All posts by louise crawford
ZANA CAFE: POST DIVORCE ROSANA ROSA OPENS NEW SHOP
Hepcat and I happened into the Zana Cafe on Seventh Avenue near Ninth Street. We noticed Owner Rosana Rosa, who also owns Delices de Paris and assumed that the new place was a branch of Delices de Paris. But Brooklyn Papers has the real story.
The Zana Cafe is Rosa’s solo effort. She and husband, Michael Martin, have split up. They continue to own Delices de Paris together. But at the new place, Rosa sells French and Italian pastries and European
products — just like Delices de Paris. I wonder who is baking for her now? If memory serves, Martin was a big deal Upper East Side French baker who worked for Jackie Kennedy. The couple owned a shop in the mid-west before coming east to Park Slope.
With all the drama: customers are confused: Martin hung a sign in the front window of Delices de Paris warning his customers that his shop has nothing to do with his ex’s new shop — despite
how much it looks like his 9th Street shop.
He told the Brooklyn Papers: “They are completely different products,” he said. “She used the
same [paint] to mislead the customers and make them think that the two
shops are related.”
She told the Brooklyn Papers: “Sure, there is competition, but so what? Each block in Park Slope
is different, there are people who live up here and don’t even know
about the shop down near Fifth Avenue."
In the Brooklyn Papers article, Rosa defends her right to create a shop that looks like the other one. She told BP: “I built Delices de
Paris with my own hands. When we began, there was no place in Park
Slope to get a chocolate croissant, now you have Colson Patisserie on
Sixth Avenue and everyone is doing the French thing.”
I can attest to that: Delices de Paris was for a long time the only good French bakery in the neighborhood. Many people in Park Slope were unaware of it as it is located on 9th Street near Fifth Avenue. But word spread.
I was always very impressed with the shop and Rosa struck me as a savvy, dedicated and adventurous entrepreneur She was very much the front-person of the shop. But Martin, of course, was the master baker in the kitchen.
Obviously the Rosa-Martin divorce has gotten ugly. Still, I am quite sure that Rosa will make a success of her new location.
CLOUD OF TOXINS MOVING TO PARK SLOPE
Reporter Ariella Cohen reports in the Brooklyn Papers that an underground cloud of toxins is moving from the industrial
neighborhood along the Gowanus Canal toward Park Slope.
An engineer told state officials that a dangerously high levels of benzene — a gasoline byproduct that can
cause cancer if it is inhaled — have seeped into the soil below the
Third Avenue site where Whole Foods is building its first Brooklyn
store.The engineering report traces the Whole Food site’s toxins to a
canal-front parking lot and fuel station owned by Verizon at Third
Street, a block west of the epicurean grocer’s future home (pictured in today’s No Words_Daily Pix).
GERALD FORD IS DEAD
The 38th president of the United States, Gerald R. Ford, died yesterday at the age of 93. He was thrust into the presidency after the Watergate scandal but lost his own election bid after pardoning Richard M. Nixon.
Ah. such memories of that time. That’s my era. I came of age during Watergate. Who can forget the day Nixon resigned. Who can forget, "I am not a crook."
Who can forget the day Ford was sworn in (it was Aug.
9, 1974). I was just back from an AYH bicycle trip. And then his pardon of Nixon. How unpopular that was. How angry we all were.
He ended the war in Viet Nam and is credited for being a "healing" influence after a tumultuous breach of civic trust during the Watergate years. He is rarely remembered for anything he actually did.
He was defeated by Jimmy Carter, the first presidential candidate I ever voted for, in the 1976 election.
Who can forget Chevy Chase’s pratfalls as Ford on Saturday Night Live? Chase channeled the clumsy Ford in an unforgettable way. I think Ford even appeared on SNL once back then.
RIP Gerald Ford. We love your wife for her honesty and spirit. She came clean on the fact that she was heavily addicted to alcohol and drugs and paved the way for so many to seek help.
