Straight from the oracle of Prospect Park, Eugene Patron:

On Saturday, October 30, from 12 – 3 p.m., the beloved Haunted Walk is back and more fun than ever at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park!  Lurking high on Lookout Hill are zombies, wolf men, headless horsemen, good and bad witches, and other creepy characters. The Halloween Haunted Walk is suitable for young children accompanied by parents/guardians or older siblings.  Suggested donation is $1. Enter the Park at the Prospect Park Southwest and 16^th Street entrance.

October 30, from 12 – 3 p.m. is also the Haunted Carnival. This annual treat on the Nethermead in the center of the Park features games and music.  Free. Both the Walk and Carnival are rain or shine.

Also on October 30: “Horses and Humans: A Celebration of Dancing and Healing.”

The Equus Projects, a professional dance company that makes performances with horses, and GallopNYC, an equine therapy program that works with children with disabilities, presents a series of performance staged in The Nethermead.  12 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.  Free.

Also on Saturday Oct. 30 AND Sunday Oct. 31:

• Haunted Carousel, 12 – 5 p.m.

Crank up the scary music on the Wurlitzer: our Carousel is haunted for Halloween!  $1.50 per ride.

• Scary Stories from the Past, 2 & 3 p.m.

Meet the old ghosts of Flatbush in haunting tales passed down from Lefferts ancestors. Lefferts Historic House. Free.

• Skeleton Cut-Outs, 1 – 4 p.m.

Make your own Halloween headbands using the traditional Scharen-Knippen paper-cutting art form. Lefferts Historic House. Free.

• Creepy Crawly Halloween, 12 – 5 p.m.

It’s a critter-fest in Prospect Park with lots of spiders, worms, and other creepy creatures that are sure to make your skin crawl! Creepy crafts, live critters and hands-on experiments. Audubon Center. Free.

• Boo at the Zoo, 10 a.m. – 5: 30 p.m.

Go batty for Halloween with activities like face painting, craft making,  encounters with “spooky” creatures and a trip through the Zoo’s legendary haunted barn. Free with Zoo admission.

Get your ghoul on – be a volunteer!  Volunteers are needed to dress up and be scary, prepare meals for performers, assist with carnival games, load the sets, and much more. Call (718) 965-8960 or email volunteers@prospectpark.org for more information.

On Sunday, October 17 from 10AM until 2PM starting at MS 51 on Fifth Avenue between 4th and Fifth Streets join the Fall Sweep, a beautification, clean-up and recycling event sponsored by the Park Slope Civic Council:

Put on your work clothes and you’ll be painting over graffiti, mulching trees, planting daffodil bulbs, raking leaves, picking up litter and other projects.  You can also bring unwanted electronic devices (old t.v.’s, computers, toasters, etc.) for recycling by Greg’s Express.

There will be refreshments and bluegrass music courtesy of Vincent Cross and Good Company and the PSCC will provide all tools and supplies.  “I Made Park Slope Cleaner Today” stickers will be given to all volunteers.  Community Service vouchers will also be available.

While you’re at it: stop in at the annual Harvest Festival next door in Washington Park from 11 am to 3 pm with pony rides, pumpkin painting and more family fun.Make a clean sweep of your home and your neighborhood by joining the Park Slope Civic Council at the Fall Civic Sweep, our annual autumn beautification, clean-up and recycling event:

How effective is 311? Don’t hold your breath: Sheepshead Bites

What to do about concrete blocks: Gerritsen Beach

Man shot dead in projects: Bushwick BK

What next locusts: Pardon Me for Asking

Under the rails: NY Shitty

Comedy show every Tuesday at South Paw: Effed in Park Slope

The day: The Ft. Greene Local

Just saying.

Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.

My neighbor actually measured the hail stones that dropped into our front yard on Third Street in Park Slope.

Hail stones the size of marbles battered Park Slope around 8:39 PM Monday evening. We were watching, House, our favorite TV show, when we heard what sounded like stones hitting our air conditioner.

