So much talk, talk, talk about the fourth grade tests.

Parent-to-parent: How is your kid doing? How are you doing? Don’t you hate it? Is your kid anxious? How anxious? etc.

Teacher-to-parent: The kids are really doing great. It’s a tough week. They’re getting through it. We really feel for them. We’re very proud of them. etc.

Parent-to-teacher: My kid is a wreck about the test. What should I do?  etc.

Parent-to-kid: Don’t worry. You’ll do great. Just take it slow. Don’t worry if someone else finishes before you. Check your answers. Get a good night’s rest. Eat a good breakfast. Take your time. I know you’re going to do the best you can. I LOVE YOU.

Kid-to-parent: We’ve been doing test prep for months!! I can’t wait for this to be over? Will I really be left back if I don’t do well on this test. Will I get into a middle school if I don’t do well on this test? Will you still love me if I don’t do well on this test? Will we celebrate when this is over?

Here and there: One teacher told her students to come up with a positive mantra for themselves. To say that over and over to quell their anxiety.  One mom taught the kids in her son’s class meditation.

Overheard: "Mr. Hess, Mr. Hess,  How did I do on the test today? How did I do?  (Mr. Hess, a very beloved and gentle teacher at PS 321, explained that he has no idea and that it will take months to score the tests…He probably assured him that he did his very best…)

Overall: it’s done. The kids survived. Resiliently. Time to get back to being a kid. Hey, does anyone remember what it means to be a kid?

I just found out that there’s a weekly anti-war vigil in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall, organized by Brooklyn Friends, the Quaker organization in Brooklyn. Here’s the info.

Brooklyn,
NY — Weekly vigil, Tuesdays, 5:30 – 6:30 pm, Joralemen St. in front of
Brooklyn Borough Hall; Brooklyn Friends, 718-850-0809, vicrog35@Earthlink.net,
www.afsc.org

Continue reading WEEKLY ANTI-WAR VIGIL IN FRONT OF BROOKLYN BOROUGH HALL →

This from NY 1:

President Bush’s plan to send thousands more soldiers to Iraq drew protesters out to Times Square Thursday.

About 200 people gathered at the military recruitment center to
protest the war, chanting “1, 2, 3, 4 — bring ’em home, stop the war.”

The rally was organized by United For Peace and Justice but many anti-war groups were in attendance.

“I think its just more fuel for the fire,” said one protestor.
“He’s been told by generals and elder statesman that what we’ve been
doing in the past isn’t going to help. So why would 20,000 more troops
help?”

“Bush is wrong,” said Judith LeBalanc of United for Peace and
Justice. “He was wrong when he started the war, but now many people
Republicans and Democrats, the majority of people in our country, the
majority of people in Iraq, want the troops to come home. Adding more
troops only creates more crises and more dying.”

There was a heavy police presence but everything remained peaceful. 
            
            
       

75-year old Arthur Wood created the stained-glass windows in the now infamous Broken Angel building located at 4 Downing
Street in the Clinton Hill. They are made from all sorts of detritus: salt shakers, ashtrays and coffee table, bottles. From the inside, you can see the windows’ bright colors.

Yesterday, in a conference with the Brooklyn Supreme Court, the
Woods agreed to dismantle
the building’s 40-foot rooftop structure, the main violation.

FROM THE NY TIMES: The Woods
have also entered into a tentative agreement to share ownership with a
local developer, Shahn Andersen, who would turn most of the building
into condominiums, according to a spokeswoman for City Councilwoman
Letitia James. The Broken Angel, as the house is known, would include
some form of community space, along with living and studio space for
the Woods.

Wood wanted to raise the
money to bring the building up to code and keep it for himself. But he
was running out of time and afraid the buildings department would tear
down his home.

The Dorit Baxter spa in New York is offering Blackberry Thumb and Tech
Neck massages to help you release the muscular tension brought on by
your gadgets. I have both conditions.  Have started to use a mouse instead of the pad.

