My Little Red Book sounds like a must-read for parents of tweens and the kids.

The editor of the book, Rachel Kauder Nalebuff writes:

"Whatever a girl experiences or expects, she'll find stories that speak to her thoughts and feelings. My Little Red Book
aims to provide support, entertainment, and a starting point for
discussion for mothers and daughters everywhere. Royalties from sales of the book are being donated to charities promoting women's health and education. Let the dialog begin!"

A friend wrote in to tell me about Jane Brody' new book, Jane Brody's Guide to the Great Beyond, and a reading at Barnes and Noble on Wednesday night.

Here's the blurb from the B&N website:

Do you have an
idea for improving New York City 's
public realm? Design Trust is looking for proposals to improve public space.

Visit the Design Trust staff blog for their  thoughts, ideas and ramblings on
NYC public space issues, as well as photos of and updates of their latest
projects.

Jack Nicholson usually sits in the front row and the camera loves to catch shots of him laughing at the jokes of Billy Crystal, Whoopie Goldberg, Ellen Degeneres.

Queen Latifah is singing a heartfelt version of "I'll be Seeing You (in all the old familiar places)" for the memorial montage. She could be singing about Jack.

Where is he?

A.R. Rahman, composer of the great songs in Slumdog Millionaire said this in his acceptance speech:

From the LA Times live blog:

My friend Nancy (watching the Oscars via Skype because they don't own a working TV) called to point out the way Will Smith referred to film editors as men during the film and sound editing  noms?

Hello?

There are many female film editors. Many. To name a few:

Dede Allen, editor of Dog Day Afternoon, Reds, The Missouri Breaks, Night Moves, Serpico, Alice's Restaurant, Henry and June and so many more;  Thelma Schoonmaker (pictured using a manual film synchronizer), the great editor of Raging Bull, Good Fellas, The Age of Innocence, The Aviator, The Departed and many more; the great editor Susan E. Morse, the great editor of Zelig, Radio Days, Hannah and Her Sisters, Broadway Danny Rose, Purple Rose of Cairo and many more; Charlotte Zwerin, who edited (and co-directed) Gimme Shelter, Theolonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, Running Fence, Salesman and many more.

"Ellen DeGeneres would never have made that mistake," Nancy said.

Overcome with emotion, the winning sound mixer, who won the award for Slumdog Millionaire, spoke movingly:

"With this award I am being handed history…"

Nancy and Henry in Kingston are having a tough time watching the Oscars on Skype.

"The compression makes it hard to hear. When the audience applauds it sounds like one person is clapping. And what Skype does to the music is unexplainable. Visually, we're getting every 3 frames; the image is blurry and really washed out. But the Oscar statue, though, looks nice with a high red tone."

Nice video intro to the doc noms by Albert Maysles. Cool. I love Albert Maysles of Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens and Saleman fame.

The noms are: Man On Wire. The Betrayal by Werner Herzog. The Garden. Trouble the Water

Bill Maher, who this year made the un-nominated doc, Religulous, announced the noms with this: "Documentaries are windows to the world. They give us a candid look beyond our own circumstances and give us the truth…"

The Oscar goes to: Man on Wire.

And there he is: the man on wire himself, Philipe Petit, on the stage with a long white scarf waiting to say what he has to say:

"The shortest speech in Oscar history. Yes." He balances the  statuette on his mouth. Perfect. Now that was good…

Sean Penn is in tears. The crowd is standing. The screen holds that haunting picture of Heath as the Joker. His father speaks; "This award would have humbly validated Heath's quiet determination to be accepted by you his peers…"

Now his mom: "Heath was such a compassionate and generous soul…"

And from his sister: "We both knew what you created in the Joker was extraordinary and knew you would be here on this special day…"

From Brooklyn: Heath, we love you!

Many sad faces. No Michele.

Alan Arkin speaks directly to best-supporting actor nominee, Philip Seymour Hoffman. The great to the great: what a moment. "Unsettled, unsure and enthralled in uncertainty. For that we sing your praise, Philip."

I love the way these are written. Joel Grey speaks directly to Josh Brolin, who was nominated for Milk. "Turned weakness into strength: Josh, you really nailed it."

Cuba speaks directly to Robert Downey, Jr.:  "To be a white actor playing a white Australian actor playing a blackman in black-face. I say 'are you out of your mind?' Congratuatlion on your next film Shaft…"

Kevin Kline noms HEATH LEDGER. Here it comes. "As the joker in The Dark Knight, he kept us on edge…with this bravura performance, as well as a wide range of other roles Heath has left us an enduring legacy."

