It’s no secret that Park Slopers have an ambivalent relationship with their national chains. Years back, even before B&N opened, many were afraid that the store would signal the end of Seventh Avenue.

For years, neighborhood groups fought Methodist Hospital’s first expansion, which brought with it a parking lot and retail spaces for national stores like Rite Aid and Barnes and Noble (the first long-lasting national chains on Seventh Avenue).

People cried quality of life issues and traffic — afraid that the expansion would ruin what was perceived to be a low-key neighborhood.   

And more. Park Slopers worried that B&N would put their cherished independent booksellers out of business. Then owners of Community Bookstore braced for the opening of the mega bookstore by adding a cafe in back and a web site for e-commerce. They also promised discounts similar to  Barnes and Noble’s.

Book Link, another beloved Park Slope bookstore, quickly down-sized from two shops to one. They finally succumbed to the realities of the independent book business post-B&N and closed their sole shop a few years ago.

Interestingly, two used bookstores opened on the block between 3rd and 2nd Streets on Seventh Avenue. One of them is owned by a man who used to work at Barnes and Noble (corporate level) in some capacity.

The big surprise when Barnes and Noble’s opened was how useful it was to Park Slopers, especially parents, who needed somewhere to go when it was too cold or rainy for the playground. Parents took advantage of their large basement level children’s department. Caregivers loved the easy-to-access, easy to use  space.

And the kids. They loved the Brio train set, all the books and book-toys.

At first, it was a marriage made in heaven. Barnes and Noble offered great discounts and a comfy space for area parents.

Once the store was more established in the nabe, however, the discounts became less steep and the store started to make the downstairs space less comfortable.  B&N griped that parents and caregivers abused the space and the books, and left garbage behind.

In a sense, Barnes and Noble is as uncomfortable with its status as a community resource as Park Slopers are with the idea of a national chain on Seventh Avenue.

Both want their cake and eat it too.

Slopers want a place to go in winter that’s free and easy, where they can do what they want.

B&N’s brand depends on it being a community resource, while still being a viable retail environment.

Clearly, there’s a dollar value in the perception of the B&N brand as a community resource. In fact, it’s a form of advertising, which creates good will about the brand. 

The corporation needs the parents. The Park Slopers need the corporation. Life makes for strange bedfellows.

Blogging on the free wi-fi at Cocoa Bar. I was just sitting with my friend Mrs. Cleavage who was recently laid off from her high-powered job as an administrative assistant at a non-profit.

Monday mornings are hard enough without having to look for a job. And today it’s supposed to feel like it’s 7 below zero. Winter is finally being winter and this is one cold Monday morning.

She’s temping to make money but she didn’t get a call today — you’d think there’d be a lot of employee absence on the morning after the the Superbowl.

But no go. We had a good pep talk. See what happens, this cold, cold Monday.

Mrs. Cleavage has skills a go-go. She’s a great writer with an MFA. An experienced administrative assistant. A creative and seasoned entrepreneur.  Former newspaper reporter. She’s done a lot. Email me if you want to see her resume (louise_crawford@gmail.com).

You can also check out her blog.

A GREAT PRESTON STURGES SCREWBALL COMEDY AND DINNER WITH YOUR VALENTINE

Calling
all lovers…of cinema! BAMcinématek and BAMcafé are partnering to host a
dinner and movie package for Valentine’s Day, featuring Preston
Sturges’ screwball classic The Lady Eve and a special prix fixe menu.


The Lady Eve
(1941) 97min

 
Wed, Feb 14 at 6:30, 8:30pm*
*6:30pm screening is followed by 8:20pm dinner and 8:30pm screening is preceded by 6:45pm dinner.


› Buy Tickets

Directed by Preston Sturges
With Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda
Romantic comedy achieves perfection in Sturges’ screwball classic with
Fonda as a clumsy, naïve professor who narrowly avoids being duped by
gold-digger Stanwyck. But even as she vows to get back at him, she
can’t help but find herself attracted to his bumbling charm. Sturges’
crackling dialogue and wiseacre biblical imagery of the title are a
marvel, and they’re taken to new heights by Stanwyck and Fonda’s fiery
on-screen chemistry.

“Very nearly perfection, and quintessential Sturges.”—Time Out London

Valentine’s Day Dinner at BAMcafé

Movie: 6:30pm / Dinner: 8:20pm
OR
Dinner: 6:45pm / Movie: 8:30pm

Prix Fixe $40 per person (three course dinner plus glass of champagne). Film ticket, tax, and gratuity are not included.

For dinner reservations, please call 718.636.4139 (A credit card
number is required to hold a table. To avoid a charge we will need a 48
hour notice of cancellation)

MENU:
First course:
Organic greens salad with roasted baby beets, oranges, sumac pickled red onions and a feta and mint filo turnover

Entrée:
Filet of beef in a dried porcini and pumpkin seed crust with a Barolo sauce and sweet potato puree
OR
Roulade of salmon with shiso, roasted wild mushrooms on a French lentil ragout, spiced tomato chutney

Dessert:
Chocolate Paradise: A flourless Valrhona chocolate tart, a chocolate
crema, and a bittersweet chocolate sorbet with a caramel tuile and a
sweet pistachio pesto

A month back or so I wrote a piece about a Danish Fullbright scholar and student at the School of Journalism at Columbia University, who interviewed me and No Words. She mentioned that Aaron Barlow, owner of Shakespeare’s Sister, a bookstore in Carroll Gardens, was writing a book about blogging. Here’s a comment from the man himself. Thanks for the clarification.

The book about blogging that the Danish Fulbright refers to is
called "The Rise of the Blogosphere: American Backgrounds." It will
appear in March or April from Praeger (and can already be ordered on
Amazon, but not on Powells, for some reason). What it is, really, is a
history of American journalism with an eye towards those trends that
led to the blogs. A second book of mine on blogging, "America Blogs,"
should appear this coming December. My last book, "The DVD Revolution:
Movies, Culture, and Technology," is a history of home viewing,
particularly in the last decade.

At Shakespeare’s Sister, we believe in the store as part of the
community–which is why our back room (the Artback) is available to
anyone for sitting, reading, and conversation, and for free. A number
of books have been written back there, for it is a quiet space,
normally.

