Explaining the Jaccuzi

Ravens & Chimes will be playing at East River Bar (S. 6th Steet between Berry and Bedford) tomorrow, Sunday 9/7, sometime after 3 p.m., as part of a brunch sponsored by East Village Radio and Block Magazine. The latter, really well written magazine bears further mention because, unlike many new shops and publications that target the hipster youth of Williamsburg, Block actually aims to serve all Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bushwick communities, with columns like "Ask a Chasid," articles about racial profiling on the Southside,* and features on local artists, cocktails, and shops. Block is the most "fair and balanced" publication I've come across. (*Troubling excerpt: "The Southside’s longtime Latino residents are less worried about a shadowy slasher or gang violence than they are about losing their homes to gentrification. Many believe that the developers of the new condos popping up throughout the area are asking the NYPD to 'clean up' the neighborhood. Debbie Medina, the organizer of the community groups Los Sures and Save Our Southside, stated that two plainclothes officers stopped her husband Eugenio Torres as he was entering his apartment, and they frisked him against the wall of the building. The fact that Torres worked as the superintendant for 12 separate buildings in the area did nothing to prevent the incident. Rosa Nieves, who sits on the Board of Directors for Los Sures and the 90th Precinct Community Council, had two grandchildren who were stop-and-frisked.") The Williamsburg Courier also serves a range of interests, but is much less well writen, and sometimes sensational. Take, for instance, a sampling of recent Police Blotter headlines: "Slashed and robbed," "Mr. Sandman steals," Headlock hooligans," and "Machete mania." Anyway, I like seeing the full community spectrum, whether it be the diverse folks living here now or the history surrounding us. Which brings me back to the brunch show tomorrow and the East River Bar: "During Williamsburg’s industrial era the building was a paint factory through the 1920s. Paint Point Products abandoned the building in 1955 when it went through changes and identities. Most people remember the building as being the site for an old biker’s club in the 80s. After the bikers took off in the 90s the building was known as a speakeasy club and after-hours party spot. When we finally got to it there were remnants of a 13-piece Cuban Big Band and a jacuzzi tucked away in the corner. The old-timers who come in to see the changes all have a sly smile on their face when we ask them to recount the good old days and explain the jacuzzi."

Poem Interlude

(Written awhile ago, I was reminded of this poem (published in Blood Lotus in December 2007) by a recent message incorporating Wittgenstein and Depeche Mode in the same breath.)

Denotation

They told me,
"Not one word
over what is,"
and all song
ceased. I could not
write my name.

They told me
it was simpler
and proffered unity
and promised relief.

I saw a boat.
I wrote boat.
I did not think
coat, stoat, smote,
sail, ocean, salt air,
lost.

I saw a boat.
I could not write
swan. But I dreamed of you
in ink, your skin's incongruous
benediction of skin and thing
at once:

sun, leaf, anchor,
rabbit, circle, knife.

I begged you to cut
away my eyes,
but it was forbidden
as dreams would be.

Every body was body. "The rain
is someone crying," someone said,
and they killed him.

In my last dream
you held your palms to the glass
and gave me two closed eyes,
then closed your fingers
over the last possible thing.

Spotlight on Williamsburgers

Two local cats will be making headlines in the coming weeks, and I'm proud to count them as friends:
1) Janos Marton is a finalist in The Moth's 2008 StorySlam contest, having beaten out lesser bards...and he'll be telling it with the other champs on September 10th (7:30 p.m. at Comix, on 14th and 9th).
2) Tiffany Threadgould, soon to be third-floor resident at #37 (!), will appear in Time Out on September 18th. I accompanied her dumpster-diving last night, to scope out items that she could turn into useful design.

