BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange announces
SPACE GRANT & ARTIST IN RESIDENCE OPPORTUNITIES

Guidelines and applications for BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange?s 2007/2008 
Space Grant and Artist in Residency Programs are available April 1st. 
For an application visit www.bax.org/opportunities.html or call 
718-832-0018. Artists may only apply in ONE category.

SPACE GRANTS
Six Space Grants will be awarded to Dance, Theater, or Performance 
artists to be used between July-October 2007 or October ?07-January ?08. 
Awards are up to 70 hours of free rehearsal space in any of BAX?s four 
studios. This grant is designed to give Brooklyn based artists the 
opportunity to create new work in a setting that is conducive to working 
deeply and exploring new territory. At the conclusion of the space grant 
period, all awardees will perform in a showcase performance in BAX?s 
Theater. Applicants must be Brooklyn residents. BAX must receive 
applications by 5 PM on Friday, May 18, 2007.

ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
2007/2008 Artist in Residence applications will be considered in DANCE 
only (THEATER will be considered for 2008/2009). Two awards to dance 
artists will be made for the July 07-June 08 period. Chosen artists are 
provided with a home base for a one-year period and will receive 200 
hours of free rehearsal space, a stipend, opportunities to present works 
in progress and finished work with full production and marketing 
support. 2007/08 artists will join current theater artists in residence 
entering their second year. Applicants must reside in one of the five 
boroughs of New York City. BAX must receive applications by 5 PM on Friday, 
June 1, 2007.

Forward email
http://ui.constantcontact.com/sa/fwtf.jsp?m=1101085766638&ea=louisecrawford%40gmail.com&a=1101596518708

Coney Island’s Astroland opened its final season on Sunday. This from New York 1:

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz was on hand to celebrate
opening day at the park for the last time. Big Bucks redevelopment is in the stars for Coney Island. Let’s hope some of the spirit and history of Coney Island is respected by the changes that are set to come.

"They’ve contributed so much to family life for Brooklynites and
for all New Yorkers and beyond since the early 1960’s, and we’re going
to miss them,” said Markowitz. “But there’s going to be a new Coney
Island; that’s the promise. A new Coney Island that’s not just from
Memorial Day to Labor Day, but we’re looking for a Coney Island to be
once again known as America’s playground."

"It might be good for Brooklyn but I don’t know if it’s good for
Brooklynites,” said Cyclone rider Victor Green. “I mean it’ll bring the
economy up in the area, but I don’t know, Coney Island isn’t going to
be the same."

"It’s a landmark,” added Cyclone rider Jonathan Topol. “We don’t need more condos in the city."

The new plans call for the area to be transformed into a year-round
entertainment complex. Longtime fans of the Cyclone need not worry –
the 80-year-old roller-coaster will be part of the new boardwalk.

This from the New York Times.

"Toshio Sasaki, a Japanese sculptor known for works in public spaces, particularly “The First Symphony of the Sea,” a 322-foot-long wall relief at the New York Aquarium at Coney Island, died on March 10 near his home in Nagakute in the Aichi Prefecture of Japan. He was 60 and also had a home in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The cause was stomach cancer, his wife, Miyo, said.

Mr. Sasaki, whose work has been described as more surrealist than abstract, was one of eight finalists in the design competition for the World Trade Center memorial.

He completed the well-known wall on the Coney Island boardwalk in 1993. Constructed from four tons of concrete, the wall evokes the living creatures inside the building with embedded multihued mosaic fish heads and terrazzo starfish.

In 2003, Mr. Sasaki’s ground zero submission, “Inversion of Light,” included a representation of the north tower’s footprint with light shining from below and a reflecting pool above a circle of light as a representation of the south tower’s footprint. Other elements included water trickling over a glass wall etched with victims’ names and a column honoring unidentified remains.

NEXT EVENT: Thursday, April 5 at 7 pm at the Rotunda Gallery.  

Located at: 647 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Featuring guest filmmakers Ramin Bahrani, Julia Loktev and Chris Zalla.
Soundtrack by DJ Elliot of The Simple Mission.
Free. Limited Seating.

April’s Stoop features moderator Logan Hill in conversation with
award-winning filmmakers Ramin Bahrani, Julia Loktev and Chris Zalla.
Bahrani’s debut film Man Push Cart,
a standout at Sundance, tracks a Pakistani street-cart vendor with a
mysterious past. Loktev, winner of the Cannes Director’s Forthnight
Youth Prize, ponders what might happen if a young female suicide bomber
were to emerge from the Times Square subway stop in Day Night Day Night. Chris Zalla, who both wrote and directed Padre Nuestro,
is leading a new wave of immigrant cinema and was recently awarded the
grand jury prize for the best American drama at Sundance.

I got a sneek peek at the Celebrate Brooklyn line-up in the mail. No dates just names. And they don’t mention that The Neville Brothers will open on THURSDAY JUNE 14th and Ani DiFranco will perform on WEDNESDAY JULY 18th.

Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance, The Jazz Passengers, Ralph Stanley and the Cinch Mountain Boys, James Reams and the Barnstomrers, Brooklyn Bollywood with DJ Rekha, Dan Zanes and Friends, REwind: a Cantata, Yiddish Fest, Bobby Blue Bland, Catherine Russell, Brave New World Repertory Theater performing Whitman’s "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", The Hold Steady, Kassav, The Teeage Prayers, Laurel and Hardy / Millennial Territory Orchestra, Hitchcock’s Blackmail / Alloy Orchestra

www.celebratebrooklyn.org

From Plenty via Gowanus Lounge.

Everybody knows that fruits and vegetables come
from the soil, technically—but, more pragmatically, they come from the
grocery store. Yet most people know more about how a seed turns into a
tomato than how that tomato appears in the produce aisle at 77 cents
per pound.

Behind the plump pomelos and
mouth-watering watermelons, inspecting the lettuce leaves and carrot
tops, is the unsung hero of the journey from field to plate: the
produce buyer. At the Park Slope Food Cooperative in Brooklyn, the
produce buyer is Allen Zimmerman.

The
bright-eyed and pebble-voiced Zimmerman, a lifelong Brooklynite and
former union organizer, brings a down-home New York City practicality
to providing for Park Slope’s sophisticated palates.

“One
of my responsibilities on this job is to eat. I have to taste things.
How could you sell a fruit without knowing how it tasted?” he says.
“The way I learned this job was hands-on. You touch the produce, you
smell it, you eat it.”

This from New York 1:

            
            
            
            Sunset Park residents have gotten some good news from the city in their quest to re-zone the neighborhood.

The Department of City Planning has agreed to study 125 blocks in the area to bring the height limits on buildings down.

Residents say developers are trying to build structures that are out of context with the neighborhood.

As NY1 first reported last month, residents formed a coalition called SPAN for the Sunset Park
Alliance of Neighbors to keep all new development in character with the area’s low-rise buildings.

The city says it’ll put the study on the fast track and should have its findings by year’s end.

MEET UP 11:00-11:30 on Friday
at the fountain in front of City Hall

PARADE 11:30-12:00
We will parade around the block and onto the steps of City Hall

DEMONSTRATION: 12:00-1:00
Join us on the steps of City Hall at noon. Please tell the guards that you are attending the "Save Coney Island Demonstration."

SPEAKERS:
Our
speakers will include Charlie Denson (author of Coney Island Lost and
Found), Richard Eagon (Coney Island Hysterical Society), Louis
Scarcella (Coney Island Polar Bears), Dianna Carlin (Lola Staar), Jo
Weldon (cultural activist) and other Coney Island scholars and colorful
members of the community.

PERFORMERS:
The Hungry March Band, the Dazzle Dancers, Tigger, Miss. Coney Island,
Angie Pontani will appear as Miss. Cyclone and many other jugglers,
clowns, stilt walkers, musicians, dancers, mermaids and much much more!!

AFTER PARTY PARADE UP BROADWAY: 1:00
after the demonstration there will be a parade up Broadway.

Glitter!! Face Paint!! Costumes!! Aquatic Spectacles!! Mermaids and more!!

There you have it. You can check out Save Coney Island here

Were you wondering why there were helicopters circling above the Slope on Tuesday night? Here’s the story from New York 1.

A suspect is in custody Tuesday night for shooting a police officer in the ankle this evening in Brooklyn.

Police say Officer Rory Mangra was struck just after 7 p.m. near the intersection of Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue in Prospect Heights.

Officials say Mangra approached the suspect on suspicion of drug possession. During a struggle the suspect, 22-year-old Kingsley Newland, pulled a .22 caliber pistol and shot Mangra.

Mangra is being treated at Methodist Hospital for injuries that are not life-threatening.

Got a nice note from Brian Halweil, co-owner of Edible Brooklyn and Edible East End. He provided a bit more info about Edible Brooklyn, which I am very glad to have. While Edible Brooklyn is an independent magazine, it is part of a network of local food magazines. Here’s his note, which he left in the comment sections. I hope the magazine does, as he says, make it out to Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and Brighton Beach — those are notable food communities. He also mentions a May 16th wine event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Brian, tell us more.

Thanks for the note about Edible Brooklyn. Actually, Edible Brooklyn is an independent magazine, but it’s part of the national network of local food magazines called Edible Communities, which was started with Edible Ojai (Ojai, California) about five years ago and now includes almost 30 magazines from coast to coast. (Edible Nation is the official blog of the whole Edible Communities network, and it’s managed by Bruce Cole, editor of Edible San Francisco.)

