I wish I could eat your cancer when (Blognigger)
Spinning Plates at the Russian Circus in Queens (Brooklynometry)
Siblings fall from Kensington window (NY1)
Babies switched at birth at LICH (NY1)
RIP: Film Director Sydney Pollack (Daily News)
Brooklyn Bridge on the big screen (Daily News)
Someone on Smith Street has been to Ikea (Pardon Me for Asking)
Last night, Mrs. Kravitz and Mrs. Cleavage were baking and bitching in preparation for the building’s first BBQ of the season. Mrs. Kravitz was rolling dough for her pies. A pecan blend and bright red and pink cherry halves in a sugary mix waited in white bowls.
The scene was was like something out of a quaint Southern kitchen. Two southern girls (one from North Carolina, the other from Texas) transplanted to a tiny Brooklyn kitchen channeling their southern childhoods spent in kitchens baking pies.
Or so I imagine.
Mrs. Cleavage’s also prepared a delicious looking pasta salad with snap peas; she wasn’t happy when people wanted previews.
"I’m going to have to make another one tomorrow if people don’t stop taking bites," she threatened.
The conversation moved seamlessly from one juicy topic to another (husbands, ex-husbands, children, parents, neighbors, friends provided friendly fodder). But mostly it was food talk—a running commentary on what was being prepared.
In the dining room Mr. Kravitz and a friend were trying to figure out how to make a proper mojito. After much trial and error—and probably too much to drink—he settled on a recipe he deemed perfect. He plans to make a pitcher for Memorial Day.
Mrs. Kravitz sliced up one of the pecan pies. It didn’t look like any pecan pie I’ve ever seen.
"it needs more sugar," Mrs. Cleavage said.
"Too many eggs. It’s too eggy," Mrs. Kravitz said tasting the pie.
"It needs more sugar," Mrs. Cleavage said again.
"So eggy. It’s like a pecan quiche," Mrs. Kravitz said chewing slowly.
"It needs more sugar," Mrs. Cleavage said one more time.
"I forgot the sugar. I forgot to put sugar in," Mrs. Kravitz gushed.
"What do you think I’ve been telling you," Mrs. Cleavage told her seriously.
Don’t worry. Mrs. Kravitz’s Memorial Day pecan pie will have plenty of sugar. Lesson learned. Bitching, baking and drinking Mojitos…
Not surprisingly, Brenda of A Year in the Park, was in the park yesterday. Here’s an excerpt.
The blessed sunshine of an early Memorial Day weekend was still in abundant supply at 7:30 p.m. While the evening was a little too cool to feel quite like summer, the air over the picnic grounds near Ninth Street was thick with the perfume of starter fluid and charred meat. And the ground was thick with people and their mobile campsites, many of which included balloons celebrating various events.
On Saturday, members of the Windsor Terrace community planted a tree to memorialize Kyung-Sook (aka Lindo Woo) who was murdered last week; it was planted outside of her dry cleaning store where she lost her life.
The family is determined to continue operating the store, Eden Dry Cleaners in Windsor Terrace. This was on the Park Slope Parents list-serve on Sunday morning.
My family dropped by the dry cleaner to pay our respects. To our
astonishment, the dry cleaner is open and operating. We spoke with
Mr. Woo, one of Ms. Woo’s two sons who were there. He spoke of the
family’s determination to keep the store operating ("My mom would
want this."). I was inspired by the family’s hard work and
determination.He went on to speak with gratitude about the support community has
shown the family. He proudly pointed to the tree which was planted
just this morning ("They rushed it.")!
Here is information about the Linda Woo Memorial Fund
On the morning of May 16th, 2008, beloved Kyung-Sook "Linda" Woo, 63,
who owned the Eden Dry Cleaners at 10th Avenue and Windsor Place in
Windsor Terrace, was found dead in her store. Mrs. Woo had owned the
shop for years after moving here from Korea and used to live across
the street with her family before moving to Queens. Jamal Winter, 22,
is being held without bail in connection with the death. He was
arraigned on first and second degree murder charges and first degree
robbery. At the time of this tragedy, Winter was out on bail on
another robbery case and was scheduled to go on trial for that case
in June.Thanks to Robert Bello Landscaping for donating the tree, to The NYC
Parks Department for arranging a speedy tree planting, and to Clieve
Christian and the Prospect Park Commerce Bank for generously helping
set up the Linda Woo Memorial Fund. The fund will pay for a plaque to
be placed under the tree and for a fence to enclose the tree’s base.
