THIS THURSDAY, December 10th: It's all part of Buy in Brooklyn's Snowflake Celebration. For the third year in a row, local merchants once again throw open their doors to stay open late and create a holiday atmosphere, enabling you, the people of Park Slope, to do your holiday shopping . . . here!

Each participating business will

1). Stay open until 10pm

 2). Offer some special promotion – Could be a sale, could be a giveaway, raffle, carolers, snow machine (it's been done!), mulled wine, special hors d'oeuvres, etc.

Last year there were 150 participating businesses — who knows what will happen this year!?! In the current and impending economic climate, it's more important than ever to keep the local economy strong and healthy, so let's get together and Keep it Local!

Before you go to the reading, do some shopping on Fifth Avenue or take advantage of specials at local restaurants all part of the Snowflake Celebration.

Brooklyn Reading Works Presents:

FEAST
savory syllables on sustenance
(writers on food)
The second annual reading and benefit for Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Church in Park Slope.

With:
Peter Catapano
Ame Gilbert
Nancy Garfinkel
Greg Fuchs Andrea Israel
Alexander Nazaryan
Sophia Romero
Michele Madigan Somerville

Thursday, December 10th, 8pm
The Old Stone House in JJ Byrne/Washington Park
Between 3rd and 4th Streets on 5th Avenue
Park Slope, Brooklyn 718-768-3195
$ 10.00 donation

Proceeds will be given to Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Church in Park Slope.
Helping Hands distributes emergency food supplies to people living in Prospect Heights, Park Slope, and Fort Greene.

F TRAIN TOWN HALL MEETING
Thursday, December 10, 6:30 pm
PS 58 Auditorium, 330 Smith Street, Brooklyn NY
(Corner of Smith and Carroll streets, at Carroll Street stop on the F line)

This
past summer, Senator Squadron called on the MTA to conduct a full line
review of the F Train.  In October, the MTA released the findings from
this review (which you can find on Senator Squadron's website at: www.squadron.nysenate.gov).

At
the Town Hall Meeting, MTA representatives will discuss the recent
report about F train performance and proposals for improving service. Senator Squadron and City Councilmember-elect Brad Lander will be there.

Brooklyn Reading Works Presents:

FEAST
savory syllables on sustenance
(writers on food)
The second annual reading and benefit for Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Church in Park Slope.

With:
Peter Catapano
Ame Gilbert
Nancy Garfinkel
Greg Fuchs Andrea Israel
Alexander Nazaryan
Sophia Romero
Michele Madigan Somerville

Thursday, December 10th, 8pm
The Old Stone House in JJ Byrne/Washington Park
Between 3rd and 4th Streets on 5th Avenue
Park Slope, Brooklyn 718-768-3195
$ 10.00 donation

Proceeds will be given to Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Church in Park Slope.
Helping Hands distributes emergency food supplies to people living in Prospect Heights, Park Slope, and Fort Greene.

C

  In the following press release City Councilmember-elect Brad Lander says that he has convinced Bill deBlasio's not to go through with legislation that would allow development and a change of zoning to site at First Place and Smith Street. Next year, he says, there will be a NYC Uniform Land Use Review Proceudre about that site. This is probably music to the ears of local residents who were angered by deBlasio's "secretive effort to allow a politically
connected private school to move ahead with a two-story extension atop
of the courtyards that give Carroll Gardens is very character," writes the Brooklyn Paper. Inc

The Brooklyn Bugle reports on Monday evening's meeting about Brookyn Bridge Park at LICH with Daniel Squadron and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benape. Here's an excerpt:

I periodically check in with Rabbi Andy Bachman's blog, Water Over Rocks. Today I found out that that his synagogue, Congregation Beth Elohim, is running a food drive for City Harvest. Canned and dry goods can be left in the Temple House at 274 Garfield Place.

I also took a quick look at his always interesting blog posts and found this poignant post called Plural, Amen, which expresses the many responsibilities faced by the rabbi of a large local congregation. Here's an excerpt.

lunches followed by strategic meetings and planning
sessions.

Trash-bin
symphonies and ray-chasing pixel pushers herald the explosive return of
Blip Festival New York City. The three-day music and arts festival
returns to Brooklyn's Bell House December 17th, 18th, and 19th and is
presented by Manhattan arts organization The Tank, in partnership with
NYC artist collective 8bitpeoples.  Entering its 4th year of
celebrating the best and brightest from the realm of chipmusic and its
related disciplines, the festival showcases the use of the former
heavyweights of computing such as the Commodore 64 and Amiga, the Atari
ST and 2600, and the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy to
create arresting music and visual art.  

