So nice to get a book in the mail. So nice when that book is from Ugly Duckling Presse. So nice when that Ugly Duckling Presse book is by a friend. Even nicer when that friend is Brooklyn’s Michael Ruby, author of five full-length collections of poetry,  including the brand new American Songbook. 

American Songbook is Ruby’s poetic response to an ambitious sweep of 20th century vocal music, including blues, jazz and country standards, Hip Hop, rock and disco. Lewis Warsh writes “You can sing  along to Michael Ruby’s delirious new poems in American Songbook, your voice echoing down (to mis-qute Fred Neil) “the canyon of your mind,” until you can’t sing any more and the  poem goes off on its own.”

It’s an inviting book, which begins with the words, “Girls, beef up the rackets, and plasticize the seven dwarfs” in a poem called “Pinchbacks—Take ‘Em Away” for the great Bessie Smith.

“Come As You Are” is a poem for Kurt Cobain that begins: “Come circumnavigate this eyeball in a see of eyeballs/As you are glowing polyurethane or coconut soda.”

“I just called the chocolate relief/to say four hearts poise/I love you in the varnished spring/I just called the highboy song…” is from a poem called “I Just Called to Say I Love You” for Stevie Wonder.

Reading Ruby’s book is like browsing through someone’s iTunes playlist. Someone with a really good playlist, that is. All the poems are named for songs and performers, some familiar, some obscure. Quickly the poems take the reader into strange terrain, mangling the lyrics in ways that are complex and compelling. This is language-y stuff that tracks meaning in discombobulating ways. Clearly, he knows (and loves his music) but he also lets loose in the realm of the hallucenogenic poetic imagination.

Ruby’s other books include Memories, Dreams and Inner Voices, Compulsive Words and At an Intersection. You can learn more about them here. 

I woke up this morning to an email with a link to the Bodies issue of Insight Magazine, a project run by my friend Atiba Edwards. I thought it looked incredible on my iPhone. Fascinating art, words, ideas. I urge you to take a look.

We are amazing – we have beautiful bodies that come in an assortment of shapes, sizes, colors etc. We seek out a body (or bodies) to hold near and dear to us. Bodies to keep us warm. Bodies to motivate us. Bodies to challenge us. Bodies that leave a lasting impression on our mind and body as if it were made out of memory phone. Bodies that we long for and cry for. Bodies that somehow manage to be a point of dislike or hate. Bodies that embody feelings which we fail to ever put into the right set of words. Bodies that sometimes are our own.

The journey you are about to take captures all of the above and more. We have a great selection of visual art and word art that expresses a collection of artists seeking out what the body means to them. Through paint, music, word and composition they took the risk and decided to share that with you. Click here to begin.

Bodies (ISSUE 35) CONTRIBUTORS:

AuksOne / Michael Alan / Anirudh ‘Eka’ Dhullipalla / Atiba T. Edwards / Christian Ericson / Simone Frame / Jordan Kifer / Allison Maritza Lasky / Dolly Martinez/ Kristine Palma / Kerff Petit-Frere / Kira Pearson / Gail Ressler / Filipa Silva / Tessa Hirschfeld-Stoler / Stephanie Winbush / Jozi Zwerdling

INSIGHT magazine is based on the concept that we often look to art to define past civilizations. In turn, we provide insight into the artists who are shaping our culture through their work today. We provide insight into the worlds of actors, musicians, designers, fine artists, emerging artists and those who do not immediately come to mind when thinking about the arts/artists, such as culinary artists and industrial designers.

A big crowd gathered last night at The Gate in Park Slope to see the season premiere of the final season of Breaking Bad.

It was standing room only. And I might add, there were some very tall people standing, which made it difficult to see the small television screens flanking the bar.

The  bar was noisy and crowded when I got there at 8:30 for the 9PM show.  I wondered if it would get quiet enough to actually hear the show. But when the show came on, someone screamed, “It’s on!” and there was radio silence.

The audience was rapt as they watched last night’s incredible episode, which truly belonged to Hank. But no spoilers here.

Nice touch: The Gate gave out small plastic bags of blue rock candy, which looked an awful lot like Heisenberg’s crystal. Is that demented or what?

