Check out The Living Room Candidate. Here’s the idea:

“The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.”
-Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson, 1956

“Television is no gimmick, and nobody will ever be elected to major office again without presenting themselves well on it.”
-Television producer and Nixon campaign consultant Roger Ailes, 1968

In a media-saturated environment in which news, opinions, and entertainment surround us all day on our television sets, computers, and cell phones, the television commercial remains the one area where presidential candidates have complete control over their images. Television commercials use all the tools of fiction filmmaking, including script, visuals, editing, and performance, to distill a candidate’s major campaign themes into a few powerful images. Ads elicit emotional reactions, inspiring support for a candidate or raising doubts about his opponent. While commercials reflect the styles and techniques of the times in which they were made, the fundamental strategies and messages have tended to remain the same over the years.

The Living Room Candidate contains more than 300 commercials, from every presidential election since 1952, when Madison Avenue advertising executive Rosser Reeves convinced Dwight Eisenhower that short ads played during such popular TV programs as I Love Lucy would reach more voters than any other form of advertising. This innovation had a permanent effect on the way presidential campaigns are run

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So many people have asked me to describe my dad. For those who weren’t at the funeral I say, read the eulogy. Yet, with each passing day, I come up with dozens of memories that were not included (I mean, it couldn’t be THAT long a eulogy).

Sometimes I feel like I say the same thing over and over:

He was a brilliant, intellectual man with a great sense of humor.

He skipped out on his college graduation at UC Berkeley to see a famous race horse run.

He wrote great concepts and headlines when he was in the advertising business from the mid-1950’s to the late 1980’s (Aunt Jamima, what took you so long? Who Says a Newspaper Has To Be Dull? Quaker Oats: The Cereal Shot From Guns, Do It The French Way, Step up to Dutch Masters and smile brother smile, Quisp and Quake, Get Your Daily Dose of Dallas…to name a few).

He wrote a screenplay about the night Henry David Thoreau spent in jail, a
Thoreau calendar, an opera based on Nixon’s Checkers speech, a suite of
songs which can be heard on a terrific album by Bob Dorough called This Is A Recording of Pop Art Songs with
lyrics based on a weather report, a Brooks Brothers collection bill, a
traffic ticket, a laundry ticket and the Webster’s dictionary definition of love. There was also the best
selling book called The Couple.

He loved to birdwatch, to read and to look at his view of the lower Manhattan skyline.

He studied the New Yorker listings for art, theater, music, and films he wanted to see.

He loved his house in rural East Greenwich, New York. It was his 40 acres and a lake not too far from Saratoga Race Track.

He watched the towers fall on 9/11 and told me: "What was once the most beautiful view in the world is now the ugliest."

He told fantastic stories. My son has them memorized but I will miss the way he told them.

He was a funny, funny man who had a magnetic personality. He was a tough critic and a great person to walk through a museum with though it could be intimidating. He loved the opera,  Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington and Sidney Bechet; he collected jazz and classical LP’s.

He was a loving and protective dad; I  remember he called the morning of Hurricane Gloria back in 1986 and told me to stay home and I did.

He reached for my hand when I crossed the street until I was well past 30; he almost didn’t let me go on a bike trip with two girlfriends from North Carolina to West Virgina when I was 17. Finally he relented; he wouldn’t let me take a semester off from college afraid I’d never return; he visited me every day when I was in the hospital with pre-term labor with Henry…

I cherished every word he wrote me in Birthday cards. I especially loved his doodles of elephants and airplanes.

It was easy to take care of him the way we did at the end. Our love for him abundant and overflowing.

An old boyfriend called yesterday. I called him first to tell him that my father died. We were a couple from 1979 until January of 1987 and we spent great deal of time with my father and stepmother. I knew that he’d want to know as he admired my father and really enjoyed being around him. My father liked him, too. They shared a deep and abiding interest in books and literature and both attended UCLA (at different times of course). 

I wasn’t sure if my old boyfriend would call me back. I called him after 9/11 just to check in and share what had just happened. We spoke briefly and he promised to call back but never did.

This time he called back. We had a very nice conversation. My old boyfriend is a deep and wise fellow. Ten years older than me, our conversations were often complex and far reaching. His words of comfort yesterday were comforting.

"I think we have memories because it’s so hard to vanish from one another," he said quietly.

"That’s really well said," I said.

"I guess. I think a lot about these thing," he told me.

I don’t remember when my father started to read this blog, I think it was in 2004 or 2005, but for a few years he read it every day. He especially liked the first year or so when I was writing Smartmom posts daily.

He really liked Smartmom and read the column every Saturday morning in the Brooklyn Paper. He would go to a deli at Pineapple and Henry in Brooklyn Heights where he could always pick it up.

That meant a lot to me.

Now I’m just so glad that I started this blog because it was a way my father could see my writing without me having to actually show it to him—that would be way too intimidating. He was a writer, an intellectual, and a great appreciator of literature. Needless to say, I was always too timid to show him any of my creative work, my novel, my poems.

He did love the songs I wrote when I was a songwriter in my teens and twenties.

But my writing. I was afraid to show him because he was an arbiter of taste and value in my lexicon of life and his opinion was always fraught. A random comment or criticism could really destroy me.

But with the blog I just put the writing out there. I always said that was the reason I started it. What I didn’t realize until yesterday was this: the blog and the column were my way of sharing myself with the father I so admired.