Click here for 3-day festival pass tickets! 

http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=3034814

Or click the link below for a single day ticket.  

http://www.thebellhouseny.com/media/buy-tickets.gif

http://blipfestival.org/2009/

 For the last few weeks, artist Philip Naudé has been in his studio crafting
333 collaged matchboxes that will be part of his exhibition, Multum in Parvo, at the Fun Times gallery in Park Slope/Gowanus.

The matchboxes are part of a new program
called the 01.01.10 Initiative, where each matchbox is for sale for $10. It's one-of-a-kind recession friendly art! Upon purchase, the benefactor is asked to remove the matchbox from the display and then replace it with a
new one on which he or she may write their name or anything
they like.

To view the matchboxes, please visit: www.philipnaude.com/matchbox.htm

Multum in Parvo
by Philip Naudé. Opening reception: Friday, December 11, 2009, 6-9PM,
Fun Times, 257 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Exhibition continues
through January 15, 2010

An OTBKB reader sent along this great tip about a company that buys your old CDs and will give you an iPod or iPhone depending on the quantity.

If you know of any churches or places that need canned food let me know and I will add to list

CHIPS on 4th Avenue near Douglas Street would love donations of canned foods.

St. Francis Xavier Church on 6th Avenue and Carroll Street and St.
Augustine Church on 6th Avenue near St. Johns Place both have food
pantries for people in need and I am sure they could use donations. 

Church of Gethsemane, 1012 Eighth Ave, Park Slope (between 10th and 11th). Food can be dropped off any time from 10:00AM-4:40PM  MONDAY-THURSDAY

 Canned and Dry Goods Can Be Left in Temple House of Congregation Beth Elohim. 

A friend stopped me the other day (at the PS 321 Craft Fair) and asked if Hugh was still selling prints from his beloved Trees at Night series.

And the answer is a resounding YES. You can look at them here.

He happens to have some prints that he'd be happy to sell. You might also consider prints from his recent Essence and Accident show at the Old Stone House.

A pix of Coney Island in the snow could be just the thing for a friend.

 If you'd like to come by and look at prints PLEASE let us know. Just email me: louise_crawford(at)yahoo(dot)com and we can make a plan.

Brooklyn Reading Works Presents:

FEAST
savory syllables on sustenance
(writers on food)
The second annual reading and benefit for Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Church in Park Slope.

With:
Peter Catapano
Ame Gilbert
Nancy Garfinkel
Greg Fuchs Andrea Israel
Alexander Nazaryan
Sophia Romero
Michele Madigan Somerville

Thursday, December 10th, 8pm
The Old Stone House in JJ Byrne/Washington Park
Between 3rd and 4th Streets on 5th Avenue
Park Slope, Brooklyn 718-768-3195
$ 10.00 donation

Proceeds will be given to Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Church in Park Slope.
Helping Hands distributes emergency food supplies to people living in Prospect Heights, Park Slope, and Fort Greene.

Here are this year's Feast writers:

–Peter
Catapano has written about music, books, art and food for several
publications, including Wired, Salon, ARTNews and The New York Times.
His most recent piece, about a love affair — with a pizzeria — gone
wrong, appeared in the Times Dining blog.

–Greg Fuchs is the
author of Board of Education, Came Like It Went, Metropolitan Transit,
New Orleans Xmas, Rolling Papers, and Temporary. He is a member of
Subpress publishing collective. He is co-editor of Open 24 Hours, which
publishes poetry in the spirit of the mimeo-revolution of the 1960s.
Fuchs serves as the President of the Board of Directors of the Poetry
Project.

–Nancy Garfinkel is co-author of The Recipe Club ,The
Wine Lover’s Guide to the Wine Country: The Best of Napa, Sonoma, and
Mendocino. A writer, design consultant, creative strategist, and editor
for a wide range of magazine, corporate, and non-profit clients, she
has won a host of graphic arts and editorial merit awards. She has
written extensively about food and graphic arts.

–Ame Gilbert is
an art and food person with fingers in many pots. She’s Curator for the
Umami: food and art festival, a biennial performance festival coming up
in early March. She teaches Culinary Arts to Bronx youth, paid for by a
foundation whose mission is literacy. She has a small catering company,
is chef for a monthly salon called poetrysciencetalks and is a partner
in a company called Communal Table: art shops with supper and a poetry
slam. In between multiple online Scrabble games, she writes an
occasional poem.

