I hear good things about this program. They are offering a special deal for Sessions I and II.

LADIES ROCK CAMP 2008
**Special sale — Register with a friend by June 20 and you both save 20%
— a $100 value!**

Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls presents Ladies Rock Camp -unique and fun
weekend of hands-on music playing, right here in NYC. Learn to play drums,
bass, guitar, or vocals (or get even better if you already play), form a
band, write a song, and perform at The Knitting Factory — all in three
days. Classes, workshops, special appearances by amazing women artists,
and more. All proceeds go to the Scholarship Fund of the non-profit summer
camp Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. No musical experience necessary!

–When: Session I: Friday, July 18 – Sunday, July 20
Session II: Friday, August 8 – Sunday, August 10
–Location: Urban Assembly School of Music & Art, in the DUMBO area of Brooklyn
Cost: $500 for one person. Special offer: $800 for two people (until June 20)
–Registration forms available at http://www.williemaerockcamp.org
Questions? Write

From Park Slope Parents, one woman’s take on the Pre-K mess. Most importantly, everyone affected should COMPLAIN to 311, WRITE LETTERS to Joel Klein and Mike Bloomberg.

I had a long talk with a parent coordinator this morning who told me
more detail about the screening process than the Times article
revealed. The article stated that parents either filled out the
application incorrectly or the algorithms weren’t working. I can’t
speak to the latter, but as for filling out
applications “incorrectly”, this is what she told me: the data
clerks in Pennsylvania were interpreting these forms without a clue
as to what NYC looks like.

If you mispelled a street name, you were
rejected. If you left something off because you weren’t sure how to
answer it, you were rejected. This was mishandling on a personal
level, because the program was shipped to a place outside the city,
with real live people making judgement calls. The way it was handled
last year (or before) was school by school, district by district,
where the people making the assignments knew the parents and families
and kids personally, and knew the street names (for example). On top
of this, because of this huge backlog of problems, OSEPO (the office
of student enrollment) is overwhelmed, leading to secondary backlogs
the gifted program, etc. And because the process was centralized,
there are very few – business school graduates – handling what used
to be handled by many skilled and knowledgable people all throughout
the city. She even said someone on the phone at Tweed was crying.

I am affected by this myself. Some kids who should have been
accepted earlier in the year in her school were rejected, so they
were reaccepted as Magnet students as a solution to keep them in the
school, which is crazy because they are in their own district and
don’t need the magnet status, thus bumping people like me, who needs
a magnet admission to get into that school!

She advised me to call 311 to complain, or drop an email to Joel
Klein: so should everybody reading this post!

In Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, the follow-up to Garbage Land, her influential investigation into our modern trash crisis, Elizabeth Royte ventures to Fryeburg, Maine, to look deep into the source—of Poland Spring water. In this tiny town, and in others like it across the country, she finds the people, machines, economies, and cultural trends that have made bottled water a $60-billion- a-year phenomenon even as it threatens local control of a natural resource and litters the landscape with plastic waste.

Moving beyond the environmental consequences of making, filling, transporting and landfilling those billions of bottles, Royte examines the state of tap water today (you may be surprised), and the social impact of water-hungry multinationals sinking ever more pumps into tiny rural towns. Ultimately, Bottlemania makes a case for protecting public water supplies, for improving our water infrastructure and—in a world of increasing drought and pollution—better allocating the precious drinkable water that remains.

Elizabeth Royte is the author of Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash and The Tapir’s Morning Bath: Solving the Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest — both New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Her writing on science and the environment has appeared in Harper’s, National Geographic, Outside, The New York Times Magazine, and other national publications. Royte is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, a contributing editor for OnEarth, and a correspondent for Outside magazine. A former Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow and recipient of Bard College’s John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their daughter.

The lowdown:
Community Bookstore, Park Slope
143 7th Avenue
(718) 783-3075
Our events are, as always, free and open to the public.
Drinks and snacks for all!

There are loads of great items to bid on for the BAX Spring Silent Auction. But there’s only one day left to do it. You can find these items here: www.bax.org/silentauction.php and in person at BAX. But hurry, the auction closes at 5pm sharp on Monday, June 9, 2008.

This incredible program adds so much to Park Slope and it deserves our support.

BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange—arts and artists in progress – is a multi-arts non-profit organization in Park Slope, Brooklyn, founded in 1991 (as the Gowanus Arts Exchange). Their mission is to provide a nurturing, year-round performance, rehearsal and educational venue in Brooklyn that encourages artistic risk-taking and stimulates dialogue among diverse constituencies.

A neighborhood home for the arts and recognized citywide and nationally for its work “developing” artists, BAX is an advocate of cultural diversity and inventiveness. BAX received a special citation in 1998 from the New York Dance and Performance Awards (“Bessie”) for “building a house and a home for the arts in Brooklyn…championing the vital connection of accessible education to the life and livelihood of artists; for imagining, supporting and leading a wildly diverse, aesthetically vocal community…”

BAX has offered a full range of presenting—currently over 50 evenings each season-and educational programs for children and adults in dance, theater, performance art, and film/video since 1991. Three alternative public schools in Brooklyn receive arts-in-education programs, as well. BAX’s diversity is its greatest strength.

Over 100 items are up for bid in the following categories: For Artists or the Artist Within; For Kids & Families; Events/Museums; Culinary Delights; Unique, Unexpected, and Ultra Luxurious; Body, Mind, Spirit, Fine Art and Alluring Items and Great Gifts.

