Here is this week’s Smartmom from the Suburban Newspaper Association’s Newspaper of the Year,  the Brooklyn Paper. 

The start of the school year has been an emotional roller coaster
for Smartmom, what with so many things to worry about. Will Teen Spirit
like his new high school? Will the Oh So Feisty One adjust to her new
teachers and classmates? Will Hepcat ever finish the time-consuming
project he’s been working on for months?

And finally, will Smartmom ever get back to what she was doing before the summer vacation — whatever that was?

For
Teen Spirit, the new school year meant starting 11th grade in a new
high school. Talk about stressful. Smartmom loves the new school and
hopes that Teen Spirit will excel there, but that doesn’t mean she
stops herself from interrogating him every day when he comes home. She
can’t help herself.

“How was it? Do you like it? Do you have any homework?”

Teen Spirit finds all this very irritating and likes to keep his responses to a minimum — at least around his mother.

When
he came home with his arms and shirt splattered with paint, she found
out that he’s been working on a mural as part of a school-wide social
service project. Cool.

New school. New classes. New subway. New
routines. And, boy, is Teen Spirit glad that doesn’t have to wear a tie
and lace-up shoes to this new, more progressive school, which is the
polar opposite of his old prep school. Smartmom has her fingers crossed.

OSFO
is a lot more forthcoming when it comes to talking about school. She
started fifth grade at PS 321 and is now one of the oldest kids in the
school. A senior. A big kid. Not surprisingly, she’s excited.

But
she also misses her teachers from last year. One minute, she hates
fifth grade, the next minute, she loves it. The first night of school
she got 110 multiplication and division problems for homework.

“They have some nerve giving us so many math problems,” she told Smartmom. “I hate fifth grade.”

Smartmom
can tell that OSFO is already stressing about middle school, even
though it’s a full year away. All the kids are talking about it. Some
of them even seem to know where they want to go.

“Where am I going to go?” she’s asked Smartmom more than once. The question gives Smartmom a case of heartburn.

But
fifth grade has its fun moments, too. OSFO and a friend are walking to
school together — without adults. That’s a small step for mankind, but
is it a giant leap for OSFO.

Then there’s Hepcat. He’s been
working all summer on a Web site for a local university. He doesn’t
sleep. He doesn’t eat. And he’s barely had time to learn the names of
OSFO’s teachers or the courses that Teen Spirit is taking.

He
just codes code, talks on the phone, and looks exceedingly agitated.
Most nights, he hops into bed just minutes before Smartmom has to wake
up.

Not surprisingly, Smartmom is dying for the
project to be completed. Then he’ll have time to shave (he’s looking a
little scuzzy), to do some chores around the house (that hallway light
bulb really needs to be changed), and, perhaps most importantly, time
to pay some attention to Smartmom, who’s got her own problems to worry
about. Dumb Editor has been on her case about missing deadlines (Dumb
Editor note: Smartmom’s copy is so pristine and coherent that I have to
have something to complain about, don’t I?). She also needs to work on
her novel and drum up some freelance writing projects.

Smartmom
knows she isn’t the only one having a tough time this week. Mrs.
Kravitz is running herself ragged now that her full-time job is back in
full swing. Diaper Diva is about to begin Ducky’s prolonged phase-in to
pre-school and many of Smartmom’s friends and neighbors are busy making
appointments for middle school tours.

This week, worry seems to
be the name of the game. Smartmom hopes that Teen Spirit will put his
best foot forward at the new high school and really enjoy learning
there. She hopes OSFO will stop missing her fourth-grade teachers and
be more “in the moment” about fifth grade.

And Hepcat.

Maybe
he’ll stop working so hard, so he’ll have some time to worry, too. It’s
not much fun doing it alone. And there’s so much to worry about, isn’t
there?

Thanks to Second Avenue Sagas for sending me this story about Apple’s search for a spot in Brooklyn. It’s beig news.

From Racked: Apple is scouring Brooklyn, seeking a home in the 718 area code for a flagship Brooklyn Apple Store, sources tell Racked. While Apple’s urge to hawk iPhones to Brooklynites is all but a certainty, what’s not known at this time is which neighborhood the computer maker is targeting for its first Brooklyn foray.