THE NEWLY ELECTED: FROM THE NY TIMES
The newly elected officials: from left, Eric Adams, 46; Hakeem
Jeffries, 36; Darlene Mealy, 42; Yvette D. Clarke, 42; and Karim
Camara, 35. Photo by Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times.
Brooklyn Record thoughtfully ran this picture and link to the story in the New York Times about the new generation of black politicians in Brooklyn.
In case holiday festivities kept you away from the Sunday Times,
we wanted to share this story about the new, post-civil rights
generation of black politicians in Brooklyn…
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
BROOKLYN EMTs PLAY SANTA CLAUS
Brooklyn paramedics brought Christmas early to some of the city’s neediest children Sunday, continuing a tradition of their own.
For the past 17 years, EMT workers in Brooklyn have gone to the post office to read through the thousands of letters sent to Santa during the holiday season. They select about a dozen letters from the most unfortunate children, and then buy the gifts they want and deliver them in costume as Kris Kringle and his elves.
“We are able to save lives on a daily basis with our work as paramedics and EMTs but this is just a different way of touching a child’s life that normally you wouldn’t be able to do,” said paramedic Gary Smiley.
“This is the best Christmas ever,” said one gift recipient.
“I really can’t believe this,” added another grateful recipient. ”Thank you so much everybody for helping my family out.”
The EMT workers say the best part of the night is seeing the children’s faces light up when they realize Santa is real.
TOOLS
Hepcat is a great one for giving gifts that are, as he says, tools. He is quite extravagant when it comes to “tools”. I should have known. Pre-marriage, he gave me a telephone for my birthday. I was just….thrilled.
But that’s when I learned about his preference for useful gifts: something that promotes creativity or ingenuity.
Hepcat will search high and low for the perfect, toolish, gift. Sure, he’s done his time at The Clay Pot, and selected beautiful rings for me. But more likely, he’s off looking for toolish gifts come Christmas, birthdays and anniversaries.
Photographic accessories, for instance, make a perfect gift, of course. Or pens. Art supplies. Musical instruments. Computer stuff. Notebooks. Kitchen appliances…
This Christmas, he gave OSFO a sewing machine. A real, live, grown-up one. She loves to sew and has been asking for one for quite some time.
Well, it was the perfect gift. Already, OSFO has learned to operate it and she was sewing late into the night (in-between bouts with her Nintendo DL, a gift from her grandpa).
Hepcat came into bed late Christmas night. “I am so proud of OSFO,” he said. “She just loves to sew.”
TWO YEARS AGO IN OTBKB: RECOLLECTIONS
I was just reading my blog from two years ago (that no longer updated blog is thirdstreet.blogspot.com). This was written just days after the Tsunami of 2004. That year, like most, was filled with tragedy and pain around the world. But also the joy in small moments of connection.
The last day of 2004 and we’re well rid of that one. It was a year, alright, quite a year. The pain and suffering this year has seen: Natural disaster, human suffering of unfathomable proportions, war, political disaster, tragedy, human cruelty…
And yet daily life goes on. The clock ticks, the internet connection hums, the children need lunch, there is work to be done. The dailiness of things keeps us going when nothing else does. It’s the ordinary things that pull us through.
There’s a lot of talk right now about the absence of God, the existence of God in the first place, the reality that bad things happen to good people often, unremittingly, all the time, a lot. Too much.
There are a lot of people who are very angry at their God right now. And there are many whose belief in their God will pull them through. Those without a belief in God are also in a quandry. No matter what kind of God or no God you’ve got, you’re probably struggling to understand the breadth of this tragedy.
There is also the unpleasant feeling of uselessness. At this distance, other than contributing money, there is nothing to do but watch and cry. With this comes a kind of survivor’s guilt – guilt for the fact that our lives are (thankfully) untouched by this kind of pain and suffering. Guilt for our abundance, guilt for the superficiality of what ails us right now.