-Two-night hotel accommodations at Sunset Jamaica Grande Resort & Spa in Ocho Rios, Jamaica

-The iPod Touch

-Dinner for two at Union Square Café

-George Michael concert tickets at Madison Square Garden

-Big Apple Circus tickets

-Hot air balloon rides

-Gift certificates to hip Park Slope boutiques, restaurants & wine shops

Over at Brooklynometry, there’s a recipe for homemade laundry soap. Here’s an excerpt from her post:

I made a batch of homemade laundry soap Wednesday night, this is my big big fun. I didn’t have any Zote laundry bar soap, so I used the bar of Octagon I got from Key Food. Octagon, the name makes me happy. Is there a diagnosis for that?

I grated half the bar of soap. Once I start grating soap, it’s a little hard to stop. It makes me wonder what it would like to be a tallow renderer, like Benjamin Franklin’s father.

Here is an excerpt from Andy Bachman’s blog. Andy, the rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim, attended Friday’s Parents as Reading Partners, a montly open school hour for parents.

As is usually the case, the school’s spectacular principal, Liz Phillips, came over the PA to read a poem. The fifth graders mouthed the principal’s words when she asked everyone to rise and join the fifth grade in leading the Pledge of Allegiance.

I looked at my daughter, who stayed up late on Tuesday night to watch Barack Obama claim the Democratic nomination, making history. She looked at me and smiled. Tears filled my eyes. She rolled hers.

And then I saw her turn toward the American flag with her hand over her heart and with the naivete and idealism of the child she still is, dedicate herself to the values of her country.

It was a moment I will not soon forget.

Hillary Clinton bows out of the race and gives her support to Obama marking an end to her historic and powerful run for the presidency of the United States of America, the first woman to get as far as she did. Here is an excerpt from the speech she gave yesterday.

As we gather here today in this historic magnificent building, the 50th woman to leave this Earth is orbiting overhead. If we can blast 50 women into space, we will someday launch a woman into the White House.
Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. That has always been the history of progress in America.

Think of the suffragists who gathered at Seneca Falls in 1848 and those who kept fighting until women could cast their votes. Think of the abolitionists who struggled and died to see the end of slavery. Think of the civil rights heroes and foot-soldiers who marched, protested and risked their lives to bring about the end to segregation and Jim Crow.

Because of them, I grew up taking for granted that women could vote. Because of them, my daughter grew up taking for granted that children of all colors could go to school together. Because of them, Barack Obama and I could wage a hard fought campaign for the Democratic nomination. Because of them, and because of you, children today will grow up taking for granted that an African American or a woman can yes, become President of the United States.

When that day arrives and a woman takes the oath of office as our President, we will all stand taller, proud of the values of our nation, proud that every little girl can dream and that her dreams can come true in America. And all of you will know that because of your passion and hard work you helped pave the way for that day.

So I want to say to my supporters, when you hear people saying – or think to yourself – “if only” or “what if,” I say, “please don’t go there.” Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.
Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next President and I hope and pray that all of you will join me in that effort.

According to Robert Belzer, of NJCAAN, a volunteer citizens group working to address airport and airplane noise pollution, there are going to be more and more planes landing and departing from New York area airports and the consequences in terms of noise pollution are, well, obvious. He sent diagrams of the JFK departure backbone tracks that the FAA intends to implement later in 2008. He sent this to me on Saturday:

New JFK/Long Island Airport Departure Procedures Impact Nassau County, NYC And New Jersey Communities To The West Of Newark Airport
As the diagram illustrates, the departure traffic is shifted north over the new departure gate to the areas currently the most heavily impacted by Newark Airport traffic. This is the area to the west of Newark Airport.

The traffic would first over fly Nassau County and then New York City . It currently goes out over the Atlantic Ocean and then Monmouth County , NJ south of Newark Airport.

The New Jersey Coalition Against Aircraft Noise (NJCAAN) is very concerned that the public remains unaware about the FAA intention to shift all of this traffic over densely populated residential communities due to the agency’s inadequate disclosure in its reports for the metro Airspace Redesign.

In addition, we are questioning whether this shift in traffic would be necessary if the military would have provided access to the offshore airspace that it currently uses for training purposes. The unfortunate consequence of the military blocking access to this airspace is to require commercial aircraft to over fly densely populated residential communities instead of the Atlantic Ocean . Finally, the FAA intends to shift all of this traffic over New York City .

Is this a good idea in terms of security and safety?

Robert Belzer
President, NJCAAN
www.njcaan.org

It’s always a little unnerving—and helpful—to read something like this. I guess we won’t be putting these tomatoes in our salads.

The Food and Drug Administration is expanding its warning to consumers nationwide
that a salmonellosis outbreak has been linked to consumption of certain raw
red plum, red Roma, and red round tomatoes, and products containing these raw,
red tomatoes.

FDA recommends that consumers not eat raw red Roma, raw red plum, raw red
round tomatoes, or products that contain these types of raw red tomatoes unless the
tomatoes are from the sources listed below. If unsure of where tomatoes are
grown or harvested, consumers are encouraged to contact the store where the
tomato purchase was made. Consumers should continue to eat cherry tomatoes,
grape tomatoes, and tomatoes sold with the vine still attached, or tomatoes
grown at home.