Next best thing to watching the show? When the crowd cleared out, a few people stayed behind and shared deep thoughts about the meaning of the show, conjecturing where it can go from here. Interesting stuff.

I’ll be at The Gate next week but I’m gonna get there early. I want to get a seat at the bar.

Opening on August 1 (that’s this Thursday), Everyone in the Pool is a group show of artwork from members of the 440 Gallery artist collective, which was named “Best Gallery” by The L Magazine.

“Ours is an artistic gene pool where ideas meet, hybridize, evolve, and powerful synergies constantly occur. As a collective we are in this together, sink or swim. This exhibit expresses this theme through conversations among the artwork while celebrating the summer season through paintings, photography, sculpture and video,” reads the blurb on the press release.

It’s not everyday that you have the opportunity to see the work of all fourteen of 440’s members:  Vicki Behm, Fred Bendheim, Tom Bovo, Ellen Chuse, Shanee Epstein, GailFlanery, Jay Friedenberg, Laurie Lee-Georgescu, Karen Gibbons, Susan Greenstein, Katharine Colona Hopkins, Nancy Lunsford, Amy Williams, EllaYang.

Everyone in the Pool opens at the 440 Gallery, located at 440 Sixth Avenue inBrooklyn, on Thursday, August 1, and will run through Sunday, September 8, 2013. There will be a reception for the artists from 6:00-9:00 PM, Thursday, August 1.

The pool painting above is by Ella Yang. 

Fran Leadon of the Y’all Stars and Leigh Anderson are recording every single Carter family song, in chronological order. The two performers have been working on this project for more than a year and they’re very efficient about it. They do each song in one or two takes, invite guest performers and friends to sing along, and sometimes do it in front of a crowd at a place like Jalopy on Columbia Street. They’ll be there this Friday night at 8PM It’s free and it sounds fun.

“My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left.”

― Haruki Murakami

On September 18, 2013 at 8PM Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House will present a Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event: SOFT SHADOWS: A CELEBRATION OF THE SHORT STORY with Gregory Spatz, Dawn Raffel and Ron Parsons and Ruchama King Feuerman, who will read and discuss their work and their favorite short stories. Louise Crawford will host.

Audience members will be invited open-mic style to share their favorite published stories and read the first paragraph.

A $5 suggested donation will include wine and snacks. Books will be sold and signed.

The Old Stone House: 336 Third Street between 5^th and 4^th Avenues. R train to Union Street, F train to Fourth Avenue. 718-768-3195. For interviews and inquiries: 718-288-4290

ABOUT THE FEATURED AUTHORS

Gregory Spatz is the author of novels Inukshuk, Fiddler’s Dream and No One But Us, as well as short story collections, Half as Happy and Wonderful Tricks. His short stories have appeared in literary journals and magazines such as Glimmer Train Stories, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Epoch, Santa Monica Review, The New Yorker, etc., and he has published numerous book and music reviews for The Oxford American. He’s won numerous grants from the Washington State Artist Trust, as well as a Washington State Book Award, and in 2011 he was named Individual Artist of the Year by the Spokane Arts Commission. He is also the recipient of a 2012 National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship.

Dawn Raffel’s illustrated memoir, The Secret Life of Objects, was published in June and was on Oprah’s Summer Reading List and Best Memoir List for 2012. She is also the author of two story collections— Further Adventures in the Restless Universe and In the Year of Long Division (soon to be reissued)—and a novel, Carrying the Body. Her stories have appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, BOMB, Conjunctions, Black Book, Fence, Open City, The Mississippi Review Prize Anthology, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, Arts & Letters, The Quarterly, NOON, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. She was a fiction editor for many years, followed by a seven-year stint as Executive Articles Editor at O, The Oprah Magazine and three years as Editor-at-Large at More magazine; she has also taught in the MFA program at Columbia University and at the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia; Montreal; and Vilnius, Lithuania. She is now Editor at Large, Books at Readers Digest, and the editor of The Literarian, the magazine for the Center for Fiction in New York. She lives outside New York City with her husband and sons.