Now I’m so glad that I did.

Shiva means seven in Hebrew and it is the term for the week-long period of grief and mourning for one’s father, mother, son, daughter,
brother, sister, and spouse. During that week, most ordinary activity is suspended and the family is meant to sit shiva at home. Shiva is just one of the bereavement rituals in Judaism.

We decided to receive shiva calls on Thursday and Friday at my father’s apartment with its incredible view of Lower Manhattan. I knew Thursday would be incredible because the Tribute in Lights would be in full view at dusk.

My father witnessed the events of September 11th from his window and was never able to wash those terrible images out of his head. He told me once that he took pictures with a film camera but has never looked at them. I’m not sure he even had them developed.

At that time seven years ago and after he said, and I paraphrase, "What used to be the most beautiful view in the world is now the ugliest."

At the shival tonight, friends filed into the apartment with bags of delicious food. It seemed to be an unusually delicious array of cheeses from Balducci’s, desserts from Sweet Melissa’s, fruits like figs, peaches and plums, homemade quiche and a beautiful fruit tart.

And of course, there was much wine. I brought the bottle of Balvenie single malt scotch, which my father gave to Hugh on his birthday last June. Somehow the deep and woody aroma of this scotch is more evocative of my father than anything. My father loved to add to Hugh’s collection of interesting scotches and he’d always ask for a sip when he came over.

At dusk, the two beams of light did shoot up into the blue night sky. Friends watched in awe as the sky got darker and the lights more vivid.

My friend Amy Burton, who I’ve written about often on this blog, and her husband pianist John Musto were kind enough to agree to play a song by Schubert at my father’s funeral. Amy wrote this the day before:

John and I played through a bunch of Schubert and Schumann, and
Schubert’s Du bist der Ruh (the one playing in my head this morning)
was the best for length, feeling (moving without being morose) and
non-religiosity. 

If you’re interested, here’s a link to the translation:

http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=18177

Also, I called the funeral home to ask about the piano, and it sounds like a nice grand – very elegant.

Amy spoke briefly before she sang about all the time she’d spent with me in the Riverside Drive apartment during high school and after and her memories of my dad and "that record collection" which she said was a part of her musical education.

Then she and John played and the music made me feel emotions I haven’t been able to access during the last, most difficult weeks of my father’s illness. A combination of joy and loss, the song was a powerful evocation of, as Amy said, the illumination of love. I  actually sobbed during the piece and partly it was out of  satisfaction that my father was being honored in this way. I know my father hadn’t heard Amy perform in more than 30 years but he followed her operatic career with great interest, always asked how she was doing, and somehow knew if she was performing in New York City.

At the end of the service, pianist Alvin Novack, a noted concert pianist and teacher on the South Fork of Long Island, played a Chopin Mazurka, which he said was something that reminded him of my father. He told those assembled that he and my father "were friends as boys in Los Angeles,"  where my father spent his high school, college and post-college years. I found this article about Novack, who like my father, moved to Los Angeles as a teenager, in the East Hampton Star:

As a teenager in Hollywood in the 1940s he was in the midst of a European community. His friends were the children of Thomas Mann, of Bertolt Brecht, "and I got the picture early on. It rubbed off on me."

When his father died ("It was probably the shock of the warm weather"), the teenaged boy stayed on alone and put himself through college.

"Then I was 25 and I suddenly realized I was old for California. So I came to New York City, where 25 was young."

Listening to Novack play I again experienced a crushing and formidable combination of joy and grief. I also felt strongly that we were honoring my father with the power, the beauty and the lyrical melodics of the music. The piece ended on a non-resolving note of such hopefulness and mystery that it made me gasp inwardly.

Afterwards the rabbi spoke briefly and beautifully and we played a piece of music chosen by a friend of my  fahters; she was sure it was one of my father’s favorites. It played as people filed out of the chapel. Pastor Daniel Meeter of Old First Church sent me a translation of The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from the opera Nabucco, by Verdi and his own feelings about my father’s funeral:

Fly, thought, on wings of gold,
go settle upon the slopes and the hills
where the sweet airs of our
native soil smell soft and mild!
Greet the banks of the river Jordan
and Zion’s tumbled towers.
Oh, my country, so lovely and lost!
Oh remembrance so dear yet unhappy!

Golden harp of the prophetic wise men,
why hang so silently from the willows?
Rekindle the memories in our hearts,
tell us about the times gone by!
Remembering the fate of Jerusalem
play us a sad lament
or else be inspired by the Lord
to fortify us to endure our suffering!

This chorus is sung by the Hebrews who were carted off to captivity in Babylon by Nebudchadnezzar. This chorus earned Verdi his greatest early fame. Every patriot in Italy learned to sing it. At that time, northern Italy was under Austrian rule, and the Austrian censors were very strict on stifling any Italian patriotic songs. So this chorus became an Italian patriotic song, a song of liberation, freedom, and aspiration. I love this chorus. I was thrilled as soon as I heard the opening chords. It was as perfect a choice as the others: Schumann Kinderszenen, Rabbi Bachman, The House at Pooh Corner, and the Chopin Mazurka.

Rabbi Andy Bachman officiated at my father’s funeral on Wednesday. He spoke beautifully and we were blessed to have him with us at the funeral chapel and the cemetery. A friend wrote to me about  something he said.

