Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

9th Annual Jingle Bell Jamboree: A New Brooklyn Family Tradition at Old First

  With support from the Park Slope Parents, Park Slope Civic Council and The Old First Reformed Church, The 9th Annual Jingle Bell Jamboree concert on Saturday night, Dec. 19, at 7 PM, will feature performances from an impressive line-up of Brooklyn-based performing ensembles including: The MS 51 Show Choir, The ‘Old First’ Family String Band, Paradizo Dance, The Berkeley Carroll Rock and Soul Review, “Life Lines” Community Arts of Sunset Park, and the Brooklyn Community Chorus. 

In addition, Jingle Bell Jamboree founder and producer, Ethan Schlesser and Rev. Daniel Meeter host and leads a festive sing-a-long throughout the show.

Schlesser originally created as a way to bring healing after the 9/11 tragedy. He continues to produce the event with the support of the Brooklyn community, including Borough President, Marty Markowitz.  In addition, Marlene Clary, director of the Brooklyn Community Chorus donates her time to help make the event a success, the Berkeley Carroll school offers their choral risers, and The Civic Council helps defray the costs of the promotional materials and programs.  This year, Park Slope Parents is joining in and  promoting a ‘winter coat’ drive, collecting coats which will be donated to local shelters.

There is a  $5 -$10 (children/adult) suggested donation. 100% of the proceeds goes towards the minimal expenses of the production and to the non-profit arts organizations that provide services to our community.  Schlesser, who donates all his time and energy adds, “Take a break from the holiday stress and wander into ‘Old First’. It’s a fun way to spend an evening and join in the holiday spirit”. 

Date: Saturday, Dec. 19th @ 7:00 PM.  

Location: Old First Reformed Church is located on 7th Ave and Carroll St  (729 Carroll) in Park Slope.  

Info: For more information please contact:  (917) 514-4591 or Eon88keys@yaho

Dec 9: Another "Meatup" at The Bell House with FIPS and Brooklyn Based

They're doing it again! This time Brooklyn Based and FIPS are throwing a holiday "office" party next Wednesday, Dec. 9 at the Bell House. Left is pix of their last "meatup" which was, apparently, quite a big, fun bash with 600 attendees. They're doing the wet t-shirt contest for men and women again, as well as a Hottest Employee of the Year competition.

You can buy a ticket in advance (here) that will guarantee two things organizers say: "you’ll save $3, enough for one more Busch, and you’ll allow us more time to do some expert matchmaking in advance."

A New Nutcracker for Brooklyn at BAM in 2010

The New York Times' reports that a production of The Nutcracker by choreographer Alexei Ratmansky for American Ballet Theater is slated for BAM in 2010.  Producers hope the Brooklyn production will be a hearty competitor to New York City Ballet's canonic annual production of the Balanchine classic at Lincoln Center, quite a schlep for Brooklynites.

The new version will be performed just days after Mark Morris' The Hard Nut, a more adult version that has graced BAM's stage before.

This should all make for quite a nutty—and fun—holiday season over at BAM, Brooklyn's capital of culture:

From the New York Times:

"The Brooklyn Academy has promised Ballet Theater a five-year run, starting with two weeks and growing to four. That will give the company something it has never had: a permanent home for a holiday “Nutcracker.” Since 1993 it has taken a version by Kevin McKenzie, its artistic director, on tour and staged it several times in New York but only in the spring. The Brooklyn Academy then will be able to present a fixed run of shows around the holidays, something that has proved elusive.

"The show will also give Ballet Theater a critical source of income. A holiday run of “The Nutcracker” is generally the financial foundation of an American dance company and an important introduction to the art form for children, the ticket buyers of the future. Ballet Theater’s touring “Nutcracker” usually runs a shortfall of up to several hundred thousand dollars, said Rachel S. Moore, the company’s executive director."

Lynn Harris on Salon.com: Contempt for Moms

Journalist Lynn Harris has an interesting article on Salon.com called Everybody Hates Mommy: We're "stroller Nazis." We're whiny "breeders." Why is there so much contempt for mothers these days?

"When I heard about Maclaren's recent recall of one kabillion strollers, I assumed Gawker.com was playing an elaborate prank on Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood. After all, the online snarkosphere has made urban blood sport of mocking the Slope's (exaggerated) reputation as New York's -- if not the planet's -- epicenter of über-coddled children with aggro-attachment parents plowing their pricey, bulky baby buggies along the sidewalks like tricked-out cattle prods.

