Comedy Tonight

Friday, August 24: Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival Fundraiser at the Bell House. Bring a checkbook for silent auction if you’re feeling generous (and flush). Cocktails at 7PM. Show at 8:30 PM.

Music

Friday, August 24 at 9PM: At Sycamore on Cortelyou Road, Mary of Egypt makes “classical and pop perspectives sound so natural together, it’s as if they were never separate” (NYpress). This ensemble, the brainchild of pianist/composer Julia Hatamyar, was established in 2009 and is made up of Eastman School of Music graduates, who perform her hand-notated scores. Incorporating a vast range of musical idioms, including classical, jazz, rock, electronica, musical theatre, and folk.

Saturday and Sunday, August 24-25:  The 2012 Afro-Punk festival with Erykah Badu, Gym Class Heroes, Janelle Monae, Das Racist, Toro Y Moi, Reggie Watts, Spank Rock, Ninjasonik, The Memorials, Bad Rabbits, Gordon Voidwell, Cerebral Ballzy, Phony Ppl, Body Language, and more to be added! Plus a street skate competition. Last year the festival was cancelled because of Hurricane Irene. Remember Hurricane Irene? There will be food trucks at the festival with yummy food.

Film

All weekend at the Park Slope Pavilion:  Paranorman, the latest 3D stop-motion film from LAIKA, makers of Coraline

All Weekend: Lots of Great Events Commemorating the 236th Anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn

Go to The Old Stone House for more information

–Saturday, August 25, 10 am sharp

Prison Ships Martyrs Memorial Ceremony at the Prison Ships Martyrs Monument, Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn

Information: (718) 499-7600

 –Saturday, August 25, 2 pm – 5 pm

The Great Escape with Reenactors from General John Glover’s Marblehead Regiment at Main Street/Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Join reenactors for an historic depiction of many aspects of maritime history, camp life and community, and the role of Fulton Ferry Landing. www.brooklynbridgepark.org/718-768-3195

 –Sunday, August 26

Battle of Brooklyn Commemoration at The Green-Wood Cemetery

5th Avenue at 25th Street

(718) 768-7300 for reservations and more information

This morning OTBKB reader Brooke Dramer sent me a note that The Landlord is playing at BAM.

So I looked it up and sure enough, on Monday, August 27, The Landlord, a 1970 film filmed in Park Slope is playing at BAM.

And guess what it’s about: Yup, you guessed it. Gentrification.

WASP-y rich kid Elgar Enders played by a handsome Beau Bridges (did you see him in The Descendants?) buys an apartment building in Park Slope back when it was a grittier, less gentrified neighborhood. He plans to evict the current residents and turn the building into a nice home for himself.

When the black tenents refuse to move out, Enders embarks on a comic adventure that results in a personal turnaround on matters of life and race.

The film, directed by Hal Ashby is a comedy about gentrification and, says BAM, “presents a nuanced, daring exploration of race relations inAmericathat is surprisingly ahead of its time.”

I asked Dramer  to say something about the film. Here’s her reply:

“This is an e-mail volley between me and Ken Byrne, who has seen even more cult films than I have. Ken can’t recall any quotes from The Landlord–which means, just give up, because  no one else would relate to a Landlord quote in the headline.” –  Brooke

Brooke: Susan Anspach was pretty calm during The Landlord, walking around smoking a joint and casually spraying air freshener after each exhalation. But Idon’t  remember what she said. Or what Beau Bridges said. I just remember the expression on his face–especially when he ran about 1/4 mile while carrying a potted rhododendron in his arms.

Ken: The Landlord…hmm…It was filmed on Prospect Place btw 6th & 7th in 1969…You get to see a young Beau Bridges, a young Lou Gosset Jr. (Yes, he once was young!), Pearl Bailey, also youngish, and Susan Anspach, before she was in the insane Swedish classic, Montenegro. And whatever happened to the lovely Marki Bey?

A great, wise, sad, funny film

In conjunction with GO Brooklyn Art, the huge open studio event sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum, on September 8, 2012, ArtOnBrighton, a multidisciplinary festival will celebrate the creative energies of POST-SOVIET IMMIGRANTS of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and beyond.

