Richard Grayson, author of Who Will Kiss the Pig: Sex Teens for Kids, filed this report about the Afro-Punk festivities at the BAM parking lot. Check out his blog for pictures, too.

On Saturday evening we spent a few fun hours at the launch party of the fourth annual Afro-Punk Festival, held at Afro-Punk Skate Park — the temporary site at the BAM parking lot at the triangle of Flatbush Avenue, Lafayette Avenue and Ashland Place, a place for which great plans have been made and abandoned. At least for these few days, it’s a lot more exciting than the parking lot where in the waning days of the Nixon administration we HQ’ed our gold ’73 Mercury Comet when we worked as a delivery boy for the around-the-corner Midtown Florist — whose banner ads still grace the lot’s south side fence.

Since 2005, the Festival has celebrated the music, film and fiercely independent individuals that are the lifeblood of the AP community. We entered just before 6 p.m., when the band onstage was nearing their last song, a rendition of the still-fresh “Purple Rain” just as a few people pulled out their umbrellas (and, yes, one lady’s was indeed lavender) to ward off what was slightly more than a drizzle but which soon gave way to dry skies for the remainder of the night.

For a while we stood next to a tree on the narrow cobblestoned divider between the bike ramp and the wider eastern sk8er paradise with lots of ramps to challenge the boys (of all ages and ethnicities, but we saw only boys) who stood on a four-foot platform, looking as if they were contemplating the perks of being a wallflower before they took off with their boards to speed through the course and often the air.

During the evening we witnessed several near-collisions, one pretty good crash between a twentysomething white dude and a 9yo black kid which led to no injuries, and at least one ‘frohawked teen back wrapping an ace bandage around his bleeding knees. But 99% of the skaters were just having fun.

(Courtesy Myrtle Shuffle, where Alice B. has other great pics up)

Meanwhile, Bulldog Mack — Bulldog Bikes CEO James (“Jimmy Mac”) McNeil, the man who brought BMX out of the ‘burbs and into Bushwick — did the calls from the stage as his crew of bikers performed stunts so amazing and scary that a couple of tough-looking guys near me covered their eyes with their hands, screamed and turned away as daredevils like Jai Rodridguez and Koolie (sp?) defied gravity with what looked like 15-foot leaps into the air.

Before last night, we never knew it was possible to b-boy on a bike but we definitely saw the equivalent of breakdancing as the bikers made mid-air moves so deft that old Evil Kneivel couldn’t have imagined it. (And yeah, some bikers flew high over other bikers.)

The Apes, a guitarless garage rock foursome from D.C., took the stage, with one of their number in an orange wool face mask with a red hunting cap looking and sounding like a cross between Darth Vader and Subcomandante Marcos, only nerdish. But when they began to play, it proved to be a long-haired white girl, keyboardist Amanda Kleinman with her distinctive garage organ.

With Erick Jackson’s burning bass and Jeff Schmid’s bombastic drumming and vocalist Breck Brunson (mostly known to us as an imaginative visual artist) with a glassy tremolo, the quartet performed some wild-sounding numbers, varying from proto-metal to sci-fi-tinged new wave. They got the building crowd on the west side of the skate park, us included, moving pretty good.

We had to move next to the Atlantic Terminal for a bathroom break and a quick snack, and when we returned onstage was — well, the word legend is tossed around too lightly, but onstage was the guy in the hip-hop history books back in da beginning in da Bronx when even we were youngsters — Afrika Bambaataa, who along with Grandmaster Flash and DJ Kool Herc, comprised up the holy trinity of hip-hop.

With some of his Zulu Nation onstage with him, Afrika Bambaataa proved that he still knows how to put on the most amazing show with DJ skills honed over three decades. (You can catch him this very afternoon at Central Park’s Summerstage!) Oooo baby, he makes it look as easy as 1,2,3, A,B,C.

When Afrika called for ladies to come onstage and dance, it took a few “Where they at?” prods — and one frustrated “This ain’t Connecticut, is it? Brooklyn is a bunch of dope people!” — before a couple of young women got up and made a few nice moves.

Anyway, the legendary (yes) DJ had us signed, sealed and delivered all through his set. Thank you, Afrika Bambaataa, for kindly being yourself again.

James Spooner, the director of the film documentary Afro-punk, came onstage to thank Matthew Morgan and others, and to announce the films in conjunction with the Festival being presented by BAMCinematik, including the New York premiere of his own White Lies, Black Sheep.