And then there’s the fear, a deep, penetrating one: what happens if and when our lives are touched by such terribleness. What would we do?
When bad things happen, Fred Rogers, that dapper genuis of children’s television, used to say, "Look for the good." Even in the worst of times, he’d say, there is good to be found.
In this case, one has only to look at the faces of the survivors who are burying the dead, beginning to clean up, helping one another heal. Good people the world over are also flocking there to help: Doctors Without Borders, the International Red Cross, and other local and international organziations are pitching in. There is good to be found.
For the moment, the world’s focus is on this tragedy — everyone is grieving for the missing, praying for the survivors, and trying to help in some small way.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if this shared moment could change the course of history? Wouldn’t it be amazing if the world came together and recognized the importance of daily life, the power of the ordinary, the simple things that everyone holds dear?
Wouldn’t that be amazing?
JEWISH MUSIC CAFE
Looking for something to do this Saturday night?
Live Music and Kosher food at
THE JEWISH MUSIC CAFE
401 9th street (between 6th & 7th ave.)
Park Slope Brooklyn
F train to 7th Avenue.
This Week-
PEY DALID – HAMAKOR – BENNY BWOY
Saturday Dec 30th 8:30pm $15
more info at http://www.jewishmusiccafe.com
LAST YEAR ON OTBKB: THE DOLL HOUSE
This is from last December 26th:
‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through the Slope there was gift wrap and packaging in the apartment building garbage pails.
Daughter and I were walking to a friend’s house when we saw something quite extraordinary in front of one of the limestone buildings just a few doors away.
A beautiful doll house — a three-story mansion, really — with a small shopping bag full of faux-elegant doll furniture.
It was being discarded, we surmised, because its owner had to make space for her new gifts. The bedrooms are quite small in the buildings on Third Street. We knew that most of the girls in that building are ten or older — perhaps its owner had finally outgrown the doll house.
Maybe it was some kind of spiritual exchange. The child had been taught that in order to receive a gift, she had to give something away….
We pondered all possible explanations for the doll house’s presence on the Third Street pavement.
The doll house was in good condition—nothing a little Fantastik couldn’t shine up. And the small shopping bag filled with doll furniture was a gesture that said: here take this. It’s yours if you want to carry it away.
First we looked at the house, discussed whether or not to take it, and decided it was too much trouble as we had somewhere to be. I was surprised that OSFO was able to pass it by.
Then she backed up.
"Can we take it? Please?" she begged.
"Where are you going to put it?" I said. Her room is tiny.
"Please?"
"You already have a doll house," I said reminding her of the mid-century modern doll house I’d bought for $20 dollars at a stoop sale on Third Street complete with a shopping bag full of incredible doll furniture.
"I know. But one’s a mansion…"A mansion maybe. But it’s made out of molded plastic and says Fisher Price right on it. The mid-century modern one we’ve already got is so much more tasteful.
Still, we carried it into the vestibule of our building. "You’re going to need to clean this thing up." I said. "I know," she said. "I know."
The large plastic doll mansion is sitting on top of OSFO’s homework desk until we clear more space in her room. Her Polly Pocket dolls have already taken up residence. The scale isn’t quite right. Whatever.
Let’s see. What item can we choose to discard, to place on the street with a note that says: Take this. It’s yours if you want to carry it away.
–written on December 26th, 2005
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
A PAUL AUSTER CHRISTMAS
This is Paul Auster’s famous story: "Auggie Wren’s Christmas". Enjoy.
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TWO YEARS GO IN OTBKB: THE GIFT OF GOOD VALUES
The gift-giving time of the year sometimes brings out the worst in OSFO and Teen Spirit. The trouble is: they get way too excited about getting presents, their expectations run sky high, and disappointment is sure to ensue.
Like all happy occasions, a gift giving event often begins or ends in tears. They can be tears of impatience as in:
Child: When are we opening the presents?
Parent: Soon.
Child: Can I just open one?
