Ah yes. I remember when the great Calvin Trillin wrote a piece about Shopsin’s in the New Yorker. That was April 2002 if I recall…

I’ve excerpted it here from the New Yorker’s fun website. This may help you see why so many of us are buzz buzz buzzing about the fact that this storied (and quirky) West Village restaurant is coming to Carroll Gardens. Part of the fascination is just imagining Kenny Shopsin and his wife actually leaving Bedford Street. Crossing the bridge. Taking the subway? (Blueberry French Toast pix by Roboppy).

This piece in the Times by Lawrence Van Gelder about a famous poetry bookshop in Cambridge, Mass. caught my eye. Where do YOU buy your poetry books?

The Grolier Poetry Book Shop in
Harvard Square, the oldest poetry
bookstore in the United States, is
about to change hands for the second
time in eight decades, Publishers
Weekly reported. The influential
store, opened in 1927 and a favorite of
poets including E. E. Cummings,
T. S. Eliot and Marianne Moore, has
been sold to
Ifeanyi Mentiki,
a professor of
philosophy at
Wellesley College.
He is also a
poet whose most
recent collection,
"Of Altai,
the Bright
Light," was published
last year by Earthwinds Editions.
"The store has meant a lot to so
many of us," he said. "I wanted to
make sure it continued." The sale, by
Louisa Solano, who owned the store
for 31 years, was prompted by her ill
health and will become final tomorrow.
"I’m going to catch up on 30
years of sleep," Ms. Solano said.

Does everyone have as hard a time as I do admitting that they are wrong?

Last night lying in bed before we fell asleep, Hepcat and I had a much-needed talk. Both of us are so busy, sometimes we don’t discuss anything beyond logistics for days. But I could tell he was upset. As events unfolded over the last few days, he sometimes had a long, sad look on his face.   I could tell that he was troubled by what was going on. More specifically, he was troubled by MY role in all of this.

I was, needless to say, defensive at first. I hate to hear criticism, especially if it’s true. HATE IT. It was hard for me to really own up to my role in all of this.  But Hepcat was determined to show me that I was responsible in some way. He was not being unkind just honest.

First, he asked me if I thought it was wrong for the  woman to put the man’s name on the flyer. I said: YES.

YES. IT WAS WRONG.

He followed with: "Then it was wrong of you to mention the flyer, the name of our street, the fact that there was an accused child molester. By doing so, you attracted the attention of the news media and inadvertantly turned this into a more public story than it needed to be."

YES. I WAS WRONG.

SOBERING. It’s sobering when your spouse tells you something you don’t want to believe but the more you think about it you have to admit is true. It’s also maddening when your SPOUSE is SO RIGHT.

GUILT. Yes, I feel guilty, too.

On Saturday morning – a personal story and a potentially very public story converged. I opted to tell the story of the flyer (from my usual "this is my life" point-of-view) without realizing that it would alert the news media to the situation. Sometimes OTBKB is me thinking out loud — my thought process online. Well, that’s not always appropriate and this situation bears that out. It’s the emotional truth I’m after but sometimes facts seep in that don’t deserve
such wide exposure. The sign was more or less public but only public on this block and probably shouldn’t have been blogged to the world.

At first I said, I didn’t know the editor of the Daily News reads this blog. But a friend who knows about these sorts of things said, "Of course he reads your blog, all the editors do."

Usually all they could hope to find on OTBKB was small, anecdotal stories about the neighborhood zeitgeist. Quality of life stuff. But on Saturday they saw something in OTBKB a bit more tantalizing AND POSSIBLY VERY DAMAGING TO A MAN, A WOMAN AND A YOUNG GIRL WHO LIVE NEAR HERE.

IT WAS A STORY THAT WOULD SELL NEWSPAPERS.

Hepcat, you are right. I inadvertantly did something that has ramifications way beyond my original intent. I didn’t think it through. The personal and the public converged and I forgot to think AND I didn’t realize how public this blog really is.

In other words: I wasn’t thinking. And I owe everyone who has been hurt by this a profuse apology.