Check out the new exhibition at the Municipal Arts Center about the legendary urban activist, Jane Jacobs.

The Municipal Art Society of New York is delighted to present an interactive exhibit that highlights the relevance of activist and author Jane Jacobs and the urban-design principles introduced in her classic text The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which had an immediate impact on how cities are designed and used. Though raised in a small town and lacking the credentials of a trained planner, Jacobs quickly became one of the century’s most influential writers on urban planning. With the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, Jacobs described a “ballet of the sidewalks,” an unrehearsed choreography of urban dwellers going about their business that, in her view, created the vitality of city life.

The exhibit highlights the context in which Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, while also illustrating the role of Jane Jacobs’s ideas in today’s New York. The exhibit is designed to prompt visitors to view the city through Jane Jacobs’s eyes and to empower them to take a more active role in advocating for a more livable city.

The exhibit will be on view at the Municipal Art Society’s Urban Center galleries at 457 Madison Avenue (at 51st Street) in New York City, from Sept. 25, 2007, through January 5, 2008.

During the exhibit, gallery hours will be extended to 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Wednesdays, and 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday

I was on Fifth Avenue above 9th Street yesterday wasting some time before an appointment so I walked up to Prospect Avenue just to see what’s going on. And I saw a whole lot of construction.

At 162 16th Street west of Fifth Avenue there’s The Vue, an 8-story building the advertising sign boasts views, parking, a fitness center, lush gardens and balconies.

At 560 Fifth Avenue (between 15th and 16th) there’s a nice-looking new restaurant called Sidecar Bar & Grille. From John W. on Yelp, I learned that it is owned by one of the owners of Blue Ribbon and is a bar with a great juke box and American food.

On Fifth between 11th and 12th Street there’s a new restaurant serving contemporary Mexican food. They opened yesterday. I didn’t get the name.

There’s at least one new building per block between 12th Street and Prospect Avenue. But that’s a guess. I will be up there again and take better notes.

Oddly, it took a gloomy, rainy day for September 11th to feel almost normal again.

That bright blue sky, five anniversaries in a row, was a cruel reminder of that terrible Tuesday morning six years ago.

It felt impossible to move on faced by the menace of that blue sky.

Yesterday with its rain and thunder, its umbrellas, rain slickers and galoshes felt like any other day. I tried to connect to my pain and I wanted to cry — because I’d said I’d never feel normal on September 11th.

But I didn’t cry.

Maybe it was a choice and it wasn’t the weather at all. I didn’t listen to the names, I didn’t attend a ceremony or sit in Old First Church as I’d done before. I consciously thought about my friend who died many times and wondered what the family members, who I write the FDNY newsletter for, were doing.

But I didn’t cry.

Yesterday the grief of September 11 belonged to the family and friends who lost loved ones. It is and always was a private grief.

Which isn’t to say that there isn’t a public ache because there is. As New Yorkers we ache for what happened to our city and to our friends and neighbors. We also feel exasperation and rage about the  mid-guided and calamitous war that is being waged erroneously in the name of September 11th.

Last night I looked for the Tribute in Lights in the foggy night sky above Key Food but there was only the vaguest hint of a beam. Around ten, I noticed a blurry blob of white where the lights hit the clouds. It looked like a moon.

A new moon, I said to myself. At the end of a gloomy, wet September 11th, there was a blurry moon in the sky created by the lights that I could barely see.

OTBKB fave, Deborah Ager, has declared September to be "Memorize Poetry Month.

It’s a cool idea. A great way to really get inside a poem. Deborah is the publisher of the highly respected 32 Poems. She also has a great blog, which I’ve been reading for a long time.

Since there’s April Poetry Month, I hereby declare September to be “Memorize Poetry” month. You don’t even have to memorize all the poems in the world — only four.

One poem per week…how difficult can that be? Here are rules:

1. One poem can be shorter than 10 lines. Ideally, the others should be longer than 10 lines.

Only one rule and four poems in month…easy, aye?

Go to her site for more details and ideas for poems to memorize.

I wrote this last year:

I listened to the incantation of names; watched the spouses and
partners on television. Later, caught a few minutes of Bush using the
day as an opportunity to justify his war; watched ABC’s  fictionmentary
about real events, real people,

It was already 12:15 a.m. on September 12th when I took a walk down Seventh Avenue to see the lights.