On June 5, using traceback and other distribution pattern information, FDA
published a list of states, territories, and countries where tomatoes are grown
and harvested which have NOT BEEN associated with this outbreak. This
updated list includes: Arkansas, California, Georgia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Belgium, Canada, Dominican Republic, Guatemala,
Israel, Netherlands, and Puerto Rico.Full text:

here:http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2008/NEW01848.htmlwillow lawson

Golf for kids in Brooklyn. Could be a great thing for your kid; mine love mini-golf.

Since 2000, City Parks Foundation’s CityParks Golf program has provided
free lessons to over 12,000 children in parks and ranges throughout the
five boroughs.

The CityParks Junior Golf Center was created to further develop the skills
of our city’s future generations of golfers. Our mission is to:

–teach the basics of the game and its positive values to New York
City youth, at no cost
–offer free, challenging follow-up programs that will enable
participants to play independently on the course for the rest of their
lives.

As a member of the Golf Center, your child will learn the game from our
experienced teaching staff, directed by PGA professional Gregg Gaulocher,
and can practice regularly at a facility designed specifically for youth
development.

Instructional programs at the Golf Center are open only to NYC residents
between the ages of 6-17. Membership is automatic once a child enrolls in
one of our programs.

Schedules, registration forms and special event dates are posted at least
one month in advance on the website located at
. Click for
current program and registration information. Please check our website
regularly for up-to-date information.

Program dates for 2008 are as follows:

# July 7 – August 3
# Aug 4 – Aug 31
# Sept 1 – Oct 5
# Oct 6 – Nov 9

We are currently registering for the July & August sessions.

Beginning July 7, 2008, the Golf Center will be open 7 days a week through
October 31. Hours of operation during July and August are from 8:00 AM to
7:00 PM. During the fall, the facility will be open from 3:00 PM to 7:00
PM on weekdays and 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM on Saturdays and Sundays.

Directions

The CityParks Junior Golf Center is located at 8850 14th Avenue, in Bay
Ridge Brooklyn and is accessible by car and public transportation

Another show at Brooklyn Artists Gym by Cordula Volkening, the artist who was diagnosed wth advanced brain cancer last year. The BAG gallery is located at 168 7th Street between 3rd and 2nd Avenue in the Park Slope/Gowanus area.

Volkening was on the Park Slope 100 in 2007 and is a real hero in my book, a wild, brave heart, for not letting her disease get in the way of her desire to make paintings. Sadly, the tumor make it impossible for her to speak.

And her paintings are really striking. Here’s the blurb from BAG:

Cordula Volkening has been working as an artist and designer for 35 years. “Mit Meinem Wilden Herzen” is her second show at BAG. It is named for a Rilke poem and roughly translates from German as “in my wildest/bravest heart.”

Cordula was diagnosed with advanced brain cancer last September. She has undergone two rounds of brain surgery and is currently in an experimental clinical trial. The tumor has impaired her ability to speak, but as her friend photographer Stefan Falke says, the effects of the cancer and the treatments have “not kept her from continuously creating great art.”

Cordula was born and raised in Germany and has lived in Brooklyn since 1985. She holds a degree in fine art from the School of Art and Design in Kiel, Germany. She has had solo and group shows and has won fellowships and various awards for her work. Her first show at Brooklyn Artists Gym took place last December and was called “YOU: Would you like an invitation to my destination?” She is the owner of Living Art Space, a design and construction management firm.

Cordula considers her style to be “a unique kind of visual storytelling … My work as an artist is to supply language that is unpretentious and allow stories to be told without using tried-out recipes. Once the visuals are created, I become a viewer just like anybody else and surrender to the unique response that each visual solicits.”

My work as an artist is to supply language that is unpretentious and allow stories to be told without using tried-out recipes. Once the visuals are created, I become a viewer just like anybody else and surrender to the unique response that each visual solicits. more..

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OSFO soldiers on but it’s her mom who is beginning to weary of this whole matter. No being on any middle school master list is very frustrating. It’s like we don’t exist. Bureaucracies are so good at extinguishing people. Poof, you’re gone. You don’t exist.

This afternoon I spent some time in the guidance counselor’s office at PS 321. She is almost as frustrated as I am as she’s been trying to reach the principal of one of the schools that OSFO applied to to see if she is on their list. I heard her leave a message and specifically spell out OSFO’s name.

She told me: “Maybe you’ll get the letter this weekend.” You can imagine that I am a bit dubious.

So far her calls have not been returned and District 15 seems not to be returning calls.

On another note, people are receiving their letters. Woo hoo: there really are letters after all. As I reported earlier, one family received two letters for one child (one said she got into a school she didn’t apply to; the other said she wasn’t placed).

Another family found out today that their daughter is, in fact, on the data base in another district.

While I was in the office with another parent and child who are are on NO LIST, a girl came running into the office with her dad and a gaggle of friends.

“Where did I get in?” she asked. Her friends stood by excitedly while the guidance counselor checked the list.

The girl’s name was there and she got into the school she wanted to. Their were screams, hugs, and yelps.

I told them to leave the room because it seemed unkind to the young girl in the office who still doesn’t know where she’s going. She was a very cute girl.

“All my friends are saying where they’re going. I keep wondering where I’m going next year,” she told me.

She seemed resilient and upbeat. I admired her for that and was glad that the sqealing girls left the room.

In all the many years that this guidance counselor has been working at PS 321, she’s never had to be the one to personally tell parents where their children got in.

Except for one year when the Education Department sent the acceptance letters to the school, the letters always go home. Last year the problem was that the parents got their letters before the guidance counselor got the list; she found that frustrating when the parents needed her assistance.