"Thing is, that derision is not only about Park Slope, and it's not only about strollers, which have somehow become synecdoche for the perceived ills of indulgent parenting everywhere. And it's not only about "parenting," either. No, I am telling you, it's about mothers. (White mothers, generally, and usually urban ones -- if in part because they're out and about on sidewalks and subways, not cloistered in carpools and playrooms.) You know them, or at least their epithets: "Stroller moms," the "stroller mafia," the particularly objectionable "stroller Nazis" -- and while we're at it, the "helicopter moms" and "sanctimommies." Along with the area blogs, the New York Times got in on the Maclaren fun with a silly shark-bait story on the allegedly "palpable sense of anxiety" the recall had wrought on the "hyper-conscientious" Slope. Standard online comment: "If the typical 'Slope Mummy' was not so hell-bent to get to her pilates classes, yoga classes, or whole foods market to pick up her 'fair trade, organic food items,' perhaps she would not be so careless as to fold 'Johnny's finger tips' into the hinge mechanism and amputate them.""

--Lynn Harris

Dec 1 at 7 PM: World AIDS Day at St. Augustine's Church in Park Slope

    

An Interfaith Memorial Service at  St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church on World AIDS Day starting at 7 PM. 116 Sixth Avenue in Park Slope.

--Preparation Series, an exhibition of paintings by artist and educator, Maureen Mullen (see paintings above).

--Talks by Pastor Daniel Meeter (of Old First Dutch Reformed Church) and Sister Citarella (of the Gay & Lesbian Ministry of St. Francis Xavier Church in Manhattan).

--Music by NYC Outloud

Meet the Editor of 100 New York Photographers at the Community Bookstore

Meet Cynthia Maris Dantzic,  editor of 100 New York Photographers at a book launch and signing at the Community Bookstore on Wednesday, December 2 at 7 PM. A smattering of the photographers featured in the book will also be present.

Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Litigation, Slope Overdrive, Afreud

LITIGATION NATION

The number of lawyers

Confounds all belief

In the land of the fee

And the home of the brief.


  SLOPE OVERDRIVE

I couldn't write

--Why was it a shock?--

Until I moved

From a writers' block.


 BE NOT AFREUD

Please do not gasp

And do not moan--

Man does not live

By dread alone.

OTBKB Music: A Look at the First Half of December

I recognize that some of you out there need to plan things in advance.  Therefore, I've put together a bunch of suggestions for the first half of December.  Get your calendars out.

Tuesday Dec 1: Adam Levy: formerly guitarist with Norah Jones releases his new CD, Humdinger.  The Living Room, 154 Ludlow Street, (F Train to Second Avenue, use the First Avenue exit), 10pm, $10

Thursday Dec. 3: Emily Zuzik plays at the Green Edge NYC 3rd Birthday Bash; Littlefield, 622 Degraw St (between 3rd and 4th Avenue), 7:30 doors (first hour includes an open organic vodka bar), $20

Friday Dec. 4: Elliott Murphy: originally from Long Island, Elliott moved to France 20 years ago.  He's started to show up on these shores about twice a year now with his band, the Normandy All Stars.  The Living Room, 154 Ludlow Street, (F Train to Second Avenue, use the First Avenue exit), 7pm, $20

Saturday Dec. 5: Harper Blynn (formerly Pete and J): high energy pop rock. The Rockwood Music Hall, 196 Allen Street (F Train to Second Avenue, use the First Avenue exit), 10 pm

Sunday Dec. 6: Emily Zuzik plays her Christmas show at The Living Room, 154 Ludlow Street, (F Train to Second Avenue, use the First Avenue exit), 8 pm

Tuesday Dec. 8: Book Release party for I Slept with Joey Ramone by Mikey Leigh (Joey's brother) and Legs McNeil; music by Spanking Charlene (see below) and Mickey Leigh.  Goodbye Blue Monday, 1087 Broadway (J Train to Kosciusko St.), 7:30pm

Saturday Dec 12: Spanking Charlene. I keep missing this band, but friends like them and they won the Little Steven Underground Garage Best Unsigned Band contest and that's good enough a recommendation for me.  Lakeside Lounge, Avenue B and 10th Street, 9:30 (F Train to 14th Street, transfer to either the 14A or 14D bus, exit at 10th Street (14A) or 11th Street (14D) and walk to Avenue B), 11pm, No Cover

Sunday Dec. 13: Keren Ann.  I'm not sure if this is will be an intimate acoustic show or a rocking band show, but either will be worth your while.  City Winery, 155 Varick St. (between Spring and Vandam Streets), 1 Train to Houston Street or Canal Street; C or E Trains to Spring Street, doors 8:15, show, 9pm $15

Monday Dec. 14:  Chip Taylor’s “Yonkers NY” featuring Kendel Carson w/ special guest Jon Voight.  Chip Taylor, the writer of a whole bunch of songs you'd recognize (including Wild Thing and Angel of the Morning), grew up in Yonkers.  So did his brother, Jon Voight.  Should be interesting at the very least.  The Living Room, 154 Ludlow Street, (F Train to Second Avenue, use the First Avenue exit), 8pm, $15

Tuesday Dec. 15: Songs of Bowie.  Another cast of thousands event with artists who play the Living Room, both obscure and more well known, sometimes even the downright famous.  This will run all night and so come for however long you can stay.  The Living Room, 154 Ludlow Street, (F Train to Second Avenue, use the First Avenue exit), times to be announced, $12

 --Eliot Wagner

Efrain Gonzalez: Bookstore Cat

Witness, Tom Martinez: Beatles-Like Stroll

A Park Slope family taking a Beatles-like stroll through the farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza. Pix by Tom Martinez. 