The light was shooting up from the top of PS 321 in the midnight
blue sky. Above Key Food, Old First Church. The light walked with me
down the Avenue (shopping list:  Spoon size Shredded Wheat, Raisin
Bran, ballpoint pens for TC, orange juice).

The beam of light was sharp, beautiful (there may be two, but out
here in Park Slope it looks like a single beam).  I wish it was here
every night and of course I do not.

Presence. Absence. It speaks of loss, while introducing something dramatic and new to the city night.

The shop lights were on at Sweet Melissa’s, where a crew was busy
getting the shop ready for  its grand opening on Wednesday. Paper
covering counters, tools everywhere, the name being stenciled onto the
front window. Something new.

Except for the Korean Market on Garfield, Key Food, Pino’s, nothing
was open on Seventh Avenue; it was desserted. I saw a few stragglers at
Snooky’s (for a moment I thought I might go in and order a scotch, it
seemed like the appropriate thing to do). Workers standing outside of
Starbucks waiting for a car; voices inside the playground; a dog walker
or two.

Back on Third Street the light comes out from behind the limestone
buildings. Blue television light illuminates a checkerboard of
windows;  time to go upstairs. Wanting: to stand outside; to be the
only one there at that moment; quiet, alone.

On that harrowing day, my father and stepmother watched the towers fall from the 27th floor windows of their Brooklyn Heights apartment with its stunning views of New York Harbor, the Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan.

What had once been the most beautiful urban view imaginable became the most horrifying.

I was over there today.   

"The lights aren’t in the right place," he told me. He’d seen them the night before when they were testing them.

"What do you mean?"

"They’re south of where the towers were," he said.

He was talking about the Tribute in Lights, the two blue lights that shoot up into the sky every September 11th now, a perfect memorial to the devastating loss that our city experienced on that day six years ago.

Nothing can describe that day. I spent the evening of September 11th, 2001 with a friend who’s  firefighter husband died at Ground Zero.

We were calling area hospitals looking for her husband. At midnight, a group of firefighters from Squad 1 in Park Slope showed up at the door. They were covered in dirt and dust and looked unbelivably tired. But they still held out hope that their fellow firefighters were alive. 

"There are voids down there," they told the group of us sitting in my friend’s Park Slope living room. "There are voids. The guys could be in one of those voids."

Voids. That’s what 9/11 created in this city. Friends, family and neighbors are missing. There’s a hole in the skyline where two towers used to be. A sense of "it can’t happen here" has left us forever.

We’re older now. If not wiser, at least we’ve come to understand that there are no exceptions to the violence that this world knows.

I know this professional organizer and she’s a great person who has a lot to offer in terms of organizational help. She’s trustworthy, smart, and very experienced.

Hey.  It’s the beginning of the year, the Jewish New Year, and the right time to get your organizational act together. I’m tempted to hire her to help organize around here. YIKES. We’re drowning in CLUTTER.  email: etraubman@aol.com

Lighten Up! With the help of a Professional  Organizer

Featured in: Time Out New York  • Fitness • Family Circle
Sun Times Chronicle • Esquire

I assist busy parents and professionals to………..

•     De-clutter and streamline closets, pantries, kitchens,   
     children’s rooms, home offices

•     Create easy-to-use filing systems

●   Maximize time and minimize stress

●    Increase productivity and peace of mind

There are so many great readings and discussions (Dave Eggers, Paula Fox, The Two Jonathans:  Lethem and Safran Foer, Valentin Achek Deng, Kathryn Harrison, Colin Harrison, Joyce Johnson, Jacqueline Woodson, Elizabeth Strout, yada yada…) at next Sunday’s Brooklyn Book Festival but my hot pick for what to do:

AFRICA NOW
3:00 p.m. at St. Francis College at 180 Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights. Presented by Tin House editor, Rob Spillman.

The continent of Africa is undergoing a literary renaissance, and this program highlights three of today’s most exciting young African writers: Uzodinma Iweala, Doreen Baingana, and Mohammed Naseehu Ali.

Brooklyn Reading Works (BRW) wants to be represented at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday September 16th but there are no more tables for vendors.

