TROUBLE'S END

Do let's welcome the foodless feast.

The Prospect Heights biennial house tour will be on Sunday,
October 18th from noon until 5 p.m. Don't miss your chance to go inside some gorgeous and grand brownstones.

What a fun way to indulge in healthy voyeurism and real estate envy.

The self-guided tour will
include 11 wonderful homes and apartments in a neighborhood that was recently recognized by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on June 23rd when it created the expansive Prospect Heights Historic District.

Prospect Heights was also recently featured
on the show “This Old House” and was commended by LPC Chairman Tierney
for its “architectural integrity and diversity, scale, tree-lined
streets and residential character.”

Landmarks Preservation Commission. This Old House. Double kudos.

The tour will
include all this and more and will showcase the unique character of
Prospect Heights even as the imposing and controversial Atlantic Yards project proposes to make its own mark on the neighborhood.

Tickets may be purchased for $20 prior to the day of the tour at the following locations:

• The Forest Floor, 659 Vandebilt Avenue (between Park Place and Prospect Place
• Prospect Perk, 183 Sterling Place (at Flatbush Avenue)
• Tillies, 284 DeKalb Avenue (at Vandernbilt Avenue)
• Tom's Restaurant, 787 Washington Avenue (at Sterling Place)
• Berman Realty, 105 7th Avenue (between Union and President Streets)
• New York Naturals, 253 Flatbush Avenue (at 6th Avenue)

Advance tickets and additional information are also available by calling (718) 393-7653.

Tickets may be purchased on the day of the tour for $25 at the Forest Floor.

Prospect Heights is easily accessible by either the 2/3 Train to Grand Army Plaza or the Q/B Train to Seventh Avenue.

Photographs of the homes on the tour can be viewed online.

The Federal Trade Commission  published final guidelines
Monday that dictate, among other things, that “bloggers or other
word-of-mouth marketers” must state when payments, free products or
“other material connections” have been exchanged between them and the
companies whose products they review or otherwise promote on their
sites.

The FTC announcement states that “while decisions will be reached on
a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or
in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement.”

I'm all for it.

Hugh was at Paper Slam yesterday to pick up the Brooklyn Reading Works posters. He saw the six by six gallery and thought it was a cool idea. Paper Slam has paid us nothing to appreciate their new gallery. we just thought it was cool

The Federal Trade Commission  published final guidelines
Monday that dictate, among other things, that “bloggers or other
word-of-mouth marketers” must state when payments, free products or
“other material connections” have been exchanged between them and the
companies whose products they review or otherwise promote on their
sites.

The FTC announcement states that “while decisions will be reached on
a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or
in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement.”

Each month, Six by Six Gallery will exhibit a new collection of original art, each and every one of them on a six inch square canvas.

This small and consistent size allows the gallery to show the works of a large and diverse group of artists every month. It also allows collectors the opportunity to curate their own selection of artwork at an identical size that will look great when hung together.

The inaugural exhibit represents over 100 pieces of art from artists from across the country with prices ranging from $40-$500. The artists who exhibit at Six by Six Gallery will enjoy an unprecedented 80 percent commission on all of their work that sells. The gallery is currently accepting artwork for all future monthly exhibitions. To participate, artists purchase an Artist Submission Package at www.sixbysixgallery.com. There are two versions available: The standard submission package, which sells for $40, is housed in an eye-catching, gift-ready red gable box. It includes a six-inch square canvas, a brochure with all the instructions, packaging for the safe shipment of the artwork, and promotional postcards for the exhibit. For local New York artists there is a scaled down version of the submission package available for $20 that can be picked up in person at the gallery. The purchase of either gallery submission package guarantees the artist a one-month exhibition of their work at Six by Six Gallery.

There is a nice obituary in the New York Times today.

Marty Markowitz sent out this statement about the death of Suzanne Fiol.

In the coming weeks and months, Fifth Avenue Business Improvement (BID) blog, All About Fifth, will have interviews with merchants along Park Slope's Fifth Avenue. After all, who knows All About Fifth like the store, restaurant and bar owners along the the avenue?

Their first interview is with Fifth Avenue powerhouse and BID Executive Director, Irene LoRe, Owner of Aunt Suzie's Restaurant.

