The Brooklyn Community Chorus presents: The Third Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Family Sing-Along

Celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with an afternoon of family-friendly musical performances, art and activities that promote the values of community, equality and peace.

Old First Dutch Reformed Church

729 Carroll St @7th avenue Park Slope, Brooklyn

*Please bring a canned good to participate in a food drive. The event is free.

This past week was an extraordinarily busy one musically.  I’ve previously posted pictures from Martha Wainwright’s show on Monday night.  Now you can see pictures taken during the past few days at shows featuring Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson, The Good Lovelies, Amy Correia, Ursa Minor, Lelia Broussard and The Pierces.  Just click here to see them at Now I’ve Heard Everything.

–Eliot Wagner

TGIF and movies  are the thing this weekend with The King’s Speech at the Pavilion and Blue Valentine and Somewhere at Cobble Hill. The Interminable Suicide of Daniel Kitson at St. Ann’s Warehouse is garnering great reviews. Click on read more for all the essential details.

Continue reading OTBKB’s Weekend List: Friday – Sunday →

Feng Shui nightmare in brownstone bedroom: CasaCara

Covetable carriage houses: CasaCara

Awesome ebay finds: Reclaimed Home

Unconventional ideas for bedroom bedding: Apartment Therapy

My favorite Sexy Moms Event is coming back to Babeland, my favorite women’s sex toys shop. The workshop is called: ‘Talking to Your Kids about Sex’ and it’s a must for those with kids of any age — birth to teenage years.

Talking With Your Kids about Sex will meet on 
Tuesday, January 25 at 7PM. The event is free at Babeland Brooklyn, 462 Bergen Street.

Vanessa Anton, parent and sexuality specialist, will address ways of talking with your kids about sex, even when they don’t seem to be listening. Get the info you need to help your kids develop healthy sexuality and boundaries. This event is jointly sponsored by Park Slope Parents and Bump. RSVP to Leah@babeland.com.

I have attended this event in the past and both times have gotten a great deal out of it. I highly recommend it to all parents. In fact, I just may drag my sister over there for the “Talking to Your Kids About Sex” experience.

Can’t get enough.

Since the roads have been plowed and the subway and buses are running, Laura Cantrell (with guitar wiz Mark Spencer) will be playing at the 11th Street Bar in the East Village tonight.

Laura was born and raised in Nashville, but came to New York City for college and never left.  She’s not only a singer and songwriter but a musicologist as well, serving as the proprietress as The Radio Thrift Shop on WFMU.  Rolling Stone has called Laura “A modern woman with an old-timey heart, with a voice pitched somewhere between the bluesy realism of Lucinda Williams and the vintage femininity of Kitty Wells.”  The details of this show can be found at Now I’ve Heard Everything by clicking here.

If you were not among the capacity crowd who saw Martha Wainwright at The Rockwood Music Hall this past Monday, there are some pictures from that show awaiting you here at Now I’ve Heard Everything.

–Eliot Wagner

“Now everybody.”

From Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon,

I haven’t written about Zora Art Space, the new performance space on 4th Avenue in in quite some time.

But now I have a great reason. Sax player Roy Nathanson’s band will play Sotto Voce in New York for the first time in a while at Zora Art Space (315 4th ave bet. 2nd and 3rd Streets in Park Slope. Brooklyn at 8PM and 10PM.

The music: it’s free jazz, it’s spoken word, it’s emotional, it’s bluesy, it’s a powerful, it’s poetry…

Check out the line up:

Roy Nathanson – words, vocals and sax
Curtis Fowlkes – trombone, vocals
Tim Kiah – bass. vocals
Sam Bardfeld – violin, vocals

Here’s what the New York Times’ had to say about the CD: “Sotto Voce, the new recording by the saxophonist Roy Nathanson, makes full use of his unusual skills as a conceptualist and raconteur. All of the members of his band double on vocals, occasionally suggesting a literate and subversive barbershop quartet.”

And here’s what the Times’ had to say about Signal to Noise, another recording by Nathanson: “His best pop/jazz/monologue album to date. Sotto Voce showcases the best of Nathanson’s considerable talent – as an arranger, a lyricist, a narrator, and, in no small part, a great saxophonist.”

“I look back one more time. It’s like a crater, a hole where something happened. Then we go out the door.”

From Room by Emma Donoghue

They’re doing it again just like last year: the every Beatles song played on Ukulele thingy. What is obviously becoming an annual event will be at the Brooklyn Bowl on January 15 and 16 when producer/musician Roger Greenawalt and a group of ukulele players will perform the Fab Four’s entire oeuvre on the ukulele.

The complete Beatles (which is, apparently, 185 songs).

On January 15 at 6PM the show starts with Nellie McKay (who I love) Leah Siegel, Lovely Liar and The Ramblers joining Greenawalt on stage for 90 songs. A different assortment of musicians will be on hand on the 16th.