Existence Before Essence...After Satire

I started to write a post about George Patton, existentialism, and neighborhood identity...but changed my mind. Today was a low kind of day (premonitions of Hanna? Apprehensions of Palin? Peanut butter withdrawal?), but the ever quickening dusk is snapping me out of it (sorry, summer lovers...but not really). So allow me to skip Sartre and poke a little fun at myself and this essential little corner of the world:

Labor Day Catchall

According to Wikipedia, "Today, Labor Day is often regarded as a day of rest and parades." I for one am thanking heaven that I had the opportunity to wear white for two days straight. Now that the city is full of people again, here are some hard numbers from the recent weekend to greet the work week, school year, and general dog-eat-dog world of black clothes and no beaches:

*8 kinds of vegetables equaled around 10 pounds of produce at the Saturday CSA pick-up.
*14 Red Jacket Orchards peaches equaled 1 quart of spiced peaches in brandy.
*2 pounds of Hearty Roots tomatoes, plus basil and garlic from the same farm, equaled 1 pint of tomato sauce, after Marcella Hazan.
*1 pound of organic strawberries (I cheated; they're from California) equaled 1 pint of frozen strawberries.
*1 new (nameless?) "restaurant" equals 10 umbrellas and tables between the McCarren Dog Run and the Green Dome Garden. A portable grill (and griller) turns out breakfast and lunch sandwiches and other picnic-happy fare. A cup of organic free-trade coffee equals 150 pennies.
*2 friends equaled one introduction to a Williamsburg gay bar, Metropolitan Bar, on Lorimer just south of, yes, Metropolitan. Said friends also equaled much merriment over butter and its harbingers.
*3 performers in I Eat Pandas (cheating again: they perform in Manhattan, at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, on 26th and 8th) equaled many laughs.
*1 gaffe in the Williamsburg Courier (which deserves a post of its own) also equaled many laughs (in a funny/not funny way):


For those interested in putting the labor back in Labor Day, consider coming out to hear Rinku Sen and Fekkak Mamdouh speak this week. Sen is the author of Stir It Up: Lessons on Community Organizing. Mamdouh is co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, the first national restaurant worker organization in the U.S.

Under the BQE: Literally

En route to Red Shed, to compost fruit and vegetable scraps (incidentally, the McCarren Park Compost Project is now do-it-yourself (as is Red Shed), but only from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, whereas Red Shed is open all weekend), I snapped some photos from Under the BQE. Before the photos, though, I wanted to share this bit of good green news, from Green Brooklyn:

"On June 24th, Assembly Bill 11226 was passed allowing building owners in New York City who install green roofs on at least 50 percent of available rooftop space to get tax credit for it. Property owners will be able to apply for a one-year property tax credit of $100,000. The credit is equal to $4.50 per square-foot area that is planted vegetation. This is essentially 25 percent of the typical cost associated with materials, labor, design, and maintenance. The Storm Water Infrastructure Matters (S.W.I.M.) spear-headed the initiative with the help of Assembly Member Ruben Diaz. The law goes into effect on January 1st 2009 and will expire in 2013."

I hope Williamsburg/Brooklyn developers take heed (although many of their properties have green "floor space" right now, since development seems to be severely and blessedly stalled).

And now the photos:


(A square of trees in the Badame Sessa Triangle, at the intersection of Meeker, Withers, and Leonard.)


(1907 office of the Brooklyn Fireproof Sash and Door Co., near Manhattan and Meeker.)


(Closed Islamic poulterer at Meeker and Manhattan.)

Waking Up America in Under Six Minutes

Dennis Kucinich was to 2008 what Barack Obama was to 2004 (unpronounceable name and all), in my opinion if not the country's. Then again, note during his speech how fired up the Convention hall becomes (three, count 'em, three ovations), and note the tambourine that joins in around minute four:



Incredulity runs across people's faces, perhaps as it always does when someone is just flinging himself out there, mad gestures, enthusiasm, and all (earnestness tends to make people nervous). Kucinich, perhaps best known as a vegan, UFO-spotter, and husband to a lovely woman 31-years his junior, has long supported sensible policies that, in our backward (political) world, further contribute to his craziness. But in the words of Chess:

Molokov: The man is utterly mad...a lunatic.
The Russian: That's the problem. He's a brilliant lunatic and you can't tell which way he'll jump - like his game he's impossible to analyse...you can't dissect him, predict him. Which of course means he's not a lunatic at all.