Because things were centralized this year — pre-K, middle school and high school were all handled out of one office—there have been many problems. As the director of OSEPO told the New York Times:

“Part of the challenge is that we took on about 28 individual district processes and created a standardized timeline,” said Elizabeth Sciabarra, the director of the Office of Student Enrollment, Planning and Operations, referring to how middle school admissions were changed. Her office, which handles high school admissions, added prekindergarten admissions and notification of middle school admissions this year. “I know that there are parents who are upset that they haven’t gotten a letter yet. Rest assured they will by the end of the week, and we have committed to parents we will work to get this done earlier next year.”

Another problem I am hearing about is children being placed in schools they didn’t apply to. The guidance counselor tells me that the Education Department reserves the right to place a child in a school that is not on their list if necessary.

This is outrageous. The school asks parents to carefully select the right school for their children and do whatever those schools require for entrance. Children with their parents go to open houses, small tours, fill out applications, audition, do interviews.

To be treated like this is a slap in the face.

NY1 reports that the City Council wants to crack down on grocers who gouge customers on milk prices. Speaker Christine Quinn says a majority of retailers are overcharging consumers.

Nice.

86% of stores overcharge by at least 40 cents.

Quinn says there’s a need for better enforcement of the Milk Price Gouging Law, which links the price of milk to the cost of producing it.

For those who are spending a fortune on organic milk (over $4 a half gallon), check out what regular milk is supposed to cost: for June, the maximum amount retailers can charge for a gallon of milk is $3.93 cents, a half-gallon is $2.01 and the price for a quart of milk is set at $1.04.

Is anyone watching the price of organic milk?

Customers can call a hotline set up for reporting problems at 518-457-5731

Here’s an excerpt from the article in Friday’s New York Times’ about the pre-K and middle school admissions mishaps. The story was written by Jennifer Medina and it includes a paragraph about our being left off the list entirely. She called me this evening to find out our status. “Still waiting,” I said.

Middle school admissions notifications have been delayed, leaving parents frustrated and unable to plan for next year, especially if their children do not get their first choice.

“Part of the challenge is that we took on about 28 individual district processes and created a standardized timeline,” said Elizabeth Sciabarra, the director of the Office of Student Enrollment, Planning and Operations, referring to how middle school admissions were changed. Her office, which handles high school admissions, added prekindergarten admissions and notification of middle school admissions this year. “I know that there are parents who are upset that they haven’t gotten a letter yet. Rest assured they will by the end of the week, and we have committed to parents we will work to get this done earlier next year.”

In years past, neighborhood districts set their own calendars for middle school admissions; this year, the city placed all middle schools on the same timeline, although admissions criteria and decisions remained the responsibility of individual schools.

In some districts, the uniform timetable means students are finding out where they will go several weeks later than they would have under the old system. And, in part because various admissions forms were delayed, notification letters were sent several days later than the city had planned.

The department has considered consolidating the entire middle school admissions process, as it did for high schools five years ago, but Ms. Sciabarra said no final decision had been made.

Although city officials said the problems were limited to the delay in notification, there were hints of other issues. Several students at P.S. 321 in Park Slope were assigned to middle schools that they did not apply to, school officials said. And one student was simply left off the list of children assigned to the school.

Louise Crawford said she was shocked to learn that her daughter’s name was somehow missing. “I would love to have just said to my daughter, ‘This is where you’re going,’ and let her have had a good moment,” she said. As of Thursday, she had still not received a letter

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This morning browsing the websites of various music acts (Mountain Goats, Black Lips, Lucy Roche Wainwright, The Roches) I came upon this Dictionary of Music Business Terminology on the Roches website. It’s kind of depressing but might be interesting/funny to some OTBKB readers.

I also found out that Terre Roche and Marian Wilson will lead a group in singing folksongs, rounds, and other goodies in beautiful Robert Wagner Park at Battery Park City on June 13th and June 27th from 7 until 8:30. “Everyone is welcome! Come sing, listen, play frisbee, or even just fall asleep on the grass among friends as the sun goes down over the river. (We’ll make sure someone wakes you up and sends you home at the end).”

Another thing I found out: Terre Roche gives guitar lessons. Yes. That’s right. All this and more on their website.

If you don’t know The Roches check out their self-named album from 1979. It is probably one of my fave LPs ever. Smart folk produced by Robert Fripp.

I like this description by Francis Karsten:

With a series of ’80s albums for Warner Brothers, Maggie, Terri, and Suzzy Roche invented a tart fusion of barber shop, doowop, and vaguely Celtic singing styles. Their voices could rise and dart around each other with the instinct only sisters possess, and their original material is by turn strangely funny and darkly evasive. Produced by the surprising choice of experimental guitarist Robert Fripp, the debut is their freshest recording, and a good avenue for new listeners to enter their captivating vocal world

.
About the dictionary:

Compiled way back in the last century but perhaps still relevant, here are some helpful definitions for up and coming musicians and performers. They are the sort of thing you might hear coming out of the mouths of record company executives, club owners, agents, managers and record producers. We have found it helpful during our long career to be able to understand what people are really saying in a business context. We offer these to everyone who has the inclination to venture into the field of music.

On the left is the actual phrase that comes out of the person’s mouth. On the right is the meaning of that phrase.

Check out this video by New Yorker cartoonist Victoria Roberts. She’s a friend of composer Louis Rosen and actor Charlotte Maier, who live in Park Slope and she actually came out to Park Slope to make a short video about Louis and his recent recording with Capathia Jenkins called, One Ounce of Truth. She ended up doing an interview with me, as well.