A Note From Doug Biviano: Brooklyn Bridge March for Peace Today

Remember Doug Biviano? He's the Brooklyn native who recently ran for City Council in the 33rd District.

Hello friends and especially those in the press,

I will be marching today World Peace Day at 1:00 PM from Borough Hall, over the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall with Brooklyn for Peace, other peace groups from the region and an international peace team.

It is time NYC elected officials -- especially Mayor Bloomberg -- stand up, lead and tell President Obama that he escalates the war in Afghanistan at the peril of his own great cities like NYC.   And frankly, this wholesale bankrupting of our nation and our cities via endless war is exactly what Osama bin Laden ordered.

Juxtaposed alongside BILLION dollar budget cuts and layoffs of untold New Yorkers announced by Mayor Bloomberg after the election, President Obama plans to expand the war and the war budget.  It is estimated that each troop in combat abroad costs approximately $1 MILLION per year.  The price tag for the planned escalation of 30,000 to 35,000 troops translates to another $35 BILLION of our taxes robbed each year from infrastructure, services and jobs in NYC and cities all over this nation.  These TENS OF BILLIONS will be on top of the existing military/war budget that is fast approaching $1 TRILLION per year, a mind boggling amount that our cities lose out.  Remember, the war budget is the only budget that keeps going up even in this recession.

Let's give the press something other than shopping to talk about. 

It's time cities start kicking Washington politicians around instead of playing patty cakes with them.  Washington needs to start listening to cities and it's citizens instead of politicizing generals.  Washington will only listen if we force them to by starting the conversation of the real cost of war both morally and economically, keep on pressing and vote them out one war enabler at a time.  Local elected officials need to make the connection of war and keep repeating it.  Presidents will bow to cities much the same way they do to generals if cities frame the problem correctly and join together.

Doug Biviano
Brooklyn Heights
http://bivforbrooklyn.com

P.S.  I doubt Osama bin Laden is anywhere near where our generals think he is nor can they guarantee any meaningful or specific results with this escalation.

Feast: Writers on Food at Brooklyn Reading Works on Dec 10 at 8 PM

Brooklyn Reading Works presents FEAST: Savory Syllables on Sustenance/Writers on Food curated by Michele Madigan Somerville with writers Peter Capatano, Greg Fuchs, Ame Gilbert, Nancy Garfinkel and Andrea Israel, Alexander Nazaryan, Sophia Romero and Michele Madigan Somerville.

A benefit for Helping Hands Food Pantry at St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church in Park Slope.

December 10, 2009 at 8 PM
The Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue and Third Street
$10 Suggested donation (but give what you can).

Starts Wed: Learn Blogging with OTBKB at BAX

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! Wednesdays  |  December 2 – December 16  |  7:00 – 9:00pm

Click here for more information. $45 for the workshop (no drop-ins)

Learn how to blog with Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, in a hands-on workshop covering technical, creative and conceptual issues. In this class we will discuss blog design, how to write a great blog post, top-ten tips for new bloggers, search engine optimization, social networking platforms and more.

You don’t need to know a thing about blogging. All you need is the desire to blog!

Louise Crawford runs Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and is the Smartmom columnist for the Brooklyn Paper. She produces the annual Brooklyn Blogfest and Brooklyn Reading Works, a monthly literary reading series at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. As a freelance writer her work has appeared in Newsweek, the Associated Press and BKLYN Magazine. She has taught How to Blog workshops at BAX, Adelphi University, Baruch College and at Writersat-the-Beach in Rehoboth, Delaware.

Dec 3: Snowflake Celebration on Seventh Avenue

The 3rd Annual Snowflake Celebration begins this week! The first two Thursday evenings in December, Park Slope businesses will light up with special sales and festivities like a [insert holiday-themed light-up icon of your choice], all in the spirit of getting holiday shoppers to spend more of their gift-dollars locally.  

Our website, www.buyinbrooklyn.com, has a list of participants (and their enticements), hard copies of which will be available at all Snowflake Celebrating businesses.  Highlights include:

    Free childcare at Juguemos Spanish Institute from 5:30-8!

    Free wine and snacks, and a food drive at 4PlayBK!

    20% off all merchandise and free gift-wrapping lessons every half-hour at Lion in the Sun!

    15% storewide discount on women's clothing, and a free raffle on a women's custom design outfit of the winner's choice (have to choose from the collection) at My Passion Fashion Designs!

    Some of Brooklyn's finest mobile food vendors (aka “gourmet trucks”) will make a special appearance in the Slope!