Parent: No!!
Child: Pleeeeeze? Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Or tears of over-excitement and frustration as in:
Child: Can we please put together my new Karaoke tape player and microphone?
Parent: No, people are still opening their gifts.
Child: Couldn’t you just help me?
Parent: Not now!!
Child: Pleeeeeze? Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Tears of disappointment as in:
Child: I didn’t get anything I liked.
Parent; Yes you did.
Child: Like what?
Parent: Well, you got that nice…
Child: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
And tears caused by a combination of excitement and disappointment and impatience as in:
Child: It’s not working
Parent: "I’m sure it’s working.
Child: No, it’s not working, somebody better fix it now.
Parent: I’m doing the dishes.
Child: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
You get the picture. While these are obviously just made-up scenarios, there is more than a little verisimilitude in each one. And these scenes make Smartmom absolutely livid.
This year, Smartmom tried to prepare OSFO for the possibility that she might be disappointed on one of these so-called happy occasions. "Sometimes you don’t get what you want," she said. "And it helps not to set your expectations too high. Smartmom and OSFO have also practiced the art of getting a gift you don’t like." It is polite," Smartmom instructed, "to say ‘thank you’ even if you despise the item that you’ve just opened."
Smartmom and OSFO practiced this until OSFO got sick and tired of the exercise (and the idea that she might get something she doesn’t want).
Smartmom also told OSFO to guard against becoming a gimme, gimme, gimme kind of person. "Children who get too many gifts get spoiled because they stop appreciating things," Smartmom warned. "It is important not to take anything for granted," she said. "Recognize how lucky you are to have what you have."
Smartmom was just seconds away from saying, "And there are children starving in Africa…"
Truth is, the fact that OSFO and Teen Spirit are "spoiled" is largely the fault of their loving relatives (parents included) who shower them with whatever their heart’s desire. It comes from love but it often ends in "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! And that’s just part of the problem. Capitalism absolutely depends on an almost constant desire for things.
So here goes New Year’s resolution #2005:
Smartmom will teach her children to be givers not receivers. She wants them to be generous, to be empathic, to enjoy doing unto others (in whatever form that takes). She wants them to know that giving is its own reward and Karma is a boomerang. She wants them to understand that if they are going to be good citizens of this crazy world, they have to be part of the solution not the problem.
Cliche, cliche, cliche. But it’s all true. And so much of parenting is instilling what is true. Even if they are platitudes, even if they are cliches. It’s important to try to give your kids the gift of good values. That’s a parent’s job above all. A gift they will cherish forever.
–Written December 2004
THE GODFATHER OF SOUL HAS DIED
FROM THE NY TIMES: James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured ”Godfather of Soul,” whose
rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap,
funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73.Brown
was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on
Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas
of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he
said.Copsidas said the cause of death was uncertain. ”We really don’t know at this point what he died of,” he said.
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
LEASH FREEDOM FOR DOGS
I came upon a November issue of the Times and found this interesting and enjoyable Op Ed essay by our neighborhood author, Jonathan Safran Foer. He is a dog lover and strong supporter of off-leash hours.
“She mounts guests, eats my son’s toys (and occasionally tries to eat my son), is obsessed with squirrels, lunges at skateboarders and Hasids, has the savant-like ability to find her way between the camera lens and subject of every photo taken in her vicinity, backs her tush into the least interested person in the room, digs up the freshly planted, scratches the newly bought, licks the about-to-be served and occasionally relieves herself on the wrong side of the front door. Her head is resting on my foot as I type this. I love her.
The practical arguments against off-leash hours are easily refuted. One doesn’t have to be an animal scientist to know that the more a dog is able to exercise its “dogness”— to run and play, to socialize with other dogs — the happier it will be. Happy dogs, like happy people, tend not to be aggressive. In the years that dogs have been allowed to run free in city parks, dog bites have decreased 90 percent. But there is another argument that is not so easy to respond to: some people just don’t want to be inconvenienced by dogs. Giving dogs space necessarily takes away space from humans.