After these items are paid for, any additional funds will be given to
Mrs. Woo’s family to use at their discretion.There are several ways to contribute to the fund:
1) Checks can be made out to the Linda Woo Memorial Fund, placed in
an envelope marked "Memorial Fund" and dropped in the mail slots of
either 243 Windsor Place- beginning Tuesday May 27th, or 18 Reeve
Place- beginning immediately.2) Checks can be made out to the Linda Woo Memorial Fund and mailed to:
The Linda Woo Memorial Fund
c/o Brenna Beirne
711 Greenwood Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 112183)You may go to www.paypal.com and donate to this account
community11218@gmail.com which has been created specifically for this
memorial fund -note that the purpose of your donation is for the
Linda Woo memorial fund. Paypal accepts major credit cards.
Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Paper
Last year, Smartmom organized the first “Edgy Mother’s Day” reading
at the Old Stone House because she noticed that quite a few women were
writing about motherhood in interesting and non-sanctimonious ways.
It
was a great reading — a nearly three-hour marathon of stories about
life in the trenches of mommydom featuring Susan Gregory Thomas, author
of “Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Mothers and Harms
Children”; New York Magazine writer Amy Sohn; Sophia Romero, author of
the novel “Always Hiding” and the blog “the Shiksa from Manila”; Mary
Warren, author of the blog “Mrs. Cleavage’s Diary”; Alison Lowenstein
of “City Baby Brooklyn”; poet Michele Madigan Somerville and others.
About a month ago on a rainy Sunday on Seventh Avenue, Smartmom ran into Sohn, who proposed doing another Edgy Mom’s reading.
Smartmom
didn’t think twice. Despite the fact that she was busy organizing the
Brooklyn Blogfest and writing a book proposal, she said, “Sure” without
batting an eye.
Smartmom was pleased that the Edgy Mom Reading
concept has a life of its own. And she knew that Sohn, the ultimate
edgy mom, would be the perfect partner in crime.
Within days, Sohn had managed to attract a top-notch group of writers.
The
May 15 reading, at the packed Montauk Club in Park Slope, was a
stunning success. Christine Clifford, who stars in a one-woman show
called “BabyLove” at the 45 Bleecker Theater, entertained and even
shocked the crowd with a monologue about, yes, masturbating while
breast-feeding.
Midway through the monologue, Smartmom spotted the Oh So Feisty One sitting in the front row.
“I can’t believe there’s a girl listening to this,” she said covering her eyes.
This
embarrassed the 11-year-old OSFO more than Clifford’s tales of
vibrators and breast milk and she walked out of the reading with her
aunt, Diaper Diva. Smartmom was sorry that Clifford made a fuss. OSFO
probably would have stuck out the evening and even enjoyed Amy Benfer’s
Juno-like story about giving birth to a daughter at age 16 and deciding
to raise her alone — with the help of her mom, dad, and various
friends. Her daughter, who is now 18, was in the audience — there was
not a dry eye in the grand parlor of the Montauk Club.
Smartmom was up next with a column about the similarities between raising kids and growing mushrooms.
Afterwards,
Smartmom introduced the always-controversial Sohn, who regaled the
crowd with a hilarious tale about her ill-fated efforts to get her
daughter into Brooklyn Heights Montessori pre-school.
Poet
Michele Madigan Somerville delighted the crowd with her sassy, virtuosic
poem about Elmo. Sophia Romero, read a wonderful excerpt from her blog, "The Shiksa from Manila, and Louise Sloane read from her memoir, “Knock Yourself Up: A Tell-All
Guide To Becoming a Single Mom.”
Finally, Lenore Skenazy read her
column from the New York Sun about the time she let her 9-year-old ride
the subway. For Smartmom, it was thrilling to see her hero laugh along
with her own words.
“Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn’t
strike me as that daring, either,” Skenazy said. “Isn’t New York as
safe now as it was in 1963? It’s not like we’re living in Baghdad.”
After
the reading, Sohn and Smartmom raffled off goody bags donated by
Babeland, the sex toy store that will open in June on Bergen Street
near Fifth Avenue.
Smartmom isn’t sure if Skenazy appreciated the gift. As she left, she handed it to Divorce Diva and said, “I don’t need this.”
Smartmom doesn’t think she was offended. A few days after the reading she sent this note:
“The
event was stupendous in that everyone (except me) wrote about something
so intimate, so openly that it made anyone worried about being TOO edgy
feel like, ‘Well, at least I’m not hiding my vibrator under the
doormat!’ It also made me realize that there are at least seven great
women writers out there, bringing everyday life into the world of
glittering yet supremely accessible prose — and poetry.”