Daytime visitors are encouraged to explore Open Artist Studios in and around Brighton Beach, as part of the Brooklyn Museum GO project. The organizers are warning “that you will likely encounter rather interesting sights and characters along the way.”

Sweet.

An evening program will be comprised of live music, art, and comedy presented at the NY Aquarium, followed by a DJ-spun dance party out on the adjacent beach, where a large-scale site-specific art installation, “Brighton is Cool, Ocean is Hot,” made up of 36 WORKING AIR CONDITIONERS (i.e. the poster) will be set up.

Also, there will be the Amazing Water art exhibit, bar and snacks, video projection art and live performances by artists, including Y-Love, The Clox, Lady Aye, Alina Simone, Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band, and Amour Obscur. The host for the evening is the outrageous comedian Kira Soltanovich, as seen on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Out on the beach, DJ Spinach will be spinning a dance party into the night. Watch out for the fire dancers!

Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door. Visit www.ArtOnBrighton.org for tickets and detailed program information. RSVP on Facebook for updates and invite your friends. https://www.facebook.com/events/342869892463772/

Brooklyn Reading Works is pleased to present Young Writers Night at the Old Stone House (a Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event).

How cool is that? And how cool is this poster, a painting by AJ Burkle?

Come one and all to this celebration of  fiction, poetry and song by young writers between the ages of 13-19, curated by Hannah Frishberg (a senior at Bard High School Early College). The event will be introduced by Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang and an editor from One Teen Story will be on hand to distribute FREE copies of the first issue of One Teen Story

The Brooklyn Book Festival (on Sunday, September 23rd outside at Brooklyn Borough Hall) is the largest free literary event in New York City, presenting an array of national and international literary stars and emerging authors, readings and a lively literary marketplace.

Young Writers Night happens on Thursday, September 20th at 7PM at The Old Stone House, 336 Third Street in Park Slope ( between 4th and 5th Avenues).

I used to think “dog days” referred to the hot, panting dog breath type feeling of New York City in August. Alas, I was incorrect.

According to Ms. Wikipedia (if she is to believed, and I choose to believe her): “The name comes from the ancient belief that Sirius, also called the Dog Star, in proximity to the sun was responsible for the hot weather.”

Oh.

One Story, the acclaimed pocket-sized literary magazine featuring one story per issue and mailed out 18 times a year, is published in the Park Slope/Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn by publisher Maribeth Batcha and editor Hannah Tinti.

Batcha is set to launch One Teen Story, a great idea if I ever heard one. One Teen Story, as described by the publisher, will be for  young adult readers of every age. Each issue will feature one amazing short story about the teen experience.

The first story to be published in the upcoming first issue of One Teen Story is Gayle Forman’s “The Deadline.”

Today they are launching a Kickstarter campaign to cover the costs of printing One Teen Story. Indeed, they are committed to making One Teen Story a print magazine. That said, print bills are high and really difficult for a startup to cover.

They’re calling out to  YA readers everywhere to make a tax-deductible donation at Kickstarter. They’ve got great rewards for donations as low as $10!

Posting this picture of all the Celebrate Brooklyn staff is my way of saying thank you  for all the joy you bring to our lives in the summer.

And what a season it was (Lyle Lovett, Jimmy Cliff, Wilco, Angelique Kidjo, The Muppets,  Balkan Beat Box, The Head and the Heart…)

By email, I did a group-interview with the members of the folk trio, The Tres Amigos. The guys are just back from a 14-state, cross-country tour. Considered one of New York City’s hottest folk acts, they are all about three-part harmony, virtuosic musicianship and catchy self-penned songs.

Who could ask for anything more?

The Tres Amigos are Sam Reider, Justin Poindexter, and Eddie Barbash. You can find them at their September residency at The Living Room. 9/3, 9/10, 9/17, and 9/28. Each week will feature special guests ranging from New York bluegrass mainstay Jon Sholle to Hudson River blues singer/saxophonist Jay Collins (the Levon Helm Band and the Allman Brothers Band).

