In today’s New York Sun, Francis Morrone, addresses  the recent Internet-and press-backlash against Park Slope in a column titled, "In Defense of Park Slope."

For those who don’t know him, Morrone, one of the Park Slope 100, is a historian, journalist, author, lecturer, teacher, and blogger with
a special interest in the connections among architecture, art,
literature, urbanism, and social history.

He writes "Abroad in New
York," on New York buildings and history, that appears every Friday in
the New York Sun, and is the author of  five books, including
architectural guidebooks to New York City, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn.
He is a board member of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.

In the Sun, Morrone cites an article in the London Daily Telegraph, that accused Park Slopers of being the smuggest New Yorkers of all:  "In a city of the smug, Park Slopers are reviled as the smuggest."

Ouch.

And that’s just the half of it.

In his New York Sun column, Morrone takes the high road and doesn’t even rail gainst all the snark that’s been flung at Park Slope’s lately. Instead, he write passionately of the architectural treasures that abound in this neck of the woods.

"When all is said and done," Morrone writes. "It’s hard to think of a city neighborhood in the country more beautiful than Park Slope."

It’s just one man’s opinion. A very learned and erudite man when it comes to urban architecture I might add.

But one man’s opinion all the same.

Here’s the latest from CLEVER DOC, who wonders if you are stressed out and juggling too many balls in the air? Are you
looking for a sense of calm? Do you feel like you need to tap into deep
sources of energy, motivation, and talent? If you missed them: Here are the first four questions:

Do you Laugh Enough?
Are You Still Learning?
How Angry Are You?
Do You Feel Trapped?

Today she wants to talk about conversation…

THE WORD “conversation” has two Latin roots: “con” meaning “with”–as in “consensus”–and “versus” meaning “turn”—as in “reverse.”

When we enter into a conversation it means that we are willing to “turn with” someone else. We are willing to listen, to learn, to expand. Ideas and facts  come to the surface and sparkle and push. A conversation doesn’t just rearrange the furniture, it adds pieces. A conversation rarely fixes anything all by  itself, but it can start us on a new road to fixing, for example, a friendship or a neighborhood pot hole.

Over the years, RENEW has convened Conversation Groups© to tap into reservoirs of wisdom and to build communities. Guidelines are few. They include commitments to confidentiality, attendance, and honesty.  

Each group of 6 – 10 chooses its own topics: “Are we living our values?”; “What is success?”; “Barriers and boosters to change”;

“Making prayer or meditation part of a busy day.”  Some Conversation Groups have met about every two months for years because conversations can be life-changers and life-sustainers.

Without further ado, here is QUESTION NUMBER 5:

How often do you typically have conversations with people outside of your profession?

2 – 4 times a week (4 points)
Once a week (3 points)
Every 1 – 3 weeks (2 points)
Every 1 – 2 months (1 point)
Quarterly or less (0 points)

A good friend of  OTBKB, Clever Doc’s real name is Linda Hawes
Clever, MD, MACP and she is an internist and the founder of an organization
called RENEW. She is also an
occupational health specialist with a national reputation for activism
and for professional and community service.

Galvanized by the growing exhaustion she observed among fellow
health professionals and inspired by the work of John W. Gardner,
founder of Common Cause and former Secretary of Health, Education &
Welfare, Dr. Clever and colleagues formally launched RENEW in 2000.

Don’t miss the Klezmatics tonight at 7 p.m.

A Benefit Concert for
DDDB’s Legal Fund
Featuring the Grammy- winning world music of…
The Klezmatics

w/ special guests:
Kakande
Demolition String Band

Live at
the Brooklyn Lyceum
Fourth Avenue at Union Street
Thurs, November 8th

A 

The new film by Park Slope born and bred filmmaker, Noah Baumbach, is having a SNEAK PREVIEW at the BAM Rose Cinema on Saturday Night November 10th at 6:50 p.m.

“Margot at the Wedding,” his follow up to the Slope-centric,” The Squid and the Whale,” stars Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black, about the relationship between siblings.

You can bet that the talk of the sidewalk outside of PS 321 today will be the B grade the school received from the Department of Education.

I’m betting that those in the know will be explaining what the criteria was for the grading system. That, it seems to me, is the most important thing.