On the Flatbush Ave. side of Afro-Punk Skate Park, we watched the artists with their paintbrushes and spray cans do their creative work on the mural project of the Trust Your Struggle Collective, a group of Bay Area- and NYC-based visual artists, educators and friends dedicated to social justice and community action through art.

Brooklyn’s the start of their summer cross-country 2008 mural tour ending at the Galeria de La Raza San Francisco in late August. They’ll be in the coolest of cities, including the Central Phoenix congressional district where Republican Richard Hussein Grayson is running in the Sept. 2 primary to represent Arizona in the U.S. House.

There was much else to see: the pimped-out black Toyota (a sponsor of the Festival) at the north entrance; the kids running around with light sabers; the table with the “Brooklyn for Barack” sign at which everyone over 18 who wasn’t registered to vote, did; and the cool styles and outfits of nearly everyone but us in our old blue Brooklyn College T-shirt.

The standout performer we didn’t know about before proved to be Miss Janelle Monáe, who made a diva-worthy entrance amid white smoke and strobe lights and stunned the now-packed-in crowd with her stunning music. The fireworks we’d seen from a couple of miles away the previous night paled in comparison.

As one right-on reviewer noted, not only does she have that
undefinable “it” quality that stars are made of, she also serves up a fresh, genre-blurring style that people are craving right now. She’s is like James Brown, Judy Garland, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Andre 3000 rolled into one, and seeing that all play out live on stage is thrilling.

Amen. Janelle sang a surprisingly old-school rendition of “Smile” (“Smile though your heart is breaking”) that had us in tears and would have had our grandmothers in tears too, if we could have brought them back to Brooklyn last night. Diddy knows what he’s doing with Janelle Monáe, and if we’d had one of those “Imagination Inspires Nation” posters some in the crowd waved, we’d have been waving them too.

But after Janelle’s fabulous encore, it was after 9 p.m. and deep fatigue was setting in our arms and the rest of us, as we’d gotten home far too late on Friday night — well, Saturday morning — from the delightful July 4th fireworks party at the Cadman Plaza highrise apartment of our good friend, the author/psychologist Susan O’Doherty (Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman’s Guide to Unblocking Creativity; advice columnist at the blog Buzz, Balls and Hype). So we reluctantly gave into our need for sleep and left the launch party early, not even daring to think about attending the afterparty right near Dumbo Books HQ in Williamsburg. We were taking the G to our bed instead.

But the Fourth Annual Afro-Punk Festival is going on until July 13, and if you were unlucky enough to miss last night’s party, you can check out their schedule and catch some films, music, etc., which is bound to be worth seeing. We’ll be back for more, too. Isn’t life wonderful!

From today’s Times, this piece by Alex Mindlin. The writer even includes a comment from an OTBKB reader.

EVERYONE agrees that Park Slope is no Flushing or Howard Beach, not one of those neighborhoods where the whine of descending jets is as familiar as birdsong. But ever since 2000, its residents have complained of an increase in noise from low-flying jets bound for La Guardia Airport.

The battle has been fought on many fronts. A neighborhood group, the Park Slope Quality of Life Committee, posts pictures of low-flying planes on its Web site, along with a petition asking the Federal Aviation Administration to limit air traffic to La Guardia and vary the approaching flight patterns.

Local message boards are packed with stories of rattled windows and disturbed sleep. “I have airplanes flying low and loud over my house every two minutes almost all day,” wrote a resident on Brooklynian.com.
Yvette Clark, who represents the area in the House of Representatives, has herself brought the complaints to the F.A.A. and to the Port Authority.

Finally, on June 19, it seemed as if these long-lived troubles might be over. According to an account in The Brooklyn Paper, a Port Authority official told residents at a meeting of Community Board 6 that an airplane guidance beacon known as a VOR would soon be moved from Rikers Island to La Guardia, supposedly changing the path of landing planes and solving Park Slopers’ problem.

“The din could die down as soon as next month,” reported the newspaper, which called the development a “eureka moment.” Residents were delighted.

Last week, though, Arlene Salac, an F.A.A. spokeswoman, said that a resolution of the problem was not to be. “That has no bearing on the approaches to La Guardia,” Ms. Salac said of the beacon, adding, “Procedures are not going to change.”

That leaves the neighborhood’s disgruntled residents to continue their fight. But it also leaves residents of other neighborhoods, as well as skeptical Park Slopers, to indulge in a little airplane-noise one-upmanship.
“Gimme a break,” wrote a commenter on Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, responding to a post about “unbearable” airplane noise. “I grew up in Flushing right in the path of planes landing at LGA. Move to a farm if you can’t handle noise.”