I’ve included with this post, a music video of The Tres Amigos doing a cover of Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land, in honor of the July 2012 centennial of Guthrie’s birth. Their new music video, I Want to Get Drunk, shows Brooklyn kids running wild in a Crown Heights candy store. Love it.

Where’s your favorite place for the band to play?

Our #1 favorite place to play is in people’s living rooms. We’re an intimate band and we like to be as close to our audience as possible. Also we’re big fans of cheeses, cured meat, and spicy salsa, so house concerts always add fuel to the fire.

In terms of traditional music venues, we happily return time after time to Marlboro, New Yorks’ The Falcon. This is a beautiful converted barn space on the Hudson, about an hour’s drive away from the city. Tony Falco, the owner, is beloved by a large portion of the New York music community—he has created a space and a business model that supports the music and encourages his local community to support it as well.

A little closer to home we enjoy the Jalopy in Red Hook, and The Living Room in the Lower East Side, where we’ll be doing a Monday night residency every Monday of September. (Details here: http://www.thetresamigos.net)

 What are the best places to eat in your nabe? Or elsewhere

Chavela’s—a Mexican place on Franklin and Sterling Pl. is one of Amigo Sam’s regular haunts. Two dollar tacos for happy hour every day, but he usually orders the cheese enchiladas with molé.

The Candy Rush (as seen in the video) for all sweet things (including a great morning donut + coffee subway deal). Roscoe’s Pizzeria which just opened down the street does justice to the cheap slice without any frills or pretentious toppings.

 Best places to shop for music, if you shop for music, or instruments, etc.

Amigo Justin: Main Drag Music in Williamsburg has our favorite guitar guru, Mark Dobbyn. He’s always got some wild projects going on at the shop and plays the best music.

Amigo Sam: Always have a great time at The Thing in Greenpoint—hundreds of thousands of used LPs stacked 6 crates high and 6 crates deep. I think they all sell for $1 a piece? You could you lose years of your life in there…

 Favorite books?

Moby Dick

Amigo Sam: Music is My Mistress by Duke Ellington

 Best weeknight activity?

Learning scary jazz and country songs that only the older cats know.

Best weekend activity?

Learning scary gospel songs that only the older church ladies know.

 Best place to be alone?

Amigo Sam: At home with my accordion. That’s when I get free.

Amigo Justin: At a modern dance performance.

Amigo Eddie: I hate being alone.

 Best place to write a song?

Often the best songs appear on the bus or the train. Something about the bleak desperation of that underground tunnel between the 2 3 and Port Authority puts you in the mood to write—especially once you’re in your seat and on the highway. You overhear all sorts of great fodder for lyrics while your on the bus.

That’s usually enough to get the framework of a song together. But when it comes to arrangement, nothing’s holy in a Tres Amigos rehearsal. We push and pull and bicker until we’ve arrived at some sort of tangled impossible arrangement of a tune—then we try to learn to actually play it!

Do you need to be introduced to the complex and arcane ways of the New York art world by someone very “in the know?” Wouldn’t it be keen if that person was Krista Saunders, aka The Bespoke Curator, who created the G Train Salon.

Then you just might find Saunder’s Introduction to the New York Art World panel at 3rd Ward (195 Morgan Ave, Brooklyn) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 7:30 to be very interesting—and illuminating .

Indeed, New York is an international hub for the art world. But how to break in? Well, you just might learn a thing or two at this panel, where you’ll hear from a diverse panel of art world professionals as they shed light on how to begin and sustain a career.

Moderated by Saunders, the panel will consist of informal conversation with the panelists Brendan Carroll, Kianga Ellis, Laura Pinello, and Henry Chung + Robert Walden of Robert Henry Contemporary.

RSVP : http://www.3rdward.com/rsvp

I really enjoyed this video (and the music) by The Tres Amigos. Some orthodox Park Slope parents may find it very un-PC but I love it. Warning: This  video features images of kids drinking Mountain Dew, eating candy and lip synching “I wanna get drunk.”

You’ve been warned.

It follows the adventures of three kids who escape from a sleeping baby sitter and and run wild through Prospect Heights, spending pizza money at Franklin Avenue’s colorful Candy Rush (733 Franklin Avenue near Sterling Place) before collapsing in Prospect Park.