Over drinks after the show, Smartmom and crew tried to define “edgy mom.”
“She’s
a mom who views imagination (both living it and imparting it) as
integral to child-rearing, which flies in the face of the holy ‘mom’
idea, whereby one is supposed to grow out of being imaginative,”
Somerville said.
“She is unconventional; she views the world
through a different pair of lens than what she was raised with,” said
Romero. “She is resolute in this pursuit and does it with a great sense
of conviction, purpose, and doesn’t need to apologize to anyone, least
of all her own mother.”
Romero added that an edgy mom isn’t afraid to expose her frailties and vulnerabilities to her children.
“I allow them to express their anger, frustration and disappointment with me without fear of recrimination,” she said.
Best
of all, like Smartmom, Romero watches “Gossip Girl” with her daughter.
Unlike Smartmom, she still snuggles with her teenage son and watches
re-runs of “Star Trek Voyager.”
Teen Spirit would rather die.
Later
that evening, Smartmom explored her goody bag from Babeland. Inside,
there was a hot pink vibrator, a mojito and peppermint-scented candle,
a container of Babe Lube (whatever that is), and a silver, egg-shaped
vibrator with a controller that looks like a dimmer switch.
Smartmom
isn’t sure what all this has to do with being an edgy mom, but she does
know that a major tenet of edgy momdom is that a woman’s desire for
creativity and pleasure doesn’t stop when she has kids.
In fact, it’s a great time to explore who you really are.
The Jamie Livingston frenzy continues. It was on the Huffington Post yesterday. The story continues to travel the world. Here it is on a Greek blog. To see 18 years of Polaroids by this special artist, go here.
Σε ένα μυστήριο ιστότοπο βρέθηκε μία συλλογή από φωτογραφίες Polaroid,
ήταν τραβηγμένες σε καθημερινή βάση (Μία κάθε μέρα) από τις 31 Μάρτιου
του 1979 έως τις 25 Οκτωβρίου του 1997. Παρατηρώντας τις φωτογραφίες…
Μείναμε έκπληκτοι από αυτό που ανακαλύψαμε.
Οι φωτογραφίες αρχίζανε συστηματικά από το 1979,με φωτογραφίες φίλων,
πικνίκ, δείπνων και διαφόρων άλλων δραστηριοτήτων. Δείτε μερικές
φωτογραφίες από τις 23 Απριλίου 1979 ( Ο Φωτογράφος πρέπει να είναι ο
άνδρας στα αριστερά της εικόνας).This photo is by JL from May 27, 1983.
Finally. Here’s the Tribute to Brooklyn’s Photo Bloggers that was produced for the 2008 Brooklyn Blogfest by Brooklyn Optimist.
It includes many but not all of Brooklyn’s great photo bloggers.
Many thanks to Morgan at Brooklyn Optimist and all the photographers who sent their photos.
Pardon Me For Asking has all the breaking news. Marty Markowitz saves the narrow streets of Carroll Gardens!!
Borough President Marty Markowitz approved the Carroll Gardens Wide Street Text Amendment yesterday without revision. In a 10-page document, Markowitz brought the neighborhood a step closer towards protecting it from out-of-context development.
This Text Amendment is intended to correct a mistake in the definition of Carroll
Garden’s signature garden blocks as wide streets. Wide streets are allowed larger buildings which jeopardize the scale and character of the neighborhood. Developers have taken advantage of this loophole and are breaking up the historic row house street scape.
A HYMN TO THE G
It’s the runt of the litter gets most of the love
And the one that a parent’s the proudest of
For the strongest and brightest and best-looking too
Will get by on their own whatsoever they do.
This is true of all species in the animal chain
And applies as well to the underground train.
Consider the G line, the tiniest of all,
Only four cars in
length, which is not very tall,
While its brothers and sisters stretch to eight or ten.
So they tower above it like a jungle hen.
And being so small, the G can’t go far
Never reaching Manhattan, the glamorous star.
Watch it rattle between Forest Hills and Smith-Ninth,
Huffing most of the way on its limited strignth.
Anybody who knows how to read any map’ll
Realize that poor G never sees the Big Apple.
Woodhaven is fine and so is old Greenpoint
But to limit the G is to make one big mean point.
And its undersized wheels, just like those of a tot
Mean that straphangers wait around quite a lot
For its speed is reduced almost all of the way,
An occurrence not found on the 1 or the A.
But it tries–how it tries–with all of its means
To move people from Brooklyn who’re going to Queens.
You can count on this train, it is wholly predictable–
To be late, to break down and to seem oh-convictable.
