Nine stunning panoramic photographs by Susan Wides of New York City, including shots of Brooklyn Flea, Coney Island and the Botanic Gardens, will be on view at the Kim Foster Gallery in Manahhatan from March 21-April 29, 2013.

In All the Worlds, Susan Wides “tracks her lens on our everyday drama and urban spectacle as both observers and participants in the theatrum mundi of our city’s streets. She illuminates the moments of struggle and transcendence in the many worlds that we collectively experience–the cultural, global, corporate consumer, and natural.”

And you know we love everyday drama and urban spectacle.

The gallery blurb for All the Worlds alludes to a wonderful quote by Baudelaire on the passionate city spectator (and by extension the photographer of the city). Here is the quote in its entirety from The Painter in the City: 

“For the perfect flaneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world–such are a few of the slightest pleasures of those independent, passionate, impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito. The lover of life makes the whole world his family, just like the lover of the fair sex who builds up his family from all the beautiful women that he has ever found, or that are–or are not–to be found; or the lover of pictures who lives in a magical society of dreams painted on canvas.”

All the Worlds opens on Thursday March 21 with an opening reception. But the show will run through April 29th at 529 West 20th Street in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.

I am inviting you to an exciting event at Congregation Beth Elohim on March 21 at 7:30 PM.

No, it’s not my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah.

This Brooklyn by the Book event will include a Passover wine tasting, delicious treats from Gefilteria (a Brooklyn start-up that is reinventing seder food) and a conversation with Edgar M. Bronfman, Jan Aronson and Rabbi Andy Bachman about The Bronfman Haggadah just out from Rizzoli. Community Bookstore will be on hand to sell the book, which makes a truly great seder Haggadah and/or gift.

This is a Haggadah for your collection!

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) had to say:

“The Bronfman Haggadah has everything I want in a seder guest. It’s clear-headed but allows for argument. It’s straightforward but has a flair for the dramatic. It’s colorful but not tacky, opinionated but not dogmatic, and it’s not so long-winded that the soup gets cold. Dive in!

Rabbi Bachman and Edgar M. Bronfman go way back. From 1998-2004, Rabbi Bachman was the Executive Director of the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life: Hillel at NYU. There’s is great respect between the two of them, which should make for an interesting discussion about the meaning of Passover and issues of Jewish identity and theology.

Edgar M. Bronfman, 83, has devoted his life to Jewish causes. He founded the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, which supports a wide variety of causes, programs and initiatives including, Birthright Israel, 92nd Street Y, Hebrew Union College, Interfaith Family, My Jewish Learning, American Jewish World Service, Congregation Beth Elohim and much more.

The Bronfman Haggadah written by Edgar M. Bronfman and illustrated by Jan Aronson is a provocative and stunningly visual retelling of the Passover story, the Bronfman Haggadahhas been called “a revolutionary Haggadah for the 21st century” for the way that it tells the story of the Jews’ dramatic journey from slavery to freedom, in a way that will captivate generations to come.

Jan Aronson’s bold and brilliant watercolor paintings heighten the text and amplify a story that is crucial to the Jewish narrative of Identity. These luminous images— both abstract and figurative—artfully illustrate the Seder plate’s symbolic foods, the parting of the Red Sea, the forty-year journey through the desert, the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, and other events pivotal to Passover.

David Suissa in Jewish Journal wrote:

“Bronfman has taken the secular and spiritual values that resonate with the new generation — such as tikkun olam, pluralism, human dignity and social justice — and rooted them proudly in the story of the Jewish people. He’s made the seder night different by appealing to the indifferent. That alone is worthy of Jewish pride.”

I’d love for you to join me on this special night. Come for the program and stay for the food (or visa versa). I think it will be very memorable evening.

What: Brooklyn by the Book Presents A Conversation with Edgar M. Bronfman, Jan Aronson and Rabbi Andy Bachman about The Bronfman Haggadah

When: March 21, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Congregation Beth Elohim

What Else: A $10 suggested donation includes tastings from Gefilteria and Slope Cellars. Please RSVP.

Books will be sold by The Community Bookstore.

FULL DISCLOSURE: My company Brooklyn Social Media is representing the Haggadah!