Composer Louis Rosen just wrote in to say:

Dear Neighbors,
The wonderful poet (and my current collaborator), Nikki Giovanni, will join Capathia and me at Park Slope’s Community Bookstore this coming Tuesday evening, July 8, at 7 pm, to celebrate the release of our new CD, ONE OUNCE OF TRUTH: The Nikki Giovanni Songs on the PS Classics label.
Nikki will read a some poems; Capathia and I will sing some songs from the new record; the three of us will sign CDs and/or books; refreshments will be on hand and a good time should be had by all. Hope you can come
Warm Regards,
LR

It’s the 4th of July: Independence Day and Louis Armstrong’s birthday.

Don’t miss the 24-hour Louis Armstrong marathon on WKCR, Columbia University’s legendary radio station, all day on 89.9 FM.

The Brooklyn TKTS Booth at the MetroTech complex is set to open July 10th. The booth, like the two in Manhattan (Times Square and South Street Seaport) will sell left-over day of performance tickets at half price.

With 40,000 workers in that area, thousands of students and now plenty of tourists, this booth could be quite successful. The booth will also have tickets to Brooklyn arts events at BAM and elsewhere.

Gersh Kuntzman, Editor of the Brooklyn Paper is looking for a photography intern for July and August. Check out this video.

So Josh Milstein, one of the Park Slope 100, for his dedication to (and interesting emails about) the The Modernist Book Club has apparently moved away from Park Slope. I assume he’s gone off to grad school somewhere. If anyone knows, let me know.

Seems that the group, which meets at the Community Bookstore every month or so, will continue. I just got this email from the CB with this reassuring news.

Neither heat nor humidity stays our readers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds through the reading list. Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, spurred on our discussion last Wednesday, June 25th. Daniel Valdez, a dedicated reader of The Long Goodbye, helped ease the transition as Josh Milstein, our long-time and deeply appreciated facilitator, has now moved on.

Next book? Next time?

We will meet on July 23rd at 7:30 p.m. to discuss Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows (1957). Community Bookstore has ordered copies for your convenience, so be sure to drop by to pick up your copy. We have voted on West’s book in months past, but it has never won the prize! This time, the book made it through our rigorous selection process (we vote early and often) and squeaked by on a two vote margin. The edition on order is a reprint from the good people at the New York Review of Books (NYRB).

The NYRB website describes the book in this way:

“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.”

He lives in the Slope, he reads OTBKB and he makes 30-second videos about his life. His video blog is called 30: Second:Life and you should check it out.

The blog is about my day to day interactions with the world and set to music. I shoot tons of footage with a small video camera, edit it down to 30 seconds. Much of the footage takes place in the Slope.

I love the idea of it. 30 second glimpses into a life set to music. It’s fun to hear the music he selects, and the images he edits together.

As a former film/video editor, it always amazes me how much can happen in 30 seconds; you can really tell a story if you do it right

In 30:Second:Life, I love the casual/random nature of the images that communicate something poignant and real. It’s fun to see the familiar one’s, fun to guess (Hey that looks familiar, I know where that is, where is that?).

30_second_day :: 05_06_08 from Mr. Thirty on Vimeo.

Cautious good news from Craig Hammerman of Community Board 6, Here’s his press release:

Thanks to City Council, our Borough Presidents and the 59 Community Boards, the budget that was adopted by the City Council this past Sunday night does not include any cuts to the Community Boards.

The City Council restored all of the money that the Mayor had proposed cutting from the Community Boards’ budgets. Just a reminder, the Mayor proposed an 8% cut to the CB’s budgets, which would have amounted to $16,000 per Board out of its $200,000 annual budget. All tolled, the savings was less than a million dollars ($16,000/CB x 59 CB’s = $944,000) out of a $59.1 billion budget, or 0.0016 % of the total City budget. This was not an effort to save money – the savings were insignificant compared to the size of the City’s budget; this was a direct assault on the Community Boards, and the community’s voice in government. Fortunately, our institution was spared. For now, at least.

The Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget did confirm this morning that our fiscal year 2009 budgets will remain in tact. However, they also added that the Mayor’s proposed cuts still exist as taking effect in fiscal year 2010 and beyond. This means that if the Mayor does not change his fiscal year 2010 budget, we’ll have to do the same thing next year and fight to defend our budget. We have some time to convince the Mayor of the value of a strong community voice in government. His 2010 Executive Budget isn’t due out until January 2009.

