This tip comes from Eleanor at Creative Times:

This Friday is the last of our Spring “NY Matters” Film Series. The
film is “Lavender Lake”, one that I have been wanting to see for eons
myself and I am really hoping you will join me. The film-maker will
be there, and hopefully Michele de la Uz (Fifth Avenue) and Craig
Hammerman (cb6) as well, which could make for a very interested post
screening discussion. I will provide the cold lemonade (and beer!)

A Brooklyn community battles over
a suddenly desirable urban landscape in–

Lavender Lake:
Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal
a documentary by Allison Prete

Screening & Discussion
Friday June 13, 2008 7:30pm
@ SPOKE THE HUB
295 Douglass Street // btwn 3rd & 4th Aves. // Brooklyn, NY

This event is part of New York Matters: a Film Series about Community

For Further Information, Directions, & Reservations:
718.408.3234 // www.spokethehub.org
Suggested Donation: $5

One of my very favorite blogs, Callalillie,has decided after five years of consistent blogging, to call it quits. She was one of the first brooklyn blogs I ever read and I always enjoyed Corie’s intelligent musings about interesting things. Here’s her new “About” page:

My name is Corie Trancho-Robie. This blog was a place for me to share my thoughts about random life, ranging from personal to academic. I kept it up for about five years and then decided that it was time to move on. A bit about me, even though I am gone:

Two areas of my personal and academic study revolve around the social histories of Officer’s/Admiral’s Row at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the East River Homes [aka The Cherokee Apartments, aka The Shively Sanitary Tenements], located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I am also fascinated by the relationship between architecture and the social history of public schools, particularly in New York City.

I live in Red Hook, Brooklyn, with my husband and our four cats: Irving, Olive, Olga and Frieda. Irving has allergies, Olive gets picked on, Olga is fat and Frieda has a black coat with white panties.

From time to time I collect cat whiskers. If you find some, send them to me.

From time to time, Corie would post found photographs. I loved this feature of her blog, as well as her interest in urban history:

Landscape, Found

She found photos by someone named Arthur E:

We Found You on Beard Street

She once posted a picture of her grandmoher skydiving over eastern Long Island:

Grandmother in flight.

And she and photographer Alexis Robie of Lex’s Folly got married before our eyes:

Celebration, part I

We had a blast!

Callalillie, what can I say. You inspired me and I’m sorry to see you go. But I know you’re onto newer and even more creative things in your life. I look forward to whatever you decide to do next.

Someone left this as a comment. Back in January, McBrooklyn wrote about problems at LICH. I guess things have really heated up over there.

LICH…..Save our Hospital!!!!!!!!!!

Press conference Monday June 9, 2008 at 11 a.m.

Hicks and Pacific Streets.

As a result of gross financial negligece, possible unlawful practices, and the siphoning of LICH resources, this vital instituition is in a condition of near solivency. It’s closure would have a major adverse impact on the community.

come meet with Medical Staff and community leaders tomorrow.

From this week’s Smartmom in the Brooklyn Paper:

Can you believe it? It’s the first week in June and Smartmom still doesn’t know where the Oh So Feisty One will be going to middle school in September.

Blame the Department of Education, which revamped the admissions process mid-year and kept parents and guidance counselors in the dark.

All the parents are stressed out. Where, o where, will our fifth graders be going to school next year?

Is that too much to ask?

It’s all very dispiriting, and Smartmom is on edge. The guidance counselor at PS 321 told Smartmom last week that she’d heard from the Department of Education via e-mail that they were going to send out the letters on Friday.

“Look for it on Saturday or Monday,” the guidance counselor told Smartmom hopefully. She also said, “I don’t make any promises.” She looked frustrated, too.

On Saturday morning, OSFO pumped Smartmom for information.

“What time does the mail come? When does the mailman get here? Is the mail here yet?”

When Smartmom finally went down to the mailbox at 2 pm, there were two Netflix (“Flubber” and “Twitches”) and some junk mail in there. But no letter from the city.

Oh well. OSFO didn’t seem that upset. In fact, she didn’t seem to care all that much.

“Maybe it’ll come on Monday,” she told Smartmom, who was feeling mildly apoplectic. The topic didn’t come up again.

On Monday, Smartmom found herself on edge all morning. Even Hepcat was jittery thinking about OSFO’s letter. Smartmom ran into the wonderful Third Street postman in front of Miracle Grill.

“Do you have our letters from the Department of Education?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he told her.

“It’s like waiting for college acceptances,” she said.