Turns out that  Bev Grant and Carolann Solebello are doing a monthly series at my fave Park Slope art house and cafe. Two Moon is a cozy art gallery, performance space and coffee house on Fourth Avenue Park Slope.

We heart Fourth Avenue and the efforts of Two Moon’s owners Danielle and Joyce to bring food, beverage and culture to that up and coming Brooklyn thoroughfare.

Sharon Goldman, who used to be part of a sweet duo called Sweet Bitters, will be performing with Bev and Carolann in an evening of swapping songs and sharing stories, and this show will be extra fun because we’re tying it to Women’s History Month. She writes: “We’re an all-female cast, obviously, and we’ll be focusing on tunes with women-oriented and feminist themes (though that’s quite a wide swath of possibility!).”

Sharon promises to sing “Falling Into Place,” the Park Slope song I love.

Also,  Bev has a wonderful exhibit up of her photos from the 1968 Miss America Pageant protest…I can’t wait to see those.

Bev & Carolann Present: Second Fridays @ Two Moon

Friday, March 15, 8 p.m.

Two Moon Art House & Cafe

315 Fourth Avenue

Park Slope, Brooklyn

(718) 499-0460

$10 suggested donation

Tonight. Is. The. Night.

We thought this up a few months ago. An event the night before  Valentine’s Day celebrating broken hearts. Why? Because there would be no poetry and no song without broken hearts.

Tonight we celebrate the broken heart because for a heart to break it once had to be full. Full.

Tonight let Peter Silsbee and the Haywood Brothers and Courtney Adams, Jr. serenade you. Let Nicole Hefner Callihan and Yona Zeldis McDonough read to you. Let the mulled wine, snacks and coffee drinks soothe you.

At 7PM. Two Moon Art House and Cafe. 315 Fourth Avenue between 3rd and 2nd Street.

Songwriter/performer Louis Rosen returns to the Metropolitan Room (34 West 22nd Street, New York, NY) on February 9th and 10th at 7PM to celebrate the release of Time Was, his debut recording as a solo artist after three acclaimed CDs with vocalist Capathia Jenkins.

Time Was offers a broad journey across the landscape of American roots music with songs that explore the essential stuff of our lives—love and lust, dreams and pipedreams, fortunes made and squandered, the joy of creation, faith, loss, death and salvation. Louis and his band offer these intensely human portraits in ways that feel fresh, sophisticated and new, yet timeless.

Here’s a taste of what the press have had to say about Louis’ previous work:

“Highbrow—Brilliant.” New York Magazine Approval Matrix

“Rosen has a James Taylor-like talent for setting intimate lyrics over facile, catchy melodies…. Don’t miss this…” Bloomberg News

“Music that stirs the soul.” Huffington Post

To learn more about Louis and Time Was, and for a preview of some of the new songs, visit www.louisrosen.com.

Composer, lyricist, performer and author LOUIS ROSEN was awarded a 2005-2006 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Music Composition. His recordings include the new solo album release, TIME WAS (2013, Di-tone Records), and three albums with vocalist Capathia Jenkins: THE ACHE OF POSSIBILITY (2009, Di-tone Records), ONE OUNCE OF TRUTH (2008, PS Classics) and SOUTH SIDE STORIES (2006, Rosecap/Di-tone.)

Highlights of Louis’ work as a performer include over 100 concerts since 2005 in and beyond New York at venues such as The Public Theater’s Joe’s Pub, Birdland, Iridium Jazz Club, the Great Hall at Cooper Union, the Metropolitan Room, Harare’s International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe, Africa, Northwestern University’s Lewis Theater, SF’s Freight and Salvage, Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater, LA’s Gardenia Club, Washington D.C.’s 6th Street and I Historic Synagogue; Schenectady’s Eighth Step at the Proctor Theater, Brooklyn Library’s Dweck Center and many more.

Only the Blog at Two Moon presents: Broken Hearted Valentine’s on the night before Valentine’s Day. Join us for music from Courtney Lee Adams Jr and her 4-piece band and Peter Silsbee and The Heywood Brothers; poetry from Nicole Hefner Callihan

Feb. 13, 7-9 p.m. at Two Moon Art House and Cafe.

