Someone posted that question on Park Slope Parents this morning, which I interpreted as an attempt to make fun of the Is there a Park Slope in Boston? thread on Park Slope Parents.

The headline was followed by this:

I
checked
the
archives
and
can’t
find
any
neighborhood
quite
like 
Park
Slope
in
Iraq. 
They
all
seem
to
have
drawbacks…The
streets
of 
Baghdad
are
too
bumpy
for
our
Mountain
Buggy,
Mosul
doesn’t
seem
to 
have
a
Red
Hot
equivalent,
and
Basrah
isn’t
getting
a
Trader
Joes 
until
2062
(according
to
their
webpage). 
Any
help
would
be
appreciated.

I’m guessing the writer was trying to make a point, like, hey, there’s a war going on and 54 people were killed and 123 wounded in terror attacks yesterday in Baghdad. Let’s not be quite so myopic about our lives here in Park Slope.

Do you think that’s what the writer intended?

Do you think it was just silly and in bad taste.

The comment seems to have annoyed at least one person who said he found it to be in incredibly bad taste and is surprised that the moderators allowed it. He makes the point that there are doubtless people on the listserve, who have friends and relatives serving in Iraq.

Bad taste? Potent sarcasm? An attempt to put things into perspective. I contacted the person who wrote it for a comment. Will be interested to hear more from her.

The Brooklyn Public Library just received a grant for additional computer resources and that’s a win win for Brooklyites, who will be availed of more free technology.

And what a grant it is: $873,164 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to replace and add public computer workstations for library customers.

Whoa. You gotta love the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation even if you’re a Mac user. They are doing amazing things all over the world, including Brooklyn.

The foundation’s Opportunity Online hardware grant program is designed to help the library provide free access to computers for library patrons long into the future.

Here’s what Donna Mack Harvin, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Public Library, had to say about technology at the BPL

“Brooklyn Public Library is the primary, if not sole, means of accessing technology for thousands of Brooklynites. Youth and adults alike rely on our free computers and access to the Internet for learning, creating, and staying connected to the rest of the world. The generous support of the Gates Foundation will help BPL to continue to serve as a gateway.”

A gateway indeed.

My friend Jezra Kaye from Prospect Heights sent a link to this very funny  Salon article to all on her email list, which she called a brilliant piece about the recent memoir scandal. Kaye is working on a memoir and has a business coaching speakers and speech writing. For more info go here.

Many of you have commented on the recent scandals surrounding fraudulent memoirists — particularly Misha Defonseca, the Belgian who manufactured a Holocaust past, and Margaret Jones, the white Sherman Oaks, Calif., woman masquerading as a half-Native American barrio gangsta.

In response to public outcry, Erewhon Publishing has instituted a stringent new "cards on the table" policy. In the future, every memoirist will be required to provide evidence of his or her dysfunction: arrest records, needle tracks, urine and stool samples — and in the case of Martin Amis, dental bills.

Scary relatives must provide DNA evidence of kinship. Wish-fulfillment detectors will be distributed to editors on an as-needed basis. In the meantime, Erewhon Publishing has instituted a comprehensive fact checking of our back catalog. While still in its preliminary stages, our review has already uncovered troubling inconsistencies in the following memoirs:

Now that’s a subject close to our hearts. And there’s a new exhibition at the Center for Performance Research in Greenpoint, written about in the Times’ today (see Only the Blog Links), which promotes dialogue about the resulting emotional and physical displacement of individuals within the urban context.

Art and the lives of cultural producers can serve as metaphors for broader spatial, social, economic, and political dislocations. They go through seemingly endless cycles of discovering disregarded and thus affordable corners in which to live and practice their craft, are targeted as a market segment, creating value and drawing new businesses and real estate development, raising the profile of their neighborhoods, and subsequently being priced out of the very niches they’ve struggled to carve out for themselves.

The show opens on Saturday night. Here are the ‘tails:

Saturday, March 8, 2008
6:30 Art Opening
8:30 Performance
10:00 After Party

Performances
will be given by Ann Liv Young, Kayvon Pourazar, Amanda Loulaki, Matija
Ferlin, and Jonah Bokaer in collaboration with Michael Cole.

The art exhibition will be open on Saturdays and Sundays, from noon to 6pm and by appointment from March 9–30, 2008.