The cadences of Kucinich's speech made me think of another lunatic. In 1982, Kucinich reported $38 on his tax returns. "America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956." Kucinich advocates creating a Cabinet-level Department of Peace. "America when will we end the human war?" Kucinich calls on the U.S. to lead global nuclear disarmament. "Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb." Kucinich sees UFOs. "I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations." Kucinich would withdraw the U.S. from the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement, largely to protect American jobs. "Everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere." Kucinich is a Roman Catholic (though he became publicly pro-choice in 2003). "My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic." Kucinich believes that "all life on our Earth {is} sacred." "Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch." Kucinich is true to what he believes in, popularity be damned. "I refuse to give up my obsession."

"It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again."

Change We Can Believe In (or, Earnest Interlude)

My grandpa and I swapped stories about our recent travels tonight, me to India and him to California, taking a trip that he never would have agreed to a year or two ago. As I watch Barack Obama accept his historic nomination as the Democratic candidate for the presidency, I'm thinking about "change we can believe in" and the stories we keep hearing about the heartland, the people who work hard and practice self-reliance and self-deprivation in order to make life better for their children and grandchildren. When I think of the heartland, it's not an abstraction, and it's not all roses...it's struggling and human and sometimes boring and sometimes ugly, full of empty sky and big-box stores, and people who look at strangers to say hello, though they mistrust fancy foods and large vocabularies - and I believe everyone on the coasts should travel there before going abroad because how can we know ourselves without looking inward, and how can we convey the U.S. to others without knowing the U.S? I am so proud to be a New Yorker, but my love for this city stems from my journey to get here. I think of my own family, my mom who cleaned rich people's homes to pay the bills, my dad who worked all shifts as dispatcher at a trucking company, uncomplainingly. My grandma, a nurse. My grandpa, a tool & dye man at John Deere, who served in the Pacific Theater for three years, a kid heading to war straight from an Illinois farm, with a Bible given him by his mom, a keen eye for detail, and a soon-to-be developed habit of trading ration cigarettes for others' chocolate. That's my grandpa - and it is thanks to him and my grandma that I'm here in Brooklyn tonight. Ottumwa, Iowa; Oklahoma City; Brainard, Minnesota; Gettysburg: they took me with them in their motor home across the U.S. And it's with them, when I was 11-years-old, that I first set foot on Manhattan. So here I am, and there Barack Obama is, radiating hope. My grandpa called earlier to tell me that he was going to be watching Obama's speech. A lifelong Republican, from when being Republican meant other, better things, my grandpa is tonight the change I can believe in, whole-heartedly Democrat in his 87th year, himself radiating hope and love to New York City from the heartland - and receiving my heart, in these thoughts.

(W.C. Williams once commented, "What a fool ever to be tricked into seriousness," and so my next post will contain some kind of absurdity, I promise. And I will now go to sleep with a smile. )

Poem Interlude

Cherries

"But how late to be regretting all this, even
Bearing in mind that regrets are always late, too late!" John Ashbery

January is warm as Mays
that brought blossoms,
though plump cherries
here, $3.99 a pint,
may not even grow on trees.

I think they shook them
from jars, wiped them clean,
attached fresh stems, and dyed
the flesh a holier red
for market. Cheery whores.

It's a question of remove
as my teeth hit a pit
and my memory gropes
for the sweetness that once
accompanied the pain.

In the Middle of the Pool, I Call Your Name...

Tonight was the last Pool film of the summer, part of The L Magazine's SummerScreen series. The Open Space Alliance and others have made the Pool available to North Brooklyn denizens since 2004. Beginning next year, the Pool will become a pool again, as Mayor Bloomberg has allotted $50 million for a project to restore the space by 2011 (let's practice holding our breaths now). Here's a taste of what might be, courtesy Brownstoner and an unsung photographer from 1937:



And in closer detail, here's tonight, courtesy me:











The final film was Rushmore, part of the Wes Anderson canon that is considered by some to embody the "hipster ethos." But I don't agree, because all of his movies, to this eye, contain a poignant earnestness just under the snazzy surface. The dialogue, the silences, and the great song choices all highlight the bind we're in...of caring but trying to look like we don't. Uber-earnest songs like "Oh Yoko!," complete with exclamation point, are a reminder of what it is to feel and not be afraid to say so.