I saw this on Brownstoner. It was in the Daily News (What’s in the Daily News, I’ll tell what’s in the Daily News…from Guys and Dolls)

It’s good news for everybody.Or is it?  I like the sound advice for sudden fame from the owners of The Grocery, which enjoyed sudden fame nabbing a very high rating in Zagats. Get a second phone line and someone to answer it, they say. Don’t forget the customers who stuck by you when you
needed it most, they added. "Give priority to the people who supported
you." YEAH.

Congratulations to the two Joshes and everyone who works at SPC. Hep and I do love it there.

Ready for another water-cooler argument over the best restaurant in New York?

The 2006 AOL CityGuide City’s Best List has a brand-new name to add to the mix: Brooklyn’s Stone Park Cafe.

The nationally obscure but locally popular Park Slope eatery took first
place among restaurants, according to 2.6 million voters nationwide who
logged their choices on AOL.com – edging out the likes of Manhattan
mainstays Daniel, Gotham Bar & Grill and Per Se.

"We’re very thrilled – winning these types of contests really attests
to the loyal support of our customers," says Stone Park chef and
co-owner Josh Grinker. "We really see what we’re doing as bringing up
the standard of neighborhood restaurants."

Other winners among the 41 categories weren’t quite as surprising.

The mustached barkeeps at West Village lounge Employees Only won
handily for best signature cocktails, Happy Ending in SoHo won for best
overall bar and Crobar topped the dance clubs group.

John’s on Bleecker St. was crowned best pizza, while Peter Luger’s was
tops among steakhouses – and also pulled off a minor coup in winning
the best burgers race, with Blue 9, Burger Joint and Corner Bistro
close behind.

Other predictable winners: Nathan’s of Coney Island for hot dogs, Brooklyn Brewery for beer selection and H&H for bagels.

AOL also devised city-specific contests for the 37 locales included in
the survey – and in the Big Apple, this meant a category for Best
Jewish Deli. The winner: Katz’s at 205 E. Houston St., followed by the
now-defunct 2nd Ave. Deli and then Artie’s on the upper West Side.

Nominated establishments were chosen by local correspondents. The 2.6
million votes represented a big increase over the roughly 1 million
cast in the 2005 online poll.

Been-there advice

If the folks at Stone Park Cafe want the recipe for
dealing with sudden fame, they should check with the owners of another
Brooklyn restaurant that went from neighborhood favorite to culinary
superstardom.

The Grocery in Carroll Gardens catapulted out of its underground popularity courtesy of Zagat’s 2004 rankings.

Partners Sharon Pachter and Charles Kiely went from
leisurely taking reservations while cooking up meals at their 30-seat
Smith St. hideaway to juggling a nightly line out the door.

Their No. 1 advice: Get another phone line – and someone
to answer it. "We couldn’t run credit cards because there were so many
phone calls coming in," Pachter said.

And don’t forget the customers who stuck by you when you
needed it most, they added. "Give priority to the people who supported
you," Kiely advised.

I saw the note on the mirror in the vestibule of our building where our mailboxes are. It was probably left outside the building and someone from the building attached it with a Post-It to the mirror.

OSFO and I were on our way to school, rushing off as usual. I glanced at a few of the words and got the gist…

"This is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, but if I heard that another child was molested because I kept my mouth shut…"

I didn’t stop to read it because I was with 9-year-old OSFO and I knew it would be incredibly complicated and difficult explain and that she’d want to know EVERYTHING and I wasn’t quite prepared to do that — or to figure out what to say — quite so early in the morning.

It flew out of my mind until I saw a neighbor who lives across the street in the administration office at PS 321. I handed her a postcard about Louis and Capathia’s concert at The Old Stone House on Sunday night and we started talking about Smartmom. Then she whispered, "Did you see the note?"

Her biggest concern was how to talk to her daughter about it. That’s why she was waiting to talk to Kathy Sweeney, the guidance counselor at PS 321, to see if she had any advice.

The victim was 13 years old. Such a vulnerable age, an intense time. My thoughts are with her. Wondering, wondering. Do I know her face, is she someone we know by sight? How does she feel about this being spread around the neighborhood? How is she dealing with all this, is she okay?