Yet the heart has its reasons for loving some things
Whether people or places or teething rings.
If one underdog merits our charity,
It’s the subway that couldn’t–the little G.
For those of you who haven’t seen the A Walk Around the Blog piece with OTBKB here it is. I reported on the Park Slope Food Coop’s decision to ban plastic water bottles.
That’s a reality now. This segment was taped before the big vote at the April general meeting. Here’s the video. I really enjoyed working with Narina and Jay from BCAT.
Check out the latest, A Walk Around the Blog, BCAT’s groovy show which uses nabe bloggers as reporters. This week, they hightligh Brenda of the great blog, Prospect: A Year in the Park and the blogger from Hawthorne Street.
This is a great chance to see Brenda doing what she does, visiting the park every day and finding interesting stories.
I think it has rained every Sunday since Mr. Brownstoner and Signor Flea started the Brooklyn Flea, the new mega-groovy flea market in Ft. Greene. But the weather is changing and the sun is on their side.
Is it payback time for the crappiest spring in recent memory? Let’s
hope so, because Sunday’s shaping up to be the biggest Flea yet. New
vintage dealers join the famous pupusa purveyorswallpaper and porcelain dealers making their debut this weekend. If the good weather is a reminder that you need a pair of wheels, we’ve got some sweet vintage bikes
on tap as well. For the uninitiated, the Flea runs from 10 a.m. to 5
p.m. on Sunday and is located at 176 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn.
Closest trains are the C and G to Washington/Clinton. Or you can take
any of the number of trains that go to Atlantic Station and make the
10-minute stroll up Lafayette Avenue from there.
formerly of the Red Hook Ballfields. We’ve also got a new
The Jamie frenzy continues. And the site, created by Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid, seems to be up and running. Fingers crossed. The story and the link is making its way around the world. So we hope the site can accommodate all the visitors it’s getting. It’s cool to see the many languages discussing the Jamie Livingston blog. Here’s a post from a Spanish language photo blog.
Un proyecto personal de esos que a mi me encantan: He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died que cuenta la historia de cómo Jamie Livingston hizo una fotografía con su Polaroid todos los días de su vida, durante los últimos 18 años.
En la página de Mental Floss pueden verse algunas de ellas; la
colección completa abarca desde el 31 de marzo de 1979 hasta el 25 de
octubre de 1997. Son 6.697 fotos en total (durante 6.732 días), tomadas
con una Polaroid SX-70.this is a pix from 5/24/89
The Brooklyn Paper reports that the 10th Street Tea Lounge is closing, due to rising rents. Whoa that’s big news.
South Slope writers, mommies and, yes, even a few coffee lovers,
were crying in their lattes this week at the news that the original Tea
Lounge — a neighborhood staple on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 10th
Street — will close at the end of July, a victim, its owner said, of
soaring rent demands.“It’s killing us,” said co-owner Greg Wolf,
who opened the popular java joint in early 2001. “The closing is
completely ruining our lives.”Wolf blamed his landlord, Georgina
Tufano, for doubling the rent on his small storefront, though he
declined to reveal the dollar figure.“It’s astronomical,” said Wolf, whose other bars are on Union Street in Park Slope and on Court Street in Cobble Hill.
Here’s the latest from author Richard Grayson, author of the forthcoming, Who Will Kiss the Pig? Sex Stories for Teens, I Brake for Delmore Schwartz, With Hitler in New York. He had fun yesterday at the Brooklyn Bridge celebration.
Dumbo Books spent most of today, now that our attorneys have given us the go-ahead, sending out PDF files of Who Will Kiss the Pig?: Sex Stories for Teens
by Richard Grayson, to the kindly cool young hipsters who answered our
Craigslist ad and agreed to take an advance peek at the book. (Not so
nice was the person who broke our confidential pre-publication press
blackout and leaked it to The Gothamist. And a big boo to the mean commenters on that site.)
Anyway,
we were tired, but after a short nap during “All Things Considered”
(Darn! We missed the last show with those great pledge breaks), we were
up for some fun. The famous writer Tao Lin had a blog post mentioning a big party in honor of Brooklyn’s indie presses,
but when we looked down the list of publishers – Akashic, Melville
House, Soft Skull, etc. – we didn’t see our name. Dumbo Books wasn’t
invited! Sniff. Maybe we are not “Brooklyn” enough for them. We have
not been so bummed out since we were in Mrs. Eisenstein’s first grade
class at P.S. 244 in East Flatbush and a certain Walter O’Malley did
something really mean to us.