However, on Friday nights, we do show a movie–and soon, on Sunday
afternoons, we will start a series of readings and discussions.
Probably, readings will occur every hour from two through four (three
poets, essayists, dramatists, or writers of fiction each week) and will
last from twenty minutes to half an hour. The remaining time will be
for informal discussion. We may also be starting a Saturday film
series… and who knows what else.

The Seventh Avenue Barnes and Noble infuriated local parents and caregivers by deciding to BAN PEOPLE FROM WALKING AROUND THE STORE WITH STROLLERS. They want people to park their strollers in a designated area upstairs.

It was just a simple note on the front door. And it got people pretty fired up.

Doesn’t sound that unreasonable to me.

Much ado on Park Slope Parents and elsewhere. Here’s a PSP post from an employee of Barnes and Noble AND a local mom.

Hi all - full disclosure, I am a Park Slope mom who also works for
Barnes & Noble, specifically for the website. I have followed this
thread with concern, because like many of you, I consider the Park 
Slope store to be an essential place to hang out with my kids, especially in
cold weather, in or out of their strollers. 

I just wanted to let everyone know that I have brought the community's generally 
negative response to the new rule to the attention of a director in the company
who is in charge of store operations, and she is working with the store
manager to find a better solution. 

I can't say for sure whether this means the ban will be lifted, but the concerns have definitely been
heard, and I'm hopeful that there will be more flexibility on this. If 
I hear anything more specific, I'll post the details. 

 

Scary, scary news from the world’s scientists. Thursday, they gave their STERNEST warning yet that a
failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions will bring devastating climate
change within a few decades.

Average temperatures could increase by
as much as 6.4C by the end of the century if emissions continue to
rise, with a rise of 4C most likely, according to the final report of
an expert panel set up by the UN to study the problem. The forecast is
higher than previous estimates, because scientists have discovered that
Earth’s land and oceans are becoming less able to absorb carbon dioxide.

Read Seeing Green on the carless life.

Car-free? or Carless? We’ve been without a car in Brooklyn for over
a year now and it’s great. Can’t say that I miss having a car except on
the rare occasions we leave NYC. And, of course, no alternate side
parking hassles and no tickets. Personally, as someone who loves to
drive, the only thing I regret is that I cannot rent a stick-shift as I
hate automatics…

But a truly car-free city is something else (Venice, of course) and
may never come to pass in NYC. Cities like London are implementing
stronger and stronger measures against the private automobile, while
Bloomberg waffles on congestion pricing, which could greatly alleviate traffic in Manhattan. That study indicating that half of the traffic in Manhattan is generated by Manhattanites
is also fascinating, showing that for even with our great transit
system (well, almost great,) people still use the car when alternatives
are available. Time for a stick; carrots don’t work.

Car Free in America: The Alternative is Rail, Buses, Bikes and Just Plain Walking, an article by Jim Motavalli, makes some points:

Park Slope Neighbors has initiated a campaign asking Whole Foods to
make several alterations to the design for the market it plans to open
next year at the corner of 3rd Avenue and 3rd Street.

Whole
Foods, which has garnered acclaim for its commitment to organic and
natural food products, excellent employment practices and all-around
good corporate citizenship, plans to build a 64,000-square-foot store
along the Gowanus Canal, its first in Brooklyn.

PSN,
while welcoming Whole Foods to the neighborhood, is asking the company
to alter some aspects of its design. The requests include:

• A reduction in the number of parking spaces by at least 100 from the currently planned 420
• The elimination of the rooftop parking lot in favor of a green roof or solar panels
• The
  implementation of a comprehensive transportation-management plan,
  including jitney service to mass-transit connection points, free van
  service home for customers, and ample bicycle parking

SIGN THE PETITION.

IT was just a hunch. But that breast friend thing was just plain weird. I could tell there was something MORE going between those two moms. And they were inflicting their relationship on their babies.

I guess I assumed they were heterosexual. But still, I don’t think it’s a gay thing at all. Not at all. I think it’s just something very specific to this particular relationship.

Someone who didn’t leave his/her name left an interesting comment. Jennifer Baumgardner has a book out on bisexuality and in it you can read about her breast friend. To not mention that in the piece was just plain misleading, I think. Here’s the comment.

The funny thing is, you’re right about them — kind of. They’re exes! Not sure why Jennifer Baumgardner failed to mention that in the piece. And she’s not heterosexual either (though I guess you could easily assume she was). She just wrote a book on bisexuality. In it, I believe you can read all about her relationship with her "Breast Friend." There’s a Q&A with her about her book on Babble’s sister site, Nerve.com (http://www.nerve.com/screeningroom/books/interview_jenniferbaumgardner/).

This arrived in my inbox minutes ago (6:25 p.m. Friday evening) from Gersh Kuntzman at the Brooklyn Paper.

Barclays bank demands a retraction. The Brooklyn Paper does not comply (though, in a lengthy editor’s note, the Paper admits to one error).

Three-pronged coverage can be seen at the top of our homepage or by clicking below:

1. Barclays’ letter requesting a retraction.

2. The Paper’s response.

3. A news story on Barclays’ PR push.

Wow, busy day here, huh?

David Yassky calls on the city and state to divest from Sudan. Join representatives from the Sudan Divestment Task Force, leaders from around the City, and hundreds of concerned citizens and advocates this Sunday at a rally on the steps of City Hall to call on the Pension Boards of New York City and New York State’s various pensions to divest both the City and State of any investments made in targeted corporations doing business with the Sudan.

RALLY AT CITY HALL (MANHATTAN): Sunday February 4th at 11:30 a.m.

Marty Markowitz’s State of the Borough speech was yesterday and NY1’s Jeanine Ramirez filed the following report.

After a musical tribute by Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the Brooklyn delegation, Marty Markowitz took center stage at Steiner Film Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for his annual State of the Borough address Thursday.

He talked about Brooklyn’s renaissance and offered the 2007 Lonely Planet travel guide’s Best of 2007 list as proof of that.