Why should Valentine’s Day be so lovey-dovey and ooey-gooey? What about those peeps with broken hearts or love gone stale. Not to mention those who are still waiting for the real thing.

Where would music and poetry be without broken hearts?

Let Peter Silsbee, The Heywood Brothers, Courtney Lee Adams Jr. and poet Nicole Hefner Callihan serenade you on Broken Hearted Valentine’s at Two Moon Art House and Cafe.

No need to spend the night ALONE….

When: Wednesday, February 13, 7-9 p.m.

Where: Two Moon Art House and Cafe, 315 Fourth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn

On Saturday, February 9th at 9am, FOKUS is having a family affair with storytelling and art making at Dee and Ricky’s in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn (503 Myrtle Ave).

The FOKUS Family Affair will take kids and families on an exciting trip using the books “Peter’s Chair” and “The Jones Family Express” during a morning of artmaking and reading at Dee & Ricky’s Home Cooking.

If you are interested, reserve a ticket now: http://fokusfamilyaffair.eventbrite.com.

FOKUS will read both books and then guide the children in an artmaking workshop where they will create collage postcards based on themes from each book. They will supply all needed materials, but feel free to bring old magazines that you were planning to throw away because we are promoting reusable materials as a source of art.

Nice.

Dee and Ricky’s will also have a special Breakfast menu available at this event.

Story Time Art: A Celebration of Family

Dee & Ricky’s Home Cooking

Saturday February 9th 9am – 11am

503 Myrtle Ave

Brooklyn, NY, 11205

Free

http://fokusfamilyaffair.eventbrite.com

www.fokus.org

Join us on the last day of February for the last word on the new and the bold in Brooklyn’s theatrical universe.

On February 28, 2013 at 8PM, BRW is thrilled to present this annual compendium of excerpts of staged readings of new plays by Brooklyn playwrights curated by Rosemary Moore.

Here’s your chance to see vital and provocative new work as it’s being developed. Always an entertaining and compelling evening, the playwrights will do a Q&A following the performances.

This year, plays by Scott Adkins, Robert Michel, Chris Nelson and Valerie Work

When: Feb. 28, 2013 at 8PM

What: Brooklyn Reading Works Presents New Plays by Brooklyn Playwright curated by Rosemary Moore

Where: The Old Stone House: 336 Third Street between Fifth and Fourth Avenues in Park Slope. F train to Fourth Avenue, R train to Union Street.

What else: A $5 donation includes refreshments and wine.

This handsome fellow is Ben Michaelis, a PhD, clinical psychologist , and author of the new book Your Next Big Thing.

His writing has been featured in The Huffington Post, Parents magazine, Entertainment Weekly, the New York Times. He’s also a popular weekly blogger on Psychology Today.

When he and his wife lived in Manhattan, they realized that all their friends lived in Brooklyn and they were spending all their time traveling to and from the borough of Kings. In less than  week of that realization they found a place on this side of the river.

That focused energy and get-up-and-go exemplifies his concept of 10 small steps that get you MOVING and HAPPY.

I spoke to him on the phone recently and had the feeling that he might be very good at what he does.  Then I looked at his new book, Your Next Big Thing, and I was pretty sure he has something to offer.

In the book, Ben provides visionary yet practical strategies, quizzes, and exercises to teach you about your true self. In the book, which is bright orange and really nicely designed, he’ll pinpoint exactly what you need to realize your purpose and progress toward your goals.

Get this: Whether you’re in need of business or personal guidance, this ten-step plan helps you look forward without fear—so you can achieve joy, passion, and the enriched life you never thought possible.

Playing at 5PM on Sunday night at Roulette: The Joshua Shneider Love Speaks Orchestra is a 19 piece ensemble comprised of some of NYC’s most illustrious and adventurous improvisers, interpreting the music and arrangements of Joshua Shneider. Melodic, grooving, searching and harmonically inventive, the music draws inspiration from Jazz, R&B, Classical, Latin and American Pop elements.