Reading the letter again, very closely, I tried to analyze its use of language, its typos, its commas. Trying to piece this story together word by word. At this point, I have no way of proving the veracity of this. It was, afterall, just a note left on the mirror. I take it to be true. Do I really know what is going on here? No.

Later, one of my neighbors brought it up. She too was spooked by the whole thing. I think we’re all having a: "What? Not on my block!" kind of reaction. This is such a neighborly block, we all think we know each other so well. Of course we don’t. This is a big city even if it does feel like a small town.

And stuff like this happens everywhere – in small towns, in big cities, in Brooklyn all the time.

We on the north side of Third Street often joke that we don’t know anything about the south side of Third Street. And I guess that’s true. Nobody crosses the street to socialize, we say: It’s too wide a street. 

We have no idea who this man is. It just doesn’t ring a bell. Who is he? Is he someone we know, someone we would recognize?

If this can happen here it can happen anywhere. No one’s safe from this kind of thing. Once you know, it changes every thing a little bit. Lock your doors (even if he does have keys). Hold your children close. Keep them informed, not scared, but informed. Empower them.

Read the post: HOW TO TALK TO YOUR CHILD ABOUT CHILD ABUSE (ABOVE).

This from NY1:

The city Health Department says a new strain of bacterial
meningitis is circulating in Brooklyn, and it has already claimed four
victims.

Since late December, nine cases have been diagnosed in the borough, including four who died.

Health officials are urging New Yorkers to see their doctors if
they think they’re experiencing meningitis symptoms, which include:
fever, vomiting, confusion, headache, stiff neck and a rash.

Meningitis infects the tissues and fluid surrounding the brain and
spinal cord. It gets spread through close contact with an infected
person.

The disease can be treated with antibiotics if detected early, but it can also be fatal.

The Department of Health said recent patients with meningitis in
Brooklyn reported using street drugs or being in close contact with
people who used street drugs. The department says the general
population is not at a higher risk.

David Carr in the New York Times waxes poetic about our man and favorite celeb, Steve Buscemi, who always seems to get knocked off in films.

Directors adore Steve Buscemi.
They lavish him with great roles, stellar dialogue, generous screen
time, and then — and there is no nice way to say this — they generally
bump him off.

"When I get cast, I always
flip to the end of the script to see if my character gets beaten up or
killed," Mr. Buscemi said, recalling a history of being stabbed, axed,
shot and fed to a wood chipper. "I really thought that after getting
killed on ‘The Sopranos,’ I should not accept scripts where I die. I
mean, there’s nowhere to go after getting killed by Tony Soprano.

"But
then I got offered this great part in ‘The Island,’ " he said, with a
whaddayagonnado shrug. "I didn’t even make it a third of the way
through the movie."

"I have been surviving a lot more lately, though," he added brightly.

In "Lonesome Jim," which opens tomorrow, Mr. Buscemi does not die, perhaps only because he directed the film and does not play a role.

The Jim of the movie’s title, played by Casey Affleck,
is no barrel of monkeys; he recalls many of Mr. Buscemi’s losers and
victims and perpetrators. He arrives home from the big city on the bus,
his tail not so much tucked between his legs as trailing behind him,
maimed and run over. He is sucked into the gaping maw of a nuclear
family he quietly loathes and spreads his misery — he diagnoses his
condition as "chronic despair" — between bouts of ennui. He is more of
a loser than, say, the ice cream truck driver of "Trees Lounge"
(1996), the first feature film Mr. Buscemi directed, but has a little
better luck with women. The female love interest, played by Liv Tyler, sees something in him that Jim, alas, cannot see in himself.

"I
don’t tend to think of these characters as losers," Mr. Buscemi, 48,
said, pushing around some eggs at French Roast in Greenwich Village. "I
like the struggles that people have, people who are feeling like they
don’t fit into society, because I still sort of feel that way."