"Lonely Planet only chose three destinations in America: Hawaii, they’ve got beautiful beaches just like Brooklyn; New Orleans, which has culture, wonderful food, granted; and, who would’ve thunk it, the city of Brooklyn!" said Markowitz.

Markowitz says Brooklyn will add a second cruise ship terminal in Red Hook, make the lighting on the Parachute Jump in Coney Island more dazzling, and celebrate a second Sundance Film Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

"Last May, where did Robert Redford commemorate the 25th anniversary of his Sundance Film Festival? If you missed it last year, Sundance and my ‘older twin’ Robert Redford will be back this year from May 31- June 10,” said Markowitz.

He also hopes to break ground on the new arena for the Nets this year, build a state-of-the-art amphitheater in Coney Island on the site where he holds his summer concert series, and transform the 1920’s Loews Kings Theater on Flatbush Avenue into a performance venue.

But Markowitz also expressed his worry about development at Spring Creek, known to most as Starett City. The 6,000 apartment complex was bought by a developer and the borough president vows to keep the homes affordable.

"We will fight to preserve this development, which is the model for diverse, urban living in Brooklyn and America,” said Markowitz. “I’ve got a message: this won’t be Stuyvesant Town, part two!"

The borough president remembered prominent Brooklynites who passed away including Gilbert Rivera, founder of Park Avenue Home Center, and Carlos Lezama, the founder of the West Indian Day Parade.

In Lezama’s memory, Markowitz talked about opening a West Indian Museum.

After the New York City Blogger Summit I made a resolution to read more blogs. Here’s one that’s really fun called Modern Fabulosity. I’ve selected some excerpt from his list of ten things he learned at the summit. Read more at Modern Fabulosity.

New York Bloggers Summit, held last night at the studios of WNBC
at Rockefeller Center, featured over 130 bloggers and what seemed like
5,000 NBC employees, most of whom stood around nervously and made small
talk with all the grace of a concrete block. Theoretically, the Summit
was an opportunity to bridge understanding between "MSM" (as they
charmingly referred to themselves, like it was still 2004) and
bloggers, most of whom look like lifelong grad students. The event
taught us all, both TV folk and web folk, a few important life lessons.
To wit:

4) Give us your Content, We’ll Give You….?
The
"dialogue" began with eight different NBC executives telling us exactly
why we were there. Basically, they can’t keep up with the pace of news
in the internet age. So they’d like bloggers to email them "scoops"
(their word, not mine), and in return, they will give us "publicity"
and "traffic" and "credit" and "linklove" (again, their word, not
mine). They were deliberately vague on what "credit" meant, but we
guess that "publicity" meant links from their website, and the one word
we wanted to hear — "money" — was noticeably absent.

5) Arts?  Who cares about the arts?
As
the session began, the NBC’er who was most helpful, Erin, led an
informal survey with a show of hands. Political bloggers in the house?
A bunch. Sports bloggers? A few, and very popular. (Just like gym
class.) Gossip bloggers? Over a dozen. NYC-centric bloggers? In force.
So I waited to hear them ask for "arts bloggers" or "culture bloggers"
or "LGBT bloggers". And waited. And waited. Long story short, we were
never polled, or even thought of. Because clearly, the arts are not
news. (Later, in a discussion of Paris Hilton‘s
storage auction, "culture" blogging was used interchangeably with
"gossip" blogging. Because Paris Hilton IS culture, people, and the
sooner we all learn that, the better off we’ll be.)

7) ModFab is okay, but Gothamist is really the shiznit.
I
mentioned earlier that bloggers were allowed to ask questions. That’s
partially true; the moderator, WNBC technology reporter Sree Sreenivasan, wasn’t interested in anyone who wasn’t an A-Lister.  So while he went giddy over Anil Dash, Gothamist, Mediabistro, and Gawker,
software makers and every conceivable employee of NBC, those of us who
inhabit the B-List were left with our arms in the air, hoping we’d be
called upon. Oh, well yes, occasionally a smaller blogger was allowed a
shot at the passed microphone (our favorite: Varsity Basketweaving) but only if they were funny.

8) Bloggers don’t watch local news.  They watch Jon Stewart.
This
revelation also came by a show of hands. The NBC execs were too
petrified to ask why. Had they bothered to follow up, they would have
heard what I was dying to say: that the strength of blogging is
personality and niche subjects, two things that network news are weak
in offering…and that Stewart has in spades.

9) Bloggers are reaaaaaaaally white.
I
counted three people of color. Out of 130. Truthfully, there was more
diversity in the NBC staff. A disturbing, bothersome truth in a city
that thrives on its multicultural makeup.

10) I got a free hat.
Yes.  It even says "Blogger Summit" on it.  I may never wear it, but hey, free swag is free swag.

I
think WNBC was brave in recognizing their limitations, and smart to
reach out to bloggers in the spirit of partnership…their hearts are
in the right places. However, all joking aside — they fundamentally do
not understand the nature of the problem. Television and the internet
are getting closer together every day. To hope that bloggers will help
prop up an archaic system of delivering media — a nightly litany "of
tragedies and catastrophies, followed by the weather", as one blogger
put it — is to miss the point entirely. Today’s audience wants to
select their own content, about subjects they care about, in formats
that are useful in their lives…and to experience it on technology
that may or may not be a box in the living room. News, like life, is
changing. If they are willing to see that, I’m certain that bloggers
will answer the call.

"So what did you think of the Blog Summit?" I asked Hepcat this morning.

"’We would like you to be our unpaid stringers’ is probably the simplest reading of the event," Hepcat replied sleepily. He went to sleep at 5 a.m. doing his "day job."

But what about the baseball caps? Those were really nice," I said. 

"But what’s that weird shape that looks like a flattened rat in the center lane of Second Avenue?"  Hepcat said.

"Actually, I really like the graphic on the baseball cap," I said.

"Let’s just say if it was a Rorschach test I’d probably say roadkill." Hepcat said.

Hepcat didn’t much like the reporter who spoke near the end of what was a very convivial event — a nice TV meets the Web kind of vibe — and said this: "We have a lot of standards and we’re not going to put unsubstantiated stuff up there."

That reporter was definitely playing the "journalistic standards card." He seemed a little alarmed by the whole thing. Not nearly as gung ho as the organizers.