We have been having this latter debate, in different forms, for ages. Again and again we are confronted with the reality — some might say the problem — of sharing our space with other living things, be they dogs, trees, fish or penguins. Dogs in the park are a present example of something that is often too abstracted or far away to gain our consideration.
The very existence of parks is a response to this debate: earlier New Yorkers had the foresight to recognize that if we did not carve out places for nature in our cities, there would be no nature. It was recently estimated that Central Park’s real estate would be worth more than $500 billion. Which is to say we are half a trillion dollars inconvenienced by trees and grass. But we do not think of it as an inconvenience. We think of it as balance.
Living on a planet of fixed size requires compromise, and while we are the only party capable of negotiating, we are not the only party at the table. We’ve never claimed more, and we’ve never had less. There has never been less clean air or water, fewer fish or mature trees. If we are not simply ignoring the situation, we keep hoping for (and expecting) a technological solution that will erase our destruction, while allowing us to continue to live without compromise. Maybe zoos will be an adequate replacement for wild animals in natural habitats. Maybe we will be able to recreate the Amazon somewhere else. Maybe one day we will be able to genetically engineer dogs that do not wish to run free. Maybe. But will those futures make us feel, in the best sense of the word, human?
I have been taking George to Prospect Park twice a day for more than three years, but her running is still a revelation to me. Effortlessly, joyfully, she runs quite a bit faster than the fastest human on the planet. And faster, I’ve come to realize, than the other dogs in the park. George might well be the fastest land animal in Brooklyn. Once or twice every morning, for no obvious reason, she’ll tear into a full sprint. Other dog owners can’t help but watch her. Every now and then someone will cheer her on. It is something to behold.”
NO WORDS AND THEN SOME
It’s a funny thing the dailyness of blogging. I write my postcards, Hepcat posts his pictures. We do it together and yet apart. Some days his pictures astound me — it’s a lovely daily surprise.
Some days — for whatever reason — he doesn’t post. He hasn’t done it very often. But it always makes me wonder — does he need a break? Did he forget? His his day job too demanding right now? Is he getting sick of this.
It’s been a beautiful thing creating this blog together. At first, it was my thing as in “Hey can you put a picture up?”
Now it’s very much our thing. A blog by the two of us, it’s a project we do together each in our own way. He has nothing to do with the writing, I have nothing to do with the pictures.
But the sum of the two parts is so much bigger than just…
Thanks Hepcat for No Words_Daily Pix.
SMARTMOM: NIGHT IN HELL WITH 8 TWEENS
From the Brooklyn Papers (brooklynpapers.com)
Smartmom thinks that slumber parties for children under the age of 35 should be banned. Why would any parent want to sacrifice his or her sleep and sanity for an all-night gathering of pre-teen girls?
A couple of weeks back, Divorce Diva asked Smartmom if she’d be willing to help out during her 10-year-old’s slumber birthday party.
“It’ll be eight girls in all. Her private school requires that you either invite the entire class, all the girls, or only one child,” Divorce Diva explained.
Eight girls. That seemed a tad excessive. Smartmom, who has never hosted a slumber party for either Teen Spirit or the Oh So Feisty One, knows from anecdotal evidence that slumber parties are generally a bad idea. And if you must do it, keep it small.
Smartmom considered hanging up the phone and leaving it off the hook for at least 16 hours. But Divorce Diva could barely conceal her desperation.
“I NEED YOU,” she cried into the phone.
So, being the gullible, good-natured friend that she is, Smartmom relented.
Besides, OSFO was an invited guest and Smartmom thought it would be fun to be a fly on the wall — and a chance to hang out with her friend.
The girls were in their pajamas when Smartmom and OSFO arrived at Divorce Diva’s house in Ditmas Park at 6 pm. And because it was an American Girl slumber party, the dolls were in their pajamas, too.