Edible Brooklyn is the sister magazine of Edible East End, which celebrates the food culture of the Hamptons and North Fork. But the whole staff for Edible Brooklyn including editor, writers and photographers are in Brooklyn, and the magazine is available throughout the borough, slowly reaching out to places like Bay Ridge and Sunset Park and Brighton Beach and circulation and demand merits.

Hope to see you at our May 16 local wine event at BAM Cafe.

The new Office of Emergency Management at 165 Cadman Plaza East was built with part of the $20 billion in federal aid that the city received after 9-11. This Brooklyn building is OEM’s first permanent home since the destruction of the World Trade Center, where it was since 1996. The New York Sun writes,

“The new building is part of the extensive renovation in recent years of Cadman Plaza, the civic heart of Brooklyn: first with the restoration of its landmarked General Post Office, followed by the opening last year of the Federal Building Courthouse, designed by César Pelli.

Civic centers throughout America have always demonstrated a marked predilection for limestone facing, especially in their government buildings. In this regard the OEM, like Mr. Pelli’s new courthouse, does not disappoint. However much its modernist vocabulary might distinguish it from many of its neighbors, the building has a consoling conservatism to its lithic pallor. Although the relative complexity of its façade suggests that this is not your grandfather’s municipal architecture, that complexity politely resolves itself at last within the structure as a whole.”

According to a City Hall press release: “Watch Command personnel maintain direct communication with surrounding jurisdictions and the New York State Emergency Management Office, as well as monitor radio frequencies and dispatch systems for the New York City Police and Fire Departments, and 911 calls. Newscasts from cable and satellite TV are constantly monitored to stay aware of what is being reported locally, nationally and internationally. Additionally, Watch Command tracks New York City weather conditions through the National Weather Service.”

Just heard about this new movie, which will be in theaters on May 18th.

Written by three-time Emmy winner Terence Winter (The Sopranos), Brooklyn Rules is a powerful story of loyalty, friendship, and sacrifice. Set in Brooklyn circa 1985 against the backdrop of John Gotti’s rise to power, the film revolves around three lifelong friends whose different ambitions threaten to shake their enduring bond.

Michael (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the narrator, is a lovable charmer with the soul of a con man who successfully scams his way into the pre-law program at Columbia University. In contrast to Michael’s desire to leave the Brooklyn streets behind, his close friend Carmine (Scott Caan), a handsome lady-killer enamored by the Mafia lifestyle, wants nothing more than to stay there. Rounding out the trio is Bobby (Entourage’s Jerry Ferrara), an endearing cheapskate who longs for a simple life of working at the Post Office and settling down with his fiancée.

While at Columbia, Michael falls for a beautiful young student named Ellen (Mena Suvari), a society girl whom he initially wins over with his preppy schoolboy cover. As their relationship blossoms, leaving the streets behind seems increasingly possible, but when Carmine catches the eye of Caesar (Alec Baldwin), a feared mobster who controls their Brooklyn neighborhood, Michael and Bobby are drawn into that world despite their reluctance to get involved.

Brooklyn Rules comes down to the choices faced by three young men when the right path is not always the easiest to follow, and when being a loyal friend can mean making the ultimate sacrifice.

We did a crazy thing yesterday that resulted in all sorts of attempts at home improvement. Beautiful Smile emptied the bookcase in Teen Spirit’s room and the bookcase in the hallway. She wanted to dust them– which was a fantastic idea.

But the plot thickened.

Once all the books were down, I decided to go through them, and help Teen Spirit organize them. His collection of Alice and Wonderland books, his Harry Potters, Series of Unfortunate Events, Narnia, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Tin Tin…

I found plenty of stuff in there that didn’t need to be there, including every marble school notebook he’s ever used, which went into long-term storage.

All of this was a many hour process. Luckily he was out babysitting for most of it. He didn’t even get mad at me for helping to organize his room.

The bookcase in the hallway was another matter entirely. I’ve always hated that bookcase and where it wa located — on the wall right before you get to Hepcat and my bedroom. It’s just not that roomy in that part of the hallway — and if there’s more than one person you have to go through sideways.

Also, that bookcase it a junk collector. Somehow it just always ends up that way no matter how many times I clear stuff away. Pencils, action figures, dice, single earrings, outdated Metrocards, business cards we don’t need. You know how that is?

Once the books were removed, I felt a certain freedom. But where to move that dumb bookcase. This apartment is pretty much maxed out in terms of furniture space. Hmmmm.

Eureka. Ah Ha! THE BATHROOM. For towels and toiletries. Okay.

I moved it myself. Quietly. And this bookcase is six feet tall and three feet wide or so. But I didn’t want anyone to see me mid-move because SOME PEOPLE AROUND HERE get very agitated anytime I move ANYTHING.

Change is a big deal for Hepcat, Teen Spirit and OSFO. But I think the white bookcase looks nice in the bathroom with the red and orange towels and only our prettiest creams, perfumes, shampoos, figurines. There’s even a shelf for Kleenex boxes, First Aid stuff, toilet paper, the blow dryer and an odd selection of bathroom reading.