“I Wanna Get Drunk” is the lead single from the band’s self-titled debut album, a rousing, eclectic eight song set that showcases the Amigos’ great playing and catchy songwriting.

My friend Peggy Coon posted on Facebook that there’s a new bookstore coming to Park Slope in the space formerly occupied by Reel Life on Eighth Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets. That video store closed last March.

A new bookstore? A new bookstore? A new bookstore? Can you tell I’m excited??

Peggy  linked to a post on Here’s Park Slope about some cryptic signage that went up last week in the front window of of the video store that closed last March.

Apparently, an off-shoot of Powerhouse Books, publishers of photography and specialty books and a bookstore in DUMBO is going in. I am very fond of that bookstore. In fact, the Brooklyn Blogfest was held at Powerhouse Books back in 2009.

According to Here’s Park Slope the message said: “Hi there! We’re going to be a brand new bookstore, reading club, mini-gallery, and community space opening in October. Our mothership is in Dumbo, and we’ll be bringing the best stationery, kids, YA, novelty, cooking, decorating, and style books we have there and more…Maybe some wonderful coffee, hard candy…and other items one might find in a general store (that was also a mini gallery and reading space!)

“We can’t wait; we hope you are as excited as we are!

Dan & Suzanne

(proud PS 107 parents!)”

I am so psyched.

The city’s bike sharing program was supposed to start on July 31 but it didn’t happen and it ain’t gonna happen this summer. Apparently, the City ran into some computer problems and decided not to start the program until all the kinks had been worked out.

I’m all for bike sharing but I can forsee some problems with inexperienced  riders. That said, I know these program work very well in places like Berlin, Copenhagen and Munich. I hope there’s some kind of training for riders inexperienced at riding in the city.

Just so you know what to expect in March, there will be 7,000 bikes at 420 stations across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Read more.

You’ll be able to take as many trips as you want for a low price plus overtime-fees beyond the time limit.

There are a few ways that you can use City Bike:

–Annual Membership: $95 (first 45 minutes of every trip at no additional charge)

–7-Day pass: $25 (first 30 minutes of every trip at no additional charge)

–24-Hour pass: $9.95 (first 30 minutes of every trip at no additional charge)

–A special $5 one-day membership will be available for the first few weeks after launch.

Tomorrow is the 8th Annual Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival, an event which provides a means for self-expression and creativity for that area’s young people, and builds community through arts and literature.

The Lit Fest caps a six-week series of free Saturday creative writing workshops for young people and includes tomorrow’s end-of-summer reading featuring literary icons Jessica Hagedorn, Tayari Jones and Earl Lovelace. The host will be LC Cumbo of MoCADA. Young writers who participated in the  creative writing workshops will also be featured front and center .

The Caribbean American Sports and Cultural Youth Movement (CASYM) Steel Orchestra will be in attendance. This group has been providing academic, recreational, social, and cultural activities for young people since its incarnation in 1983.

The organization’s steel band, which can include up to 90 members, has traveled the world performing steelband music, and has taken home prizes at the world’s largest steel band

Thanks to the New York Writers Coalition, which sponsors the Lit Fest (along with a host of other organizations) this event unleashes the  power of the written word to give voice to the thoughts and experiences of everyone, not just the privileged and powerful.

The Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival is presented by Akashic Books, Greenlight Bookstore, NY Writers Coalition, and the Fort Greene Park Conservancy, with additional support from Amazon.com and the Walt Whitman Project.

A friend whose opinion I respect went to see Red Hook Summer, the new film by Spike Lee and says that it’s worthwhile. It’s playing at BAM. 

Here’s the premise: Flik, a young boy from middle-class Atlanta, comes to Brooklyn to spend the summer with his religious grandfather, who lives in the housing projects of Red Hook.

Between the constant preaching and the culture shock of inner-city life, Flik’s summer vacation is a washout until he meets a pretty girl his age, who shows Flik the brighter side of Brooklyn…

Coney Island Circus Sideshow cast member, The Illustrated Penguin, went to the emergency room approximately three weeks ago and has been in the hospital ever since. Turns out he is going to need major surgery.