Bright Nights is a curated program of digital artwork that
celebrates the projected image, draws attention to the iconic
architecture of the Manhattan Bridge, and electrifies the arts friendly
DUMBO neighborhood. The program will be projected onto the Anchorage,
to coincide with the 100th birthday of the bridge and the 10th annual Walk21 conference in October 2009.

Four internationally renowned Brooklyn-based artists created new
works that interpret the unique physical, spatial, and historical
components of the bridge. The artists were chosen for their ability to
energize a public space, in celebration of the major thoroughfare’s
100th birthday.

Schoolfest an open house for Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bushwick parents is on Sunday, October 18^th (11 am to 3 pm) at 325 Bushwick Avenue, home to PS 147 and The Brooklyn Latin School.

Almost 80 schools, day care centers, and other service providers for our children in these
neighborhoods, all at a single venue.   This year they've even added a college component.

In addition,  20 colleges will be represented, including all 17 CUNY schools, Columbia, NYU, and Yale!

Along with informational tables manned by each school there will be workshops to  to help parents understand their K-12 educational choices in our neighborhood, college choices, the application process, key deadlines, and more.

Organizers call it "an unparalleled opportunity to learn about neighborhood schools and services, and considerations for higher education."

For schools, it’s an invaluable promotional platform and networking opportunity. And let’s not forget about the great performances planned by students and service providers to showcase arts & other programs and free raffle prizes..

Organizers say that "if your school or organization has not yet confirmed your participation, please do so quickly. We have almost 80 organizations confirmed and acceptances are rolling in every day." 

We are grief-stricken by Suzanne's passing, yet inspired by her
vision and strength, and will devote ourselves to fulfilling her vision
with the
strength we draw from our memories of her. Programming will continue
this week in honor of Suzanne, and we welcome you all to come to ISSUE
and share
your memories.

A memorial is currently being planned.
Please stay tuned for information on its time, date and
location.

 

We would like to extend our most heartfelt thanks to all of you for supporting Suzanne and ISSUE's mission.

 

Sincerest regards,

Steve Wax, Board Chair

On behalf of Zach, Michelle, Lawrence, and all of us at ISSUE

Photo of Suzanne by Joseph Holmes

Whoa. I almost fell off my seat. The route of the Park Slope Halloween Parade, a Park Slope tradition for decades, has changed! Yes, you heard me. I nearly did a spit take with the Diet Coke I was drinking. This is, er, big news.

I can see why they did it. Now that there's a huge filed behind the Old Stone House, the nabe has a great football field sized gathering place for a large crowd.

In the past, the parade just sort of peetered out when it reached Lincoln Place on Seventh Avenue. Now the revelry can continue until 9 p.m.

Also, I like the way the parade will now have a Fifth Avenue component.  That's cool, too. So I'm okay with this big change. It won't be easy for everyone to adjust. But I'm okay. So here are the 'tails from the Park Slope Civic Council, one of the organizers of the parade.

    THE PARADE ROUTE HAS CHANGED! The main event—the Annual Park Slope Civic Council Children’s Halloween Parade—kicks off at 6:30 pm. The parade route will begin at the corner of 7th Avenue and 14th Street, continue north on 7th Avenue, turn left on 3rd Street, cross 5th Avenue and end at the Old Stone House on the Washington Park field where the revelry will continue until 9 pm.

In addition to that big change, there's more Halloween innovation to know about. On Halloween, the festivities begin with the very first Friends of Washington Park “Howl-a-Ween” Pet Parade from 12pm – 3pm.

At 4pm the Park Slope Civic Council Halloween Costume Contest will take place in front of the Secondary School for Law, Journalism, and Research (formerlyJohn Jay High School).  “It’s amazing how creative and clever people can be,”says Melinda Morris, owner of Lion in the Sun and one of this year’s judges. After the contest there will be a musical performance of Ethan’s Motley Rockin’ Show.

Even before October 31, there's stuff to do:

The kick-off to the Halloween festivities, the Annual Harvest Festival, will take place on Sunday, October 18, at the Old Stone House in Washington Park from 11am to 3:00pm.
    •    Mr. Ray, last year's popular musical act, will perform at 11:30am
    •    Jon Samson and Co-Creative Music will perform at 1:30pm
    •    A puppet performance of "Witch Bungle" featuring puppeteer Theresa Linnihan will take place at 3:00pm. Theresa says, “We’re excited to work with the local schools as part of their afterschool curriculum and bring the fantasy that these puppets create to this parade."  
    •    A professional costume designer will be on hand to help create costumes that fit with the parade theme, "Spooky Seas."