Unfortunately her computer crashed and she lost all that footage (she shoots everything using her computer’s camera). She was Blog Captain at the New Yorker’s cartoon blog and she is just a font of creativity. The character she plays, her alter ego, is Nona, and Victoria stayed in character the whole time I was over at their apartment.

Suffice it to say, Victoria looks nothing like Nona (from what I remember seeing her on another occasion).

She’s absolutely hysterical. Go here to find more of her videos.

On June 12th, Brooklyn Reading Works presents the annual reading of the 808 Union Writers group at the Old Stone House on Thursday, June 12th at 8 p.m. There is a suggested donation of $5 to support Brooklyn Reading Works. There will also be wine and light refreshments.

The group met at The Dance Studio at 808 Union Street at one time—so that’s why we called ourselves 808 Union). But now that’s Kidsville so we don’t meet there anymore. Jokingly we call ourselves Writers and Drinkers because we usually go out afterward for drinks. Actually, Hepcat coined that prases.

Now we meet in The Montauk Club so we are renaming the group Montauk Basement not that that matters.

But We Are an awesome group that’s been in existence for more than ten years. It’s usually a great reading, a diverse ride, a fun night.

There’s Louise Crawford, who runs OTBKB, is the Smartmom columnist for the Brooklyn Paper and the author of The Last Sublet, a novel about a serial subletter.

Barbara Ensor, author of Cinderella, As If You Didn’t Already Know the Story and Thumbelina, Tiny Runaway Bride

Marian Fontana, author of A Widows Walk: A Memoir of 9/11 and the forthcoming "The Middle of the Bed"

Jeffrey M. Jones, author of the plays, Crazy Plays, The Endless Adventures of M C Kat, and Tomorrowland.

Wendy Ponte, PS…I Love You columnist for the Brooklyn Paper, author of Having a Baby…Naturally, and contributing editor for Mothering Magazine.

Rosemary Moore, an award-winning playwright, who’s play, The Pain of Pink Evenings, was included in Best American Short Plays of  2000-2001.

It’s National Doughnut Day 2008 at Krispy Kreme. Hepcat thinks it’s in  honor of his birthday.

Shhhh: Don’t dispel him of this delusion.

Photo by on the move

So now I’m the poster-parent for the poster-child, who isn’t on the DOE’s middle school list. At Parents as Reading Partners, PS 321’s monthly open school hour for parents, everyone wanted to know: So did things work out? Did you get your letter?

Some people looked very sorry for me with their sad, long faces. Others looked guilty when they congratulated others. Like, oops, sorry you have nothing to be congratulated about.

One friend said jokingly,  "I hear you’re homeschooling." Another friend said, "How are you holding up?" And I feigned being weak in the knees.

"They messed with the wrong woman," someone else said. Still others wanted to know what I was going to do.

I’m going to do what I always do: find the words to tell the tale.

I ran into the guidance counselor in the administration office and asked if she’d gotten to the bottom of the matter.

"Not yet," she said.

She told me to check back in at the end of the day. Yeah, like, hey that was what I was planning on doing. She said that there were 20 people who had major problems connected with the admissions process: that’s 10% of the class. 

Some kids were assigned to a school in Red Hook that no one in the fifth grade even applied to. There was some anger about that. I suspect there’s a big story there. 

None of the so-called special needs kids were assigned. The acronym for that is CTT or Collaborative Team Teaching. It’s an inclusion class that has a mix of special needs and general education kids — so that’s unresolved as yet.

No one has heard from Mark Twain, the gifted and talented middle school in Coney Island. NEST, a school on the Lower East Side popular with PS 321 parents had its own snafu. They sent out rejection letters to some kids that they meant to accept. They tried to intercede in advance. One friend got a phone call on Friday telling her to disregard the rejection letter she never received.

This happened to another family I know, too. That family did receive the rejection. Oops.

And then there are people like us. We’ve been disappeared from the list entirely. N’existe pas (pardon my French).

Problems all around. Like that person said, "They messed with the wrong woman!"

A member of Park Slope Parents agreed to share her report on yesterday’s press conference at Tweed with readers of OTBKB.

The press conference happened. I’m sure info will be pouring in this evening as all the
parents return from today’s round of class picnics….

Gotbaum opened with a statement of support, asking for the DOE to get it together and
give us answers pdq. Bill De Blasio made some stronger statements in support of parents,
summing up the problems we face and even going so far as to ask for the schools to get
back their control over the process. He mentioned the emotional part of it, but also
stressed how it’s hitting us all in the pocket book. (btw, he is currently awaiting news on
his kids’ middle school app).

Andrew Jacob and another spokesman for the DOE were there. they did not make
statements, but they were there to answer questions from parents after the conference
wrapped up. As far as I can tell, they pretty much did not give any good answers as to
what would happen, but they did take names. (yes, one more person with my info who
will not get back to me).

4 or 5 parents gave impassioned statements as to why we need the DOE to wrap this up
quickly and give us the seats that we were denied for our kids.

Lots of members of the press were there. I personally talked on camera to NY12 (on times
warner), a NYT photographer, and a few other people whose names I did not catch. Maybe
about 20 parents showed up? about half a dozen kids?

We’ll have to wait and see what the coverage is tomorrow. but at least I for one feel like
Bill De Blasio is on the case and is working hard to get answers. I suggest calling his
office to get more info. Sarah Figuereo is the contact there.