He told her he’d get to their building in a couple of hours.

A couple of hours sounded like an eternity. Feeling buzzed with impatience, Smartmom called a friend whose son is in the fifth grade with OSFO.

“No letter today,” her friend, who also seemed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, told Smartmom.

Irked by that news, Smartmom checked the Inside Schools Web site to see if there was any information there. She found this:

“Andy Jacob of the Department of Education says, ‘Some middle school letters went out late last week. The rest should go out today. Parents should receive the letters this week. Parents expecting letters who haven’t received them by [June 9] should contact their child’s guidance counselor. Acceptances are due June 12.’”

June 9? Only some letters went out last week? Which ones? Was OSFO’s mailed?

She also heard that Councilman (and public school parent) Bill DeBlasio (pictured) was demanding accountability, but Smartmom was still mad. Why can’t the Department of Education just be honest? Why did the agency tell the guidance counselor when the letters would go out? Why do they put the guidance counselors in an untenable position?

Don’t they understand that Smartmom (like all parents) needs a mental picture of what her daughter’s life will be like next year?

It’s only fair.

Will OSFO walk the three blocks to MS 51, alma mater of her big brother Teen Spirit, or will she ride the Seventh Avenue bus to New Voices on 18th Street and Seventh Avenue?

Or will she be taking the Fifth Avenue bus to Explorations in Math and Science on Dean Street?

It just doesn’t seem fair that the city should leave Smartmom — and the kids — in the dark. What’s so hard about figuring out where hundreds of thousands of children go to school?

Isn’t that what computers are for?

OK, it’s a lot of kids. But they’ve managed in the past to get the information to parents before June.

OSFO and her classmates are in the midst of a major transition. In less than a month, they will be leaving the familiar world of elementary school and embarking on the rest of their lives.

And they still don’t know what September looks like. Truth is, they don’t seem to mind all that much. Maybe it’s making them feel more bonded to the present moment. Unlike Smartmom, OSFO seems able to exist without knowing which school she’s going to next year. It’s the parents who can’t seem to live in the here and now.

OSFO was more anxious about when she was going to get her bright blue fifth-grade T-shirt, decorated with the signatures of all her classmates.

She got it on Tuesday and she’s thrilled; a cherished item already reeking with nostalgia.

She was required to wear it to the fifth-grade field day this week. She may even wear it on their trip to Hyde Park to see the childhood home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

On the outside, the kids seem to be taking the transition in stride. It’s hard to know how they’re feeling inside. Are they freaking out like their parents? Probably not.

The mail carrier came and went — and no letter. Smartmom told OSFO, who was listening to the “Juno” soundtrack on her iPod, that there was no letter. She didn’t seem to mind. Her mother on the other hand…

• • •

Postscript: On Wednesday, Smartmom learned that OSFO would not be getting a letter at all. “She’s not on the list,” the PS 321 parent coordinator said. Smartmom felt weak in the knees.

It was some kind of computer glitch. She probably got into a school. Somewhere. Smartmom repeatedly told OSFO not to worry, that this will all work out, that it has absolutely nothing to do with her, that everything is OK.

OSFO seems totally fine. But Smartmom is agitated, annoyed, on edge, shaky.

Read this lovely piece from Seeing Green about his family’s garden. Here’s an excerpt:

After moving to Brooklyn, we created a garden in the back yard. It was concreted over like many brownstone back yards, a concept that has been a source of great puzzlement to me…why would you want an expanse of sterile hard scape, prone to flooding and ugly to boot, instead of a garden?

Well, in the five years we (ok, mostly my wife) have learned about gardening upkeep. The garden looks pretty good, though being in mostly shade, there’s not a lot of spectacular colors. But it’s quite a joy to live with, and I can say quite unequivocally that I am a fan of all things growing green (or yellow, or red, or whatever.)

It sounds like Marty Markowitz’s office is interested in hearing the stories of those with children with siblings and in-zone children, who were rejected from public Pre-K.

Here’s a letter from Mary-Powell Thomas, Director of Health and Human Services for the Borough President’s Office, about this information gathering that will hopefully bring to light what’s going on.

Dear Brooklyn CEC members,

Borough President Markowitz has received numerous complaints from
parents whose children were rejected for pre-K, even if the child
was zoned for the school, and even if a
sibling already attended the school. In some cases, parents have informed us
that their children?s out-of-zone friends were accepted, while the
in-zone children were rejected. (See statement below and attached.)