Who’s more Brooklyn than BRW, a monthly reading series at the Old Stone House? BRW begins its 3rd season on September 20th with hot new author Rudy Delson reading from his hot new book, Maynard and Jennica. It’s his VERY FIRST READING!

BRW readings are a blast. Great authors. Great audiences. A social time afterwards for drinks and books.

So BRW want to be at the second annual Brooklyn Book Festival on September 16, 2007. The festival  presents fiction and non-fiction programs with author discussions and
reading.

Last year it was really fun. There were tons booksellers and thousands
of books, author readings, poetry slams and bookish activities for kids in Brooklyn’s Borough Hall Plaza and Columbus Park.  Even Target is getting in on the act. There are kids books at the Target Children’s Pavilion and books for teens at the Independence Community
Foundation Youth Pavilion.

Now for my request: I am looking to share a table with someone because all the vendor tables are booked up.

I called a self-published author in Midwood and she’s thinking about it. Let me know. It’ll be FUN.

Zelda Victoria, Park Slope’s quirky, fun Victoriana design/fabric/furniture shop seems to have disappeared. They were located on Third Street and Fifth Avenue. But the storefront is empty.

They’ve been in the neighborhood FOREVER.

Anyone know?

I rented Half Nelson on Friday Night. The film is by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, 26, who also edited the movie. They lived in Park Slope when the film was made; I’m not sure if they still live here.

Ryan Gosling, who plays a very believable young, Brooklyn schoolteacher, was nominated for a 2006 Academy Award for Best Actor.

The film, which is based on a short film by the filmmakers called, Gowanus, Brooklyn, opened a year ago. I heard about it on NPR, knew that it was gathering some acclaim, but never managed to see it. It

Well, I finally rented it on DVD and was very, very impressed.

Preparing for the film, Ryan Gosling spent time with a New York public schoolteacher in a Brooklyn school. he plays a very Brooklyn 20-something with lefty parents, who frequents Red Hook bars like the now defunct Lilly’s. He’s socially conscious guy who wants to change the world except his personal life is a total mess.

When one of his students discovers that he’s a crack addict,  he strikes up an unlikely friendship with her. Their mutually supportive friendship is the centerpiece of the movie.

Shareeka Eeps plays Dre, the student he befriends. She is the revelation of the movie. Discovered in a Red Hook middle school, she was in the original short, Gowanus, Brooklyn. Eeps plays a character who’s quiet strength and a maturity beyond her years, infuses the film with a gentle wisdom.

The film is slow paced and subtle. It lets things unfold in unpredictable ways. The dialogue was a little hard to hear at times but that’s a small complaint.

Half-Nelson is an amazing movie.

Read The Written Nerd’s interview with OTBKB pal, Richard Grayson. Find out whether he thinks there’s a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn. Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers he reads with interest. Here’s an excerpt.

Growing up, I loved books about other kids in Brooklyn: first and foremost, Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and then Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep, Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones, Irving Shulman’s The Amboy Dukes and later Chaim Potok’s The Chosen and Jay Neugeboren’s An Orphan’s Tale.

Other great older Brooklyn books are Daniel Fuchs’ Williamsburg Trilogy, Wallace Markfield’s hilarious To an Early Grave (later turned into the film Bye Bye Braverman), Aflfred Kazin’s A Walker in the City, Michael Stephens’ Brooklyn Book of the Dead, Jack Pulaski’s The St. Veronica Gig Stories (a terrific Williamsburg book), Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, Pietro di Donato’s Christ in Concrete and Bernard Malamud’s The Assistant.

Fiction
writers whose works emblemize Brooklyn for me also include Irwin Shaw,
Norman Mailer, Woody Allen (whose photo I used to pass every day
changing classes at Midwood), Gilbert Sorrentino, James Purdy, Paula
Fox, Pete Hamill, Gloria Naylor, Jonathan Baumbach, Susan Fromberg
Schaeffer, Jane Schwartz, Thomas Glynn, Jacqueline Woodson, Pietro di
Donato, Thomas Boyle, Edwidge Danticat, and Robert Greenfield.

According to the Health Department, a 41-year-old Brooklyn woman came down with fever and muscle pains, was hospitalized on Aug. 25 with viral
meningitis, an infection caused by West Nile.