Ron Parsons is the author of the new story collection The Sense of Touch from Aqueous Books. He is writer living in Sioux Falls. Born in Michigan and raised in South Dakota, he was inspired to begin writing fiction in Minneapolis while attending the University of Minnesota. His short stories have appeared in such places as The Gettysburg Review, Indiana Review, The Briar Cliff Review, Flyway, and The Onion. This is his debut collection.

ABOUT THE HOST

Louise Crawford runs Brooklyn Readings Works, which has been called “the best place to chase fiction with a little history” by Conde Nast Traveler. She is the founder of the popular blog Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Blogfest, an annual networking event for bloggers. Her company Brooklyn Social Media creates publicity and social media for authors,  artists and entrepreneurs.

ABOUT THE BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL:

The Brooklyn Book Festival is the largest free literary event in New York City, presenting an array of national and international literary stars and emerging authors. One of America’s premier book festivals, this hip, smart diverse gathering attracts thousands of book lovers of all ages to enjoy authors and the festival’s lively literary marketplace. This years festival is on September 22, 2013.

The Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend events are literary themed events taking place in clubs, parks, bookstores, theatres and libraries culminating with the festival. The Bookends kick-off a long literary weekend with film screenings, parties, literary games and author appearances.

I love the sound of CUTIE AND THE BOXER by Brooklyn filmmaker Zachary Heinzerling. It is described as a “beautiful and intimate look at the 40-year marriage” of Brooklyn-based artists, Ushio & Noriko Shinohara, who live and work in a DUMBO loft.

You can view the trailer by clicking on the link below. The movie opens on August 16th at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Sunshine cinemas.

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/cutieandtheboxer/

I just got a nice note from the Community Bookstore about Terrace Books, their new venture. They took over Babbos Books, a used bookstore in Windsor Terrace and are located just a mile south of the Community Bookstore at 242 Prospect Park West near Dub Pies, Farrell’s, the Double Windsor, the Pavilion and Terrace Bagels.

They’ve been open a few weeks and things seem to be going well. I went in last week and the shop looked very nice. I especially liked the back wall which is painted with blackboard paint and chalked with the bookstore’s elaborate logo. Many books caught my eye including an old paperback of Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow and a couple of books by Nelson Algren. Here’s the note I received:

It was the softest of soft openings because we were a bit nervous about our novice venture into the used-book business, but things have gone just fine. We have lost count of the number of people who have come in to thank us for keeping a bookstore in Windsor Terrace (we took over the former Babbo’s Books), and who have told us they love the look of the new store. Customers seem delighted that they can order new books and pick them up at either of our stores. And we’ve discovered the particular joys that come with selling used books: covers we remember from our youth; gems that have gone out of print; early incarnations of such staples of our new-book business as the Penguin Classics or New York Review Books.

by Matthew A. Taub

OTBKB was on hand for the second event in a weekly-recurring series of cultural offerings, taking place every Wednesday at Mister Rogers, a new studio space converted from a storefront in Crown Heights (231 Rogers Ave. between Union and President streets).

Billed as ‘For Locals, By Locals’, the series hosts events featuring talent curated by the Hoover Dam Collective. The mission is to showcase local artists, attractions and acts in and around Crown Heights, at gigs designed specifically for residents as a place to hang out, meet neighbors, drink locally and eat local bites.

The brainchild of the series is local promoter Avi Werde (of Event Connection Source and Franklin Avenue’s Cool Pony).

“We’re offering a rotating array of cultural formats and mediums,” Werde explained. “Everything from photographers, poets, musicians, food from local restaurants, dancers and comedians. You can access it all — and catch new, up-and-coming acts — every Wednesday night.”

The venue itself is an inviting if unassuming place, recently gut renovated (a wheelbarrow tucked away in the corner was literally still stockpiled with the last pile of detritus). An art gallery up front transitioned into a generous performance space towards the back.

Crown Heights is quickly emerging as a new neighborhood for young and talented professionals, but the event took strides to incorporate influences of the local Jewish community as well. Ruvi Lieder and Schneur Menaker’s photography lined the walls, with striking depictions of local Hasidic residents, and many Crown Heights natives wandered into the space, enjoying the performances with newer residents, even inquiring as to how they could showcase their own various talents at future dates in the series.

