Take The H Train
At farewell time on the LIRR
Whether butcher, doctor or baker
You may be going to heaven or hell
But you still have to change in Jamaica.
I’ll choose the subway any day,
No extra stops pell-mell;
Express trains speed without delay
Especially to hell.
One could fairly say that Charles Sibirsky of Slope Music is a real mover and shaker when it comes to jazz in Park Slope.
Now he’s programming jazz shows at a new restaurant called Aji located at 287 Ninth Street between 4th and 5th Avenues; Aji serves Peruvian and Argentinian dishes.
Every
Thursday, from 7:30-11:30,in August will feature the music of the
Charles Sibirsky Trio with a rotating group of musicians.
8/7 Jimmy Halperin, sax
Dan Shuman, bass
8/14,21 Gary Levy, sax
Ray Parker, bass
8/28 Charley Krachy, sax
Ray Parker, bass
I always like to give a shout-out to Greta Gertler because my family name is Ghertler. That’s Ghertler with an H. But hey, Gertler is pretty close.
Gertler is performing at Barbes, 9th Street’s fabulously eclectic and eccentric music venue, on Thursday July 24th at 8 p.m.
"A Brooklyn-based Australian singer-songwriter with a fondness for
lushly orchestrated seventies-era pop, appears in the company of the
Extroverts, a group that includes a tuba and a bass drum. They’re
celebrating the release of Gertler’s new album, “Edible Restaurant,”
which, while it is a less elaborate production than her earlier
efforts, is just as rewarding." – New Yorker Magazine.
The soon to be famous Accordion Angels will be performing tonight as part of the Jazz on Wednesdays Series (curated by Joe Phillips) at the Lyceum. Two of my neighbors are in this terrific accordian quartet, pictured right in the Green-wood Cemetery.
Brooklyn Lyceum
227 4th Ave (between Union and President Streets)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Wednesday, Jul 23 2008
at 8: and 9:30 pm
Admission is $10.
The Lyceum is located nearest the R train station at Union Street.
Richard Grayson, author of Who Will Kiss the Pig: Sex Stories for Teens, filed this report about the Third Annual Gender Equality Festival in Von King Park in Bed-Stuy.
by Richard Grayson:
From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Herbert Von King Park in Bed-Stuy (back in our day it was Tompkins Park) was the site of the Third Annual Gender Equality Festival, sponsored by Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), featuring over 100 community artists, organizations, and local politicians coming together to celebrate girls, arts and everyday activism, offering performances and important information.
We got to the park early, getting in our morning walk all the way from Dumbo Books HQ in Williamsburg (hey, maybe we made better time than we would have on the weekend G train) before it got way too hot.
Actually, we made it so early that the Festival hadn’t begun, so we had the privilege of watching an exciting Inner City Little League game featuring excellent pitching, some skillful base stealing, a well-executed sacrifice fly and power hitting from both teams.
The bottom of the sixth was pretty exciting, as the Mets had the tying run at the plate with two outs, but in the end the Giants triumphed, 10-7, and will be back in the league’s World Series for the second year in a row.
We did notice on Gender Equality Festival day that all of the players on both teams were males, but there were a number of girls on the roster of the Angels and Nationals in the next game.
Girls for Gender Equity, through its commitment to the physical, psychological, social and economic development of girls and women, has among its many programs lots of sports activities for girls.
Seeing the Festival was well under way on the east side of the park, we wished the Little Leaguers good luck and went over to see the booths and the action from the amphitheater. We watched a well-performed and informative series of skits on HIV-related stigma from kids in the programs of CAMBA, the Church Avenue Merchants Business Association, the lead agency for the local HIV care network in our old neighborhood.
We also heard interesting and inspiring talks by representatives from MIC-Women’s Health Services and were thrilled to see some young poets from the New York Writers Coalition programs such as little Najaya Royal, who stole the show at last year’s Fort Greene Summer Literary Festival with her tale of how a tidy neighborhood cat used bleach to clean out the heart of Mrs. Poopyhead, a woman so mean she’d eaten her own husband one Halloween night. (See our 2007 report at Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn.)
There was lots, lots more from many dedicated individuals and organizations, such as GGE’s Sisters in Strength,for teen women ages 15-19 learning to be agents of social change by deciding on, planning, and implementing a grassroots organizing project. They also participate in skills-building workshops to receive assistance in applying to college, increase their financial literacy, and become more informed about political and social issues that affect them.