The first activity, a video talk show, went well. The birthday girl interviewed all of the American Girl dolls, including the eight dolls that belonged to the birthday girl.
That’s 15 dolls and 15 interviews.
“So, who is your favorite person in the world?” the birthday girl asked Felicity, OSFO’s Revolutionary War era doll, who was dressed in a hot pink bathrobe.
“OSFO, of course,” OSFO answered in her doll’s voice.
After the talk show, the girls went upstairs to watch the video while Smartmom and Divorce Diva set up the Chinese food on the special party plates, as well as doll-sized plates for the dolls.
Some of the girls (not to mention the dolls) were picky eaters:
“I’ll just have miniature corn and water chestnuts,” one girl said. Smartmom groaned as she fished out the miniature corn and water chestnuts of one of the dishes.
“I don’t eat meat or seafood,” another girl said. Smartmom offered her a plate of Chinese broccoli. “I don’t eat green food either.”
When it was time for beverages, the girls screamed for root beer, orange soda or Sierra Mist, while holding up doll sized cups for their American Girl dolls.
Smartmom thought she might lose her mind. Instead, she served the girls — and the dolls — the soda they wanted and poured herself a tall glass of Trader Joe’s Merlot. Then a fight broke out between two highly hyperactive girls.
“You pig,” one girl said. “Haven’t you ever heard of a fork?” The other girl looked ready to cry. Instead she threw shoes. American Girl doll shoes, of course.
After the meltdown, er, dinner, the girls decided to play with their dolls in the birthday girl’s tiny third-floor bedroom. Like Sherpas, Divorce Diva and Smartmom carried 15 dolls and all manner of doll furniture, horse stables, wheelbarrows, and armoires filled with doll clothing to the bedroom upstairs.
Ready for a nap, Smartmom lay down on the couch while Divorce Diva got out the Harvey’s Bristol Cream and poured them each a glass. Yum (especially after Merlot).
Next up: beauty makeovers and a movie. Following a heated argument, the birthday girl got her way and the girls watched “Meet the Fockers” while applying mascara, eye shadow and rouge to the faces of girls and dolls alike.
All was quiet until one girl came screaming downstairs: “I just got the make-up today and now it’s ruined.”
Divorce Diva did her best to console the girl. “It’s really not that bad,” she purred while another child made it look like new again.
To no avail. The indignity of someone messing with her make-up kit was just too much. Soon the girl succumbed to a bout of acute homesickness that necessitated a call home.
When there was no answer, she tried her mother’s cellphone and left a pleading message.
“Can I have another glass of Merlot?” Smartmom asked pleadingly of Divorce Diva who was quick to oblige.
While they waited for a call from homesick girl’s mom (it never came, by the way), the girl pined for her beloved family dog, who died five years ago.
“I’ll never feel the soft fur of my dog ever again,” she said standing at the window staring at the stars like a Shakespearean heroine.
At midnight, Shoe Thrower, who has ADHD, came downstairs. “I can’t settle down,” she told them. “They’re making too much noise.”
Divorce Diva called the girl’s mother for advice. “Separate her from the other girls,” Shoe Thrower’s mom suggested, so the girl was sequestered in Divorce Diva’s comfortable bedroom in front of the TV.
The rest of the girls didn’t settle down quite so easily. They arranged and rearranged their sleeping bags — and the dolls’ sleeping bags — in the family room. Smartmom could tell they were planning for a long night.
“I’m not tired at all!” one girl said. “Neither am I,” OSFO chimed in.
Smartmom rolled her eyes. Even those who were obviously tired didn’t want to seem like wusses for going to sleep.
Everyone knows, you get a badge of honor if you stay up later than anyone else.
Smartmom retired to the guest room at 1 am hoping that it might inspire the girls to think about sleeping. But no such luck. At one point, a sleepy OSFO came into Smartmom’s solitary sanctuary.