“Our goal is to keep this community thriving with events,” Werde added. “It’s a communal place — to showcase and support local endeavors of any flavor — while being entertained in good neighborly company.”

To be notified and keep up-to-date on future “For Locals, By Locals” events, simply follow them on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/480744425335304/?directed_target_id=0

Ground Floor Gallery, Park Slope’s newest art gallery opens, its summer show Small Wonder on Friday, July 12th, 6 – 8:30pm. Small Wonder is  juried exhibition of small works, all under $200.

“Small Wonder” features artists Adams Puryear, Alyssa Piro, Becky Yazdan, Brendan Newel, Corinne Odermatt, Elissa Swanger, Eliza Stamps, Jacobus Capone, Karen Schoellkopf, Lisa Wicka, Sean Gallagher and Thomas Hammer.

Ground Floor Gallery

343 5th Street (off 5th Avenue)

Brooklyn, NY 11215

F or R train to 4th Avenue – 9th Street

For more information: www.groundfloorbk.com

by Matthew A. Taub

Brave New World Repertory Theatre enjoyed a smashing success with their recent site-specific performance of “Street Scene,” a 1929 Elmer Rice play, using real residential buildings as an interactive set (OTBKB previewed the performance in an article last week).

Two performances last Saturday, at 1 and 5 p.m., went off without a hitch. Attendees quickly filled the available seating along Fifth Street in Park Slope (between 8th Avenue and Prospect Park West) while an overflow crowd found comfort in the ornate, lavish Brownstone stoops just across the way.

For Shannon Sindelar, having just been named the Brave New World Repertory Theatre’s Producing Artistic Director this past February, nothing could make her happier.

“With a cast of 35 and entire street that needed closing, we were expecting a few hiccups— what we didn’t expect was no hiccups at all,” Sindelar said. “The community really came together to make this happen.”

Indeed, the entire block seemed peacefully enraptured by the performance; any complaints were hard to come by.
Emily Glinick, Secretary of the Repertory Theater’s Board of Directors, was also emboldened by the show’s success.
“We produce our productions throughout the borough, and try to hit under-served areas especially. Red Hook, Bed-Stuy, and Windsor Terrace are just some of the previous neighborhoods we have performed in.”

Though the Brave New World Repertory Theatre’s official “office” is in Ditmas Park, “our ‘venue’ is the outdoors,’” Glinick said.

“We love to do site-specific shows, especially in outdoor locations,” she added. “It’s a return to the way theater was originally performed.”

If you want Brave New World Repertory Theatre to perform “Street Scene” or another performance in your neighborhood, or even use your building, visit them at bravenewworldrep.org, contact them at theatre@bravenewworldrep.org, like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.

I love when stuff like this happens: an old friend finds my blog and actually CALLS to tell me that she has a great Brooklyn event to share.

Love it. 

I also love to hear the story of how she got here from there to here. From the mid-1980’s to the mid-1990’s, artist Jill Kirschen and I used to work together on videos. She was a master of music for video and I relied on her talents for many years when I was a video producer. It was always a blast to work with her  because she knew her stuff and we always had great conversations in the process.

Now she’s a visual artist with a studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Recently she got her BFA from the School of Visual Arts and she’s currently in the midst of completing a masters degree in art education. Talk about reinventing yourself.

Love that, too. 

Here she writes about her work on her website: “I’m very interested in visually representing the idea of subtext, layering, lyricism and rhythm.  To best do this I work with a variety of media; paint, fabric, photographs, found objects, and most recently, remnants of clothing worn by people close to me.”

Jill  started out by making collages with paper, scissors, and glue. But then she got swept up into a love affair with digital manipulation. “However, I started to miss the pure physicality of making work and really getting my hands dirty, and am now happily once more back to my roots,” she writes.

You will have a chance to see Jill’s work at a show that’s opening at the Yashar Gallery (276 Greenpoint Avenue, Building 8 Ground Floor) on Thursday from 6-9PM. The show will run through July 24th.