And like other organizations present, Sisters in Strength fights sexual harassment in New York City’s public schools and elsewhere, trying to educate people about the seriousness of this problem.
We also spent a long time walking around the many tables from terrific community-based organizations, associations, and programs, from the Audre Lorde Project (named for the great writer whom we had the privilege of teaching with at John Jay College for Criminal Justice), a vitally important community center for gender variant people of color, to Turning Point, which addresses the needs of Muslim women and children through culturally competent crisis intervention, individual and group counseling, advocacy, outreach, education and training.
We feel bad that we can’t mention every one of the wonderful groups that had tables at the Festival. All of them do good work in helping make our community a better place, and you should support at least one organization that empowers the girls and women of Brooklyn and makes life better for all of us.
It was getting hot for us, but we were grateful that we got to participate in this year’s Gender Equality Festival.
If anyone feels like it, please send me information about this. I see that Gowanus Lounge has a story, a map and even a quote from a Brooklynean:
Did anyone notice that the new parking regs in Park Slope are really much worse than before?
At the moment I am away in a place where parking is a non-issue. But I do want to hear from OTBKB readers about this very important Slope matter. Leave as a comment (they don’t post immediately as they are moderated) or send me an email: louise_crawford(at)yahoo(dot)com.
Here are some reflections inspired by the Third Annual Gender Equality Festival from Richard Grayson. He is writing a book called Summer in Brooklyn: 1969-1975, which includes the day Richard took these pictures: August 26, 1970. See more of this story and pictures at Grayson’s Dumbo Books blog.
By Richard Grayson
As we walked to the corner and caught the B43 bus back to Williamsburg,
we reflected on another summer day in a New York City park where a
19-year-old boy from Brooklyn witnessed an earlier generation’s
struggle for gender equality.
Here’s a photograph we took at City Hall Park on the morning
of August 26, 1970, the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the passage
of the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women’s suffrage. It was a
historic day and it opens Gail Collins’ recent magisterial history of
the American women’s movement.
Here’s fiery Manhattan Congresswoman Bella Abzug, well known for her
floppy hats and her fighting liberalism.
Abzug would never win her primaries for mayor or senator but remained
in Congress for a number of years. Next to Speaker Tip O’Neill, she was
probably the most well-known member of the House.
Here is Betty Friedan,
whose book The Feminine Mystique, in which she discussed "the problem
with no name" that American women faced, really launched second-wave
feminism in this country.
Here’s a protester more in the spirit of the day:
We can remember that placard really well: Male Chauvinist, You Better
Start Shakin’, Today’s Pig is Tomorrow’s Bacon!
We’ve got our diary entry for that day in our forthcoming book, Summer
in Brooklyn: 1969-1975. Lots has changed, in Brooklyn and the world,
since those days.
Well, we feel privileged to have been even just a witness at 1970’s
Women’s Liberation Day, just as we feel privileged to see the daughters
and granddaughters of second-wave feminists at Von King Park today.
I just got this midsummer garden alert from Fonda over at Zuzu’s Petals.
Hunting and gathering is a challenge this late in the Nursery season but Wednesday, the Zuzuteam succeeded in collecting a truckload of goodies to fill those sad empty spaces in your Garden.
Mid Season perennial bloomers:
Sunset colored Echinacea,
3 varieties of Rudbeckia
Ruby colored Lobelia
Yet to bloom Tricyrtus
Chocolatey purple leaved Heuchera
Sedums Autumn Joy and Vera Jamieson
Candy colored Annuals:
Begonia Non Stop and Rieger
Brightleaf Coleus
Red Lantern Abutilon
Yellow Beleperone
Coral Crossandra
4" Hibiscus that seriously need new homes
For indoors:
Amazing new variety of Ground Orchids
and excellent specimen Oncidium.
Little Zu is back to Thursday – Sunday schedule
She is filled with heat tolerant fresh cut flowers and
lots of well priced treats.
Our second order of San Diego hats arrived
as well as some new flavor soaps from Mistral.
The Big’s Garden is lush and packed with fresh
potsful of pretty.
Come visit . We are out in the Garden waiting.
Fonda and all the zuzus
{except lorraine who is in California}
The Community Bookstore’s Modernist Book Club continues even though Josh, its beloved leader (and one of the Park Slope 100) has moved on to greener pastures (or something). Yesterday’s email said:
Cool off with The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West in the
air conditioned comfort of The Community Bookstore this Wednesday, July
23rd at 7:30 p.m. The Modernist Book Club resumes its monthly meetings
with this tale of the Aubrey family and poltergeists, murder, and
adventure. Modernist summer madness! Join us!