The head of the news division was there and he seemed like a nice guy. Where was Sue Simmons and Ernie Anastas? Too busy getting ready for the 11:00 news?

Speaking of the 11:00 news it was fun to see ourselves on television. And fun to see Sree and the other reporters we met. The Conan O’Brian studio was a cool place for the event. It is MUCH smaller than I expected. They told us a bunch of times that it used to be Dave Letterman’s studio back in the day.

The people at NBC are really impressed with the fact that they work at NBC. The fact that the audience had little interest in local TV news was very surprising to them. As one blogger said, "I’m not that interested in fires and murders. So I don’t watch."

It was a typical blog crowd: white, equal number of men and women, average age: mid-thirties, snarky, smart, eccentric, off beat, outspoken. The whiteness of the crowd wasn’t really addressed. Interestingly, lack of diversity was a big issue at the Brooklyn Blogfest last spring. We were hoping to set up a forum to address that…

Sitting in Conan’s studio, I was proud that we bloggers have become such a force. I never dreamed I’d be sitting at NBC hearing that my hyper-local and personal approach to news and information was the wave of the future. I never dreamed that a mainstream media outlet like WNBC would want a piece of my action. It’s kind of exciting the way that blogging has plucked so many of us out of obscurity. It’s exciting to be considered a pioneer.

Borough President Marty Markowitz is getting ready for his State
of the Borough Thursday night at the Steiner film Studios.

Here are some talking points:

He wants to turn Asser Levy Park in Coney Island, which is the site
of his summer concert series, into a state-of-the-art, all-weather
performance venue. He wants it to attract the same circuit tours as
Jones Beach and Westbury.

He’s also looking to transform the old Loew’s
Kings movie theater on Flatbush Avenue, which has been empty for 30
years. The majestic 1920s theater is one of the last of its kind that
has never been subdivided.

More Alternadad news: Babble.com ran a piece about "Alternadad," the new book by Neal Pollack, whose reading I attended at the Tea Lounge last week. I also wrote about it for the Brooklyn Paper.

Apparently, he’s writing a rebuttal to their review. Sparks should fly.

Here’s the original piece by Lisa Carver from Babble.com

Here’s Neal Pollack’s rebuttal on Babble.com

Here’s my piece in the Brooklyn Paper.

“WHAT IS THE WHAT” by Dave Eggers is the novelized story of Valentino Achak Deng, who is one of the “lost boys of Sudan.” I just finished reading it last night and I loved it. It is a MUST READ for everyone who cares about human rights. Here’s the blurb from the McSweeney’s website.

Separated from his family, Valentino Achak Deng becomes a refugee in war-ravaged southern Sudan. His travels bring him in contact with enemy soldiers, with liberation rebels, with hyenas and lions, with disease and starvation, and with deadly murahaleen (militias on horseback)—the same sort who currently terrorize Darfur. Based closely on actual experiences, What Is the What is heartrending and astonishing, filled with adventure, suspense, tragedy, and, finally, triumph.

And from the New York Times’ review by Francine Prose:

Dave Eggers’s “What Is the What” is, like “Huckleberry Finn,” a picaresque novel of adolescence. But the injustices, horrors and follies that Huck encounters on his raft trip down the Mississippi would have seemed like glimpses of heaven to Eggers’s hero, whose odyssey from his village in the southern Sudan to temporary shelter in Ethiopia to a vast refugee camp in Kenya and finally to Atlanta is a nightmare of chaos and carnage punctuated by periods of relative peace lasting just long enough for him to catch his breath.

This from New York 1:

Anyone with questions can call the transportation hot line at (718)482-3700. Parents and students of public and some private schools had to adjust to new school bus routes that took effect Monday, changing bus stops, drop-offs and pick up times.

Some parents say the changes will mean a longer day for their children and headaches for them.

But Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the bottom line is the city can’t afford to have school buses cover every street on every route. He says the city is trying to weed out buses that make rounds without any children on board.

“What we’re trying to do is have bus routes where the kids need them, and not to pay bus companies for routes where the kids don’t,” he said. “We only have a certain amount of money in this city, and if you want to make sure that your monies are well spent and that we help those we can, it requires looking at programs at seeing whether they are effective.”

But one Staten Island mother says her son now has to cross a busy street to get to his new bus stop.

“It’s very dangerous the intersection, as people know it, Richmond Avenue on Staten Island,” said Michelle Butler. “You have buses; you have trucks; you have fire engines; you have cop cars, eight lanes of traffic; two turning lanes. It’s a constant flow of traffic, and it’s very dangerous for children 11 through 13 to be crossing the street.”

Some bus drivers in Queens are skeptical that the measure will even end up saving money.

“I think it is going to be a big fuss. I think this all comes down to them spending $17 million, and they can’t justify it right now. I’m telling you right now,” said bus driver Anthony Coladonato. “The overtime involved is going to eat that $17 million savings they said they are going to make. It’s going to be far worse. I really think so; I think so.”

Some parents in the Bronx say the cost-cutting changes have left their children out in the cold.

“My child is five years old, so there is no way I am going to put her on a New York City bus or train by herself,” said parent Arlene Martin. “So now I am going to have to take her, which will also make me late for work, make some type of arrangement from work or get someone to pick her up as well. Working parents or any parent is going to have a very hard time doing this, especially mid-year.”

Things were no different in Brooklyn, where parents and bus drivers alike were trying to make the best of the situation, which meant allowing a little extra time for their morning routine.

The buses arrived at P.S. 196 in Bushwick, but Silvano Ortiz’s son Anthony was not on one of them.

“Nobody picked him up. We had to take a chance to get on transportation ourselves,” said Ortiz. “I’m not angry, but it is frustrating.”

“I [usually have 51 kids on the bus, but] today I had 22,” said bus driver Paul King. “Not really [confusion], but a lot of the parents don’t want to get up that early, so they would rather wait and take the child to school themselves.”

But the city wasn’t especially sympathetic to parents’ complaints Monday.

“We’ve reached out to parents, we’ve given extensive notification to try and get every parent that needs service to come in,” said Bloomberg.

