First the New Yorker Festival at the Brooklyn Lyceum. Now the Penultimate at Southpaw.

PEN is proud to announce the launch of PENultimate Lit, a new literary series that will explore the intersection of literature and the arts in the modern world. Curated with the help of Rick Moody, PENultimate Lit will bring together notable writers and artists in an attempt to discern what, in 21st Century, makes writing matter.

The first event sounds great: an evening on film and literature with the the film/lit family extraordinaire, the Baumbachs.

An Evening on Film and Literature
Hosted by Amanda Stern , author of the novel The Long Haul

Featuring:
Author Jonathan Baumbach, Author of of
On the Way to My Father’s Funeral

Noah Baumbach, Writer/Director of films including Margot at the Wedding and
The Squid and the Whale

Sunday, November 11, 2007, 7:00 p.m.
Southpaw, 125 Fifth Ave. Park Slope, Brooklyn
Subway: B/Q to 7th Ave , or 2, 3, 4, 5, D, B, N, R, Q, W at Pacific/Atlantic Avenues

Tickets are $10 – Doors open at 6:15 p.m

I took this off the list serve but I think Susan has done a real public service here and she won’t mind. Do you? Here goes.

TRICK-OR-TREATING

Make sure kids can see out of masks or better yet, use face paints
(check to make sure they are non-toxic)

–Review street safety.

–Avoid shoes that are too big or clothing that’s too long

–Use reflective tape or carry a flashlight or glow stick

–Always trick or treat with a buddy (or adult)

–Make sure props don’t have sharp edges and swords and guns are made
from cardboard.

–Pin a piece of paper with the child’s name, address and phone number
inside a pocket in case the trick-or-treater gets lost or separated from the
group.

–Remember kids will be close to flames in Jack o lanterns, so use
materials that aren’t flammable or have dangling edges

AT HOME

–Clear stoops and sidewalks of any debris to prevent falls

–Keep Jack-o-Lanters away from doors and walkways

TREATS

To ensure a safe and enjoyable trick-or-treat outing for children,
parents are urged to:

–Give children an early meal before going out.

–Insist that treats be brought home for inspection before anything is
eaten.

–Report to the police anything that appears suspicious about treats.

—Although tampering is very rare, don’t eat anything not wrapped. When
in doubt, throw it out.

-Check kids’ candy for choking hazards and keep away from small children
and pets (especially no chocolate for dogs)

This blogger is a friend of OTBKB. He’s a fiction writer and a science teacher and a very smart guy who is now writing book about die back or ecologic collapse. Join the conversation at his blog, Die Back and Collapse.

By speaking of a human dieback and of civilization’s collapse, I immediately place myself in the company of a long line of doomsayers, including the biblical prophets, Y2Kers, and the many religious and secular Millennium, 2012 and neo-apocalyptic cults. I am not informed enough to comment on my company and their beliefs.

At the moment, I am not interested in belief. My focus, instead, is in accumulating easily verifiable information from respected journals and books regarding the state of the planet, the human condition and that of other living beings and to synthesize this information into digestible bites.

From the title of this site, you may gather that I have already come to a conclusion regarding the human predicament. And yes, the data suggests very strongly that humanity has already passed through the threshold from sustainability into ecologic collapse. However, it is much more complicated than that. For as all can see, there are still birds in the air, plenty of fragrant air, and great forests through which many of us can yet tromp. With each passing day, more people are being well-fed, more jobs created, more power plants built. Civilization is not crashing yet…

To either avert a human dieback or to survive the horrors of the dieback without losing all the higher ideals of civilization will require an enormous jump in the level of our consciousness. Individually and collectively, we are not yet equal to the task nor to the name given our species – Homo sapien. We are not wise. We are intelligent, we are clever, tenacious, adaptive, and many things beautiful and perverse. Global warming more than wars, even, highlights the limits of our wisdom. For rather than follow the obvious injunction to transform our lives and consume far less, we continue our ways with some head scratching and nominal nods to carbon credits and fluorescent light bulbs and hybrid cars that burn fuel only half as fast the gas guzzlers the rest of us drive. And still the atmospheric carbon levels rise.