    My favorite moment was when the rabbi said "your father was a fortunate man…to have such daughters."  I came home telling Max that I’d heard one of the most poetical and powerful motes, really the most holy nugget of any sacred sacred syllables I’d ever heard in my life in any liturgical moment.  It was a kind of reversal of patriarchical biblical. Power of the female.

My sister is a member of Congregation Beth Elohim, which is Bachman’s synagogue. A fellow blogger, Andy’s blog, Notes, is a thoughtful and thought provoking journal about the  thoughts and daily practice of a raibbi. Before joining Beth Elohim, he founded a group called Brooklyn Jews. He had this to say about my father’s funeral:

    I learned a very simple and profound lesson today while helping friends with a funeral.

    A beloved man died at age 79 and the structure of mourning and remembrance that was so carefully set in place by his daughters was so perfectly attuned to his wishes and to his abiding influence on them as a parent so that even as they were choosing on their accord how to remember and honor him, his touch and voice could still be heard.

    I was so cognizant at that moment of the particular blessings of death–paradoxical as it may seem but it’s true. Love sometimes is so keenly felt at the foundation of a relationship that even when one dies, their presence remains and in real time, one “sees” their soul gently yet radically alter in form.

    Today at the funeral their was exquisite music; humorous and heartfelt stories, delivered with great craft and robust love; and, the most devotional of eulogies displayed by two daughters of a father that I have ever seen or heard.

    It’s a bitter lesson to have to know that even dying is a gift that the dead give to us; but it’s true at times. And it was certainly true today.

    May comfort come speedily to all those who mourn and may the presence of those who’ve gone last forever and ever.

A friend at the shiva tonight told me something he was told when he was sitting shiva for his father, who died not long ago.

"He told me I was going to be alright but that the hardest thing will be the firsts. The first birthday, the first holidays, the first…"

"New Yorker," I said.

My friend laughed.

On Wednesday I stared at the table-of-contents of this week’s New Yorker Magazine and realized that it was probably one of the first New Yorker’s in the last, say, forty years (at least) that wasn’t perused by my father.

The thought gave me a chill. The idea that life goes on after the death of a loved one is hard to take at a time like this.

The fact that the Talk of the Town and the listings will continue on after my father—a man who studied the New Yorker’s listings closely for theater, music, and art he wanted to see—is gone was, for a moment, deeply, painfully sad.

This was the first funeral my friend has attended since his father’s funeral and that was hard for him. But as he stood out on the roof deck of my father’s apartment building staring at the Tribute in Light, which sent two beams of light into the blue night sky he said, "This is a miracle, isn’t it? This view."

My sister’s eulogy at my father’s funeral was heartfelt and poignant. I will try to summon up as much of it I can remember:

Although the last few months were very difficult, there were moments of grace and joy that I was able to recognize.

When my father left the hospital after a week-long hospitalization in January, I came to pick him up and I assumed he’d want to go home. He asked, "What are you doing now?" I said, "We’re taking you home." But my father had other plans. "Lets go see the Pissarro show at the Jewish Museum."

I will always remember that.

Last fourth of July when we all gathered to watch the fireworks from his window, I remember when his grandson Henry came in with a group of his friends. My father’s face lit up. Later I saw them sitting next to each other on the couch and I was very moved by the site of the two generations talking.

I will always remember that.

My father was, in his own words, "crazy about Sonya" my 4-year old daughter. He loved to be around her and in recent months kept a picture of her near his bed so that he could see her face first thing in the morning. That eally cheered him up.

In the last weeks my father was in and out of consciousness. We brought him home on Friday and on Saturday he whispered "I love you" to me. That is something I am so grateful for and will never, ever forget.

What I’m going to read is what we think my father wanted us to read at his funeral service.

My sister then read the last three pages of The House at Pooh Corner, the end of a chapter called, Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place, and We Leave Them There.

She read it slowly and beautifully, which allowed the humor and poignancy to shine through. It’s a difficult section to read because it’s a halting dialogue between two of the most famous characters in children’s literature. My sister’s voice was appropriately childlike and sweet for Christopher Robin and cute and slightly confused for Pooh. This excerpt works on so many levels of interpretation. It really was an amazing reading of something, we think, my father would have enjoyed. Here it is:

Then, suddenly again, Christopher Robin, who was sill looking at the world, with his chin in hands called out "Pooh!"
    "Yes?" said Pooh.
"When I’m—when—Pooh!"
"Yes, Christopher Robin?"
I’m not going to do Nothing any more."
"Never again?"
"Well, not so much. They don’t let you."
Pooh waited for him to go on, but he was silent again.
"Yes, Christopher Robin?" said Pooh helpfully."
"Pooh, when I’m—you know—when I’m not doing Nothing, will you come up her sometimes?"
"Just me?"
"Yes, Pooh."
"Will you be here too?"
"Yes, Pooh, I will be, really. I promise I will be, Pooh."
"That’s good," said Pooh.
"Pooh, promise you won’t forget about me, ever. Not even when I’m a hundred."
Pooh thought for a little.
"How old shall I be then?"
"Niney-nine."
Pooh nodded.
"I promise," he said.
Still with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh’s paw.
"Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, if I—if I’m not quite—" he stopped and tried again—
"Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won’t you?"
"Understand what?"
"Oh nothing." He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come on!"
Where" said Pooh.
"Anywhere," said Christopher Robin.