The Department of Education says that only 116 out of some 6,000 lines were affected. An outside consulting group, Alvarez and Marsal, helped identify the lines to be cut or consolidated, as part of its $17 million no-bid contract from the DOE to identify cost-savings system wide. The DOE says the route changes will save $12 million a year.

Still, parents confused about whether their kids are on the list for bus service are left with little more than a special DOE hotline for information.

Education officials point out the first announcement about the changes was made last June, giving parents seven months to make alternate plans.

“The new bus routes implemented today reflect our eligible students’ actual use of busing. Rather than having to continue to pay for empty seats, the DOE will redirect millions of dollars in savings to schools and to support student learning,” a DOE statement released Monday read. “We recognize that the new routes caused difficulties for some families today, and we are working closely with schools and parents to resolve any legitimate concerns.”

No word on how long that could take.

I found this in my inbox this afternoon. It’s from a woman I know at PS 321, who is angry enough about this war to try and do something about it.

Dear Friends:

Hope you don’t mind my contacting you via email. I’m sending this to
everyone I think might take some action.

I haven’t bugged my friends and acquaintances about political stuff
for a long time and haven’t been too politically active myself for
quite a while – but after Bush’s speech about escalating the war in
Iraq a couple of weeks ago, I was moved to get up off my butt and do
something again. I felt that the time was appropriate, considering
that we have a new congress and maybe a new direction, to exercise my
first amendment right to speak out, show up and be counted. So I
went to Washington for the Anti-War march on Saturday. I must admit,
it was more sparsely attended than I had hoped or expected.

I had spoken to many other people whose sentiments were in line with
mine but who were not able to arrange to go themselves. If you are
one of those people (and even if you did actually go), there is now
another significant action that you can take. I’m hoping that those
of you who didn’t go to Washington (but wanted to) are feeling just
guilty enough to read on.

Moveon.org is organizing a VIRTUAL MARCH and asking people to sign up
for a time to call your State Senators to let them know how you feel
about the escalation of the Iraq war. On February 1 (next Thursday)
a few days before senate votes on the escalation, Moveon.org is
asking people to bombard the phone lines of our senators to let them
know that they should vote AGAINST this heinous action.

They are trying to organize this because often people have the best
of intentions to call but become frustrated because everyone seems to
be calling at the same time. They’re trying to get people to commit
to calling at all different times throughout the day which will also
create a consistent string of anti-war phone calls all day long.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE visit the website at:
http://pol.moveon.org/virtualmarch/step2.html?id=9783-1207385-DgrpYwkYUM3vDc_QoNU03g&t=4

to join the VIRTUAL MARCH and to sign up for a time to call your
senators. Also, how great would it be if you could also email
everyone in your address book to do the same?

I’m not sure why, but I’m feeling like we might actually be able to
make a difference now. Hope you feel that way too and can take a few
minutes on Thursday, Feb. 1 to call.

ERROL LOUIS’ COLUMN IN THE DAILY NEWS:

I didn’t think it was possible, but the already bitter public fight over Brooklyn’s $4 billion Atlantic Yards project has turned even nastier.
Opponents of the plan to build housing and an 18,000-seat professional sports arena in Prospect Heights – led by deluded hotheads who have lost every regulatory, legal and political attempt to halt the project – have decided to play what they no doubt imagine is a devastating racial trump card. Upon discovering that the British bank Barclays plans to pay hundreds of millions for the right to have its name on the arena, the opponents have dragged out the bank’s past financial connections to the slave trade, the Holocaust and South African apartheid.
"BLOOD MONEY: Nets arena to be named after bank founded on slave money," screamed the headline of The Brooklyn Paper, a free weekly that publishes a compendium of complaints about Atlantic Yards. "Bruce Ratner has stabbed his black supporters in the back," the paper’s editorial page said. "Naming an arena after a slave-trading family is a slap in the face," the paper said, urging politicians "to stand up for blacks, for history, for integrity and, indeed, for all of Brooklyn and urge [Atlantic Yards developer] Bruce Ratner to find another corporate partner."
City Councilwoman Letitia James, who represents the area, called Barclays "a bank with blood on their hands" and was quoted by the paper as calling black supporters of Atlantic Yards "just tools used by Ratner to get this project passed."
Gimme a break.
I readily concede, and have no doubt, that Barclays – like many companies with household names – profited from an untold number of monstrous crimes over the centuries.
But Barclays is hardly alone – and the people and newspapers trying to claim moral ground by throwing around terms like "integrity" and playing politics with horrors like the slave trade and the Holocaust know this. Or they should.
JPMorgan Chase, for instance, has multiple, shameful connections to the slave trade and the Holocaust. According to historians and activists who have filed federal lawsuits seeking reparations, Wachovia, Aetna and CSX, the railroad company, all benefited from the slave trade.
I hope The Brooklyn Paper, which raised this issue so self-righteously, will now practice what it preaches and publicly renounce any advertising dollars from Chase, Wachovia – Barclays, of course – and other institutions built on "blood money."
And since we’re on the subject of names, it’s worth noting that The Brooklyn Paper is headquartered on Washington St., and Washington Ave. runs right through the middle of James’ Council district. Both streets are named after our first President, a well-known slavemaster, so maybe James – if she’s serious – should invoke the Council’s power to scrub that name from public view.
Better still, everybody posturing on the links-to-slavery issue should take a deep breath, get off their high horses, and join the current fight to pass a strong law in Albany to stop human trafficking – a modern form of slavery that is going on in New York City right now.
Unlike Atlantic Yards, it’s a fight they might actually win.

Originally published on January 25, 2007

FROM GERSH AT THE BROOKLYN PAPER:

Errol:


I enjoyed reading your column today. You made a lot of points that are
certainly worth debating (too bad our side in that debate was ignored).

But, most important, I’d be remiss if I didn’t criticize one small point in the column. You wrote that The Brooklyn Paper publishes "a compendium of complaints" about Atlantic Yards.