Is your Treo making your fingers ache and your face break
out with zits? The city’s high-end spas are selling fixes for such
ailments as “BlackBerry thumb,” “tech neck,’’ and “cell-phone clog.’’
“These are repetitive-stress injuries that people used to get in their
fifties and sixties; now they are afflicted in their twenties and
thirties,’’ says Dr. Thomas Scilaris, an Upper East Side orthopedic
surgeon. Dorit Baxter spa on West 57th Street offers “Tech Neck” and
“Tech Hand” treatments, recommended weekly at $59 per half-hour for
each, which combine hot compresses and acupressure to relieve
inflammation and “pins and needles.”

And I found it on Boing Boing: calendar of pin ups made completely from typography. Created by Taylor Lane, a UK design firm, the calendar includes ‘Miss Bodoni,’ ‘Miss Franklin Gothic,’ and ‘Miss
Univers.’"
Link

Continue reading MORE FUN FOR FONT FANS →

Does anyone have ideas for this reader whose daughter is organizing an event to raise money for homeless teens. Please send ideas to Susan.knightly@verizon.net or you can post as a comment.

We wonder if you could tell us the leading charitable organization for
homeless teens in Brooklyn . Our violinist daughter is organizing a
benefit concert of highly talented performing teens and is researching
the best places to donate funds to help homeless teens. We are a Park
Slope family and our daughter is 13! She has contributed to CHIPS for
many years and is narrowing this fund raiser to target homeless teens.
Please send ideas to: Susan.knightly@verizon.net

One suggestion I have is the New York Writers Coalition, (NYWC):

NYWC is one of the
largest community writing organizations in the country. NYWC creates
opportunities to be heard, through the art of writing, for formerly
voiceless members of society. Each year, we provide hundreds of free,
unique and powerful creative writing workshops throughout New York City for at-risk youth, adult residents of supportive housing, the formerly incarcerated, seniors and others. 

.

Barbara Rushkoff seems to have removed her post about her husband’s Christmas Eve mugging from  A Girl Grows in Brooklyn on Babble.

You can’t blame her. I’m guessing she was disgusted by the firestorm it set off. It’s obvious that the recent hoopla about Doug’s Christmas mugging post has caused both Barbara and Doug to rethink personal blogging.  

When I mentioned the mugging story on my  blog, there were a bunch of  needlessly nasty comments.

Still, I find this all very interesting. Doug’s site is, afterall, a promotional site for the brand of author Douglas Rushkoff. That’s pretty much what a blog is. Still, he has every right to feel violated.

Nothwithstanding, he did become a minor sensation overnight.

He was probably already famous enought. He has written ten really interesting sounding books (see my post I Agree with Douglas Rushkoff for a list of his books). But still. Not a bad marketing strategy. Maybe I should get mugged, write about it. Then I’d get an agent (did I just write that?).

Some say all publicity is good publicity. But people are nasty – especially in the anonymous sphere of blogging comments, where it seems to be all about personal attacks. Blog comments can truly be the dark side of blogging. The flip side of the free expression that blogging represents.

I totally agree with Doug on that point and I understand why this unwanted attention has made his family feel vulnerable to the anonymous personal jabs that
constitute unmoderated discussion these days. Here’s an excerpt from a recent post:

I’ll be closing out this blog and moving over to an open source something-or-other in the next weeks.

I’ll
also use this occasion to change the content, here. Although I’ve
usually made it a rule not to post anything personal here, I let that
slip recently, sharing my thoughts and feelings after being mugged on
my front stoop. I see that this was mistake, as it ends up making this
space more about me than about whatever it is I have to contribute. And
it also makes my family vulnerable to the anonymous personal jabs that
constitute unmoderated discussion these days.

There are enough
personal narrative blogs out there to fill an Internet, so I’m not
worried about hurting the supply. Meanwhile, sharing personal
information just gives more fodder to those who tend to turn all
discussions into personal attacks. I remember a while ago, my
suggestion that putting ads on a blog makes the blogger vulnerable to
market forces ended up leading to long tirades about the fact that I
take money for writing books. And while that’s quite a non-starter (my
books are certainly vulnerable to market forces), my using this space
for anything personal leaves the discussions open to such digressions.