And the whole thing, in every sense:

Folking Out

Fall and folk music are going to go together like peanut butter and jelly (one of the things I missed most the last two weeks). On Thursday this week, check out Matt Jones at Sidewalk Cafe (Avenue A and 6th Street). Jo Williamson will be playing there on Sunday the 31st. And take note: Jezebel's Songfair will only be at Sound Fix for two more Mondays. On September 8th, they move to Public Assembly (between Wythe and Kent). "Taking place in the back room...Songfair will be NYC’s only open stage for both bands and solo artists. Performances run from 7 p.m.-11 p.m: solo performers play two songs each (=10 minutes), 7 p.m.-9 p.m; bands play three songs each (=15 minutes), 9pm-11pm."

Wouldn't the world be a better place if we were all learning how to play harmonicas?

Triptych, Including Indian BQE

I am happy to be home, revived by culture shock and reverse culture shock, and more appreciative than ever of being able to shower and drink from the tap. Here's an early-morning (circadian evening) preview to the photograhps I took while in India, with the first being a distant homage to here.

Poem Interlude

Balarama

"[The elder twin of the divine being, Krishna,] Lord Balarama's transcendental form eclipses many millions of glistening moons."

India must be as strange
for him as for me, the little boy
whose blue twin dashes across
the room as he never will. Clasped
on laps or slouched on the floor,
the boy on the snake is not the one
people see first - and
his eyes know this as they know
how to light up when something
magical seems to be dancing
in the ordinary air all around.

Songs and Sickness

First I had fever in Brooklyn, and now I have fever in Bangalore - which has proven an opportunity to test my last post's theory of hands being there to catch me in this more community-oriented place. Being sick is also a cleansing...and perhaps it should be a part of any complete vacation!

Needless to say, I've been acquainted with bed for the past two days, mostly sleeping, but also reading and listening to music, as well as to the sounds of kids drifting up - and horns blasting up - from the street below. Mark Knopfler is good sick music. Rolling Stone recently did a feature on his continuing evolution, which is inspiration to someone who would like to be creating new things her whole little life.

Knopfler formed Dire Straits in 1977; though still very successful, they disbanded in 1995, when Knopfler felt they had become too big. I admire artists who know to move on when the art isn't feeling right, or before the wind goes out of the sails; it takes courage.

Reading the lyrics of some of his songs now, I'm set to wondering about the components of a song. Like a recipe, so much must come together (as this short post articulates) for the listener to be moved. I've always felt that songs have advantages over poetry, because they have the hook of melody, which can captivate more quickly than words. I'm always interested in knowing what people listen to first: melody/harmony/rhythm or lyrics. My dad is a melody person, and my mom is a lyrics person. I'm both, which explains why, to my mom's chagrin, I got hooked on certain unmentionable pop songs of the early '90s.

A good song, though, blends music and poem and is a romance and a story and something that grows with you over time.

Here are some lyrics from "In the Sky," one of the songs on Knopfler's latest album, Kill to Get Crimson.

"Are you home from the sea, my soul balladeer
You’ve been away roaming far away from here
weathered a storm, your heart unafraid
crossed every ocean in the boat that you made...

And the hard-bitten stranger as deaf as a post
who stands at the fire where a poet’s dreams roast
He can’t know the story, he can’t feel the pain
and all of the glory falls around him like rain...

You’re a light in the dark, a beacon of hope
and strong as a sea boat, strong as a rope
And the vagabond wind, whispers over the bay
and the songs and the laughter, are carried away."

You can put it together with the melody here.

In the home I'm staying at, Gowri's Aunt Kruppa blows a conch shell every couple of days to rid the air of bad energies and contaminants. She's a really wise person, and I'm honored to be staying under her roof. A shell produces a primordial kind of song, stirs the blood the way a good modern song ought.

On Individuality and Community (and a Top 10 List)

This blog is a manifestation of my having finally found a community that feels like home. New York City felt so, long before I moved here, but Williamsburg/Greenpoint is teaching me the sanctity of place in the local sense. The Manhattan skyline still has the power to stop the breath and quicken the heart, but Lorimer Street, the McCarren Track, the factories...my breathing is mine here.