At least we got a chance to talk to people directly, but I’m not sure they were people who
can do anything……

I”m interested in getting other people’s takes on it.

I spoke with Claire Cavanah, owner of Park Slope’s Babeland, the new high-end sex toys shop for women on Bergen Street (near Flatbush Avenue), a strip of adorable shops including Bump, a maternity shop, Melt, a restaurant and a vegan sandwich place.

We talked about how visually appealing the shop is. “It’s a really fun design. Pink colors. Very calming. If it has a kids-in-a-candy-store vibe then we hit the right note,” Claire told me.

Indeed small items like condoms are displayed in multiple bowls like a penny candy store.

Cavanah, a mother of a 2-year old son, expects moms to come in with strollers. The shop is designed for easy Bugaboo and McClaren stroller navigation. There’s even a changing table in the shop’s bathroom.

The shop, which caters to straight, bi, and gay women, isn’t just for moms. Men are welcome. In fact, men love to come in and help their mates pick out toys.

Indeed, Babeland is not just a store: it’s a way of looking at life and sexuality with an openness to pleasure and sensual exploration. Not only do they sell all variety of sex toys, they also run how-to workshops on a variety of topics, including oral sex, clitoral stimulation, nutrition and sexuality.

I asked Claire for advice on describing the shop to my 11-year-old daughter if we happen to stroll by.

“You could tell her that sex is when grown ups really play. The things in this shop help make that fun,” she told me. “When people are comfortable together and trust each other, they like to have sex together.”

Well said.

Cavanah is interested in the idea of a sex-positive family. It’s an interesting idea.

On Sunday June 15, Babeland is having its grand opening party. There will be local treats, gift bags, store tours and previews of their most popular workshops. The first 50 customers will receive a Babeland Silver Bullet (that must be what they call that egg shaped vibrator with the dimmer switch I got in my gift bag at the Edgy Moms event).

Starting in June, there will be a monthly Sexy Moms Series. The first one on June 24th, will discuss issues related to desire, body image, making time for se and what it means to be a sex-positive family.

This event features Esther Blum, a registered dietitian and holidstic nutritionist and author of Eat, Drink and Be Gorgeous from Chronicle Books. She will be sharing info on which foods and nutrients can help boost your sex drive and balance your hormones.

Shot in Victorian Flatbush. Based on the story of Sander Hicks of Vox Pop (groovy cafe on Cortylou Avenue) Park Slope Cinematographer (Charlie Libin), and it opened the Brooklyn International Film Festival (and also to sell out crowds in Rotterdam, Cannes and going to Cannes,  Transylvania Film Festival, the Philadelphia Independent film Festival, the Pifan Film Festival in Korea and the Warsaw Film Festival). It’s called Able Danger and it’s the debut film of Brooklyn’s Paul Kirk!

There’s still one more chance to see the film in Brooklyn. Friday, June 6th at The Brooklyn Lyceum (4th Avenue between Union and President.

Able Danger is the story of Thomas Flynn, a Brooklyn 9/11 truther (played by Adam Nee), who falls into a noir pastiche when a mysterious Eastern European beauty (played by Elina Lowensohn) arrives at his bookstore café with the irrefutable proof of American secret intelligence involvement in the planning and execution of 9/11. When Thomas is implicated in the murder of his friend and employee, he’s forced to unravel her complex web of lies while attempting to fight his natural attraction to her. As it turns out, she possesses the Able Danger hard-drive, the smoking gun that proves the identities and methods of the real architects of 9/11, and Thomas is willing to risk everything to expose the truth. The film gets its title from the real secret government program of the same name that destroyed 2.5 terabytes of data in March 2001, and the café featured is based on the very real Brooklyn café for radical readers, Vox Pop.

At yesterday’s annual potluck supper in the backyard of PS 321 there was plenty of grumbling about the middle school process.

The waiting really was the hardest part.

Parents have been checking their mailboxes for at least a month hoping to hear from the Department of Education. Last Friday, there were rumors that the letters had finally been mailed.

Last night parents told me that the school had the master list on Monday but were told not to share the information with parents until the letters were mailed.

By Wednesday, no one had received the letters from the Education Department. Anger and frustration was mounting.

When some parents learned on Wednesday that the school had the list, they pressured the principal to release it. Finally the principal relented. At 12:30 on Wednesday, an email went out to all the parents that the guidance counselor and the parent coordinator had the list and would talk to parents.

So it was the parents, finally, who convinced the PS 321 administration to release the list.

Parents streamed into the guidance counselor’s office for word of where their child was accepted. Others called or met with the parent coordinator.

“So, did most kids get their first or second choice school?” I asked the guidance counselor.

“Actually, there were some big surprises,” she told me.

Some parents were, of course, very happy that their child got into their first choice school. Other parents were disappointed that their kid got their second or third choice school.

One mom told me that her son was very, very upset because all his friends got into one school and he’s going to another.

“He’s very, very sad,” she told me.

Another mom is in the exact same boat as we are. Her daughter is not on the master list. She has been “disappeared” by the DOE, a situation that makes you feel like crap.

“We’re probably moving,” she told me. The middle school process is, of course, not the only reason. But it is certainly a contributing factor.

“If we move to the suburbs our kids can just go to the local school,” she said.

Liz Phillips, principal of PS 321, heard that my daughter’s name was missing from the list. She assured me that the school would help figure this out. She’s a veteran of the middle school process and there are always problems; and they almost always work themselves out.