I’m appalled that you, as a newspaper employee!, would liken good,
old-fashioned, shoe-leather investigative reporting on Brooklyn’s
largest real-estate development — one that involves hundreds of
millions of public money — to mere whining. This award-winning
newspaper has come up with scoop after scoop about misinformation and,
yes, lies, told by our public officials — the very people who should be
protecting us from boondoggles — but your intellectually dishonest
phrase ("compendium of complaints") reduces all that hard work to the
level of bloggers who merely whine about traffic. How would your
paper’s investigative reporters feel if a columnist read their fine
stories, but dismissed their findings in such an off-hand way? Oh, I
forgot, your paper hasn’t DONE any investigative work on Atlantic
Yards, so I guess we’ll never know.

As I said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that bothered me.

Gersh Kuntzman
Editor in chief
The Brooklyn Paper
http://www.brooklynpaper.com

Gersh Kuntzma

I got a phone call yesterday while I was in a bodega on Fifth Avenue buying milk and orange juice. It wasn’t the best time to have a cell phone call but I did and it was someone named Daniel from Develop Don’t Destroy.

I thought it was Daniel Goldstein who I have spoken to once or twice. At first it sounded like him but he acted like he didn’t know me.

The Daniel on the phone was asking if I’d be willing to contribute to DDDB’s legal fund. He asked me if knew much about their eminent domain lawsuit, etc.

Because I thought it was Daniel Goldstein, this is strange. I’m a Brooklyn Blogger. I am OTBKB, for god’s sake. Of course, I know all about the lawsuit. But then, I thought, maybe he’s sharing some breaking news.

The request for money was a little odd but I figured it was some kind of emergency measure and he was reaching out to me personally to spread the word on OTBKB.

But then this Daniel had never heard of OTBKB. That seemed a little strange but I know that Daniel G. is a busy guy.

It was also strange because yesterday I featured a post about LAUGH DON’T DESTROY a comedy benefit for DDDB. Truth be told, at first, I wondered if there was mistake in the post and wondered if Daniel G. was calling to correct it. He has emailed me on occasion when there’s a mistake  in what I’ve written.

So I though it was weird that Daniel had never heard of OTBKB. I also thought it was strange that he was talking to me as if I’d never heard of the Atlantic Yards issue.

"What did you say your name was again?" I asked.

Daniel Caton," he said.

"Oh. You’re just making fundraising calls?"

"Right."

It’s always surreal when the person you’re speaking to on the phone isn’t the person you think you’re talking to. Cell phones calls are weird to begin with. I’m sure if I was sitting at my desk using a land-line it would have been clear that I was speaking to a Daniel Caton not a Daniel Goldstein. 

Daniel was super friendly and super informative. I just thought I was talking to Daniel Goldstein who sort of knows me.

Cell phone calls can happen anywhere. In the middle of the street. In a bodega. In the bathroom. They make for some strange communications.

Shabnam later called to thank me for the offer I made to Daniel to post about DDDB’s critical need for funds for their legal funds. They are asking people to send what they can ($100-300 was suggested by Daniel C.) Go to the make a donation page of Develop Don’t Destroy website.

If you prefer to donate by mail, please mail your contribution
                    to:
                   
                    Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn 89 Fifth Avenue, PMB #150
                    Brooklyn, NY 11217
                   
                    Make Checks Payable to:
                    Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn

I found this on Gowanus Lounge.  Beautiful Smile’s daughter works at a afterschool program at the Gowanus Houses Community Center. So I am super interested in this request for computers that may be sitting around your house. Hey Hepcat: don’t we have a lot of comptuers hanging around – in the hallway – I keep stubbing my toe on them? Can we give them away?

Have a computer sitting around that you’ve outgrown? We came across an
email from a local resident who is putting together a computer training
course for the Gowanus Houses Community Center
"to teach kids in public housing the fundamentals of computers using
free and open source software." The resident, Kevin Hardiman, says he
is "looking to the community for computer donations – full computer
systems desired, but incomplete system will be evaluated – to drive the
program." He is seeking people or businesses willing to donate old
unused machines or that would be intesting in helping, and can be
reached at kevin (at) opensourcebrooklyn (dot) com.
The program is being developed in conjunction with the Gowanus Houses
Community Center, and has the support of the Gowanus Tenant Association..

MAKOR:
35 West 67th Street
January 25, at 7 p.m.

Money Changes Everything is an anthology of essays edited by Elissa
Schappell and Jenny Offill.  At least one of them lives in Park Slope
and both are responsible for another fun anthology called "The
Friend the Got Away."

Tonight, there’s a reading/discussion at Makor, sponsored by the 92nd Street Y at 8 p.m, tonight called MONEY: THE LAST TABOO.

Marian Fontana, author of "A Widow’s Walk: A Memoir of 9/11", Ruth
Konigberg, Schappell and Offill will read excerpts from the book and talk.

Yesterday at Sweet Melissa’s, I was eavesdropping (I might as well just come out and say it).

OSFO was doing her homework and I was listening to snippets of conversation at another table.

So sue me.

Anyway. A nice young man, Daniel Eppelbaum, a student in the seventh grade at Brooklyn Friends, was drinking Earl Gray tea and eating a scone waiting to go to his choral practice.

Already impressive.

His mother handed him an envelope. "Do you have an letter opener," he asked. She didn’t so he carefully opened it with a knife.

"Oh it’s a response to the letter I sent him," he said.

My interest was piqued. Who was "he"?

"He" was our Borough President, Marty Markowitz. And this young man had written him a letter about something that bothers him a lot.

At this point, I was talking directly to Daniel and his mother. I apologized for eavesdropping and I came right out and said: tell me more.

At Brooklyn Friends, they encourage kids to be community minded. So Daniel decided write a letter to complain about the infrequency of the B67
bus — especially when he’s coming home from school at 6 p.m.

"Sometimes I have to wait twenty minutes for the bus to come," he said. His mother concurred. "He’s tired. He’s got this heavy backpack. It’s hard at the end of the day."

Well, Marty Markowitz wrote back. He said he was going to follow up on it — and speak to the muckity muck who’s in charge of the B67 bus. But first, he wants Daniel to get back to him on the exact details of which bus and what times he rides the bus.

Daniel has probably already written back—he seems like a really responsible kid. I’m curious how this is going to play out. What will Marty do after he gets Daniel’s second letter? Will he make this a top priority? Will he get in touch with Daniel again?