Debi Ryan writes that Penguin loves working as a performer, but he’s been unable to do his job for almost a month now. “In addition to all of the stress this has brought on, he still has his usual bills mounting with no way to pay them. Luckily, he’s got some really talented friends, and they want to PUT ON A SHOW in order to help pay for these living expenses.”

His friends are calling this fundraiser for Penguin, Penguinpalooza! and it happens at Coney Island USA on Wednesday, August 29 at 9PM.

Penguinpalooza! will be hosted by Ray Valenz and will feature all the sideshow performers, including Adam the First Real Man, Alfie Bunz, Flesh Suspension by Baron Von Geiger, Betty Bloomerz, Lefty Lucy, Serpentina, and Mr. Coney Island himself, Dick Zigun.

Celebrate Brooklyn is one of the rewards for those who decide to spend the summer in the city.

This summer was an especially sweet reward for those who got to hear Wilco, Jimmy Cliff and Lyle Lovett.

If you missed Lyle Lovett’s show at the Prospect Park Bandshell with his acoustic band, as I did, you can hear a little of it on this NPR podcast with photos.

He’s been touring in one way or another for thirty years and he’s really a new country institution. Heck, he was married to Julia Roberts for a few months. On the closing night of Celebrate Brooklyn he played songs from his most recent album Release Me, as well as favorites from throughout his career, including That’s Right You’re Not From Texas.

Have a listen to this. 

Get your shark on and get to the Bell House early on Thursday, August 16th at 8PM.

It’s the summer shark edition of the Secret Science Club. Marine Biologist Hans Walters of the New York Aquarium discusses his work tagging and tracking sharks and curates a special live-screening of Great White Highway, a documentary debuting on the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week.

The film follows intrepid marine scientists as they pursue the mysterious migrations of great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias).

There will be many a chance to sample the cocktail of the night, the Land Shark

Many will remember that I was not a big fan of Amy Sohn’s  Prospect Park West. Still, I found myself excited about the release of the sequel. Yesterday, I downloaded Motherland, onto my Nook. It is only the second book I have read using that indispensible contraption. The first was Then Again, the very entertaining memoir by Diane Keaton. 

Guess what?

I think Motherland is better than Prospect Park West and I’m really enjoying it. A lot. While the book does a good job of satirizing Park Slope, it’s really about modern marriage and all of its travails, inherent disappointments and infidelties.

In the earlier book, I found Sohn’s disdain for Park Slope’s women to be quite gratuitous and insulting. There’s some of that in this book but it’s integrated into the fabric of the narrative and characterizations more elegantly this time around.

Motherland is a fun read as are Sohn’s references to Connecticut Muffin, PS 321, Effed in Park Slope, the Community Bookstore and the Food Coop.

But the book won my heart with a character by the name of Helene Buzzi, an old time Park Sloper. Her encounter with a mother and son playing at the train set in front of Little Things is hilarious, as is her transgressive behavior (the nature of which I won’t reveal here. In a way it’s way more shocking than any of the sex in this sex-filled book). Buzzi has watched this neighborhood go from modest oasis to high-end Yuppieville and she’s not happy about it.

“It was a strange feeling to live in a neighborhood you  could no longer afford. You were the reason values had gone up, and yet you were invisible. In the eighties, there were no lawyers or bankers in Park Slope; yuppies lived in Manhattan. Now the whole neighborhood was yuppies. And none of them had any sense of the past. They didn’t understand that Helen’s generation of Slopers had improved the schools, reduced crime, attracted small busineeses, gotten bans to lend, start block associationa, and increased property values—all things that had turned the Slope into a destination. The old stores were gone, gone so long that the numer of people who remembered them were themselves a disappearing minority. Al’s Toyland. Herzog Brothers, the German deli. Danny’s candy store. Irv’s stationery. One Smart Cookie. The Grecian Corner. A true New Yorker knew storefronts according to what used to be in them.”