Displacement will be held at greenbelt:
361 Manhattan Avenue (between Jackson and Withers)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

L Train to Lorimer or Graham
G Train to Metropolitan

Visitors are encouraged to visit www.hopstop.com to find the best route for walking, biking, or taking public transportation to greenbelt.

That’s today’s question on Park Slope Parents. It gave me a chuckle. Maybe someone should franchise PS and open “Park Slope style” communities all over the country.

I guess Park Slope is short-hand for a certain type of place. I bet you could have a lively conversation about what kind of place that is. Or not.

They probably want the good:

A sense of community, kid-friendly, park, nice architectural scale with brownstones and tree-lined streets, a reverence for historical preservation, progressive politics, independent bookstore, a food coop…

And not the bad:

Overpriced, bad parking, too many strollers on the sidewalks, not enough schools, lack of diversity, etc. (there’s a whole article coming out in New York Magazine about why people hate Park Slope…).

So what’s the Park Slope brand that everyone is looking for in Denver and Boston? And where in Denver can you find it?

And would you want to? I mean Denver has it’s own personality. Wouldn’t you want that, too?

Ready for my close up, I arrived at the CUNY Television studio at 7:15 and sat in the Green Room with Steven Berlin Johnson and John Geraci until they went in to do their interview.

Eating fruit salad and sipping Diet Pepsi, I watched as Steven and John talked about place blogging and what Outside.in is all about.

Steven is so ready for prime time.

They showed their buzz maps, which traces the location of hot stories and the ratio of bloggers to traditional media coverage. When Brian asked why Brooklyn is so bloggy Steven said: gentrification.

What’s the bloggiest nabe? he asked. Clinton Hill, of course.

Then it was my turn. "The dentist will see you now," the producer said. It all went by in a blur. I know Brian asked who reads my blog. He asked about Hugh’s pictures and said something like,

"Crawford, eh? Do I detect nepotism?"

I talked about the kind of stories I like to do. He asked about the blogfest. And that was about it. Oh yeah, Brian read Leon’s poem

DEM PREZ TICK

Winning combo,

Cream of the crop;

Newbie below,

Woman on top.

I told him about Leon. "I call him the oh-so-prolific-one He sends me poems every day. I’ve never met him…"

Luckily Leon was watching the show:

You actually pronounced my name correctly.  My mom never mastered it, to my father’s chagrin.  You can be sure she’ll bake you a fruit cake for Hanukkah.

You started off shakily–who wouldn’t?–but just two minutes into it, you sounded like  a seasoned pro, on a par with Brian Lehrer.

I’m sure your blogfest along with OTBKB will benefit from your upbeat performance.

In case your Inquiring Photographer forgot, I taped the broadcast and it’s instantly available to you; I live on Eighth Ave/Fiske Place, probably minutes away from you.

Mom says you look like Anna Magnani, only more passionate.

Racked had this story yesterday: The grand opening is March 13th of the first Brooklyn Urban Outfitters. I happen to love the store.

It’s where Teen Spirit buys his jeans. I was just in the 72nd Street branch yesterday and bought a belt, Jukebox, the new Cat Power CD, and 2 pairs of skinny jeans. For him.

Says Racked: “A week from now Atlantic Avenue will be irrevocably changed.”

They got that right. The avenue of antique stores selling oak barrister shelves and Victorian fainting couches is now tres chic. Sort of.

It ain’t like it used to be.

Remember when all the Brooklyn teen bands played at Liberty Heights Tap Room in Red Hook?

Well, Steve Deptula, former owner of Liberty Heights Tap Room and guardian angel to Brooklyn teen rockdom,  sold the bar to Rocky Sullivan’s (he still owns the building) and he’s producing The Young + Wrestless, an all-ages music series, at Southpaw now.

I’m not sure how often he’s doing the shows there, but there’s one coming up with on Saturday March 15th starting at 2 p.m. with Play, Jet Lag, Dulaney Banks and the Mighty Handful.

Here are the ‘tails:
125 Fifth Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11217
Phone:
718.230.0236

Play 2:00pm   35 minute set.
Jet Lag 2:45pm 35 minute set
Dulaney Banks 3:30pm 35 minute set
The Mighty Handful 4:15pm 35 minute s

So now that the red chair is in its temporary position in the dining room next to the doorway to the kitchen, I keep bumping into it.