See you on the other side.
 
 

Here’s an excerpt from a recent post from Douglas Rushkoff’s blog. The post is called Sock Mobs — and I was very interested in what he has to say. And please — no nasty comments.

The Internet can be a nasty place – particularly online discussions and
the comments sections of blogs. But is the recent increase in online
hostilities really an indication of some groundswell of American rage,
or are there just a few bad eggs determined to make it look that way?

here’s a relatively new phenomenon occurring online these days – an
illusion of populist group hostilitiy I’ve come to call "Sock Mobs,"
after the "sock puppets" people use to feign multiple identities in
online conversations. It works like this:

An anonymous poster
picks a fight with his presumed enemy. Whether or not that enemy
responds, a number of other posters appear to chime in – agreeing to
whatever the accusation might be. "This guy is a commie." "This doctor
is a quack." "This guy wants Israel to be abolished." "This professor
is corrupting college students." The accusation comes along with
twisted supporting evidence. Every once in a while, an underinformed
but real person agrees with the accusations; after all, it appears from
the posts that this enemy of all things good and proper really might be
a threat. All this makes it look like there’s a lot of upset people.

Doug has 10, count em 10 books out. Wow he’s prolific. They include Cyberia,
                Media Virus, Playing the Future, Nothing Sacred: The Truth about
                Judaism, and Coercion, winner of the Marshall Mcluhan Award
                for best media book. Rushkoff also wrote the acclaimed novels
                Ecstasy Club and Exit
                Strategy and graphic novel, Club
                Zero-G. He has just finished a book for HarperBusiness,
                applying renaissance principles to today’s complex economic landscape,
                Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out. He’s now writing a monthly comic book for Vertigo called Testament.
               

Gowanus Lounge has a progress report on construction work at the Park Slope Armory. He’s also got pictures. He’s got a photo, too. Go to GL for more story.

Work is going forward on the Park Slope Armory, and the facility seems to be on target to reopen as an athletic, recreational and education center in September. Local City Council Member Bill de Blasio estimates that the project’s cost will be $20 million
"when the smoke clears." (The original cost was said to be $16 million,
but Mr. DeBlasio used the $20M figure, so we’re not clear what wasn’t
included in the original estimate or what has changed.) The Armory is
located on Eighth Avenue between 14th and 15th streets. The renovated
facility will include track and field, basketball, volleyball, tennis,
gymnastics, badminton, boxing, fencing, judo, table tennis, tae kwon
do, handball, weightlifting, wrestling and aerobics. The renovated
facility also retains a women’s shelter. An RFP is going out soon to
select an entity to run the facility and everyone’s still trying to
find a balance between individual community users and use by schools
and youth leagues. The big redo is a partnership between Take the
Field, a nonprofit, and the Departments of Education (DOE) and Homeless
Services (DHS). The result should be a spectacular community facility
in the massive 110,000 square foot space.

President Bush is set to announce his decision to send more troops to Iraq in a speech this week. This inter-faith service at Old First Church in honor of Martin Luther King comes at a perfect time. Come see leaders of many faiths put aside their differences and come together against the war.  It’s very inspiring.

Martin Luther King Holiday Observance: Citizen MLK
"Remembering Dr. King with Heart and Mind"

Jeremiads by this generation of clergy & leaders on inequitable and unjust policy abroad AND at home

Sunday, January 14th 4 PM sharp
Old First Reformed Church 729 Carroll St. @ 7th Ave., Park Slope

For more info: contact Brown Memorial Baptist Church at (718) 638-6121

or Old First Reformed Church at (718) 638-8300

Observe the MLK Holiday with our Pastors, Rabbis, Imams and leaders as they reflect on Dr. King, clergyman, countryman and war critic.

There will also be a discussion of the best way to practice democracy as a person of God. Stand together as one human family and tell our elected officials: Stop Recruiting Our Kids for Iraq.

Join us in a call to action concerning peace, justice and the re-distribution of our tax dollars for our local needs.

Featuring: Citizen MLK Juniors An Interfaith Youth Presentation.

