fabricated sub-genres.  I hope you add to your must-see list if you’ve missed them until now:

The Past Reflecting The Present
Far From Heaven
Revolutionary Road

What’s Happening Now?
About Schmidt
Happy-Go-Lucky
House Of Sand And Fog
In The Valley Of Elah
Little Children
Whale Rider

No Escape From Self
Adaptation
Dahmer
A Serious Man

Pure Cinema
The Assassination of Robert Ford By The Coward Jesse James
In The Mood For Love
No Country For Old Men
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood

Crowd Pleasers With Depth
Catch Me If You Can
Little Miss Sunshine
Unbreakable

Mindfucks
Apocalypto
Observe And Report
Oldboy
Planet Terror

Civics and Urban Life

Vox Pop To Reopen For New Years Eve

Vox Pop reopens on Thursday night after being closed down by the NYC Department of Revenue.

I want to thank everyone for your support during this difficult two
weeks while we were closed.  We were able to raise the money to get
our doors back open! 

But, this doesn't get us out of the woods yet.  Being closed for 14
days has cost us dearly in lost revenue (especially through the
holiday) and we still need to move forward with all of our fundraising
efforts to get us on the strongest financial footing possible.

We have an amazing benefit show at Jalopy Theater ( on January 12th.
Mark your calendars and come on down to show your support. t.


Civics and Urban Life

Fun Run: Around the Park on New Year’s Eve

Come ring in the New Year in a healthy and fun way!
Costumes welcome!
Runners, walkers and all paces welcome!

2009-2010 NEW YEAR'S EVE FUN RUN
presented by
Brooklyn Road Runners Club and Slope Sports

3 MILE FUN RUN
Prospect Park, Brooklyn

DATE/TIME
Monday, December 31, 2009 —
11:15pm start

NEW START/FINISH LINE
Start/Finish line is at the 9th Street, inside the Park

ENTRY FEE
$20 before December 31, 2009 ($15 for Brooklyn Road Runners Club members)
$25 on Race Day ($20 for BRRC Members)
No refunds and/or exchanges. Race will occur rain, snow or shine.

NEW COURSE
3 mile course. Start at 9th Street, down around the Lake, turn Left on
Center Drive. At the end of Center Drive, turn right back onto West
Drive to the Finish line at 9th Street. Runners, please make note of
your times at the end of the race. There will be an unofficial timing
and this is an un-scored Fun Run.

AWARDS

  • A free pair of running shoes (value up to $100) from Slope Sports for Top Male & Top Female finisher!
  • Running gloves for the first 250 participants
  • Hot chocolate from Cousin John's Bakery

RACE REGISTRATION

(1) Print and mail a race application. DOWNLOAD HERE >> CLICK HERE
OR
(2) Online registration at Active.com >> REGISTER ONLINE

REGISTRATION / RACE NUMBER PICK-UP
Slope Sports
70 Seventh Avenue, between Lincoln & Berkeley
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718-230-4686

Wed. Dec. 30th, 11a-7p
Race Day, Thurs. Dec 31st, 11a-5p

Onsite registration: 10:30-11:00p

BAG CHECK
Bag check is provided at registration area as a convenience. Please do
not bring anything valuable since we are not responsible for lost or
stolen items.

Music

OTBKB Muisc: Still No Plans for New Year’s Eve? Try This…

Maddock Maybe your New Year’s Eve plans have fallen through, or maybe you
just kept putting off planning what it was your were going to do or
maybe you just don’t want to empty your bank account to do something
overpriced and under wonderful.  But whatever the reason, New Year’s
Eve is tomorrow and there’s nothing on your calendar.

Here’s the last refuge for you last minute types.  The Rockwood Music Hall
will be sticking to it’s usual policy on New Year’s Eve.  That means no
reservations.  There’s no cover charge with a one drink per set minimum
(but a $5 contribution for each band is requested).  Not only will they
will have a full night of music, but OTBKB Music fave James Maddock
will be playing during the 10pm to midnight slot.  Not only is James a
great live performer but his album, Sunrise on Avenue C, is on the OTBKB Music Top Ten for 2009.

The only downside is the size of the Rockwood; it holds only about
40 people in the main room, which is where the stage is.  There’s a
back room which holds about another 25 or so, and it does have a closed
circuit TV view of the stage.  So if you want to see James, get there
early, maybe an hour early.

James Maddock, The Rockwood Music Hall, 196 Allen Street (F or V Trains to Second Avenue, use the First Avenue exit), 10pm-midnight

 –Eliot Wagner

Civics and Urban Life

January 20: Hollywood in the Heights

The Brooklyn Heights Association (BHA) is celebrating it's centennial in 2010 with a yearlong series of events called Celebrating a Century.  The kick off event for this series, Hollywood in the Heights, is scheduled for Wednesday, January 20th at 7pm in St. Francis College's Founders Hall.

Hosted by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker and novelist Peter Hedges (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Pieces of April, About a Boy),
the event will be a unique and comprehensive look at how the scenic
neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights has been portrayed in film, and
present attendees with a close up look at why so many great films
choose Brooklyn Heights for their setting.

The evening will begin with Peter Hedges, a Brooklyn resident, presenting the premiere screening of a film montage featuring
notable clips from films shot in Brooklyn Heights throughout the years.
Mr. Hedges will then lead a panel discussion of film industry
professionals in an intimate and informative conversation, giving an
inside look into the mechanical, technical, and creative aspects of
filming a Hollywood-quality scene on the picturesque streets of
Brooklyn Heights.

Civics and Urban Life

Murder Rate Down Citywide; Car Theft Up in Park Slope

The murder rate in NYC is the lowest since the current record system began in 1963. As of Sunday, there had been 461; the record low was in
2007, when there were 496 for the entire year.