(After all, in our new book of teen
sex stories, a lot of the teen sex takes place in Brooklyn, a borough
famous for teenage sex. For example, on page 77 of the book, after a
lot of sex involving a whole bunch of friends, Kevin has to take Libby
to the free city gynecological clinic in Coney Island and while he is
anxiously waiting to hear if she has an STD, another boy asks him: “You
done knock up yo’ fox?” By page 83 Libby and Kevin are staring at a
baby in the maternity ward of Methodist Hospital in Park Slope although
by then Kevin is more interested in looking at Ted… but we digress.)
Downcast
at not being invited to the shindig for Brooklyn small presses, Dumbo
Books glumly walked the streets of our eponymous neighborhood until we
heard about an even better party that, yes, we were invited to. Wow!
It
was the kickoff of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the
famous Brooklyn Bridge just a few blocks away at Empire-Fulton Ferry
State Park.
Entering the park, we admired the dark blue Brooklyn
Bridge anniversary T-shirts worn by the event volunteers, who were
probably freezing – we had a hoodie over a sweater over a long-sleeved
shirt over a Medgar Evers College T-shirt and were still cold.
The
T-shirts reminded us of the powder blue T-shirts honoring the bridge’s
centennial that we got in May 1983 for ten dollars at the Brooklyn
Museum gift shop. We wore the shirt proudly but either it shrunk or we
expanded and eventually it ended up usefully but rather ignominiously
as a dustrag in Grandma Ethel’s Rockaway apartment.
Back in
1983, we watched the Brooklyn Bridge centennial fireworks with our BFF
(and current Dumbo Books landlady) Nina, who was rewarded with her work
in the Cuomo campaign the year before with a great job in the state
department of transportation. So we got to see the spectacular
fireworks from the huge windows of her office on the 89th floor of a
building that doesn’t exist anymore.
Thinking about that made
us a little sad, but then right in front of us, we saw our old friend
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, decked out in a top hat and
1890s-style suit, looking slightly steampunk but just as handsome as we
remembered him from the first time we saw him on the second floor of
LaGuardia Hall back in the day when he was the Graduate Student
Organization president at Brooklyn College and we were a lowly reporter
for the student government newspaper The Ol’ Spigot.
Mayor
Bloomberg was there with him, drinking one of the free Snapple
antioxidant waters in five colors and flavors that they were giving out
along with blue tote bags and other tchtotchkes. And also Manhattan
Borough President Scott Stringer, whom we recall as a little pisher
standing on the corner of 86th Street and Broadway hocking Nina and us
to sign his petition to get on the ballot as district leader. How time
flies!
Well, the night was fantastic. We found some friends from
Crown Heights by way of Trinidad who shared some goodies and a blanket,
and listened as Mayor Bloomberg told a little kid with a sippy cup,
“It’s all downhill from here…You have to go to school and get a job”
before he trailed off and went to the podium, where his image, and
everyone else’s was enlarged on two big Jumbotron screens.
After
a military officer from Fort Hamilton (we patriotically failed our
January 1970 draft physical there) sang “The Star-Spangled Banner”,
there was a great chorus from an intermediate school who sang and moved
to “Give Me That Old Time Rock and Roll” and other songs; and the
Brooklyn IMPACT Project; and the Brooklyn Philharmonic looking very
classy in white dinner clothes playing favorites like Brooklyn-born
Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” Dvorak’s New World
Symphony and the rousing John Philip Sousa march that goes, you know,
“because a duck may be somebody’s mother.”
Also, Marvin
Hamlisch and his many chins sat at a piano and after calling the bridge
“one singular sensation,” played some of his finest songs and even an
original one for the occasion. Mr. Hamlisch is a talented lyricist –
you try rhyming something with “Emily Roebling”!
Marty said they
had spent a lot of money on this celebration – they really went all out
for last night’s kickoff – but at least they did not have to sell the
Brooklyn Bridge to fund it. Ha ha.
At 8:30 p.m. a bunch of
people with white T-shirts that said CAKE TEAM on the back started
handing out the bridge’s birthday cake from Cake Man Raven. We were
hoping for a slice of his famous red velvet cake, but we got something
that was bright green instead. Whatever it was, it was good!
It
was a beautiful, if chilly, night and as the sky darkened, Mayor
Bloomberg counted down and then the colorful lights for the bridge went
on. They change colors every few seconds and will be on for the
remainder of the celebration. Also, a tugboat or something was spraying
water really high from near the Manhattan side, and one of the big
cruise ships from Red Hook passed by just before it took off (do ships
take off?) for the Caribbean or someplace exotic like Europe.