Over
breakfast, after taking the F train from Brooklyn, where he lives, Mr.
Buscemi hardly comes across as the twitch he frequently plays in
movies. Sad-sack or homicidal roles aside, he is a working actor
married to a writer and filmmaker, Jo Andres, and they have a
15-year-old son. After his breakout turn as Mr. Pink in Quentin Tarantino’s "Reservoir Dogs" in 1992, he has had big roles in big movies — "Armageddon" and "Con Air"
— and continues to make smaller movies with the pals he came of
professional age with in the 80’s, including Mark Boone Junior, who
played fireplug to Mr. Buscemi’s skinny fireman — his day job at the
time — in comedy bits they worked up. Mr. Boone plays Evil in "Lonesome
Jim," a Hells Angel type who rides a moped.

Mr. Boone, who has
known and worked with Mr. Buscemi for 25 years, is unsurprised by his
success. "He’s got a great face, great eyes, he knows his mechanism and
knows how to use it," he said, adding that in spite of Mr. Buscemi’s
ubiquity, "I think he is underused. There are a lot of things that he
can do besides the kind of roles that he is cast in."

"Lonesome
Jim" made its debut last year at Sundance to mixed reviews. Mr. Buscemi
has no sense of entitlement around his work as a director, but has yet
to figure out the folkways of the movie business…

READ MORE AT THE NY TIMES.

Our beloved Blue Ribbon is going seriously uptown (honey, we’re not in Park Slope, SoHo or the village anymore) opening a restaurant near the Time Warner Center. So says the New York Post:

Uptown Manhattanites won’t have as far to go for
Blue Ribbon’s food. Hotelier Jason Pomeranc says he’s bringing a hybrid
branch of the popular Blue Ribbon and Blue Ribbon Sushi restaurants to
his hotel at 308 W. 58th St., located across the street from the Time
Warner Center.

Pomeranc is renovating the hotel, which is presently called
the Westpark, where he’s also adding five floors on top and will rename
it 6 Columbus Circle when it’s completed later this year.

I check A Brooklyn Life every day and today she’s all over Mark Morris at BAM:

At BAM, wacky modern dance guru Mark Morris
celebrates his company’s 25th anniversary  with a series of dance
pieces…and a movie festival. Fortunately, he seems to have pretty OK
flick tastes, with Robert Altman’s truly genius Nashville  on Saturday, and the evil-piano-teacher epic The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (with script by Dr. Seuss!) on Sunday.

One of Brooklyn’s many great kid’s music performers, Dan Zane’s has taken the "ugh" out of kid’s music. He, along with David Weinstone, Randy Kaplan, Piera Moinester, Mr. McGarry, Mr. Bill,  and others, are giving kids a great start with song. We parents thank them all. Found this on Brooklyn Topix – it was in the Albany Sun Times:

Ex-rock ‘n’ roller Dan Zanes (the Del Fuegos) has forgone the usual
route of post-career bankruptcy, addiction and obscurity by smoothly
segueing into children’s music, and the world is a better place for it.

Often, children’s music is dumbed down and goofy. Zanes
takes the novel approach that just maybe, the kids are smart and have
good taste, and goes from there with great success.

At
The Egg in Albany, Zanes and friends had a sold-out house of little and
big people as a bustling crowd of youngsters bounced around the
orchestra pit and never stopped.

In a bright red suit and somewhat unruly skyward-pointing Don King
hair, Zanes came out by himself. "So today," he says, "I was thinking
we could have a wild party here."

And it was.

Outer B,  a Queen’s based real estate blog (not unlike Brownstoner), ran this story about a Queen’s real estate broker who is trying to lure Park Sloper’s to Queens:

Jackson Heights real estate specialist Michael Carfagna (MPC Properties)
killed me with the ads he’s been running in Park Slope. (Full
disclosure – I will be helping with the MPC website later this year.) I
don’t know of any other broker in Queens with as much originality or
chutzpah. READ MORE AT OUTER B

I found this story on Topix Brooklyn. I think Brownstoner had it as well.

The Old Stone House, Kim Maier, and Louise Crawford are presenting:

CAPATHIA JENKINS who wowed audiences and critics in CAROLINE OR CHANGE at the Public Theater and on Broadway performs with composer LOUIS ROSEN (PS 321 parent and Guggenheim Fellow) songs on poems by Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes and Louis Rosen (from Southside Stories).

All in support of The Old Stone House – fast becoming a local hub of history, culture, arts, and community.

SUNDAY MARCH 26th at 7 p.m. There will be wine and celebration after the performance. Festive and fun.