Hepcat thought it might be a little claustrophoic to have it in there. But he didn’t FREAK OUT like he usually does when I make a change.

Some of my changes are pretty good, y’know. Change isn’t always bad, y’know. Now to figure out what to do with all the science fiction books, the auto books that were on that shelf. Seems like we have an awful lot of Stanislaw Lem and Terry Patchett books. Oh well. It’s not up to me to give those away.

A note from David Grand, organizer of Readings on the Fourth Floor, a monthly book event/fundraiser for the library at Park Slope’s PS 107, arrived this morning in my email.

Apologies to all for the shameless solicitation.

I’ve once again organized four events to help keep the library at PS 107 running, the first of which is this Wednesday: Reporting from Iraq.

If you happen to be feeling utter despair over the state of American foreign policy, just think, who better to further degrade your spirits than George Packer, Jacki Lyden, Michael Moss,and Les Gelb?

On Wednesday March 28th, we’ll be meeting, as usual, on the 4th floor of 1301 8th Ave (btwn 13th and 14th Streets) in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Tickets can be purchased online at www.ps107.org.

If, of course, you receive your fill of spiritual annihilation in the quiet of your home, see what’s attached for the events that follow, and perhaps one of these will appeal.

It’s likely I won’t see some of you on any of these dates, which is why this year I’ve devised a way to help you part with your money in exchange for nothing. Should you wake up one morning feeling an overwhelming need to be fleeced, visit www.ps107.org, it’ll link you to NYCharities.org, and there you can shake yourself down for as much or as little as you like. Whatever amount, we’ll take it. The PS 107 bookworms thank you in advance.

An EXCERPT from “Muses, Madmen and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination,” just published by the Penguin Press, was in yesterday’s New York Times. The author, Daniel Smith, lives in Brooklyn.

This from NY1:

Some Brooklyn residents used some sweet treats to try to help save the Domino Sugar Plant.

Members of the Waterfront Preservation Alliance held a bake sale Saturday night — selling foods they made using Domino Sugar.

The purpose was to raise funds and awareness about the structure
that they’re trying to win landmark status — and keep from being torn
down.

"We’re hoping that the historically significant buildings of this
site are preserved,” said Alice Rich of the Waterfront Preservation
Alliance. “And we told everyone to write to the Landmark’s Commission
and tell them the buildings are important to them and to the history of
the city."

"The plant hasn’t been cleaned; it’s still the way it was when
Domino Sugar walked away from it,” said historian Mary Habstritt. “All
the machinery is still there. There’s still molasses on the floor and
if you walk by you still get this wonderful sugary smell of molasses."

The Domino Sugar factory officially closed in 2004 after nearly 150 years in business.

At the time, the American Sugar Refining Company said the cost of operating in Brooklyn was just too high.

A friend is organizing this incredible event, you may want to be part of.

Anyone interested in taking part in readings from The Divine Comedy in St. Augustine’s Church in Park Slope Brooklyn.

The date is May 6, A Sunday at 4pm.

If you are interested in reading — please let me know. If you are game for this exciting poetry event, think about what you’d like to read, and get back to me pronto.

Any section of the Divine Comedy will be fine. Suggested dose: one canto — or less. Even a few tercets is fine… so long as it’s from Inferno, Purgatorio or Paradiso.

It’s important that you let me know what you’ll to read soon (Let’s say by April 3) so that I can make a program and so that we don’t wind up doubling up.

We’ll set up a microphone for the reading but if your voice is big, it’s more exciting without.

If you want to read but need some help choosing, let me know and I will (carefully) make some suggestions. There’s really no dead weight, space or air at all in The Divine Comedy; every line is a wonder. You don’t need to have read Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso to be qualified for this. You do need to skim parts of one of them, find a piece that interests you and practice reading it with feeling.

The consensus among my experts is that the Hollander translations (Inferno and Purgatorio) are the best — but their Paradiso isn’t out yet, I don’t think. (??) Each translation has its strengths… I was thrilled reading Longfellow’s Paradise last night and loving it… even the prose one can sound good. There’s tons of Dante on line.

If you read Italian and want to read the Italian in the reading, that would be great! If you want to figure out a strategy for presenting Italian and English, that would be exciting. If you are a poet and want to take a shot at translating some yourself, that’s always good. (I’m taking a stab at translating some Paradiso. Don’t know whether it will work.)

The church is a very beautiful European-feeling landmark church, built by the legendary Parfitt Brothers, a Gothic min-cathedral with Romanesque features, built in 1886: Comfort/Tiffany glass, a double apse! (rare in US churches). There’s a lot of scaffolding and shedding around then outside because its clock tower and external stone work is undergoing a major restoration. It’s a European-feeling church.

If you want to present some Dante translated into another language than the original or English, that would be great.

With all non-English readings, it will be important to let me know so that I can try to have some English available.