Friend of OTBKB and longtime Park Sloper, Mary Crowley, had this letter in today’s New York Times. She is director of public affairs and communications at the Hastings
Center, the nation’s first bioethics research organization.

Re “Cancer Society Focuses Its Ads on the Uninsured” (front page, Aug. 31):

That
the American Cancer Society has shifted its entire advertising budget
from prevention of the nation’s second deadliest killer to the mortal
costs of uninsurance dramatically connects the dots between our 47
million uninsured and avoidable death. The current situation, in which
a tenth of all cancer patients are uninsured and a quarter of families
battling it are impoverished by the fight, is not the war on cancer the
nation should be waging.

Bravo to the cancer society for making
it clear that this is a moral problem that belies American values like
choice, beneficence and compassion — values over which no party can
take ownership. It is tragic and a travesty that a single cancer
patient in the United States should succumb because of lack of access
to screening or treatment.

Mary Crowley
Sept. 1, 2007

Imagine how Diaper Diva feels now that Steve Jobs lowered the price on the iPhone. I mean, she paid $650 bucks for that thing she almost lost when she put it on top of her car in Montauk.

"I guess Apple realized that the price was too high. I knew they were going to lower the price at some point. It’s a concession because they didn’t sell as many as they wanted to," Diaper Diva told OTOBK.

Suffice it to say, DD was relieved to hear that
she’s getting a $100 Apple gift certificate. "I was happy to hear that but I
wish he just gave us the $100 bucks. Now we have to spend it at Apple
and I’ll probably end up spending more money."

Diaper Diva still loves her iPhone and is doing everything she can to make sure it doesn’t get lost (or fly off a car) again.

"Maybe they should have waited a little longer before lowering the price," Diaper Diva says. "It wasn’t very sensitive to their loyal customers who ran out to buy it."

Diaper Diva plans to put her $100 gift certificate from Steve Jobs toward a new iPod for her Dad.

Ain’t that nice?

The Dance Studio of Park Slope is beginning its 32nd year in a new space. Last June they were forced out by rising rents from their long-time residence at 808 Union Street to make way for Kidsville (more about that later).

This move may be a blessing in disguise even if it was traumatic and expensive for Jennifer Kliegel, the big hearted and talented owner of the beloved dancing school where many a Park Slope youth has studied gymnastics, modern, ballet and tap.

According to the new website, the new space will have state of the art dance floors, CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING, storefront access for ease with strollers, less street congestion for those who drive and public transportation on both subway and buses. NEW AND BETTER EVERYTHING.

The New Location:
630 Sackett
Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217
between 3rd and 4th Avenues.
718-789-4419
thedancestudiops.com

Jennifer Kliegel, owner of the Dance Studio of Park Slope, lives to teach dance. So when she found out that she was being pushed out of her space at 808 Union Street by rising rents she knew what she had to do.

She began looking for a new space in earnest. And that’s not the easiest thing to do in overpriced Park Slope. Seventh Avenue was out of the question. So was Sixth and Fifth Avenues…

Organizations that need large spaces are really screwed when it comes to Park Slope.

So she looked and looked and FINALLY found something on Sackett Street between Third and Fourth Avenues.

Okay, so it’s somewhat off the beaten track for convenience-oriented Park Sloper’s but it’s bigger and better than the old space which had clearly seen better days, was run down, and in need of all kind of modern conveniences like air conditioning, etc.

It’s also a better location to attract students from Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Ft. Greene and Brooklyn Heights.

Kliegel is a survivor and she runs a wonderful dancing school. She deserves the neighborhood’s support even if it means more of a schlep to your kid’s dance classes.

The kids, of course, ADORE Jennifer, who started dancing in high school and with academic and dance scholarships trained at Stephens College, MO.

A self-described "jazz, tap, musical-theater baby" she has even danced in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. "I have danced my way onto soap operas, commercials, “Saturday Night Live” and 1st company with “Dance Theatre Dayton," she writes on her web site.

Jennifer came to the Dance Studio in 1981, as a student and immediately started teaching. She became partner in 1989 and the sole owner in 1989. She was one of the Park Slope 100 even before the move. She will most certainly have to be there again.