To put it succinctly: It’s in the way.

But it does make a great place to dump coats, backpacks, electric guitars and cereal bowls (with the Raisin Bran caked on – gross).

How long will it stay there I wonder. Mrs. Kravitz hasn’t asked about it in days. Maybe on the weekend. I showed it to my lovely neighbor. She may come back.

Someone wrote in to say:

“I think you should keep the chair. Things like that linger with kids. Eventually they will go to college and THEN you can get rid of the chair.”

Spoken from the heart of someone who obviously had something important taken away from them when they were a child. Truthfully, I think everyone is enjoying the more spacious living room. Although Teen Spirit pointed angrily at the Eames plastic chair I put in the red chair’s place and said,

“You don’t expect us to sit on THAT do you?”

I remember when we moved out of our Fifth Street apartment and moved here. Teen Spirit was so upset even though this apartment was an obvious improvement (to us, anyway). He missed the old place so much. He was only three. He got over that when a nice boy named Eddie moved into the apartment downstairs. Then he loved it on Third Street forevermore.

So kids adjust. They really do.

Still, the red chair bump into me, stubs my toe, looks longingly my way overflowing with leather jackets, books and other detritus of life in the apartment.

What will become of me? it seems to say. What will become of me?

The Brooklyn Eagle reports that you’ll be able to strap on your roller skates this summer at Lola Staar’s roller rink in Coney Island. A roller rink near the board walk. That’s sounds like a whole lot of fun. I think it’s going to be very popular.

"Lola Staar entrepreneur Dianna Carlin’s dream of installing a seaside
temporary roller rink didn’t make such ambitious claims, but does
promise to add some pizzazz to a place that’s changed little over the
years besides the occasional clearing of another lot."

This Saturday March 8 (not sure about the time), a “Save Coney Island” event is planned at  Southpaw in
Park Slope, 125 Fifth Ave. between Sterling and St. Johns. This should be quite the shindig:

Burlesque
dancers and hot rodders will be on hand, helping to promote awareness
of the city’s (controversial) plan to convert a portion of Coney Island
into a park, leased to a single amusement operator. Borough President
Marty Markowitz and Coney Island Development Corporation President Lynn
Kelly are expected on the red carpet. Dance party DJs, burlesque
performances and “never-before seen slide shows” await inside.

Last night two local Hillary Clinton supporters, one Obama supporter who said she had guilt feelings about not voting for Clinton in the New York Primary, and I sat in the Santa Fe Grill on Seventh Avenue. From a distance, we saw Clinton on the bar’s television in her bright red suit looking positively radiant. The set was on mute.

"Omigod, she won," one of my friends said. "I’m SO excited."

No one at the almost empty bar seemed to be reacting to the scene in Ohio. I called Hepcat to find out what was going on. He didn’t have the TV on either. I told him to turn it on.

"She definitely won. She wouldn’t be looking that happy if she didn’t win," my friend said.

I reminded them that the Texas primary is tricky. She could win the popular vote but still get less delegates if she didn’t win liberal counties like Austen, at the caucusesI told them.

"But it looks like she won," she said. None of us were wearing our reading glasses so we couldn’t read the informative text on the screen.

"I think she’s going to pick Obama as her running mate," the other Hillary supporter said.

"Really?" I said skeptically.

"Definitely," she said with certainty. "They’ll be an incredibly strong team. If you campaign for Hillary I want to do it with you," she told the other Hillary supporter at the table.

I couldn’t help but feel proud and happy for Hillary. She really managed to pull these primaries out of the bag.

What stamina, what strength, what an ability to bounce back from adversity. It’s pretty impresive if you think about it.

"The pundits were wrong once again," I said as we left the restaurant.

"Yup," someone said as we walked out into the light rain.

From Hillary Clinton’s victory speech:

"For everyone here in Ohio and across America who’s ever been counted
out but refused to be knocked out, and for everyone who has stumbled
but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never
gives up, this one is for you."

Some of you may remember that our gold Volvo stationwagon broke down in January on the approach to the George Washington Bridge.

