Have you ever wondered about the little elementary school at the corner of Norman and Eckford Streets? Three fun facts you should know: it was formerly a hospital; it is the oldest continually operating elementary school in Brooklyn; and the first ever benefit for the art education at PS 34 The Art Party happens this coming Wednesday May 22, 2013 at 7pm at From The Source (69 West St).
The community is invited to this exclusive preview of our annual PS 34 art show that will feature live performances by Greenpoint-based artists The Hugh Pool Band, Jack O’Neill, and Shahla Atlas.
"Pointed Bushes, Versailles, 1993" Photogravure by David Armstrong
Come meet your neighbors, purchase amazing art, eat, drink, and dance in support of art education at PS 34 this Wednesday, May 22nd. Tickets at $40 and can be purchased at Cup at (79 Norman Ave), Greenpoint Toys (738 Manhattan Ave), or at the door.
This past Saturday that picturesque thoroughfare Manhattan Avenue was blocked by people double parking descended on by tiny-and-medium sized revelers representing for this year’s Town Square Halloween Parade. Marchers braved traffic to show off their costumes and take advantage of a great excuse to walk in the street. Two days later, Hurricane Sandy hit, but when this video was taken, we had no idea what lie ahead.
Greenpoint is the place to be on Halloween (and every other day)!
The warehouse space the size of Rhode Island that served as mothership for the Northside Festival was the perfect place to first experience TheHÜB.
A striking modern sculpture and interacting (as opposed to interactive) space where participants of [email protected] could take a seat, drink free beverages, ask each other a million questions, check out trending topics, or be accosted by a blogger in search of quotes, TheHÜB calls attention to a need we didn’t know we had: The need to look up from social media and speak directly to the people around us more often (even if they appear to not be very into it at first).
When those people around us are obsessed with the same things we are it isn’t hard. Peter Raymond, the organizer of TheHÜB, says about Northside, “What we did was host impromptu gatherings and after speaking engagements. It was received very well and we have been invited to as far as Jordan and Greece to exhibit.”
If an inventor could create a device that converts sheer brain power into energy, said device should be brought to the Northside Entrepreneurship Festival next year. That inventor would take away enough energy to send a spaceship to Mars and back. It’s a given that this spaceship would update it’s Sonar status from the red planet, and have it’s own veggie garden on board.
I’ve never been to South by Southwest, the annual festival in Austin, Texas. But this day of discussion around sustainable business ideas that encourage community is exactly what I’ve always thought it would be like. But after this one, I could travel home on foot and sleep in my own bed that night.
If the thought of Jell-O evokes images of an aisle in the supermarket or hospital cafeterias, Hello, Jell-O: 50+ Inventive Recipes for Gelatin Treats and Jiggly Sweets by Greenpointer Victoria Belanger is a super-stylish book of recipes that will make you question everything you know, at least when it comes to cool desserts that are shaped in molds and sometimes have fruit or marshmallows suspended in them.
Pick up this book and you will not only learn to do things you never thought possible with Jell-O, but you will find an extremely well-organized and cleverly-written cook book that will make a great gift for yourself or someone who knows their way around a kitchen. With lines like, “The rainbow mold is visually stunning, but requires so much patience that it would cause Tibetan monks to tear out their hair—if they had any,” I found myself paging through the book more than once after a long day, just to look at the gorgeous photos and forget about the stresses of life.
Victoria Berlanger will be signing books and serving Jell-O Wednesday, June 13th, at 7pm, at Word Books, 126 Franklin Street, Brooklyn.
I asked Berlanger a few questions about what it took to put this collection of recipes together:
This week I’ve spent my morning commute time on the B62 reading Michael Ian Black’s new memoir You’re Not Doing It Right and laughing out loud with impunity. You see, Black’s new book inspires this kind of public behavior. Thoughtful, incredibly honest, and hilarious all at the same time, you will most likely see yourself in many of the chapters with titles like “I Love You Two” (about taking the dive into your first big time committed relationship) and “F*** You, Alan Alda” (about questionable 1970s parenting practices). This sketch comedy artist, actor, pop culture commentator, and writer known for his deadpan delivery actually does have emotions, conflicting ones he explores with great humor.
I stopped in at Word Brooklyn this past Wednesday night where Black sat down with conservative blogger/Twitterer Meghan McCain (not a typo) to talk about this book and the one they are currently writing together, America, You Sexy Bitch. I asked Black a few questions before the event.