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

Dec 6: Every Single Beatles Song on Ukulele

This Williamsburg show sounds like a hot ticket: 13 hours of every Beatles song on ukulele with special guests!

Roger And Dave Present
The 2nd Annual Beatles Complete On Ukulele Festival
A Benefit For Yoko Ono

Roger Greenawalt will perform all 185 original Beatles songs in one day on ukulele with over 60 guest singers, 80 guest musicians, and 16 Yoko Impersonators...

On Sunday December 6th, 2009
from 11 AM till Midnight at...

Brooklyn Bowl
61 Wythe Avenue
between N. 11th & 12th streets Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

Efrain Gonzalez: Come Inside For The Message

Sunday: Debutante Hour at Jalopy

8 PM on Sunday night at Jalopy in Red Hook.

Thumbs Up For Buttermilk Channel

High marks for our dinner tonight at Buttermilk Channel, a popular and attractive Carroll Gardens restaurant with delicious food and excellent service.

For appetizers my sister and Hepcat shared oysters while my stepmother and I shared the fresh and delicious Autumn Salad with arugula, pomegranite seeds and walnuts.

For entrees, my step mom and bro-in-law enjoyed the  Rhode Island scallops (really big scallops); I had the delicious duck meatloaf, which came with yummy creamy parsnips, duck jus and an amazing onion ring (which I shared with everyone).

Hepcat was pleased but not thrilled with the short rib stew, which is the Saturday night special and my sister had steak, which she was very quiet about and that usually means she's enjoying her dish and not sharing.

Reading the Times' review it sounds like we should have ordered the Pecan Pie Sundae for dessert. Instead we shared the bread pudding which I thought was amazing (the Times' panned it).  About the sundae, Frank Bruni raves:

It’s audaciously true to its name, a treat that might have been invented by a toddler who smashed up his slice of pie and stuffed it into a tall glass with butter pecan ice cream.

If that sounds haphazard and heedless, rest assured that the ice cream is local, from Brooklyn’s own Blue Marble. Buttermilk Channel has its pride, after all.

Smartmom Gets Her Couch

As Smartmom sat on the Townsend couch in Room & Board’s second-floor showroom waiting for Hepcat to arrive she had to laugh. How had this couch thing gotten so out of hand? Was it really worth fighting about? For that matter, what was it really about? Were they fighting about a piece of furniture or the state of their lives?

Hepcat was late as usual. But no matter, Smartmom was determined to enjoy what she hoped would be their final couch-shopping expedition.

While she waited, she wondered whether their couch drama had been a power struggle or an aesthetic disagreement. Was it really about form and function or the dysfunctionality of their 20-year marriage?

Good questions. Smartmom felt a pang of sadness. If the two long marrieds had such a hard time agreeing on a new piece of furniture, was there any hope for peace in the Middle East or the health care bill?

Sitting on the soft chenille of the Townsend, she realized what a turbulent river she and Hepcat had crossed to get to the point where they could agree to pay the $1,399, plus tax and shipping, for a new couch to replace the 18-year-old Ikea divan that Hepcat loves.

When her hubby finally arrived, he and Smartmom walked around the store and revisited some of the other couches they had considered: there was the Andre, the Anson, the Metro and the York.

It didn’t take long for them both to agree that the Townsend was the one. It was comfortable, soft and easy on the eyes.

Then they got a phone call from the Oh So Feisty One saying that she was locked out of the apartment.

“We’ll be home in a half hour,” Smartmom told her. Sadly their shopping trip was cut short.

“So should we buy it?” Smartmom asked nervously.

"Let's pay for it," Hepcat said.

"Are you sure," Smartmom asked.

“Yup, yup, yup,” Hepcat said — it’s what he always says when he wants to sound agreeable.

Smartmom knew it was time to make a decision. She knew it was time to let go of this disagreement and move on. Hand in hand (or was it only Smartmom’s imagination?), they walked over to a sales associate, paid for the couch and scheduled its delivery for exactly one week from that day.

What a strange feeling to have finally made a decision. The couch dilemma was over. What an accomplishment: PROGRESS.

When they got home, they told OSFO and Teen Spirit the good news.

“So these are the last days of the couch?” Teen Spirit said dispiritedly.

“Why do we have to get a new couch?” OSFO whined.

“I protest the removal of our couch,” Teen Spirit said and walked into his room.

Smartmom hoped they’d eventually adjust to the new couch. But there was an even more pressing matter to attend to. Smartmom e-mailed her friend Brooke Dramer — who had earlier expressed an interest in buying (believe it or not) the ratty old couch — and asked what she’d be willing to pay.

“What’s it worth to us?” she wrote back in an e-mail. “Well, let’s get together soon so we can look at (and measure) the Green Couch. It would be especially fun if Dave and I could sit on it with Hepcat and discuss how proud we are to be part of the .81 percent that voted for the Rev. Billy for mayor.”