Participating congregations:  Memorial Baptist Church, First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn, Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, Congregation Beth Elohim, Old First Reformed Church, Concord Baptist Church of Christ, Council of People’s Organizations, Islamic Mission of America,“ Dawood Mosque, First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn Heights and others

You probably know all about Barbes, the go-to place to hear slavic soul and all varieties of western and eastern European music often with accordians and horns.

Now there’s the Jewish Music Cafe at 401 9th Street – right across the street from Barbes. Of all places. They’re both between 6th and 7th Avenue. But it makes so much sense now with Barbes, Colson Bakery and now this.

Klezmer, Israeli Trance, Hasidic Rap, Avante Garde Jazz – it’s all there with Hebrew beer, cheesecake, and Kosher cappuchino. 12 bucks gets you in.

This Thursday, programmer Elie Massias presents two bands that new music legend, John Zorn raves about. 8:30 p.m. Shows most Saturdays at 8:30. Check it out.

Alan Arkin, one of the many great things about Little Miss Sunshine, is a Brooklyn Boy.

AP: You were born in New York. It’s hard to imagine your voice coming from anywhere but Brooklyn.

ARKIN: Hey! (in a Brooklyn accent) We moved to L.A. when I was about 11, but it never rubbed off. I never felt comfortable there. I understand it [in New York] more. There’s anger in both places, but it feels much more lethal in L.A. than it does here.

AP: What do you like about living in Santa Fe, N.M.?

ARKIN: It’s a small town. I go to restaurants there and I know everybody in the restaurant. I know all the artists who are waiting on us.

AP: Community or camaraderie with actors is also important to you. It’s something you stress in the acting workshops you teach.

ARKIN: The supportive aspect of it frees you to do better work than you ordinarily would. A lot of people I’ve known in film protect their own turf, but I don’t think it really does the work any good.

AP: How is that camaraderie between a cast built on a set?

ARKIN: Smaller, less comfortable trailers and a significant rehearsal period. We had that on “Little Miss Sunshine.” I can remember vividly the movies that had it and I feel like it shows. You often have little more than a cursory ‘Hello, how are you’ relationship with the people you’re having intimate scenes with — which is nuts. You can’t do it. It’s phony.

Areyou a font fanatic? Do you like Bodoni, Helvetica, Times Roman or maybe you’re more the Geneva type of person (excuse the pun)?  Then this exhibition and event is for you. Hey, all you graphic designers out there—

Explore the hidden meaning of typography at the
“Letter as Image, Image as Letter" exhibition at the
Society of Illustrators. Tonight, artists like Gerard
Huerta, who created the lettering for AC/DC, and Michael
Doret, who designed the Knicks logo, will discuss their
work. You’ll never listen to “Back in Black” the same way
again.

Exhibition, through Jan. 27, Society of
Illustrators, 128 East 63rd Street, (212) 838-2560.
Talk, 7:30 p.m., Cooper
Union, Wollman Auditorium, 51 Astor Place, East Village, (212) 353-4195; free.

Flight 001 is a fantastic store where you can buy all manner of travel accessories: suitcases, maps, airplane comfort items, passport cases, guidebooks, etc. The shop started on Greenwhich Avenue in the West Village and recently opened a shop on Smith Street. Haven’t been yet but hear that it’s bigger than the original shop. Can’t wait to see. Here’s a New York Times interview with someone associated with the shop They also have stores in LA, San Francisco and Chicago and online.

What’s the right way to pronounce the store’s name?
Flight One, which was the first commercial trip around the world—a Pan Am flight in the fifties and sixties. Our stores are set up to be retro-modern, like right out of old Pan Am footage. This new Brooklyn store is a little bigger.

How have the recent flight regulations affected what’s in demand?
Our three-ounce clear-bottle sets in a clear bag are a huge hit, as are Search Alert locks. It’s a government-approved combination lock to which all airports have a universal key, so they can open the lock without snipping it. There’s a display that changes color from green to red if they’ve opened your lock.