A Halloween Haunted House Tour will take place from October 27th-October 31st. Please visit parkslopeciviccouncil.org for more information.

This Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. Rev Meeter and Rabbi Andy Bachman will lead an interfaith study session about homelessness in the Beth Elohim's Sukkah, a temporary dwelling built out branches and agriculture. Jews are expected to eat and sleep in their Sukkah during the holiday, which lasts a week or so.

According to Judaism 101, Sukkot is a joyous holiday that comes right on the heels of Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement) one of the most solemn. It commemorates the forty-year period during which the Jews were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters.
Agriculturally, Sukkot is a harvest holiday.

The Beth Elohim sukkah was designed and built by Gia Wolf and John Hartmann, with heartfelt assistance from Adam Iarussi and Dan Silverstein.

"It's an original and a deep expression of creativity and generosity of spirit in perfect keeping with the Festival." says Bachman.

A discussion of homelessness sounds like a very appropriate activity durig Sukkot. Sounds like an interesting night. I will definitely try to be there

I knew the fifth anniversary of OTBKB was coming up. I thought I would have my new, improved site by then. THEN I realized that the site makeover was delayed. Then I forgot about the anniversary altogether.

But then I remembered and I looked it up this morning. And September 18th, 2004 was the day that OTBKB started. That was the day of my very first post on blogspot.com

Happy Anniversary OTBKB! The traditional fifth anniversary gift is made of wood. Pictured is a Welsh Lovespoon.

Here's how it happened: I was meditating in my office and when I got up I thought:  By golly, I want to start a blog (and what is a blog anyway?).

My son Henry, who was 12-years-old at the time, had a blog on blogspot and I went to his blog and found out that in three easy steps I could start my very own blog.

Within minutes I came up with the name: Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, a play on the title of Thomas Wolfe's famous story originally published in The New Yorker, "Only the Dead know Brooklyn." And then the names of my autobiographical characters: Smartmom, Hepcat (though back then it was Hepcat-Daddy-O,) The Oh-So-Feisty-One and Teen Spirit. 

Then I sat at my desk: What do I do now and what do I want this to be? Here's the very first post.

BUSY SATURDAY IN THE SLOPE

This morning, Smartmom took care of some recent "kitchen problems." The
old man who fixes stoves came by to fix the oven which hasn't been
working in weeks. Later, the cheerful exterminator stopped by. Smartmom
told him about the wheat moth problem but he said there's nothing he
can do about it — he specializes in roaches and mice. "You got to go
to the sauce," he said. Smartmom thought he meant that there was some
sauce that is especially delicious to wheat moths. Actually, he was
saying THE SOURCE in thick Brooklynese and pointed to a box of rice,
and other boxes of grains. "If you see nests in there, they gotta go in
the garbage," he said. Note: Smartmom had already thrown out ALL open
boxes of grain and had emptied and scrubbed the cabinet. She's also
using Pantry Pest traps bought at the PARK SLOPE FOOD COOP.

Speaking of unpleasant insects, a downstairs neighbor came up to
say that his son has Lice and that the 7-year-old Oh So Feisty One, may
have it too because she played with his son the other day. Oh Joy.
"Have you been physical with X downstairs?" Smartmom asked the Oh So
Feisty One. "Not really," she answered, "But he did put his fingers
through my hair." Yeesh.

Smartmom and the Oh So Feisty One may be
takin' EASTERN CAR SERVICE to see the go-to Orthodox Jewish lady in
Boro Park with 10 children who is NYC's de-facto lice expert—she's even
been profiled in THE NEW YORKER. Now how's that for credentials?

The Oh So Feisty One and 13 year old Teen Spirit (TS), managed to
get along so well today that Teen Spirit actually invited her to join
him on a trip to 7th Avenue. That meant big fun: reading Manja books at
Barnes and Noble, eating glazed donuts at the MOJO CAFE, browsing video
games at Game Stop and looking for the latest Bare Naked Ladies at
SOUND TRACK (only local stores get all caps. Not mega brands.)