Standing at the window, we took in the sight of a fierce rainn and hail storm that literally removed the leaves from the Third Street trees.

By 9PM the hail storm had passed but rain, thunder and lightening continued over Brooklyn.

My friend Michele Madigan Somerville has an epic poem on her poetry blog about reading an epic poem in the bathtub. It’s from her new (as yet unpublished) collection called Glamorous Life.

Le Bagineuse

Observe the baigneuse, nacreous as she steeps, sur-
rounded by heat on all sides
on a cold day as iridescent mean

curvature and prismatic spheres
which an equilibrium between outward air
pressure and inward surface tension form

wherein molecules tend to line up
with one end pointing inward
and the other out to render the liquid surface

more stable. Diffraction in soap film
causes light to be seen
and bubbles are possible.

An ingenious gleaming contraption
of horizontal chrome fit with nifty tips of
rubber transects pre-war porcelain

as a means for making viable the privilege
perusal is. The collapsible scaffolding stabilizes and
grips a a soap-white pair of symmetrical

swells, offers an adequate frame for keeping
the future artifact dry and free
of moisture and lavender surfactant…

Read more at Michele Madigan Sommerville.

An OTBKB reader wrote in with this request:

Can you recommend any pest control shops in the neighborhood or borough? I won’t go into detail about our problem, but you can probably guess. Disgusting.

I don’t have to tell you that bedbugs are becoming a big problem all over NYC. If you’ve had a good experience with a pest control company please let us know. Any advice welcome. Leave a comment.

Yowza:

There will be no L train service in either direction between the Myrtle-Wyckoff station and Manhattan.

Nada. So much for making plans to do something in Williamsburg this weekend.

This service disruption starts at at 12:01 am on Saturday until 5 am on Monday.

There will be bus service, however:

–A bus will pick up people at Lorimer Street and Bedford Avenue L-train stops and take them to the J-train station at Marcy Avenue on the Southside.

–There will also be  second shuttle bus for all L-train traffic east of Lorimer to and from Myrtle-Wyckoff.

The MTA will continue running M-train service over the weekend.

Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.

According to the Daily News, this replica of the original Welcome to Brooklyn sign now hangs in the lobby of Borough Hall. The original was stolen 33 years ago.

Many remember it from the opening credits of Welcome Back Kotter, a 1970’s television show about a beloved schoolteacher staring Gabe Kaplan.

Welcome back.

From the NY Times:

It may not have the opulence of Adour Alain Ducasse or the pedigree of L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon. But the Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare — an 18-seat bar and open kitchen inside a Boerum Hill grocery store — has something neither of those places has: two stars from the new Michelin Guide to New York, making it that book’s highest-rated restaurant outside Manhattan.

Second fall: CasaCara

Recycled pillows: Reclaimed Home

Lighting up my life: Brooklyn Limestone

Etsy headquarters NYC: Swissmiss

Ideas matter: Third Ward

Weekly sales and events calendar: Apartment Therapy

Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.

Today the Supreme Court will hear Albert Snyder’s case against the Westboro Baptist Church. Snyder sued the church and its leader after they staged an anti-gay demonstration at his son’s funeral in 2006.

The Westboro Baptist Church came through Brooklyn in 2009 and staged an anti-gay hate rally in front of Congregation Beth Elohim. Members of the congregation and Park Slope residents organized a counter demonstration. Here’s my report from September of 2009:

The Kansans were true to their word. They showed up at Congregation Beth Elohim sometime between 9 and 10 am on Saturday morning and picketed, as promised, the Saturday morning service.

This topped off a three-day assault on Brooklyn, which started with a brief rally at Brooklyn Tech in Fort Greene on Thursday. They also planned to picket three other Brooklyn synagogues.

Apparently Brooklyn has been targeted because the borough has the largest Jewish population int he country as well as a huge number of gay people.