On July 23rd they’re discussing The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West. They suggest that you come to the meeting with a passage, page or a particular that you find worthy of discussion. Here’s a synopsis of the book from the New York Review of Books website:
"The lives of the talented Aubrey children have long been clouded by
their father’s genius for instability, but his new job in the London
suburbs promises, for a time at least, reprieve from scandal and the
threat of ruin. Mrs. Aubrey, a former concert pianist, struggles to
keep the family afloat, but then she is something of a high-strung
eccentric herself, as is all too clear to her daughter Rose, through
whose loving but sometimes cruel eyes events are seen. Still, living on
the edge holds the promise of the unexpected, and the Aubreys, who
encounter furious poltergeists, turn up hidden masterpieces, and come
to the aid of a murderess, will find that they have adventure to spare."
“Every act of preservation is inescapably an act of renewal by the light of a later time, a set of decisions both about what we think something was and about what we want it to be and to say about ourselves today,” Byard wrote in his book “The Architecture of Additions: Design and Regulation” (W.W. Norton, 1998).
The obituary of this architect, who lived in Prospect Heights, is in today’s New York Times.
Today’s Mama Mia movie times at the Park Slope Pavilion are: 11:40 AM, 2:15 PM, 4:45 PM, 7:15 PM, 10:05 PM
You might be better off seeing the miraculous Wall-E (even for a second time): 1:00 PM, 3:10 PM, 5:20 PM, 7:35 PM, 9:50 PM
Other theaters:
The Wackness is at BAM: 2:20 PM, 4:45 PM, 7:15 PM, 9:30 PM
The Dark Night is at the UA Court Street Stadium (9:45 AM), (10:20 AM), (12:30 PM), 1:00 PM, 1:40 PM, 3:45 PM, 4:15 PM, 4:50 PM, 7:00 PM, 7:30 PM, 8:10 PM, 9:40 PM, 10:20 PM, 10:50 PM, 11:30 PM, 12:50 AM, 1:30 AM
SIBS IN BIBS
At 11 months cherubic Sarah
Without assist took a step, then two.
Said jubilant Mom to her three-year-old:
“Robbie, your sister now walks, like you.”
Once Sarah finished her debut stroll
Her mother hugged her for what she’d done,
Inciting Robbie to speak up:
“Look, Mommy, look–I can run!”
Benjamin Kaback of Second Avenue Sagas sent word of the I Hate Valentine’s Day shoot. I heard from the owners of Elementi that the production would be shooting in Elementi on Seventh Avenue near Garfield this week.
Not sure if you saw the signs but at least along Carroll St. between
6th and 7th Aves this morning, officials were out in force urging no
parking tomorrow for this movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762105/
Looks like Nia Vardalos (of My Big Fat Greek Wedding) is moving her act from Carroll Gardens to the Slope.
Park Slope’s Leah Lawrence, who’s singing voice has been compared to Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morisette, Laura Nyro and Jenny Lewis, is releasing her second album, “Everywhere To Go, Folk by Foulke Vol.II” with a CD release party at the Perch Café in Park Slope at 365 Fifth Avenue between 5th and 6th Streets on Wednesday, July 23rd at 7pm.
At the party, Leah will perform songs from the new album.
Leah’s first album, “Folk by Foulke, Vol.I” is available on ITunes. For more info,visit: www.leahlawrence.com
Last Sunday, there was a great celebration of Bastille Day on Smith Street, sponsored by Bar Tabac. Here’s the report from Streetsblog. Go on over there to see the video.
Every year, on the Sunday closest to Bastille Day, Brooklyn bistro
Bar Tabac helps put on one of the city’s finest carfree events, turning
two blocks of Smith Street into a neighborhood party. As restaurants
take over sidewalks with café seating and shady tents, the center of
the street transforms into a sandy arena for a tourney of Pétanque (bocce’s French cousin). Streetfilms’ Nick Whitaker caught the festivities yesterday,
with the Open Planning Project’s Nick Grossman guiding the way and Bar
Tabac’s Christophe Chambers explaining what goes into the event. Says
Whitaker:It’s not just the action and attraction of the tournament that makes it
special. People lounge about, eat great culinary delights, kids
skateboard, friends play foosball, and listen to great music — the
kinds of things that we need to happen more to make the sometimes
hectic, noisy streets of NYC more palatable. If livable streets
advocates are looking for a good model of what draws people to an
event, look no further.