I’m happy having readers join in at the llth hour if there‘s room in the program at that point.

I hope the thing will run about an hour and a half and to have a party after at my

for everyone at the reading. I’ll set a table up and draft a couple of kids to sell your books.

If you want to get a sense of why and how people do this, there’s a reading of Inferno every year at St. John the Divine in NYC uptown 110 street. I’ve never been. But I may go this year.

Fascinating. The need for "Deep Local" niche news can exist on a national scale. Like Gawker, Curbed, Gothamist and others, who are spawning sister sites nationally, Edible Brooklyn is published by Edible Nation, yet, I gather, it is edited, written and produced in a hyper local way. I am very interested in what they are doing as it’s almost like a blog-ish model for print media. Interesting. Very interesting.

Edible Brooklyn is published by Edible Nation, which has its own blog. Edible Nation is, apparently, the right magazine/blog  for you if you they say if you:

Know the farmer who grows your food.
You took the pass on Chilean Sea Bass.
You have never heard of Emeril.
You still subscribe to Organic Gardening even though Mike McGrath left years ago.
You love white zinfandel.
You eat grassfed beef burgers because they taste good, not because they are trendy.
You hate broccoli.
You still have arugula seed packets dated 1999.
You wouldn’t be caught dead drinking white zinfandel.
You love www.ediblemation.com because it features the best of Edible Communities Publications and up to the minute food news.

Edible Brooklyn is available in Park Slope at a veritable who’s who list of great restaurants and shops. What a list:  Applewood, Bierkraft, Blue Apron, Buttercu’s PAW-tisserie, Cafe Steinhoff, The ChipShop, Chocolate Room, D’Mai Urban Spa, Element, Flatbush Farm, Little Dishes, Luscious, Minnow, Naidres, Park Slope Food Coop, Prospect Wine Shop, Pumpkin’s Organiz Market, Red,White & Bubbly, Root Stock and Quade, Rose Water, Second Helpings, Second Street Cafe, Shawn Wine and Spirits, SIP Fine Wine, Slope Cellars., The Tea Lounge, Union Market, Urban Organics.

The Pavillion was randomly giving out The Last Mimzy key rings last night. OSFO spotted one kid getting one from the ticket seller. So why didn’t she get one?

We asked an usher what was going on and she suggested we ask the lady at the ticket window after the movie. Luckily we ran into the nice usher in the bathroom and she remembered our conversation and rushed to the ticket window to get two Mimzys for OSFO.

OSFO. HAPPY. YAY.

OSFO oves her tiny Mimzy and has already made a tiny pink dress for the little stuffed bunny to wear (she’s removed the key ringy thingy). She even made her Mimzy a little bedroom out of a Nestle Quik chocolate container.

The scary part: OSFO says that her Mimzy is speaking to her (just like the Mimzy in the movie). And her Mimzy is full of bad ideas and a little rude.

"My Mimzy told me," she kept saying last night. Like the weird parents in the movie, maybe we should take OSFO to a neurologist.

Yeah. Right.

Ben Smith of Room Eight: New York Politics sent me a link to the video of a loco guy going postal at the Kensington P.O.

But once I saw it up everywhere I decided I ddn’t need to post it. Gowanus Lounge says the Daily News had it first but since they weren’t updating the Brooklyn page — no one saw it until Ben Smith sent it around. The videographer, Jefferson Pang of Kensington, has come forward to claim the glory. The Daily News has the story: their website looks a whole lot better now. And they even updated their "Brooklyn" page. 

The videographer who caused a mini Internet sensation by posting
footage of a bizarre outburst at a notorious Brooklyn post office
branch stepped forward yesterday.

It was Brooklyn native Jefferson Pang who caught the obscenity-laden
tirade of a fellow customer on video while waiting at the Kensington
post office branch, which for years has drawn complaints because of
spotty and rude service.

"He saw the line was superlong, so he just beelined it to the
customer-service window and started screaming," said Pang, 35, whose
video has been viewed more than a thousand times on YouTube.com.

"There was only one clerk that day, so people were waiting on line
for at least 30 minutes," the marketing executive, who lives in
Kensington, told the Daily News.

As The News reported Tuesday, the 5-minute, 43-second clip shows an
irate, profanity-spewing man demanding to see a manager until cops
stepped in.

At one point, a surly, overworked female clerk can be heard
screaming at the crazed customer: "Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I’m the customer, that’s who the hell I am," responds the man, who a source said is a longtime Kensington resident.

The McDonald Ave. station came under fire last month after customers
complained of routinely spotty service, employees’ bad attitudes and a
lack of postal equipment.

The outrage prompted City Councilman Bill de Blasio (D-Park Slope)
to send a letter to Postmaster General John Potter demanding employee
retraining and customer representatives, among other improvements.

A spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service did not return a call seeking comment yesterday.

"It was a circus," Pang said of the incident in December. "I thought this was great entertainment while I was stuck on line."