If I began to find community in March 2007 (and perhaps the sense was launched during the two previous Januaries, when I watched cats in the apartment that is now my own), and found enough solidity in my feeling to embark on expressing it in February 2008, then it is fitting to find myself in India today, surrounded by the kind of community I knew once, in Ecuador, but which is all the more powerful now for the interceding years. Community and spirit, almost without me realizing it, like drops of color added slowly to a beaker of water, suffuse here. There's a sense that, if I fall, there are hands to catch me, which, especially for a self-reliant introvert, is a revelation (and at times, admittedly, a nuisance). This sense in no way means that everything is love and peace and bliss here - far, far from it (and my personal goal would be yoking the individual to the communal, in my own life) - but there's something tethering people, even in the Bangalore metropolis, that is largely absent in our modern lives, and that I guess I had been craving - and so have been finding - Under the BQE.

But enough meditative essaying! Here are some concrete differences between Brooklyn and Bangalore:
1. One does not take off one's shoes at every home in Brooklyn. Brooklyn feet are likely less fit to be seen (and apartment floors less fit to be stepped on!).
2. When leaving a host's home in Brooklyn, one does not receive a coconut, some jasmine blossoms, a piece or two of fruit, and a kum kum (dot on the forehead). At best one comes away with some leftovers.
3. From Williamsburg to Rockaway, and Willets Point to Coney Island, one will not find cows on the streets of Brooklyn. The sacred cow in Brooklyn is likely to be a Kobe fillet.
4. Brooklynites shower, they do not bathe from buckets. In Bangalore, even very nice homes lack the plumbing required for the average Brooklynite's copious water waste.
5. One finds paper products in Brooklyn bathrooms. My traveling companion, Gowri, and I now declare "five star" bathrooms in India to offer such luxury. People use a water hose in Bangalore, and wash their hands before and after every meal (dining rooms are equipped with sinks).
6. Such consistently delicious food is not consumed in Brooklyn, but there is also not such a conspicuous absence in Brooklyn of leafy salads.
7. In Brooklyn, one eats with silverware. In Bangalore, one eats with the right hand - and I mean everything: roasted cauliflower, thin bean stews, pickles, rice, yogurt, chutneys, bread, sweet porridges called paysa, a broth called rassam, fried bits called vada...everything.
8. If one is lucky, cooks, drivers, and housecleaners in Brooklyn are one's roommates, friends, or neighbors. In Bangalore, many families employ these serving staff, who are part of the family but, to a visitor, ghost-like presences to be gotten used to. I hate to say it three days after Indian Independence, but there's something persistently British about this habit (ditto with afternoon tea and cucumber sandwiches, though they be served with chutney).
9. Brooklynites do not so unanimously light their homes with fluorescent bars, to my delight (pun intended).
10. Brooklynites are not so unanimously tapped into spiritual energies, and the Brooklyn air is pervaded far more by a spirit of individualism than one of common cause (which brings us neatly to where we began...and my heading off to a wedding in petticoat, sari, bangles, bindi, and gold sandals).

Tigers and Custard Apples and Shoes, Oh My

My lungs are greying themselves here more than Under the BQE, that's certain. And if I don't get to run tomorrow, I'm going to scream. But before sleep, everything is peaceful, life full, and a day's worth of crowded thoughts given way to pre-night dreams of these and these and these and...did I mention these?

I looked out over all of Bangalore tonight (from the 13th Floor of the Ivory Tower), and I was here, but maybe a little piece of me was also missing there and that place at the north of Franklin where you can look across the river into Manhattan. Incidentally, you cross India Street to get there.

From Park to Air

Yesterday was an exploration, and lovely. Today is another. One requires distance, the other the inwardness that leads to fear, which is hope, which is inevitably vulnerable and precious. Anyway. I'm leaving the BQE for a little while but will carry the noise in my ears (and hope that others can pick up some trash while I'm gone).

Yesterday, I was reminded of how much I like certain lines of Wallace Stevens, and, today, these must suffice for everything I've run out of time to say (precisely why I'm always late...):

"After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
No greater than a cricket's horn, no more
Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech
Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,
One thing remaining, infallible, would be
Enough. Ah! Sweet countrside of that thing..."

Folk Folk

A quick huzzah, in the midst of packing for a trip far from the BQE (and one that undermines all efforts to limit my carbon footprint, read: to INDIA), to the singer-songwriters of the 8/6 Jezebel evening at Pianos.