Sunday’s concert will feature the premiere of a new piece by Shneider entitled “Madness and Joy,” a meditation on the relationship between the essential familiar and the unknown. The program will also include material from a new CD to be released this Spring which features vocalist Lucy Woodward and guitarist Dave Stryker. Acclaimed vocalist Carolyn Leonhart will join The Love Speaks Orchestra for this performance. Leonhart, a Sunnyside recording artist, is also a session singer and veteran of tours with Steely Dan, Donald Fagen, and many others.

 Sunday at 4PM, the Grace and Spiritus Chorale of Brooklyn, a 75-member chorus, will present three settings of the Latin mass from three continents. This program features an eighteenth century Austrian setting, a late twentieth century Canadian setting, and a mid-twentieth century Congolese setting.

Grace & Spiritus Chorale of Brooklyn will perform Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson’s Missa Brevis, and Miss Luba, a Congolese adaptation of the Mass, based on Congolese folk songs, which is rarely performed. These cultural expressions of rhythm, harmony, and melody bring the text to life in wildly different ways. African Drummers and Saint Ann’s School dancers will accompany this mass. South African singer, Peter Ncanywa will sing the tenor solo in the Missa Luba.

4pm Sunday, Jan. 27, Saint Ann & the Holy Trinity Church,157 Montague Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201-3587

The group is dedicated to promoting and cultivating the art of choral singing in Brooklyn by presenting a wide variety of choral music, including newly commissioned works, to audiences through concerts, partnerships and educational outreach. They offer amateur singers the opportunity to study the art of choral singing under dynamic and professional leadership.

Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House presents The Truth and Publishing, a panel discussion about the future of books, publishers, authors, agents and readers, curated by the truth seeking and erudite John Guidry.

We often think of writing as a lone pursuit, a lone artist or dedicated journalist pursuing the craft with every ounce of dedication they can muster. If we think in the plural, it’s usually in pairs. Yet behind the work of writers is a larger cast of professionals every bit as dedicated to the written word and concerned about its future. They include editors, agents, publishers, critics, and others whose work helps make the printed word possible. On this panel, we will meet editors, publishers and agents who will share their perspective on the process behind the written word and what lies in store for those in the publishing industry.

And what a gathering of publishing luminaries:

With Rob Spillman of Tin House, Tamson Weston an editor of children’s books, agents Jonathan Lyons and Renee Zuckerbrot and Josh Rolnick author and editor of Shma.

The panel will be moderated by John Guidry who publishes the blog The Truth and Rocket Science. This is his fourth event at Brooklyn Reading Works. Previous events have included The Truth and Money, The Truth and Oral History, the Truth and Ghost Writers and now The Truth and Publishing.

Date: January 17, 2013 at 8PM at 8PM

Location: The Old Stone House 336 Third Street between 4th and 5th Avenues in Park Slope. F train to Fourth Avenue. R train to Union Street.

A $5 donation includes refreshments and wine

More info: Louise Crawford 718-288-4290 or louise_crawford@yahoo.com

Saint Saviour High School is an all-girls school located in Park Slope. Victoria Fiquet, a junior at the school, is one of two students whose drawing was selected to decorate the school’s official Christmas Card this year. The artwork was hand drawn and then colored-in by computer. It features three young women standing around a lamppost on a Brooklyn street corner.

The three women, representing the three Magi, are holding handbags containing gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

The lamppost has two signs: “Bethlehem” and “B67”. The B67 is the bus line that travels to Saint Saviour High School. The “25” atop the lamppost signifies Christmas Day, December 25.

Come to an opening reception to celebrate the installation of a site-specific photographic mural by Hugh Crawford for the Grand Lobby of the Brooklyn Public Library. The piece addresses issues of transition and change both at Brooklyn Public Library and the borough of Brooklyn. It combines items from BPL’s collections, ephemera, and other momentos from the library’s past with the library’s latest technological offerings.

“I’ve been working on a big project for the last few months about memory, books, libraries, Coney Island, Brooklyn , severe weather, the old and the new, the old future, the new future, Apollo, and Laocoön,” writes Hugh Crawford in an email. “It even has a tiny bit of overlap with some ideas I’m working on with the Jamie Livingston project.”

Dec. 13, 2012 from 6-8 p.m.
Brooklyn Central Library
10 Grand Army Plaza
Brooklyn, NY 11238
718-230-2100

Called the best 11th hour shopping at Holiday time, Deb Klein, who runs Brooklyn Craft Central presents Holiday Market 2012 over the next two weekends.