Meanwhile, Smartmom raced to get her eyes checked at VISIONS on
Lincoln Place. The optometrist thinks her middle vision is going a bit.
But he's not sure if she needs to start wearing corrective lenses and
told her to think about it. Huh? Smartmom had a quick lunch at OSHIMA,
the tasty sushi place on 7th Avenue between Berkeley and Lincoln that
used to be a Zen Palette type of place. The new owners are super
friendly—they have an adorable little boy who hangs out there most days
when he is not at school.

Hepcat Daddy-O met Smartmom at OSHIMA on his way to VISIONS,
thoughtfully schlepping out in the rain to get TS's broken eye glasses
fixed (because Smartmom forgot to bring them and TS says he's blind
without them.) Hepcat Daddy-O didn't bother to tell Smartmom that her
eyes had huge brown and yellow circles around them from the eye drops
the optometrist put in there. Oh well. The nice Japanese people didn't
say anything either. More on that later.

After VISIONS, Smartmom and Hepcat Daddy-o stopped at the COMMUNITY
BOOKSTORE which smelled of clove incense. Hepcat Daddy-o skimmed Art
Spiegelman's new "In the Shawdow of No Towers," and Smartmom bought a a
book by poet Louise Gluck. She stepped on the owner's dog, who was
sleeping in the fiction aisle. Love the homey feeling in that
bookstore. CYNTHIA OZICK will be doing a reading there on October 19th.

Smartmom picked up a bottle of Merlot at SHAWNS, the liquor store
on 7th between Garfield and Carroll. The blue haired girl who works
behind the counter wasn't there today. Smartmom ran into a neighbor
from the building next store who said, "What did you do to your eyes?'
The neighbor looked truly alarmed.

Smartmom explained.

The Oh So Feisty One (OSFO) and TS were already back from their 7th
Avenue sojourn when Smartmom got him home. He: finishing the Ramen
noodle soup he prepared for himself (and spilled all over the kitchen)
She: listening to a CD of her favorite music that Teen Spirit created
for her this morning. B-52's Rock Lobster, Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs.
Robinson, and the Ramones are the high points. Dance Dance Revolution
and Hilary Duff are there too. After a bit, OSFO and TS decided to hit
Seventh Avenue again which gave Smartmom time to read her first
subscription copy of THE NATION. She also had the wherewithal to take a
nap.

She ain't Smartmom for nothing.

TS, OSFO, and Best Buddy (TF's best friend) are in TS's tiny
bedroom being rambuctious. Grumpy Hepcat Daddy-o is cooking up some
Italian turkey sausage from the COOP and making a delicious spaghetti
dinner (recipe to come). Hepcat Daddy-o has never gotten used to the
elevated sound level of children. Just a minute ago, TS went out again
to PARK SLOPE BOOKS around the corner looking for a used art book with
a picture of "The Last Supper" in it—he's reading "The Da Vinci Code."
We should have a picture of "The Last Supper" around here. Yeesh.

So what is Poetry Punch?

It's BRW's annual fun poetry party curated by Michele Madigan Somerville. She's put together a GREAT line-up. And I'm gonna read, too. My only regret is that  Michele won't be reading but I hope she reads something by way of her introduction. 

How about a nice poetry punch?

When is it?

On
Thursday October 15th at 8 p.m. Come hear Edmund Berrigan, Louise Crawford, Bill Evans Sharon Mesmer, Wanda Phipps, Joanna Sit, Michael
Sweeney and Jeffrey C. Wright. It's an awesome group.

How about a nice poetry punch?

Where?

At
the Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street in Park
Slope. Suggested donation of $5. includes punch, wine and snacks.
718-768-3195

How about a nice poetry punch?

This is ALWAYS a fun, festive reading. A fun night out. These poets write smart, interesting, juicy, and entertaining poetry. It's good stuff and there will, of course, be good punch.

Wouldn't miss it for the world. Richard Meier. Amy Sohn. I am so psyched.

Momasphere will host author Amy Sohn for a reading of her latest novel Prospect Park West (Simon & Schuster; September 1, 2009; $25.00) on October 8^th, 2009 from 7-9pm at the Richard Meier On Prospect Park.

I've got my ticket and I am triply excited to see inside the RIchard Meier building, hear Amy Sohn read from her book and to support my friend and fellow Blogfest organizer the beautiful Melissa Lopata.