Then
the fireworks began. The Gruccis outdid themselves with a spectacular
display on both sides of the bridge, and even a little near the
Manhattan Bridge so it wouldn’t feel left out, we guess. (We could see
the people on the D train from my little spot on the grass).
There
were some fancy VIPs in a roped-off area by a structure, and they were
drinking wine (one of the state park rangers made a young hipster girl
sitting next to us on the grass leave because she had a sixpack of PBR,
which wasn’t allowed) and eating ravioli or lasagna or something. A lot
of them wore suits and stylish dresses and some of them had press
badges.
Waiting for the port-o-potty, we were kind of shocked
when not one but two teens came out of the little locked space. Well,
we guess they were making their own fireworks! We considered hyping our
book of sex stories for teens but frankly we hate hype – except when
it’s justified as it is for the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge (although
we had a terrible panic attack the first time we drove over it as well
as one the first and last time we tried to walk across it).
Despite
our being disappointed at Dumbo Books being left off the invitation
list for the Brooklyn indie presses party, we had a glorious evening
celebrating the 125th anniversary of the spectacular achievement of the
Roeblings and the brave sandhogs who built the bridge. We think we
heard Marty misspeak and pay tribute to the “sweathogs,” but that was
another group of Brooklynites headed by the cute teen Vinnie Barbarino).
At
Hoyt/Schermerhorn the fabulous G train conductor actually waited in the
station for those of us on the A train to get aboard. What a perfect
night! Isn’t life wonderful!
Here’s the word from Fonda at Zuzu’s Petals.
At long last…a clutch of sunny days timed perfectly for the long weekend. Listening to NPR yesterday, I heard Brian Lehrer discuss the Staycation.
So what’s a staycation"
Turn off the electronics, park the car, and stay home…No, not on the couch like a potato. Get out in the neighborhood. Take a walk in the Park or The Gardens. Get together with friends. Do some cooking, and for our zuzugardeners:
Come visit The Big. Our plant selection this week makes my heart thump!
Proven Winner Annuals: Supertunias, Nemesia, Diascia, Verbena, Bacopa, Coleus,Torenia, Bidens,Fuchsia, Oxalis, Asclepia…
Sun and Shade Perennials: Ferns, Solomon’s Seal, Jacobs Ladder, Euphorbia, Heuchera, Delphinium, Columbine,Campanula, Gallardia, Day Lilies, Bleeding Hearts, Hosta
Shrubs, Vines, Trees: Clematis, Roses, Wigela, Lonicera, Hypericum, Japanese Maple, Weeping Cherry, Stewartia, Nectarine, Rhodies and Azalea
AND! rustic stone troughs planted with miniature Alpines…picture below:
Both shops have fresh flowers …Little Zu is open Friday, Saturday, Sunday
The hunt for The New Zuzu is going well. Two lovely people started training this week and we are confident we will be fully re-staffed shortly….I was going to say, Zuzus don’t grow on trees, but….maybe…
Yesterday a sign crew removed the Park Slope Post Office sign. Underneath was an old black sign—a really cool old sign. I wished I had a camera with me.
A larger white sign was on the sidewalk. As of last night, it wasn’t up. At the moment there is no sign on the Park Slope P.O. I wish they could have left the old signage that was underneath the more recent one.
I just found out about a new Park Slope blog called Blognigger and its author has written, Nobody Calls My Mom a Slut But Me, one of the best responses to the now infamous New York Times’ article about Slope hating, Where is the Love.
Blognigger describes himself this way: Black every day for 32 years; never a nigger until Wall Street moved to Brooklyn. On his first post in April 2008, he wrote:
I’m a 32 year-old Software Engineer. I grew up in Manhattan, went to a ritzy private school with 95% white kids where I was the token
African Americanblack kid.Now
I make $106,000 a year, and I’m a pauper in Park Slope. No, literally –
we have to leave. I have two kids and my rent has just been raised to
$3500 a month. I’ve lived here since 1999 (when 5th avenue was still a
total shithole), and now I’m going to have to uproot my family and move
out of Brooklyn.Can I ask you a fucking question?
How can I be making $106,000 a year and not be able to afford to live in Brooklyn?
It
works like this: "Cool" people such as my wife and I, with my interests
in Almodovar and Jonathan Lethem and Apple’s HUIG and and Interpol and
Spinal Tap and KrsOne and boingboing and Fark and AphexTwin and Groovy
on Grails and Bob Ross and Glengarry Glen Ross and Jorn… we move into
a neighborhood just before it’s safe and desireable. We take "sketchy"
walks to the subway (yes, just because I’m black, it’s still sketchy –
maybe they can smell the whiteness within me) and we deal with not
being able to buy tapas on ever corner until the rest of the
neighborhood catches up.