Being a parent has pulled me into a mindspace akin to the Iroquois’s notion of making decisions as though they affected the next seven generations. So, my focus here revolves around the consciousness –- the level of awareness –- necessary for humanity to understand what ways are sustainable and the wisdom to behave accordingly.

The Brooklyn Paper’s Go Brooklyn section has a good interview with the very talented indie performer and composer Sufijan Stevens, who lives in Kensington. He created a work called “THE BQE” for the Next Wave Festival at BAM, which premiers Thursday night. If anyone has an extra ticket and would like to sell it to me please let me know. I’d very much like to hear/see this. I LOVE Stevens’s album, Illinoise.

Sufjan Stevens, the 32-year-old, Kensington-based indie pop star with seven albums and a slew of guest appearances and collaborations to his credit, found great inspiration in the 11.6-mile stretch of road. He was so moved by the pavement that he penned a half-hour-long music-and-video composition entitled “The BQE” that will have its world premiere with a three-night run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Nov. 1.

Although he calls Brooklyn home, Stevens — who isn’t quite a mainstream superstar, but has been featured extensively in independent films, on television and in magazines like Topic and McSweeney’s — is a rare on-stage sight in the borough, so GO Brooklyn excitedly checked in with him to see what the driving force behind his new project was.

This from the New York Times:

The City Council approved rezoning 206 blocks of Bedford-Stuyvesant yesterday, moving to protect the historic charm that has attracted a flood of new residents to the area and to spur economic development and the construction of low-cost housing along major thoroughfares

This from the New York Times:

In an effort to transform the city’s gifted and talented programs, which he has long derided as a hodgepodge of offerings that have favored children in certain neighborhoods and with well-connected parents, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein announced a plan yesterday to limit the programs to students who score in the top 5 percent on admissions tests.

At a news conference yesterday announcing his plan, the chancellor estimated that roughly half the children in gifted programs now might not meet the new standards because they did not score in the 95th percentile or above on admissions tests. There have been no standard citywide cutoffs on admissions exams; last year, available slots in gifted programs were filled by the top scorers in each school district, and before that the admissions process varied throughout the city.

“In some districts you’ll find that half the kids that got in wouldn’t have met the 95th percentile threshold, and in other districts you’ll find a much different number,” Mr. Klein said. “The number is significant, and if you talk citywide, about half, that could be certainly in the ballpark.”

Mr. Klein’s overhaul of elementary school gifted programs also includes a new test to identify the gifted, the Bracken School Readiness Assessment, which gauges students’ understanding of colors, letters, numbers, sizes, comparisons and shapes. The Bracken test replaces the Gifted Readiness Scales, a test added last year because, officials said, it was easier to administer and would be more objective.

Under the new plan, Mr. Klein said, school districts that usually have a wealth of gifted programs could lose some, while parts of the city with a dearth could gain new ones. Officials said it was hard to tell whether the total number of children in gifted and talented programs would go up or down.

Children now in gifted and talented programs will not be affected by the changes.

It’s official. And here’s an email from bill dated October 9th to prove it.

I want to share with you some exciting news. Today I’m making it official: I’m running to be Brooklyn’s next Borough President.

More than ever, Brooklyn is a city unto itself. Our diverse neighborhoods have become magnets for new families and new business from around the world. Brooklyn’s unique arts and cultural scene is flourishing and achieving global acclaim.

At the same time Brooklyn is booming, too many of our communities are becoming unaffordable for working families. Shoddy fly-by-night construction is ruining the fabric of our neighborhoods. Traffic and overcrowded schools are encroaching on our quality of life.

I am running for Borough President because I believe I have the experience and vision to strengthen and protect Brooklyn neighborhoods in a time of unprecedented growth and change.