“We’re thinking $300,” Smartmom replied. But Brooke wanted a measurement before committing.

“It’s 88 inches wide and 37 inches deep. Can you come see it before Saturday?”

“Oh, no! Eighty-eight inches is too big to fit with our furniture!” she wrote back. “Alas, the Saga of the Couch ends not with a bang, but a whimper. I would never stoop so low as to throw you a headline like ‘Size does matter.’ But in this case, I need eight inches. Before you say, ‘Who doesn’t?’ let me explain. The couch has to fit between an end table and an antique trunk — a space of less than 80 inches.”

So for the first time, a woman was complaining about something being eight inches longer than she wanted.

Smartmom didn’t understand why they couldn’t just move the end table and the antique trunk. But who was she to question the strange calculus of any relationship?

Smartmom was glum. It wasn’t going to be quite so easy to sell their green leather couch. Maybe they’d have to give it away. Or leave it on the street. In less than 24 hours, their new couch would arrive from Room & Board.

Smartmom was stressing. How would it look? Would it be comfortable? At 92 inches, would it be too big for their own truncated living room?

And what would Teen Spirit and OSFO think?

Tune in next week …

Efrain Gonzalez: Open Water Under Red Light

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

The Brooklyn Public Library: 1-Stop Shopping for Frugal Brooklynites!

From Brooklyn Frugal Examiner:

If you are trying to trim the fat on your spending, the Brooklyn Public Library can be your new BFF. "Ever since the official beginning of...
Keep Reading »

Office Hours at Slope Cafes

From Leon Freilich, Verse Responder:

Two Slopers are part of what the Times Op-Ed page calls the laptop brigade.

Architect Bobb Jadhav at Tea Lounge and investment banker
Ruthie McCombs at the 7th Ave. Barnes & Noble keep regular
office hours at their chosen home-away-from-workplace
tables. Both are unemployed.

Smaller cafes, however, are fighting for their economic lives by
Un-Wi-Fi-ing, covering electric outlets & posting no-lunchtime-
computing signs. 

And so it goes, down with cups of  jobless java.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/27/opinion/28opart.html

We're Eating at Buttermilk Channel Tonight

Buttermilk Channel is a newish Carroll Gardens restaurant on that stretch of Court Street not far from the Smith and 9th Street F-train station. 524 Court Street (Huntington Street), Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn; (718) 852-8490

Their website explains that the original Buttermilk Channel is the mile-long tidal strait between Brooklyn and Governor's Island. Walt Whitman wrote in the Brooklyn Eagle that farmers would walk their cows across there during low tide so the cows could graze on the Island's abundant grass.

The owner is CIA-trained chef Doug Crowell, a native New Yorker, who formerly managed Blue Fin and Blue Water Grill in Manhattan. Chef Ryan Angulo is a Rhode Island native, who was the Chef De Cuisine at the Stanton Social Club on the Lower East Side. 

The menu includes lots of tasty-sounding items with an emphasis on oysters and sausages, but also entrees like Warm Lamb and Romaine Salad, Caputo's Fresh Linguini, Bacon Wrapped Brook Trout, Rhode Island Day Boat Scallops, Duck Meatloaf, Fried Chicken...

Need I go on?

It's hard to imagine being hungry tonight. But it's the birthday of a special someone and we will CELEBRATE!

Interfaith Memorial Service on World AIDs Day at Park Slope Catholic Church

 



An Interfaith Memorial Service at  St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church on World AIDS Day starting at 7 PM. 116 Sixth Avenue in Park Slope.

--Preparation Series, an exhibition of paintings by artist and educator, Maureen Mullen (see paintings above).

--Talks by Pastor Daniel Meeter (of Old First Dutch Reformed Church) and Sister Citarella (of the Gay & Lesbian Ministry of St. Francis Xavier Church in Manhattan).

--Music by NYC Outloud

Learn Blogging with OTBKB at BAX: Starts Dec 2!

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! Wednesdays  |  December 2 – December 16  |  7:00 – 9:00pm

$45 for the workshop (no drop-ins)

Learn how to blog with Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, in a hands-on workshop covering technical, creative and conceptual issues. In this class we will discuss blog design, how to write a great blog post, top-ten tips for new bloggers, search engine optimization, social networking platforms and more.

You don’t need to know a thing about blogging. All you need is the desire to blog!

Louise Crawford runs Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and is the Smartmom columnist for the Brooklyn Paper. She produces the annual Brooklyn Blogfest and Brooklyn Reading Works, a monthly literary reading series at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. As a freelance writer her work has appeared in Newsweek, the Associated Press and BKLYN Magazine. She has taught How to Blog workshops at BAX, Adelphi University, Baruch College and at Writersat-the-Beach in Rehobeth, Delaware.

Laytner's Linens Now Open on Union Street in Park Slope

   Pix by Caroline Ghertler


 

Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Whole Mess in One

  WHOLE MESS IN ONE

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,
Wife unhinged throughout the night,
Scratched his face and left a scar,
Took a golf club to his car.