One mom told me that after such a positive experience at PS 321, she felt that the middle school experience was a real downer. “It’s so anti-climatic after such a great experience here.”

Most parents understand that the middle school process has little to do with the elementary school and everything to do with the bureaucracy of the Education Department.

But still, it’s a downer. Middle school shouldn’t be this hard.

Yesterday, the big news in Park Slope was about Obama, who is poised to be the first black democratic nominee for president of the United States. All over the Slope there was joy and excitement. But also talk, talk, talk about Hillary.

Some were angry. A parent at the annual PS 321 potluck supper in the school’s backyard saw Bill de Blasio, a longtime Hillary supporter.

“I can’t look at him. He makes me sick. The way he was standing behind Hillary last night. It makes me so angry!” she said with true venom.

Others were more reflective about the historic nature of the primary season. A black man and a woman competing for the nomination. An amazing, amazing journey.

There was also the disappointment of the die-hard Hillary supporters, local women who felt excited and empowered by the idea of a female president.

Others had become wearied by Hillary’s insistence on staying in. Mixed with respect for her tenacity and stamina there was the feeling that it was time for her to throw in the towe.

For some yesterday was the beginning of something great. For others it was the end of hope and expectation about a Hillary administration.

The owner of Met Food pointed to the cigarette shelf above the cash register and sighed. Because of the new city cigarette tax ($1.25) that went into effect on Tuesday, she’s selling packs for more than $9.

I think she said $9.50.

I didn’t know what to say. I despise cigarettes and am glad that they’re so expensive to prevent people from buying them.

But I didn’t know what to say to my friend at Met Food. Will this mean a drop in sales? Is this bad for her shop? I’m not sure but she did seem vexed.

I just smiled. I figured it was better not to say anything.

I just got word from Rob Leddy of Coneyisland.com that Dick Zigun, who runs Coney Island USA, the folks who bring you the Coney Island Museum, the Mermaid Parade, and more and is considered the unofficial Mayor of Coney Island, has resigned from the Coney Island Development Corporation. Here is his letter of resignation dated June 4, 2008.

Dear Real Mayor Bloomberg,

I write this open letter of resignation from the position you appointed me to as a Director of The Coney Island Development Corporation effective Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 6 PM, the exact date and time of the first public hearing on the revised rezoning of Coney Island. I urge you to withdraw this deeply flawed plan and cancel this hearing, but as it stands I cannot leave my name on it. I am particularly disturbed that the Directors of the CIDC have had no opportunity to discuss or vote on these substantial changes to our Strategic Plan – which was the result of years of work and which had achieved widespread neighborhood consensus.

As everyone knows, I am a phony politician, no more than a spokesman and advocate for the amusement industry is this “Mayor” of Coney Island. My fantasy municipality is 61 acres zoned for amusements. Nobody lives there or votes there and most Coney Island fans are tourists who live in the 5 boroughs or other states or countries far away from the real elected officials in Brooklyn. A hundred years ago Coney Island’s amusement core covered hundreds of acres and even in the mid-20th century it was over 70 acres before Robert Moses stole Luna Park and the east end for high rise housing. My 61 acre municipality contains many large empty lots and does indeed need economic development and year round activity. Though I had no hand in writing the CIDC Strategic Plan, I have served as its #1 cheerleader and your advocate as a Mayor who could tackle Coney Island 21st century revitalization. You have done many good deeds for the beach.

The CIDC Plan promised a world class tourist attraction with an entertainment core: lots of rides complimented by year round nightclubs and enclosed waterparks. Instead the core will now be rezoned for a shopping mall full of NikeTowns, Toys R US and 4 thirty story hotels. One of these massive hotels is even proposed directly in front of The Wonder Wheel, a NYC Landmark. Only 9 acres out of 61 will be reserved for amusement park rides. The original CIDC Plan promised that any condos built within the empty lots of the 61 acres would have Entertainment Retail on the ground floor such as bowling alleys and theaters. Instead the 61 acres now crams in 26 new high rise towers up to 30 stories each with dry cleaners and hardware stories no tourist will ever visit. We worked four hard years for consensus and I for one feel betrayed

Dear Real Mayor Bloomberg, until my resignation takes effect I remain your honest advisor and the conscience of the CIDC. If no one else will tell you, I tell you and Councilman Reccia that there is almost unanimous dislike of the new plan among amusement park owners, workers and fans. You underestimate the protests, yelling and lawsuits headed your way from a land where legit businesses call themselves Cyclone, Thunderbolt and Tornado! Yes, I know I am asking a lot to expect you to reverse EDC plans, cancel hearings and reverse course on this matter… but didn’t you do just that last month?

If snooty Paris, of all places, can live with Euro Disney why can’t New York City reinvent a 21st century Coney Island the right way? I beg you to return to the balance and consensus that is the CIDC Plan… or else I will have to speak out against the new plan at the hearing June 24th.

Sincerely,

Dick Zigun
Director, CIDC

After I got the aforementioned email that the guidance counselor and the parent coordinator at PS 321 had the master list of all the middle school acceptances, I called the Parent Coordinator. She checked and said: “She’s not on the list.”

WHAT?

“She not on the list.”

I felt faint. The parent coordinator assured me that she would look into it.

Less than an hour later I walked into the guidance counselor’s office and she took one look at me and said, “I know. She’s not on the list.”

I felt doubly faint.