–Andrea Israel is a co-author of The Recipe Club
, and a producer/writer for ABC’s Focus Earth. She was a
producer/writer for Anderson Cooper 360, Dateline, and Good Morning
America (which garnered her an Emmy Award). Her story, “In Donald’s
Eyes,” was optioned for a film. She is the author of Taking Tea, a
guide to the history and ceremony of the drink. Her writing has
appeared in many publications
Alexander Nazaryan is an English
teacher in Brooklyn. He has written for the Village Voice, New
Criterion and other publications, and is working on his first novel,
"Golden Youth," about Russian organized crime in Brooklyn.

–Sophia
Romero is the author of ALWAYS HIDING a novel about illegal immigration
and published by William Morrow. Born and raised in Manila, Sophia is a
former hotel PR executive and journalist, who writes the SHIKSA FROM
MANILA, a blog based on the imaginary life of Amapola Gold, as she
romps through life as the other half of an interfaith, intercultural
marriage."

–Poet Michele Madigan Somerville is the author of Black Irish and WISEGAL.

I'm just saying. The four I'm most familiar with seem to be full of energy and excitement. There's the Community Bookstore in Park Slope, Bookcourt in Cobble Hill, which recently enlarged and is packed with books and events, Greenlight Bookstore, the brand new exciting bookstore in Fort Greene and Word Books in Greenpoint, which is also a very happening place.

Books make great books dontcha think?

BAX where I teach my How To Blog class (which started last Wednesday and continues for two more) is having its annual auction. Great prizes for a great arts organization in Park Slope.

Just in time for your holiday shopping, the BAX Holiday Online
Auction is open! The auction will close on Friday, December 18th at
11PM.

From an Apple iPod Touch to 4 VIP tickets to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, we have some amazing items and deals. From the simple to extravagant, our catalogue is sure to fit every budget and gift list.

Please note there are some special "Buy Now" deals including tickets to Gotham Comedy Club and Chunky Moves
at BAM on December 11th. If you choose the Buy Now option, you will
receive these tickets immediately to take full advantage of the offer.

The Brooklyn Paper has the story of Lethem's final reading of his new book, Chronic City, which was selected by the NY Times as one of the ten best books of the year. Here's an excerpt (from the BP story not from Chornic City).

Only 13 were left — and certainly not standing — when the all-out
war between Jonathan Lethem and his new novel ended at 4:11 am on
Saturday.

It might never have come to this — a nine-hour marathon reading — had the Bard of Boerum Hill not failed so dismally in
his promise read the entirety of his new 467-page book, “Chronic City,”
on eight successive nights between Oct. 16 and Dec. 4 at BookCourt —
his home turf.

Even after adding an extra session last week at Word bookshop in Greenpoint, Lethem still had roughly half of the doorstopper to go.

Still, he started promptly at 7 pm, gleam in his eye and a few jokes
up his sleeve. He said he timed the reading himself — though he was
smart enough to not reveal the estimated time of completion.

By 7:40 pm, he was already pouring sweat like Jerry Lewis on Labor Day — and he was losing fans fast…

Brooklyn Reading Works Presents:

FEAST
savory syllables on sustenance
(writers on food)
The second annual reading and benefit for Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Church in Park Slope.

With:
Peter Catapano
Ame Gilbert
Nancy Garfinkel
Greg Fuchs Andrea Israel
Alexander Nazaryan
Sophia Romero
Michele Madigan Somerville

Thursday, December 10th, 8pm
The Old Stone House in JJ Byrne/Washington Park
Between 3rd and 4th Streets on 5th Avenue
Park Slope, Brooklyn 718-768-3195
$ 10.00 donation

Proceeds will be given to Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Church in Park Slope.
Helping Hands distributes emergency food supplies to people living in Prospect Heights, Park Slope, and Fort Greene.

Here are this year's Feast writers:

–Peter
Catapano has written about music, books, art and food for several
publications, including Wired, Salon, ARTNews and The New York Times.
His most recent piece, about a love affair — with a pizzeria — gone
wrong, appeared in the Times Dining blog.

