Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn

Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn Has Moved

Guess what? OTBKB has moved. The address is: onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.com or otbkb.com. Can't wait for you to see the new place. Come on over.

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

OTBKB Film by Pops Corn: It's Complicated

OTBKB film critic Pops Corn begins the new year with a review of the Meryl Street/Alec Baldwin "comedy" It's Complicated. Read Pops' best of the decade and best of 2009 columns. His unusual lists provide great suggestions for your Netflix queue.

The storyline of a woman who falls back into an affair with her re-married ex-husband should provide plenty of comedic fodder.  The middle-aged love affair should have been refreshingly adult and the love triangle cast of Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin is irresistible. But It’s Complicated, the new movie from writer-director Nancy Meyers, is rarely funny, often childish and consistently sour with nearly every character being unlikeable.  On the surface, there’s really nothing to like.  So if you, like me, ignore the comments of critics and friends and decide to see it yourself, here’s a guidebook of subtext to ward against brain rot or thinking of your shopping list. 

1.    Characters You Can’t Like - Meyers’ chief concern seems to be to show her characters flaws and neuroses.  This may seem like a bold choice to make a picture about unlikeable people, but truthfully it seems that Meyers just went overboard in demonstrating the flaws and neuroses of the film’s inhabitants.  Based on the wall-to-wall music seemingly programmed by a Clear Channel robot, it’s obvious that the film is simultaneously trying to pander to its audience, so why is every character worse than the next?
2.    Women Don’t Know Their Own Bodies –One comedic conversation in which a gaggle of middle-aged women demonstrate their lack of female anatomy knowledge may send feminists and post-feminists running from the theater.
3.    Millenials Can’t Grow Up – The adult-age children of the Baldwin and Streep characters are unable to comprehend adult emotions (hey, it’s complicated).  Only John Krasinski, as the beau of one of the daughters possesses the emotional depth to comprehend the situation, clearly indicating that either divorce is impossibly hard on kids or that they were raised in a home where emotions are not to be explored.  In one disturbing scene the kids are so freaked at their parents’ relationship complexity that all three of them sleep in the same bed. 

George Will: A Blight Grows in Brooklyn

Nationally-syndicated columnist George Will takes aim at the absurd "blight" designation used to justify eminent domain abuse in Prospect Heights.

British forces routed George Washington's novice army in the Battle of Brooklyn, which was fought in fields and woods where today the battle of Prospect Heights is being fought. Americans' liberty is again under assault, but this time by overbearing American governments.

The fight involves an especially egregious example of today's eminent domain racket. The issue is a form of government theft that the Supreme Court encouraged with its worst decision of the last decade -- one that probably will be radically revised in this one.

The Atlantic Yards site, where 10 subway lines and one railway line converge, is the center of the bustling Prospect Heights neighborhood of mostly small businesses and middle-class residences. Its energy and gentrification are reasons why 22 acres of this area -- the World Trade Center site is only 16 acres -- are coveted by Bruce Ratner, a politically connected developer collaborating with the avaricious city and state governments.

 No Land Grab has an excerpt and a link to the actual column.

Today at 5PM: Amahl and The Night Visitors at St. Augustine's

A production of Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian Carlo Menottii will be performed today, January 3rd at 5 PM , at St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church in Park Slope (116 Sixth Avenue). Suggested donation: $20, $10 for students.

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

Sunday at 5 PM: Amahl and the Night Visitors at St. Augustine's

A production of Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian Carlo Menottii will be performed tomorrow, January 3rd, at St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church in Park Slope (116 Sixth Avenue). Suggested donation: $20, $10 for students.

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

The List: What To Do on New Year's Day

1. Bowery Poetry Club: Word and Performance Extravaganza, more than 150 poets and performers are scheduled to take the stage from 2 p.m. to midnight in what is always a day for New York to show off. There will also be a collection for Books Through Bars, who donate paperback books to prisoners, and for Urban
Pathways, who provide food and other services for the homeless. Bring paperback books and canned food.

2. Poetry Project at St. Marks Church 36th Annual Poetry Marathon starts at 2 PM.

3. Brief Encounter, acclaimed multi-media piece based on David Lean's film at St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO at 8 PM.

4. The Last Days of the Myrtle Avenue El, photos from 1969 at the Transit Museum.

5. At Barbes the Quavers coax a luminous sound out of decayed samplers, walkmans, vibraphone, low-tech loopers, tape-echo violin and homespun harmonies. Like a space-age Carter Family, they weave grainy electronics around songs sturdy enough to stand up even if the power goes out. 8 PM

6. Who Shot Rock & Roll exhibition of rock photography at the Brooklyn Museum

7. 2009 in Review at the Bell House with Pub Trivia, Dick's Sudden Death Game Show and The Family Feud. That's right a regular game show triathlon. Teams will be made up of 3-5 players. Combined scores of all three challenges will decide the winning team at 6:30 PM.

The Current Weather in Park Slope

Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.

OTBKB Music Video: Steve Wynn and The Miracle 3 - Death Valley Rain

We'll start this new decade with a glace back at the old one.  Here's a song from the Best of The Decade album Here Come the Miracles performed by Steve Wynn and The Miracle 3.

 --Eliot Wagner