    My greatest joy in life comes from my family back home, my “kid in fur coat” Dyna (my boxer) and the smiles and hugs I get from your kids each day when I walk into the studio. What defines my life is teaching and I love it. I celebrated my 25th Anniversary at The Dance Studio, December 2006.

    After a year of great change for both The Dance Studio and me, more than ever, I’m grateful and proud to be here."

What a gal. And what a survivor! Congrats to Jennifer and many more great years of dancing.

According to the Brooklyn Paper, things have gotten realy REALLY NASTY on the Brooklynian, a Park Slope community blog and message board. Discussions of the new Seventh Avenue eatery, Elementi, hit new lows (and that’s pretty low) when blog-posters began trashing the restaurant even before it opened. They were just pissed that Snooky’s went out of business and decided to take it out on the people who were opening Elementi.

It’s totally legitimate to be angry when a beloved local institution goes out of business. It’s even legitimate for people to share their pain and loss on the Internet

But is it right to condemn the incoming restaurant even before it opens? Did people on the Brooklyniam message board go beyond the beyond?

Probably. But that’s the nature of message boards.

Gersh Kuntzman, editor of the Brooklyn Paper, looked into the situation and even had dinner at the restaurant, which he enjoyed immensely. But that wasn’t the point. He just wondered if it was fair to take out the closing of Snooky’s on the new owners of Elementi.

I for one avoid the Brooklynian and think of it as a very toxic blog. Snarky and mean spirited, the Brooklynian is not where I want to spend my reading time. But hey, that’s just me.

Full disclosure: People on the Brooklynian love to trash Smartmom. Thick skin. Thick skin. I try not to take this kind of stuff too seriously. But this kind of thing can really ruin a restuarant.

Here’s an excerpt from Gersh’s article.

I asked one of the moderators of the Brooklynian message board
whether it was considered fine by Web standards to slam an eatery
before anyone has actually eaten there, but he wouldn’t really answer.
“That’s kind of like asking the Internet what it thinks about the stuff
that gets posted on it,” he said.

That wasn’t enough for me, so I contacted Caseopele myself. She seemed proud of her handiwork.

“I
have a bit of a problem with people who push older businesses out only
to open another cookie-cutter business in its place,” she wrote via
e-mail.

I reminded her that no one “pushed” Snooky’s out — that
it merely closed for lack of business — but she responded that the
Rutledges “turned a perfectly good restaurant into what they thought
Park Slope needed. They think they know what the neighborhood wants but
they never ask.”

But that that’s what business people do: look
around, make their judgment and let the market — not anonymous yahoos
on Yahoo! — make its ruling (just as the market did to Snooky’s).

And
then I did something that Caseopele never did: I ate at Elementi. Full
disclosure? It was a kick-ass meal, from the pappardelle with oxtail to
the skirt steak.

So as far as I’m concerned, the issue is
settled. Now, can we all get back to using Web forums for important
discussions, like the gender of a toddler’s winter hat?

I am still buzzing from yesterday’s news about debit machines at the Food Coop. The big change is happening on October 1. There will be no shopping at the Coop that day.  God willing, the Coop will reopen at 8 am the next morning ready to take your DEBIT CARD.

There’s been talk about debit machines for years. YEARS. Granted, you can write checks to the Coop — but they don’t make that easy. You have to set up an account and keep a small deposit at the Coop so that you have enough to cover the check…

I don’t know anyone who does this. I am sure that people do. But it feels like one more thing…

I would say that the cash-only policy is one of the things that keeps me from shopping at the Coop even when I want to. Some days I walk by, think of going in but realize I only have 20 bucks.

There’s nothing worse than shopping and discovering at check-out that I am short five, ten dollars. Then I have to leave my cart in the front and walk over to the Citibank or even the Bank of America on the corner of Union and 7th Avenue get cash and come back.

It’s not that big a deal but actually it is. I usually spend about 60 bucks when I go there but sometimes I get carried away and it hits 100 or more. I hate it when I am short just a couple of dollars.

Argh.

For those who don’t know, Food Coop Shopping is a multi-step process. It may be laborious but it is not entirely without its pleasures. Here is Coop Shopping 101:

1. Make sure you have enough cash. If not: get the cash.

2. Show your membership card to the person at the door. This process IS computerized, mind you. If you left your card home, you can just give the person your number. If you  don’t know the number, you can get it from someone in the office upstairs.  Tired yet? 