My grandmother Anna Rudnick Wander was born on July 15, 1898. This great woman of Brooklyn would have been 110 today.
Born in Cohoes, New York a small town near Albany, my grandmother moved with her father to Brooklyn after her mother died. Her mother’s death was the great tragedy of her life.
As a girl, she lived in a big, green Victorian house on Westminister Road with her father, her stepmother and three stepbrothers. The house is still there and it’s still painted green with a billiard room on the third floor.
About ten years ago, my mother and I introduced ourselves to the current owner of that house which is between Rugby and Albermarle Road. She knew of the Rudnick family and told us that they were the first occupants of the house.
Hepcat and I once looked at a pink house practically across the street. I always thought it would have been cool to live across from the house where my grandmother grew up.
Anna attended Adelphi College and trained to be a nursery school teacher. She married Samuel Wander in 1921 and wore a flapper-style wedding dress to her wedding. My grandfather was a wonderfully industrious, elegant and kind-hearted man. He started a plumbing chemical business, owned a building on Canal Street and later, a factory in New Jersey.
After their two daughters, Edna Mae and Rhoda Hortense, were grown up and married, my grandparents moved out of Brooklyn to an apartment at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Although my sister and I spent the first year of our lives in my grandparent’s house, I have no memory of it.
I do, however, have wonderful memories of their three room apartment at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which later became a co-op apartment building. Who can forget having dinner with my grandmother, or Nanny as we called her, at One Fifth, the iconic Manhattan restaurant—the first one started by the McNally brothers in the 1970’s—that was located in the lobby of her apartment building; we used to enter through a secret door.
A treasured nightly customer, she was welcomed by Richard, the tall, impossibly dapper maitre’d who would invariably say, "Mrs. Wander, how wonderful you look tonight."
Indeed, she was a familiar face to the trendy crowd, which included Patti Smith, Robert Mappelthorpe and Andy Warhol, who frequently dined there; Nanny was usually departing by the time the cognoscenti came in.
An unusually loving grandmother, Nanny made each of her five grandchildren feel like her favorite. Growing up, my sister and I would meet her just about every Saturday at Schrafts on Madison Avenue, for turkey sandwiches and hot butterscotch sundaes. She took us to see Thoroughly Modern Millie, Funny Girl and many other movies at the Ziegfield, and to the stuffed animal department at FAO Schwarz. My mother says she’d always buy us new underwear at Best and Company on Fifth Avenue.
In 1964 she told me that the Beatles were on the steps of the Plaza Hotel and asked if we wanted to see. We were right across the street at FAO Schwarz.
"Beatles?" I remember saying. "Giant bugs?"
Well, we didn’t see the Beatles on the crowded steps of the Plaza Hotel that day. My loss. But I probably got a great Steiff stuffed animal courtesy of Nanny that day.
Richard Grayson, author of Who Will Kiss the Pig: Sex Stories for Teens, filed this report about the 12 Ophelias at the McCarren Park Pool. We are grateful.
by Richard Grayson: At 7:45 p.m. Saturday, we walked up Lorimer Street to the McCarren Park pool, where a small crowd of strangely non-hipster-looking humans had gathered. They were there, as we were, to see “12 Ophelias,” a play with lyrics by Caridad Svich and music written and performed by the excellent bluegrass band The Jones Street Boys. This was a preview of the production conceived and designed by the Brooklyn-based Woodshed Collective and directed by Teddy Bergman, who also did the famous Hell House, about the agonies that await the unborn-again.
We were told that the night was only the second “12 Ophelias” preview and glitches were to be expected. The main ones were with the body mikes, which worked sporadically at times for a couple of performers, but their voices carried well enough so that we, at least, heard them at all times.
“12 Ophelias” is a surreal take on Hamlet in which Ophelia (Pepper Binkley) rises from her pond, undrowned, and tries to deal with her past in a backwoods Appalachian version of Elsinore. Hey, they do say regional Appalachian English is the closest today’s Anglophones come to the early modern English of Elizabethan times.
In this shantytown-Deliverance setting, trashy-flashy but regal Gertrude (Kate Benson) presides over a brothel; Rosencranz (Grace McLean) and Guildenstern (Preston Martin) are an antic genderqueer pair of silly hillbillies; Horatio (Ben Beckley) is a brutal, coarse backwoodsman sexually involved with the hooker Mina (an engaging Jocelyn Kuritsky) – and apparently Gertrude herself; and then there’s Rude Boy, a slovenly Ozarks Hamlet in a filthy wifebeater with a black eye and a lot of attitude.