His response to the Times’ article is among the best I’ve read:
Because really and truly, the kids own the neighborhood. Now, for me
and people like me, it’s fantastic, because we have to bring our kids
everywhere we go: to Barnes and Noble, to Two Boots, to a skinny
bookshop with no room in the doorway where our strollers take up all
the goddamn area and piss single people off…
..but the bottom
line is that if you don’t have kids, you’ll probably hate Park Slope.
And I can’t blame you at all – unless you actually live here, in which
case you’re a stupid muthafucka because who the hell would subject
themselves to this shithole if they don’t have kids? Aren’t you tired
of having your meals at Blue Ribbon ruined by screaming babies? Aren’t
you tired of having strollers bang into you when you sit curbside
witcha eggs benedict? Even the goddamn library has kids stickin Kasha
granola bars and shit all over the bookshelves. (Actually, do we have a
library? too lazy to google.)So kidless: what the hell are you
doing here? Who the fuck joins a leper colony if they ain’t a leper? I
know if I didn’t have kids, I’d be outta here faster than you can say
angry lesbian. (Where did they all go, right?? Anyone remember 2003 up
in this muthafucka?!) Shit, I piss myself off and I *have* the little bastids.So,
someone who hates park slope is kind of like someone who didn’t like
the movie "Junior" – which is a movie about Arnold Schwartzenegger
getting pregnant. It’s like, nigga you went to see a movie about Arnold
Schwartzenegger getting pregnant! The fuck did you expect?? That there
is the best movie that could ever be made about Arnold getting
pregnant, and if you walked into the theater then you asked for it and
we got no sympathy.If you’re going to be pissed off by a
kid-obsessed neighborhood – and I can understand that it can be
enraging if you don’t have kids – then don’t even come to Dizzy’s, let
alone buy a house here and push my kid-havin ass outta the 321 district.
Blognigger, welcome to the neighborhood. You can bet I’ll be reading.
Yesterday because of the intense volume of traffic to Jamie Livingston’s Photo-of-the-Day site, the site crashed.
Hugh worked on it all day and night and it seems to be up and running. I hope it stays that way. "The site is barely able to deal with the number of people right now. Please be patient. If you experience a problem, just try again later."
Jamie Livingston (1956-1997) took a Polaroid every day for 18 years, including the day he died in 1997.
He was an amazing artist who’s project seems to have captured the hearts of tens of thousands of people on the Internet.
On May 21, Mental Floss ran a story by Chris Higgens about his discovery of Jamie’s website.
"What started for me as an amusing collection of photos — who takes
photos every day for eighteen years? — ended with a shock. Who was this
man? How did his photos end up on the web? I went on a two-day hunt,
examined the source code of the website, and tried various Google
tricks.Finally my investigation turned up the photographer as Jamie Livingston,
and he did indeed take a photo every day for eighteen years, until the
day he died, using a Polaroid SX-70 camera. He called the project
“Photo of the Day” and presumably planned to collect them at some point
— had he lived. He died on October 25, 1997 — his 41st birthday."
The site wasn’t even public yet. Hugh and Betsy Reid have been working on it for years. They had to scan 6000 plus photographs; Hugh has spent days and nights of his life coding it. It is, truly a labor of love.
Hugh and Betsy are thrilled that the Internet has discovered Jamie. Friends were writing and calling all day with joy that Jamie’s work is getting to those, who really seem to appreciate it.
Betsy wrote me early Thursday morning:
i knew it would happen in some random way. i love it. the tears started coming when i pulled up OTBKB and read the first few words….
i can just see the shit eatin’ grin on jamie — the new hero of the blogosphere’s — face! precious and priceless.
So why did the site crash? Because it’s an interactive site, the volume of visitors—and the amount of time they spend at the site clicking from one picture to the next—was more than the site could bear. Hopefully Hugh has fixed the problem. We’ll see as the day progresses.
Above is a picture of Hugh from 1991. Below that is a pix of Betsy Reid and Jamie on July 16th 1988. Below left to right: Billy Swindler, composer, musician, and friend, who died of AIDs. Tim Allen, friend. And the guy with the open mouth—that’s Jamie taking a picture of a tooth.