We would like to get a sense of how widespread this problem is in Brooklyn ,
and we?re asking for your help. Would you please reach out to the schools
in your district, and ask if they have heard from zoned parents who were
rejected for pre-K? Since the process was handled centrally this year, the
schools had no control over who was accepted or rejected. However, for most
parents, their first stop was their zoned school.

We would greatly appreciate your help in gathering this
information, especially the number of zoned students rejected at
each school and the number of zoned students with
siblings. Obviously, the sooner the better, as parents are anxious for a
resolution. And if parents in your district would like us to pass their
information to the DOE, we are happy to do so. We will need the parent?s
name and phone number, child?s name, sibling?s name and student ID
number (if applicable), and school for which zoned.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out
to me, to PEP representative Wendy Gilgeous, or to education
policy analyst Margaret Kelley (both cc?d here)

Many thanks for your help!

Mary-Powell Thomas

I don’t expect a letter since my daughter isn’t even on the DOE’s master list. But I am wondering if anyone got one of the letters that was supposedly mailed out last Friday or was it Monday or was it…?

The whole thing is so strange. I hope we find out tomorrow where OSFO is going to middle school.

This from NY 1:

Two activists made separate ascents up Midtown’s New York Times building today and were promptly apprehended by police.

Early this afternoon, Alain Robert, a French professional climber, ascended the north side of the 52-floor building before being arrested shortly before 12:30 p.m. He was charged with counts of reckless endangerment, making graffiti, criminal tresspassing and disorderly conduct.

Robert had no equipment, and only carried with him a green banner that he hung on the side of the building, which reportedly said “Global warming kills more people than 9/11 every week.”

Then, hours later, a second man who also had no climbing equipment began to ascend the Times building. This second climber seemed to have a harder time making the climb, stopped at various, but reached the summit of the building at 6:37 p.m. He then collapsed into the arms of policemen, who immediately apprehended him as crowds cheered him on below.

Sources who claimed to be friends of the second climber told NY1 that he is a 32-year-old resident of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, who has made similar climbs before.

The second climber was taken to Bellevue Hospital for evaluation…

First Wednesdays at Ceol is presented by OTBKB friend and fave Michele Madigan Somerville, the powerhouse behind this series and the Bloomsday reading at Ceol on June 16th.

Tonight catch: Sharon Mesmer and Michael Sweeney at 6:30. Come for the poetry, the Guiness, even some eats. The backroom at Ciol is a lovely spot.

Poet Sharon Mesmer is the author of the recently issued collections Annoying Diabetic Bitch (Combo Books 2008) and The Virgin Formica (Hanging Loose 2008). Michael Sweeney is the author of In Memory of the Fast Break will read.

First Wednesdays at Ceol
Poetry Reading
6:30p–8p, Wednesday, June 4th

Ceol

191 Smith Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201

347 643 9911

www.ceolpub.com

The bar is located on Smith Street between Baltic and Warren Streets in Cobble hill. Nearest subway stop is the F or G to Bergen Street.
The event is free.

Check out this pix and post on Clinton Hill Chill. The author reminisces about Stevie Wonder’s classic album, Songs in the Key of Life.

I also enjoyed this post, Pop was smooth from his top to his shoes about his dad and this post about his childhood bedroom window.

It’s not the letters but the guidance counselor and the parent coordinator at PS 321 (and maybe other District 15 schools) have the information. That’s right, they know what school has accepted your fifth grader for 6th grade.

This is the news we’ve been waiting for. Now I’m scared. Nervous, nervous. Should I call…

I won’t put any phone numbers up here. But call PS 321 and ask for the parent coordinator or the guidance counselor.

Young musical talent in Carroll Gardens (Pardon Me for Asking)

Yo Gawqueers; my eyes are up here (Blognigger)

This morning: hearing on Carroll Gardens Zoning Text Amendment (Found in Brooklyn)

Rose season (Brooklynometry)

Goodbye to a legend (Self-Absorbed Boomer)

Dog Beach Morning (A Year in the Park)

Here’s an excerpt from today’s Associated Press story about the parking vacation in Park Slope. With all these headlines about our parking situation, Slopers are afraid that parkers from everywhere will be coming to the Slope this summer.

And what about the moratorium on street cleaning? What’s that about. Isn’t summer the stinkiest time of the year when it comes to garbage.

NEW YORK (AP) — In this densely populated city, residents compete for jobs, apartments, subway seats, taxicabs, even treadmills in the gym.