Friends called all day yesterday. One helpfully stopped by my apartment to pick up an envelope that needed to be driven over to my stepmother’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights.

Another friend called and said she’d made an appointment for the three of us (my sister, too) to have mani/pedi’s at Dashing Diva in preparation for the funeral.

Other friends came down from Kingston to attend the funeral and presented me with a bouquet of  flowers—eucalyptus leaves, green flowers and a very delicate flower I can’t name. We ate dinner with them at Rachel’s.

Still another friend sent a bouquet of roses with a very sweet note.

I feel overwhelmed at the thought of seeing a lot of people today.  feel so inside myself and I don’t know if I will be able to connect with anyone. I’m nervous about my eulogy and keep thinking of all the things I didn’t say in it.

At this most introverted and painful moment, one is required to be social and outgoing. But it’s a distraction, too. And I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing. Overall, I’m just nervous about the day ahead.

But I am looking forward to seeing my friends.

This morning, my sister and I met with Rabbi Andy Bachman in his large office at Congregation Beth Elohim. He asked a lot of questions and we got a chance to tell him much about my father’s life.

It was easy to talk to him and sometimes it felt like my sister and I were rambling on and on. But he listened intently and even laughed at some of my father’s jokes.

Rabbi Bachman seemed to enjoy the story about the time my father went to work at a shoe store. My father, then 19 or 20, assured the store’s owner that he had plenty of experience in the shoe business but when he was caught inexpertly trying to force a shoe onto a large woman’s foot the owner replied: "You’re no shoe man, Ghertler."

That’s definitely one of my favorite stories. My sister told Rabbi Bachman what a funny storyteller my father was. It felt sad to have to describe it knowing that we’d never again see my father rub his hands the way he did when he was warming up for a great punchline.

Afterwards we waited under the scaffolding at Beth Elohim for a fierce downpour to die down. We ran into a friend who is now working as a teacher at the school and she assured us that our father had lived a good, long life. But it was no consolation at all and did nothing to appease the hollow feeling in my stomach and the dizziness I’d been feeling all morning.

When the rain let up I started to walk toward Seventh Avenue but the sudden feeling of wet and cold made me rethink my plan. Then I saw a black Eastern Car Service car and I hopped in the back.

"You got lucky," a man, who was standing on the corner of 8th Avenue, told me as I got into the car.

Today the grief was a fog around my forehead. I was here but I wasn’t here at all. I had the sense that the world was moving on and I wasn’t part of it. I wanted to say, "Don’t these people know that Monte Ghertler is gone?"

I talked to some neighbors on the street, bought paper towels and groceries but I felt distant and in my own head.

Last fall Hugh bought me a digital camera for my 49th birthday. Actually, I’m the one who shopped for it at J&R while we talked on our cell phones. I’d identify a camera in the case and ask Hugh to look it up on the computer. I’m not sure where he was looking but he seemed knowledgeable about all of them and finally encouraged me to buy the SONY.

Almost immediately I fell in love with my little, easy-to-use white digital camera and I tried to have it with me as much as possible. Truthfully, too often it seemed like I didn’t have it with me when I needed it most. Still, I was grateful that I took the few pictures that I did.

Today Hugh discovered a great picture I took of my father in his living room last fall. A beautiful shot, it was taken just weeks after his first hospitalization and he looks healthy and strong. Staring right at me like we’re in the middle of a conversation, he is sitting in an Aalto chair and wearing what looks like a freshly laundered white shirt. His hands are folded and the expression on his face make him look "curious, skeptical, humorous and fully alive."

Seeing the picture I started to cry, which is something I’ve been wanting to do but haven’t done much of since Sunday. Instead I’ve been feeling very knotted up, achy, spaced-out and like I have a bad case of indigestion.

But when I saw that picture I connected for the first time in weeks with my real father. Not the one who was lying in Mt. Sinai Hospital in an unflattering hospital gown; nor the one in the borrowed hospital bed at home.

No. This picture of my father looking right at me was the real deal. And that was enough to make me weep.

(I will put up the picture up later on.)

Sitting in the funeral directors plush office at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel was surreal; one of those situations you dread your whole life but is much more normal than you expect.

We had to choose the coffin and discuss my father’s emtombment in the family masoleum. We even looked at a layout of the masoleum. We want my father next to his dad, Dewey.

is there a piano in the chapel, we asked. Because my friend Amy Burton will sing Schubert’s Du bist die Ruh" and a college friend of my dad will play Chopin on the piano.

"How many limousines will you need?" they asked. A discussion of getting to the cemetery ensued.

"Flowers or no flowers?"

"Jews don’t do flowers," my stepmother said.

"Actually it varies," the funeral director told her.

My sister wanted flowers, my stepmother did not. No real stalemate. We decided against because we couldn’t really think of a flower that represented my father. A big naturalist and birdwatcher, he wasn’t really a flower guy.

It all felt very ordinary. The secretary typed up the New York Times death announcement that I wrote down on a piece of paper.

We proof read it.

"It needs a comma here," I said reaching for a pen.

It all felt so ordinary.

The funeral will be on September 10th at 11 am at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue at 81st Street.

In the 1970’s, my father, Monte Ghertler, wrote the lyrics to a suite of songs with jazz performer Bob Dorough and Dan Greenberg, which can be heard on a terrific album recorded by Bob Dorough called This Is A Recording of Pop Art Songs with lyrics based on a weather report, a Brooks Brothers collection bill, a traffic ticket, a laundry ticket, and my favorite, Webster’s dictionary definition of love. That song was also recorded by Spanky and Our Gang and Chad Mitchell.