Here’s the deal: Send checks for $40. per person to The Old Stone House. PO Box 150613. Brooklyn, NY 11215

Seating is limited. You will have to pay $50. at the door. So send your checks in NOW.

DID YOU KNOW THAT you can get a casket at COSTCO. I was browsing their web site and lo and behold I noticed a FUNERAL section.

Is there anything they don’t sell? You can also get a grand piano for $17,000.

This casket costs: $2,999.

OTBKB loves Francis Morrone, and the articles he writes about New York buildings and history for the New York Sun.

After all these years and so many changes, Fifth Avenue from 34th to 59th Streets remains the city’s showplace thoroughfare. Walking north from the former B. Altman & Co. department store on the east side of the avenue between 34th and 35th Streets, one passes the Gorham Building, the old Tiffany Building, the former Knox Hat Building, the New York Public Library, the Scribner Bookstore, the Rockefeller Center Promenade, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Cartier store, St. Thomas Church, the Aeolian Building, the University Club, the Peninsula Hotel, and the St. Regis Hotel before reaching Grand Army Plaza and the Plaza Hotel.

Few cities can boast such an impressive sequence of buildings. I am reminded of why Arnold Bennett said in 1912 that Fifth Avenue was the most spectacular thing of its kind in the world. But the grand sequence also makes me angry at the unconscionable intrusions, the storefront modernizations, the banal office buildings, the glass facades, and the tawdry or vulgar stores and restaurants. What is it about New York that allows something so special and so beautiful to be trashed in the ways Fifth Avenue has been?

Watch out Toast, Minnow, and Cafe Steinhof, there’s a new kid in your neck of the nabe.  Peter Meehan of the New York Times weighs in on the South Slope’s new mediterranean spot called Little Dishes:

Last month, Little Dishes opened on Seventh Avenue. The restaurant
is a joint venture of a husband-and-wife team, Colin Wright on the
stoves and Mira Friedlaender in the dining room. The room itself is
simply appointed in light wood and exposed brick; when spring
eventually arrives, the restaurant will add tables in a backyard
garden.

Little Dishes serves a roster of Mediterranean-leaning
American cuisine prepared with little fuss and few showy flourishes.
Grilled whole fish (market priced) is just that: a whole fish, dourade
the night I had it, assuredly grilled and seasoned with nothing more
than salt, pepper, thyme and lemon. Much of the food at Little Dishes
is characterized by such directness, such clarity of purpose. The
marinated sardine toasts are a good example of the kind of simple
alliances Mr. Wright makes work: grilled bread, faintly sweet grain
mustard and sardines that are closer in taste and appearance to the
Spanish marinated anchovies called boquerones than to anything that’s
ever come out of a King Oscar can. Oysters, served with mignonette and
cocktail sauces, are just about the definition of simplicity. And
although they’re budget busters, good ones can be hard to pass by:
Little Dishes had oysters from both coasts that were reliably briny,
bracingly cold and fresh, for $2 to $2.50 a pop…

READ MORE AT THE NYTIMES

I’m liking Lolli’s. In fact, I have to admit, I almost forgot the name of the clothing store that was in there before. Can you believe: Fidgits was in the nabe longer than me. They used to occupy the Fratelli fried ravioli space and now the make-up spot.

I get very nostalgic in Lolli’s remembering all the corderoy pants and striped shirts I used to buy for Teen Spirit when it was Fidgit’s; he was a very well-dressed toddler.

Today in the window at Lolli’s I had a laugh: infant t-shirts with a certain flair. BRAD SPITT was one, DROOL BARRYMORE, and QUENTIN TANTRUMTINO.

Didn’t find out the price for some reason. Maybe they have, I just bet they have…THEY DON’T HAVE A LINK, OH WELL.

Inside, they’ve got the Paul Frank (Small Paul) groovy zippered hoodies and t-shirts with the big monkey face. They only go up to size 6x/7 so we’re outa that one. But OSFO did try it on…

Lolli: we’re liking you a lot!

Looking for something to do with your toddler on a cold, cold day? The Brooklyn Lyceum may have just the solution. I think Ducky will LOVE IT.