My first priority as Borough President will be to keep Brooklyn affordable by building and preserving affordable housing. On the City Council I’ve played a key role in winning legislative and land-use victories that have led to the construction of thousands of units of affordable housing throughout Brooklyn. As Borough President I will work to ensure that we aggressively leverage our zoning code and land-use laws to build more affordable housing and protect our neighborhoods from development that prices out working families.

I believe that preserving our neighborhoods means not only keeping them affordable, but also stopping out-of-control and out-of-character development, keeping neighborhoods clean and ensuring support for vital community based organizations. As Borough President I plan to crack down on illegal development, partner with community groups to keep neighborhoods beautiful, and support institutions that contribute to Brooklyn’s richness and diversity.

As public school parents, Chirlane and I know the anxiety that every parent faces about keeping their children safe and having access to affordable child care and quality public schools. As a parent, former School Board member, and current Chair of the Council’s General Welfare Committee, I’ve fought hard to protect children and support families.

On the school board, I helped lead successful efforts to turn around failing schools, cap class size and expand pre-k. In the Council I led the fight to force reforms to New York City’s broken child welfare system in the wake of the Nixzmary Brown tragedy. Over the past six years, I’ve secured millions of dollars for Brooklyn schools and worked to expand and improve childcare options for Brooklyn families. As Borough President I will fight tirelessly to expand access to quality affordable childcare throughout Brooklyn, invest in capital improvements for school facilities to lower class size and ensure that every one of our borough’s schools are safe learning environments for all of our children.

As Borough President, no one will fight harder to keep Brooklyn affordable for working families, stop out-of-control development, protect our neighborhoods and improve our quality of life.

The best of Brooklyn is yet to come — let’s work together to make it happen.

All the best,

Bill de Blasio

This is a story from October 2005:

OSFO started thinking about Halloween 2005 on November 1, 2004. In the spring, there were causal musings about what she wanted to be. By summer, she had narrowed her choices to three or four possibilities.

After Labor Day, when those Halloween catalog arrived in the mail, the urgency began: “When are we going to order my costume, Mom?” She circled everything in the catalog that she liked. But there was a double circle and stars around the costume she really coveted.

The cowgirl costume.

I have to say I respected her choice. Cowgirls are cool. And a nice contrast from last year’s Snow Queen (which was lovely, I might add, with its sparkly white fabric and long cape).

But being a cowgirl is EXPENSIVE. I said “yes” before I realized just how expensive it was going to be. The a la carte style of pricing in that Halloween catalog can be a bit misleading.

Still. We needed to place our order in time for pre-Halloween delivery.

We ordered the brown hat, simulated cow hide chaps, suede fringed vest, suede gloves, and a bandanna. That ran us about $75.00 including shipping. There were other items like a pair of leather cowboy boots that were just too outrageous.

If it sounds frivolous to spend that much on a costume it is a frivolousness born of experience and lots of it. I have been doing Halloween costumes since 1993. A child’s ontentment with his or her costume is key to an angst-free Halloween season. And that’s worth a bunch. We’ve made many of our own costumes, some of which were quite impressive. But homemade costumes involve lots of materials and can be quite pricey, too.

I think the most “creative” and cost-effective costume we ever did was the year Teen Spirit wanted to be “A Boy Caught in a Rainstorm.” Hepcat took a black umbrella and attached long pieces of blue and silver string. Wearing a yellow slicker and boots, my son looked great. Just like a boy….

Teen Spirit, who is now 14, was big on obscure and unexpected Halloween costumes. He actually liked it when people would say, “Who are you?” That happened when he went as TinTin one year and Thompson and Thompson the next from the Belgium comic book, “TinTin.” In subsequent years he went as characters from “Alice In Wonderland.” Two years ago he went as Quisp, the bright green 1960’s breakfast cereal mascot.

At the Halloween parade, a few baby boomers recognized him and shouted : “I loved Quisp and Quake.” or “Omigod, Quisp was my favorite breakfast cereal.” But for the most part, he got blank stares. He liked it that way.