I won't be bringing an olive branch—or maybe I should. But I would really like to put this Smartmom vs. Amy Sohn thing behind me.

Yesterday Gothamist ran an interview with Amy Sohn. She was asked about some comment I made on my blog. Here's FIPS:

Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Book Court will offer
discounted copies of the book for $20. A portion of the proceeds from
this event will benefit www.childrenofthecity.com.

See you there! Should be fun.

FIPS, Brokelyn and Brooklyn Based sponsored the recent Meat Up, a singles event, at the Bell House and apparently it was a great success. Here's Erica at FIPS on the event. Yesterday I heard there were 400 people there.

2. Who the fuck were the lame ass people in line who did NOT want a
glow-in-the-dark bracelet!? I was handing those mofos out to everyone,
and 98% of all y'all were lovin em. But a small faction of singles were
resisting the bracelets and I was just wondering: WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS
WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

3. While I was not able to follow through on my promise that EVERYONE was gonna get laid, these two
were sucking face out front for like the entire 5 mins we were waiting
for our Arecibo car to arrive. And I heard a rumor that some dude got
fucked in the women's bathroom.  Also, there was an S&M threesome
in the Makout photo booth…jus sayin.

4. Speaking of getting action, I would have literally fucked a La Cense
burger if I could have. Goddammit those things were good! Hey La Cense
guys: can you just come park outside my apartment? Like e-v-e-r-y day?

5. Wet t-shirt contest: BEST. IDEA. EVER.

Here is a letter of thanks from Rabbi Andy Bachman, Elana Paru, executive director and David Kasakove, president of Congregation Beth Elohim.

Monday, October 5th at 7:00 PM
Park Slope Parents and DoubleX Magazine present: The Comeback. Whether you're thinking of going back to work, you never quit or you been there and  motherhood changes everything.

Come hear Emma Gilbey Keller, author of "The Comeback: Seven Stories of Women Who Went from
Career to Family and Back Again." http://www.thecomebackbook.com/

Some questions we'll consider:

–Is it good for women to work – above and beyond the economic necessity to?

–How does the rhythm of your day compare to paid employment before children
– is it really possible to get anything done?

–Where did all my confidence go?

–What do you see as your next life/career transition?

–Can a non-working woman and a working woman stay close friends?

Come along and share your thoughts and stories about this life-altering
transition so unique to women today.

Date: Monday, October 5th 7-9 pm
Place: The Old Stone House at
Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street
www.oldstonehouse.org

Admission:
–Park Slope Parent FREE (with membership card)
–Non-members: $5.00

Katia Kelly at Pardon Me For Asking asks: Was that the biggest Atlantic Antic ever? See her blog for great pix of the big Brooklyn block party. She writes:

This is worth noting since I and many other neighbors and friends are incessant listeners to WNYC and NPR. So a change on WNYC: That's a change to the soundtrack of my life. This is the info from wnyc.org

First, here’s a a preview of the new program schedules for WNYC
AM820 and 93.9FM, which will go into full effect Friday, October 9th.
You can see the schedule here:

As part of this migration you’ll continue to hear Terrance McKnight
and David Garland hosting in the evenings on 105.9FM. Non-classical
music programs such as New Sounds, Spinning on Air, and The Jonathan
Schwartz Show will remain on WNYC 93.9FM.

Consolidating classical music programming on WQXR allows us to
expand the News, Information and Cultural programming on 93.9FM during
the evening and overnight hours. Starting October 9th, All Things
Considered will be heard for an additional hour weekdays from 7-8pm
following Marketplace and providing listeners with news of the day from
NPR and the WNYC Newsroom. Current AM820 weeknight programs On Point
and Tell Me More will move to 93.9FM, allowing us to introduce a few
often-requested favorites, The Diane Rehm Show and To The Point, to the
AM820 line-up at 9pm and 10pm, respectively. Evening listeners will
have an opportunity to catch WNYC’s afternoon daily talk show about
music, Soundcheck with John Schaefer, weeknights at 10pm on 93.9FM.