This sounds like it could be either really terrible or really wonderful. We were a little concerned at first, but soon the performances — and the surprisingly haunting songs — shot it over into the "really wonderful" category.
Shakespeare’s language is both mocked (R & G do a deliciously wicked parody of the final meeting between the prince and Ophelia in Hamlet) and transformed so that, even with all the countrified expressions and Appalachian diction, it becomes eloquent in conveying the characters’ struggle to reconcile past mistakes and burdens and in exploring the line between madness and passion.
The cast was uniformly outstanding, with Binkley, McLean and Martin having some amazing moments; the musical performances by the cast and The Jones Street Boys, when not hampered by sound-system problems, were strong.
According to its website, the mission of Woodshed Collective is to "create a tangible, immersive world" for audiences, by creating interactive performance pieces in which all members of the Collective are involved in "all aspects of production, from concept development to direction and design."
The pool will be host to more performances of “12 Ophelias” at 8 p.m. on July 16, 18-19, 23-24, 26 and 30-31. August performances include Aug. 1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 14, 16 and 20-22. Setting this production in the middle of the empty pool as dusk turned to night worked really well. As we walked home under a gibbous moon, we felt happy that we’d gone
But it’s only been there for a few days. Here’s Crains:
The Brooklyn booth, which opened Thursday at 1 MetroTech Center at Jay Street and Myrtle Avenue, sold around 150 tickets during its first day.
But Victoria Bailey, executive director of the Theatre Development Fund, which operates TKTS, hopes the Brooklyn spot will be selling 2,500 to 3,000 tickets a week by the end of the year. The South Street Seaport location sells around 5,000 tickets a week, depending on time of year and weather. The main TKTS booth in Times Square, known for its long lines of impulsive tourists, sells between 18,000 and 30,000 tickets a week.
Though the Brooklyn booth is unlikely to command that level of foot traffic, the Theatre Development Fund is promoting its newest location as a spot for New Yorkers who have what Ms. Bailey calls a “love/hate relationship with the volume of activity in Times Square.” The nonprofit has already launched bus, subway kiosk, and banner ads, and may look to glean business from several nearby hotels. It’s also working with the MetroTech Business Improvement District to reach out to area businesses and has received marketing help from New York State Assemblywoman Joan Millman.
Still, only 13% of outer borough residents attended a Broadway show during the 2006-07 season, accounting for just 6.7% of the Broadway audience, according to The Broadway League. Manhattanites bought 9.8% of tickets, while tourists accounted for 65%…
…In addition to offering same-day and next-day discounted Broadway and off-Broadway tickets, the fund will also push events at Brooklyn venues, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Center for Performing Arts and Brooklyn College.
OUTSIDE CURBSIDERS OUT
Comes Bastille Day, come the cops
Full-tilt leaving their donut nooks,
Storming the streets of Parking Slope
And whipping out their summons books–
Alternate parking with altered days
Returns the 14th to the Slope.
Farewell to hordes of outside cars,
Hello to locals glad to cope
An excerpt from The Daily News:
A pair of kayakers who paddled too close to the New York City Waterfalls installation under the Brooklyn Bridge nearly drowned when swift currents and the falls’ suction mechanism capsized their boat, police said.
“I wanted to get a closer look at the waterfalls, and then it sucked us in,” said Vladimer Spector, 37, one of the two men plucked from the East River by the NYPD Harbor Patrol.
He and Bert Rosenblatt, 36, were part of a group of real estate developers who left Red Hook for a tour of the falls with the nonprofit Long Island City Community Boathouse.
Ah, let’s see. Teen Spirit was 3-years-old, we’d just moved to Third Street from Fifth Street in Park Slope, I was working as a video producer in Manhattan. Well, if you feel nostalgic for that summer, see the Wackness at BAM Rose Cinema. It looks like fun. Olivia Thirlby who I love from Juno is in it. And of course, Ben Kingsely. Here’s the blurbage. I’ve even included the You Tube trailer. Is that weird?
Brooklyn Exclusive
(R) 100min
2:10, 4:40, 7:15, 9:40pmDirected by Jonathan Levine
With Ben Kingsley, Famke Janssen, Josh Peck, Olivia ThirlbyThe Wackness is a peculiar and beguiling surprise, the cinematic version of one of those endless summer afternoons that line the median between adolescence and adulthood. It’s also a work of expertly calibrated performances.” —New York Sun
It’s the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip hop and wafting with the sweet aroma of marijuana. The newly inaugurated mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, is only beginning to implement his anti-fun initiatives against “crimes” like noisy portable radio, graffiti, and public drunkenness.