The Oscar goes to Heath Ledger…

Wall-E beat out Jack Black's "Kung Fu Panda" and director Andrew Stanto thanked Steve Jobs in  his acceptance speech.

Steve Martin and Tina Fey presented the Best Screenwriter award but I was too busy with the Skype commotion to see their schtick.

A montage about romance in the movies looks fun but I'm too far from the screen….

Our Kingston friends are getting delayed picture and sound but seem to be enjoying the show.

The show got off to such a great, intimate beginning. Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, and those incredible actresses speaking directly to the nominated supporting actresses.

Now it feels like the same old show. Hope something good happens. Hugh is busy trying to get his Skype account to work as Sarah Jessica Parker is announceing the costume design noms.

My guess: Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Winner: The Duchess (the Academy loves those British period drams).

Hugh's computer is facing the TV screen. Are they getting video in Kingston. It says the video is disabled. Trying again…

They're getting the sound, they're getting an overly cropped picture…

Henry and Nancy, Our friends in Kingston, don't have cable and they can't watch ABC on their crummy black and white television set. They were at a friend's Oscar party but had to come home when their kids got sick with this flu that's been going around.

Nancy was so upset: she's never missed an Oscar. We're usually on the phone during the showing either shrieking or hissing or crying…

They can't find any streaming video on the Internet. But we had a BRIGHT IDEA. we're going to Skype the Oscars. In other words, we'll video the television and they'll watch on their Skype account.

Got it? Cool. It's not working yet but it will be. Soon. We hope.

Is it just me or does everyone feel teary watching the Oscars this year? Full disclosure: I am weaning myself off Zoloft so everything is making me cry this week.

But: Penelope, the Milk screenwriter,  AngelicaWhoopieEvaMarieGoldieTilda paying tribute to this year's stellar group of supporting actresses…

Sniff.

A stellar group of former supporting actresses read the supporting actress noms in lyrical second-person prose as if love poems to the women in the audience. Tear inducing because it felt so damn sincere.

And Penelope: Wearing a vintage gown she won for Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona asking "Has anyone ever fainted."

Milk's screenwriter Dustin Lance Black spoke movingly during his Best Screenplay acceptance speech. "God does love you," he said to young gay men and women everywhere. "And thank God for Harvey Milk."

Okay. Hugh Jackman was fabu. And not just because he has my husband's first name. We loved his opening production number, especially when Anne Hathaway joined him for the Frost/Nixo song.

But when they sequed to the first film montage of the night the screen's curtain didn't open. Jackman was heard to say, "Pull the curtain, Steve."

It all started at the Park Slope Food Coop's Open Forum, that bastion of free speech and open expression. A coop member asked the group to consider a ban on Israeli products as a protest against Israel's attacks on Gaza.

According to Alan Zimmerman, who spoke with the Jewish Daily Forward, the woman who gave her name as Hima B. "spoke for less than 60 seconds."

News of this requestJewish Daily Forward includes quotes from Rabbi Andy Bachman:

Since the meeting others have joined Hima B's cause.They plan to put the issue on the agenda at the next general meeting. There have been thoughtful letters in the Coop's newsaper, The Linewaiter's Gazette.

Somehow this story found it's way to the Jewish Daily Forward, which was launched as a  Yiddish-language
daily newspaper in 1897 and made its name as a defender of trade unionism and democratic socialism.

Thanks to Forgotten New York for alerting me to this terrific post about Carroll Street. Here's an excerpt:

I love getting emails from the President. This one linked to a new website called Recovery.gov and a video of President Obama talking about The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which, he says, will be carried out with "full transparency and accountability."

How?

A newly developed website called Recovery.gov is where you can track how the monies are being spent.

Fort Green Peace is presenting a screening and discussion of Some Place Like Home, a new documentary about the the fight against gentrification in downtown Brooklyn.

Some Place Like Home tells the stories of community residents and small businesses  that were displaced to make way for high-end retail
and luxury condominiums to the area. Small business owners, who have helped to make that area the third largest retail district in New York City talk about the deferment of their dreams as entrepreneurs.

The Where and When
Wednesday, February 25, at 7pm
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church
85 South Oxford Street
(Between Fulton Street and Lafayette Avenue)

Homegrown

The looming global depression

That's gathering day by day

Is taking on the label

Made in the USA.

Isn't this an adorable t-shirt? It was created by Bento Designs, which is located in Park Slope.

A group of friends making stuff inspired by
food, fun and Brooklyn, the Bento designers say that they like making funny faces and eating cool food
from all over the world… a lot.

They ask:

"Do you like to eat, and make funny
faces? Are you awesome and creative? Then come along and join us! It's
fun – and so are we!"