Elissa Gootman and Jennifer Medina reported in Tuesday’s New York Times that the DOE’s calculations were complex and that the most weight was given to how students at each school IMPROVED in a year’s time on standardized tests. Final school grades were based on a curve. Most of the schools earned A’s or B’s.

Those that received F’s and even some of the 99 schools that received D’s, could be closed or have their principals removed.

Still, for Park Slope parents, a B is not a good grade. And many will want to know why the school they know and love didn’t receive an A.

I am guessing that Principal Liz Phillips has already written a letter to the parents with a thorough explanation of the criteria for the ranking. She is always sensible and smart about these sorts of things. The official report card will be given to the parents at next week’s Parent/Teacher conferences.

Some of the best schools in the city got B’s. PS 321 along with PS 234, 6, 87, 41. All B’s. Their student’s test score didn’t change enough from one year to the next. As if that were the only way to judge a school or a student.

For shame.

Everyone knows there is so much more to learning and so much more to being a great school. Report cards are reductive things. As are a buracricies reliance on quantiative ways of assessing things. Numbers, numbers, numbers.

How high did you score? How much did you sell? How much do you make? How much? How much?

It’s the American way.

This is a pretty absurd. But in a city where real estate prices are determined by the quality of the local public school it does kind of make sense. So here are Peggy Aguayo and Marc Garstein of Aguayo & Huebener and Warren Lewish Realty respectively with their thoughts in the Tmes.

A number of schools that are a key factor in real estate decisions did not get A’s. In Park Slope, Peggy Aguayo, the principal of Aguayo & Huebener Realty Group, said she did not think that P.S. 321’s B would tarnish its longstanding reputation as the holy grail for public school parents. She described her Park Slope clientele as “independent thinkers and highly intelligent, who I don’t think would necessarily trust a bureaucratic statistical analysis as being the almighty.”

Marc Garstein, the president of Warren Lewis Realty in Park Slope, suggested that the rating system could have more effect for schools just developing their reputation as up-and-coming than for traditional favorites. Mr. Garstein said he was particularly taken aback to hear that P.S. 154, which he said “has become a selling point for moving to Windsor Terrace,” had received a D.

Mr. Garstein said he thought the grades would just confuse parents, saying it was “bizarre” that schools were being judged against others with similar populations but in different neighborhoods.

Because school was out yesterday, some parents said they did not yet know their schools’ grades. Grades have been posted on the Department of Education’s Web site, schools.nyc.gov, and will be distributed at parent-teacher conferences next week

There was almost too much to do at last weekend’s Takeover event at BAM according to Brooklyn Skeptic.

There was a lot going on at BAM on Saturday night. Probably too much. BAM held their first annual Takeover event. It was a night that consisted of several series of films, rock concerts and various other forms of entertainment.

We arrived at around 9pm and waited in line for about twenty minutes before getting into the already crowded Peter Jay Sharp building. The films were about to start, as were the musical acts, but we decided to relax for a moment and get a drink at the beautifully decorated BAM Cafe. A DJ (who was very talkative) welcomed everyone to the event, where there were three dollar beers available all night and a lot of Brooklyn pride. Then it was time to check out some movies.

The only problem was, there was no booze allowed in the movie theaters or the opera house. We discussed how the entire event sort of felt like a party that was awkwardly chaperoned by your parents, or an overly cautious friend who didn’t feel like cleaning up the next morning. Nonetheless, we finished our drinks and proceeded to the movie theaters.

This weekend at BAM: Cast No Shadow is part of the Next Wave Festival

ISAAC JULIEN AND RUSSELL MALIPHANT
PART I: TRUE NORTH
PART II: FANTÔME AFRIQUE
PART III: SMALL BOATS
NOV 6, 8—10 AT 7:30PM
BAM HARVEY THEATER
RUNNING TIME: APPROX 70MIN
TICKETS : $20, 30, 35, 45

A spellbinding, collaborative multimedia evening both awe-inspiring and unnerving, Cast No Shadow captures the sensation of bodies negotiating alien landscapes. Lauded for his extravagantly beautiful film installations, visual artist/filmmaker Isaac Julien has re-imagined three epic journeys through very different landscapes, collaborating for the first time with choreographer Russell Maliphant—renowned for dance in which strength and grace are perfectly balanced.
Through spectacular footage of icebergs, waterfalls, and snow, True North draws inspiration from the first African-American’s journey to the North Pole; Fantôme Afrique evokes the pulse of the African city Ouagadougou; and Small Boats conjures the experiences of people escaping toward a better life. The powerful visuals and gorgeous slow-motion tumbles—enhanced by Paul Schütze’s original music and Andy Cowton’s beautiful sound score—add a visceral dimension to this gripping evening of film and dance.