Two people, however, are missing out on the excitement: Luke (Josh Peck) is a socially uncomfortable teenage pot dealer with no friends, issues with his parents, and a colossal lack of confidence with girls. He trades weed for sessions with his therapist, Dr. Squires (Sir Ben Kingsley), whose much-younger wife (Famke Janssen) is slipping away from him.
The intergenerational duo set off on a crawl that takes them all over New York, where they encounter several of Luke’s “business associates,” including a Phish-following dreadlocked pixie (Mary Kate Olsen), a New Wave, keyboard-playing one-hit-wonder (Jane Adams), and Luke’s supplier (Method Man). Luke has long had an aching crush on Dr. Squires’ way-out-of-his league stepdaughter, Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby from Juno), and is stunned at his good luck when she returns his affections.
Propelled by an exuberant hip hop score, The Wackness captures the spell of 1994—a time of pagers, not cell phones; a time when Tupac and Biggie were alive but Kurt Cobain had just died. Funny and moving, The Wackness is an offbeat tale of two lost souls stumbling towards maturity.
Synopsis excerpted from the film’s official website, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
SNAP, CRACKLE, FLOP
Too many flips
And you well may flop;
Excessive shifting,
People shout Stop!
“Rethinking” brings
“Phony” charges;
Miffing sets in,
Gripe enlarges.
Transposing, altering,
Restyling, diversifying,
Refining, rewinding:
Folks’ll be cursifying.
Could be worse,
There’s another kind–
George W. Bush
Never changed his mind
My cousin, who runs the Petra Foundation, sent me this announcement of the Mario Savio Young Activist Award,which carries a cash prize of $6,000 to be divided equally between the prize-winner and his or her organization. Here are the details:
This award is presented to a young person (or persons) with a deep commitment to
human rights and social justice and a proven ability to transform this commitment into
effective action. The nominees should have demonstrated leadership ability, creativity
and integrity.
Specific eligibility requirements are:
* Under age 30 by 9/1/08 (preference will be given to applicants under age 26);
* Engaged in activism for social change, promoting the values of peace, human rights,
economic or social justice, or freedom of expression;
* Acting within the context of an organization, social movement, or larger community
effort;
* Considered an inspirational leader or motivating force by others in that context;
* Based in the United States , although work may be international in scope;
* Able to attend award ceremony in Berkeley , CA (Dec. 4; expenses paid)
* Preference will be given to candidates who have not been widely recognized and do
not have personal privilege or a strong institutional base of support.
This award honors the late Mario Savio (1942-1996), who came to national
prominence as a spokesperson for the Berkeley Free Speech Movement in 1964.
His moral clarity, his eloquence, and his democratic style of leadership impelled
thousands of his fellow Berkeley students to struggle for, and win, more political
freedom, inspiring a generation of student activism. Savio remained a lifelong
fighter for human rights and social justice.
NOMINATIONS ARE DUE BY JULY 31st, 2008. Nomination forms and additional
information are available at www.savio.org or e-mail savioatsonic.net.
The Park Slope Coalition for the Homeless is partnering with Common Ground to find solutions for local homeless in the neighborhood. Jake, the homeless man who sits in front of Ace Supermarket on Seventh Avenue, mentioned Common Ground to me. It’s mentioned in Pastor Meeter’s blog post and the article in the Brooklyn Paper.
So I’m wondering: what exactly is Common Ground?
On their website, they describe themselves as “an international leader in the development of solutions to homelessness.” They see to put the emphasis on affordable housing, outreach, identifying those in need, and prevention.
Founded by MacArthur and Ashoka Fellow Rosanne Haggerty in 1990, Common Ground is a pioneer in the development of supportive housing and other research-based practices that end homelessness. Common Ground’s network of well designed, affordable apartments — linked to the services people need to maintain their housing, restore their health, and regain their economic independence — has enabled more than 4,000 individuals to overcome homelessness.
Common Ground’s strategy has three components:
Affordable Housing. We build and operate a range of housing options for homeless and low-income individuals and families – housing that is attractive, affordable, well managed, and linked to the services and support people need to rebuild their lives.
Outreach. We identify and house the most vulnerable: those who have been homeless the longest, have the most disabling conditions, and are least likely to access housing resources. These individuals typically spend years cycling between emergency shelters, hospitals, and jails.