What kind of luggage do you own?
Mine is Rimowa, a German company that I love. They’re the guys that started the original money-and-drug-laundering aluminum suitcases. Now they’re made out of a super-lightweight plastic composite that doesn’t bend, which is good because airport luggage-handlers are like gorillas.

Best travel guide?
The new Wallpaper guides have good destinations and comprehensive info, and they look nice.

What do you do for in-flight anxiety?
I take a Valium and do a shot at the bar. Klonopin works really well, too. I’ve made the mistake of taking it too early, passing out, and drooling all over myself while everyone else was boarding. So, twenty minutes before boarding is a good time to take it.

Everyone’s talking about a gassy odor in Manhattan.

Con Edison, the fire department and multiple city agencies are investigating the source of a natural gas odor throughout Manhattan this morning.

Hundreds of reports of the smell have been flooding the 911 system since around 9 a.m

And what about those dead birds in downtown Austin, Texas?

They caught my eye in the far right corner of the jewelry display  case in  Diana Kane’s new store on Seventh Avenue near Berkeley Place.

I was shopping for a friend’s 50th birthday present and wanted to get her something very special. There were a lovely pair of coral earrings designed by Diana Kane herself that I was mulling over.

Still, my eye kept wandering over to to three gold and silver items that were about the size of a cigar. In fact, I wondered if they were for holding stogies. For a moment I thought they might be tampon holders. Then I figured out what they were.

"Are those…?" I asked the saleswoman.

"Yes…"

"Vibrators, right?" I said.

"They come in gold, platinum, and steel."

"Wow." I said.

"They’re very quiet, very discreet," she said. 

"How much are they?" I asked. 

"$195-$395 dollars. I can’t wait to sell one to someone," she said. "They’re waterproof, too."

"They’d make a great Valentine’s Day gift," I said.

"You know, you’re right," she said.

I thought of the bright pink and blue plastic vibrators they sell at the Pink Pussycat on Fifth Avenue. These are so, so much…classier.  I found more information about them on Diana Kane’s website: You can buy it on-line. Or go ahead, just buy it at the store…

THIS FROM NY 1:

"She’s the first baby born, so everything in the future should go smoothly for her," said Yan Zhu Liu through a translator.

But since Liu’s daughter Yuki Lin was born at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day in Lower Manhattan things haven’t exactly been smooth sailing; a roller coaster is more like it. Yuki Lin was declared the first baby of the year and the winner of a Babies R’ Us sweepstakes, a $25,000 savings bond intended to help pay for a college education.

But when the company got wind that the baby’s mom may be an illegal immigrant, the prize went to a Georgia newborn instead.

"This is particularly troublesome given the history of Asian-Americans in the United States, where we have been seen as invisible or treated as perpetual foreigners or second class citizens," said Liz OuYank of the Organization of Chinese Americans. "And here, clearly, she was born in the United States, is a U.S. citizen and the award should be based on simply that."

It turns out where the baby is born isn’t the only factor in determining who wins the prize. According to the official rules, the mother must be a legal U.S. resident. That news didn’t sit well with people NY1 spoke with.

"I don’t think that’s right, because it’s just about whether the kid was the first born in the United States," said one New Yorker.

Several Chinese organizations put a call out for Babies ‘R’ Us to return the award to the 6 and a half pound girl, and everyone NY1 spoke with seemed to agree.

In the end, it looks Babies R Us heard the community’s call.

On Saturday, the company released a statement saying "We deeply regret that this sweepstakes became a point of controversy. As a result, we have decided to award all three babies in the grand prize pool a $25,000 savings bond."

That means Yuki Lin, the Georgia baby and one born in Bay Shore, New York all win.

"I think it’s a great idea that they are giving the bond to the baby’s mother even though she isn’t a U.S. resident," said a New Yorker.

When NY1 visited the baby and her parents Monday, through a translator Yuki Lin’s father said, "the baby will bring us much more luck this year."

It looks like that luck is already in effect.

– Cindi Avila

Quite a line-up for Eat, Drink, and Be Literary at the BAMCafe. I wouldn’t miss the Cynthia Ozick one for the WORLD!!!  Better get my tickets now. Anyone want to come?