STAY TUNED TO OTBKB FOR MORE ON CITIZEN-7TH GRADER.

I for one hope Daniel’s letter gets results. I think that we have to wait WAY too long for that Seventh Avenue bus. So I am going to stay on this story.

Daniel said that he wrote two letters to George W. Bush in order to complain about his policies in Iraq and all he got was a photograph of George and Laura with their autographs.

He is obviously a big believer in writing letters to public officials and newspaper editors. 

He comes by it honestly, his mother said. "It’s something the people in my family do," She herself has had two letters to the editor published in the
New York Times.

Impressive. 

If anyone who reads this knows Daniel can you tell me if I’ve spelled his last name right. Also, tell him to get in touch. I’d love to publish the correspondance. louise_crawford@yahoo.com

Thanks Gowanus Lounge for posting about this fun and funny Develop Don’t Destroy event. They are holding a fundraiser for their Legal Fund on Tuesday, February 6 at 8:30. The event will take place at Union Hall at 702 Union Street in Park Slope (at
Fifth Avenue). Comedians include Michael Showalter, Eugene Mirman,
Kristen Schaal, Jon Benjamin, Andrea Rosen, Chelsea Peretti, Gilad
Foss, Patrick Borelli, Robin Cloud and "special guests." Doors at 8.
Ticket are $20. For more information go to Develop Don’t Destroy.

Screenings of "Brooklyn Matters," are being held several times in coming weeks. (Check out Gothamist’s review of the documentary here.)
There’s one on Jan. 31, from 7-8:30PM, hosted by the Boerum Hill
Association at Belarusian Church, which is at 401 Atlantic Avenue (at
Bond Street). There is another screening on February 1 at 6PM at the
Pratt Institute at the Higgins Hall Auditorium, which is located at 61
St. James Place(at Lafayette Avenue). And there is a screening on
February 27 at 7:00PM hosted by the Fifth Avenue Committee, which is at
621 Degraw Street(btwn 4th & 3rd Ave.).

INDEPENDENT LENS: BILLY STRAYHORN: LUSH LIFE will premiere on Thirteen/WNET Tuesday, February 6 at 10 p.m. As part of UMOJA!, the station’s annual on-air celebration of Black History Month.

The Blue Note soundtrack album, which will be released Tuesday, January 23, will feature new performances of Strayhorn compositions by Bill Charlap, Elvis Costello, Hank Jones, Joe Lovano, and Dianne Reeves.

A few spots remain for the screening. If you would like to attend, please email your name and total number of persons to carol@encoremag.com, no later than noon on Jan 23. A return email will confirm that you will be admitted.

The screening starts promptly at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 23 at BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY. A Q&A with director Robert Levi will follow, moderated by Blue Note Records CEO Bruce Lundvall.

This event has been made possible by Blue Note Records, Thirteen/WNET, ITVS/Independent Lens, Washington Square Films, Robert Levi Films and ENCORE Magazine.

This arrived in my inbox this morning. I am assuming it was sent by Mike Daisey himself. He lives in Carroll Gardens and maybe he or his publicist reads OTBKB. His performance piece INVINCIBLE SUMMER tells the story of "the last glorious summer before everything changed. Starting with the bizarre history of the MTA’s epic subway system, Daisey crafts a startling vision of his Brooklyn neighborhood before and after one terrible day, setting an intensely personal story of a family in crisis against the backdrop of massive social upheaval. Invincible Summer is a tale of loss and democracy for our time brought to life by one of the theatre’s fiercest and funniest storytellers."

FROM THE NY TIMES:

THE lights went up too early, the cramped theater was swelteringly hot and Mike Daisey, looking a bit nervous alone onstage, could see himself sweating profusely in the mirror on the wall behind the audience. It was going to be one of those shows.

“Camus once said that the only real philosophical question is whether or not to kill yourself,” he said in a recent workshop performance at Collective Unconscious in TriBeCa of his new monologue, “Invincible Summer,” currently running at the Public Theater as part of the Under the Radar festival. “I’ve always wanted to start a wedding toast with this.”

It’s a good line that had received huge laughs the last time he delivered it, half a year ago at the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina, but this crowd merely chuckled. “All I was thinking then was that I wanted to kill myself,” he said the next day.

Since he burst on the scene at the 2001 New York International Fringe Festival with “21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com,” an expertly constructed monologue about the madness behind the Internet boom, Mr. Daisey, 34, has been one of the hardest-working and most accomplished storytellers in the solo form. His plays, which include multiple narrative threads, echoing off one another and intersecting in the most unexpected ways, have received consistently good reviews, earning comparisons to premier yarn-spinners like Spalding Gray and David Sedaris. But what Mr. Daisey does is considerably different in at least one respect: He works without a script. Read more HERE.

MORE IN THE CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE…

Continue reading ONLY SIX MORE SHOWS OF THIS ACCLAIMED BROOKLYN STORY →

Here it is, this week’s Smartmom from the award-winning Brooklyn Paper:

Everyone knows about Teen Spirit’s cool and unusual forays into rock and roll. But few are aware of the Oh So Feisty One’s burgeoning interest in classical piano.

More than a year ago, OSFO started hankering for piano lessons. Smartmom knew that Mrs. Kravitz’s daughter, and OSFO’s best friend, Beauty Girl, was taking lessons, from a local teacher named Helen Richman.

“Why don’t you come to the recital?” Mrs. Kravitz suggested. “It’s in the senior center on Grand Army Plaza.”

A few Sundays later, they went to the social room at the center, where an overflow crowd watched as Helen introduced her piano and flute students, who each played a solo and a duet with confidence and enthusiasm.

The atmosphere was low key and low stress. If a child flubbed up he/she just started over. No tears. No tangles.

Smartmom was particularly impressed by the graceful way all the students bowed.

Afterwards, there was fruit punch and homemade cookies, which reminded Smartmom of the violin recitals she attended as a young student.

Smartmom sidled up to Helen, who is probably the most glamorous-looking piano teacher you’ll ever meet, and asked her when OSFO could start.

“I’m pretty booked up right now,” Helen said with a syrupy southern drawl and huge helpings of kindness and concern. “But I’ll see what I can do for y’all.”