According to the Brooklyn Paper, crime in the 78th precinct in Park Slope was down in all categories except car theft:

Every crime category was down — and down
big — this year except for car theft. As loyal readers of our police
blotter know, car theft is the unending plague on Park Slope — often
with thieves taking cars older than 10 years. This year, car theft was
up 14 percent, with 97 sets of wheels being swiped. The good news?
There was only one murder, down from three last year, and there were
double-digit cuts in robbery (147 to 125), assault (70 to 57) and grand
larceny (437 to 374). Overall, crime was down 10.86 percent.
Civics and Urban Life

New LIRR Terminal Now Open To Public

From the Brooklyn Paper:

After nearly six years of construction, the new entrance to the Long
Island Rail Road’s critical Atlantic Terminal at Flatbush Avenue is
finally open to straphangers.

Commuters looking for the LIRR ticket office will find that it has
moved to a new location on the concourse below the ground floor
entrance, where natural light shines through glass that spans from the
road to the ceiling, offering views of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank
tower across the street.

Civics and Urban Life

New Year’s Eve Fun Run: New Start/Finish Line at 9th Street

Come ring in the New Year in a healthy and fun way!
Costumes welcome!
Runners, walkers and all paces welcome!

2009-2010 NEW YEAR'S EVE FUN RUN
presented by
Brooklyn Road Runners Club and Slope Sports

3 MILE FUN RUN
Prospect Park, Brooklyn

DATE/TIME
Monday, December 31, 2009 —
11:15pm start

NEW START/FINISH LINE
Start/Finish line is at the 9th Street, inside the Park

ENTRY FEE
$20 before December 31, 2009 ($15 for Brooklyn Road Runners Club members)
$25 on Race Day ($20 for BRRC Members)
No refunds and/or exchanges. Race will occur rain, snow or shine.

NEW COURSE
3 mile course. Start at 9th Street, down around the Lake, turn Left on
Center Drive. At the end of Center Drive, turn right back onto West
Drive to the Finish line at 9th Street. Runners, please make note of
your times at the end of the race. There will be an unofficial timing
and this is an un-scored Fun Run.

AWARDS

  • A free pair of running shoes (value up to $100) from Slope Sports for Top Male & Top Female finisher!
  • Running gloves for the first 250 participants
  • Hot chocolate from Cousin John's Bakery

RACE REGISTRATION

(1) Print and mail a race application. DOWNLOAD HERE >> CLICK HERE
OR
(2) Online registration at Active.com >> REGISTER ONLINE

REGISTRATION / RACE NUMBER PICK-UP
Slope Sports
70 Seventh Avenue, between Lincoln & Berkeley
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718-230-4686
Tue. Dec. 29th, 11a-7p
Wed. Dec. 30th, 11a-7p
Race Day, Thurs. Dec 31st, 11a-5p

Onsite registration: 10:30-11:00p

BAG CHECK
Bag check is provided at registration area as a convenience. Please do
not bring anything valuable since we are not responsible for lost or
stolen items.

Civics and Urban Life

Some Bubbly for New Years Eve?

The Green Grape in Fort Greene will host their annual champagne  tasting on Wednesday, December 30 from 5 PM until 7 PM. 765 Fulton Street. They deliver.

Every single champagne at the tasting — and on the list below — is a grower champagne, which means that the  grapes were raised,
harvested and vinified by grower instead of
being sold off to a big champagne house.

Here are the champagnes to be
poured. If you can't make it to the tasting you may want to just buy a bottle for yourself for New Year's Eve. The words are from the Green Grape website. 

Henri
Goutorbe Champagne Special Club 2002
$90.00
A real New Year's Treat! The 'Club
de Viticulteurs Champenois' began in 1971 as
a way for the smaller growers to join forces
in order to market their wines. With over a
dozen different producers working together
they felt they could more easily compete with
the larger Champagne houses. They created the
'Special Club' bottling with the idea that it
would always be the best of what each
producer had to offer and would always be
presented in the same oddly shaped bottle.
Henri Goutorbe is one of the leading
vine-nurserymen in Champagne and the owner of
Hotel Castel Jeanson in Ay, along with being
one of the great small growers.
The Special Club has malic, yeasty and sorrel
aromas and shows great length. 2002 is a
stellar vintage.

Chartogne-Taillet
Rose, NV
$59.00
Our only rose
champagne,
it is not only fun to drink,
the pleasing pink color makes it festive in
the glass. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes
provide the base to which Pinot Noir still
wine is added to give color. It blossoms
with aromas of strawberries, and, believe it
or not, prosciutto and can stand up to more
assertive foods than our other
champagnes.

Henri
Goutorbe "Cuvee
Prestige",
NV $45.00
This non-vintage version from the great Henri
Goutorbe was best value in the WSJ this
month. The wine, packed with red cherry
fruit, is
bright, generous and has an amazing long
finish.

Jean
Velut Champagne Brut Tradition NV
$40.00
30 years ago Denis Velut's
grandfather Jean established this domain in
the Cote des Bars as a recoltant/manipulant
(small grower) following a venerable history
of supplying grande marque houses further
north. Montgueux is the village where Denis
and Anne Velut's 7 hectares of vines reside
and surprisingly in the context of the larger
region, this is an area planted to roughly
85% Chardonnay due to the phenomenon of it
being highly concentrated in calcaire soil.
Half of the grapes grown here are still sold
to negociant houses and it seems as though
this is the perfect economical balance
allowing Denis the leeway to carefully craft
the very best wines that he can. Just 3000
cases are produced here each year.
Structure is provided by the steely austerity
of the chalk infused chardonnay while the
ripe Pinot provides a fruity lift.