Here’s a bit of biographical information about theater artist, Mike Daisey, who lives in Park Slope.

Mike Daisey has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by the New York Times for his monologues, including 21 Dog Years, Great Men of Genius, The Ugly American, Monopoly!, Invincible Summer, I Miss the Cold War, Wasting Your Breath, and Stories From the Atlantic Night Cafe which he’s performed Off-Broadway, across the country and around the world. He’s been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, and his work has been heard on the BBC, NPR, the National Lampoon Radio Hour, and his groundbreaking series All Stories Are Fiction is available through Audible.com.

Currently he’s a commentator for National Public Radio’s Day To Day, a contributor to WIRED Magazine, Slate, Salon, a web correspondent for Vanity Fair and Radar Magazine, and his writing appears in the anthology The Best Tech Writing 2006. His first book, 21 Dog Years: A Cubedweller’s Tale, was published by the Free Press and he is working on a second book, Great Men of Genius, adapted from his monologue about genius and megalomania in the lives of Bertolt Brecht, P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla and L. Ron Hubbard. He lives with his director, collaborator and co-conspirator, Jean-Michele Gregory, in Brooklyn”> Mike Daisey, who lives in Park Slope.

This from New York 1:

A necropsy will be performed today on the baby whale that died in Brooklyn’s Gowanus Bay.

After some problems, the 12-foot-long minke was hoisted onto a boat
this morning and taken to Jersey City where marine biologists will try
to determine the cause of death.

A tow line fell off the whale this morning, sending the body 30
feet below the surface. Police divers were able to reattach the line.

The 15-foot whale died yesterday, after breaching itself near Clinton Street.

The whale was first spotted earlier this week off the piers near 22nd Street and was seen swimming in circles.

Members of the Riverhead Foundation originally hoped the whale
would swim out to sea, but they say the animal had numerous cuts and
bruises and was swimming in an altered pattern.

They say it may have come in contact with the pier or other submerged objects.

As I attempt to process the savage details of  the massacre at  Virginia Tech, I find myself feeling angry that two hours after the first shootings many students and staff had no idea that a shooter was on the loose. 

Many organizations will now be rethinking the way they function in an emergency. In this day and age, it must be possible to notify large groups of people during an  emergency in order to warn them of danger. Our lives depend on it.
Even low-tech solutions like alarms and sirens need to be reconsidered.

Full Disclosure: Hepcat consults for a company called Send Word Now, that provides a service called SWN ALERT SERVICE to contact people during emergencies and in everyday, time-sensitive situations.

In the two years that Hepcat has worked with Send Word Now, emergency situation after situation in the news has demonstrated to me the need for a service which provides on-demand alerting and response.

During an emergency, communication is so vital and it saves lives.

The founders of Send Word Now began developing SWM Alert Service after 9/11 when they recognized the necessity of such a service to inform large groups of people during a terrorist attack. They knew it would also be significant for a wide range of emergency or time-sensitive situations like hurricanes and other weather and health emergencies.   

Send Word Now’s service communicates critical information in real-time so that people can be informed about what’s happening when it’s happening so that people will know what to do; so that people won’t put themselves in deeper danger; to reduce the risk of death. 

But technology is not the only answer. Low-tech solutions like emergency preparedness training, sirens, bullhorns, alarms, code words, and phone chains must be updated.

Sadly, institutions need to know in advance how they will deal with an emergency.
It’s definitely something none of us want to think about but what would we do if we were in a critical situation and needed to contact other members of our community?

As reported in the New York Daily News, the cause of Sludgie’s death won’t be known until a necropsy is performed today, but experts said Sludgie was probably younger and smaller and more vulnerable than originally thought.

The whale appeared in the Gowanus Canal on Tuesday. He became disoriented during the weekend’s nor’easter. He also became a cause celebre in NYC and around the country.

Marine biologists were monitoring Sludgie’s breathing and behavioral patterns.

On Wednesday at 4:45 p.m., there was some splashing in the water, and scientists saw that he was dead.

NYPD and preservation experts from Riverhead, LI used a dinghy, ropes and grappling hooks to stop the 5,000-pound whale from sinking to the bottom.

The Army Corps of Engineers will tow Sludgie’s carcass to a pier in Jersey City for the necropsy.

RIP Sludgie

I took a walk with a news photographer today. He was looking for a very Slopey location. I suggested Seventh Avenue. But Union Street between Seventh and Sixth Avenues is really the most Slopey of streets. There you’ll find the Tea Lounge (free wireless and strollers), the Park Slope Food Coop (socialist organic shopping)  and Squad 1 (9/11 heroes).

It’s the Park Slope Triangle — three iconic spots that say a lot about Park Slope. Run a string from the Food Coop east to Squad One then across the street to the Tea Lounge and then back across the street to the Coop.

A triangle.

The Tea Lounge is a gathering place for moms and kids. But let’s not forget that free wireless makes it a mecca for neighborhood bloggers, writers, and freelancers.

The Food Coop, the nation’s largest, has 10,000 working members and is a haven for organic produce, food products, and strange internal squabbles that achieve national notoriety.

Squad One lost eleven firefighters on 9/11. But they’ve always been beloved members of  the community for their hospitatlity toward local children and their fire safety presentations to school groups. Not to  mention all the fire and rescue work they do. We love them,

This just in from the office of City Council member CM Liu:

In response to concerns from community members, CM Liu is organizing a
prayer vigil for victims of the recent Virginia Polytechnic Institute
shooting incident. The vigil will take place today (Wed, Apr 18) from
4:30PM to 5:30PM on the steps of City Hall in Manhattan. You are
welcome to participate and invite others who may be interested.

A photo-ID is required for entry into the City Hall area. You are
encouraged to take public transportation (the A, C, E, R, W, M, Z, 2,
3, 4, 5 subway trains all stop at City Hall and Chambers Street). Let
us know if you have any questions. Thank you.

Sylvia Moore
Office of Council Member John C. Liu
The Council of the City of New York

I am listening to an album called "Zero Church" by Suzzy and Maggie Roche.

There’s a song on it that feels relevant.  The author of the lyrics is unknown. The Roches were told that this prayer was written by Mother Teresa and
inscribed on the wall of her orphanage in Calcutta. However, Sister M.
Nirmala M.C. at the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta wrote to us and
said that she did not write this prayer. Another source said that this
poem was found by Mother Teresa’s bedside when she died, written in her
own handwriting. It remains a mystery.

The CD is a collection of prayers, which were composed during a residency at the
Institute on the Arts & Civic Dialogue founded by Anna Deavere
Smith at Harvard University, which was funded in part by the Ford Foundation. (OTBKB Note: Anna Deavere Smith happens to be one of my heroes).

"The
Institute focuses on artistic collaboration and discovery while
exploring issues of race, identity, diversity and community."

The Roches spoke in depth to many people from different cultural and religious
backgrounds about their thoughts and feelings about prayers. They were "not focused on an academic or historical study of prayer, we were
simply interested in working with anyone who wished to share a prayer
with us.

"We
hoped to let our music reflect our conversations and experiences at the
institute. These songs are, for the most part, a collaboration with a
community," The Roches wrote album’s liner notes.
.

ANYWAY

People are often unreasonable, illogical,
and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway

Author unknown

music by Maggie and Suzzy

THIS FROM Newsday:

A young whale lost its way in New York harbor, discovering a playground in an area hemmed in by docks and a large oil depot near a polluted canal.

Marine biologists were standing watch on Tuesday over the animal, described as a juvenile minke whale about 15 long, that was cruising around Gowanus Bay, the outlet from the mile-long Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn.

The foundation, based in Riverhead, N.Y., specializes in cases involving whales, dolphins, seals and sea turtles.

Durham and other experts were dispatched to the scene after the whale was spotted early Tuesday. A television news helicopter videotaped it leaping out of the water, a behavioral trait common to whales of the baleen species.

In spite of the whale’s choice to roam in waters near the canal _ notorious for industrial pollution _ Durham said she was not unduly concerned that it would be affected in the short term by anything in the water.

Durham said she was glad to note that the whale was not swimming in tight circles or exhibiting other behavior that might be indicative of disease. She said the whale would be monitored overnight, with the hope that it might decide on its own to leave the area and swim out into the harbor, where the water is deeper.

"My main concern is not what it is doing but simply why it is here," Durham said in a telephone interview. "This is not really an environment conducive to its good health."

Robert Guskind, founder of Gowanuslounge.com, a Web site that cover the canal, told the Daily News the recent storm probably sent sewage into the canal.

"It’s probably the worst time to wander in there," Guskind told the tabloid in Wednesday’s edition.

The U.S. Coast Guard and a police harbor patrol boat were standing by but didn’t plan to take action unless it was necessary.

Whales are a rare sight in New York harbor, and it was not immediately known when a previous sighting of a live whale last occurred.

A New York Aquarium official, Fran Hackett, theorized that the whale followed a school of fish into the Gowanus area.

"It’s just swimming around in there, and reasonably well," she said in a telephone interview.

"He might be all sludgy and gloppy but he’s going to wash off in the ocean," a hopeful 6-year-old, Erin Young, told the News after going to watch the whale with relatives.

The Gowanus canal, named for a native American group that once lived in the area, runs about a mile from picturesque Boerum Hill in south Brooklyn to the bay in Red Hook, a quaintly rundown harbor community where grain ships once loaded cargo for Europe and shipyards turned out ferry boats and fancy yachts.

The last reported incident involving a whale was the discovery in 2000 of a dead whale floating in the harbor between Brooklyn and Staten Island, apparently the victim of a collision with a ship.

In 1993, an ailing whale was recovered off the north shore of Long Island Sound and was nursed back to health during eight months at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island.

Park Slope pediatrician, Dr. Amy Glaser, has compiled and published the first complete listing of summer activities for teens. 125 fascinating programs for every interest and pocketbook.

For many parents and their teenage children, the thought of finding worthwhile summer programs throughout New York City is a challenging and stressful endeavor.

SUMMER IN THE CITY FOR TEENS is a welcome resource which lists over 125 summer projects for teenagers in the New York area.  Screened and tested by young adultsand their parents, this is the Zagat of summer programs.

If you are interested, call Dr. Glaser’s office at 718-636-0999. You can pay by credit card and they will send you a copy.