My father was a great reader and a constant library goer. He always had a big stack of books out from the library. Especially from the Crandall Library in Glenn Falls, New York near his country house in East Greenwich.

People have been asking if they can make a donation to something in my father’s name. I know he valued libraries and really loved this small one in this lovely upstate town.

Make your donation in Monte’s name:

Crandall Library
251 Glen Street
Glen Falls, NY 12801

It’s opening on September 19th in the South Slope and is called Ellis, specializing in southwestern American fare. The restaurant, owned by Alison Cunningham, Naomi and Seth Ellis, is located at 627 Fifth Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets (that’s up by Eagle Provisions). Here’s the menu:

    * Soup of the Day
    * Beth’s Spanish Onion Soup Topped with Blue Tortilla Strips and Pepper Jack Cheese
    * Four Bean Corn Chili with Navajo Fry Bread

Salads

    * House Salad with Baby Romaine, Carrots, Golden Raisins, Bleu Cheese, Sunflower Kernels, Orange Slices and a Grapefruit Honey Balsamic Vinagarette
    * Sonoran Caprese Salad With Roasted Bell Peppers, Goat Cheese and Cilantro with Balsamic Reduction and Pepper Coulis

Appetizers

    * Avocado Crabemeat Aioli Stuffed Tomato Wedges
    * Grilled Chipotle Marinated Chicken Wings or Shrimp
    * Seared Polenta with Pecan Crusted Goat Cheese, Chive Oil and Corn Salsa
    * Roasted Stuffed Portabella Mushroom, Shallots and Poblano Pepper with Jalapeno Balsamic Reduction
    * Zucchini Cakes topped with Corn Salsa
    * Nachos topped with Melted Goat & Cheddar Cheeses, Jalapenos, Black Beans, Sour Cream, Pico de Gallo and Guacamole
    * Corn Meal Crusted Catfish with Blueberry Salsa
    * Navajo Fry Bread Pizza with Sun Dried Tomato Pesto, Sunflower Kernels and Parmesan Cheese
    * Goat Cheese Red Pepper Jelly Bruschetta
    * Navajo Fry Bread with Powdered Sugar and Organic Honey

Brunch Menu

Available from 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Weekends
Soups

    * Soup of the Day
    * Beth’s Spanish Onion Soup Topped with Blue Tortilla Strips and Pepper Jack Cheese
    * Four Bean Corn Chile with Navajo Fry Bread

Salads

    * House Salad with Baby Romaine, Carrots, Golden Raisins, Bleu Cheese, Sunflower Kernels, Orange Slices and a Grapefruit Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette
    * Sonoran Caprese Salad with Roasted Bell Peppers, Goat Cheese and Cilantro with Jalapeno Balsamic Reduction and Pepper Coulis

Breakfast

    * Quiche of the Day served with hash browns and fruit
    * Two Egg Omelet with Choice of up to 3 Ingredients, Homemade Hashbrowns and Toast
          o Ingredients: Mushroom, Onion, Corn, Tomato, Bacon, Sausage, Crab, Shrimp, Jalapeno, Bell Pepper, Chile, Parmesan Cheese, Goat Cheese, American Cheese, Cheddar Cheese, Pepper Jack Cheese, Avocado
    * Corn Cakes – 3 corn cakes with maple syrup or homemade red pepper jelly
    * Crepes – 2 crepes with choice of filling
          o Fillings: Banana, Blueberry, Peach, Orange, Crab and Goat Cheese
    * Silver Dollar Pancakes – 10 silver dollar pancakes
    *

    * Eggs with Toast, Homemade Hashbrowns and Side
          o Side Choices: Bacon, Sausage, Fresh Fruit
    * Shrimp, Jalapeno and Egg Tacos with Hashbrowns
    * Fruit & Cheese Platter

So Says John

McCain’s been taken in hand

By foreign policy Bushies

Who’ve taught him the difference

Between the Sunnis and Sushis.

Here is the Hurricane Gustav Advisory:

000
WTNT32 KNHC 311435
TCPAT2
BULLETIN
HURRICANE GUSTAV ADVISORY NUMBER 28
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL072008
1000 AM CDT SUN AUG 31 2008

…GUSTAV CONTINUES NORTHWESTWARD OVER THE CENTRAL GULF OF MEXICO
WITH LITTLE CHANGE IN STRENGTH…

A HURRICANE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE NORTHERN GULF COAST
FROM CAMERON LOUISIANA EASTWARD TO THE ALABAMA-FLORIDA BORDER…
INCLUDING THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN. A
HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED
WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO
PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION.

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM EAST OF THE
ALABAMA-FLORIDA BORDER TO THE OCHLOCKONEE RIVER….AND FROM WEST OF
CAMERON LOUISIANA TO JUST EAST OF HIGH ISLAND TEXAS. A TROPICAL
STORM WARNING MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED
WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

A HURRICANE WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM WEST OF CAMERON LOUISIANA
TO JUST EAST OF HIGH ISLAND TEXAS. A HURRICANE WATCH MEANS THAT
HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA…GENERALLY
WITHIN 36 HOURS.