Prevention. We strengthen communities and prevent homelessness by addressing the multiple factors that cause individuals and families to become homeless.
A program called From Street to Home assists homeless individuals living on the street for a year or more to move into housing. I’m guessing that this is the program that is helping Park Slope’s homeless finally have a place to call home, the first step in any kind of human dignity.
I’m dying to hear.
The only thing on Brooklyn Vegan this morning is a slew of pictures of the Feist-looking women, who were at the show last night.
The city is considering a plan for bike sharing. Here’s an excerpt from Streetsblog.
After dropping hints that ‘Free Bike Fridays’ on Governors Island could serve as a prelude to something bigger, DOT today announced its intention to “explore the concept of bike share and investigate the feasibility of instituting such a program in New York City.” The agency has issued a Request for Expressions of Interest [PDF] to determine what a bike-share program in New York might look like, and how it would function.
“New York is a world-class city for biking, and we are looking to build a world-class bike network,” said DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan in a statement released today. If the agency likes what it receives by the September 15 deadline, the next step may be to issue a Request for Proposals. The RFEI itself does not guarantee that DOT will award a contract.
The New York Times had this report:
The city took a tentative step this week toward fulfilling the dream of a certain kind of urban idealist, saying that it will explore the possibility of creating a bike-sharing program that could make hundreds or even thousands of bicycles available for public use.
“This is a really big deal,” said Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for cyclists, pedestrians and transit riders. “In the realm of things you can do to boost bicycling in a city, bike-share is at the top of the list.”
The city asked companies and organizations interested in running a bike-sharing program to provide assessments of how it could work.
A similar program was started last year in Paris, using thousands of bicycles. A program with 120 bicycles was started earlier this year in Washington.
I just found out that the great Phoebe Snow, who wrote the 1970’s hit, Poetry Man, will be performing at the 2008 BAM Rhythm & Blues Festival at MetroTech on July 17th. There are other great acts, too, including Richie Havens with Carl Franklin, the boy who played Bob Dylan in the film, I’m Not There.
Whoa,
Phoebe Snow released a nearly perfect self-titled album in 1974, which included the songs, Poetry Man, Harpo’s Blues, Either or Both, I Don’t Want the Night to End, San Francisco Bay Blues, No Show Tonight, Take Your Children Home and others. It is the quintessential great ’70’s album. A perfect effort right up there with Blue, The Roches, and Rickie Lee Jones, The Wild, the Innocent, The E-Street Shuffle, and so many others.
She gave birth to Valerie Rose, a severely brain-damaged daughter in 1975, which took up much of her energy and dedication. Her daughter died at the age of 31 in 2007. Read her eulogy on Snow’s website. Snow will be at MetroTech next week!
Thursdays at 12noon
Free!
This free outdoor summer concert series features an eclectic roster of legendary trailblazers and emerging musical visionaries. Past performers have included Maceo Parker, Los Lobos, Jimmy Cliff, The Wailers, Odetta, Salif Keita, Amadou and Mariam, and The Spinners.
–Leela James
Thu, Jul 10 at 12noon
The first song on Leela James’ debut album, A Change Is Gonna Come, reminisces about Aretha, Gladys, and Chaka. Conceived as a throwback to an earlier era of soul music, it builds upon the legacy of 1970s soul singers while incorporating elements of contemporary R&B, funk, and gospel. Her dance floor beats boast lyrical relevance and thematic range that challenge her audience to dance hard and think harder.
–Phoebe Snow
Thu, Jul 17 at 12noon
Renowned for her multi-range contralto and jazz-scat vocal gymnastics, singer Phoebe Snow was raised in a household where Delta blues, Broadway show tunes, Dixieland jazz, classical music, and folk were played religiously. Her debut album, Phoebe Snow, produced the top five hit single, “Poetry Man,” garnering Snow a Grammy nomination and establishing her as a formidable singer/songwriter. A tour with Paul Simon, a Rolling Stone cover, and legions of fans followed. A genuine legend, she remains one of the most distinctive voices in popular music.
–Alice Smith
Thu, Jul 24 at 12noon
Alice Smith’s luscious four-octave range astounds with its remarkable control, versatility, and emotion. Her nuance and fine sensitivity to rhythm has made her one of the most promising female singer/songwriters to hit the local NYC music scene in years. Circling from rock to blues to soul to neo-soul and on, Smith’s style defies genre, never settling fully into one before a new chord, a new phrase, or a new verse changes the feel completely.