SAT MARCH 4: RUN
AROUND: Brooklyn Lyceum opens up its theater stage for a "Kid
Runaround". Bring your kid in to burn off some winter energy. 10 am to
2 pm. Food is available. 227 Fourth Ave. (718) 857-4816.

Fellow blogger, Udge, was my first friend in the blogosphere. I have enjoyed his blog for more than a year now. He has made a pact with himself to have flowers on his desk every week. That means there will be flowers on your desktop every week if you visit Udge’s blog. Udge has smart, interesting, fun blog, which he writes from Stuttgart. And he also has these lovely flowers.

  The tulips
have lasted a week, to my pleasure and surprise. I guess there is a
relation between the price and the quality (these were expensive), or
perhaps it was just the luck of the draw.

I shall continue/revive the habit of having flowers on my desk at home, "just for nice" as my grandmother used to say. 

My friend Nancy Graham has a book of poems out from Pudding House Press. I am very excited and proud of her. Her husband (Dadu) gave two copies of the book to Hepcat but Hepcat left them on his desk in his Manhattan office. He beter bring it home tomorrow. Or else.

ORDERING INSTRUCTIONS:

Ask for Nancy Graham/Somniloquies ISBN #1589983393-9 (2006) $8.95

Phone order by VISA/MC only: (614) 986-1881

Email order by VISA/MC only: info@puddinghouse.com

Mail
order: Include a note with check, cash, or VISA/MC w/exp date and a
list by author and title. Bookstores please call to negotiate best
wholesale options for discounts on 10 items or more—mix or match. Pudding House publications catalog for full list of titles.
Send to:
Pudding House
81 Shadymere Lane
Columbus Ohio 43213 USA.

Shipping & Handling: $2.50 for single item; an additional dollar for every additional book or two chapbooks.

Make checks payable to “Pudding House.”

"The Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for
Night,"  is the 73rd in a series of annuals and biennials. It is also
the first to have a formal title. "Day for Night" is taken from
Francois Truffaut’s 1973 film "La Nuit americaine," which refers to the
technique of putting filters over the camera lens to make daylight
appear to be night. FROM THE NEW YORK SUN: 

"Truffaut’s film – about the making of a film – is a
brilliant, metaphoric exploration of the realm where life and fiction
meet, interweave, and influence each other. A tragic farce involving
love, death, jealousy, sex, betrayal, alcoholism, stardom, scandal, and
stardom, "La Nuit americaine" is a film in which the director, played
by Truffaut, claims that "Life is always ruled by conflicting forces"
and "No one’s private life runs smoothly. There is more harmony in
films than in life – no traffic jams, no dead periods."

Certainly there are conflicting forces and dead periods in this year’s
Biennial. But there are also a handful of interesting pieces here,
especially in the areas of film and video. The engaging work, however,
is pulled under by the show’s overwhelming political agenda. In the
end, I came away feeling as though I’d seen it all countless times
before.

For all of this Biennial’s carnivalistic variety, its drawings,
paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, performances, and
installations, the exhibition is little more than a one-act circus. Its
artistic stances are currently accepted and lauded in the reigning
Duchampian academy – an academy that was built originally on an
anti-art stance of subversion, counterculture, and guerrilla tactics.
It has reigned for so long that it now has nothing and nobody to rebel
against.

But Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne, the two foreign-born curators of
this American exhibition, would probably suggest that all of this
reflects the museum’s ability to present us with an accurate glimpse
into the current zeitgeist. We Americans live, the show reminds us, in
an uncertain, topsy-turvy world in which anxieties are heightened by
war, natural disasters, political upheavals, and terrorist threats.
"The artists exhibited in the 2006 Biennial," the catalog’s
introduction tells us, "are working in a liminal space – somewhere
between day and night … [a] ‘twilight zone’ [where] everything is
called into question … [where] meaning becomes ambiguous … [and
where] the political, the erotic, the dark, the hidden, and the violent
collide."

Yet, when "meaning becomes ambiguous" in many of this Biennial’s
artworks, it is because much of the art is confused. Rather than
explore conflict, ambiguity, and confusion as artistic subjects (as
Truffaut does in "La Nuit americaine") many of the artists seem to have
merely stopped when their works became ambiguous and confused.