On your mark, get set, go shopping for  high quality gifts for friends and family made by local artisans.

For the past five years, Deb has brought crafty shopping to Park Slope. I usually find a thing or three at this carefully curated event.

On  Dec. 15/16 and Dec. 22/33, the Holiday Market 2012 will be at Littlefield Art Space, 622 DeGraw Street from 11AM until 5PM.

Take the R to Union Street and you’re practically there.

Writing is definitely a form of therapy. But this reading is devoted to writers who WRITE about the talking cure and other forms of therapy. Join us for a 50-minute reading that will be in equal measures serious and hilarious with Leora Skolkin-Smith, Marian Fontana, Karen Ritter, Ira Goldstein and Louise Crawford.

Only the Blog at Two Moon is a monthly reading series produced by Louise Crawford (Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, Brooklyn Reading Works and Brooklyn Social Media) at Two Moon Art House and Cafe (315 Fourth Avenue between 3rd and 2nd Streets in Park Slope).

Join us for a relaxed, social evening/performance at the Slope’s newest cultural spot with wine, coffee, delicious soups, sandwiches, salads and desserts.

There’s a new album out from my good friend and OTBKB fave, Louis Rosen. Time Was takes the listener on a journey across the landscape of American roots music.

On Rosen’s new album you’ll find songs about love and lust, dreams and pipedreams, fortunes made and squandered, the joy of creation, faith, loss, death, murder and salvation.

The album really is just that  complex and interesting.

Some of the songs were adapted from poems by late 19th and early 20th century poets such as Edwin Arlington Robinson, William Butler Yeats, Sara Teasdale and Langston Hughes among many others.

The lyrics of quite a few of the songs were penned by Rosen himself offering intensely human portraits and stories in ways that feel fresh and yet timeless.  “I think TIME WAS is my most dynamic album yet,” writes Rosen in an email.

Right now you can purchase TIME WAS from:  http://cdbaby.com/cd/louisrosen ($15.99 + shipping) or  Louis’ Store at www.louisrosen.com ($16.50 including shipping)

It’s been in the works for months and months and now, it’s finally here. I am so excited for Honey & Wax and all the Brooklyln indie vintage booksellers who will be under one roof for the very first time.

The Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair on December 1, 2012 from noon until 6PM at The Old Stone House will be a wonderful holiday shopping experience for book lovers and those who love beautiful things.

Great gifts for the interesting people in your life.

Best of all, acclaimed author and Brooklyn legend PETE HAMILL will read from a 1906 edition of “The Gift of the Magi” by O.Henry at 4:30 PM. Pete will also be SIGNING copies of his new book of stories about Brooklyn THE CHRISTMAS KID.

To open the holiday season, a group of independent Brooklyn booksellers with a shared interest in print history will fill the Old Stone House with some of their favorite rare, vintage, and out-of-print books. Get to know your local booksellers, and be surprised and inspired by books you didn’t even know you wanted!

Participants include:

Book Thug Nation, Williamsburg, est. 2009

Freebird Books, Cobble Hill, est. 2004

Honey & Wax Booksellers, Park Slope, est. 2012

Human Relations, Bushwick, est. 2012

Open Air Modern, Williamsburg, est. 2009,

P.S. Bookshop, DUMBO, est. 2006

Singularity & Co., DUMBO, est. 2012

Unnameable Books, Prospect Heights, est. 2006

Also for sale: antiquarian maps and prints of Brooklyn, offered by Prints Charming.

The ‘tails:

When: Saturday, December 1, 2012 from Noon until 6 p.m.

Where: The Old Stone House in Park Slope, 336 Third Street between 4th and 5th Avenues. Subway: The F train to 4th Avenue, the R train to Union Street.

Admission is free. Drinks and refreshments will be available.

Last night I attended a fascinating conversation at Old First Dutch Reformed Church in Park Slope with novelists Rick Moody and Darcey Steinke and the church’s Rev. Daniel Meeter about progressive Christianity and other topics related to an open and humane interpretation of Biblical text. The event was moderated by Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, a member of the Old First congregation and the co-owner of Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene.