Frankly, I think it’s a shame that we have to pull energy and resources away from serving our communities to fight a crippling budget cut when we are stretched as thin as we are in the first place. We need to convince the Mayor to rescind these cuts permanently from future budgets. We also need to have a serious conversation with the Administration about how the Community Boards’ budgets could be increased to compensate for never having any cost of living adjustments, and how the City could provide more in-kind service support to the Community Boards. There are ways the Administration could support the Community Boards that wouldn’t cost them a dime. If only they had the will.

I look forward to seeing my colleagues in the Bronx next week to talk about the Community Boards’ role in City government in the context of potential Charter changes. Celebrate the day, and remember to thank those who supported us. We will likely need their help again to defend the community’s voice in government. We won a victory today, but the war rages on.

I continue to be excited about this fun event at the Community Bookstore next week:

Nikki Giovanni, world-renowned poet, will join Capathia Jenkins and Louis Rosen for a party for One Ounce of Truth: The Nikki Giovanni Songs at the Community Bookstore on July 8th at 7 p.m.

Giovanni will read poems, Louis and Capathia will perform and they’ll all discuss the process of making an album of songs with words drawn from Nikki’s poetry.

Of course, they’ll also be glad to sign copies of their CDs and books for all who attend.

Here are the ‘tails:

Community Bookstore on Seventh Avenue between Garfield and Carroll
July 8th at 7 p.m.

They will be at the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble on July 9th at 7 p.m.

Every time I go over there to shop at Urban Outfitters, I check on the status of the upcoming Trader Joe’s at Atlantic and Court. Not yet, not yet. But today, the last day of June, Brownstoner says otherwise. Check his site for pictures…

The crew working on the Trader Joe’s space on Atlantic and Court has
boarded up the building’s windows, and the only view inside is through
a couple cracks in the plywood. A reader sent us an email on Thursday
saying work has picked up over the past week, with new equipment like
fridges and freezers arriving daily. This was how a small section of
the future grocery looked yesterday afternoon.

Producer Anna Becker says that Life in a Marital Institution "is a feel good date night for married people because they’ll feel better about their marriage after hearing about James Braly’s." You can catch this fun show at the SoHo Playhouse.

James Braly spent over twenty years researching life in a marital institution. He’s performed his autobiographical stories on Marketplace, NPR, and at The Whitney Museum, Long Wharf Theatre, and The Moth, where he is the only two-time winner of the GrandSLAM and a featured performer on The Moth/TNT National Story Tour.  His monologue, Life in a Marital Institution was featured at the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, opened this February in New York City at 59 East 59th Street Theaters, and will transfer to SOHO Playhouse starting on June 26, 2008.

He lives on the Upper West Side, I think. But the director of the show, Hal Brooks, lives in Brooklyn. Here’s what he thinks of our fair borough:

I moved to Brooklyn reluctantly after nine years in a tiny 10’x15′
studio on Prince Street.

Needless to say, I’ve much more space.

Initially I moved to a beautiful 1 bedroom in beloved Brooklyn heights—but have recently relocated to the newly-built State Renaissance on Schermerhorn.

I love it. Its five minutes from all the essentials: across the street
from the A/C train, a five minute walk to Smith Street and a stone’s
throw (or a quick bike ride) to BAM, the park and the promenade.

It’s really more downtown Brooklyn than it is Boerum Hill – but that’s changing rapidly as more and more development occurs.

Favorite nearby spot, especially now: blue marble ice cream. Whoa.

Don’t forget about El Pequeno Artista’s Puppet Show on Sunday. Shows are at 11, 1:30, and 4. It’s Spanish/English, and it’s made for the smaller set.

El Pequeno Artista, is a bilingual arts center for children in the South Park Slope. They have a full schedule of summer activities/programs for kids.

249 20th St., @ 5th Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215

UNTIMELY

The folks who disdain watches can be counted on

In every clime

To pester you and me throughout the day with their nagging

“Got the time?”

Here’s the latest Smartmom from the award winning Brooklyn Paper:

Smartmom’s days are numbered at PS 321. After 11 years as a very involved parent at this illustrious school, she’s is about to say adieu.

Sure, 11 years is a long time to be in elementary school and Smartmom is good and ready to graduate.

Sort of.

But it’s a big deal, a major transition and, truth be told, Smartmom is feeling very shaky about the whole thing.

Transitions. They are an essential part of the big shebang, integral to the process of growth and moving on. You can’t live with ’em or live without ’em.