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE LOWER FLORIDA
KEYS WEST OF THE SEVEN MILE BRIDGE TO THE DRY TORTUGAS.

FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA…INCLUDING POSSIBLE
INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS…PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED
BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.

AT 1000 AM CDT…1500Z…THE CENTER OF HURRICANE GUSTAV WAS LOCATED
NEAR LATITUDE 25.3 NORTH…LONGITUDE 86.0 WEST OR ABOUT 325 MILES…
520 KM…SOUTHEAST OF THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

John McBush’s Fever

Dig here! Dig now!

God’s my copilot today!

Victory in Iraq–pow! pow!

Gather ye Hillaryites while ye may!

So it’s just like in the movie Cool Hand Luke. The Paul Newman character did the same thing. That’s what got him in prison (I think). Okay.

But this guy, Maurice Mizrahi, beheaded 87 parking meter heads. Well, we in Park Slope can certainly understand the motivation. Here’s part of the story from the Times:

When Salvo Frisina went to work recently at a pharmacy in Gravesend, Brooklyn, he saw something odd: a parking meter with a sawed-off head

Mr. Frisina said he thought it was part of the transition in the neighborhood from coin-operated parking meters to Muni-Meters, a move that the city is making across New York.

“I thought the city was cutting them off to put the new meters in,” Mr. Frisina said on Saturday, as he worked behind the counter at Harold’s Pharmacy on the corner of Avenue U and McDonald Avenue.

But Mr. Frisina, 20, may have unknowingly seen the handiwork of Maurice Mizrahi, a man who the police said had cut off the heads of several dozen parking meters in the past two years. They recovered 87 meters from the house where he lived in Gravesend, the neighborhood where the police said most of the thefts took place.

The police said that Mr. Mizrahi was arrested on Saturday afternoon on Kings Highway and was expected to be charged with numerous counts of criminal possession of stolen property.

While it is not unusual for coin-fed parking meters and Muni-Meters to be vandalized, city officials and the police said they had never seen anything on the scale of the thefts in which Mr. Mizrahi had been accused.

Another great speech on my birthday. There were many great lines and passages in Obama’s speech. Here’s one:

I get it.  I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this
office.  I don’t fit the typical pedigree, and I haven’t spent my
career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you
tonight because all across America something is stirring.  What the
nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about
me.  It’s been about you.

For eighteen long months, you have
stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past.  You
understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to
try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a
different result.  You have shown what history teaches us – that at
defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn’t come from
Washington.  Change comes to Washington.  Change happens because the
American people demand it – because they rise up and insist on new
ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

I
believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming.
Because I’ve seen it.  Because I’ve lived it.  I’ve seen it in
Illinois, when we provided health care to more children and moved more
families from welfare to work.  I’ve seen it in Washington, when we
worked across party lines to open up government and hold lobbyists more
accountable, to give better care for our veterans and keep nuclear
weapons out of terrorist hands.

And I’ve seen it in this
campaign.  In the young people who voted for the first time, and in
those who got involved again after a very long time.  In the
Republicans who never thought they’d pick up a Democratic ballot, but
did.  I’ve seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back
a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the soldiers who
re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbors who take a
stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise.

This
country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what
makes us rich.  We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that’s
not what makes us strong.  Our universities and our culture are the
envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our
shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit – that American
promise – that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that
binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our
eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around
the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance.  It’s a
promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a
promise that you make to yours – a promise that has led immigrants to
cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to
picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

Here is a snapshot of the sustainability issues that faced the borough and city this past August.
The links were complied by Rebeccah Welch, Associate Director of Public
Affairs, at the Center for the Urban Environment (CUE). To learn more
about CUE, visit  www.thecue.org.

Going Green to Save Green [AM New York]

The Social Functions of NIMBYism [Planetizen via Brownstoner]

Brooklyn Children’s Museum First LEED Silver Museum in NYC [Interior Design]

Connor Opponent Contests Plan for Condos in Brooklyn Bridge Park [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]

Hall Street Storage Making (Green) Waves [Green Brooklyn]

Environmental Concerns Raised About Brooklyn Con Ed Project [NY Sun]

Bloomberg Looks to Wind Power [NY Times]

What Is the Future of Suburbia? [Freakonomics Blog via Brownstoner]

In Slow Times, Rezoning Appeals to Developers [NY Times]

Can City’s Infrastructure Handle Floods, Intense Heat? [Associated Press]

Urban Environmentalist NYC: Brother Islands’ History Revealed [GL]

Two Friends Investigate the Urban Food Chain [City Limits]

Fighting the Asian Long-Horned Beetle [Gotham Gazette]

As Bat Population Falls, the Questions Multiply [NY Times]

Will Car-Free ‘Summer Streets’ Work? [NY Times]

Urban Environmentalist NYC – Ask the Expert [OTBKB]

Weiner Calls for Clean Up of Jamaica Bay [NY Daily News]

People in Boats on the Gowanus [Brooklynometry]

For Scallops, New Signs of Life in the Peconics [NY Times]

Invasion New York [Gotham Gazette]

Newtown Creek Superfund Investigation Sites Mapped [GL]

Newtown Creek Brownfield Map [NAG]

Exhibit Makes Case for Evergreen Gowanus [City Limits]

Reshaping the City [Gotham Gazette]

Small Businesses Closing in Downtown Brooklyn [Report-Urban Justice Center]

The Value of Street Life [Report-Transportation Alternatives]

As some of you know, my father’s condition has worsened a great deal in the last few days. So I’ve been at Mt. Sinai Hospital almost constantly all week.