Here in the United States, Christianity is often associated with right-wing politics and fundamentalism. But increasing numbers of contemporary Christians are trying to change that.

Rick Moody and Darcey Steinke attended Sunday school as children but drifted away from religion as adolescents. As adults, they explored the teachings of the Bible in their own work and as co-editors of the anthology Joyful Noise: The New Testament Revisited.

The critically acclaimed author of the novel The Ice Storm and many other works, Rich Moody takes a decidedly non-fundamentalist view of the Bible. He urges people to read it with an open mind-set. “There’s a politics of reading. One holds that you have to control interpretation. That it’s dangerous…The other holds that you are free to engage with the text,” he said last night.

A minister’s daughter, Darcey Steinke is the author of five books, including Jesus Saves, and Easter Everywhere. She described the discomfort she often feels sharing the fact that she is a Christian with secular  colleagues. “People would act like you were going to give them the flu,” she said.

Rev. Meeter, the author of Why Be A Christian (If No One Goes to Hell) from Shock Foil and pastor of Old First Church, talked about the way that he approaches the Bible: “How do I pretend that John is Shakespeare? It’s a matter of letting go.”

Indeed, his engagement with the Bible is passionately rigorous, even playful. “I am in the Bible a lot. I have a daily conversation with the hymns, the prayer book.”

Progressive values, same sex marriage and the mesh of religion and politics were also discussed. Meeter told the crowd that nowhere does the Bible reject homosexuality. He rankles at the idea that “the God that we worship is the God that blesses America. It’s a weird nationalistic religion.”

In answer to a question about how he balances his progressive politics and his role as leader of a Park Slope church Meeter said: “This church specializes in providing sanctuary, comfort and safety.” He admitted that he tends to be quiet about his opinions on specific political policy.  “I don’t want to be a trumpet, I want to be a first violin.”

The event was part of a new series at the church called Fourth Mission, providing community outreach, predominately through hospitality to the arts

It was also a fundraiser for the restoration of Old First’s ceiling. In September 2011, plaster suddenly fell from the ceiling of the sanctuary. Upon review it was determined that the ceiling damage is not localized, but is a systemic failure in the attachment of the plaster ribs and crosspieces in the ceiling; after 120 years, the structure is failing. Restoring the ceiling will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars; assessments are still underway, as the Old First congregation is rallying to raise funds for repair. A grant from the New York Landmarks Conservancy has kick- started the restoration fund, but Old First is also reaching out to the surrounding community to invite them to help restore this irreplaceable community resource.

Everybody is making such a big deal about this film shoot at Kos Kaffe on Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue.

As I understand it, 43 notable  writers from Brooklyn and elsewhere were used as extras. Pictured here are Elissa Schappell, Nick Flynn, Darin Strauss,Michael Cunningham, Stephen Hubbell, Mary Morris, Jennifer Gilmore, Glenn Kurtz and Roxana Robinson.

The film is called A Short History of Decay, written and directed by Michael Maren, starring Bryan Greenber, Linda Lavin, Harris Yulin, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Kathleen Rose Perkins and Rebecca Dayan.

The photo is by Heidi Gutman.

It’s holiday shopping time in Park Slope and that means Susan Steinbrock will be selling her hand-painted scarves pillows and napkins with Claireware, maker of gorgeous and colorful pottery at Claireware’s studio and shop at 543 Union Street on the corner of Nevins Street in Gowanus. Brooklyn. The date: Saturday, December 8th, 10-5 and Sunday December 9th, 12-5.

Steinbrock will also be selling her wares at Stuff, PS 321’s annual craft Fair at PS 321, 1st Street and 7th Avenue, which is also Saturday December 8th, 10-5.

For her first solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn artist Martha Rosler  is having a garage sale. In fact, the piece is called Garage Sale and it is currently showing in the The Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium at the Museum until November 30, 2012.

Rosler is considered an influential artist of her generation. For more than 40 years, she has made photography, performance, video, and installation about, she says “the commonplace, art that illuminates social life.”

Rosler held the first Garage Sale, Monumental Garage Sale, in 1973 in the student gallery of the University of California, San Diego. Like the MOMA exhibit, she sold clothes, books, records, toys, costume jewelry, personal letters, art works, and other mementos, as well as soft-core pornographic magazines.