3. SHOP. This is the best part. The selection is fantastic and the food and produce is exceedingly fresh. During shopping you may run into someone you know which can also add to the fun.

4. Wait on the regular or the express line for check-out. Shopping on weekday mornings and afternoons is best. I avoid the Coop on evenings and weekends due to the long check-out lines.

5. Check out and gab with the check-out person about what you are buying (You may even get recipe tips). Don’t forget to have your Food Coop card or number handy: you always have to show it to the check-out person. Bag or box your groceries.

6. Wait on line to pay one of the cashiers.

7. Hand your cash over to the cashier. Wait for your receipts.

8. Show your receipts to the Exit person at the door.

9. Walk or car service home OR find an orange vested escort and take the shopping cart with you. The escort may be an Israeli draft evader, a musician who plays with Odetta, a personal coach, or a  performance artist from Berlin.

The walk is always interesting.  The escort can’t push the cart but he/she will take it back to the Coop.

Shopping will resume on Tuesday, October 2 at 8 AM

An OTBKB reader wrote in to share this unpleasant news:

I returned home from a week’s vacation only to find that one of our potted shrubs outside our apartment building had been stolen. A 3 foot bush in a fairly large terracotta planter. Poof, gone. Nothing left but its own small dirt potprint. This petty theft has me feeling so down and morose. I mean, it takes a lot of effort to steal a 100 lb potted shrub!

A friend tells me that this kind of plant caper happens all the time…Have you heard anything about this? Can you enlighten me and also alert people to keep an eye out for a bargain-priced 3 foot burning bush in a glazed black terracotta pot.

Look who’s a grand marshal for the 40th annual West Indian American Day Parade. The parade is tomorrow.

The Grand Marshals for 2007 are:
 

Ms. Debra D. Carey – CEO, SUNY Downstate Medical Center
 
Ms. Joyce Quamina, former member, WIADCA
 
Ms. Jeanne Sadik-Kahn, Commissioner, NYC Dept of Transportation
 
Mr. Raymond W. Kelly, Commissioner-NY Police Department
 
Mr. Adrian Benepe, Commissioner, NY Parks & Recreation
 
Mr. John J. Doherty, Commissioner, NY Dept of Sanitation

Invited to be Honorary Grand Marshals are:
 
Hon. Eliot Spitzer, Governor, NY State
 
Hon. Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor, NY City
 
Hon. Hillary Rodham Clinton, US Senator
 
Hon. Charles B. Rangel, US Congressman
 
Hon. Barack Obama, US Senator
 
Hon. William Thompson, NYC Comptroller

I got a call on Thursday from Tom Simon, owner of Seventh Avenue Books. Apparently the Vegan restaurant deal did not go through and his landlord told him that the bookstore can stay open through the weekend.

This is great news for bargain used book buyers. According to Tom, there’s an “astonishing” number of excellent books still in the store. “Customers keep bring good stuff to the register.”

Even better: every book in the store is $2 dollars. He is also selling the bookcases. He wants everyone to know that there is a HUGE FISH TANK in the store and he’d like to GIVE IT AWAY to the person or school that can take it away.

That’s right. A huge mansion for your fish. FREE. Just ask Tom Simon at Seventh Avenue Books. The store will stay open through Monday.

So no deal for the Vegan restaurant on Seventh Avenue and the bookstore, located on Seventh Avenue near 3rd Street, gets to stay open a few more days.

A reader had this question. I know of at least 2 people who have done this. It has enabled these elderly to stay in an apartment they know and love.

I have been reading your work and blog for a long time and thought you might be just the person to ask since you seem to know a lot of “random” things (I say that in the best sense of the word).
I heard once about a tradition in France whereby younger people buy the homes or land of people that are older and have no children. the idea is that the younger purchasers allow the elder owner to stay in the home on the property and are cared for until they die. The older person is cared for and the younger person gets the property at less than market rate – a win/ win situation.
I think this is an amazing concept as there are many people who are open enough that they would care for someone that is alone but not well off enough that they can afford to buy a market rate home. So, I think this idea in NYC would be terrific.