Sure, Helene is a Park Slope sterotype but she’s a compelling character and her observations are cogent. An ESL teacher at a Lower East Side school, Helen lives on Sixth Street in a house she and her husband (whom she calls The Bastard) bought in 1978 for  thirty-seven thousand dollars. The following are my favorite sentences in the book:

“Sometime when they came home at night, they would find junkies on the stoop. They knew their names. Now they she knew only a handful of names on the block. The junkies had been more polite than the yuppies.”

BAM has just added a literary component to the 30th Next Wave Festival and is partnering with Ft. Greene’s Greenlight Bookstore with a new series:  Unbound: A Literary Series with Greenlight Bookstore

At the first Unbound event on September 18 at 7:30 PM, Andrew Zolli will be joined by  bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell, radio host Jad Abumrad, and other special guests to discuss resilience, the emerging field of study explored in Zolli’s new book, Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back.

Sounds like an optimistic way to begin the year.

Unlike Eat, Drink and Be Literary, which takes place at the BAM Cafe and includes food and drink, this event is in the Howard Gilman Opera House

Uncovering the interconnectedness of both natural and man-made failures, Zolli shares lessons in recreating stability in our increasingly volatile world.

Tue, Sep 18, 2012

LOCATION: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House

RUN TIME: 1hr 30min

ALL TICKETS: $20

Starting in September, Amy Sohn, who’s new book Motherland is out today, will be reading all over Brooklyn. Here’s the schedule.

Wednesday, September 5, 7 PM: Bookcourt (163 Court Street (Pacific/Dean)

Monday, September 10: Greenlight Bookstore, Brooklyn (686 Fulton Street)

Thursday, September 13 – Congregation Beth Elohim, 7:30-9 PM (274 Garfield Pl., Brooklyn, NY)

Sunday, September 23: Brooklyn Book Festival, Downtown Brooklyn, NY

The Afro-punk Festival is returning to Brooklyn’s Commodore Barry Park for the 8h Annual Afro-punk Festival on August 25-26. And it’s free.

So where is Commodore Barry Park? It’s on Flushing Avenue near the Navy Yard.

And who was Commodore Barry? From Wikipedia: John Barry (March 25, 1745 – September 13, 1803) was an officer in the Continental Navy during theAmerican Revolutionary War and later in the United States Navy. He is often credited as “The Father of the American Navy.

Here’s the schedule:

August 25 – Saturday

Erykah Badu & the Cannabinoids

Spank Rock

Das Racist

Cerebal Ballzy

Ninjasonik

Toshi Reagon

Oxymoron

  Continue reading Aug 25-26: Afro-Punk Festival at Brooklyn’s Commodore Barry Park →

Last night I decided to attend the Franklin Park Reading Series in Crown Heights and I’m glad I did. It was my very first time at this monthly event run by Brooklyn literary impresario Penina Roth at Franklin Park, a Crown Heights indoor/outdoor bar and restaurant.

Props to Penina Roth for proving that writers can be rock stars.

The Franklin Park Reading Series is by no means your typical literary reading. In fact, it has more in common with a show at a Brooklyn music club. What a scene. What a crowd. What a fun night.

More than one hundred young fiction lovers show up on a regular basis for this event (which meets on the second Monday of every month) and last night was no exception. The music blares, the crowd wallah is so intense you can barely hear yourself think and it’s a great place to mingle (and talk at the top of your lungs) to young writers and those who appreciate fiction. And then the show begins…

The show opened with three emerging writers. Caitlin Elizabeth Harper, who runs the Renegade Reading Series (also in Crown Heights), read a spooky short story about a swimming pool; Lincoln Michel, who writes for The Rumpus and Tin House read about US President John Adams and Zooey Dechanel; and Courtney Maum who writes a column for Electric Literature  read a piece about mastrubation in the voice of guitarist John Mayer.

The second half of the show offered a chance to hear acclaimed author Victor LaValle read from his highly anticipated new novel The Devil in Silver, which will be published next week. Tayari Jones read a chapter from her novel Silver Sparrow about the woman who threw a pot of beans on Al Green in 1974.

Thanks to the website Small Demons, there were drink specials, swag, and a literary mystery quiz. The series partners with BOMB Magazine on podcasts, so you can hear great lit from your favorite authors anytime.