You can reach them at studiobento(at)gmail(dot)com

Check out these photos of a car on President Street between 6th and 7th Avenues that got hit by a tree during one of those windy days last week. Whoa. Photographs by Christopher Mulhare.

I won't be getting a Valentine's Day card from my father this year. While that may sound pretty obvious because he died on September 7th, it just occurred to me yesterday as I was buying cards at Scaredy Kat in Park Slope.

My father never missed a Valentine's Day. Every year in the days before the big day, I would find a bright red (or white) envelope in my mail box.

Oh, how I loved my valentine from my dad. Sure, it was schmaltzy; that was de- rigeur. He may have been a UC Berkeley-educated intellectual but he was not adverse to a schmaltzy valentine.

And he'd always send a card thick with syrupy Hallmark sentiment. He never wrote his own. My dad, the award winning copywriter, author, lyricist, never wrote his own valentine to me.

I say that with regret but also love. I think he believed in schmaltzy valentine cards.

He did customize the card a bit. He'd write:  "To My Dear Daughter" and sign off with an "I love you very very much" in his barely legible—but endearing—handwriting.

Those two verys meant the world to me.

I also looked forward to his tiny drawings on the envelope, where he doodled airplanes, elephants, hearts. Sometimes there were little jokes, exclamations or a make-believe postage stamp.

Already I am missing my valentine. I felt tears coming at Scaredy Kat talking to the nice owner. But I stopped myself. Not here. Not now. I wondered if a lot of customers spill their Valentine's Day-related grief at the card shop.

So no valentine from my dad this year. Just a mental image of him walking to the card shop, browsing through the Valentine's Day cards, searching for the perfect card for me, my son, my daughter, my sister.  His quick script on the card and writing my address with care. The postage stamp; dropping the envelope in the post box.

Not this year. But in memory, I guess.

Am I the luckiest girl in the world that Scott Turner lets me publish these fabu emails he sends out to publicize  the pub quiz at Rocky Sullivan's (see below). Happy Valentine's Day, Scott. And thanks.

Greetings, Pub Quiz Is For Lovers Sloganeers!

Love is, indeed in the air…

Well, maybe not — it's still chilly and wintry and the stimulus package, Chris Brown vs. Rihanna, A-Roid's problems.  Chris and Rihanna are both up for NAACP Image Awards, and this Friday the University of Miami is still planning to to re-dedicate their baseball venue — wait for it — Alex Rodgriguez Stadium.

Ruh-roh…dead people are safer when it comes to honorifics.

Back to the matter at hand.  It might be that for people who like astronomy questions with the answer "Uranus" (me), the "stimulus" package does mean there's love in the air.

This Thursday, February 12th, is one of the big nights on the Pub Quiz social calendar: Rocky Sullivan's Annual Love & Sex Pub Quiz. 
It's a good first date, middle date, even last date — the right blend
of innocence and tawdry machinations run through with prizes, treats,
gaiety and old-fashioned good clean fun — depending, of course, on
your definition of "old-fashioned," "good," "clean" and most
particularly, "fun."

In celebration of the Valentine event before us, let us commemorate the Valentines who, unaided by anabolic steroids or dalliances with Madonna, rose to prominence as major-league baseball players: Bob, Bobby, Corky, Ellis, Fred, Joe and John.  There have also been three Valentins: Javier, John and Jose — all of whom began their career in the '90s and ended in the '00s.

not, exactly, the type of Valentine photo spread you were expecting.  We specifically fail to roll like that.

There's an incredible amount of preparation work involved with staging the Rocky Sullivan's Annual Love & Sex Pub Quiz. 
"Love" and "sex" cover a lot of ground.  They're everywhere in our
modern society.  Just like cold, hate is simply an absence of love. 
And sex..sex is just an absence of not having sex.

Here's part of the preparations:  which of these do you like the best?

In these times of desperation, know that this Thursday evening,
there'll be a place filled with warmth, friendship, and a hundred
fluttering hearts — Rocky Sullivan's Annual Love & Sex Pub Quiz.  Join us for a very special evening featuring Guest Round mastermind Lex Marsh and Guest Music Round masterDJ Heathah Josepowitz.

A. O. Scott
writes of the film, which stars Joaquin Phoenix:  “Like the melancholy descendant of an
early Philip Roth protagonist, he is caught between a nice,
mama-approved Jewish girl (Vinessa Shaw) and a willowy
blonde (Gwyneth Paltrow) from outside the tribe.”

Tonight at 7
p.m. at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music, the director, James Gray, will answer questions.