WNYC weekend listeners will also hear a new lineup starting October
10th. Some returning public radio favorites include Michael Feldman’s
Whad’Ya Know?, The Splendid Table, and Harry Shearer’s Le Show. We’ve
reworked the placement of our existing weekend programs to create
schedules that will, we hope, give you more opportunities to catch your
own favorite shows.
Download the schedule here (PDF)

Another piece in the puzzle: our second full-time music outlet, Q2,
which will be available as a web stream and via HD radio. This 24/7
channel for contemporary and adventurous music will feature large-scale
festival programming and live concerts from venues around New York
(including our own Jerome L. Greene Performance Space). Limor Tomer,
our executive producer for music, likes to describe this stream as “500
years of New Music.” After all, on Q2 you’ll be able to hear everything
from Adams to Zorn, from Gesualdo to Golijov.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts about the new schedule. As
you’ve probably noticed if you’ve listened for a while, our programming
is constantly evolving, and your feedback is part of that process. So
stay tuned!

So what is Poetry Punch?

It's BRW's annual poetry party curated by Michele Madigan Somerville.

How about a nice poetry punch?

When is it?

On Thursday October 15th at 8 p.m. come hear Edmund Berrigan, Louise Crawford, Bill Evans Sharon Mesmer, Wanda Phipps, Joanna Sit, Michael Sweeney and Jeffrey C. Wright.

How about a nice poetry punch?

Where?

At the Old Stone House. 3rd Street between 3rd and 4th Streets in Park Slope. Suggested donation of $5. includes punch, wine and snacks. 718-768-3195

How about a nice poetry punch?

City
Council District 39 candidates David Pechefsky, Brad Lander, and Joe Nardiello
will lead a discussion on democracy following a screening of the documentary "Please Vote for Me," a film
about an election for class monitor in a third grade classroom in China,
complete with
intimidation, bribery, and vote rigging! 

The film will
be the jumping off point for examining democracy in New York City and a chance
to see and hear the candidates together.

Monday, October 5th from 7 -9 p.m. at Old First Church. Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street.

If you like street fairs, this is a good one: Atlantic Antic. All day. Crowds, food, stuff to buy at great local shops, etc. Have fun.

Later: try dinner or a late lunch at the TChoup Shop at DBA, Sunday only restaurant in Williamsburg (is it a pop-up restaurant?).

I've been in touch with chef Simon Glenn and plan to talk to him soon (sorry Simon). So alll questions will be answered. In the meantime, the food sounds SO GOOD, prices great and Oh- So-New Orleans. Check this out: Char BQ oysters, New Orleans styles shrimp, cajun spiced burger, spiced lima beans and cherry tomatoes and roasted beets with sliced pecans…

You can tell that I'm hungry and that food sounds GOOD.

at DBA: 113 North 7th Street in Williamsburg! 2 p.m. until? 

Rain or shine, Sunday is the Atlantic Antic, one of the biggest street fairs in the country metaphor contemporary art is a gallery on Atlantic Avenue and they have a show, appropriately enough, called Slippery When Wet.

Needless to say, water is the theme of this show at the gallery, which is located on 382 Atlantic Avenue between Hoyt and Bond Streets in downtown Brooklyn.

For humans water has a timeless fascination. Covering 2/3
the surface of our planet, water nourishes, cools, cleans, entertains, and
inspires us. And no wonder, as is commonly known, 96% of our bodies is
comprised of water, we are literally made of the stuff. In our embryonic state
we develop while floating in a sort of inland sea, sporting the gills that
suggest our own distant evolution from the enveloping oceans. As a subject for
artists, water is an endlessly fluid metaphor presenting an ever-changing
surface of reflection, complex color, and translucent mystery.
Its' varied nature can be seen as a mirror to our own mercurial moods. Rain can
be soothing or pelting, a stream can murmur gently or roar with destructive
force. Water is the only element that we know well in all its' different states
frozen, liquid, and gas, but it is the liquid state flowing, turbulent, or
still that most attracts us. In Slippery When Wet, 5 painters and 2
photographers explore this liquid realm bringing the stillness of art and a
variety of sensibilities to bear on the the restless motion of this most common
yet still elusive element.
 