Blondes are funny in their way,
Fail to understand man's play;
Next time, Tiger, if you stray,
Make it on the links fairway.

Drop the golfing lessons too,
She may putt you to Peru;
Stay away from swingers' bar--
Wives consider that sub-par.
 

The Weekend List: Laytner's Linens, Scenes from a Marriage, Lit by Mary Karr

SHOPPING: The (Makers) Market at the (Old) American Can Factory on Sundays 11 AM until 6 PM.  From Yelp: "The Market at The Old American Can Factory, Brooklyn's first ongoing Maker's Market, goes far beyond DIY.  Here, the fruits of cultural and intellectual productivity go directly from the hands of creative Makers into the hands of shoppers.  But it's not only about shopping--it's about reinvestigating our connection to how things are made."

Brooklyn Indie Market: Saturday and Sunday on Smith Street and Union Street in Carroll Gardens. Brooklyn Indie Market is a collective of fashion and product designers, who provide a connection between emerging designers and consumers, retail buyers, stylists, personal shoppers and the press. "Our aim is to connect one another and the greater NYC public to our traveling markets, fashion events, showcases, workshops and more in and around the New York area. We also welcome non-New York area designers who are interested in our mission."

Laytner's Linens opens on Union Street west of Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. Just up the Slope from the PS Food Coop.

MUSIC: Saturday at the Bell House: 6 PM All Ages show with Banzai, Starscream, No One and the Somebodies, Hermit Thrushes, and Funky See, Funky Do.

MOVIES: Fantastic Mr. Fox at the Pavilion, Precious at the Pavilion and BAM, Scenes from a Marriage, Ingmar Bergman's television masterpiece at BAM Sun, Nov 29 at 2, 5:30, 9 PM.

THEATER: Streetcar Named Desire directed by Liv Ullman with Cate Blanchett. Nov 27—Dec 20 at BAM.

BOOKS: Lit by Mary Karr; Mill on the Floss by George Eliiot; Raymond Carver: A Writers Life by Carol Skelnicka all at the Community Bookstore. 

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

Dec 1: Daniel Smith Plays BeBop Bassoon

Jazz Bassoon with Park Slope's Daniel Smith at Puppets Jazz Bar
            481 5th Ave. (bet. 11th and 12th streets)
            Park Slope, Brooklyn, 11215
            718-499-2622
            www.puppetsjazz.com
            sets are on Wednesday, December 1:
                                       9 PM
                                       10:30 PM
                                       12:00 PM

$10 cover charge and a 2-drink minimum (well worth it!)

Miracle Grill is Closing on Sunday

I just heard from a very reliable source that Miracle Grill, the Tex-Mex restaurant on Seventh Avenue and 3rd Street, will be closing. Sunday is their last day. My source was  told by an employee at the restaurant.

The original Miracle Grill opened back in the late 1980's on First Avenue in the East Village. Their first chef was Bobby  Flay, who later became a celebrity chef with his own upscale restaurants like Mesa Grill and Bolo. The first Miracle Grill restaurant was considered by New York Magazine to be "one of the city's pioneers of Southwestern cuisine."

Indeed, I remember loving the cozy Southwestern comfort and style of this eatery with its huge garden that was perfect for outdoor brunches and candlelit dinners.

I remember celebrating a friend's birthday there numerous times and lovely brunches with friends and family.

A restaurant on Bleecker Street in the West Village followed.  I was quite excited when they decided to open in Park Slope, right on our corner. While we were not regulars, I enjoyed Margaritas on the deck, their Southwestern salad and quesadillas. 

The Park Slope branch was the last remaining branch of the well-liked restaurant. A few years ago they were winners of the Greenest Block in Brooklyn Award in the commercial category. Just look at the picture of their well-tended deck garden!

DIVAS For Social Justice Robbed!

DIVAS (Digital, Interactive, Visual Arts & Sciences) for Social Justice is a grassroots community organization that wants to help bridge digital divide by combining media literacy, cultural awareness and an understanding of technology to encourage young women of color to pursue careers in computer science and new media.

Next week they're sponsoring a lecture/benefit called “Imagery & Its Power" with Marcia Harris, who will talk about the original use of the N-word in its historical context using visuals, DVDs, and a PowerPoint presentation to engage youth and adults in an open, honest, and historically revealing interactive discussion.
facebook event invite

But earlier this week I got this email with unfortunate news:

I really need your help. I went to our office today and we had been robbed! I am so broken-hearted. All of our equipment was stolen. Donated and bought 5 iMac computers, 2 digital SLR cameras, DVD players,microphone kit, memory cards and an Epson printer.

Everything we used to train our girls on. When you sent out your email we got such a huge response. Please can you help us again?

More reason to come to  their benefit on December 1 at 6:30 PM:

DIVAS for Social Justice
Magnolia Tree Earth Center
677 Layfayette Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11216
Admission: $10 donation.