That said, my birthday had unexpected bright spots. My father rallied for about an
hour when an old friend, an advertising legend like my dad, came by and they talked about horse racing at Saratoga, Belmont and elsewhere, advertising back in the day (the 1960’s), Times
Square, Coney Island and books.

My father even came up with a great Save Coney Island slogan. All
Money, No Coney. Actually I don’t know how he’s want to punctuate it. He’s been sleeping most of the day. If he rallies again, I’ll ask him.

It was a gift to hear him converse with this old friend/colleague from advertising days. They also share a great love of horse racing. This man’s race horse, Thou Swell, is running in a Saratoga race this Sunday.

We’ll be rooting for that horse. We’ll be rooting for Thou Swell with all our hearts. If my father were awake I’d ask if we should put some money on it.

Another bright spot. Getting into the subway on 96th Street, my wonderful high school friend Opera Diva jumped off the crosstown bus screaming, "Happy Birthday!!!" We hugged like the oldest and dearest of friends that we are. I could not believe my great fortune in seeing her at such a perfect  moment.

I tried to get her to come to Brooklyn where our mutual friend, Best and Oldest, was waiting with my sister, Hepcat, OSFO, Divorce Diva and Warm and Funny with champagne and a huge, delicious selection of sushi.

Unfortunately, Opera Diva’s son was having a sleepover guest and she had to get home. Well, she missed a generous amount of wine, sushi, an unusually delicious chocolate cake made by Best and Oldest’s daughter and much great friendship and conversation.

She probably didn’t miss Obama’s speech, which was a wonderful end to a difficult day that was brightened by the brightest of bright spots.

So much to do at the Community Bookstore this September. Here’s a selection of highlights. The full schedule is probably at their website (but I’m not sure).

Wednesday, September 3rd @ 7:00 p.m.
Community Bookstore Knit Night
After a short hiatus during the long, too-hot-to-knit summer, the Community Bookstore Knitters unite again on Wednesday, September 3rd at 7:00 p.m. Join us for an evening of socializing and crafty creativity. Beginners are welcome, we love to help! Crocheters too! Bring a skein of yarn to swap or a pair of needles to share, or perhaps even a baked good to pass around. Regulars take note: we have switched from the second Wednesday of the month to the first Wednesday of the month. See you then!

Tuesday, September 9th @ 7:30 p.m.

Joshua Henkin reads from Matrimony
"Elicits a passionate investment in the fate of its characters – truly an up-all-night read."

                        – The Washington Post

Wednesday, September 10th @ 7:30 p.m.
(a.k.a. the 2nd Wednesday of the month)
Books Without Borders Book Group meets to discuss Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya.

The first of exiled Honduran novelist Moya’s eight fictions to be translated in the U.S., this crushing satire has at its center a feisty young unnamed writer in penurious political exile from an unnamed Latin American country.

Thursday, September 11th @ 7:00 p.m.
Documentary Movie Night

When the Mountains Tremble
The revolutionary tour-de-force and Sundance Film Festival winner that shook audiences and critics alike upon its original theatrical release, this updated edition chronicles the astonishing story of one woman who stood up for her people and helped wage a rebellion in the wake of seemingly unconquerable oppression

Tuesday, September 16th @ 7:30 p.m.

Josh Barkan reads from Blind Speed
Not since Don DeLillo and George Saunders has a writer caught the humor and irreverent seriousness of our time like Barkan has through his protagonist Paul Berger, a flawed hero whose so-called fate drives him toward enlightenment just as surely as it propels him to destruction. Berger is stunned when he receives an ominous palm reading from a savvy guru at a health retreat in Iowa, of all places.

Wednesday, September 17th @ 7:00 p.m.
Community Forum Night

Meets to Discuss:

–How Does New York City Government Work, and
–How the Heck Do You Get Things Done (hint: It’s easier than you think!)?

How many times have you wished you could "Just do something about . . . ." or "Just find out how . . . ."  Community Board 6 District Manager Craig Hammerman is graciously joining us to moderate a quick trot through the wonderland of NYC Government.  Come armed with concerns, issues, questions and wishlists.  We can help steer you to solutions and resources, and we’re also hoping to generate a list of future Community Forum topics.

Craig Hammerman has been the District Manager of Brooklyn Community Board 6 since February 1993. His district includes the "Brownstone Brooklyn" neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens/South Brooklyn, Cobble Hill, Columbia Street District, Gowanus, Park Slope and Red Hook; some of the most vibrant and sought-after destinations in the City of New York.

About the New Community Forum Nights

Forthwith, the third Wednesday of every month is declared Community Forum Night.  What’s that, you ask?  Each month we will host a meeting to allow the community to come together and explore some question or issue pertinent to our shared life in the neighborhood.  The topic of each meeting will be announced ahead of time, and we will try to find someone particularly knowledgeable (about said topic) to "chair" the meeting, beginning with a brief (10 minute?) summary of the issue and then being available to answer questions, serve as a font of information, and generally steer the discussion.  We welcome your suggestions and requests for topics you’d like to discuss!  Email cat_bohne(at)yahoo(dot)com with any ideas!

Tuesday, September 23rd @ 7:30 p.m.