Smartmom can still remember the transition from Teen Spirit’s private kindergarten to first grade at PS 321. This was back in 1997, the olden days before Elizabeth Phillips was principal

On the first day of school, Hepcat, Teen Spirit and Smartmom — with 6-month-old OSFO in the Baby Bjorn — walked nervously to that first-grade classroom carrying a huge shopping bag full of paper towels, hand soap, Kleenex and crayons (as requested by the school).

Smartmom worried that Teen Spirit might feel overwhelmed by the raucous public school atmosphere. But it was Smartmom who felt overwhelmed.

Walking out on Seventh Avenue, Smartmom felt pangs of anxiety. What would Teen Spirit make of this new school? Hadn’t he grown used to the precious, child-centered pedagogy and specialized wooden toys of a local Montessori school?

His transition wasn’t seamless. Transitions never are. But by Halloween, Teen Spirit had settled into life as a public school first-grader. And Smartmom adjusted, too.

Soon she realized how lucky they were to live around the corner from such a warm and well-run school, where learning is focused and fun and parents and administration work closely together to make the school even better.

When OSFO started kindergarten at PS 321 in 2002, she was well adjusted by the time she went trick-or-treating on Seventh Avenue dressed as a Disney Princess. She liked her cubby, choice time, read-alouds, and playtime with friends in the playground.

It was Smartmom who missed Beth Elohim and the mommy friends she had made over there. Fortunately, some were also sending their children to PS 321. But others she didn’t see as much anymore.

New friends. New routines. Change is fun — but also scary and sad because it means that Smartmom is aging and her children growing more independent. Despite all the grief outsiders give today’s Park Slope stroller moms, Smartmom is sadder and sadder that she’s not one anymore.

The same year that OSFO started kindergarten at PS 321, Teen Spirit started middle school at MS 51. Now that was a big change: 1,300 kids in three grades; a different teacher for every subject. That first day, Teen Spirit even walked to school by himself.

But Hepcat and Smartmom were dying of curiosity. They walked over to Fifth Avenue to spy on their son at lunchtime.

“Who is that woman in the camouflage pants that he’s walking with?” Smartmom asked Hepcat.

They maneuvered themselves to get a better look from across the street. “That woman” turned out to be a friend of Teen Spirit’s from fifth grade who had grown tall over the summer and had reinvented herself as a grunge-goth-punk rock-grrrl-girl.

Once again, it took a while for the family to get used to Teen Spirit’s new school. They never really figured out their way around the building or got to know many of the other parents.

But they adjusted. Eventually.

A few years later, it was transition time again. Teen Spirit went to a high school in Bay Ridge, which was too far away for lunchtime spying. And after two years, he switched to an even better high school in Manhattan.

Both parents knew to keep their distance, but Smartmom’s affinity for the school motivated her to volunteer as an advisory parent, which is something like a class parent (a term that would surely mortify any high school kid).

Smartmom kept her affiliation on the down low (she’s not sure if Teen Spirit ever found out). Secretly, she attended PTA meetings and got to know the school and a few other parents on her own. Naturally, Teen Spirit avoided her when he saw her in the hallway. And she acted like a perfect stranger.

So, it’s transition time again. OSFO finally found out that she will attend New Voices middle school on 18th Street near Seventh Avenue. She will take the Seventh Avenue bus to school and get to know a new group of teachers and friends (and parents; Smartmom hopes she likes the parents).

OSFO hasn’t lost any sleep over it. She’s excited about going to middle school and doesn’t seem nervous about riding the B67 or navigating a brand new social scene.

Naturally, it’s Smartmom who’s having the hard time. Will OSFO feel comfortable up there? Will she make new friends? Will she like her teachers? Will everything work out?

It’s Smartmom, who is afraid to leave her wonderful school around the corner, a one-of-a-kind place with a special community of friends and neighbors. It’s been the heartbeat of her life for so many years now.

But now, it’s time to let go.

The Blog that Must Not Be Named weighs in on Red Hot II

I was full from a huge lunch, told my wife I’d probably just have a bowl of cereal, and so she passive-aggressively says she needs Red Hot, when she damn well knows that I can’t fully participate. She doesn’t even LOVE it like I do… wtf? Does anyone have any marital adv-

Oh, right the review:

We order by phone and then go pick up – that’s our jam to save 4$ on delivery. We call up, people on phone different (yeah I can tell, all asians don’t sound the same to me you RACISTS – jk, they sound exactly the same, not sure if they were the same people or not)

Anyway, they were nice, they got the order easily, BUT to be fair, we weren’t ordering the sesame tofu, which always seemed to throw the old guard off their guard, since they needed to figure out how to combine sesame sauce with bean curd on those little computers.