This year he and all of his friends are going as pirates. I think his costume may be a homage to Johnny Depp as Captain Jack (in “Pirates of the Carribean) by way of Keith Richards. It should be fun.

On Saturday, OSFO and I bought the finishing touches for her cowgirl costume: cowboy boots at Payless ($9.99) and blue jeans and a white button down shirt at the Children’s Place ($26.00). I don’t even want to add it all up this morning.

It’s too much. But Halloween always is.

Losing your sense of humor is a danger signal. And it’s a a sign of being overwhelmed or exhausted. Of course, if you didn’t have a sense of humor to start with, you wouldn’t notice.

Listening to busy people around the country, I’ve found that signs of trouble tend to fall into three categories:

BODY: Headaches, backaches, insomnia, and upset stomach lead the “body” hit parade.

SPIRIT: Losing a sense of humor, being grumpy or unable to concentrate; neediness, numbness and “being out of touch with myself” often describe spirits of those who are running on empty.

RELATIONSHIPS: Nagging, withdrawal, isolation, fights, domestic abuse and violence, can afflict us–and friends and family, too.

And then there’s memory loss as in, “Where did I put those car keys?” That falls into all three categories.

The good news is that once we notice a danger signal, we can think about it, talk about it — maybe with a professional — and do something about it. Step one is becoming aware.

AND HERE COMES QUESTION #3, which gets at becoming aware of tensions and other feelings. Some of us walk around with our emotions sunburned. If anyone touches us, we flare.

3. How many times in the past 3 days do you or others think you overreacted, let a little thing get to you in a big way?
0 (4 points)
1 – 2 (3 points)
3 – 4 (2 points)
5 – 6 (1 points)
6+ (0 points)

Here is a real ghost story from Brooklyn Beat. His blog, Deep in the Heart, of Brooklyn has lots of great stuff to read.

Back in the day, well, sometime in the 1980s, when Reagan was as far-out and far-right a reaction to the Jimmy Carter years that the human mind could contemplate, you could still afford to rent your own apartment in Park Slope
even though you were neither the employee nor scion of a hedge fund.
Anyway, I lived on 7th street between 5th and 6th avenues. It wasn’t a
fancy hipster neighborhood, and as hard as it is to believe, we were
were young once too and were probably the hippest things happening, but
there was El Faro and Polly-O and Save on Fifth, and I was just leaving
a public affairs and marketing writing job at a local hospital (then
known as "the Body Shop"), and taking up freelancing for a number of
film and trade mags, so I guess essentially life was good. I was living
in the first floor of a brownstone; the owners, an older Italian
American couple and their grown sons, lived in the upper floors. The
husband of the couple grew his tomatoes and enjoyed his occasional
chianti which reminded me alot of my maternal grandfather who had
passed away shortly before I moved to this new place.

Once day, after I was living in the building for a year or so, the
elderly husband himself passed away rather suddenly. My girl friend at
the time, the Art Director’s Daughter, and I had spoken to the sons
earlier in the day. It was the first night of the wake, the family left
in the early afternoon and informed us that they would not be returning
until much later in the evening. We were planning to pay our respects
the following night. Anyway, at around 7:00 PM it
started. Footsteps. Nothing but footsteps, loud and clear, walking the
length of the brownstone apartment above. A constant pacing that
started near the front door, walked to the opposite end of the house,
turned and walked back to the door. Slowly, methodically, but
unmistakably.

At first, I believe the radio was on, I could hear this strange
pacing only intermittently (they had no dogs or pets of any kind) ,
until it finally made its way into our consciousness as the Art
Director’s Daughter and I made dinner. I turned off the radio. Then,
when it was very quiet, a chill went up and down my spine as I listened
to the mysterious, relentless pacing.Finally, I went upstairs to knock
on the door, but of course no one answered. I could not see or hear
anyone (or anything) through the door. Since it was clear no one was
ransacking their apartment, there was nothing much else to be done. But
when I returned downstairs, there it was again. We turned on some
music. The Art Director’s Daughter (who was a Red Diaper Baby) was a
big fan of the Weavers and Pete Seeger,
so we cranked up some of that beneficent, positive vibe, good time
hammer and sickle music, and had another glass of wine. I guess between
the clomping, and the wine, and the Weavers, we distracted ourselves
until it either stopped or we took less and less notice of it.