Mark Lilla reads from The Stillborn God
Religious passions are again driving world politics. The quest to bring political life under God’s authority has been revived, confounding expectations of a secular future. In this major book, Mark Lilla reveals the sources of this age-old quest—and its surprising role in shaping Western thought.

Wednesday, September 24th @ 7:30 p.m.
(a.k.a. the 4th Wednesday of the month)
Modernist Book Club meets to discuss Robert Musil’s
Confusions of the Young Torless

Please mark this down right now, and hesitate not as you saunter over to our best friends at the Community Bookstore to pick up your copy of Robert Musil’s Confusions of the Young Torless. We will read from the Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics edition, 2001. As always, it will be at the front desk for your perusal and purchase.

Thursday, September 25th @ 7:00 p.m.

Elizabeth Royte reads and discusses her new book, Bottlemania

To be held at and co-hosted by Old First Reformed Churchon the corner of 7th Avenue and Carroll Street

"Bottlemania is eye-opening and informative; you will never look at water–either ‘designer’ or tap–in quite the same way. Royte demonstrates how everything is, in the end, truly connected."
– Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe

Tuesday, September 30th @ 7:30 p.m.
Poet Dennis Nurkse reads from The Border Kingdom

In a collection of urgent and intimate poems, D. Nurkse explores the biblical past and the terrifying politics of the present with which it resonates, the legacy of fathers and the flawed kingdoms they leave their sons.

In "Ben Adan," a stunning poem in the opening sequence of the collection, we witness the stirring drama between a captor and the prisoner commanded to dig his own grave ("perhaps in a moment / he will lift me up / and hold me trembling, / more scared than I / and more relieved"). "After a Bombing" examines children’s drawings as deep symbolic reactions to 9/11. The subtly majestic "Lament for the Makers of Brooklyn" builds the poignant case for a lost world: "Where is Policastro the locksmith now?" the poet asks. "Half-blind, he wore two pairs of glasses / held together by duct tape, / . . . / afterward the key turned / for you but not for me."

That’s right. The new store going in where Seventh Avenue Books used to be (Seventh Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Streets) is Eric, a shoe store I’ve been to on the Upper East Side. It’s a mini-chain and this, I’m guessing, is their first outer borough shop.

Interesting how many Manhattan shops and restaurants are coming to the Slope. Barrio, Carmen’s Kid Rx, S’Nice. I guess the rents are a bargain here compared to what they’re used to. Here’s something abotu the Eric shops from New York Magazine:

Upper East Side moms and their downtown-minded daughters trek to this
footwear mini-chain–a neighborhood mainstay since 1976–for their fix
of traditional and contemporary shoe styles, like demure heels perfect
for a jaunt to the Hamptons and trendy wedges made for the school
semi-formal. Founder Eric Mudick stocks his small, pastel-painted
boutiques with a good sampling of designer styles, including Cynthia
Rowley’s red leather slingbacks, called the Runway Wedge, and her
Grecian-style Tabitha flats. There are also plenty of more conservative
offerings, like Enrico Antinori’s sensible pumps in seasonal prints, as
well as Mullen’s classic kitten heels. Younger girls gravitate toward
the swank, Indian inspired slippers by CYD and Eric’s own line of
ballet flats.

An OTBKB reader wrote in to tell me about these Barack Obama t-shirts.

Hi Louise.  I saw these cool Obama Tee Shirts made by a local NYC
woman.  Given that we Brooklynites are politically minded I thought I’d
pass this site on for you to blog about.

www.theressomethingaboutbarry.com

Got this email from a loyal reader of OTBKB about brunch at Sette.

Sette on Third Street and Seventh Avenue.

Went for first time Sunday. Brunch. It never looked that inviting to me.
Took a long long time (but I think it was because there was a big party of
12 demanding birthday revelers…) Anyway, it turned out to be lovely and I
thought it was a good deal.

Also went to Willie’s Dawgs again. Delightful on a end-of-summer day.

Unsolicited dining tips!

What good is sitting alone in your room…You can see The Shining and Cabaret at Movie with a View, a venue I found to be quite lovely for movie viewing and picnicing right there next to the Brooklyn Bridge (with a good view of one of the waterfalls).

Back by popular demand, Brooklyn Bridge Park’s outdoor film series — Movies With A View
— will offer an encore presentation on Thursday, September 4. The
series is produced by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy and the New
York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and
presented this year by new sponsor SCI FI Channel. The series takes
place in the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park section of Brooklyn Bridge
Park.

 

Movie-goers can catch Cabaret,
which was cancelled earlier in the season due to inclement weather. The
show will be free, as always. Music will begin at 6:00 pm, and the film
will screen at sunset.

 

The Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, along with NY State Parks, launched Movies With A View
nine years ago, and works with a volunteer Film Committee, made up of
members of the local community, to put together an exciting and
eclectic line-up of films each year. With a venue noted for the quality
of its views as well as the quality of its films, the free series has
attracted thousands of people each summer to the waterfront park. Films
this season included Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, The Shining, Being There, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The Shining, Thursday, August 28
Cabaret, Thursday, September 4

There will be a Battle of Brooklyn Celebration sponsored by the Brooklyn Brewery at The Gate on Wednesday, August 27th from 11 am until 4 p.m.

The Gate is on 3rd Street and Seventh Avenue. For more information on Battle Week go to The Old Stone House website.