Anyway, food was ready in about 15 mins.

Went to pick it up and in the little foyer there were a couple of teenagers waiting – funny moment when some confused Jewish chick outside was like "I thought they cloooosed?" and the teenagers said "they OPENED" and some crazy white dude walking in goes "Yeah what the FUCK – don’t you read the BLOGOSPHERE?!?!"

I asked the woman behind the counter what the deal was – she said NEW OWNER, SAME CHEF.
Jesus, it was packed, they really have to be retarded not to be able to carry this into a successful business, no matter what their rent is.

Anyway, food was much HOTTER than usual, which is a good sign. It was clear that it’s the same Chef, same look and feel, tasted much fresher than usual like a the usual red hot on Prozac. However, I wouldn’t deduce from this that it will stay this way forever – I mean, this was opening night – lets taste it Thursday night when that same Beef is still kickin around.

Anyway, so far so good – for all intents and purposes, Red Hot is back.

Nikki Giovanni, world-renowned poet, will join Capathia Jenkins and Louis Rosen for a party for One Ounce of Truth: The Nikki Giovanni Songs at the Community Bookstore on July 8th at 7 p.m.

Giovanni will read poems, Louis and Capathia will perform and they’ll all discuss the process of making an album of songs with words drawn from Nikki’s poetry.

Of course, they’ll also be glad to sign copies of their CDs and books for all who attend.

Here are the ‘tails:

Community Bookstore on Seventh Avenue between Garfield and Carroll
July 8th at 7 p.m.

They will be at the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble on July 9th at 7 p.m.

On Park Slope Parents this morning, this note from a Red Hot I customer:

Seems like they’re back… this time as Red Hot II (now that’s
creative). From the conversation I overheard outside the door this
evening it’s the same chef. I didn’t keep an old menu so I can’t
compare – the phone number on the new menu is (718) 369 -2577.
Feedback please from whoever is the first to order…

Don’t miss this acclaimed performance at St. Ann’s Warehouse in DUMBO.

The run of TR Warszawa’s Macbeth is coming to an end soon — Sunday June 29 is the Closing Night for Macbeth and there are still some tickets left for the Closing Night Celebration (7:30PM reception, 9PM performance) at $175, to purchase CLICK HERE.

If you can’t make the celebration, please take a chance at our rush line tonight Fri June 27, tomorrow June 28 or Sun June 29 – people have been lining up starting around 5PM and tickets will be distributed at 8PM. Once we run out of $20 RUSH tickets we sometimes have a few extra $35 tickets to sell that have opened up at the last minute.

Hope to see you at the Tobacco Warehouse this weekend.

A half-day today and then we’re through. With elementary school, that is. Two children, eleven years at PS 321: so much to remember, so much to cherish about our time there.

And yet, like any rite of passage, it feels right, too. The end of this and the beginning of something else.

So what is that something else?

Middle school for OSFO; and a new school, new parents to know, new projects for Smartmom. It’s the great blank slate now, the future without elementary school.

There were tears at the fifth grade graduation. Speeches by fifth graders pulled at Smartmom’s heart as did the principal’s words (“as people you understand the importance of working together and making each other look good,” she said); the sight of a girl helping to carry an American flag down the aisle and the spiritual the kids sang facing their relatives from their seats.

Marty Markowitz, as always, delighted the children with his speech about eating right and getting exercise. He asked them: Any doctors in the house, any lawyers, any future borough presidents?

And as he has done for years, he ended the speech with a Star Wars style light saber in his hand, “May the force be with you.”

We sat in the balcony. Teen Spirit napped, Hepcat snapped pictures, Smartmom skipped around to empty seats visting friends. It was a long presentation and it was very hot in the steamy auditorium of John Jay.

But it was the end: of something so powerful and sweet that went by in a flash. Why, it seems just yesterday we walked into that building for the very first time flushed, excited, and apprehensive; ready to begin the adventure.

School is just a place and just one of many places where childhood happens. But it consumes so much time and so much energy for the entire family that one is grateful if that experience is something to savor.

And this was, this school, this part of our lives. And so it ends.

James Braly, the original edgy husband and dad, opens in Life in a Marital Institution (20 years of monogomy in one terrifying hour) at the SoHo Playhouse at 15 Vandam Street in Manhattan. The show runs from June 26 until August 31.

My forever friend, Anna Becker is the producer and I trust anything she puts her heart and mind behind. The director, Hal Brooks, lives in Brooklyn.