Apparently, YouTube viewers agree: Since Pang posted the clip in
December, 1,620 people have viewed it, including more than 500 fresh
looks this week alone.

"I’m only surprised it took so long for someone to go postal at this
post office," one viewer wrote this week. "Almost all employees there
are arrogant. The lines are always long and they treat you as if
they’re doing you a favor when they do finally get to you."

Hepcat, OSFO and I rushed over to the Pavillion to see "The Last Mimzy" last night and we were not disappointed. It definitely falls into the category of a kid’s film that can be thoroughly enjoyed by parents. Still, I found the filmmaking to be very stiff despite the fact that they had a cast of great actors and a good, good story.

The director, Bob Shaye, just didn’t bring the material to life. And that’s a shame. The parents were particularly bad and unbelievable. Completely. And they’re good actors: Joely Richardson and Timothy Hutton (yes, Timothy Hutton, heartthrob to us 1970’s high school girls).

The kids and the science teacher and his wife, however, are really excellent and manage to enliven the film despite the bad direction.

I personally enjoyed what the New York Times called the "overstuffed" quality of the story even if it’s true. While the story manages to include Tibetian Buddhism, Lewis Carroll, time travel, palm reading, telepathy, and homeland security, it’s a fun movie and I know we’ll be watching it again with OSFO.

However, I COULD NOT BELIEVE THE BLATANT PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN THE CENTER OF THE STORY FOR INTEL. I mean, was that supposed to be comedy.

I enjoyed the film’s new-agey, suspend your disbelief, Tibetian Buddhist aspect. Bottom line: OSFO loved it, I liked it a lot (despite reservations), and Hepcat remembers reading the original story and said it’s very good.

Judy Chicago describes her work, The Dinner Party, as the piece everyone wanted to see but no one wanted to show.

While more than one million  people have seen the piece on three continents since it was created in 1978, it took a long time for it to  be accepted in the mainstream museum world. But Brooklyn has always been nice to "the girls". It was displayed at the Brooklyn Museum in October, 1980 and again in 1995.

The piece took five years to create and eventually 400 people from all over the US volunteered their time.

Early on, reaction to the piece from the art world tended to be negative. The work was denigrated as a piece of "craft", because of Chicago’s use of techniques typically associated with domestic arts like ceramics, embroidery, and tapestry. Critics loved to put it down.

It was the wrong piece at the wrong time as it didn’t really fit in with the art or feminist theory of its time.

A feminist work, "The Dinner Party" honors the achievement of women over the millenia. Each setting is unique to the woman’s life it honors.

Chicago, a feisty red head, who now lives in Santa Fe, has been very persistent riding the wave of non-conformity. "I’m the big elephant in the room and The Dinner Party was considered really  embarrassing!"  Still Chicago persisted. "I wanted to challenge the prevailing  narrative."

Because The Dinner Party was considered marginal, it was usually shown in alternative art spaces. "Sometimes there were roof leaks, too much light, not optimal conditions for artwork," she said.

But now the piece has been restored to perfection. And it has finally found a permanent home, thanks to Elizabeth A. Sackler and the Brooklyn Museum. Needless to say, Chicago is thrilled with The Dinner Party’s new digs on Eastern Parkway.

"The girls are very happy, here. They can breathe. The roof doesn’t leak. The lighting is perfect. All 1038 of them are happy."

Despite the fact that she has a broken hand (and it’s her writing hand), my downstair’s neighbor, Phyzz, wrote a long note to the residents of this building and left it, as is custom, on the mirror in the vestibule of our building. At the bottom of the note it said, "The reason this note is so messy is that I HAVE A BROKEN HAND.

That’s how much it meant to her to write the note. And I can’t blame her: the building’s basement storage space is completely out of control. She nearly killed herself walking to the laundry room.

Later she told me, "There was a bike here, a chair there , a toy piano. It was a real obstacle course."

Some of that mess belongs to packrat Hepcat and I am hoping to remedy the situation this weekend.

"If you haven’t opened a box in years it’s probably time to throw it out," Phyzz told me the other day in the hallway. And I couldn’t agree more. The basement isn’t the best place to store things anyway — what with leaks, dampness, and waterbugs.

Hepcat has a complete set of a Handyman’s Encyclopedia in boxes in the back of the basement that got soaking wet years ago during a flood. I think it’s time to let it go even if he did buy it at the library on Monhegan Island, Maine during our honeymoon.

I’m just not that sentimental about those books.

Hepcat also has a collection of Computer Shopper Magazines. That’s not an editorial magazine. There are no articles. It has ads for electronic stores in California and computer prices. From like twenty years ago.

He also has other magazines, too. What is it about magazines and computer people. They can’t seem to let go of them. Ever.

And that’s not all, there’s furniture we found on the street that never made it into the apartment, books, toys, baby furniture, etc. The kids are 10 and 15 and Sonya is already 2 `1/2 and they never wanted any of our stuff.