Double whammy for the Kansans who believe that Jews—and homosexuals—are the devil incarnate. You can read more about this group from the Westboro Baptist Church. The name of their website says it all:  www.godhatesfags.com,

Friends who were at Beth Elohim during the protest, said that the Kansans were spewing anti-Jewish slogans, singing songs, and holding anti-semitic and anti-gay signs. Rabbi Andy Bachman is said to have made an eloquent speech on the steps of the Garfield Place synagogue

.

Starting in 2011, the MTA is raising the price of a monthly Metrocard to $104 from $89. Dang, that monthly card was a good deal.

Despite the increase, the monthly cards will continue to be unlimited. The MTA considered raising the weekly card to $99 but that would have entailed limiting the number of rides. Commuters who spoke at public hearings didn’t like that idea.

Weekly MetroCards are also going up from $27 to $29.

Single-fare tickets will now cost $2.50, though those who use pay-per-ride MetroCards will still be charged $2.25 when they swipe.

The Brooklyn Paper reports that The New York State Nurses Association says that nurses at New York Methodist Hospital are understaffed and overworked.

The union requires that there be at least one nurse for every six patients — but nurses at Methodist say that it’s more like one RN for every 14 customers in some wings.

According to the nurses that puts patients at risk. The hospital administration disagrees.

“Our data shows we’re in compliance with the contractual guidelines,” said Lyn Hill, a spokeswoman for New York Methodist in the Brooklyn Paper.

Food demos are quite the thing these days. And the Park Slope Farmers Market has a slew of them planned over the next few Sundays. Here is the schedule over the next few weeks. Cooks from the following restaurants will be demoing various recipes.

Oct 10: Baluchis
Nov 7: Stone Park
Nov 21: Palo Santo

This year the Park Slope Halloween Parade is scheduled for Sunday, October 31.  The parade kicks off at 14^th Street at 6:30 pm, and will probably begin turning onto Third Street around 7 pm.

The finale will take place on the turf field on the 4^th avenue side of the Old Stone House, and we’re trying to encourage people not to park on the block of Third Street between 5^th and 4^th Avenues, since that’s where the parade will enter the park.

At the end of the Parade there will be music from Paprika and a steel band – long-time parade participants – and the post-parade party will end by 10 pm.

Prior to the parade, a costume contest will take place on 7^th avenue in front of the John Jay High School Building at 4 pm.

For more information on the parade details, visit the Park Slope Civic Council website.

The last day to register in person for the November 2, 2010 general election is October 8, 2010. The office will be opened until midnight.

I’m guessing that you can register at the Brooklyn Board of Elections, which is located at 345 Adams Street on the 4th floor. The phone number is: 1.718-797-8800
To register to vote in the City of New York, you must:

1. Be a citizen of the United States (Includes those persons born in Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands).
2. Be a New York City resident for at least 30 days.
3. Be 18 years of age before the next election.
4. Not be serving a jail sentence or be on parole for a felony conviction.
5. Not be adjudged mentally incompetent by a court.
6. Not claim the right to vote elsewhere (outside the City of New York).

Although you can register any time during the year, your form must be delivered or mailed at least 25 days before the next election for it to be effective for that election.

Polling places opened late, poll workers weren’t trained, there weren’t enough “privacy sleeves,” and some scanners jammed: those were just some of the problems discussed at yesterday’s City Council post-mortem about problems connected with the new voting procedures on primary day last month.

What a great idea: Al Di La in your very own kitchen. In other words: a cookbook dedicated to the new Brooklyn restaurant and artisan food movement.

Husband-and-wife duo Melissa and Brendan Vaughan have created The New Brooklyn Cookbook featuring the best of Brooklyn food (and we’re not talking Juniors and Nathan’s):

The book includes instructions for preparing Doug’s Pecan Pie Sundae, a real treat heretofore only available at Buttermilk Channel in Carroll Gardens. It’s awesome.

Other dishes in the book: Steak and Eggs Korean Style, The Good Fork; Cast Iron Chicken, Vinegar Hill House; Tofu with Broad Beans and Chili Bean Paste, The General Greene; Spaghetti Alla Vongole, Al Di La; Beef Sauerbraten with Braised Red Cabbage and Pretzel Dumplings, Prime Meats; Hoppy American Brown Ale—Homebrew Recipe, Sixpoint Craft Ales Brewery.