There’s another show in town that highlights the love affair between photographers and cities:

FROM THE NEW YORK SUN: Cities attract photographers like courtesans attract lovers.Paris and New York have probably inspired the largest number of suitors – each smitten shutterbug expressing his passion with the click of his camera – but other cities have their swains. Currently, the Candace Dwan and Nailya Alexander Galleries have combined forces in an inaugural joint exhibition, "Northern Light," that features work by two photographers devoted to two cities situated at about 60 degrees north latitude. (New York is 40 degrees 29 minutes north latitude.) Alexey Titarenko’s "St. Petersburg Series" and Pentti Sammallahti’s "Helsinki" are both ardent in their grappling with the objects of their attention, but – to conclude this analogy before it becomes obscene – as different as two disparate beaux wooing two disparate maids.

This month is THE MONTH OF MARK (Mark Morris) at the BAMCAFE. This event among many sounds interesting.

The Month of Mark: Karaoke with Mark Morris
Sat, Mar 4 at 9pm
Have you ever dreamt of singing a tune at BAMcaf

Bid on today’s No Words_Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford.

"Skyline Graffiti"
Minimum bid: $40.
Make your bids as a comment or e-mail louisecrawford@gmail.com

You can also bid on Saturday’s pix: "Treeee"

The pictures are framed. Shipping is not included in price of print
but we’re happy to mail it to you.  Just sent a print off to New Jersey
and it cost $8.00. Not sure about Stuttgart. If you’re in Park Slope or
nearby come and pick it up or we’ll figure something out.

Dear Vacation Diary,

Finally, the last day of vacation. Now only the weekend and OSFO will be back in school.

Rah.

We’re beginning to rub each other the wrong way. How do you spell a n n o y i n g? The vacation is taking its toll. Too much togetherness. Too much F U N.

We babysat for Ducky while Diaper Diva went to Pilates. Later OSFO had a snitsky – that’s when she feels like Ducky is getting more attention than she is. That’s when she sulks (i.e. sits on a chair with her arms folded and refuses to move).

Just when we needed to leave the apartment, OSFO wouldn’t budge. So my sister and I decided to switch daughter for an hour a so. I took Ducky to Seventh Avenue. She took a much needed nap with OSFO.

When OSFO woke up she was completely replenished. Happy again. She even studied for the standardized math test.

Saturday. Sunday. Back to school on Monday. We’ve just been having too much FUN.
That’s the ticket…

Too much fun.

It’s taken me too long to check out OFFICER’S ROW. Here it is:

Officer

Found this on Curbed who found out about it from Amy Langfield who read about it in BKLYN Magazine, just out today.

THE LONG WAIT FOR WHOLE FOODS

BKLYN magazine reports that Whole Foods, hoping to build on the banks of the Gowanus Canal, will not begin construction until spring 2007 with hopes of opening in the fall of 2008. Kinda makes the World Trade Center rebuilding look efficient, huh?

BKLYN says a "petroleum-related substance" was found leaking in an underground tank in the industrial neighborhood. You gotta figure they’re lucky that’s all they found.

Dear Vacation Diary,  We’re approaching the home stretch. OSFO was pooped after sleepover number two. She went to sleep really late and woke up really early.

Recipe for crankiness. 

We met up with Diaper Diva at the Tea Lounge for the kiddie sing-a-long. But the sing-a-long guy didn’t show up. The place was packed with wifi-ers, toddlers, babies, moms, students, people who sit in cafes all day. A real mish mash of a scene.

OSFO came to my office and spent her time xeroxing the comic book she made this morning.

This evening, she went to Word Sprouts, the reading series at the Park Slope Food Coop. They had a special children’s bedtime reading. The kids wore their pajamas and there was soy milk and whole grain cookies.

So sleepy, so cranky. On American Idol, we watched as Bobbi Bennett (Mr. Copacabana) was dropped from the show. He got the least number of votes from America.

One more day to go. Of vacation that is. American Idol is just heating up.

Woman walks into a tattoo parlor and asks for a tattoo of Brooklyn on her arm.

Really.