–Greg Fuchs is the
author of Board of Education, Came Like It Went, Metropolitan Transit,
New Orleans Xmas, Rolling Papers, and Temporary. He is a member of
Subpress publishing collective. He is co-editor of Open 24 Hours, which
publishes poetry in the spirit of the mimeo-revolution of the 1960s.
Fuchs serves as the President of the Board of Directors of the Poetry
Project.

–Nancy Garfinkel is co-author of The Recipe Club ,The
Wine Lover’s Guide to the Wine Country: The Best of Napa, Sonoma, and
Mendocino. A writer, design consultant, creative strategist, and editor
for a wide range of magazine, corporate, and non-profit clients, she
has won a host of graphic arts and editorial merit awards. She has
written extensively about food and graphic arts.

–Ame Gilbert is
an art and food person with fingers in many pots. She’s Curator for the
Umami: food and art festival, a biennial performance festival coming up
in early March. She teaches Culinary Arts to Bronx youth, paid for by a
foundation whose mission is literacy. She has a small catering company,
is chef for a monthly salon called poetrysciencetalks and is a partner
in a company called Communal Table: art shops with supper and a poetry
slam. In between multiple online Scrabble games, she writes an
occasional poem.

–Andrea Israel is a co-author of The Recipe Club
, and a producer/writer for ABC’s Focus Earth. She was a
producer/writer for Anderson Cooper 360, Dateline, and Good Morning
America (which garnered her an Emmy Award). Her story, “In Donald’s
Eyes,” was optioned for a film. She is the author of Taking Tea, a
guide to the history and ceremony of the drink. Her writing has
appeared in many publications
Alexander Nazaryan is an English
teacher in Brooklyn. He has written for the Village Voice, New
Criterion and other publications, and is working on his first novel,
"Golden Youth," about Russian organized crime in Brooklyn.

–Sophia
Romero is the author of ALWAYS HIDING a novel about illegal immigration
and published by William Morrow. Born and raised in Manila, Sophia is a
former hotel PR executive and journalist, who writes the SHIKSA FROM
MANILA, a blog based on the imaginary life of Amapola Gold, as she
romps through life as the other half of an interfaith, intercultural
marriage."

–Poet Michele Madigan Somerville is the author of Black Irish and WISEGAL.

Barbie Diewald/&co. rehearses in Washington Square Park "Every Happiness I Have Wished For" choreographed by Barbie Diewald to be performed in the Washington Square Fountain on December 12 at
11AM.

Vox Pop Café, the cultural hub and cafe on Cortelyou Road, is sponsoring a Secret Santa Gift Drive to benefit the residents of a local domestic violence safe house. "We would like to bring at least a small amount of joy to the approximately 27 women and 57 children who will be spending Christmas there," says the cafe's manager, Debi Ryan. She writes:

The Green Team is challenging Brooklynites (New
Yorkers, Americans) to cut back on their intake of red meet. In their own words:

"Moo-Moo
Move over red meat: we’re taking a break. (We at the Green Team take
great pride in our puns). This is not to say that we don’t love your
delicious taste or how you flavor a broth. You're the potato's other
half. But you are racking up some real carbon emissions. According to Treehugger, you, red meat, are the most resource-intensive food on the table and eating less of it can be the single most green move a person makes.

"We're
not saying there are not good farmers who raise you right, because
there are. We’re just trying to prove that we, Brooklynites (New
Yorkers, Americans)
can cut back on our intake while we reassess our participation in the
process of cow to table. We are excluding other types of meat from this
Challenge: Chicken, fish, pork, turkey, and venison all remain fair
game (again with the puns). Won't you join us?"

For more information about the Brooklyn Green Team and this challengee; BROOKLYN GREEN TEAM

–Visit their blog.

Find them on facebook.

Visit their friends at GreenEdge Collaborative NYC.

 
This is a terrible story from a friend in Manhattan. The coop apartment that he owns and lives in was flooded when a hose sprung a leak and caused water to gush into his apartment for several hours.

 If any one has any advice for this friend please let me know. It's also a cautionary tale: make sure you have homeowners or renters insurance.

My heart goes out to this friend, who is struggling through this situation bravely and valiantly. But still. It's awful to be without a home (like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone). In his own words:

 "A couple of months
ago I went out to dinner with friends and got back kind of late. Obama was in
town and the traffic was bad. When I arrived I found that my apartment was
gone. 