December is a Feast for lovers of rare books, shopping, and literary events. Here are three that  I had my hand in. Please come!

December 1, noon until 6PM: The First Annual Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair at The Old Stone House featuring rare, vintage and out-of-print books from independent booksellers from all over Brooklyn.  Antiquarian maps, prints and ephemera.  Get to know emerging local booksellers, jump-start your holiday shopping and be surprised by books you didn’t even know you wanted. Book Thug Nation, Freebird Books, Honey & Wax Booksellers, Human Relations, Open Air Modern, Prints Charming, PS Bookshop, Singularity & Co., Unnameable Books

December 5 at 7PM: Only the Blog at Two Moon Presents Therapy, a 50-minute reading by writers who write about the talking cure and other forms of therapy in ways serious and hilarious. Leora Skolkin-Smith, Marian Fontana, Louise Crawford, Ira Goldstein, Karen Ritter.  Two Moon Art House and Cafe: 315 Fourth Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Streets.

December 6 at 8PM:Brooklyn Reading Works presents Feast: Writers on Food curated by Ame Gilbert at The Old Stone House, 336 Third Street between 4th and 5th Avenues in Park Slope. Writing about  food as memory, food as metaphor, food as subject matter, food and sex; food and death, food as trigger for sensorial and tasty writing with Molly O’Neill, Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan, Aarela Martinez, Sarah Safford and Ame Gilbert.

Tonight at The Bell House at 7PM (6PM doors open), The Musical Extravaganza to Restore Red Hook (presented by Jalopy).

Apparently, the evening kicks off with a square dance, hosted by NYC Barn Dance. Roseanne Cash will headline the evening, and Jesse Lenat, John Pinamonti and the Brotherhood of the Whiskey Spitter Rebellion will play. Michael Buscemi will screen his new film on the bus that runs through Red Hook, called “B61.”

The  show will benefit Restore Red Hook, which aims to raise funds to help the small businesses of Red Hook, Brooklyn reopen their doors as soon as possible after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy.

At 3PM this afternoon, there’s a pig roast at Fort Defiance in Red Hook and then there’s a benefit at The Bell House in Gowanus at 7PM with Roseanne Cash and other performers.

Both are fundraisers for Red Hook recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy. In between, there’s shuttle bus service from Red Hook to The Bell House.

Thanks to filmmaker Lesley Topping, we’ve got video of  last Thursday’s Writing War featuring five veterans who write fiction and/or poetry. Thank goodness Lesley decided to show up with her camera. I am so grateful.

Writing War was curated by Peter Catapano of the New York Times’ and presented by Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House in Park Slope.The featured writers were Phil Klay, Mariette Kalinowski, Roy Scranton, Matt Gallagher, and Maurice Decual. We had a full house and a wonderful evening of readings and Q&A

Lesley is a New York based producer, film editor, and video maker. At lesleytoppingmedia.com, you can see videos and clips from her projects.

It’s a vintage clothing store. No, it’s a record company. Well, it’s both as reflected in the name. Tiger Blanket Records Vintage Clothing Boutique.

Say it three times fast.

Tiger Blanket is a record label AND a unique line of glam rock Americana vintage clothing on Graham Avenue in Williamsburg. The owner, Emmy Wildwood, personally curated the vintage gems, which she has collected over the years as a musician and vintage fashion fanatic.

The official Grand Opening is this Wednesday, November 21st. It’s from 6-8PM. So this is a call out to all of you who love rock and roll AND vintage clothing AND are not going away for Thanksgiving.

Emmy, pictured left, is the coolest. And she’s got plenty of attitude. “We don’t like music snobs, pretentious pricks and stereotyping. We don’t assume all male musicians are in indie rock bands, we don’t assume all female musicians play acoustic guitar but its ok if you are and do. We like whiskey, french-kissing in private and birth control. We are a lady in the streets and a freak in the sheets,” she writes on her website.

Emmy will be serving wine and appetizers and giving awesome door prizes and giveaways during the event and I’m sure there will be music. And lots of it. Because Emmy’s in a band called Velta.