Even the New Yorker Magazine loved the show: “James Braly’s wry hour-long monologue interweaves the story of his twenty-year marriage—a union rife with ‘tantric conflict’—and Braly presents it winningly.

COFFEE CIRCLES

I went berserk

At Le Cirque

When out came the bill

A staggering pill

For what I havva,

A cuppa java.

Historians and scholars

Who follow dollars

Please note for the thrifty

The bill said nine-fifty.

A teacup of joe

For that much dough!

Ready to kill,

I chewed up that bill,

I swallowed that bill

Convulsing with rage

In a half-mad stage.

Without missing a beat

Or shifting his feet,

The waiter said, Sir,

I know you’ll concur

There now must be

An extra fee–

Ten dollars is the rate

For the bill you ate.

So was I a jerk

For going berserk?

Due to weather the film and fireworks has been CANCELED for tonight. It will be rescheduled for a future date.

I saw Andy Bachman,rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim, at the fifth grade graduation of our children. “This is a great day,” I think he said. We shook hands. I checked his blog to see if he’d written anything about his feelings about the event. Instead I found this. This is an excerpt, go here for more.

One of my kids has taken to calling me Norman, my middle name, for my mother’s late father, a kindly

gentleman of Wisconsin, murdered in 1939 and thereby truncating my own mother’s youth and grandmother’s aspirations for the Wonderful Life.

“Norman, how was Shul?” she’ll ask.

Or, “Norman, how’d the Mets do?”

She refers to Milwaukee’s baseball team as the Brew Crew. God bless her.

She quietly sneaked this new moniker–Norman–into the family lore, here in Brooklyn, intuiting among our clan here that an oral remnant of a bygone era would somehow bind us in ways even we parents weren’t clever enough to figure out.

From the mouths of babes, as they say.

Yesterday I got this email from Jessica, who works with Rooftop Films, a summer film series dedicated to showing new, independent films in unique outdoor locations in NYC:

This Saturday, June 28, we will be
presenting “Neo-Lounge” on the roof of the Old American Can Factory in
Gowanus, Brooklyn. The night starts at 8:30 with live music from Artanker
Convoy and the film starts at 9:00.

In the aftermath of the SARS outbreak in Beijing, Joanna Vasquez Arong,
the Phillipines-born filmmaker, immerses herself in a small group of
daring and desperate ex-patriots who banded together at the decadent
Neo-Lounge nightclub. This gathering place showcases those who come to
Beijing for a different life—it strays from the “routines” of other
places, and it has a transient nature in which “life is day to day…half
good, half bad.” This film is about people in transition surviving
desperation and confusion in a place marked by transition itself, and it
shows Beijing in a new and unique light through the eyes of two foreigners
in the performance and nightclub scene.
More information about it can be found here:
http://rooftopfilms.bside.com/2008/films/neolounge_rooftopfilms2008

This is an incredible story: another positive outcome of the pioneering ways that people are using their blogs in neighborhoods around the city. This from NY 1. The New York Times has the story, too. They called Bay Ridge Talks a blog, but it’s really a message board like the Brooklynian.

Police said Wednesday that they teamed up with neighbors of an alleged Brooklyn drug house to take down the operation.

Prosecutors say three brothers sold crack, heroin and prescription pills and let their customers hang out at adjacent houses on 93rd Street in Bay Ridge.

Police were investigating the ring for years, but could not bust it because they never witnessed any transactions.

Finally, fed-up neighbors brought complaints of related rampant criminal information to their community board.

They were able to share tips with police, which led to arrests.

“We came together through a local web forum and there were many neighbors that were feeling much the same fear and issues that we were already observing,” said area resident Jason Miller. “A lot of people got together and said we have to have a plan.”

“We find it to be very effective, we meet very regularly with the community people affected,” said Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

Five defendants were imprisoned with charges of conspiracy and drug sales. As of Wednesday night, a sixth suspect was still at large.

Bay Ridge Talks isn’t exactly a blog. It’s more like a message board, where neighbors can carry on discussions about a variety of topics.

Well, this story takes the cake. And the credit for bringing down a crack house in Bay Ridge. The story was first reported by the Brooklyn Eagle. And the Times in its story has some great quotes. It seems that the DA is happy to take the credit:

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, announced the arrests on Wednesday, praising old-fashioned police work — “a fairly uncomplicated, unsophisticated operation.”

The suspects were identified as three brothers, Joseph Terrone, 54, Michael Terrone, 47, and Ross Terrone, 45, as well as Alan Reilly, 61, and Erica Raffone, 31. All remained jailed on Wednesday. The brothers and Ms. Raffone face conspiracy, drugs and weapons charges, while Mr. Reilly was charged with selling a controlled substance. A sixth suspect remains at large.