Brooklyn seems like the perfect borough to start it and I wondered if a) you had ever heard of anything like this and b) if you would know how one would go about finding elderly home owners.

Yes, as I re-read this, it sounds a tad creepy (why would one not want to care for an elderly apartment dweller) but this is what 18 years in NYC has done to me (made me real estate obsessed!)

But truthfully, if we don’t find some way to maintain a little economic diversity in NY, we are going to lose (we have lost much anyway already) what made NY so unique. Anyway, I thought I would contact you and see if you had any ideas. If this is too off the wall, please just delete.

Good news for clothing and shoe shoppers. This from New York 1:

Shoppers no longer have to pay city sales tax on clothing or shoes – regardless of the price – after new legislation went into effect Saturday.

Shoppers had been paying city and state taxes on items that cost $110 or more.

A tax-relief measure proposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and approved by the state in June, dumped the city’s 4-percent portion.

But even though New Yorkers will save on the city tax, the state tax of 4.375 percent stays in effect

.

Congregation Beth Elohim, a Reform Jewish Synagogue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, will present a discussion with Yossi Beilin–leader of the Israeli Meretz Party, Member of the Knesset and initiator of the Geneva Initiative, on Wednesday, September 19th at 8 pm. The talk is part of the Jewish learning series at the synagogue.

Beilin will speak on prospects for peace in the Middle East. This event is sponsored by Congregation Beth Elohim in collaboration with Americans for Peace Now, Meretz USA, and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, and is free of charge.

Congregation Beth Elohim is located at the corner of Garfield Place and Eighth Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn. For directions or to find out more information, please visit our website, www.congregationbethelohim.org.

I don’t think I’ll be at this reading but here’s the email I received from the author this morning:

Hi Louise,

I’m the author of the book Poop Culture: How America is Shaped by its
Grossest National Product, published by Feral House. I’m also a Park
Slope resident (kinda — does below 4th Ave count these days?). I
thought you’d like to know that I’m doing a reading/lecture at the
Park Slope Barnes and Noble next Wednesday at 7:30 PM.

Poop Culture is a funny book, of course. Given the subject, how could
it not be? But it’s also a heavily researched analysis of something that
rarely receives serious consideration. Poop Culture’s main focus is the
true origin of the flush toilet: invented not for sanitary reasons, as
conventional wisdom holds, but rather as a tool to help rich Victorians
separate themselves from the upwardly-mobile masses during the
Industrial Revolution. From that basis, Poop Culture explores how the
ideology of waste disposal affects us today in our psychology,
sociology, art, economics, the environment, and more.

I’ll be touching on many of those issues on during my reading. Chances
are I’ll even touch on the sewage issues in the Gowanus during storms
and the reported potential for the Atlantic Yards to overwhelm the
area’s sewage capacity. It’ll be a fun and fascinating (and rated PG)
event.

For more information, check out www.PoopTheBook.com. You can find
links to the review of my book in Publisher’s Weekly and the op-ed I
published a few months ago in The New York Times.

Yours,

Dave Praeger
Poop Culture
www.poopthebook.com

pluto (the lower case is correct) is the name of a new gallery located on the outskirts of Prospect Heights a short walk from the Brooklyn Museum.

pluto exhibits the work of emerging Brooklyn artists. pluto also promotes the curation of shows by established artists.

In addition to the traditional gallery experience, pluto makes use of internet, video, and events to showcase and distribute artists. Hours are Saturdays and Sundays from 1-5PM.
Their latest exhibition, Subtle Matter, will go from September 15th November 4, 2007
Opening reception: Saturday, September 15, 6-9PM

pluto Opening soon: pluto proudly presents Subtle Matter an exhibition featuring Kevin Auzenne and John Milton Ensor Parker, two Brooklyn-based artists who have known and influenced one another for the past 15 years.

Taken from the Buddhist concept of the links between mind and body, subtle matter is said to exist in the spaces between what is seen and what is not seen; mediating between what we see and hear and what we feel and experience as awareness. The abstractions of both artists seek to utilize this delicate gap between physical depiction and emotional response through the steady development of painterly laws and systems linked to the real, observable world.

pluto
730 Classon Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(646) 894-7777
www.plutonyc.com