At Katz’s Deli
We were eating pastrami and matzo ball soup,
A critical couple one night,
When the crusty waiter came over and asked,
"Is anything all right?"
photo by Mihira Jayasekera’s photo stream: www.flickr.com/photos/showtexture/
I found this picture on the Photo-of-the-Day website by Jamie Livingston of the Mermaid Parade back in the 1990’s.
Wonder if these women still go to the parade. This year the parade is on June 21st at 2 p.m. There’s loads of information here.
Last night there was a street corner memorial for Mrs. Kyong Sook Woo, who owned, the dry cleaner who was slain last week: "to remember a neighbor and business woman who was a kind and gentle soul to all she met."
Thanks to Gowanus Lounge for the beautiful poster that was on his site.
The Daily News reports today that a tree will be planted in her memory. Next week Windsor Terrace neighbors and the Parks Department will plant a tree on the corner ouside the store.
"I thought it
would be nice to put something on that corner that would reclaim the
positive energy that she had," said local resident and business owner Brenna Beirne told the Daily News.
We went to a Brooklyn Bridge birthday party at my dad and stepmother’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights. They live on the 27th floor and we had a great view of the festivities from their apartment—which has windows on New York Harbor, Lower Manhattan, the bridge and more.
There was an even better view from the building’s roof deck, where many tenants and their guests had gathered.
Brit in Brooklyn took the picture you see at left. He has loads of great pictures at his flickr site. There’s a gorgeous one on his blog, as well. Thanks Brit in Brooklyn (Adrian Kinloch).
The fireworks surprised everyone at the party by beginning at 8:40. It seemed early; the sky was still light.
"Maybe they’re practicing," my stepmother said.
Don’t think so. The show began a few minute earlier than reported. There were Grucci barges on either side of the bridge, which sent euphoric splashes of firework’s color into the sky. The arches of the bridge were a light show of changing colors and the bright beam of kleig lights crossed in the sky.
Friends and neighbors, who sat on stools at my dad and sm’s living room and kitchen windows, ooohed and aaahed. Still, those who saw the Bridge’s 100 birthday celebration were disappointed.
"That was the 100th birthday," someone said.
But no-one will ever forget the fireworks waterfall that literally poured off the bridge that year (1983). t was breathtaking.
Still last night’s show was pretty wonderful. Even Hepcat, a veteran of many a fireworks display said, "They were pretty good, I guess.
Bleary eyed from all the problems with the Jamie Livingston website, he is slowly working on getting those pictures up on OTBKB. In the meantine, enjoy Adrian’s pix.
Here are some interesting ideas from Joshua Pereira, Senior Associate Director of IT at the Center for the
Urban Environment (CUE), about ways that you can reduce your computer’s emissions and lessen the environmental impact of your computer. Go here for more information about the Center, which is located in Park Slope.
When you think of lessening your impact on the environment, how you use your computer may not come to mind. But, in fact, a computer that rarely gets turned off could produce close to a ton of C0² emissions per year.
Here are some ways to reduce your computer’s emissions while still getting your stuff done!
• In the market for a new computer? By doing a quick search on the internet with the phrase “sponsor a tree planting,” you can find an organization that will help you do just that. Recently, some computer manufacturers have made this even easier, by offering to plant a tree on your behalf during the checkout process.
• Adjusting your Power option settings can always help to save some electricity. You can set your monitor to turn off after 10-15 minutes, and have your system go into Stand-by mode after 20 minutes of no activity on your computer. This saves your work, but puts your computer in a low-power mode while it’s not being used. And once you set it up, it will always happen automatically.
• Thinking of purchasing a new computer? Go for the gold (EPEAT gold that is)! EPEAT (The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool – http://www.epeat.net/) is a website that rates the environmental impact of specific computer models. With a wide range of new models to choose from, make sure that your new computer is made by a company with your health (and the earth’s) in mind.
• Got an external backup drive? What about those awesome desktop speakers with a subwoofer? If you know you’ll be away from your computer for the day, don’t forget to turn them off too. To make easy, make sure they’re all plugged into one power-strip, and just flip the switch on that to shut everything down in one step.
Even if you take just one of these steps towards greening your computer, you’ll be making a difference—and by talking about the steps you’ve taken, you can inspire others to do the same.
Got any of your own green computer tips? Feel free to comment below.
Schools told to expect 5% budget cuts (NY Times)
Man saved by mystery surfer at Coney wants to say thank you (Daily News)
Teens arrested in assault in Crown Heights (Daily News)
Happy Birthday Brooklyn Bridge (Pardon Me For Asking)
Five o’clock shadow on Bond Street (Found in Brooklyn)
Brooklyn Bridge celebration continues: what’s on today (McBrooklyn)