Francine Prose ("A Changed Man," "Blue Angel") on Jan. 11;

Michael Cunningham ("The Hours," "A Home At the End of the World") on Feb. 15;

Jonathan Franzen ("The Corrections") on March 8;

CYNTHIA OZICK ("Heir to the Glimmering World") on April 5;

Zadie Smith ("White Teeth") on April 18;

Sandra Cisneros ("The House on Mango Street") on May 3;

Gary Shteyngart ("Absurdistan") on May 17.

One ticket to the Danya Kurtz (Danyakurtz.com) show at Union Hall goes to this fellow whose reason for wanting the ticket: He will attempt to drown his sorrows in music. How can I refuse?

To the winner, and you know who you are, do you want a ticket for the January 9th or January 10th show? Also did you want your name used on the blog. I thought probably not. But maybe you do…

Sorry you’re going through such a tough time but I think your taste in music is great. Do you know the song: “Heart Like a Wheel?”

“Some say the heart is just like a wheel when you bend it you can’t mend it and my love for you is like a sinking ship and my heart is on that ship out in mid-ocean.” That’s by Kate McGarrigle, who I’m sure you like, too.

Here’s his email:

I appreciate your ticket offer, and am writing you to enter the giveaway.

Why should you give the tickets to me? Well, here is my  best reason: My wife and I are separated, which has broken my heart (never used that phrase before, but now I know what it means, how it feels, so it seems apt), and music is something (among many other things) that we have in common – Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, Odetta, The Decemberists, Nanci Griffith, Bach, Johnny Cash, Paolo Conte, John Prine, Nick Drake, to name but a few of our favorites – so music is one of the few solaces I have at the moment. I am still deeply in love with her, and would give anything to overcome and heal the hurts and resentments and stupid actions and behaviors that created the gulf separating us, but until, and if, I ever am fortunate enough to have that opportunity, I will attempt to drown my sorrow in music.

We inadvertantly missed Cool and Unusual’s set at Liberty Heights on Saturday — they switched spots with LEGS and went a half hour earlier. Dang. 

LEGS is an all girl group except for guitar ace, Lucian Buscemi. They’ve got a punky, Rollling Stones vibe and a really confident lead singer.

This was their first performance at Liberty Heights. Liberty Heights Owner Steve Deptula said that they had to keep cancelling because band membes kept quitting. Looks like they should stick together now. The crowd was pretty much ga ga for them.

There was a super young crowd hanging around outside as we got there – I suspect it was because tween band, Care Bears on Fire, was performing earlier in the afternoon. As was Fiasco. We missed it all because we were at an afternoon party at Superfine in Dumbo.

Everyone said that Cool and Unusual were really, really good. I am so so so sorry I missed them. 

Lucky for us we heard Dulaney Banks perform at the party, as well as Luca Balser, who is an exceptional pianist and singer (he sang an unbelievable "Jealous Guy" by John Lennon). Julia Harris of Dulaney Banks is a force of nature. Kane Balser is utterly bluesey and cool on guitar and Steve Balser, father of Luca and Kane plays a mean electric guitar.

A look book to January 2006 on OTBKB:

–I was writing about the planning of the 30th high school reunion of the progressive, upper west side high school that no longer exists.

–I’d just read Paul Auster’s “Brooklyn Follies” and enjoyed his story about cinnamon-Reagan bagels and Pumper-Nixons. Story was confirmed by bagel guys at La Bagel.

–I discovered that my friend Mary was pictured in a street scene on the cover of the book. She’s still glowing about that and is convinced that she’s the beautiful mom that Auster calls by some acronym that slips my mind this minute. “That’s why he put me on the cover,” Mary told me jokingly.

–I sold a down jacket on OTBKB. We took pictures of the buyer, a nice guy named Otto, with his pit bull. I bought the jacket for my dad at Brooklyn Industries but it didn’t fit. They wouldn’t let me exchange it for a bigger size because it was final sale. Grrrr. It still pisses me off and makes me angry every time I walk past Brooklyn Industries.

