I'm going. Are you?

Monday, February 9, 2009

Galapagos Art Space
16 Main Street, DUMBO Brooklyn

7 PM

Come celebrate love’s two-faced heart!

Featuring tales/poems of love, loneliness, lust and loss.

Funds raised from the Red and Black Benefit will benefit New York Writers Coalition creative writing programs.

Tom Martinez writes: "Don't know quite what to make of the jogging banana but was out
shooting hawks and couldn't resist.  It's a little blurry, but that
only puts it in the "did this really happen" category, along with Bigfoot sightings, etc.  Never a dull moment in Prospect Park."

  GREEN GROW THE REGS

Obama's doing more in a week

To lessen fears

Than the Bush administration did

In eight dark years.

Here's the story from HGTV:

1. Sonoma, California. What’s not to love about
Sonoma? The wine country’s rolling hills and sandy beaches make it an
all-inclusive place to live. While the median home price is more than
$500,000, acreage is in high demand here and buyers pay millions for
it. Architecture ranges from Mediterranean to Victorian to Craftsman,
and houses come in all sizes, from stunning estates to modest
bungalows. No wonder HGTV chose this quaint northern California town to
be the site of this year’s Dream Home. Don’t forget to sign up for a
chance to win it.

2. Buckhead, Atlanta, Georgia. This trendy district
north of Atlanta is a fascinating blend of old-money mansions and
new-money nightlife. Whether it’s a cozy cottage in Peachtree Hills or
a magnificent estate in Tuxedo Park, you’ll find Southern charm on
every corner. Buckhead is a shopper’s paradise, with two major shopping
areas-Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza-that offer high-end retailers and
great people-watching. The district also boasts the best dining and
nightlife in the region, with more than 300 restaurants, bars and
nightclubs.

3. Gold Coast, Chicago, Illinois. Old money and
stunning lake views characterize this hot neighborhood that runs
contrary to the Chicago phrase, “cooler by the lake.” Oprah lives on
the border of this high-priced community, where home buyers can pay
millions for a two-bedroom condo. The neighborhood offers world-class
shopping, dining and entertainment as well convenient proximity to the
lake and business district.

4. Scottsdale, Arizona. With upscale shopping, an
active nightlife scene and a number of high-end residential golf
communities, Scottsdale is the “it” place to be in the Phoenix area.
The average home price is $2 million to $3 million, but homes can
easily sell for a lot more. Home to more than 70 resorts and hotels,
the city has designed itself to be a big tourist draw, creating a high
demand for land in this area and raising property values.

5. Coral Gables, Florida. Just eight miles south of
Miami, Coral Gables is quintessential old South Florida, featuring
historic architecture, good schools and the Miracle Mile, a lively
street lined with restaurants, bars and high-end boutiques. Expect to
see lush landscaping and charming 1920s stucco homes with red tile
roofs, archways and private courtyards.

6. Mercer Island, Washington. Location plays a key
part in the high-end real estate market on Mercer Island. Connected to
Seattle by two bridges, the island offers incredible views of the
city’s skyline without the hustle and bustle of urban life. Tranquility
and convenience come at a price: a luxury home on Mercer Island can
cost up to $40 million.

7. Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York. This
neighborhood’s historic charm, top-notch restaurants and shopping, and
proximity to Prospect Park make it an attractive alternative to
Manhattan for families and professionals. Seventh and Fifth avenues are
Park Slope’s main commercial areas, while other streets are occupied by
renovated brownstones, which can sell for millions of dollars.

8. Lower Downtown (LoDo), Denver, Colorado. Looking
for a Rocky Mountain getaway? Lower Downtown Denver is perfect for
urbanites who love the mountains. The neighborhood is filled with old
brick buildings converted into lofts, new condo towers, and a density
of restaurants, bars and shops. The Riverfront Park, a rolling,
meandering grassy swatch of real estate fronting the Platte River,
offers great mountain views, places to barbecue and plenty of space to
enjoy the fresh air of the Mile High City. Colorado boasts excellent
skiing, world class dining and majestic views, which made Winter Park a
great Dream Home location in 2007. And ski havens Aspen and Telluride
are within driving distance.

9. Atherton, California. Located on the San
Francisco peninsula, this high-end California neighborhood is home to
computer company execs and venture capitalists. By preserving the
area’s wooded scenery and rural charm, Atherton is able to offer a
quieter lifestyle than its neighbor, San Francisco. As of December
2008, the median home price in Atherton settles in at more than $4
million.

10. Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts. One of
Boston’s priciest neighborhoods, Back Bay is both a residential and
commercial area, featuring Victorian brownstones on its northern end
and some of Boston’s tallest skyscrapers on its southern end. The
neighborhood’s historic Newbury and Boylston streets offer trendy cafes
and upscale shopping, and Copley Square boasts several 19th century
landmarks.

Discounting the Recession

Recession?  Don't even think
about it.  If notthinking's not your thing, though, you might consider
exploiting it.  Why not–plenty of merchants are doing that already:

Met Opera–half-price if you bring your own chair

Met Museum–free to everyone splashing out upwards of $75 in the gift shop

Movie theater–50% reduction for companion if both of you sit in the front row

Bowling alley–down six beers, choose your gratis lane

Employment agency–hired?  We'll pick up your subway tab.

Real estate agency–fee-back guarantee if house explodes or sinks.

Driving school–two students for the price of one when that one brings his/her own steering wheel

Grocery–yesterday's bread at day-before-yesterday's price

Gas–clean the car
windows of customers taking premium and changing oil

Shoemaker–three shoes fixed for the price of two

Pediatrician–twins count as one patient; triplets, one and a half

Family doctor: will pay you the minimum wage for time waited beyond three hours

Lawyer–first lawsuit free; second, standard price; failure to pay that, we sue you..

Divorce lawyer–group rates for polygamists

Bookshop–buy one Stephen King, next published within one year at 1/3 off, the following at 2/3 off; any King novel before year's end, no cost.

Computer–vow to post no smart aleck postings, 35 percent reduction

Theater–see first or second act of pricey musical free; if satisfied, pay full price for next Wednesday
matinee

Drugstore–all the aspirin you can heft, $5

Restaurant–bar/bat mitzvah reception free for anyone putting down a healthy deposit for kid's wedding

Car dealership–Take it, take it.

 On February 5 at 7:30 p.m.  I will be introducing Park Slope's Beth Harpaz at her Park Slope Barnes and Noble reading of  13 Is the New 18 … and other things my children taught me while I was having a nervous breakdown being their mother.  (Published by Crown; available Jan. 27 from booksellers)

and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7NduwSTiY

They did it last year and the Brooklyn Library's Dweck Center is doing it again starting on February 7.

It's the free literary discussion series “Cosmopolis: Immigrant
Writers in New York." Three authors join WNYC talk show host Leonard Lopate at the
Brooklyn Public Library for a reading and dialogue about their work.

Let's just take a moment to recognize the great programming at the newish Stevan Dweck Center.

Moment. Sigh. Okay. Here's the lineup for the Cosmopolis series:

Colum McCann, Irish-American author of the novel Zoli
will appear on February 7, 2009 (Saturday) at 4pm

·        
Widely
hailed for its “pitch-perfect control of character and narrative,”
McCann's fourth novel is based loosely on the true story of Gypsy poet Papusza,
who was orphaned by in pre-WWII Czechoslovakia but learned to read and write,
eventually becoming an acclaimed singer and a poet. (Zoli  is
available in paperback from Random House.)

  Peter Carey, two-time Booker Prize winner and
Australian-American author of His Illegal Self will appear on
March 7, 2009 (Saturday) at 4pm

·        
Set
during the U.S. protest movements of the 60’s and ‘70s, Peter
Carey’s portrait of “the relationship between one benighted woman
and the child who depends on her is exquisite,” said the New York
Times. (His Illegal Self is available in hardcover from Alfred A. Knopf.)

  Lucette Lagnado, Egyptian-American author of The
Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the
New World will appear on April 4, 2009 (Saturday) at 4pm:

·        
Wall St. Journal investigative reporter Lucette Lagnado
“gives us a deeply affecting portrait of her family and its journey from
wartime Cairo to the New World…[conjuring] a vanished world with elegiac
ardor and uncommon grace.” said the New York Times. (The Man in
the Sharkskin Suit is available in paperback from Ecco.)

Each event is open to the general public and tickets are
free.

Each event will take place at the Dr. S. Stevan Dweck Center
for Contemporary Culture, located at the Brooklyn Public Library’s
Central Library, at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn (#2 or #3 train to Eastern
Parkway/Brooklyn Museum).

In keeping with campaign pledges and these eloquent words in his inaugural speech:

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety
and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely
imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man,
a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the
world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.

President Obama is expected to sign executive orders directing the CIA to shut Guantanamo within a year.