Learn How To Blog With OTBKB: Starts Dec 2 at BAX

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! Wednesdays  |  December 2 – December 16  |  7:00 – 9:00pm

$45 for the workshop (no drop-ins)

Learn how to blog with Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, in a hands-on workshop covering technical, creative and conceptual issues. In this class we will discuss blog design, how to write a great blog post, top-ten tips for new bloggers, search engine optimization, social networking platforms and more.

You don’t need to know a thing about blogging. All you need is the desire to blog!

Louise Crawford runs Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and is the Smartmom columnist for the Brooklyn Paper. She produces the annual Brooklyn Blogfest and Brooklyn Reading Works, a monthly literary reading series at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. As a freelance writer her work has appeared in Newsweek, the Associated Press and BKLYN Magazine. She has taught How to Blog workshops at BAX, Adelphi University, Baruch College and at Writersat-the-Beach in Rehobeth, Delaware.

Tom Martinez, Witness: Kids at the Turkey Trot

 

Tom Martinez, Witness: Prospect Park Turkey Trot Start

 

OTBKB Music: It's Black Friday: Profit First, Prophet Later

It's Black Friday and I have another freebie for you: Amazon is giving out $3 worth of mp3 downloads for free.  Just go here and follow the directions.

After you've profited from that deal, get ready to check out Chuck Prophet and The Mission Express tonight at 92Y Tribeca.  The last time I saw Chuck and company, I was packed into the basement of a tiny club located off a back alley in Austin, Texas.  Tonight's environs are much more comfortable than that.  Chuck plays soul tinged rock with blistering guitar solos.  Since he's based in San Francisco, he gets to our area only every couple of years, so don't miss this opportunity to see one of the best live acts in the business.  Still not sure?  Check out the video I posted previously.  Eilen Jewell opens.

Chuck Prophet and The Mission Express, 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street (A, C or E Train to Canal Street, exit via the northern end of the station and walk west on Canal Street to Hudson Street), 7pm doors, 8pm show, $20

 --Eliot Wagner

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

Louis Rosen and Capathia Jenkins: The Ever Evolving Duo at Joe's Pub

I've been following the work of Louis Rosen and Capathia Jenkins since 2005 when I first went to hear them at Joe's Pub. Back then they were performing songs by Rosen set to the poems of Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes. It was an exhilarating performance of indescribably beautiful and soulful art songs that tapped into classical, blues, gospel and jazz influences.

A year or so later they released Southside Stories, a song cycle about a white boy and a black girl growing up in a Chicago neighborhood in transition in the 1970's. The album gave Capathia the chance to do funky and fun but also to breathe life into deeply felt songs about love, life and death. With his Randy Newman cadences, Louis' songs were highly personal and perceptively political.

The next year the ever-evolving duo came out with an An Ounce of Truth, an album of songs set to the poems of Nikki Giovonni a poet whose deceptively light verse was a near perfect fit for Louis' musical intensification. Her sexy, smart and incisive poetry came to life with Louis' melodies, rhythms and repetitions. In each song, he seemed to zero in on the sass and singular voice of each poem. With these songs, Capathia's range multiplied again into the realm of Nina Simone, Laura Nyro, Bossa Nova, and her own special gospel infused theatricality.

Which brings us to this year's The Ache of Possibility. I was pleased to see that the album and the shows at Joe's Pub were mentioned in the "Brilliant/Highbrow" quadrant of New York Magazine's Approval Matrix, which confirms that the duo are finally being recognized as the New York treasure that they are.

 This album, yet another iteration of their ever-growing sonic adventure, features, in addition to Louis and Capathia, the contributions of a group of stellar musicians used to great effect. Right from the top of the album (and the show at Joe's Pub), the large musical group gets into a funky, horn-filled groove that brings to mind an updated version of the Stax/Volt sessions of 1960s Songs like "The Ache of Possibility," "How You Gonna Save Them," and "Love in Short Supply", are soulful and smart and in some cases bigger than ever in their scope and ambition. I Want To Live To Love You would live happily on the radio right next to productions by a number of R&B divas. 

That said, many of the songs, with lyrics by Rosen and Giovonni, are a complex and narrative stew that pull a punch so powerful that all you can do is hoot and holler when Capathia and Louis reach each dramatic and carefully rendered conclusion.

At one of this year's shows, Nikki Giovonni joined the group on stage and read two poems, "The Telephone Poem" and "The Black Loom" (dedicated to Nina Simone) as a lead-in to the songs. It was fascinating to hear Giovonni's rhythms side-by-side with the songs, which are a tribute to and a powerful adaptation of her work.

Today's No Words Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford is a picture of Louis Rosen (left), Capathia Jenkins (middle), Nikki Giovonni (right).