Richard Grayson, who read from his book, To Think He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street, at Brooklyn Reading Works last fall got a really nice review of the book in the Philadelphia Inquirer by reviewer Susan Balée. Here it is:

"Richard Grayson is a funny guy from Canarsie, Brooklyn, and he’s been writing short fiction for decades. He’s also a lawyer and a teacher, which doubtless does a better job of paying the bills. Which isn’t to say he’s not a wonderful fiction writer – he is – but his kind of metafiction, mixing his memories (numerous main characters are named Richie Grayson) with his inventions about pansexual borough dwellers dealing with minor and major crises, read like stand-up comedy routines. Only a few of the tales in this book (including the title story) are fully realized short stories in a traditional sense.

"At first I wished he’d pen more of the longer, less autobiographical stories, but when I got into the rhythm of his riffs, I changed my mind. Here’s his kind of shtick, from "In the Sixties": At the beginning of the Sixties women were girls and girls were chicks. By the end of the Sixties girls were women and chicks were poultry… . In the Sixties… I raised money for a black classmate indicted for murder. I raised money for a Chinese friend to have an abortion. I raised money for Chicano migrant workers I had never met, or expected to meet. Most of the money I raised originally belonged to other people’s parents. This is very funny stuff, but it’s a comic monologue rather than a story with the traditional elements of plot, characters, setting, and so forth.

"Grayson has hit upon a good formula, though, to generate a piece of writing: the annotated list. Hence, he has "Seven Sitcoms," "Branch Libraries of Southeastern Brooklyn," "The Lost Movie Theaters of Southeastern Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach," and so on. But like Grandma’s beef brisket, a little of this goes a long way. In these tales of places that mostly aren’t there anymore, the main feeling induced in the reader is nostalgia. Unfortunately, if you’re not from Brooklyn, much of it is nostalgia for something you never knew in the first place." READ MORE HERE…

Another writer who’s not leaving Brooklyn. Actually, he doesn’t even live here but he once didn. Now he lives in Albany and he’s causing quite a buzz.

Adarro Minton, author of “Gay, Black, Crippled and Fat,” a collection of short fiction, will be reading at Brooklyn Reading Works on Thursday January 18, 2007 at 8 p.m.

You don’t want to miss that, do you?

David Yassky called the other day to thank me for including him on the Park Slope More Than 100. I was napping when he called. OSFO answered the phone. She walked into the back bedroom with the portable phone. “It’s for you. Some guy.”

I think I sounded like an idiot. I was just waking up and a little groggy. But I was very touched that he called.

Pretty classy, I thought. To actually call.

Still, I don’t think I said anything very interesting other than, “Thanks for calling.”

I ran into the the bloggiest couple in town, Park Slope writer and lawyer, Sara Bennett with her husband Joseph Holmes of Joe’s NYC (Joesnyc.com).

Sara, co-author, with Nancy Kalish, of The Case Against Homework: How Homework is Hurting Our Children and What To Do About It, is trying to drive more readers to her blog, Stop Homework (stophomework.com) and I told her about outside.in (outside.in) developed by Park Slope author and Internet pioneer, Steven Berlin Johnson. I think Outside.in will help a lot of local blogs become more visible. Outside.in is way cool.

Stop Homework provides up to the minute homework news and opinion articles. She’s got some really interesting stuff up there from readers about vacation homework

Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the newly designed, Brooklyn Paper:

Aside from the drunken woman who threw up (and just missed Smartmom) on the A train, Smartmom spent an exceedingly pleasant New Year’s Eve drinking champagne and sparkling cider with Hepcat, the Oh So Feisty One and a gaggle of college friends in the West Village.

Just before the midnight hour, her college friends’ kids were handed all variety of percussion instruments to make ear-shattering noises when the ball dropped.

It was quite a New Year’s moment, and Smartmom found herself quite moved by the enthusiastic and raucous celebration by her college friends’ children (not that Smartmom was feeling old, you know).