–Meshell Ndegeocello
Thu, Jul 31 at 12noon
The innovative bassist, composer, and bandleader Meshell Ndegeocello was one of the first artists signed to Madonna’s Maverick label in the early 90s. Her 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies, received three Grammy nominations, but it was a duet a year later with John Mellencamp on a cover of Van Morrison’s “Wild Night” that brought Ndegeocello universal acclaim. Today, she is among the most respected musicians in contemporary R&B, breaking musical barriers and crossing funk with jazz, psychedelic rock, rap, and world music.
–Richie Havens with special guest Marcus Carl Franklin
Thu, Aug 7 at 12noon
Born in Bed-Stuy, Richie Havens is gifted with one of the most recognizable voices in popular music—a fiery, poignant singing style that has remained ageless since he first emerged from the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s. His blistering performance at Woodstock helped Havens reach a worldwide audience of millions, and for decades he has used music to convey messages of brotherhood and personal freedom. Joining him is teenage blues guitarist Marcus Carl Franklin, who portrayed a young Bob Dylan in the 2007 fictionalized biopic of Bob Dylan I’m Not There appearing in a telling scene with Havens.
Just heard from someone at Brooklyn Food Not Bombs about this benefit on Friday July 18th. Here are the ‘tails:
BFNB, which has been active in the County of Kings for several months
now, serves veg meals to the homeless and hungry on Saturdays at 3pm
in Fort Greene Park. Help them keep the grub going to those who need
it!What: Benefit for Brooklyn Food Not Bombs
– Music performed by Joe Crow Ryan, Raygun, Brandon Barnett and the
Invisible Public Library– Raffles for prizes from Food Fight! Vegan Grocery, V-Spot Café and
Herbivore Clothing– $5 suggested donation
When: Friday, July 18. Doors open at 7; show starts at 8
Where: Vox Pop Café, 1022 Cortelyou Road (Q train to Cortelyou Rd.)
That’s right. Summertime and it’s time for some French cinema with a capital C. Enigmatic, dreamlike, baffling. The BAM Rose Cinema is presenting a series of films by the great French new novelist, Alain Robb-e Grillet. Here’s the blurbage from BAM:
A true career switcher, Alain Robbe-Grillet was a scientist until 30, when he began writing. After cementing his literary reputation (as a founder of the nouveau roman and an “immortal” of the Académie Française), Grillet changed gears again. We celebrate his final career move with four films he directed as well as his first screenwriting job—Alain Resnais’ enigmatic masterpiece Last Year at Marienbad. All new prints courtesy of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (except for Marienbad). All films in French with English subtitles and directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet unless otherwise noted.
Here is OTBKB’s monthly feature from the Center for the Urban Environment. This post is by Margaret Stevens, an Educator at the Center.
Although the cemetery of Brooklyn ’s Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church is a beautiful, historic place, it receives few visitors. The last time I walked through the cemetery, I spoke to one of those rare souls who find themselves drawn to its bucolic green. The woman had lived in the neighborhood for years, but had never been inside the cemetery before. She was struck by how beautiful it was.
"Why," she asked me, "are they letting the stones fall apart?" It was a good question, but I didn’t know the answer.
The first time I happened upon the cemetery myself, I was amazed to see Dutch inscribed gravestones from the 18th century, and was similarly puzzled by its stark disrepair. It seemed strange that such an historic and lovely place was being allowed to fall into ruin. When I looked the cemetery up online later, I found that there was almost no information about it. Googling yields only articles about the church to which it is connected. According to Brooklyn by Name, however, the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church is Brooklyn ‘s earliest church. The original church building, no longer in existence, was built in 1654 and Church Avenue , which used to be called Church Lane , is named after this building.
The cemetery lies in the heart of Flatbush, bounded by Church and Flatbush Avenues. In addition to being quiet, peaceful and green, it offers the New York experience of being in multiple worlds at once. You can sit and admire a gravestone decorated with crudely carved cherubs and skulls, and try to puzzle out Dutch words like “begraaven” and “huys vrouw”—and find yourself transported back in time. But a quick look across the street jolts you out of your reverie. Like much of the city, the old and new lie in close proximity to one another and your eye can just as easily lift to the bustle in front of Fabco Shoes or Wallgreens as to the rustling leaves and historic gravestones of its neighboring lot.
With juxtapositions like these, it is well worth a visit. Take the Q or the B to the Church Avenue Station, and walk East to 890 Church Avenue. – Margaret Stevens, Educator, Center for Urban Environment.