Jo Williamson's voice did amazing things, like pulling itself hand-over-hand skyward, then melting low before turning into a whistle.

Flanagan Smith was playful and poignant and utterly himself.

And Lionel Neykov, more pop crooner than folk musician (in my opinion), performed heartfelt and lovely songs nonetheless, to especially good effect when the piano was woven in.

A couple of serendipitous things happened while, first with Arina then just with myself, I took in the room. It's exciting to have stumbled upon the kind of community I've been seeking for just about ever. Later, I was chatting with my old friend Noah about how things really do happen when you quit trying so hard and just let go.

Letting go makes me think of the peace I felt on a different trip, a year ago, back to Dublin. I went running past this Rathmines tree almost every day, part of a different community. (And I suppose there was also a different kind of stumbling there, later in the days, brought on by poetry and the cursed stout!).



Finally, last night, Jo Williamson sang The Parting Glass, which ties up this post and takes us back to the beginning. Huzzah.

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea: Part 2

At first feigning a hipster stance of bemused detachment, I became, in the course of a mere 4:23, weirdly lulled by this video and its evocation of particular place and any place, its tribute to the dull and sublime. Watch: the steady rhythm of the road, the grey of the sky, the monotony of Queens' Soviet-style apartment blocks - all would be almost meditative were it not for the background keening of Celine "the world is a better place because of you" Dion on Fresh 102.7. My transfixedness transformed into a frightening flashback to playing on my boombox (that's right) tapes I made of the Quad Cities' own Power 98.9 (which apparently (proving that things can get worse) is now a Christian rock station) when I was a teenager. Anyway...let's go for a drive:



And speaking of Celine Dion and Weird, let's raise our...hairdryers?...to Futurism and another modern homage to the "autonomous, unreal, and alogical."

Weird Al interviews Celine Dion | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Under the BQE: Literally

I've begun a new photo project - "the answer is as plain as the nose on your face" photo project - comprised of pictures taken while I'm Under the BQE. Here's the beginning, close to home:


(An old painted ad for the Greenpoint Floral Company.)


(The Strocchia Iron Works, on the corner of Leonard and Withers, has been in operation in Williamsburg since 1922.)


(Meeker and Leonard.)

First They Take Manhattan

Once upon a time, there was a Phoenecian queen of Israel named Jezebel, "who, in defiance of the customs and traditions of her day, did one thing while everyone else did another" (and was leveraged by Christians to further castigate pagan traditions...). So says Jezebel, a Williamsburg-based "online music publication for the new music fan. [Its] mission is to share intelligently written views of records, songs, standout artists, the music industry, online music culture, trends, and emerging technology."

Last week I went to the Jezebel singer-songwriter series, now called Resonance, which every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., at Pianos (Ludlow between Stanton and Rivington), features four brave souls with their acoustic guitars and perhaps a band member or two, baring their lyrics and melodies to the room (I wish Jezebel had been there to kill the omnipresent talkers). The low-key vibe and small crowd recalled for me descriptions of John Prine being discovered by Kris Kristofferson in a little Chicago club in 1971, at the end of the night, while chairs were being put up on tables and floors swept.

Anyway, I heard Matt Jones, Drew and the Medicinal Pen (and, before I realized who he was, Drew borrowed my pen), and Jarred Farrell. The three performers had really different sounds, with Jones ("things get stranger, I get simpler") seeming to these ears more "classic" blues/folk with woody acoustic melodies and a many-layered voice, Drew ("the sky will still be there when the sun goes down") evoking more modern indy/folk with a big playful guitar, and Farrell (accompanied by a wooden box) melting into a kind of spoken word/beat cadence from time to to time, jazzy and sweet (I don't think the songs featured on his page sound the way he did on Wednesday, which I preferred).

From the ground floor of Pianos, where the main acts play, raucus and meaningless noise rose throughout the sessions, but rather than distracting from the quieter music above, it distilled the loveliness and served as a kind of defining backdrop for the battle of the simple and earnest against everything else.