Yum.

Included in the book are profiles of Brooklyn’s best food makers and purveyors, from cheesemakers and picklers to chocolatiers and bakers. The result is an inside look at the ingredients behind all your favourite restaurant dishes.

You have just 9 days to vote for the Brooklyn Do Gooder Awards. 200 “do gooders” have been nominated by people all over Brooklyn and the public voting period is going on now and ends on October 15, 2010.

After the public voting period a group of judges, including novelist Peter Hedges, WNYC’s Laura Walker, Brooklyn Industries’ Lexy Funk, Laurie A. Cumbo of the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Stephen Hindy of Brooklyn Brewery, Sara Horowitz of Freelancers Insurance among others others, will select five winners from among the 20 finalists.

The criteria: The Brooklyn Do Gooder Awards campaign celebrates the altruism, philanthropy and commitment of five Brooklyn Do Gooders working towards a stronger, better Brooklyn.

“These are individuals who embody the highest value of community service and philanthropy; exceptional individuals who display an outstanding sense of giving back locally–with time, talent and/or charity.”

The winners will be honored at the Foundation’s anniversary celebration on November 3, 2010 at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

So how do you find out who’s been nominated?

Well, it’s a little overwhelming. But your best bet is to go to the Brooklyn Do Gooder Awards website. There you will find pages and pages of small photographs of the nominees. If you put your cursor on a photo you will see the name and category of that person (Arts for All, Caring Neighbors, Education and Youth Achievement, Community Development, & Green Communities). If you want to learn more you can click on the photo.

It’s actually really fun and interesting to learn about the people who have been nominated.

I am also getting emails from the friends of nominated individuals campaigning on behalf of their friends and colleagues.

The Park Slope Civic Council is holding its monthly trustees meeting on Thursday, Oct. 7 at 8PM at the New York Methodist Hospital Executive Dining Room. This meeting is always open to the public. In fact, if you want to make a presentation to the Civic Council about a pertinent issue you can. It’s too late for this meeting because you need to give advance notice of at least ten days in writing but here’s the way to do it for the next meeting:

1. Application. Download an application form from our website and send it to mail@parkslopeciviccouncil.org.

2. Advance Notice.
(a) People wishing to make purely informational presentations -– in other words, a vote of the Civic Council is not requested –- must inform the Civic Council Secretary at least ten (10) days prior to a monthly meeting.
(b) People wishing to make a presentation for which a vote of the Civic Council is requested must inform the Civic Council Secretary at least thirty (30) days prior to a monthly meeting.

3. Presentation Materials. Any materials (handouts, etc.) that are intended to accompany a presentation must be submitted in electronic format at the same time the request to make a presentation is made. (Elected officials and their representatives are exempt from this requirement.) Acceptable file formats are Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, PDF, and Google Docs. Please e-mail them with your application form to mail@parkslopeciviccouncil.org.
Also, please be sure to provide all audio/visual equipment needed to make your presentation.

4. Timekeeping. Unless a longer time is approved in advance by the Civic Council, all people making a presentation to the Civic Council will be limited to five (5) minutes.

Keeping versed on Vito: Bushwick BK

Greenfield Clothiers: Bushwick BK

Dunkin’ Donuts Conversion: Gerritsen beach

PSA: NY Shitty

Winner of Senior Idol: Sheepshead Bites

People at Food Coop hire hookers: Effed in Park Slope

The great pupkin: Clinton Hill Blog

Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.

Cool headed appraisal of weather weirding: Noticing NY

Chinese investors in AY project: Atlantic Yards Report

A gooseless city?: Brooklyn Paper

Gov’t puts $25 in Vito’s pacts on ice: NY Post

Developers, architects and more cash in after writing Vito checks: Daily News

Upstart winner challenges Brooklyn Democratic leadership: NY Times