“Would you like to sleep in here?” Smartmom said fearfully, pointing to the cozy, single bed. OSFO said no. Phew.
“Do you want to go home?”
“Nah, I want the goody bag,” she said and scurried out.
While Smartmom slept fitfully, there was noise, crying, and carrying. At 3:30 am. Smartmom heard Divorce Diva desperately telling the girls, “I can’t take it anymore. I need some rest.”
In the morning, Smartmom found Divorce Diva throwing toaster waffles on the table and waiting for the girl’s parents to arrive.
The girls needed help finding their things and packing up.
“I can’t find Piggy,” one girl came running down the stairs in an obvious panic. Eight girls, 15 dolls and two moms searched the house high and low for a tiny pink stuffed animal.
Thankfully, Piggy was located, the girls ate breakfast, and their parents arrived just in the nick of time. Divorce Diva put on a good show.
It was lively, she told them. Never a dull moment. One by one, she handed the parents their child’s rolling suitcase and goody bag.
“You know, your daughter’s doll was incredibly well-behaved,” Divorce Diva told one dad. “She’s always welcome here,” she said handing him a beautifully coiffed Molly. “She can sleep over here anytime. Anytime.”
Broadway between 72nd and 79th Street
I’ve been spending a lot of time in Manhattan. Yesterday saw paintings by Alex Katz of his wife, Ada at the Jewish Musuem. There was also a show of Comics, that is a must-see for all comic book lovers.
My mom lives in the Zabars-Fairway-Citarella vortex on the Upper West Side. My walks up Broadway from the 72nd Street subway station have been a feast to my senses.
Booksellers, vendors of all kinds. Sephora, Barneys, Urban Outfitters. It’s a cool shopping mall on Broadway between 72nd Street and 79th.
Style and energy – whether it’s the upscale or the beggers. Life throbs up here big time.
I love the old style Broadway stuff, too. Like the Cuban Chinese on the corner of 78th Street and Zabars, which is timeless and tasty.
I compare it to Seventh Avenue and recognize that Broadway is just so much bigger. The buildings, the streets, the expanse from one side of Broadway to the other, the island in between, the level of commerce, the hustle bustle, the self-importance of it, the money…
My eyes and ears are contantly taking it in. Broadway: this exciting walk of life.
the park slope more than 100 – post mortem 1
So I’ve come to the conclusion that the real Park Slope list to be on is the list of people who were NOT included on the Park Slope More Than 100.
Here’s some post-mortem thoughts…
I worked hard on that list and I don’t regret it one bit (“She’s very thick skinned,” they say on the Brooklynian).
Some liked it (“I was very moved that you included…”)
Some hated it (“You elitest so and so.”).
Many of the people on the list felt recognized. Felt noticed. Felt appreciated. (“I am a fixture around here,” said Hillary, the blue haired woman at Shawn’s Liquors). Catherine at Community Books and Maxine at Stitch Therapy said it gave them a boost during this most difficult time of the year.
Good friend composer, Louis Rosen finally told me, point blank, that he didn’t like it (“It’s so Manhattan, so obnoxious.”) I love him anyway.
Of course I am going to do it again. I just know it.
THE DISCONNECT
It has been said and said — there is a war on and Americans shop for Christmas. This disconnect between here and there – there being Iraq, where a war is being waged in our name and here where we are privileged to commune with friends and family.
The disconnect. I lived through the Viet Nam war. As a child I was baffled that life could go on as usual while such terrible things were on the television news.
As an adult, I accept the split screen state of life. Every moment there is the time and place we are in, AND the excruciatingly terrible things going on elsewhere in the world.
Our daily lives consume us. We live in a state of forgetfulness — very me-centered, family-centered, community centered.
And then we see a photograph or read an article or see a movie — and our connection to others is awakened. Our empathy aroused.
Integration. How do we integrate our lives: the knowledge of such pain and cruelty right around the corner and across the world.
How do we not succumb to guilt and dispair?