Then there are the Bikes. There are more bikes than people in this apartment building. I am going to suggest that neighbors tag the bikes that belong to them. I am suspecting that we have bikes that belonged to our long gone (and beloved) neighbors Eddie, Mary, Jay, Kathy, Andre, Hannah, Robin…

I suspect that  there’s a lot of stuff down there that belongs to  people who don’t live here anymore. Last year, I found a cool  collection of paperbacks from the 1970’s that belonged to a priest that used to live here.

So this weekend, I am going down there  in steel-toed shoes and rubber gloves and  I am going to TOSS. Hepcat, get ready. The Handyman’s encyclopedia is HISTORY. Time to say: "bye bye".

It’s almost embarrassing. What could be more indicative of gentrification than the Hampton Jitney stopping in Park Slope. And it used to be you couldn’t get Manhattan friends to come to dinner.

Maybe we will go out to Sag Harbor this summer after all. The Hampton Jitney is now stopping in PARK SLOPE AND DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN.

WHOA. Brooklyn has arrived. And the Upper West Side doesn’t even have a jitney stop. Can you believe?

This from the New York Sun:

Hampton Jitney, which has been driving New Yorkers to the East End of Long Island from the Upper East Side since 1974, announced earlier this week that it will pick up passengers from Park Slope
and downtown Brooklyn beginning on Memorial Day. The same fleet of
forest green coaches that now services the Upper East Side will be used
in Brooklyn, a company spokeswoman said.

The Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz,
who has been an aggressive lobbyist for Jitney pickups in his borough,
offered no apologies to Upper West Side residents who are envious of
Brooklyn’s newest bus service.

A dear friend of of MiMa Cat and Groovy Grandpa is looking for a JULY SUBLET in BROOKLYN for his friend, S.  "The word "desperate" appears frequently in your blog; in this case there can be no more accurate adjective," he writes. The following is taken from his email to me.

After years of waiting for his green card, a Brooklyn Heights elder caregiver, is finally a fully documented U.S. resident.

Now his wife and 10-year-old daughter are planning their first trip to the States and urgently need a place to stay.  The requirements are simple and  flexible, but hard to put on a laundry room bulletin board. 

1.  They would need a one-bedroom apartment, since S. will be spending a few nights a week en famille. 

2. They should be reasonably near transportation.   

3. They are arriving on July 1st and leaving on July 31st.  That’s where the flexibility comes in.  I guess the ticket could be changed for a later arrival if essential.  Also, they would be able to vacate the apt. for a night or two should some vacationing owner wish to fly back to NY for a night or weekend in his/her city digs. 

Rent would be negotiable, but, obviously can’t be unrealistically high (whatever that means.) And they are animal lovers, too. 

S. was an MD in Ukraine and his wife is a practicing child psychiatrist.  Olanka, their daughter, would love to have a dance school in the vicinity so she might continue her lessons ,but that certainly isn’t  a requisite.

They are warm and wonderful people. S is one-of-a-kind, an educated, hilariously funny lifesaver,

If you or anyone you know has an apartment/house you’d like to sublet in park Slope, the Heights, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Ft. Greene or Cobble Hill (you get the idea) please email me: louise_crawford@yahoo.com

Here are the names of the 39 dinner party guests, women from history. Some will be familiar. So will not.

Wing I: From Prehistory to the Roman Empire
1. Primordial Goddess
2. Fertile Goddess
3. Ishtar
4. Kali
5. Snake Goddess
6. Sophia
7. Amazon
8. Hatshepsut
9. Judith
10. Sappho
11. Aspasia
12. Boudica
13. Hypatia

Wing II: From the Beginnings of Christianity to the Reformation
14. Marcella
15. Saint Bridget
16. Theodora of Byzantium
17. Hrosvitha
18. Trotula of Salerno
19. Eleanor of Aquitaine
20. Hildegard of Bingen
21. Petronilla de Meath
22. Christine de Pisan
23. Isabella d’Este
24. Elizabeth R
25. Artemisia Gentileschi
26. Anna van Schurman

Wing III: From the American to the Women’s Revolution
27. Anne Hutchinson
28. Sacajawea
29. Caroline Herschel
30. Mary Wollstonecraft
31. Sojourner Truth
32. Susan B. Anthony
33. Elizabeth Blackwell
34. Emily Dickinson
35. Ethel Smyth
36. Margaret Sanger
37. Natalie Barney
38. Virginia Woolf
39. Georgia O’Keeffe

The names of 999 more are represented in the floor tiles.

All are invited to the Second Annual Brooklyn Blogfest on May 10th at the Old Stone House at 8 p.m. (fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets). If you are a Brooklyn blogger, please get in touch with me: Louise_crawford@yahoo.com.

There will be special guest speakers, an OPEN MIC FOR ALL NEW BROOKLYN BLOGGERS and lots of time to meet and greet.