Well, it turns out that OSFO really isn’t on the list (which should name all of PS 321’s fifth graders). Nowhere. Nothing. Some kind of computer glitch; a technical mistake? She probably got into a school somewhere but she’s not on the master list from the Department of Education. The guidance counselor is going to call some of the schools that OSFO listed on her application to see if she go in. Somewhere.

Chances are she did or she will. That would be nice.

Outside of the school building at pick-up, friends looked at me expectantly. “So where did she get in?” When I told them my sad tale they looked aghast.

“Okay, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn,” one said. “You go girl and take the DOE down.”

Word traveled fast. I got an email from a friend that the Daily News wants to talk. Another friend gave my number to Elissa Gootman at the New York Times.

I keep telling OSFO not to worry, that this will all work out, that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with her, that everything is okay.

She seems totally fine, by the way. She’s a solid kid; a real rock.

And then she heard me talking on the phone to the New York Times. She doesn’t know who I was talking to but she can tell that I am agitated, annoyed, on edge, shakey, not happy and so on.

I made a few calls. The parent coordinator at one of the schools said, “Why don’t you let your guidance counselor do the footwork.”

I guess that’s a good idea. In the meantime, wonder if we’ll ever get those letters?

Councilmember de Blasio, Public Advocate Gotbaum, parents and students demand answers from
the Department of Education about the recent Pre-K Debacle. Here’s the press release about today’s press conference at Tweed at 52 Chambers Street at 12:45 p.m.

City Hall— Councilmember Bill de Blasio, Public Advocate Betsy
Gotbaum, parents, and students will hold a press conference tomorrow
demanding answers from the Department of Education (DOE) about the
flaw in its new system for assigning students to Pre-K. Under the
DOE’s old Pre-K enrollment system, parents of more than one child had
priority to get all of their children into the same school. Now, a
major glitch in the new system is creating huge problems for parents
of multiple Pre-K age children by not automatically giving them
priority for placing all of their children in the same school.

Dozens of frustrated parents have contacted Councilmember de Blasio’s
office seeking help with this matter. Repeated calls from parents to
the DOE have gone unanswered, and they have been left with no
recourse to get their children into the same schools.
It is unacceptable that parents who rightly believed that they would
receive priority in placing all of their children in the same school
must now face the serious difficulties associated with having their
Pre-K age children attend different schools. With the new school year
only a few months away, the DOE must resolve this fiasco immediately.

Who: Councilmember de Blasio, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, Parents
and Students

When: 12:45pm– Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Where: DOE Headquarters (TWEED)- 52 Chambers Street, NY Contact:
Sarah Figuereo 718-854-9368 or 347-277-9972

Some viewpoints from members of Park Slope Parents:

Here’s one:

Not sure if the stoop is in the public domain or not, but to clarify,
the sidewalk is in the public domain, but the owner of the adjoining
property is still responsible for it. I’m a native NYer and I
believe its ok to sit for a moment on the bottom step of a stoop as
long as you are being considerate that its also someone’s home.

and another:

No, stoops are not public domains and yes, every owner has the right to allow or disallow stoop sitting depending on their personal preference. That being said, I personally, enjoy the “social aspect” of the stoop as long as respect is maintained–hence the “stoop rules” and my enforcement of them–if you smoke, swear or are too loud, you either stop or you leave. Yes, this means talking to stoop-sitters, but if you do or don’t want them behaving in a certain way, that’s what you’ll need to do.

and another one:

There are so few public resting places in our neighborhood. You can
walk for blocks and blocks and not pass a public bench. Try talking
a hungry/tired kid into walking two extra avenues out of your way to
reach a park bench, as one poster suggested. It’s just not viable.

A couple other thoughts on the matter:
A grown man or woman “alone” may very well be in need of a resting
place for any number of reasons. Not only children get sick, tired,
etc.

Fear of being sued by a stoop sitter — really!?! Time to move to a
bubble or at least a gated community.
Since when is talking to people a “negotiation?” Won’t a simple
“excuse me” work to navigate around a stoop sitter?

Smoke & noise violations into the home space are another thing
entirely, but it seems a shame to sacrifice a fine, urban tradition
because of a few bad seeds.

The original poster had the right spirit — it is “borrowing” and
that’s what neighbors do from each other.

Well, that makes sense. It’s a high-end sex toys for women shop in Park Slope and lots of women around here have babies. You do the math.

Today, the Daily News has a story on Babeland, the new upscale sex toys for women shop in Park Slope, set to open on Thursday. Owner Claire Cavanah has been doing loads of press around town and really getting the word out about her shop.

As you know, I got a gift bag from Babeland at the Edgy Mother’s Day event, which included a couple of vibrators, lubricant and other items. I also got a cute gift box from them sent to my home with a silver egg-shaped vibrator with a controller that looks like a dimmer switch, and a Mojito/peppermint massage candle.

This business is no slouch. They’ve got promotional materials a go go, shopping bags, nice packaging, an extensive e-commerce site and more. This is a well-run and seemingly thriving business with branches in Manhattan, Seattle and elsewhere.

Claire Cavanah and Rachel Venning opened the first Babeland store in 1993 in response to the lack of women-friendly sex shops in Seattle.

The store offered top quality products, a pleasant place to shop, and most of all information and encouragement to women who wanted to explore their sexuality. The store’s popularity with both women and men eventually led to two more stores in New York and one in Los Angeles, as well as a thriving website.

And now Park Slope.