OSFO, who was dubious about attending the party in the first place, had to be dragged away from the festivities at 1:30 am. She bonded with a group of girls her age, who were reading the “Guinness Book of World Records” out loud.

The train ride home was mostly uneventful except for the aforementioned vomit near-miss, which incited every one on the train to bolt from the car.

“I don’t feel so good after seeing that,” OSFO told Smartmom. “It looked like Progresso Soup.” Think pretty thoughts Smartmom said.

Pretty thoughts. Pink roses. Your Build-a-Bear. Your little Nintendogz’s face.

Arriving in Brooklyn at 2:30 in the morning, Smartmom cellphoned Teen Spirit, who had attended a parent-supervised party in Park Slope.

“Should we pick you up?” she asked as they walked past Smiling Pizza and the new Zana cafe.

“No, that’s OK,” he said. “We’re playing with the Wii and we’re making me a Mii.”

Smartmom didn’t have a clue about what he meant but she said okay. Then she realized that her son had just told her that he wasn’t ready to come home at 2:30 in the morning. And she said okay.

What were things coming to? Had she lost her mind? Was she a flake? The worst parent in Park Slope?

Probably all of the above.

But it was New Year’s Eve, she thought. What’s the big deal?

The ghosts of New Years’ past all came rushing back to Smartmom: In 1969, she was 11 and tasted Champagne for the first time. In 1975, she was 17 and she and a friend went to an early showing of Truffaut’s “Day for Night,” a Rangers game at Madison Square Garden, and a midnight dinner on then-dicey Columbus Avenue.

In both cases, she — and the Republic — survived.

So once she got home, Smartmom promptly fell asleep. At 6 am, Hepcat woke her up to say that Teen Spirit had never made it back.

“But I spoke to him twice during the night,” she told Hepcat. Then she shot up in bed: “No I didn’t. I must have been dreaming.”

Frantically, she dialed Teen Spirit’s cellphone. First, she got his annoying message, the voice of a female friend saying, “Teen Spirit can’t come to the phone right now. He’s been kidnapped.”

Then the panic really set in. He’s dead, Smartmom thought. She imagined him bleeding on Ninth Street. He’d been robbed and killed. She just knew it. My poor baby.

And it’s all my fault, she thought. I should have gone and picked him up all those hours ago.

Then she tried him again on the cellphone. “Hello?” Teen Spirit said groggily.

Now Smartmom felt like killing him. In cold blood. It’s moments like these that make her want to keep Teen Spirit in lockdown.

“Why didn’t you call?!?!!” she screamed.

“I sent you an Instant Message. I didn’t want to wake you guys” he said. “Can I go back to sleep? It’s 6 in the morning.”

“I know it’s 6 in the morning, you little jerk. That’s why I’m calling you.”

Smartmom checked Hepcat’s cellphone and checked the text message in-box on his phone. There were none.

And he’s a liar, too, Smartmom thought.

When Teen Spirit got home on New Year’s Day, he swore up and down that he had text-messaged Hepcat. Hepcat rechecked his phone. Smartmom even checked her phone.

Nada.

Even if they did find the text message, Smartmom wasn’t sure if she’d ever let Teen Spirit out of the house again.

A few hours later, Hepcat got the text message on his cellphone. It had taken more than 12 hours to get there.

“I guess he did text-message me,” Hepcat said. Neither of them knew what to think. Teen Spirit had tried to be considerate by texting rather than calling.

But doesn’t he know that his parents don’t consider text-messaging a viable form of communication? Doesn’t he know — of course he knows! — that his parents are not of that IM generation.

They may be crazy flakes and the worst parents in Park Slope, but they don’t believe that text-messaging on New Year’s Eve is a way to communicate one’s whereabouts.

Got that?

Temperatures will soar to 70 degrees this weekend. Hmmmm. Very spring-y. Where’s winter?

So there WAS a discrepancy between Doug’s account and Barbara’s. Rushkoff of course. Doug said it was knifepoint. Barbara said gunpoint.

There you go. Thanks for clarifying that, I’m Seeing Green.

I believe Doug.

Never mind. I was wrong.