A few hours later, when the family returned from the first night of the
wake, I decided to throw caution to the wind and mention the strange
noises, just in case someone had in fact broken in through a window.The
older son looked at me quizzically but went upstairs first to look
around before his mom got out of the car. Nope. Everything was as it
should be. "Maybe it was a sound from next door through the walls" he
offered good naturedly. We apologized for bothering him, but he said,
no, don’t worry about it, I am glad that you let me know.

But, just as brownstone walls are thick, and floors in old houses can
creak when you walk on them, I was sure that the old man had returned
for a final visit, and was looking to see where his wife had hidden the
chianti.

-By Brooklyn Beat

Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York,“a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct,” is written by Jeremiah Moss, an East Villager who describes himself as “waiting for the wrecking ball of gentrification to find me. Until then, I’ll write this ongoing obituary for my dying city.”

Condoschmerz. Literally “condo pain” or “condo weariness.” Inspired by the German Weltschmerz. Describes the psychological pain and existential hopelessness experienced when one’s city is overcome by rapid, ubiquitous, luxury condo development. Often accompanied by disorientation due to a suddenly changing, once-familiar landscape. Before depression sets in, can initially lead to a sense of powerless rage which may inspire those suffering from Condoschmerz to perform acts of vandalism.

I found out about this on the City Room.

We rented The Hoax, the Lasse Hallstrom film about Clifford Irving, the author who wrote the fake bio about Howard Hughes, with Richard Gere. Marca Gay Harden and Albert Molina, from Hollywood Video and it’s an excellent movie.

Great script, great 1970’s mise en scene, great story. Funny, too. Rent it.

What else do we have at the moment:

A Mighty Heart
Grizzly Man
Evening
Mostly Martha

Ditmas Park is so coming into it’s own as a neighborhood. It used to be the nabe with the gorgous Victorian houses. And that was about it.

Now it’s got fabu restaurants, new stores, and a real sense of community. It’s also got a multi-faceted personality:

.–I used to live in Park Slope but I ain’t looking back
–Vox Popping lefty
–Sustainable Flatbush and green consciousness
–Artsy and living well

According to Ditmas Park Blog, many in the nabe don’t think much of Park Slope anymore. Ditmas Park blog says that “Go back to Park Slope” is becoming a local insult. I see t-shirts, postcards, posters, a blog…

So, despite the general direction of migration from Park Slope to Ditmas Park, or maybe because of it, “Park Slope” seems to be a bit of an insult around here.

As an anonymous commenter wrote Monday in response to gripes about Connecticut Muffin, “Are you from Park Slope or something? Sure sounds like it.”

Just got an email from Slope Scope. Very impressive. It’s a blog, a neighborhood resource, a portal to other blogs. Very interesting.

I am proud to announce the official launch of Slope Scope! This site has been a dream of mine that I have been slowly building up for about a year, and I’ve finally made enough progress to release the site to the general public. Living in Park Slope has been amazing, and having the ability to share my experience and know-how with a broader audience is an exciting prospect. If you have any suggestions or comments about the site please email me at feedback@parkslopescope.com.

Slope Scope, welcome to the block.

This from New York 1:

Photographers and filmmakers will reportedly be able to film around town without worrying about red tape.

According to the New York Times, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing a plan that will allow amateur photographers and independent movie makers to capture images in the city without getting a permit or insurance.

The new rules would differentiate between artists who don’t take up a lot of space and cause problems for motorists and pedestrians.

Those who use “obtrusive equipment” and gear that is not hand held would still be required to get a permit and at least $1 million in insurance.

Originally, the city was going to require permits and insurance for any group of two or more people using a handheld camera in a public place for more than 30 minutes, but the city backed down after a public outcry this summer.