Meet all of your favorite Brooklyn Bloggers, including Gowanus Lounge, A Brooklyn Life, Seeing Green, Brownstoner, Creative Times, Brooklyn Record, No Land Grab, AYR Report, Streetsblog, Rabbi Andy Bachman, Pastor Daniel Meeter, Joe’s NYC, No Words_Daily Pix, Mommy 101, Special Focus, Shiksa From Manila, Mrs. Cleavage’s Diary and many more…

Photo on Flickr by Tom L.A.

Daniel B. Smith, the husband of OSFO’s second grade teacher at PS 321, has a book coming out today about the history of auditory hallucinations. The book sounds really interesting — and I’m not saying that because I am hearing any wierd voices in my head. Smith, a Brooklyn-based journalist and author, writes for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Granta, and n+1

An excerpt from the book will be in Sunday’s New York Times’ Magazine section. Here’s the blurb from the Penguin Books website.

The strange history of auditory hallucination
throughout the ages, and its power to shed light on the mysterious
inner source of pure faith and unadulterated inspiration.

Auditory hallucination is one of the most awe-inspiring, terrifying, and ill-understood tricks the human psyche is capable of. Muses, Madmen, and Prophets
reevaluates the popular conception of the phenomenon today and through
the ages, and reveals the roots of the medical understanding and
treatment of it. It probes history, literature, anthropology,
psychology, and neurology to explain and demystify the experience of
hearing voices, in a fascinating and at times funny quest for
understanding. Daniel B. Smith’s personal experience with the
phenomenon-his father heard voices, and it was the great torment and
shame of his father’s life-and his discovery that some people learn to
live in peace with their voices fuels this contemplative, brilliantly
researched, and inspired book.

Science has not been able to
fully explain the phenomenon of auditory hallucination. It is a
condition that has existed perhaps as long as we have-there is evidence
of it in literature and even pre-literate oral histories from across
all times and cultures. Smith presents the sophisticated and radical
argument that a negative side effect of living as we do in this great
age of medical science is that we have come to limit this phenomenon to
nothing more than a biochemical glitch for which the only proper
response is medical, pharmaceutical treatment. This "pathological
assumption" can inflict great harm on the people who hear voices by
ignoring the meaning and reality of the experience for them. But it
also obscures from the rest of us a rich wellspring of knowledge about
the essential source of faith and inspiration.

As Smith
examines the many incidences of people who have famously heard voices
throughout history-Moses, Mohammed, Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc,
Rilke, William Blake, Socrates, and others-he considers the experience
of auditory hallucination in light of its relationship to the nature of
pure faith and as the key to the source of artistic inspiration. At the
heart of Smith’s exploration into the many extraordinary, strange,
sometimes frightening and sometimes almost supernatural aspects of
auditory hallucination is his driving personal need to comprehend an
experience that, when considered in good faith, is as profound and
complex as human consciousness itself.

ARTIST TALKS AND PERFORMANCES
As part of the Global Feminisms exhibit: Friday March 23rd 10:30 until 4:30 every half-hour.
Saturday from 11 am until 5 pm every half-hour. Sunday, March 25th 11 am until 5 pm every half-hour.

CURATOR TALK: Global Feminsims
Saturday, March 24, 1-2 pm.  (Maura Reilly and Linda Nochlin discuss Global Feminisms.

DIALOGUE
On Saturday, March 24th, 3-4:30 pm: Judy Chicago and Elizabeth A. Sackler discuss The Dinner Party and the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. A book signing follows.

SYMPOSIUM: FEMINISMS WITHOUT BORDERS
SATURDAY, MARCH 31 10 am – 5 pm

MiMa Cat was deeply moved by all the responses yesterday to my post about her quest to adopt a ginger Tabby kitten to replace her dear cat Rupert, may he rest in peace.

She is following all leads and hopes there will be even more today. Help this desperate housewife, who is desperately seeking a kitty.

For those who missed yesterday’s post here goes: 

Someone I know (okay, it’s MiMa Cat, my stepmother) is desperately
trying to adopt one or two kittens. She has a very specific kind of
kitten in mind as she doesn’t want a Tabby that reminds her too much of
her dearly beloved and now deceased cat, Rupert. Here’s what MiMa Cat
is looking for:

Wanted: All grey or ginger tabby kitten. Male preferred. Age: 2 to 6 months.

And
what a home MiMa Cat and Groovy Grandpa can offer one or two kittens: a
duplex Brooklyn Heights apartment with a NYC harbor view (do cats even
care about views? ). The cat will also enjoy summer vacations in the
country.

Ah, the city life and the country life for this lucky cat. And what
a caring couple: these two devoted cat lovers will cater to every need,
every whim, every desire of this little kitten.

If you know of any kittens in need of a loving home in the city and the country, email her at hillmont@thoughtballoon.com