NOVEMBER 5 and NOVEMBER 12 at 7 p.m. BROOKLYN’S OWN, CAPATHIA JENKINS AND LOUIS ROSEN AT JOE’S PUB

The team of outstanding Broadway vocalist CAPATHIA JENKINS and award-winning songwriter/performer LOUIS ROSEN returns to Joe’s Pub with their new band for three exciting concerts to celebrate the launch of their debut CD, SOUTH SIDE STORIES, a suite of songs of youth, coming of age and experience. The concerts will also include selections from the acclaimed TWELVE SONGS on poems by Maya Angelou, which debuted at Joe’s Pub last year in two sold-out concerts; and a preview from Rosen’s newest work for Ms. Jenkins, GIOVANNI SONGS, with words by the acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni.

Ms. Jenkins’ is currently appearing on Broadway in "Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me," and has also been seen in "Caroline, Or Change," "The Civil War," and Bacharach and David’s "The Look of Love." Louis Rosen’s songs and theater music have been performed in concert halls, cabarets and theaters in New York and around the country. He was recently awarded a 2005-2006 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Music Composition.

"Something quite magical can happen when a composer has a specific voice to serve as his muse. Consider the case of Louis Rosen, the Chicago-bred, now New York-based songwriter, and his songbird of choice, Capathia Jenkins…performing songs set to the poetry of Maya Angelou…and Rosen’s nostalgic, romantic, guilt-laced, emotionally charged song cycle, South Side Stories” – Chicago Sun-Times

Today, on closing day at the Prospect Park Carousel, we all took a ride on the merry-go-round horses.

–Maybe it was because it was the last day or

–maybe it was because I hadn’t been there in at least five years or

–maybe it was silver haired man has been running it for as long as I’ve been bringing one of my children to the carousel (since 1991 with Teen Spirit, since 1998 with OSFO) or

–maybe it was the nostalgic music of the caliope or

–maybe it was the dead leaves falling all around or

–maybe it was my childhood memories of Sundays at the Central Park carousel or

–maybe it was because I was there with my sister, OSFO, and Ducky

but I had a very melancholic ride on the carousel today. I went into a kind of spinning revery thinking of times gone by and all the rides we’ve had together on that carousel and how quickly they/we/us have grown up.

It was a real Joni Mitchell moment. "And the seasons they go round and round and the painted ponies go up and down We’re captive on a carousel of time.."

"The Circle Game" not withstanding, it was a sort of blissed out melancholy if you know what I mean. I wanted to close my eyes and stay in it for as long as I could.

But the ride only lasted about five minutes.

TAKE A TOUR of the Atlantic Yards footprint with Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report, who writes the best  journalism being writting about the yards bar none. He also runs NY Like a Native. Tours for the Curious.

This extensive tour will be offered on Saturday, November 4, at 1:30 p.m. The cost is $15/person. The rain date is Sunday November 12 at 1:30 p.m. Given that Mr. Oder does not give Atlantic Yards thumbnail treatment, the tour will last 2-2.5 hours. Meet up point is the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, Hanson Place at Flatbush Avenue. More information is available in Mr. Oder’s post about the walking tour or by clicking here for his New York Like a Native tours site.

Moveon.org wants to remind democratic voters that there are only 8DAYS left to win back Congress! You can sign up to make calls!

This year, victory will come down to voter turnout. We’ve found the Democratic-leaning people who often don’t vote in mid-term elections like this one. If we can just get these “unlikely voters” to vote, they’ll provide a winning margin in a whole bunch of races.

Over 30 races are in a dead heat – margins of a few thousand or few hundred votes.  We’ve tested these calls, and we know they work – the people we talk to are much more likely to turn out.  Your calls could tip the balance – but we’re in a daily struggle to make sure we’re reaching more voters than the Republicans’ infamous turnout program. Can you help? ATTEND A PHONE PARTY!

and many, many more Iraqis. October was the 4th deadliest month since the war started.

SATURDAY FORECAST: Very windy. Heavy rain early. Drying out in the afternoon. Wind gusts could cause power outages and down trees.
Sunrise 7:21   Sunset  5:57
Record high 83,1919
Record low 29,1979.

Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Papers 
 

Smartmom is mad as hell and she’s not going to take it anymore. You
should not send your kid to school if he’s throwing up or has diarrhea!

Sounds reasonable, huh? But the old Conventional Wisdom has been
turned upside-down, thanks to the insane competition to get into a good
middle school.

Last week, another parent told Smartmom’s friend, Lawyer Mom, that
it’s better to send her fourth-grader to school sick and then pick him
or her up later than risk too many absences on the child’s elementary
school record.

See, fourth grade is the year that matters for middle school
admissions and middle school admissions people look at testscores,
grades, absences and lateness.

And all things being equal, absence and lateness are the deal-breakers.

These middle schools don’t want the kids with the lousy alarm clock,
slacker parents, or compromised immune system. They want the kids whose
parents are stupid enough to send them to school when they’re sick.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Wouldn’t you know it, just days after this disturbing conversation
with her friend, Lawyer Mom’s son woke up with a stomachache,
accompanied by diarrhea, cramps, the works.

“Mommy, I can’t go to school,” came the young man’s voice from the bathroom.

Lawyer Mom’s body pulsed with worry as she heard her friend’s voice
echoing in her head: Send him to school. Send him to school. You can
always get him later after the teacher has taken attendance. Then he
can make his exit. But whatever you do: send him to school.

“Look,” she told her 9-year-old son through the bathroom door.
“You’re not going to die. Go for a couple of hours. If it gets really
bad, I’ll come pick you up.”

O righteous parent who does what is best for her child! Lawyer Mom
knew that, diarrhea or no diarrhea, she was investing in her child’s
future. Harvard, Yale, Upper Carroll Middle School. Visions of Phi Beta
Kappa were dancing in her head.

So what if he was coming down with a stomach virus? The present moment no longer exists: it’s all about the great big future.

Sure enough, the nurse called at 10:30 am. “I threw up,” he told his mother over the phone.

Lawyer Mom ran over the school (she lives a block away) and picked
up her son. She apologized profusely to him. Luckily, he’s an
easy-going guy. He didn’t mind too much that his mother had sacrificed
his health, his comfort, and the health of the other school children
for middle school.

Later, Lawyer Mom emailed her son’s teacher and told her what
happened. The teacher emailed back: “That’s the silliest thing I’ve
ever heard. He doesn’t have excessive absences. You’ll get other kids
sick.”

But what does that teacher know? She’s not the one choosing between
the 90-percent on-time student and the 89-percent on-time student.

Smartmom herself heard the head admissions honcho at High School for
Telecommunication Arts and Technology tell a group of parents point
blank that, because the school had many more applicants than it can
handle, she checks the number of lates that the child got in seventh
grade.

If there are more than 10, she said, she just scratches the name off the list. “Lateness is a big deal around here,” she said.

It’s no wonder parents are in a tizzy about these things.
Tizzies-R-Us. Last week, the New York Times revealed that parents are
holding their children back until they are 6-years-old for kindergarten
in order to give them an edge over their classmates.

What about a 12-year old kindergartner? Now, they’d definitely have
an edge over their classmates. Why not hold the kids until they’re 14
or 15, and let those teachers deal with adolescent angst. And no,
kiddo, you can’t work on your MySpace page during Choice Time.

Perhaps Smartmom is a bit sensitive on the topic because OSFO is not an early riser.

“If you don’t get moving, girlie,” Smartmom told her the other day,
“you’re not going to get into the middle school of your choice.”

“I care more about my sleep than middle school,” OSFO said pulling her blanket over her head.

“Okay,” Smartmom said trying not to go ballistic. “So if you get into a terrible middle school, don’t blame me.”

Smartmom could not believe what she was saying. But she couldn’t
stop herself: “I will not defend you when they ask me why you were five
minutes late more than 10 times.”

The OSFO stormed out of her bed, got dressed, and kept her hair
styling to a quick six, seven, eight (“Would you finish, already?”),
nine minutes.

Thankfully, they got to the schoolyard just in time. The OSFO
wouldn’t even look at her when she said goodbye. “I love you,” Smartmom
whispered but she was gone.

Smartmom felt ashamed of herself and terrible for the things she had
said to her terrific little girl, who, she hoped, wasn’t now completely
traumatized and afraid about middle school like her mother.

And fear is what it’s all about: fear of failing, of not having
enough; of not adequately preparing one’s children for the free market
economy that we live in; fear that they won’t measure up.

Mostly, Smartmom is afraid that she has succumbed to the real parent
trap: trying to do the right thing for your kid without really thinking
deeply about what the right thing is.

Later that day, Smartmom apologized to OSFO. “Good, maybe I won’t
have to hear about middle school first thing in the morning.” OSFO said
still smarting from what Smartmom had said.

Smartmom promised she’d never bring up the topic again. But she knew
she was lying. It was as inevitable as the occasional stomachache, a
bout of diarrhea, or parents behaving badly.

Thanks to Pastor Daniel Meeter, of Old First Church, who looked up 45 Montgomery in Francis Morrone’s gem of a book, "An Architectural Guidebook to
Brooklyn" (available at Community Bookstore — it used to be right on the front counter). Morrone has done follow up books about NYC and Philadelphia.

45 Montgomery Place was built 1898-99 by Babb, Cook, and Willard, the same
architects who went on to build the Carnegie Mansion on Fifth Avenue
and 91st Street in New York City. 45 Montgomery is French Renaissance style,
with rusticated granite base, a broad porch, limestone parlor floor,
and limestone-trimmed red brick above. "The most beautiful thing here
is the entrance with its elaborate consoles and superb central
cartouche."

Does everyone know about Francis Morrone: Go to his web site for more about this architectural historian/critic/wonderkind/city tour guide/general smart fellow. This weekend he is doing a tour of Midwood.

Fonda of Zuzu’s Petals had this priceless recollection to add. Even if it’s not the right house it’s a great story.

I think that house on Montgomery Place was the one owned by Cyril Golodner who, with her husband, raised their family there. I met Cyril
quite a while ago, right after her husband passed away. Her daughter
from way out of town had ordered flowers from me for Mothers Day and Cyril made her way down to the shop to tell me…in a really unpleasant
way…. just how much she didn’t like them.

I don’t know how i did it
but instead of getting all defensive and bent out of shape, I was able
to see how lonely she was and whatever i did, she left smiling. Over
the next 10 years we became pretty familiar. She’d come to the shop and
ask me to fill a small vase when one of her kids was coming to visit.

We
always had long conversations while I put the flowers together. She was
smart, funny, tough. I liked her alot. When she decided to put the
house on the market we had a long talk about how that felt for
her…..hard, and sad.

I heard she died recently. She’d moved away and
lost touch. S i am thinking of her right now and can just see her face
and hear that bark of a laugh she had….

"6 million plus". yeah…you
go girl."

If it’s not cyril’s house then, gilda ratner it…."never mind"

Everyone’s got the story. CONEY ISLAND: AS REDEVELOPMENT BEGINS: MANY RIDES MAY NOT BE AROUND NEXT SUMMER! Gowanus Lounge has a major wrap up today of all the blog coverage. This from the Daily News:

Close the Zipper and shoo the Spider.

Those amusement rides – along with go-carts, batting cages and carny
games – have been ordered out of a Coney Island site as redevelopment
begins.

"Everybody’s heartbroken," said Eddie Miranda, who has owned the W.
12th St. rides, including the Zipper and the Spider, for eight years.
"We were all hoping for one more season."

Eight renters received notice last week from their properties’ new
owner, developer Thor Equities, telling them to be out when their
leases expire Dec. 31.

Six tenants are in the Henderson Building on Stillwell Ave., a
turn-of-the century structure that once housed a dance hall and hotel.
The other two are are along W. 12th St. and Stillwell Ave. Combined,
they operate more than a dozen businesses.

"This means a lot because I’ve been here for so long," said Maritza
Suriano, the owner of a souvenir shop in the Henderson Building for 20
years. "For them to throw us out, it shouldn’t be like this."

But Thor Equities says the move is just the first step in a $1.5
billion plan to revitalize the famed Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood.

The redevelopment plan calls for a new promenade on Stillwell Ave.
along with residential, entertainment and amusement components, Thor
Equities spokesman Lee Silberstein said.

"The effort to transform Coney Island and recapture its past glory
involves the demolition of a number of existing structures,"
Silberstein said. "Therefore, to allow the new development to proceed
in a timely manner, occupancy agreements with some of the tenants are
not being renewed."

This from the New York Daily News. Which is the most sedentary nabe in NYC? They say Sunset Park.

A new city report found people who live in Sunset Park Brooklyn are least likely to exercise of all New Yorkers. In fact, 57% admitted
they are sedentary, while residents of Greenwich Village and SoHo hit
the gym on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, Staten Island is still the smoking capital of the city,
especially the South Shore and Mid Island sections, where 33% of
residents smoke,

The updated Community Health Profiles released by the Department of
Health use yearly phone surveys and other data to measure health
indicators such as depression, asthma, diabetes and smoking in 42
neighborhoods.

Some conclusions:

East Harlem residents may exercise a bit more than those in
Sunset Park, but they should lay off the fried foods – 31% say they are
obese.

 

Binge drinking – defined as having five or more drinks in a night – is highest in Chelsea.

But don’t drown your sorrows in a pint of beer or ice cream. There is some good news for New Yorkers.

More people have regular doctors – a key to staying healthy. And fewer people are likely to smoke.

"Our city is getting healthier, but we still see large differences
among neighborhoods," said Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden.

While HIV-related deaths have dropped in recent years, they are still
10 times higher in the Morrisania and Highbridge sections of the Bronx
than in the borough’s more upscale neighborhoods of Riverdale and
Kingsbridge.

East Harlem has the dubious distinction of having the highest death
rate (1,084 per 100,000 people), while the rate in West Central Queens
is the lowest at 461.

"We know about one-fifth of all New Yorkers are obese," said Cari
Olson, a research scientist at the Bureau of Epidemiology Services.
"That is as low as 1 in 10 people on the upper East Side and as high as
3 in 10 in East Harlem. Those are major disparities and the condition
is rising."

Olson said the Health Department will use the information to direct
programming in certain areas and let health providers and community
leaders know what the issues are in their neighborhoods.

"We really want people to know about their neighborhoods and we have a Web site where people can do that," Olson said.

To find out more about a specific neighborhood or city-wide trends, check the Health Department’s Web site at www.nyc.gov/health and click on "My Community’s Health."

Most obese
East Harlem: 31%
East New York/New Lots, Brooklyn: 30%
Central Brooklyn: 39%

Least obese
Greenwich Village/SoHo: 8%
Gramercy Park/Murray Hill: 8%
Upper East Side: 10%

Highest smoking rates
South Shore, S.I.: 33%
Mid Island, S.I.: 33%
East Harlem: 27%

Lowest smoking rates
Chelsea/Clinton: 11%
Northeast Bronx: 11%
Southwest Queens: 11%

The most sedentary

Sunset Park, Brooklyn: 57%
Bushwick/Williamsburg, Brooklyn: 56%
Central Bronx: 54%
Highbridge/Morrisania, Bronx: 54%
Hunts Point/Mott Haven, Bronx: 54%
Western Queens: 54%

The least sedentary
Greenwich Village/SoHo: 16%
Gramercy Park/Murray Hill: 16%
Chelsea/Clinton: 25%

Ariella Cohen has the story in today’s Brooklyn Papers on the Whole Foods planned for the Park Slope/Gowanus area. You can get your copy of the Brooklyn Papers at Key Food, Connmuffco, Ozzies, and other PS locations. More here.

Plans for Brooklyn first Whole Foods supermarket are getting bigger — and the gridlock won’t just be in the grocery aisles.

The epicurean grocer is adding a massive, three-story, 430-car
parking garage to its plans for a rooftop lot and a surface lot at its
planned mega-store at the intersection of Third Avenue and Third Street
on the Gowanus end of Park Slope.

Whole Foods’ glassy 68,000-square-foot complex could attract more
than a thousand new vehicles an hour to Park Slope and Gowanus, a
traffic expert said.

“If you have a vehicle turnover every 40 minutes, then you have … as
many as 1,800 new cars an hour,” said traffic engineer Brian Ketcham.

A similarly sized shopping destination in the suburbs would
typically be required to include spaces for 272 cars, he said. But with
all its lots, Whole Foods will provide almost three times that amount
in an area with fewer drivers.

“They are obviously planning to be a regional destination,” said
Ketcham, “and preparing for lots of auto traffic in an area that should
be catering to pedestrians and public transit.”

SAVE THE DATE: The Second annual Brooklyn Blogfest for bloggers and non-bloggers alike will be held on Thursday May 10th at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. You won’t want to miss the new, improved Blogfest. More food and drink, a theme, a shorter presentation period, less hot, more bloggers, more fun. Here’s my report for the first one, a historical event. Note: I can see that what I wrote about the bloggers below is already OUTDATED.

The first Annual Brooklyn Blogfest was a real extravaganza and quite a success. I certainly
didn’t expect so many people to show up. I’d say there were over 100 people
there and the room was packed.

I liked the geekiness of it. There was a video projector, a slide
projector, numerous lap tops, a microphone, amps, speakers. Bloggers
brought PowerPoint applications to show photographs and speech support.
There was even Live blogging demonstrated by Daily Heights.

No Words Daily Pix was the AV guy: y’know the guy who plugs things in, adjusts, fixes, figures stuff out…

Just before the show, he even figured out how to get the Old Stone
House’s wireless working. "I used to work for Cisco, you know."

Everyone wore name tags: Hello My Name Is_____. That helped. Non-bloggers wrote things like reader, wanna be blogger, etc.

In addition to those who spoke, there were other bloggers, too: the
Gothamist, Sunset Parker, 431 Smith Street, Weird Nylon, Callalillie,
Lex’s Folly. The editor of the Brooklynyte was there, as was a reporter
from the New York Sun and many others.

After the formal presentation, a party like atmosphere prevailed. Bloggers and others stayed around until almost 11 p.m.

Here is a list of those who spoke and a brief blurb about what they said:

A Brooklyn Life started
her blog as an excuse to write. Her husband is the webmaster, her
sister writes the Subway Reading column and a friend makes the music
podcasts.

Atlantic Yards Report
(Norman Oder) talked about the need for an alternative to the paltry
coverage of Brooklyn in the mainstream media. His web site offers
in-depth, comprehensive coverage of the Atlantic Yards Project.

Brownstoner, in disguise, talked about his new blog Brooklyn Record and the beginnings of Brownstoner, a real estate blog which is read by thousands every day.

Brooklyn Views showed PowerPoint views of the Atlantic Yards project.

Creative Time’s Eleanor
Taubman said the song that summed up her blog is "Funkytown." "My
passion lies in revealing the creative brilliance of people everywhere
and in connecting those people to one another," she writes on her blog.

Daily Heights revealed that he is actually moving to, of all places, Philadelphia. He is hoping that his great community blog will continue.

Dope on the Slope delivered a hilarious history of blogging complete with a PowerPoint speaker support.

Design Sponge charmingly
discussed her blog, which has caused quite a stir in the design world.
It all started because she was always telling her boyfriend about this nice chair, this nice pillow and that table.
Finally he said, "Why don’t you start a blog?" The rest is history. In
addition to blogging, she writes a column for House and Garden and has
a book coming out.

Gowanus Lounge
is a longtime journalist and the Brooklyn corespondent for Curbed. He
started a blog to showcase the gorgeous photographs he takes on
weekends. His writing is good, too.

Joe’s NYC presented a stunning slide show of his photographs, which, he said, depict places that will soon be gone.

Lost and Frowned projected
slides found on the street and told a hilarious story to go with them
"Gabor Cooking School." Her blog is also quirky and fun.

No Land Grab spoke passionately of the importance of blogging about the Ratner project.

OTBKB read an excerpt from the Thomas Wolfe story, "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn."

No Words Daily Pix spoke!  It was wonderful to hear him talk about his amazing photos that grace the pages of OTBKB every day.

Travis Ruse projected many
of the photographs he takes every day on his subway commute. He said he
started this project as a way to show people around the world the way
New Yorkers really live.

Not Only Brooklyn talked about his weekly e-mail newsletter which
features listings of the best music, theater, film, literature, and art
in Brooklyn and elsewhere.