But the Times’ seemed to really get that it was the bloggers of Bay Ridge Talks that really delivered the goods.

Mr. Hynes said most of the drug activity occurred inside the house, making it hard for officers to penetrate. “I don’t think anyone recognized it was as expansive as it was,” he said.

But the bloggers seemed to know, sometimes chronicling daily activities in detail, misspellings and all: “Several more crack heads came out of 346 93rd street,” one woman wrote last year, “and one was trying to steal a ladder while i guess another which i could not tell was male or female, who may have lived their claimed ownership to the ladder and they begain to fight.”

At noon the playground began to clear. Indoors, parents were clustered around the bulletin board looking at the photos of the school’s teachers, conjuring up the face of next year.

Report cards, test scores, Parents clutched in their hands the familiar manila folder, the shopping bags of school work, art work, clay sculptures.

Some fifth graders cried. So were very “whatever” blase. One moms eye make-up was blurry and black from the sadness and the humid heat: giving her raccoon eyes and a genuinely mournful glaze.

Another friend said, “You know, we’re moving…”

OSFO’s second grade teacher looked on in disbelief that this class was moving on to the next big thing. It was her first year of teaching when she had OSFO and her friends. She was so new at it all; her first.

Smartmom ran into OSFO’s third grade teachers, a spirited woman with a large, warm face. “So this is it,” she said to Smartmom and gave her a hug. Smartmom has nothing but good memories for the way this teacher understood OSFO’s learning style; how she guided with a gentle hand and helped OSFO achieve good things. Tears were just under the surface for that encounter.

A hug and they moved on.

Smartmom held her shopping bag filled with single flowers wrapped in purple tissue paper. There was one for the crossing guard, one for the parent coordinator, who’s been at the school as long as Smartmom has.

One for Teen Spirit’s first grade teacher. “It all goes back to you in the lovely floral dress you wore on Teen Spirit’s first day of kindergarten. Thanks for everything,” Smartmom wrote in a note. She is now assistant principal.

One for OSFO’s teachers this year; one for the guidance counselor who is retiring and was so helpful getting the middle school muddle unmuddied.

But then the parents moved away, the backyard emptied in the light rain. Smartmom didn’t know what to do with herself. As she has done all year, OSFO was already on her way to a friend’s house.

Smartmom stood alone, looking for someone to talk to, someone to share news of next year’s teacher, next year’s path.

And then it dawned on her…

She has no business at this elementary school anymore. Sure, she could hang around at drop off, pick up, watch the parents of younger children as they move through the steps of elementary school. She could even pretend that she has a child going there.

But what would be the point?

Smartmom is no longer part of this place that engaged in her so many ways for 11 years. Without a child there, it is time to move on. Time to catch the bus, as it were, the B67. Hop on the bus, Smartmom.

Next stop: New Voices.

Councilmember Bill de Blasio emailed me the following statement about the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which will cut projects including 19 subway station renovations. According to de Balsio, the cuts will hit Brooklyn hardest. 15 of the 19 station renovations that will be cut are in Brooklyn: 10 on the D line, 4 on the N line, and 1 (Smith and Ninth Street) on the G and F lines.

“Brooklyn deserves its fair share of transit improvements. How is it that we have millions of dollars to fund major projects like the Second Avenue subway, but can’t find the money to fund Brooklyn’s station renovations? The MTA is talking about raising fares again, but have failed to deliver on their promise of regular, on-time service and stations and platforms that are in decent condition. When the fares went up last March they told us we’d be getting these improvements. The bait and switch game must end. Brooklyn deserves better.”
The current $23.7 billion plan includes spending for new buses and train cars, and major projects like the Second Avenue subway. If the agency raises fares in 2009, it would be only the second time in the 104-year history of the subways that there would be back-to-back fare hikes. The last and only time it happened was in 1980 and 1981.

In December 2007, Councilmember de Blasio proposed a Bill of Rights for all of New York City’s subway riders. The Subway Riders’ Bill of Rights include regular, on-time service provided on trains and platforms that are kept safe and clean, working public address systems in all stations, and immediate and real-time notification of service changes and advisories with accurate information on alternative means of transportation in situations where service is interrupted.

WAITING FOR LEFTY

McCain or Obama?
Let’s be candid:
The next president
Will be–left-handed.

Though they differ
At the core
Each was born
A strict southpore.