POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE_Observer Piece About Brooklyn

My Warholian 15-minutes of fame have been going on for nearly an hour. Well, they started when I got an  e-mail from a friend around 8:00 this morning.

It’s always good to come off relatively snark free. Nice work! In a sign of the times, I didn’t actually get to read it in my New York Observer, which hasn’t arrived yet, but read the article on Park Slope Parents. Looking forward to seeing you in print!

It's 9:32 a.m. now and ticking...

Needless to say, I went to directly to  Park Slope Parents. I didn't pass Go, and certainly didn't collect $200 dollars to see what she was talking about and there it was. A post from a member of that local list-serve about the article in the Observer.

FYI. I wouldn't say that I am in agreement with all of the celebrity comments. But it's always interesting to see articles about Brooklyn - our hometown.

http://www.observer.com/printpage.asp?iid=11984
<http://www.observer.com/printpage.asp?iid=11984&ic=Observatory>

Seems that Mark Lotto's piece, for which I was interviewed, made it onto the front page of this week's New York Observer. The could-you-have-maybe-picked-a nicer-headline?  headline is: Welcome to Schnooklyn. The sub head goes: O Whitmanian Boro! Invaded by Brokeback Movie Stars and Weber Grills

Well, he certainly had a lot of fun with us. And that's no surprise. Anytime I get interviewed for these pieces about Brooklyn being the new this or the new that, I know it's not going to be pretty.

Actually, I knew I was in trouble when I got this e-mail from Mark Lotto:

I am a reporter at The New York Observer working on a story about the Great Migration of writers, filmmakers and other artistic-minded professionals to  It's not necessarily a new story, but I'm trying to understand when and how living in Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, etc. became not just a pragmatic or economic move, but a sign of adulthood -- or perhaps even a status symbol. If you have a moment, and if you're interested in weighing in...

 But I'm a sucker for conversations about Brooklyn. And I think it's good publicity for Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, too. So I wrote Lotto an extensive e-mail with my thoughts on Park Slope including the line:"Everyone calls it a college town without the college."

When we spoke a few weeks later, Lotto really glommed onto that line. "So what does that make celebrities, of which Park Slope has an excess?" he asked me over the phone (or something like that).

"If this is a college town, they're just like the star professor with the best-selling book," replied Ms. Crawford. Her metaphor-making suggests the volcanic rivers of envy and adulation flowing under all that Brooklyn cool.

I like the language, Mark. But volcanic rivers?

Sadly, my quotes in the article are mostly about the local celebs-it seems to be all anyone is interested in these days. I'm glad I said such nice things about Steve Buscemi. "We really cherish Steve Buscemi. He's the perfect Brooklyn celebrity because he's so unpretentious. He's a part of the community."

Yeah. I said that.

Interviews are so weird. You never know how you're going to come across. And my reading of my quotes will be different from your reading of my quotes. I'll infer my meaning into the way I read them and you won't be able to do that. I may come off as a jerk, but so be it. That's the cost of wanting to be interviewed by a reporter at the New York Observer.

I have to add that we had a really nice conversation and I think the piece is full of some solid ideas and good writing. Ya gotta love a guy who writes, "This hegira off the island into Brooklyn has been going on for years, but can no longer be understood simply as the search for cheap, mythically large apartments..."

Hegira: A flight to escape danger. The flight of Muhammed from Mecca to Medina in 622.

It's 10:10 a.m. now...tick, tick, tick...

You can read the rest of Lotto's piece in the Observer. That should extend my 15 minutes by hours even days....