So when the city announced it was suspending parking regulations in one of its most crowded districts, it inspired something close to pandemonium.

“Park Slopers rejoice!” blared a headline in the Brooklyn Paper about the lifting of restrictions on alternate-side parking in the borough’s trendy Park Slope neighborhood.

New York’s alternate-side parking rules require drivers to move their cars several times a week, as posted on a sign, so streets can be cleaned. The rules are suspended for 34 legal and religious holidays.
For car owners in New York, the ritual of moving one’s vehicle for street sweepers is as much a way of marking the days as the work week, and scofflaws are ticketed.
Until recently in most areas, curbs had to be clear for three hours, but the city is moving to reduce the length of time during which parking is prohibited to just 90 minutes — which means replacing thousands of street signs.

While the city switches Park Slope — so named for the gentle rise in land toward Brooklyn’s Prospect Park — to the 90-minute schedule, it is removing the old signs and suspending the rules until the new signs are in place.
During that period, which began May 19 and will run for several months, drivers can park anywhere alternate-side parking used to be in effect, for as long as they want.
Karen Cani, a 51-year-old carpet store employee who drives to work in Park Slope, could hardly believe the news when she heard it. She confirmed it from the city’s information hot line, then parked, with great excitement, in a previously forbidden zone.

Problem was, she miscalculated and was one block out of the territory where rules were suspended. “I come out, and I’ve got a ticket,” she said.

Verse responder Leon Freilich proves that you just can’t say enough about Hillary Clinton and her tenacious bid for the White House. Tonight she concedes or so I hear. But many of us will forever respect her stubborn resolve and her stamina. What a strong message to women everywhere.

Hillary is one amazing woman, who doesn’t back down—she’s one for the history books in so many ways.

F.P. BILL

If Hillary’s our next V.P.,

Wonders a wicked slanderer,

Will Bill still be entitled to

Be called the First Philanderer?

HOLD ON, HILLARY

Conceding prematurely sucks.

No need to be Al Gore redux.

ST. BERRA

Yes, Hillary may be behind

And far from being in clover

But recall Yogi’s good sense—

“It ain’t over till it’s over.”

DEM. TWO

Women demand

And will not stop–

Hillary has

To be on top

So I finally checked the mailbox at 5:30. I wasn’t very hopeful. Earlier in the day I spoke with a friend and she didn’t get The Letter.

I also saw this over at the Inside Schools blog:

“Andy Jacob of the Department of Education says, ‘Some middle school letters went out late last week. The rest should go out today. Parents should receive the letters this week. Parents expecting letters who haven’t received them by [June 9] should contact their child’s guidance counselor. Acceptances are due June 12.’”

So I was super pessimistic when I finally did check the mailbox when I got home from the office. In today’s mail: Being John Malkovich from Netflix and some junk mail. An American Express bill

Still waiting. Still waiting.

We met him at Gowanus Goes Green and he takes beautiful pictures all over Brooklyn. He doesn’t have a blog but you can see his work at his pbase site.

This is a photograph by Gary Sloman of the Carroll Street Bridge

I just got a rather long email from a representative of Park Slope Quality of Life Committee They are trying to organize a productive dialog with the FAA and the NY/NJ Port Authority. 

Their aim is, in their words, "to address the persisting noise pollution that’s generated from the low altitude aircrafts as they fly too frequently over Park Slope and other Kings County communities on their final approach into La Guardia airport.   We now have a golden opportunity to meet with representatives from both, the FAA and the Port Authority at the upcoming CB6 meeting on June 19." 
   
Here is a summary of issues, that are important to them:

LaGuardia airport opened in 1947 with only 4 runways and was built on 680 acres, a bit larger than our 526 acres Prospect Park.    Since it is situated in the midst of dense clusters of residential communities, it was meant to accommodate only small fleets of regional aircrafts with fewer than 50 seats.  Until 1998, LGA gradually expanded to handle up to 600 operations a day, however, in September of 2000; the FAA bowed to pressures from the airline industry and lifted previous caps and regulations to allow unrestricted number of regional flights into the smallest of the Tri State airports.    This new FAA regulation immediately added 600 flights a day into LGA.   Today, LGA airport handles over 1194 flights per one day with up to 88 operations in one hour.

…With the obvious limitations of runway space, the air controllers are under tremendous pressure from the airline industry and the FAA to land this ridiculous volume of traffic as fast as possible in order to limit congestion, delays and negative publicity, as we all remember the cover story article last summer in the NY Magazine that most likely had a direct effect on re-routing the majority of the air traffic over our area to limit the effects of the congestion and delays into LGA. 