Above is a picture of Jill. She looks exactly the same and I haven’t seen her in MANY years.

Gina Barreca, columnist for The Courant and author o It’s Not That I’m Bitter wrote this about the death yesterday of the great James Gandolfini. Here’s an excerpt. You can read the rest here. 

Losing James Gandolfini, star of “The Sopranos,” is like losing a favorite cousin. The sense of shock and grief over his unexpected and sudden death Wednesday has people talking, writing and — yes — grieving. This is more than the ordinary reaction to the death of celebrity. This is not an everyday, “Oh, too bad. He was only about 50, right?” shrug-and-switch-topics water-cooler conversation.

Our reaction to Gandolfini’s death is more along the lines of emails exchanged at midnight with subject lines like “It can’t be true!” and “I can’t believe how depressed this makes me …”

Maybe it’s because I’m Italian American. Or from the New York area. Or because I was enough of a fan of “The Sopranos” to edit a book on the show. Perhaps it was because the character he played, Tony Soprano, changed American television forever.

At this week’s BAMcinemaFest 2013 there’s a fascinating selection of new films you’ve never heard of by Brooklyn filmmakers. Seems like there’s a veritable explosion of filmakers living in Brooklyn and all this creativity, fundraising and production is coming to fruition at BAM, the theater many of the filmmakers say is their favorite movie theater in Brooklyn.

I wholeheartedly agree. See the schedule and film descriptions here. 

The films that people seem to be buzzing about are  narrative features and docs: After Tiller, It Felt Like Love. These Birds Walk, Computer Chess, Drinking Buddies, Northern Lights Mother of George, Crystal Fair, Newlyweeds. Everyone wants to see Ain’t Them Bodies Saints with Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck directed by David Lowery.

Go Brooklyn!

By Matthew A. Taub

On Friday night at Wordsprouts, the literary reading series at the Park Slope Food Coop run by Paula Bernstein (author of Identical Strangers) and John Donohue (author of Man with a Pan), three writers shared work that  touched on  love, romance, and personal responsibility.

First up was Barbara Agosin, who began writing as a means of therapy after her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. An essayist and poet, her work focuses on everyday events as well as life within the circle of love and loss that is Alzheimer’s:

“The man continues to eat, seemingly oblivious to the difference between knife, fork and spoon. Soon morsels of chicken, tiny rectangles of rice and damp cake crumbs mix together on table, floor and the cuffs of his robe.

“The man is my husband. If he were not 77 years old I would put him in a high chair and teach him how to use a knife and fork. He is completely concentrated on the business of eating and unworried about the mess around and beneath him, which less than a year ago would have sent him running for the broom and dustpan.”

Next was Fran Hawthorne, the award-winning author of the new book, ETHICAL CHIC: an investigation of Starbucks, Apple, Trader Joe’s, American Apparel, Timberland, and Tom’s of Maine. Ms. Hawthorne has spent more than 25 years covering healthcare, politics, finance, and the nexus of business and social issues:

“Like people we meet, we fall in love with sexy, charismatic companies that ultimately break out hearts…we think we can have it all, but we close our eyes to faults and project [onto these companies] what we want them to be.”

Ethical Chic has been named one of the best books of 2012 by Library Journal. Hawthorne writes regularly for The New York Times, Newsday,The Scientist, and other publications.

Finishing up the event was Robin Bady an award-winning storyteller. Ms Bady has been called “gutsy, big hearted, and street smart,” and “a force of nature.” She draws from world tales, current events, oral histories, literature, ghostly experiences and her own life to create a repertoire shaped by her commitment to justice:

“At my thirty year high school reunion, because of all the pettitness involved in growing up, I realized that I couldn’t recognize people who came up to me independently— only when they were standing with the cliques that had defined who they were— way back when— could I put piece them together.”

Ms. Bady is the recipient of the 2012 JJ Reneaux Emerging Artist Grant Awary given by the National Story Telling Network.

Like all Wordsprouts readings, a Park Slope Food Co-Op Membership is not required to attend, and admission is free. For more information about upcoming Wordsprouts events, Ms. Bernstein can be contacted at wordsproutspsfc@gmail.com.