This is President Obama's first step in REVERSING the policies of Bush. It will require an immediate review of the 245 detainees there to see if they should be  transferred, released or prosecuted.

From Brooklyn Based, an interview with Richar Eagan, an artist who uses Coney Island as both a subject and a material. He currently has a show at Park Slope's 440 Gallery.

His artwork often references Coney Island, the fetishized,
nostalgia-steeped, and now culturally threatened seaside amusement
space not far from his lifelong home. It was under the canopy of
rainbow-tinged metal limbs that Eagan vacationed with his grandfather
as a young boy, partied with his peers as a young man, became involved
in the artistic community and co-founded the Coney Island Hysterical
Society, a group of 12 artists who resuscitated rides and infused
sideshow attractions with art.

The Where and When

Richard Egan

Show open through February 15

440 Gallery

440 6th Avenue

Park Slope

Quite a day already. Caroline Kennedy asked the Gov to take her off the short list of senate contenders for Hillary seat citing personal reasons (Uncle Ted?).

Today is the anniversary of Roe Vs. Wade and there's talk that President Obama will reverse Bush's gag rule, conscience rule and stem cell funding halt!

Later this morning: the Oscar nominations will be announced with loads of buzz about Slumdog Millionaire and Milk  for Best Picture; Kate Winslet vs. Anne Hathaway; and…

Here is the occasional feature from the Center for the Urban Environment (CUE).
In this submission, Fronsy Thurman takes a close look at the history of local
favorite, the Newtown Pippin.

Every Saturday, I make the 20 block trek to our neighborhood farmers
market. Each week is an adventure, depending on what is in season. Lately, on
the walk over, we have been talking apples. My friends adore the Honeycrisp
– a tasty apple with a sweet, almost banana-like flavor, which has become
wildly popular among farmers market shoppers and beyond. I, however, preferring
a good story with my fruit, pledge allegiance to the New York’s own,
Newtown Pippin

The Newtown Pippin originated as a random
seedling, or “pippin” (not a grafted tree) along the swampy banks
of Newtown Creek in the early eighteenth century—along what is now one of
the most polluted waterways in North America. The apples were first picked in
1730 on Gershom Moore’s Newtown farm, right on the Brooklyn-Queens border.
Decades of excessive cutting exhausted the original tree, which reputedly died
in 1805, but its legacy was just beginning.

Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson cultivated
the Newtown Pippin. While in Paris, Jefferson wrote to James Madison,
“They have no apple here to compare with our Newtown Pippin.”
Benjamin Franklin imported barrels of them during a stay in London. In 1838, an
American ambassador’s gift of Pippins to Queen Victoria caused such a stir
at the palace that the Queen lifted the tariff on pippin apples. The Newtown
Pippin made its way down to Virginia in the mid 1700s, where the climate and
black loam of the Blue Ridge produced an outstanding apple. It was here that
the apple acquired its other alias, the Albemarle Pippin, named for Albemarle County,
where the first cuttings were distributed. In the 1970s and 80s, retail chains
consolidated and cut back on apple varieties. After many decades of huge
popularity, the Newtown Pippin was eclipsed by more ubiquitous but arguably
blander Granny Smith

Now for the good part: The New town Pippin is a
compact, light green apple with russeted skin. Russeting is a type of apple
skin which is slightly rough with a green-brown to yellow-brown color. The
flavor is complex, nutty and tart, requiring storage to develop properly. It is
one of the best storing apples, reaching its peak of flavor around January or
February

One hundred years ago, several thousand varieties of
apples were being cultivated. Most commercial apples nowadays come from same
five or six parents, including Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Jonathan, and
McIntosh. The Newtown Pippin is an American heirloom with a rich history and lovely
taste. If you find yourself with the midwinter blues, go down to your local
farmers market and explore the apples, which are as diverse as the city itself

Image source: www.forgotten-ny.com; content
source: David Karp, “It’s Crunch Time for the Venerable
Pippin,” New York Times, October 15, 2008 and http://www.twinleaf.org/articles/pippin.ht

As a
guide to a more sustainable New York City, CUE  is dedicated to educating
individuals about the built and natural environments. For more about our work
visit www.thecue.org.

At sundown on Inaugrual Day I was still receiving texts, emails, and pictures from friends. At 7 p.m. I took to the streets of Seventh Avenue to take the pulse.

At Miracle Grill there was a Move On party that was packed with people eating, drinking and talking enthusiastically. I did a quick scan to see if I knew anyone and walked out — it was too noisy to hear myself think or even do much eavesdropping.