Suzan Batu, from Istanbul, makes paintings that present a sharply; focused and
highly contemporary take on the ancient Turkish art of calligraphy. Her
compositions evoke water or wisping steam with a crisp, sinuous line that reels
and puddles as it moves over and across the canvas. Her use of high keyed pop
colors locate her paintings squarely in the present while the eloquent beauty
of her line exhibits the timeless flow of dance

Susan Homer makes delicious paintings with lush painterly surfaces that
are rich in romanticism. In her new painting for this exhibition, her
protagonist, as in so many of her works, is a small bird, here caught amongst fantastic blossoms in a
downpour of juicy grisaille. Homer references pioneering naturalists like
Audubon, and the stylized flatness of Japanese prints and the decorative arts,
merging such disparate sources into giddily organic paintings that present
intriguing avian fables.

Nancy Manter is a photographer and also an accomplished painter. Here
she uses her camera to document  a
series of water drawings made by pulling her fingers through dew that has
gathered on windowpanes. With a nod to the dominant window configurations of
contemporary architecture, her impromptu marks drip and slide across the pane's
slick surface, playfully echoing the grid of the outside screens while clearing
our view to sunlit exteriors.

Joanne Mattera's paintings employ flowing layers of near transparent encaustic which
build into rich and subtle color experiences that reveal hidden depths. Her
group of square paintings from the Silk Road Series shimmer within their
carefully crafted, softly textured surfaces like so many small ponds. In her
painting Vicolo 52,  she carves
through these layers giving a hint of her process in a painting that is bright
with flickering lights.

 
Andrew Mockler creates precise and complex abstractions that here seem to
capture in one place all of the colors that might be seen over the ocean during
a day at the beach from pale mid-day blues and muddied greens to late afternoon
violets and pinks. Mockler alternates passages of impasto with transparent
glazes calling attention to the paints' physicality while constructing
insistent horizontals that lead our eye deep into the matrix of his carefully
calibrated and refreshing color studies.

 
Don Muchow makes intense and quiet photographs that are filled with a
rich sense of place. Working in black and white or near monochrome he invests
his landscape studies with the carefully edited simplicity of Chinese brush
painting. These are elemental landscapes that reward patient viewing with their
pared down, subtly balanced composition and elegant tonalities. Suggesting
settings for an existentialist film these haunting images draw us into their
contemplative moods and provide stages for daydreams.

Peter Schroth is a painter with a strong affinity to the traditions of
plein-air painting. His group of ocean studies were painted on site near the
Atlantic Ocean and retain the immediacy and accurate color made possible by his
proximity to his subject. The viewpoint in these paintings hovers just above
these turbulent surfaces and seems to have us standing beside the painter in the middle
of the rush near the shore. On close viewing the images dissolve into skeins of
calligraphic marks and the bravura brushwork of pure painting.

Leon's poem and this illustration was in the  Metropolitan Diary on September 18, 2006. Leon Freilich sent it my way and I'm glad he did.

THE HOUSE ON GARFIELD PLACE

The brownstone just around the corner

Now sports a brilliant fuchsia flair,

Alarming dogs and stopping traffic

On foot, on wheels and in the air.

Park Slopers talk about the building,

Exchanging snarky real-estate jokes

About the home that’s become an attraction —

Except for the hapless next-door folks.

Victor LaValle, who read at Brooklyn Reading Works, on Thursday night, is a hot new author. Well, he's not exactly new. He's already written two acclaimed books, "Slapboxing with Jesus" and "The Ecstatic." But his new book, "Big Machine," may propel him to literary stardom. Mark my words.

LaValle read a terrific excerpt from this new book, Big Machine on Thursday, which WOWED the crowd. And now I'm listening to LaValle being interviewed on  NPR and Jackie Lydon is saying it's not like anything she's ever read.

Here's what the book is about (from the publisher's blurb): a character named "Ricky Rice, a middle-aged, middling hustler,with a lingering junk habit, a bum knee and a haunted mind. The sole survivor of a suicide cult, he spends his days scraping by as a porter at a bus depot in Utica, New York, until one day a letter arrives reminging him of a vow he once made…"

On NPR, LaValle says of the book: "It's the wildest book you're going to read this year…I wanted to write a book of unqualified optimism. At the end, people are a little bit beaten, a little bit bruised, but hopeful."

At a special event at Park Slope Methodist Church, political activist, writer and former State Senator from California, Tom Hayden, critiqued the government's tendency toward military escalation in his anti-war address sponsored by  Brooklyn for Peace held at the Park
Slope Methodist Church.

During the question and answer session that followed an audience member pointed out the event was taking place on Gandhi's birthday.

Photo: Tom Martinez
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