On Thursday, November 8th, the world-renowned Grammy-winning band
The Klezmatics take to the stage of the Brooklyn Lyceum to play a special
one-night-only benefit concert for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.

All proceeds from the concert will support both the community lawsuit challenging
New York State’s approval of Forest City Ratner’s "Atlantic Yards" project, and
the lawsuit in federal court seeking to stop the seizure of property via eminent
domain for the controversial arena and high-rise development. DDDB is funding
the two lawsuits entirely through grassroots donations and fundraising events;
a victory in either suit would stop the "Atlantic Yards" project from moving forward.

The Klezmatics, winners of the 2006 Grammy for Best Contemporary World
Music Album, will be joined by special guests Kakande–featuring cellist,
local activist and Duffield Street Underground blogger Raul Rothblatt–and the
Demolition String Band.

Tickets for this rare Brooklyn performance by The Klezmatics are available
online for just $20 ($25 tickets at the door should tickets
remain at show time). This is an excellent opportunity to see such an
extraordinary band as The Klezmatics, along with such a diverse line-up
of excellent, special guest bands!

Guarantee yourself a ticket by ordering today!
(Advance online ticket
sales will close at noon on Thursday, Nov. 8th)

The Third Annual Brooklyn Blogfest is planned for May 8th 2008. Mark your calendars now.

This Blogfest will be bigger and better than last year.

Sadly the Blogfest has to abandon its too small home at the Old Stone House, where we have been warmly welcomed for two years running. We are in the process of locating a new venue.

The Brooklyn Blogfest is an annual gathering of bloggers, blog readers, those who want to blog, and those who are interested in the future of Brooklyn.

A planning committee made up of those involved with the Brooklyn Blogade Roadshow will be developing this year’s exciting program. Please contact me if you are interested in getting involved.

Third Annual Brooklyn Blogfest
May 8, 2008
Time: 8 p.m.
Location to be determined

I missed the reading at Barnes and Noble. Dang. But there’s a story in the Daily News about Park Slope’s Louise Sloan, whose book, “Knock Yourself Up: No Man? No Problem!” is in bookstores now.

When Brooklynite Louise Sloan finally conceived her longed-for baby, there were no scented candles flickering in the background or sappy love songs playing on the iPod.
Instead, she lay on an examination table, her legs in stirrups.

Two years on, Sloan joyfully totes 16-month-old Scott, conceived in the doctor’s office with a stranger’s sperm, and the wide-eyed inspiration for her new book “Knock Yourself Up: No Man? No Problem!”

“I always wanted to have kids,” says Sloan, who originally hoped to raise a family with a female partner. “It didn’t happen quite the way I planned because I didn’t find the right person, but I am just so happy that I now have this beautiful little boy.”

The 44-year-old writer and editor is among an increasing number of women in New York City – mostly straight and some gay – known as “single mothers by choice.”

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Green Brooklyn in Metro NY. They have a feature called Blogarithims I think.

How can New Yorkers help the environment?

It can be boiled down to the same three-word mantra that environmentalists have been saying for decades: reduce, reuse and recycle. When you go to the store, buy locally produced products and products that use as little packaging as possible. When you’re at home, reduce the amount of energy and water you use.

Electricity is obvious, but why is water important?

Most importantly, our water in New York is supplied from reservoirs [upstate], and using water reduces the natural water table there. Water use also greatly increases the amount of energy used to power water processing plants. Being environmentally friendly can be as simple as turning off the tap.

What do you find is the single most helpful way of being more thoughtful about the environment?

If everybody used the term landfill instead of garbage, they would think twice before throwing things away. You should recycle as much as possible, not just bottles and paper but even electrical goods, too. If you don’t know how to recycle things, do some research. Call the Department of Sanitation or look at the NYC Waste Less Web site (www.nycwasteless.org).