Last I had heard, Martha Wainwright had moved to London.  I’m not sure where she’s living these days, but tonight and the next three Mondays, she’ll be holding forth at very tiny Rockwood Music Hall at 9pm.  You’ll find further details at Now I’ve Heard Everything by clicking here.

The Damnwells are a band which at one point was from Brooklyn.  They aren’t based here anymore, but they have a new album, No One Listens to the Band Anymore, coming out in mid-March which was funded by their fans over the Internet.  Werewolves,  is the first official video from that album.  You can see it by clicking here.

–Eliot Wagner

It’s Saturday and the Slope is a-hopping with activity. Lots of peeps on the street shopping and walking around. People are mulching trees, eating brunch, walking dogs, socializing.

First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum is TONIGHT and there are movies to see (my sis saw True Grit yesterday and URGES me to see it. Pronto. Others swear by The Fighter. Still others (the Henry’s of the world) are WILD ABOUT Black Swan.

Click on read more for the essential details…

Continue reading OTBKB’s Weekend List: It’s Saturday →

There’s a new documentary about 60s singer-songwriter Phil Ochs.  Titled There But for Fortune it has a limited run at through Tuesday, January 11th at The IFC Center at in Greenwich Village.  Although Phil was a huge part of the music and politics of the 60s, he died in 1976 and his music has largely been forgotten.  This movie tries to right that large historical oversight.  If you are old enough to know Phil and his music, or if he was just before your time, you really should get to see this film.

If you can’t or won’t go out of the house, then take a look at this video in which Dave Grohl and Cobble Hill’s  Norah Jones duet on Paul McCartney‘s Maybe I’m Amazed from the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors show last month.  You’ll also see quick shots of both Sir Paul and President Obama in this clip.  It is all waiting for you here over at Now I’ve Heard Everything.

And don’t forget tonight’s Dar Williams show over at The Bell House.  Louise has the details here.

–Eliot Wagner

Don’t despair, the weekend is here and here’s the list. Movies, theater, music, mulch, fun and frolic at the Brooklyn Museum. Oh and on Sunday Simone Dinnerstein presents her Neighborhood Classics series at PS 321 with Bridgit Kibbey on harp at 2PM. Click on read more for all the essential details…

Continue reading OTBKB’s Weekend List: Friday – Sunday →

“Interpolating” group show at Muriel Guepin: Art in Brooklyn

Bushwick culture picks: Bushwick BK

On Foreskin Hill: Water Over Rocks

Ephinany: Old First Blog

Phil Ochs, There But for Fortune: Self-Absorbed Boomer

The children who forgot how to play: Crazy Stable

Play’s the thing: Investigating Choice Time

Ice in the hoof prints: Brooklynometry

On January 20th, 2011, Brooklyn Reading Works will present The Truth and Oral History (The Double Life of the Interview) at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn from 8:00-10:00 pm.

Stories do not tell themselves.  Even once they are told and recorded, stories need some help to be heard and to live in the world.  This month’s Brooklyn Reading Works will look at the processes by which people collect stories and use them to tell stories.  We will have panelists who use oral history practices to document our world and the lives we lead, and the conversation will explore the work it takes to make stories interesting and give them legs to stand on, as it were.  Panelists will represent and explore several different genres and styles of the oral historian’s craft, from traditional first-person historical storytelling to the mediations of photography, academic writing, marketing, multimedia, and social advocacy—as well as stories of how collecting stories ultimately affects oral historians as authors and curators of the human experience.

This event will consist of a panel discussion, where each participant will discuss their work, read something interesting that makes for a really good conversation-starter, and provide some insight into what it means to use interviews to tell stories.

Here’s the panel:

[a] Brian Toynes and Luna Ortiz, with Gay Men’s Health Crisis, who have developed some very innovative community-level interventions that use personal stories about change and resiliency to open dialogues and shift norms in communities.

[b] Michael Garolfalo, a producer with StoryCorps, who will talk about the work of StoryCorps and the importance of collecting and listening to the stories we can tell each other about our lives.

[c] Mary Marshall Clark, Director of the Columbia Oral History Office, who has interviewed many important figures of our times and helped to document some of the great events of our era, including 911 here in New York.

[d] Jason Kersten, author of “The Art of Making Money,” a true-crime story of a young counterfeiter and his life.

[e] John A. Guidry, who has used oral history and long-interviewing techniques in academic (community organizing and children’s rights in Brazil), community development (all over the US), and public health (HIV health promotion and social marketing).

“Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.”

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Gaga, a movement exercise developed by acclaimed Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, is used in daily training sessions by the dancers of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company. A version of this technique, developed for non-dancers, will be  taught at weekly classes at CongregationBeth Elohim.