LOVE: we must work to reduce the pain of others.
LILLIAN ROSS
NPR is running a series called THE LONG VIEW, stories about older Americans with interesting stories to share. Friday morning there was a piece about Lillian Ross. She has been a New Yorker writer since 1948 and has worked for all five editors since the magazine’s beginning. Her work
has been compiled in Talk Stories (1966), Takes (1983) and Reporting (1964). There is an excerpt from her profile of Ernest Hemingway on npr.org, as well as a link to the radio interview.
Ross’
profiles of famous people include rich details that bring the subject
alive on the page. Ernest Hemingway liked to talk in broken English.
During a conversation at dusk, Hollywood director John Huston
deliberately left off the lights as if arranging a shot in his own film
noir.Ross began an article on Charlie Chaplin by describing him in the Plaza hotel, fretting over some soiled laundry.
"That’s
what he was," said Ross. "He was uneasy, uncomfortable in social
situations. He didn’t walk around with money. Using all these little
minute details really revealed the person."
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
NICE LIGHTS
You know the derelict house on Third Street just off Seventh Avenue next to Tempo Presto. Someone put Christmas lights on the fence. That building is the blight of our block. What a nice gesture. Anyone know who did it?
Also, check out the purple lights in the house next door. The owners decorated their metal flower sculpture with lights.
And while I’m at it, Tempo Presto has nice lights, too.
NICE JEWISH GIRL WANT TO GO CHRISTMAS CAROLING
Anyone know of a Christmas caroling activity in Park Slope? Do tell.
Nice Biker
Crossing Eighth Avenue, I saw a biker coming my way. He noticed me, stopped and bowed in a good-natured way as I walked past his bike.
It was lovely.
LIFE IS GOOD BECAUSE SCHOOL IS OUT
Didn’t have to wake Teen Spirit this morning. Didn’t have to make him the usual omelette. Didn’t get to watch him tie his tie and put on his lace up shoes. Didn’t get to have our usual breakfast together at 7 a.m. Our morning conversation…
School’s out and he can sleep as late as he wants for the next week. Woo hoo.
CHIRSTMAS CARDS
So far we’ve gotten about 15 holiday cards.
I almost fell over when I saw a picture of an old friend’s three kids. Her son is 15 (same age as Teen Spirit). So manly, he is bare chested with with a chain around his neck.
Got a funny card from former Slopers. "Greetings from Sunny South Orange." Great shots of OSFO’s first friend with long blonde hair looking really grown up and tall at age 9.
The beautiful daughters of my best friend taken in southern France. Tres tres arty.
Fun collage from friends who’s kid pictures are always masterfully odd. No one looking at the camera, looking blase. That sort of thing.
A great black and white shot of a couple who got married this year and all their children (his two daughters, her daughter) walking in the ocean. The bride looking svelte and gorgeous in her Narsicsco Rodriguez wedding gown.
Ducky at the beach — looking oh so adorable.
From California, our twin neices with roses at their high school graduation and their sister at her UCLA graduation with a purple lei around her neck
Hugh’s aunt in Santa Cruz surrounded by three grandchildren and the words: There’s nothing like a nanasandwich.
What am I forgetting…
NO LAND GRAB: RATNER TV
No Land Grab had this story about television cameras in Ratnerville.
There has been a lot of attention paid to the
Atlantic Yards project lately, what with that PACB thingee
yesterday–something about 3 guys up in Albany lording it over Brooklyn.
We
decided to take a look at the Atlantic Yards project too, and found
that somebody is paying a lot of attention to the footprnt itself these
days.
We walked the Dean Street and Pacific street blocks
bounded by 5th Avenue, Vanderbilt Avenue and Flatbush Avenue, to tally
up the number of Surveillance City Ratner Eyes in the Sky. We counted
29. Check it out.
NoLandGrab: If only New York’s politicians paid half as much attention to the holes in Ratner’s proposal.