Matthew Taub is a writer and lawyer in Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of “Death of the Dying City,” a novel.

Who knew there were literary readings Jackie’s Fifth Amendment. That’s the bar, if I’m not mistaken, that tried to secede from Park Slope. Am I right?

On June 20th, a cadre of cool writers will share their literary output with the public. The event falls under the rubric of The Buzzard’s Banquet and it sounds like it’s a monthly affair. The festivities begin at 8PM. The Fifth Amendment is located on Fifth Avenue and 7th Street.

Performers Include: Jesse Katz, Eric Nelson, Phil Nerges, Matthew Frazier, Scott Cheshire and Ed Kearns w/ music from Vic Ruggiero of The Slackers.

The photo is by Farrah Celler

I came across some illustrations by Nelson Gelgud on the BAM website. The project is called “The John Turturro Mid-eighties Hat Trick” and it’s about three films Turturro made before he teamed up with Spike Lee and the Coen Brothers.

Gelgud has an illustration blog called Take the Soda Free and Jet and another blog where he writes about movies. Tami Mnoian wrote about him for Print Magazine. 

Nathan Gelgud illustrates tiny collections of things, as if he has released the contents of his pocket and taken pen to paper. While the renderings are small, the subjects are certainly not: Steve Martin, Sal Mineo, and Spuds McKenzie (see above), or Felix Mendelssohn, Frances McDormand and Fred MacMurray—personalities  who share the same initials. This is Gelgud’s talent. He miniaturizes and contains so that his figures look like they belong in a curio cabinet, visible and ready for adoration.

Gelgud’s work is featured on a wall in Greenpoint’s In God We Trust, where he depicts the famous noggins of William Faulkner, John Steinbeck and Philip Roth, to name a few.

 

By day she teaches Music for Aardvarks at Two Moon Art House and Cafe on Fourth Avenue. By night she is developing a one-woman show that will make you laugh and make you cry. You might even sing along. What fun.

Mary Jo McBride with direction by Jennifer Tuttle will present Born “My” Dentity” her one-woman/all-woman/identity crisis. One part solo performance, one part  cabaret, one part stand-up and “entirely endearing” says the artist’s blurb, the show is this Saturday, June 8 at 7:30 PM (doors open at 7PM).

Joyce at Two Moon is really excited about presenting this performer: “She’s one of our children’s performers but is doing an evening “mom-along”.  It’s a one woman show – sort of a spoof on Lilith Fair- it’s going to be HILARIOUS.”

Saturday, June 8 at 7:30 PM (doors open at 7PM). Admission is $10 dollars. Two Moon is located at 315 Fourth Avenue at Third Street in Park Slope. F train to Fourth Avenue, R train to Union Street.

Hey everybody, a new book that takes place in Park Slope! It’s a Young Adult book called After Isaac by yet another terrific Park Slope author, Avra Wing. And it’s available from Amazon. I’m not sure if the Community Bookstore has copies but you can check.

Here’s a quick synopsis: Aaron Saturn, 16, is an emotional zombie–stuck in grief for his little brother, Isaac, who died. Aaron longs for an escape, and thinks he’s found one when he meets Kim, a girl living on the streets of New York City’s East Village.

But the real upheaval in his life hits closer to home. When his parents reveal a startling plan to change their family, Aaron goes into a tailspin. He needs to learn that running away won’t heal him. For that to happen, Aaron must be willing to let love back into his life. Love that may lead him to a real adventure.

In addition to After Isaac, Avra Wing is the author of Angie, I Says, a New York Times notable book, which was made into the feature film Angie starring Geena Davis and James Gandolfini. Avra’s online memoir, Doorway on the Mountain: A Rehabilitation Journey, recounts her recovery from a devastating accident. In 2011, her poetry collection, Recurring Dream, won the Pecan Grove Press National Poetry Chapbook competition. She has published poems in a number of magazines, including Hanging Loose, Michigan Quarterly Review, Apple Valley Review and New Madrid. Avra is a workshop leader for the New York Writers Coalition, and was awarded a grant from Poets and Writers for her work.