"A renovation in my
upstairs neighbor's apartment had sprung a leak causing water to gush through
my ceiling for several hours.  Okay so nobody's perfect.  Take
me for example, I didn't have homeowners insurance. All right mea culpa, I
know, pretty dumb.  Let me be a cautionary tale to all the rest of you and
all that. I thought watching water pour through light sockets into my
apartment was going to be the bad part. But apparently not.

"You see I’m not a
corporation which is what the contractor's insurance company would be up
against if I had homeowners insurance: I’m just a person who would like to live
in my home.  Weeks are turning into months and nothing has happened.
Evidently the insurance company doesn’t feel the need to pay a mere person.
 They sent various adjusters to check the damage and they all agree: it’s really
bad. I guess they don't like to write big checks. I myself don't like not
having an apartment. Floods are all over this town, they tell me shaking their
heads. (There was even an NYT article about it recently.) Chill out, the
insurance company tells me, they are still investigating. Investigating? We all
know whodunnit. There is no mystery here, no controversy, just another case
of a big company getting away with what it can.

"So now I am faced
with suing the company which will cost a third of what was going to be spent
restoring the apartment, a process that will take about two years.  Next
time I go out to dinner I hope I just get mugged, they can have my whole
wallet, no problem."

An OTBKB reader sent me a great tip about a fun sounding shopping event for a great cause—one clse to my heart:

Brooklyn Reading Works Presents:

FEAST
savory syllables on sustenance
(writers on food)
The second annual reading and benefit for Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Church in Park Slope.

With:
Peter Catapano
Ame Gilbert
Nancy Garfinkel
Greg Fuchs Andrea Israel
Alexander Nazaryan
Sophia Romero
Michele Madigan Somerville

Thursday, December 10th, 8pm
The Old Stone House in JJ Byrne/Washington Park
Between 3rd and 4th Streets on 5th Avenue
Park Slope, Brooklyn 718-768-3195
$ 10.00 donation

Proceeds will be given to Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Church in Park Slope.
Helping Hands distributes emergency food supplies to people living in Prospect Heights, Park Slope, and Fort Greene.

Here are the Feast writers:

Peter Catapano has written about music, books, art and food for several publications, including Wired, Salon, ARTNews and The New York Times. His most recent piece, about a love affair — with a pizzeria — gone wrong, appeared in the Times Dining blog.

Greg Fuchs is the author of Board of Education, Came Like It Went, Metropolitan Transit, New Orleans Xmas, Rolling Papers, and Temporary. He is a member of Subpress publishing collective. He is co-editor of Open 24 Hours, which publishes poetry in the spirit of the mimeo-revolution of the 1960s. Fuchs serves as the President of the Board of Directors of the Poetry Project.

Nancy Garfinkel is co-author of The Recipe Club ,The Wine Lover’s Guide to the Wine Country: The Best of Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino. A writer, design consultant, creative strategist, and editor for a wide range of magazine, corporate, and non-profit clients, she has won a host of graphic arts and editorial merit awards. She has written extensively about food and graphic arts.

Ame Gilbert is an art and food person with fingers in many pots. She’s Curator for the Umami: food and art festival, a biennial performance festival coming up in early March. She teaches Culinary Arts to Bronx youth, paid for by a foundation whose mission is literacy. She has a small catering company, is chef for a monthly salon called poetrysciencetalks and is a partner in a company called Communal Table: art shops with supper and a poetry slam. In between multiple online Scrabble games, she writes an occasional poem.

Andrea Israel is a co-author of The Recipe Club , and a producer/writer for ABC’s Focus Earth. She was a producer/writer for Anderson Cooper 360, Dateline, and Good Morning America (which garnered her an Emmy Award). Her story, “In Donald’s Eyes,” was optioned for a film. She is the author of Taking Tea, a guide to the history and ceremony of the drink. Her writing has appeared in many publications
Alexander Nazaryan is an English teacher in Brooklyn. He has written for the Village Voice, New Criterion and other publications, and is working on his first novel, "Golden Youth," about Russian organized crime in Brooklyn.

Sophia Romero is the author of ALWAYS HIDING a novel about illegal immigration and published by William Morrow. Born and raised in Manila, Sophia is a former hotel PR executive and journalist, who writes the SHIKSA FROM MANILA, a blog based on the imaginary life of Amapola Gold, as she romps through life as the other half of an interfaith, intercultural marriage."—-

Poet Michele Madigan Somerville is the author of Black Irish and WISEGAL.

Photo by Tom Martinez