A middles-aged man in an overcoat, holding a book called 300 Ways to Have Fun and a briefcase stopped me on my way out.

"Leaving so soon?"  he said. "I'm from out of town and I hear there's a party of progressives in there."

"That's right," I said and kept walking.

"Would you like to join me for a drink? I worked on the Obama campaign.. ". .

Out of curiosity, I walked back in and we chatted a bit. He handed me his card and told me he worked on efforts to prevent voter fraud, that he'd just moved to NYC from the Bay area, that he'd actually written that book,"300 Ways to Have Fun."

"I'm off to the Community Bookstore. Have a good night," I said and we shook hands.

A small group was still in the back of the Community Bookstore watching  streaming video of CNN coverage of the day when I got there. Catherine, owner of the bookstore, had the idea that the group should read Thomas Jefferson and Lincoln and she ran to the shelves to find some books. Someone suggested Frederick Douglas and she located a book of his essays, too.

A passage of Frederick Douglass' writing was randomly selected and it was miraculous for its pertinence and power. A vibrant discussion followed about the meaning of the day. The group talked about an article in the New York Times about Obama's reading habits.

"It's incredible to have a president who reads Doris Lessing," someone said.

Champagne was poured, people nibbled on what was left at the food table. When Craig Hammerman, District Manager of Community Board 6, arrived, Catherine was standing on a chair reading the Declaration of Independence in her soft girlish voice.

The group quietly chanted along with the familiar parts. She read for more than ten minutes and it seemed like exactly the right thing to be doing on this inaugural night. As I left the store Catherine ran over to give me a big hug and whispered something about it being a new day.

"Keep on doing your good work," I said as I walked out into the night.

My Inauguration Day started with texts from my friend Betsy who was in Washington. It was fun to post them as soon as she sent them and it made me feel connected to the crowds in DC.

As the day progressed friends texted and emailed their feelings about the day and it was a pleasure to put them on the blog as well.

We watched the swearing-in and the speech in our living room. My daughter stayed home from school and we broke out the champagne even before Joe Biden took the oath of office.

We poured so much champagne I was tipsy by the time Barack Obama uttered the words, "My fellow citizens, I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you
have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors…"

Being tipsy didn't stop me from appreciating every word of Obama's well-crafted, brilliant, historically resonant, sobering and at times quite lyrical speech.

By the time he uttered the words:

I was like:  Yes, yes we can have a brilliant and articulate president who understands history, the severity of the situation our country is in, and has a clear vision of what needs to happen.

We toasted, we touched champagne glasses, we cried and we smiled. It was beautiful time in our Third Street living room.

I took to the streets to take the pulse of Seventh Avenue and all was quiet:

–The citizens were in their apartments glued to their television screens

–or at work watching in conference rooms, on the streets of the city, anywhere there was a screen.

— The students of PS 321 vacated the school and were at the homes of classmates watching TV and having lunch.

— Many Slopers were in Washington, DC.

–Some had ventured to BAM where two screening rooms were showing the speech.

I dropped into the Community Bookstore where a crowd gathered to watch streaming video of the ceremony in the back of the store. There was emotion and food a-plenty, wine and champagne flowing…

Back at the apartment, my tipsiness turned to tiredness and I took to my warm bed and slept until I was awakened by the raucous sounds of the inaugural parade on the TV. Luckily I caught sight of Brooklyn's Steppers Marching Band marching down Pennsylvania Avenue…

To be continued….

.

 Looking for something to do in the days after the inauguration? Brooklyn Based's Tip Sheet is always a great place to start. In addition to the above, I noticed this:

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the
faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation
relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break,
the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a
friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is
the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but
also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides
our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may
be new. But those values upon which our success depends – hard work and
honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and
patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have
been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is
demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now
is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every
American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world,
duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm
in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so
defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

From friend and OTBKB reader Mary Sternbach:

Moving five feet every ten minutes. People from all states in the crowd. Guy behind me reading "Dreams of My Father."  (Barack's book).

Photo by Betsy 8:41 am in DC.

Betsy at 8:33:

Betsy at 8:08 am

Over at Park Slope Parents they're talking about kids using bathroom words. My friend and OTBKB reader Mary said I could post the advice she sent to PSP. She says her approach is akin to what animal trainers use.

Photo by Rudolph Vernaz-Colas.

From Betsy at 8:07 am Washington:

Still in line. Hear mall is very full already. Gate is open. Very slow. 1-2 at a time.

Betsy by phone at 10:15