OTBKB Film by Pops Corn: The Missing Person

The  same night I saw Precious I saw The Missing Person, a movie whose lack of publicity is the polar opposite of the Oprah-Tyler Perry machine behind Precious.  I was one of six lone men in the audience—the total audience—until a pair of women entered just as the theater went dark.  Their appearance surprised me until their opening credit cheer for editor Mollie Goldstein explained it.

Seeing The Missing Person right after Precious rendered it somewhat forgettable, but it is a solid indie noir update with more on its mind than just recalling Bogie.  The film follows a P.I. who takes a job tracking a man.  While on the trail, he puts together the puzzle of why they are both there. The shadow of 9/11, like WWII’s shadow over classic period noir, hangs over the film and ultimately it recalls Gone Baby Gone as the lead discovers that the right thing is murky, so you can’t always do it.

Michael Shannon plays the lead.  I could watch him in anything.  And when I looked back after his outstanding Oscar-nominated work in Revolutionary Road, I realized that I have seen him in everything over the years.  He sinks his teeth into the investigator role here.  Drained of color, the photography also turned me on to the film.  Some of the darkest images I’ve ever seen, not in tone nor production design.  Just actual light.  In one sequence, a close-up of Shannon hardly even picks up on the whites of his eyes.  It was a calculated risk and one that surely hurt distribution, but as me, five other loaners, the editor and her friend know, one worth checking out.

A Brooklyn Thanksgiving

If you're staying in Brooklyn for the holiday, then here are some ideas for Brooklyn-based things to do (and eat) from Kristin Goode of  Brooklyn About.com.  Enjoy!

Opens on Thanksgiving: Ice Skating in Prospect Park

Kate Wollman Rink in Prospect Park opens for the season on Thanksgiving Day, November 26 at 10:00 a.m. (weather permitting – call (718) 287-6431 to confirm)

Admission is:

• Adults: $5 (ages 15 and up)
• Children (14 and under) and Seniors: $3

Skate Rental: $6.50 (tax included)

Polenta with Cranberries for TG

Brooklyn Beat of Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn writes:

Along with the usual, traditional Thanksgiving Day Fare, tonite we were thinking of making  polenta with cranberries which we saw in the NY Times last week (101 holiday side dishes), and our new tradition (from last year, I just started it), of Yorkshire Pudding which is fun in an Angleterre sort of way.  I have friends who always celebrate Thanksgiving with a heavy-duty Italian theme (antipasta, pasta, etc.) laced through the turkey and trimmings, and, though it seems like an annual non sequitir, they actually do that for every holiday.  However, full disclosure, although we do the traditional T-Day stuff ourselves, my mom traditionally prepares a tray of baked ziti and a side of eggplant parm' for our more vegetarian-oriented family and guests, that is also served . Happily, this year, my college age daughter (back from her study-year in Europe) and son hit the supermarket yesterday and did a bunch of shopping, so tonite, it will be a glass of wine and the beginning of some relaxed food prep.

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

OTBKB Music: Download David Roche's Latest Album Free

Windsor Terrace's David Roche has a few gigs coming up next month including one right here in The Slope on Friday December 18th, 8pm at The Good Coffee House, Prospect Park West and 2nd Street.  In order to get you in the mood, Dave is making his last album, Harp Trouble in Heaven available FREE.

As Dave said, "I needed to make this record because I want to celebrate the huge amount of good fortune I have been the recipient of while running in this human race."  It is indeed an optimistic record.  Dave's family helped out on harmonies as well, including his daughter Oona and sisters Maggie, Terre and Suzy.  It's also probably the only record to have a song about the dedication of a ship named after President George H. W. Bush. 

Download Harp Trouble in Heaven for free here.

 --Eliot Wagner

Saute of Portabellas, Enokis, Beech & King Trumpets for TG!

From Brenda of Prospect: A Year in the Park:

"Funny you should ask. My teenage goddaughter has just developed a passion for mushrooms, so I went to Great Wall of China supermarket on Ft. Hamilton Parkway, where "gourmet" mushrooms (the $10/lb. kind) are apparently a staple to the Asian community and sell for $1.50 a package.

"Only in Brooklyn!

"I will be making a saute of portabellas, enokis, beech mushrooms, and stupendous-looking King Trumpets! (Oh, and lest I be mistaken for a vegan, turkey and all the fixin's...)

Have a happy!"

Tom Martinez, Witness: Through The Trees

Tom Martinez, Witness: Fahad Hashmi Vigil

 

Brooklyn College Professor Jeanne Theoharris speaking at the weekly vigil for Fahad Hashmi, a former Brooklyn College student who has been in solitary confinement for over two years without a trial (on charges of terrorism). 

He was finally given a court date of Dec. 2nd and there was a groundswell of support and organizing going on around that date. 

Last night the date was suddenly changed to January 6th with no explanation (advocates suspect an effort to thwart the strong show of support that had been building on Fahad's behalf).

Photo by Tom Martinez. Go here for more info about Fahad Hasmi.