The car suffered engine failure and we were towed from the Palisades Parkway to Summit Avenue in Ft. Lee right across from the Econo Lodge. I called a local car service and we were ferried home. The car service driver gave us the name of a local garage that would tow our car.

In the subsequent days, we had to figure out what to do with our disabled Volvo. Finally, we decided to tow the car to a Ft. Lee garage. But then I got a call from the tower, "The car’s not there."

"What do you mean the cars not there?"

"The cars not there," he said again solemnly.

Seems that the Ft. Lee Police authorized another local towing service to take the car to a local garage. We’d been towed.

Later that day, I went to that garage where they took the car and gave the car to the owner there. It was sad to say adieu to 20-year-old Goldie. We’d had it for ten years. Hepcat loved that car. So did I.

A few days later I received a summons about a court date. A court date? What did we do wrong?

CAR ABANDONMENT I was told when I spoke to someone at Ft. Lee Boro Hall. And according to the summons, I’d already missed my court date—a mandatory court date.

Car abandonment? I almost fell over. Well, the court date was rescheduled for 5 p.m. on March 4th.

Yesterday, a family friend drove me to Ft. Lee and we got to the seemingly empty courthouse at 4:45. We followed signs to the Prosecutor’s Office and found ten people already on the queue—all with 5 p.m. appointments.

At 5 p.m. more than 40 people lined up behind us.

"What time does the courthouse close," I asked a cop trying to gage how long I might be there.

"Until the court is finished. You should be here for about an hour. Tops."

I felt faint. It was hot, the florescent lighting was getting on my nerves, there was nowhere to sit, aggravation about the whole thing, why wasn’t Hepcat with me, agitation, anxiety…

People with lawyers got first priority. That was irksome. I made friends with the couple in front of me, who were summoned for not using a turn signal.

"I think the cop was following us because we were in a 2008 Cadillac," the African-American woman with stunning dreadlocks told me.

Finally I saw the prosecutor. He did a double take when he saw the charge on my paperwork.

"I’ve never seen this before," he said. I began to tell my story. "Well, our car broke down…"

"Your car broke down, that’s not abandonment," he said decisively. "These charges are dismissed. Go into the courtroom and the judge will dismiss these charges."

I said no more. At least there were seats in the courtroom where proceedings moved quickly. When I was called up the judge explained things to me.

"Your car broke down?" he said.

"Yes," I replied.

"All charges are dismissed. But I want to give you a little history. Car abandonment is a very serious charge that carries a $1,000 fine and results in an automatic suspension of your license for one year."

He explained the harsh penalties: years ago there was a national Teamsters strike. The Teamsters were threatening to abandon their trucks on the highway. New Jersey instituted a law that such an action would result in automatic suspension of your license for one year and a $1,000 fine.

That put the kibosh on that. The penalties are still on the books.

"Now you can go through that door, go home and pay no fine," he said.

I said: Thank you.

The Mark Ravitz sculpture inside the storefront where Park Slope Books used to be is really cool.

It’s sort of a standing anthropomorphic version of one of Ravitz’s drips. Think sun/octopus creature with a cyclops-like eye.

The artist has posed a light on the sculpture, which makes it easy to see around the clock and gives the space of very dramatic feeling. The octopus/cyclops creature definitely draws attention to the storefront, which is empty. There’s a For Rent banner on the window.

For Rent by owner it says. No food.

About the drips, Ravitz says, "…they are an abstract expression of an other worldly entity of an unexpected experience. They have made thousands of people smile."

Indeed.

The Hellgate Harmonie, an adventurous and gutsy local performance group, used its citing as one of the 2007 Park Slope 100, to advertise a coming show at the Brooklyn Lyceum.

Cool.

They will be performing Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana in English at the Brooklyn Lyceum on
March 8, 15, 16, and 22, starting at 3:30pm.

I love the sense of risk that they bring to everything they do:

A great opportunity for kids to experience grand opera up close. 40 piece
orchestra, chorus, great voices, fantastic music and drama.

Not
sure if we’re going to pull this one off – a huge and intense score,
lots of instruments, unfamiliar conductors…should be interesting
(think: NASCAR pile ups, smell of burnt rubber, exploding bassoons)

Check here for details and to order tickets:  http://www.gowanus.com/MORE?listingid=100119