HWF: This is the kickoff for your book tour, right? MIB: Essentially, yes. I did a small thing last night in New Jersey, but I’m not counting it.
HWF: Why choose Word? MIB: My publicist picked it, I had nothing to do with it [Note to self: Writers with publicists don’t organize their own book tours]. But I wish I could take credit for it, it’s a lovely bookstore. I think she picked it because it’s just a good, indie bookstore.
HWF: Do you have a connection to Brooklyn? MIB: I’ve shot a lot in Greenpoint. I shot my series Stella here so I’ve spent a fair amount of time here.
Heidi: You’ve pulled off so many different things in your career — sketch comedy, acting, you’ve written books. Why title your newest book You’re Not Doing It Right? MIB: The book is less about my career, it has nothing to do with my career, and everything to do with my marriage, and being a father and feeling somewhat incompetent in those pursuits, and I don’t often recognize the person who is living the suburban life that I am living. I sort of envisioned myself living in some place like Greenpoint, and you know, having sex with hipster girls well into middle age, possibly until I’m elderly. In which case I would have sex with my caregiver. I did not imagine that I would be married now thirteen years, two kids, living in the suburbs, driving a BMW, and moreover, loving it. Loving that sort of yuppie lifestyle that I despised so when I was growing up.
Heidi: So in writing your book, what did you learn about how you ended up there? MIB: I learned that all the steps I’ve taken in my life in the personal realm have belied the image I had for myself as this bohemian nomad. I never was that even though I desperately wanted to be that. I envisioned myself as something other than what I really am, which is a kind of monogamous homebody. This process brought this to the fore, that I am the most conventional conservative domesticated person that I know. And it’s sort of nice to embrace that.
Heidi:There’s a chapter of your book called “I Hate My Baby”. Can you tell me about it? MIB: So yeah I hated my baby because he was colicky, and miserable, and consequently I was colicky and miserable as a result of his existence. I don’t know that I was emotionally prepared for fatherhood. I don’t know that anybody is emotionally prepared for parenthood. Particularly when it is so unpleasant right out of the gate. There are people who talk about their angelic babies and we didn’t have one of those. We had a nightmarish hellion. So for months it was just sleepless night after sleepless night, as he would just wail and bemoan his fate, and there was nothing we could do to alleviate that, and that thought “I hate my baby” was in my head ninety percent of the time.
Heidi: You reveal a lot in this book. Do you think it will change people’s perceptions of you going forward? MIB: I don’t know how other people will see me. It certainly will and has affected the work I’m interested in producing. At least right now. I find that mining my own shit is helpful creatively and it’s interesting to me not so much because I’m interested in myself, but because I think the lessons that are applicable to me are applicable to everybody. I think I can be illustrative of how to do that. Who knows. I still feel like most of the time, I’m not doing it right.
If you want to laugh during the work day follow Michael Ian Black on Twitter. Read more about him here.
I have friends who live on Freeman Street, and I’ve been there for all manner of reasons in the past, but last weekend was the first time I ever ventured there for an art-related event. The recently-opened arts and culture center Triple Canopy/Light Industry/Public School now occupies the new-looking building near the corner of Manhattan Avenue, and we raise our pint glasses in welcome to them.
The Per-Oskar Leu installation Crisis and Critique, presented by Triple Canopy, provides a space to reflect on these politically charged times. At Friday’s opening, participants reclined on white cushions inscribed with German-language words such as “not” and “your eye” (or “your ear”) in black type. On the screen we watched 30s and 40s German films edited around the theme of “the artist’s role in the political act”, according to Leu, while surrounded by a soundtrack he’d created of archival recordings and “audio-scuptural objects”. Draped leather hung from the ceiling by ropes and evoked a smell that could come from the leather coats worn in the films, or even Brecht’s leather jacket itself.
About showing at Triple Canopy, Leu says “To me, this is the most ideal place to show work. It’s a non-profit but still organized and professional like an established institution, and it still has an edge.”
Peter Russo, Editorial and Program Director for Triple Canopy, says “Triple Canopy is online magazine and arts organization. 155 Freeman is but one venue where we articulate the translation between projects, online, in print, and for live settings.”
You can contribute to Triple Canopy’s already highly successful Kickstarter campaign to cover lighting, construction, and “new (much more comfortable) seating for all screenings and performances.”