As per The Port Authority official docs, the increase in aircraft volume created the necessity to use runway 4 and 13 as often as possible for arriving aircrafts.     As a result of this practice, 80% of approaching air traffic into LGA now pass over Kings County’s densely populated residential areas as early as 5:30 AM and as late as 1:00 am the following morning.     During peak hours they fly as low as 1800 ft altitude and at one minute intervals.   

We see very little evidence that the Air Controllers Organization is in compliance with the FAA guidelines to show “sensitivity” to residential areas.    As we all experience too often, the air traffic tends to fly over our homes on a single ground tracks for 20 hour flight rotation.    We often wonder why it’s not directed over commercial zones as the predominant flight-route.  Also, we see no evidence that the air controller’s exercise any sensitivity during curfew hours and instead, direct many flights over predominantly residential communities as late as 2 AM during the summer schedule.

The other issue that exasperates an already unbearable situation is that of  the more affluent Westchester Counties seem to receive preferential consideration in flight rotation patterns; whereas, Brooklyn communities such as Windsor Terrace, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Fort Green and Clinton Hill, the less affluent/ influential and maybe somewhat more tolerant residents are getting screwed.    We found Internet documents going back to 2006 that confirm lobbying efforts and meetings between the FAA and Connecticut/ Westchester communities that were represented by lawyers and a hired Aviation engineer from Colorado, arguing to reduce the Ocean approach into runway 22 via the Northern communities.  As far as we could tell, they’ve succeeded to reduce the rotations over their communities by half.

When aircrafts cross Brooklyn into runway 4 or 13 they fly at a much lower altitude and pass predominantly residential areas; affecting the well-being of over 4 million people.  However, with approach to runway 22 via the northern counties they fly over the Hudson River, cross over Westchester, and fly down a cluster of highways with the final descent occurring over the ocean.  This route is by far the least disturbing to residential areas since the low altitude occurs over the water.   Nevertheless, the fewer but wealthier northern counties campaigned vigorously against this approach route, and being as well connected and organized as they are, they got what they’ve asked for.

This should be a good incentive for us to have a formal representation and voice our concerns to the FAA and the Port Authority at the upcoming meeting on June 19 2008.   

Since August 1, 2007, at the time that the HDR expired, the FAA remains in litigation over the redesign of the NY/NJ/PH airspace and it seems that many of the concerns are related to the proposed congestion pricing and the delays at LGA.   It seems obvious to us that no matter how they slice it, congestion will remain a serious issue as long as the volume of traffic remains at present operations.   Required by law, the FAA has a site where anyone can submit comments reflecting interest or concern with the future airspace redesign.   We will have the link to that site on our website and the deadline to submit comments is June 16, 2008.  We should all submit comments about the environmental issues because so far, the majority of the submissions are from the airline industry and related interest groups that only push for policy that will increase the air traffic.

Continue reading Air Traffic Over Park Slope And The Noise Pollution it Produces →

The name of the play is Standing Clear and it bills itself as a comedy about the distance we put between us on the subway. This makes me think of the portraits that Ed Velandria creates on the subway.The people always look they are in their own worlds and disconnected from those around them. 

The show, Standing Clear, is the latest original work from Coffee Cup, a theater company who did another piece called Turning Tables (about restaurants, perhaps?) The show is playing at the Access Theater, 390 Broadway (at White Street). For more information and tickets, go to smarttix.com
                                                                   

Here’s the blurb: Their latest physical comedy, Standing Clear, is an ensemble piece that digs deep into the personalities we commute with each day. Have you ever imagined what a stranger’s life was like? Pressed right up against each other, but miles away, what happens when we let the strangers we see every day affect us? An ode to the NYC subway, Standing Clear shines a spotlight on the fleeting moments that we rarely recognize as being key to the essential beauty of New York.

I found this on the Inside Schools blog. I was looking for info about the middle school admission’s letters, which I didn’t find. But i did find this:

Apparently there is interest in establishing a Hebrew language charter school. It will be interesting to see what kind of brouhaha this causes. The following is by the Inside School’s blogger, Philissa.

I had sort of thought that the folks who last autumn were talking about bringing a Hebrew-language charter school to New York City would have been dissuaded by the controversy surrounding the Khalil Gibran International Academy, but apparently they were not. Next week, representatives of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life plans to submit an application to the DOE and the state Board of Regents to open a charter school as early as 2009, according to a report in the Jewish Daily Forward.