Naharim developed Gaga/People classes for people with no dance background. Gaga/People offers a one-hour movement workout done in comfortable clothes. It allows the participant “to discover agility, flexibility, strength, speed, efficiency, stamina, explosive power, groove, delicacy, the connection between pleasure and effort, and isolation and articulation of joints.”

Wow.

Starting January 10th, there will be classes on Monday and Wednesday nights from 8-9PM at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope for $13/class.

Back in the 60s, Danny Kalb was a member of the seminal electric blues group, The Blues Project.  Today, Danny, a Brooklyn resident for years (I often see him walking on 7th Avenue in The Slope) remains a blues guitar master.  I remember seeing him live for the first time, maybe a dozen years ago and being transfixed and amazed by his playing. If you like the blues and want to see a master at work, this is the show to see.  Get the details at Now I’ve Heard Everything by clicking here.

–Eliot Wagner

“Sonny let me hold him. I thirve, his body said to mine. I will thrive. I put my hand on the back of his head and held it to my shoulder, my cheek against his hair. It was time to go.”

From Don’t Cry by Mary Gaitskill

We’ve got a great Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House coming up on January 20th at 8PM. Curated by John Guidry, who writes the blog Truth and Rocket Science is called The Truth and Oral History (or the Double Life of the Interview). Like Truth and Money, the wonderful event Guidry curated in 2010, it should be an interesting exploration of a fascinating topic with Q&A and discussion (audience participation encouraged).

As Guidry explains: “Stories do not tell themselves. Even once they are told and recorded, stories need some help to be heard and live in the world. January’s Brooklyn Reading Works will look at the processes by which people collect stories and use them to tell stories. The conversation will explore the work it takes to make stories interesting and give them legs to stand on. Panelists will represent and explore several different genres and styles of the oral historian’s craft, from traditional first-person historical storytelling to the mediations of photography, marketing, multimedia, and social advocacy—as well as how collecting stories ultimately affects the lives of oral historians as authors and curators of the human experience.” Suggested donation of $5 includes refreshments and wine. Q&A will follow the readings.

Stay tuned for a full list of the participants.

Get news about the 2011 plans for The Baseball Project, The Damnwells, Garland Jeffreys, Amy Speace, My Pet Dragon, Leslie Mendelson, The Madison Square Gardeners, Sydney Wayser, Serena Jean, Charlie Faye, and The Del-Lords over at Now I’ve Heard Everything by clicking here.

New Years Day was the anniversary of the death of  Hank Williams in 1953.  Fred Eaglesmith, a great Canadian singer-songwriter, uses that death as the centerpiece of his cautionary tale, Alcohol and Pills.  See the video for that song at Now I’ve Heard Everything by clicking here.

–Eliot Wagner

It’s New Year’s Day, that first day of the rest of your life…

Hopefully you enjoyed yourself on New Year’s Eve and now you’re ready for some activity. Or not. My recommendations are not for everyone but I enjoy the marathon poetry reading at the St. Marks Church in the East Village. A movie might be good, the ballet (The Nutcracker reimagined by ABT’s genius-in-residence, Alexi Ratmansky). Click on read more for all the essential details.

Continue reading OTBKB’s Weekend List: New Year’s Day Edition →

Happy New Year to everyone and I hope you had a pleasant New Year’s Eve. Ours was very satisfactory. Very. We went to a warm, cozy party in the West Village with old friends. The host and a cellist played Auld Lang Syne at midnight (preceded by a soulful rendition of Instant Karma).

The TV was on, the ball dropped, the kids banged on drums, cow bells and triangles. There was delicious food and much in the way of champagne  (and spirits) and lots of real hugs and sincere good wishes for the new year.

The ride home to Brooklyn on the subway wasn’t that bad. A crowd of teenage revelers at the 14th Street A platform started dancing to the sounds of a man’s plastic horn.

The subway riders were tired, drunk. Like us, everyone looked eager to get home. Our bed felt very good when we finally got there.

“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.”

From Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

New Year’s Eve Day and the question arises: what are we doing for New Year’s Eve. Here are some suggestions in the music and fireworks department. If you want a quiet night stay home and at midnight wander out to the park to see fireworks. Or make a reservation at a local restaurant for an early supper. Drink Proseco and watch Hannanh and her Sisters…

Continue reading OTBKB’s Weekend List: It’s New Year’s Eve… →

My Pet Dragon, a band to keep your eye on in 2011, played to an enthusiastic and good-sized audience at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2 Wednesday night.  The five person Brooklyn-based band played for for about 45 minutes. MPD’s music has influences which range from U2 to mid-80s electro pop and includes Indian dance from backup singer Reena Shah.  Photos of that gig can be found at Now I’ve Heard Everything by clicking here.

–Eliot Wagner

“And there they were. All these mothers. I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street. They are the moons shining over me.”

From The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd