Tag Archives: Brooklyn

arts and culture

Nice Profile of Park Slope’s Honey & Wax Booksellers

Leslie Albrecht, a reporter for DNA Info, wrote a lovely profile (with a great slide show) of Park Slope’s Heather O’Donnell, who runs Honey & Wax Booksellers. Albrecht sure knows a good lede when she sees it.

“Heather O’Donnell isn’t the type of rare book dealer who puts on white cotton gloves before she handles her precious volumes. She’s fine with plopping an 1881 edition of Henry James’ “Washington Square” — which sells for $2,000 — on the kitchen counter next to a plate of marinating chicken.”

Okay, let’s not get carried away. I’m sure O’Donnell doesn’t often leave her rare and valuable books in the kitchen. But she does, for the moment, run her business out of the attractive dining room of her historically detailed Park Slope apartment.

O’Donnell is a true book lover who believes books should be well loved and well used. She is also a client of my new company Brooklyn Social Media. Full disclosure there.

“She launched her rare book business Honey & Wax Booksellers in that spirit earlier this year. To her, rare books shouldn’t be locked away in cabinets like specimens. She likes that books can be used to form relationships when they’re passed between people. Her favorite part of the business is uniting appreciative collectors with long-sought books.” writes Albrecht in her DNA Info piece.

Next week Honey & Wax will be the first rare bookseller at the Brooklyn Book Festival, an open-air celebration of, well, books. In fact, it is the largest literary event in New York City. This year there are more than 280 authors, more than 104 panels confirmed and something like 45,000  visitors expected.

Wowza.

O’Donnell will be there with an astonishing selection of rare books, first editions and special signed copies. She’ll also be giving out tasty honey sticks. She is excited to showcase some of her best stock, and to field questions from festival attendees about the books they have and the books they want.

O’Donnell is uniquely qualified to answer those questions.  A lifelong book lover, she moved to NYC in 1989 to study English at Columbia. She received a doctorate from the Yale English department and worked as a curatorial assistant at the Beinecke Library, where she developed an eye for rare books. For seven years, she was a bookseller in the flagship New York gallery of Bauman Rare Books, dealing in a wide range of material, from Shakespeare to Audubon to Churchill. O’Donnell’s desire to make her mark in the borough she calls home inspired her to launch Honey & Wax Booksellers earlier this year, and she’s eager to make her Brooklyn festival debut on September 23.

Photos by Leslie Albrecht of DNA Info

 

arts and culture, Civics and Urban Life

ArtObama: Artists to Auction Work on October 3

They raised $54,000 in 2008, and the team that brought you ArtObama is doing it again.

On October 1, ArtObama will auction works by 120 American artists to support the re-election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. Auction proceeds will benefit the Obama Victory Fund 2012 as well as ActBlue, a political action committee that aids progressive House and Senate candidates nationwide. Space is limited, and preregistration for this event is strongly recommended. In 2008, ArtObama raised more than $54,000. Their ambition is to greatly surpass that contribution in 2012

 

arts and culture

Paul Ryan’s Playlist: What’s the A-Z of Your iPod?

Last night at the Republican National Convention, GOP Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan compared his iPod playlist to Mitt Rommney’s.

“We’re a full generation apart. And, in some ways we’re a little different. There are the songs on his iPod that I’ve heard on the campaign bus and on many hotel elevators. He’s actually urged me to play some of those songs at campaign rallies. I said, I hope it’s not a deal breaker, Mitt, but my playlist starts with AC/DC and ends with Zeppelin.”

I looked at my playlist this morning. Mine starts with Adele (and then Adrian Hibbs) and ends with The White Stripes and Yo La Tengo.

What’s the A and Z of your playlist? And what does or doesn’t it say about you?

arts and culture

80 Park Slope Artists Participating in Go Brooklyn

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There are 1,814 artists participating in the Go Brooklyn Arts massive open studio weekend on September 8-9, 2012. Eighty of them are in  Park Slope.

That’s a bigger number than I expected. There are a lot of artists in and around Park Slope but most of them don’t have their studios in Park Slope, a neighborhood made up mostly of apartment buildings and brownstones. We don’t have much in the way of loft or industrial buildings.

Go Art Brooklyn is a crowd -curated, crowd-sourced open studio extravaganza backed by the Brooklyn Museum. As an art appreciator, you can sign on as a visitor and actually vote for the artists you like best during your studio visits.

Of the eighty Park Slope artists, I know a few including my husband Hugh Crawford, who will open his photography studio right here on Third Street. “The last few years I have been making photographs I describe as “tangles”. They are of rose bushes, ocean waves, the banks of the Gowanus Canal, amusement park rides, trees, and distressed ground. What I am trying to capture is “the act of seeing.” Since mid-2011, my work is multiple exposures reassembled into single compositions with some of the work printed as large as 20 feet long,” he writes in his Go artist statement.

Also, Bernette  Rudolph (above), whom I consider the elder goddess of Park Slope artists, will be showing her prints and mixed-media work in her Third Street studio, as she’s been doing since 1985. “I work in my art studio with music or silence depending on what I am creating. I have been a working artist over fifty years exhibiting in museums and art galleries thru the United States. My current inspiration is photographing the people I see on the streets of New York City and the vast variety of people who ride the New York subways. I use photo shop to turn the photos into works of art,” she writes in her Go artist statement.

Continue reading 80 Park Slope Artists Participating in Go Brooklyn →

Civics and Urban Life

Legend Massimo Vignelli, Designer of Subway Map, to Speak at Transit Museum

Few people probably know the name of the designers who designed the subway map many of us look at every day. Few imagine ever getting a chance to hear them speak.

But on on September 12th, Massimo Vignelli and his design partners Beatriz Cifuentes and Yoshi Waterhouse will speak at the New York Transit Museum with Michael Beirut about their famous and controversial 1972 New York City subway diagram and its new appearance in the MTA’s Weekender.

At this special Transit Museum event, Beirut will lead a discussion with Vignelli, Cifuentes and Waterhouse. This will be followed by a brief Q and A. Signed and numbered subway diagrams (limited edition of 1,000) will be available for purchase for $500 each. You can get tickets here. 

This promises to be an interesting and exciting discussion with a design team respected worldwide and hugely influential on the city of New York .

In 2008 and 2012, Vignelli updated his diagram to account for changes in station names and toned down the color scheme, adopting uniform colors for each line Vignelli will discuss this in addition to change she made to the map in response to one of the largest criticisms leveled at the 1972 diagram and that was the deceiving square shape of Central Park.

Vignelli simplified the new version by removing parks entirely. Take that.

arts and culture

Before the Summer Ends Visit Brooklyn Bridge Park

If you haven’t explored Brooklyn Bridge Park this summer you really should.

Put it on your summer  “TO DO” List.

The Park is definitely Brooklyn’s newest tourist and native attraction—something to show the out-of-towners and something to enjoy on your own.

There’s lots to see. Take a walk from DUMBO and check out the fabulous carousel and then walk or bike towards Atlantic Avenue along the river. Or you can do what I just described in reverse starting on Atlantic Avenue and going towards DUMBO.

During the week, check the events schedule because there’s Jazzmobile, free fitness activities like Pilates and more.

As for the movies al fresco, there are only two screenings left this summer at Brooklyn Bridge Park. It’s a remarkable spot to watch a movie.

On Thursday, August 23, they’re showing Unforgiven [R] directed by Clint Eastwood with Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman with a short, The Hunter by Marieka Walsh. DJ Emch Subatomic (of Subatomic Sound System) will be on h and supplying the grooves.

On Thursday, August 30, the final movie of the summer is selected by public vote! DJ Geko Jones (of Que Bajo) will be on hand playing music.

Civics and Urban Life

Best Window Boxes Says Greenest Block in Brooklyn

Pop quiz: What’s the best window box in Brooklyn?

Now, that’s a tough call. There are many thousands of them. Too many. And so many pretty ones. There’s definitely an art to it. Some people have the touch (or the green thumb plus the color/design sense).

So how do you win such a contest. First, you’ve got to enter the contest to be considered. It helps to belong to a Block Association but I don’t think it’s essential. Still, it’s not like some judge-person is going to check out every window box in the borough.

These window boxes created by the Arky’s at 487 10th Street in Park Slope are very pretty indeed. Sadly, they’re trapped behind the window bars. And they tied for First Place. Check out the other winning window boxes and other categories at the Greenest Block in Brooklyn website. 

 

arts and culture

Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant at BAM

Just gotta say: There are some pretty wonderful films playing at BAM this weekend—and it’s so much fun to see these classics on the big screen.

I mean, who can resist: Sullivan’s Travels, His Girl Friday, or Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby or George Cukor’s classic, late-Depression-era romantic comedy, Holiday. Or Pat and Mike with Spencer Tracy and Hepburn or The Palm Beach Story with Claudette Colbert.

It’s all part of BAM’s  American Gangster: Great Comedy Teams series. Check here for the full schedule at BAM. 

Food and Drink

Scottish Travel Reporter Loves “Buzzing Brooklyn”

In Sunday’s Scotsman, a Scottish news website, Lee Randall, a travel journalist travels to Brooklyn and lives like a native. His father was born in Brooklyn and the reporter found plenty of things to love about the borough, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and Park Slope’s Al Di La.

“Forget hotels and live like a native in buzzing Brooklyn, suggests Lee Randall

“Wandering around Williamsburg, the hipster capital of Brooklyn, brings to mind my late father, who was born in this borough, which was an independent town before its engulfment by New York City in the late 19th century. Dad wouldn’t recognise the place. In fact, even I don’t recognise it. The last time I ventured to this part of my native city was in the 1980s, when we’d joke that you needed to pack heat to get in and out alive. Now – all joking aside – I’d advise you to pack a Mac computer, a trilby, and a refined palate for artisan beer and coffee, else die of shame.”

“Also notable was lunch at Al Di La Trattoria (248 Fifth Avenue; www.aldilatrattoria.com), where they offer a local, organic, sustainable take on Italian food, in a sweet little room overlooking a Park Slope corner.”

arts and culture

Aug 16: Dolly Parton Cover band at Union Hall

Doll Parts calls itself Brooklyn’s premiere Dolly Parton cover band. I think that probably desribes them to a “T”. I don’t think there are any other Dolly Parton cover band in Brooklyn but I could be wrong.

I’m psyched because I happen to love Dolly Parton’s songwriting (Coat of Many Colors, Jolene). A lot of people probably think of Dolly as an icon of country kitsch but I think there’s a lot more going on.

The five member band will play Union Hall on Wednesday at 7:30 PM. Gentleman Callers is also on the bill.

arts and culture

Motherland Vs Triburbia: The Buzz Begins

Amy Sohn’s Motherland will be out next week but already the buzz begins. Today in the New York Times, Ginia Bellafante’s article For a Spicier City, Turn the Page?, bundles Sohn’s sequel to her bestselling Prospect Park West with a first novel by Karl Taro Greenfield called Triburbia.

According to Bellafante, “each of the two books revolves around the broader community of a highly ranked public elementary school: P.S. 321 in Park Slope and what is obviously P.S. 234 in TriBeCa, places so readily linked to an image of concerned liberal affluence that to a certain kind of New Yorker they hardly require annotation. Here the image of family wholesomeness gives way to a picture of acute marital anomie and rampant infidelity. Stereotypes endemic to the city populate: the entrepreneurial chef, the yearning screenwriter, the drifting vintage clothier, the gay father desperate for a second child, all of them sharing an aversion or mounting indifference to the partners with whom they’ve purchased their co-ops, renovated their kitchens and shared the enervating burdens of modern child rearing.”

A book that will surely inspire conversation, debate and even secret late night reading Motherland comes out on August 14th. Mark your calendar.

arts and culture

You’re Nothing Special: Tales from a Generation Unfulfilled

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Yesterday, I met blogger Daniel Levin at the Tea Lounge, which was full of people staring at their laptops, sipping coffee and, ostensibly, working or trying to get work. We were introduced by my friend Paula Bernstein, author of Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited.

Truth be told, Levin is nothing special. In fact, he writes a blog called Nothing Special(Tales from a Generation Unfulfilled) dedicated to people who suffer from “specialness,” something he deems akin to a long-term medical disorder. “We are bitter, jealous people with few practical skills and lots of gold stars. There is no known cure. But this blog is the first medically proven* site to help sufferers,” he writes.

Levin, a graduate of Yale University, a playwright and lyricist, ponders what happens to all these special people? Do they go on to fabulous jobs or are they sitting in the Tea Lounge trying to get ahead in the world?

Nothing Special is a blog for people who believe what they’ve been told all their lives by parents, teachers and college acceptance letters. When they finally go out into the world, they realize that the world is actually filled with a lot of special people (and not all of them went to Yale).

“Our parents thought we were special and saved all of our artwork,” he writes on Nothing Special. “Our teachers told us we were highly verbal. Our movies told us we could win a karate tournament from six months of training with a handyman, and make our family hot by going back in time. From Mr. Rogers to Stuart Smalley, we were assured that always, no matter what…we were…(stage whisper) special.”

 

Food and Drink

Strollers Welcome in South Slope’s Greenwood Park

You all remember the No Stroller Manifesto at the defunct Patio Lounge on Fifth Avenue and the No Strollers policy at Union Hall. Well, Greenwood Park, a new 13,000 square foot bar in Park Slope with a huge outdoor space, decided that strollers are not only allowed they are welcome.

But do people who hang out at bars really want kids around. The City Room blog at the New York Times revisits this issue once again.

“I arrived around 6 PM with friends and showed my ID to the doorman. OH YEAH, time for a laid back and relaxing time with some frosty beverages and bar food! WRONG, welcome to Chuck-E-Cheese in South Slope,” a Yelp reviewer, John H., posted on July 3.

If you’re interested in the history of the Park Slope babies in bars/no strollers issue, read my essay The Park Slope Stroller Wars in Make Mine a Double: Why Women Like Us Like to Drink.

Photo from: blog.urbanedgeny.com

 

arts and culture

Video: Why John Hodgman Did Not Invest in Talde (Skip the Ad)

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In this hilarious interview with Park Slope’s John Hodgman, the resident expert on The Daily Show, the PC in Apple commercials and the author of The Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require, Hodman explains that Justin Long, who plays the Mac in the Apple ads, suggested that he invest in Dale Talde’s restaurant in Park Slope but he decided  not to.

The hosts of this interview show ask him why and he confesses that he thought it might be a sham (despite Talde being a Top Chef contestant) and because 80% of restaurants fail. He lives around the corner from the restaurant and can never get in because “it’s a huge deal.”

Oh well. So much for a regular table at a crowded restaurant and the cash rewards of a good investment.

 

Civics and Urban Life

Cobble Hill’s William Bryant Logan Writes About the Air

William Bryant Logan, an author who lives and breathes the air of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, has a new book coming out in August called Air: The Restless Shaper of the World from WW Norton.

The author’s fascinating focus is music and how sound is the product of vibrations that travel through the air. In the book, which I haven’t read but sounds quite interesting, Logan discusses everything from radio stations to parrots’ language to Beethoven to Aeolian harps.

Air. You barely think about it yet it sustains each of us and every living creature. The book is rife with mind boggling factoids like this: “Twenty thousand fungal spores and half a million bacteria travel in a square foot of summer air.”

The book sounds at once scientific and poetic. Air. It’s one of those simply named books that touches on so many things. “The chemical sense of aphids, the ultraviolet sight of swifts, a newborn’s awareness of its mother’s breast—all take place in the medium of air.”

There is danger in the air, too. I didn’t know this but the artist Eva Hesse died of inhaling her fiberglass medium. Thousands were sickened after 9/11 by supposedly “safe” air. The African Sahel suffers drought in part because we fill the air with industrial dusts.

AIR. Learn more about the most ubiquitous thing of all by an author who is a certified arborist and the author of two other books: Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth and Oak: The Frame of Civilization.

arts and culture

Sunday Number 3: Breaking Bad at The Gate

The Gate was quite crowded last night for its weekly showing of Breaking Bad.

This week I went with my son, who is officially 21. We sat at the bar. He had a PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon, I learned) and I had a glass of white wine.

The sound worked perfectly and everyone quieted down when the show came on. The episode was excellent. No spoilers here except to say that Marie is getting wackier, Skyler is going off the rails, Walt is inscrutable, Jesse is as tragic as ever and Mike is fascinating.

arts and culture

Gina Barreca: Why Indie Bookstores Matter

I just love Gina Barreca’s funny and smart take on the world.

On Huffington Post today, Gina Barreca writes a love letter to independent bookstores.

For those who don’t know, Gina blogs for the Chronicle for Higher Education, Huff Post and Psychology Today. She is also a professor of English and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut. Her books, which have been translated into seven languages, include They Used to Call Me Snow White But I Drifted, Babes in Boyland, and It’s Not That I’m Bitter. Her latest book, Make Mine a Double, was published in September 2011 and includes an essay of mine in there called the Park Slope Stroller Wars.

Here’s an excerpt from a piece called Why Independent Bookstores Matter, which will resonate with Park Slopers, great supporters of indie bookstores like the Community Bookstore. Read the rest on Huff Post. 

“Independent bookstores do everything big corporate bookstores do, with only one significant difference: Independents do it better.

“Without independent bookstores — meaning those places not owned by huge corporate chains or multinational conglomerates –there would be three, maybe four, books published a year.

“There would be a blockbuster thriller, a densely detailed romance, a pseudo-science exploration of a catchy phenomena, and a celebrity bio.

“And a diet book — there would be a diet book.

“So eventually, there would be one book issued per year: a densely detailed autobiographical and pseudo-scientific celebrity thriller containing recipes. Denzel Washington meets Stephen J. Gould meets Don Delillo meets The Naked Chef. Yum.”

arts and culture

John Cage’s 12-Hour Empty Words at Roulette on August 3rd

File this under: I went with my family to see John Cage perform Empty Words at the Hunter College Auditorium when I was a kid. I was bored out of my mind but somehow I understood that we were seeing something amazing

On August 3, at 8PM at Roulette I will have the chance to experience all 12 hours of Empty Words again.

Varispeed, a group of composer-performers, will perform Part I of their 12-hour arrangement of John Cage’s Empty Words, a landmark text-based work from the mid-70s that transforms speech into music and brings to light the beauty and power of the human voice.

Performing this piece is quite an undertaking.

In Part I, Cage’s text “establishes a distinctly non-syntactical speech rhythm with words and phrases arranged through chance operations from Thoreau’s journals.” The vocalist-performer-arrangers of Varispeed (Aliza Simons, Dave Ruder, Paul Pinto, Brian McCorkle, & Gelsey Bell) and special guests augment their voices with a bevvy of electronics, “while spatializing sound and action into a Cagean feast for the senses.”

Varispeed is a newly formed collective of composer-performers from experimental theatre group Panoply Performance Laboratory, ensemble thingNY, and Why Lie? that creates site-specific, sometimes-participatory, oftentimes-durational, forevermore-experimental events. Their new arrangements in Perfect Lives Manhattan made Time Out New York and New York Times’ critic Steve Smith’s “Best of 2011” list.

Empty Words will continue in three more installments during the evening. Parts II & III will be performed at nearby Exapno (33 Flatbush Ave, 5th floor) at 11 PM and 2 AM, respectively.

And the final installment occurs at 5AM in the morning on the Brooklyn Bridge:

Part IV will be a sound walk across the Bridge at 5 AM. All parts are free and open to the public.

arts and culture

Brooklyn Artists Gym Becomes Brooklyn Art Space

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Seven years ago the Brooklyn Artists Gym opened. A resource for studio and exhibition space for local artists, the space has evolved many times to accommodate the ever growing number of members who made use of it.

As of this week, Brooklyn Artists Gym will operate under a new name, Brooklyn Art Space. There are two cogent reasons for the name change. “First, if the staff gets one more inquiry about fitness facilities, they may just lose it!” the new management writes in an email.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Peter Wallace, the founder of Brooklyn Artists Gym, is moving on to other pursuits and will pass the torch to his current staff: Rhia Hurt, Director; Ajit Kumar, Advisor; Mary Negro, Gallery Coordinator; Jannell Turner, Consultant; and Rachael Whitney, Marketing Coordinator.

I remember seven years ago meeting with Peter at the now defunct Perch to discuss his new venture, Brooklyn Artists Gym. Perch must have just opened around that time, too. Peter had a real vision about it and many creative ideas that would come to pass.

“Peter’s vision is what brought everyone here, and the staff will continue to expand upon this vision as Peter moves onto the next phase of his creative process. His insight, enthusiasm, and devotion to the studios will be missed!”

And so it is: Brooklyn Art Space is now christened.

 

arts and culture

Super Cool Celebrity Sighting at Park Slope ‘Snice: Kiernan Shipka

Yesterday, a very reliable source reports that Kiernan Shipka, who plays Sally Draper on AMC’s Mad Men, was at ‘Snice having lunch. The Park Slope vegan lunch spot is on Fifth Avenue and Third Street. No word on what she ate or drank. We do know that she wasn’t  there with her television parents, John Hamm and January Jones. And her TV stepmother, Megan ,played by Jessica Pare, was nowhere to be found.

No one shouted out: We Love you Kiernan Shipka. But we do.

Food and Drink

August 23: Pig Roast at Rosewater

August 23 is the official date for Rosewater’s annual Salute to Swine Fest!

They’re firing up the Party-Que Spit and roasting a fine piggy from an upstate address over hardwood coals.

The pork will be served with cole slaw, corn on the cob, heirloom tomatoes, cold draft beer and fresh pink wine and you’ve got one swell porcine summer soirée. “We’ll have more fun than a possum in the corn crib with the dog tied up!” is what they’re saying.

Tickets go on sale Thursday, July 26th at 1pm. $78, all inclusive of beverage, tax and gratuity. Get yours quick – it’s always a sellout. 718-783-3800, phone only.

arts and culture

Park Slope’s Olympic Fencer: Race Imboden


Named after a Jonny Quest character, Race Imboden moved to Park Slope when he was 10 and loves the penang chicken curry at Rice Thai on Seventh Avenue.

And he’s on the Olympic fencing team. His passions: fencing, of course, and hip hop. The Daily News has a story about local Olympic heroes today.

Have a look at the video by @radical media which follows Race while he trains for the Olympics, and sheds some light on his unprecedented rise in the world of fencing. It’s a really interesting piece so watch it and learn more about our Park Slope Olympic hopeful, Race Imboden.

arts and culture

“Mesmerized” by Piper Theatre’s The Island of Doctor Moreau

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Richard Grayson, author of Brooklyn Diaries, I Brake for Delmore Schwartz, And to Think He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street, and other titles, ventured to Park Slope this weekend to see Piper Theatre’s outdoor production of The Island of Doctor Moreau.

I love to read Grayson’s reactions to local culture. He’s smart and very knowedgable about art and theater.

He’s also an interesting guy. I’ve read the Brooklyn Diaries, which is compulsive reading (by a compulsive writer) for those interested in one young man’s college and post-college years in 1970’s and 80’s Brooklyn.

Grayson writes about his cultural wanderings in Williamsburg and other neighborhoods on his blog, Dumbo Books of Brooklyn. Just this week, he’s written about  a zine fest at Pete’s Candy Store, Eugene Mirman in Williamsburg Park and a recent breakfast in Ft. Greene. He also takes pictures.

“Tonight we were mesmerized by a stunning performance of an innovative, visceral, and commanding adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau conceived and executed by the amazing Piper Theatre outside the Old Stone House in Park Slope’s Washington Park.”

Civics and Urban Life

Triumph of Civic Virtues Sculpture Moving to Green-Wood Cemetery

File this under: One more reason, among many, to visit Green-Wood Cemetery.

A sculpture created by Brooklyn sculptor Frederick William MacMonnies in 1919 is coming to Green-Wood Cemetery from Queens and is causing quite an inter-borough uproar.

Queens City Council Member Peter Vallone believes it should stay in Queens.

McMonnies, born in Brooklyn Heights,  is considered a part of the Beaux Arts movement. His sculpture of Nathan Hale is in City Hall Park inManhattan.

The heirs of the sculptor have offered to pay for the restoration of the statue IF it moves to Green-Wood. But Queens politicians and neighborhood leaders believe it should be kept in Queens.

An almost naked man standing over topless mermaids, the statue titled “Triumph of Civic Virtues” is no stranger to controversy. According to DNA Info, Anthony Weiner, before is sexting naked pictures scandal, called the statue “sexist” claiming it didn’t represent virtue at all.

 

Civics and Urban Life

Bed-Stuy Man Injured in Aurora Movie Theater

Christopher Rapoza, who lives in Bed-Stuy, was inside the Aurora movie theater when gunfire erupted. He was grazed in the back by a bullet. Fortunately, he is expected to recover but twelve other theatergoers weren’t as fortunate. He used  Facebook to notify his friends that he’d been shot but that he was alright.

 

 

arts and culture

Anger and Grief About the Aurora Movie Theater Shooting

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I feel so sad for the twelve victims of the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting. I feel so sad for their families. Dozens more were injured in this horiffic crime perpetrated by a 24-year-old madman.

And I feel so angry. A dark room where people sit together in the great communal rite of movie watching is no place to worry about being gunned down. It is like having to fear that you will be murdered while you are dreaming.

Watching a film is, in a way, a sacred and shared cultural experience. I think of it as a neutural zone where you can trust that people will not act in inappropriate ways. To fear that someone might decide to shoot moviegoers is just so hideous and random.

I am angry because I had to tell my 15-year-old daughter about this violence because it was on the car radio. She was planning to attend The Dark Night Rises this weekend. She’s been watching The Dark Knight (with Heath Ledger as The Joker) in preparation.

I am angry because there are people in America, who are capable of this kind of random violence.

I am angry because we don’t have better gun control laws.

I am angry because something so pleasurable has been tainted by violence. Once again.

 

Civics and Urban Life

Park Slope’s Brad Lander Called Social Justice Hero by The Nation

An article by Peter Dreier in the July 30-August 6, 2012 edition of the Nation calls Park Slope’s City Councilmember Brad Lander one of today’s social justice heroes. Here’s an excerpt

“Since his election to the New York City Council in 2009, Brad Lander has become a master at inside/outside organizing, using his office to encourage grassroots mobilization. Lander served for a decade as executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, a Brooklyn nonprofit, which garnered national recognition for its combination of community organizing and community development. Lander then spent six years as director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, helping groups organize for neighborhood improvement. He led a successful campaign to create New York City’s inclusionary zoning program, which requires developers to set aside 20 percent of their units for low- and moderate-income families and to pay building service workers a living wage.

“On the council Lander has led the fight for a living-wage law, community involvement in budgeting, affordable housing and an inspector general’s office to monitor the NYPD. A co-founder of the council’s progressive caucus, Lander, 43, helped catalyze a group of activists and academics to formulate One City/ One Future, a progressive manifesto for economic development.”

Who else is on this list. Dunno. Don’t have access to The Nation online. Pay Wall!

 

Civics and Urban Life

Annual State of Coney Island Address by Dick Zigun

You’ve heard of the State of the Union, the annual address by POTUS; the State of the State, an address by governors; the State of the City, the state of the borough…

On Thursday, July 26, Dick Zigun, considered the unoffical Mayor of Coney Island, will deliver his annual State of Coney Island Address, his annual wisecracking about the 2012 state of affairs at America’s Playground.

Part performance-art, part playful people’s politics, Zigun’s annual address is known for self promotional humor, as well as real insights into behind the scenes affairs at the poor man’s Riviera.

Zigun’s State of Coney Island Address will be delivered live, at the Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn, NY on THURSDAY, JULY 26, 7:30PM. The General Public is welcome to attend for $5 (absolutely FREE FOR CONEY ISLAND USA MEMBERS). A brief Question and Answer session will take place immediately after the speech.

 

Civics and Urban Life

Good News From the MTA for Brooklyn

Today the MTA announced that they’re spending $29 million to restore some service lost to budget cuts last year, and even some new bus lines.

Back in 2009, the MTA cried poverty and eliminated certain bus routes in an effort to balance the 2009-2010 budget (at the expense of its customers, I might add).

Today they’ve restored many of those eliminated bus lines and announced some brand new bus lines in places that never had buses before. One of these routes goes from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to Greenpoint along the East River waterfront.

Red Hook, the neighborhood most underserved by public transportation, also got new bus service, which is very good news.

A cynic might say that the MTA did the good deed to sweeten the fact that they’re planning to raise fares next year. But the adding back and expansion of services is good news since much of it is happening in Brooklyn.

They also say that there has been an uptick in the number of riders on public transportation. All of these improvements will be phased in over the course of a year beginning this coming October.

“You have my assurance that we are committed to the strongest, most efficiently operated transportation system we can provide to the region and promise you that we will make every effort to continue to make the kind of progress that makes these improvements possible,” says Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joseph J. Lhota who has been in service since November.

For specifics about the restoration and improvements go here.