The proposal will be modeled after Ben Gamla Charter in Florida, which ran into some trouble early in this school year because its Hebrew language curriculum contained religious references. Considering that doing damage control for Khalil Gibran proved costly and embarrassing for the DOE and that the controversy continues to this day, it should be interesting to see what kind of reception the Hebrew school’s advocates receive.

Hugh Crawford is continuing to improve the Jamie Livingston site, which is much more robust and seems able to handle the large volume of traffic it is getting.

Big News: Many of the X pictures have been replaced with real photos, as have the pictures with Hugh’s finger and a date on a Post-it. Hugh thinks there are only a few missing photos now.

MyFox has an extensive article about Jamie and the site:

‘Polaroid a Day’ Chronicles a Life 

Jamie Livingston’s Photo Project Finds an Audience Online 

http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/ContentDetail?contentId=6654456

So does Time.com. Betsy found this post by Richard Lacayo on Time.com’s art and architecture blog.

Something about Livingston’s project reminded me that towards the end of his life the photographer Garry Winogrand shot rolls and rolls of film almost aimlessly, just pointing the camera out the window of his car. I think Winogrand was looking for whatever you find when you let go as best you can of the structures of art. (That was an idea that was also basic to what Robert Rauschenberg was doing sometimes.) And I ‘ve always been fascinated by an old movie by the Swiss director Alain Tanner, In the White City. Bruno Ganz plays an engineer on an oil tanker who jumps ship in Lisbon and stays there, periodically sending home to his girlfriend a home movie of his aimless days. By the time he makes the last film his life is dissolving into pure weightless existence, and the movie is just footage of streets going by underfoot.

After Livingston’s death, his pictures were organized by two friends into a show they mounted last year at Bard College, which is where he had begun the series when he was a student there. This kind of pure steady documentation can be very powerful. The Livingston project, because of the way it ends, is heartbreaking, but also wonderful in its attention to every little bit of life. The combination of easy digital photography and the Internet will create more of these sustained accounts of everydayness. (It already has. In the last few years a couple of guys made projects of taking a picture of every meal they ate for a year.) Flickr is a public library of photo diaries. But I’m betting that this one will always be one of the form’s monuments, built one little piece at a time.

As reported on WNYC, Gothamist, and elsewhere, this morning a construction crane collapsed on East 91st Street and First Avenue killing at least four two construction workers (update at 1:35 p.m.). Many more were injured. The FDNY is still searching through the wreckage.

Photo from Gothamist

Brooklyn Film Works is coming back for its third summer. Organizers will be showing films with a political theme in honor of the election year.

I don’t know if the schedule has been finalized but here’s what I do know. They’re showing 1776, The Manchurean Candidate (the original directed by John Frankenheimer) and The Candidate with Robert Redford.

As always, there will be a terrific short before the feature.

Brooklyn Film Works shows movies on a gigantic screen set up in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street. The movies will be on Thursday nights in July at dusk. Bring something comfortable to sit on (a blanket, pillow, or lawn chair). Bring a picnic.

More information will be forthcoming on the Old Stone House website and on OTBKB (of course).

At last night’s CB6 Land Use meeting, there was a presentation by the NYC Department of City Planning on the rezoning of the Gowanus, Here’s an excerpt from Pardon Me for Asking. And there’s more at Curbed, in a post titled, 25 Blocks Worth of Change in the Gowanus. PMFA has pix, too.

Another evening, another meeting….this time, it was the monthly gathering of the Community Board 6’s Land Use Committee. On the agenda was New York City Planning’s presentation of the rezoning framework for the Gowanus Canal.

Under discussion is a 60 block area between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens which is now zoned industrial. City Planning has broken the whole into five sub-areas and into different use-groups, including residential and retail use.

I don’t know about you dear reader, but every time I go to a meeting dealing with the future of the Gowanus Canal, the debate comes back to the most important factor: the pollution from decades of environmental abuse. Without fail, the subject was brought up by members of the audience as well as by at least one Land-Use Committee member.

A note from our friend Eliot.

New alternate side parking signs have started to appear on Eighth Avenue.  But there’s a surprise for anyone who thought that all that would happen was that the three hour street cleaning period would be shortened to 90 minutes.  Eighth Avenue between Third and Fourth Street was formerly in the Thursday- Friday zone.  The new sign shows that the alternate day on the east side of the street will now be Tuesday.

Some will remember the Joshua Light Show from the days of the Filmore East and West; they were the lighting effects designers for Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix and other great bands of the 1960’s and ’70s.

Well, Josh White is still at it. And he’s part of an interesting—and avant garde line-up—at Park Slope’s Issue Project Room this week. Wednesday through Saturday night at 8 p.m. $20 gets you in.

First up: Wednesday May 28th: Marina Rosenfeld, Ikue More, Lee Ranaldo and Zeena Parkins. Check the Issue Project Room site for the other nights.

Here’s the deal from WNYC. They are sponsoring a street photography challenge:

We want your street photography. The challenge: get out there and get clicking.

In the coming weeks, we’ll post notable images on Street Shots,
WNYC’s online festival of contemporary street photography. After June
20th, we’ll select one winner from this group’s photo pool whose work
and story will be featured on our website.

This week on Street Shots, head out on the streets with Bruce Gilden, an old school stalker of anonymous characters on the city sidewalks, and Sandra Roa, who focuses her lens on the lives of day laborers in Queens

Before joining our group, please read the rules for the contest.

In order to be selected for the online video feature, entries must be received by 11:59 p.m EST. on Friday, June. 20, 2008.
Your street shots must be taken within the 5 boroughs of NYC, and we
ask that you limit your entry to your 20 best street shots.

http://www.wnyc.org/streetshots

On May 28, Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion will perform an acoustic duo set at Union Hall in Brooklyn, NY. The duo tours in support of their debut collaborative album, Exploration, and Irion’s recently recorded solo effort, Ex Tempore. Show is at 702 Union Street at 7:30. $12/$14 bucks gets you in.

The granddaughter of legendary folk music icon Woody Guthrie, and daughter of Arlo Guthrie, Sarah Lee Guthrie and her songwriter-guitarist husband Johnny Irion (Dillon Fence, Queen Sarah Saturday) team up for an essential collection of unadorned American roots songs on their critically acclaimed debut duo release, Exploration. A follow-up to their simultaneously released 2001 solo records (Sarah Lee Guthrie, Unity Lodge) on Arlo’s Rising Son label, Exploration marks an inspired contemporary folk-rock album drenched with sweet caressing harmonies, high-lonesome folk melodies and an incredibly rocking rhythm section including members of The Jayhawks, Son Volt and Tift Merritt’s band. The release is produced by Gary Louris (The Jayhawks) and Ed Ackerson, and mixed by Tom Rothrock (Beck, Elliot Smith), featuring 11 original compositions and a previously unrecorded Pete Seeger composition, "Dr. King."

The Jamie Livingston frenzy continues. It was on the Huffington Post yesterday. The story continues to travel the world. Here it is on a Greek blog. To see 18 years of Polaroids by this special artist, go here.

Σε ένα μυστήριο ιστότοπο βρέθηκε μία συλλογή από φωτογραφίες Polaroid,
ήταν τραβηγμένες σε καθημερινή βάση (Μία κάθε μέρα) από τις 31 Μάρτιου
του 1979 έως τις 25 Οκτωβρίου του 1997. Παρατηρώντας τις φωτογραφίες…
Μείναμε έκπληκτοι από αυτό που ανακαλύψαμε.
Οι φωτογραφίες αρχίζανε συστηματικά από το 1979,με φωτογραφίες φίλων,
πικνίκ, δείπνων και διαφόρων άλλων δραστηριοτήτων. Δείτε μερικές
φωτογραφίες από τις 23 Απριλίου 1979 ( Ο Φωτογράφος πρέπει να είναι ο
άνδρας στα αριστερά της εικόνας).

This photo is by JL from May 27, 1983.

Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Paper

Last year, Smartmom organized the first “Edgy Mother’s Day” reading
at the Old Stone House because she noticed that quite a few women were
writing about motherhood in interesting and non-sanctimonious ways.

It
was a great reading — a nearly three-hour marathon of stories about
life in the trenches of mommydom featuring Susan Gregory Thomas, author
of “Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Mothers and Harms
Children”; New York Magazine writer Amy Sohn; Sophia Romero, author of
the novel “Always Hiding” and the blog “the Shiksa from Manila”; Mary
Warren, author of the blog “Mrs. Cleavage’s Diary”; Alison Lowenstein
of “City Baby Brooklyn”; poet Michele Madigan Somerville and others.

About a month ago on a rainy Sunday on Seventh Avenue, Smartmom ran into Sohn, who proposed doing another Edgy Mom’s reading.

Smartmom
didn’t think twice. Despite the fact that she was busy organizing the
Brooklyn Blogfest and writing a book proposal, she said, “Sure” without
batting an eye.

Smartmom was pleased that the Edgy Mom Reading
concept has a life of its own. And she knew that Sohn, the ultimate
edgy mom, would be the perfect partner in crime.

Within days, Sohn had managed to attract a top-notch group of writers.

The
May 15 reading, at the packed Montauk Club in Park Slope, was a
stunning success. Christine Clifford, who stars in a one-woman show
called “BabyLove” at the 45 Bleecker Theater, entertained and even
shocked the crowd with a monologue about, yes, masturbating while
breast-feeding.

Midway through the monologue, Smartmom spotted the Oh So Feisty One sitting in the front row.

“I can’t believe there’s a girl listening to this,” she said covering her eyes.

This
embarrassed the 11-year-old OSFO more than Clifford’s tales of
vibrators and breast milk and she walked out of the reading with her
aunt, Diaper Diva. Smartmom was sorry that Clifford made a fuss. OSFO
probably would have stuck out the evening and even enjoyed Amy Benfer’s
Juno-like story about giving birth to a daughter at age 16 and deciding
to raise her alone — with the help of her mom, dad, and various
friends. Her daughter, who is now 18, was in the audience — there was
not a dry eye in the grand parlor of the Montauk Club.

Smartmom was up next with a column about the similarities between raising kids and growing mushrooms.

Afterwards,
Smartmom introduced the always-controversial Sohn, who regaled the
crowd with a hilarious tale about her ill-fated efforts to get her
daughter into Brooklyn Heights Montessori pre-school.

Poet
Michele Madigan Somerville delighted the crowd with her sassy, virtuosic
poem about Elmo. Sophia Romero, read a wonderful excerpt from her blog, "The Shiksa from Manila, and Louise Sloane read from her memoir, “Knock Yourself Up: A Tell-All
Guide To Becoming a Single Mom.”

Finally, Lenore Skenazy read her
column from the New York Sun about the time she let her 9-year-old ride
the subway. For Smartmom, it was thrilling to see her hero laugh along
with her own words.

“Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn’t
strike me as that daring, either,” Skenazy said. “Isn’t New York as
safe now as it was in 1963? It’s not like we’re living in Baghdad.”

After
the reading, Sohn and Smartmom raffled off goody bags donated by
Babeland, the sex toy store that will open in June on Bergen Street
near Fifth Avenue.

Smartmom isn’t sure if Skenazy appreciated the gift. As she left, she handed it to Divorce Diva and said, “I don’t need this.”

Smartmom doesn’t think she was offended. A few days after the reading she sent this note:

“The
event was stupendous in that everyone (except me) wrote about something
so intimate, so openly that it made anyone worried about being TOO edgy
feel like, ‘Well, at least I’m not hiding my vibrator under the
doormat!’ It also made me realize that there are at least seven great
women writers out there, bringing everyday life into the world of
glittering yet supremely accessible prose — and poetry.”

Over drinks after the show, Smartmom and crew tried to define “edgy mom.”

“She’s
a mom who views imagination (both living it and imparting it) as
integral to child-rearing, which flies in the face of the holy ‘mom’
idea, whereby one is supposed to grow out of being imaginative,”
Somerville said.

“She is unconventional; she views the world
through a different pair of lens than what she was raised with,” said
Romero. “She is resolute in this pursuit and does it with a great sense
of conviction, purpose, and doesn’t need to apologize to anyone, least
of all her own mother.”

Romero added that an edgy mom isn’t afraid to expose her frailties and vulnerabilities to her children.

“I allow them to express their anger, frustration and disappointment with me without fear of recrimination,” she said.

Best
of all, like Smartmom, Romero watches “Gossip Girl” with her daughter.
Unlike Smartmom, she still snuggles with her teenage son and watches
re-runs of “Star Trek Voyager.”

Teen Spirit would rather die.

Later
that evening, Smartmom explored her goody bag from Babeland. Inside,
there was a hot pink vibrator, a mojito and peppermint-scented candle,
a container of Babe Lube (whatever that is), and a silver, egg-shaped
vibrator with a controller that looks like a dimmer switch.

Smartmom
isn’t sure what all this has to do with being an edgy mom, but she does
know that a major tenet of edgy momdom is that a woman’s desire for
creativity and pleasure doesn’t stop when she has kids.

In fact, it’s a great time to explore who you really are.