At the first lesson a few weeks later, Smartmom learned why the kid’s bows were so impressive. Helen teaches a modified version of Suzuki for piano. And all lessons begin and end with a bow.

Thanks to Helen’s teaching techniques and OSFO’s willingness to practice, the 9-year-old was playing lovely two-handed pieces within a couple of months. The children learn certain pieces by ear (listening to a CD that Helen provides). Simultaneously, Helen teaches them sight reading and theory.

Everything was going swimmingly. Except for one thing: OSFO hasn’t had a proper instrument to practice on. She’s been using an old keyboard Hepcat bought in 1989 plugged into one of Teen Spirit’s bass amps.

It was time to graduate from something very makeshift to a more piano-like piano.

Smartmom grew up with a grand piano in the foyer of her family’s Upper West Side apartment. It was a Knabe, given to her maternal grandparent’s when they were married in 1920.

Although Smartmom took violin lessons and later guitar, the piano got quite a workout during her childhood. Diaper Diva studied the instrument, although she got little help from her father, who played a weird kind of atonal jazz as a way to unwind after work.

Sure, Smartmom would love to buy an upright piano, but neither money nor space allows for such an extravagant purchase at this time.

She asked friend, composer and pianist extraordinaire Louis Rosen what to look for in an electronic keyboard.

“Weighted keys. Make sure it has weighted keys so it feels like a piano,” Rosen said.

So last week, Smartmom and Hepcat ventured over to the Guitar Center at Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Center Mall and were directed to a Casio Digital Piano, a full-sized standup piano with 88 weighted keys.

Hepcat made a face. “It sounds pretty good, but it doesn’t really look like a piano,” he said. Hepat was raised with an old Steinway piano that his mother bought at a local museum sale. Then Hepcat pointed out a nick on the keyboard cover and made another face.

The salesman offered to take more than $100 off. Smartmom was sold.

Hepcat kept looking around at the groovier-looking keyboards. But Smartmom had her heart set on the faux piano look. It played into her fantasy that a home should have a piano — not a keyboard on an ironing board-type stand.

Hepcat thought the portable keyboard would be great “in case OSFO starts a band or something. It’ll be easier to move.”

But Smartmom wasn’t thinking “The Archies.” She wanted a traditional piano with a metronome sitting on top. Of course, the Casio has an electronic metronome — it’s pretty high tech — but within a traditional-looking body.

With his passive-aggressive flair, Hepcat left it up to Smartmom and her “vision” of what she wants.

Smartmom knew she would have to pay — as she always does — when Hepcat lets her make a decision about an electronic item. (“Why did you buy this stupid phone/ stupid toaster/stupid printer?”)

But Smartmom whipped out her debit card and paid for the “piano” pronto. She had it delivered and it arrived less than two hours later. Not without a crisis. The delivery guy left the power supply back at the store and there was no manual.

“So your stupid ‘piano’ doesn’t even come with a power source. That’s why you got it so cheap,” Hepcat sneered at Smartmom.

“Would you two stop yelling!” OSFO begged with the experience of a child whose parents do a lot of stupid bickering. Besides, the power supply arrived within an hour or so.

Everyone seems to like the piano. OSFO has been practicing like a demon. Teen Spirit’s been trying to bang out some Daniel Johnston tunes and Hepcat likes to combine all the interesting sounds the keyboard makes.

As for Smartmom, with the faux piano in the dining room, everything is just he way it’s supposed to be.

Thank you About Manhattan for this tip:

Filmmaker Doug Aitken’s Sleepwalkers at The Museum of Modern Art is playing every night through February 12th and it’s free. This night installation, produced by Creative Time, features eight large-scale moving images projected on and around the museum.

Five New Yorkers (played by actors including Donald Sutherland and the incomparable Tilda Swinton venture into the city at night. The film is projected at eight locations around MOMA, viewers must circle the building to fully participate in the experience. You can even hear commentaries on your cell phone by calling 408-794-0886.

Sleepwalkers At MOMA

When: January 16 through February 12, 2007. Evenings from 5-10PM. Last entrance to the Sculpture Garden is at 9:45PM.

Where: Mueum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues

Viewing Areas: 53rd Street above the museum entrance, the open space connecting 53rd and 54th Streets, and The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden

Admission: FREE. No tickets are required.

Viewing Tips: There is no seating and portable seating is not permitted. Sleepwalkers is fully accessible to wheelchairs and strollers. Food, beverages, smoking, and pets are not permitted in the Sculpture Garden. MOMA staff will be available to answer questions during your visit.

I saw this in the Village Voice and had heard nothing about it. Sounds like quite the event. I am SO THERE. In fact, I CAN’T MISS THIS. Anyone care to join me?

I AM PARK SLOPE
Will diversity be part of our future?
January 21, 2007 6pm
admission: $5.00 suggested donation

— The BAX Platform is a hybrid conversation series combining the best of your front stoop and kitchen table with the unique perspective of the newsmakers – making sure all things are considered.

Featured Panelists: Chris Owens – Founder and Chairman of the Paul Robeson Independent Democrats (PRIDE), and an ardent advocate against the Atlantic Yards development; CB6 Chair Craig Hammerman; Brooklyn Pride’s Doreen De Jesus; longtime Park Slope residents, mother and son Marianna Gaston & Javier Gaston Greenberg (Marianna helped found Brooklyn New School); Pauline Toole & Gene Russianoff – Park Slope Parents and (Gene) staff attorney for New York Public Interest Research Group; Dr. Susan Fox of Park Slope Parents; Emily Millay Haddad (recently featured in a New York Times story on Park Slope); and Nancy McDermott, a founding member of NY Salon in conversation with BAX Executive Director Marya Warshaw

Amid a “fast-changing, perpetually gentrifying (NY Times)” neighborhood, what Park Slope lacks is a conversation between the people who dug their heels in decades ago and its more recent settlers. In the 70s, it was “hippie slope.” Then in the late 70s and early 80s it became known as “dyke slope.” By the 80s, Wall Street companies were giving prospective employees bus tours of the neighborhood. Who’s here now and what values do we/can we/should we hold as neighbors? Join us to explore and discuss this hot-button topic.