Tequila, Totes, and Totally Great Neighborhood Connections

A heartening exchange at Sunac just now, where, at midnight, and true to the spirit of earnestness, I was buying cat litter (but not for want of hanging out or fun, in the form of my dear friend Daniel and potent margaritas). A guy and his girl (both in what seemed to be hand-sewn garments) were buying strawberries, and she went to grab some bottled water. He told me to go ahead in line, since I just had a couple of bananas. I said, well, I in fact also have this cat litter and lettuce (yes, a fascinating night here down Under). And he said that he was really letting me cut not because of the bananas but because I had brought my own grocery tote, a thing he was trying hard to do more often (to which I say hurrah, as four to five TRILLION plastic bags are manufactured each year, and of our share, Americans recycle only .6% of the 100 billion we use - so carry a tote bag, for crying out loud).

This exchange reminded me of a request I had earlier today, from Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, a "volunteer-based community planning and environmental justice organization that has been performing grassroots organizing, advocacy, and outreach/education to the North Brooklyn waterfront community of Williamsburg/Greenpoint since 1994." Among their many projects, NAG (an unfortunately acronym?) is ensuring that North Brooklyn zoning rules are abided by, that neighborhood artisan and manufacturing jobs are preserved where possible, that a new location is identified at which to host large-scale music events in 2009 (this is the last year of Pool Parties, as the Pool is going to once more become...a pool!), and that the North Brooklyn waterfront is protected for community use. The organization recently began a blog, Neighborhood Watch, largely authored by a board member...which reminds me: in case there are big Brooklyn donors out there reading this blog, here's what I would like to do: collect enough money to buy the defunct gas station on the corner of Withers and Meeker, and turn it into a garden Under the BQE. Donations welcome.

The Girl is Strange, No Question

Thanks to Justine at Greenpointers for including me in her Blog Buzz feature. Lots of love in the hood today...waved to Kiki on the track, exchanged good mornings with the old men outside the Catholic war veterans hang-out on Lorimer and Jackson, picked up some trash, and chatted with folks at the bakery. Lest this start to sound too much like some insipid fantasy-land, know that the pylon-diggers are pounding away, everyone is using too much energy, and happily ever after might be a category in the DSM. (But, despite all this, I can't quite shake it...the joy.)

Dream, Dream, Fail, Repeat

My iPod was stolen last week, and not Under the BQE but on the glittering island itself by some member of the glittering masses. I hope they enjoy the music; I'm considering it a fresh start. In fact, having fewer songs to choose from is making me appreciate what's there more. Why did I need the mansion iPod when I could have the cute Brooklyn apartment iPod? I mean really.



Anyway, it's about music now - read: happiness - and seeing Ravens & Chimes last night was one dose (despite the hipsters lurking and, yea, talking during the show. C'mon guys - strut your nonchalant stuff, but RESPECT, okay?).

Anyway, R&C were wonderful at the Bowery Ballroom, and they were followed by The Silver State and Margot and the Nuclear So & So's. I like the sound of Margot lots. The Silver State not as much...a little too smug, both musically and lyrically. (Disclaimer: I didn't actually hear the second two bands because I was in the cozy upstairs of the Ballroom chattering, which was lovely).

But let's do a quick comparison. Of all three bands, I would say that, for me, Ravens & Chimes has it all - melody, lyrics, heart (read: earnestness), and (for crying out loud) the know-how and bravery to cover Leonard Cohen (perhaps my only constant companion). The Silver State has some clean songs, but they leave me feeling pretty cold. And Margot, she's got the sound but the lyrics sometimes lack the poetry I'm seeking. For a side-by-side comparison (actually, a one-on-top-of-the-other comparison), consider these words:

Ravens & Chimes, from "The House Where You Were Born": "The last time we were in this house/you were younger then/and you danced in the kitchen all night/while I played the mandolin/and you said if the sun never comes up/would you lay with me all day/but outside the window to the east/the morning bloomed in glorious red."

The Silver State, from "Faith You Changed Your Name": "There's a billboard outside my window/that's telling me to drink/a bottle a hundred times/bigger than me - and/believe me I've been trying/for weeks now."

Margot and the Nuclear So & So's, from "Broadripple is Burning": Honey broadripple is burning/and the girls are gettin' sick/off snorting coke up in the bathroom/while their boyfriends pick up chicks/and darling I'm lost/I heard you whispering /that night in Fountain Square/trash-filled streets made me wish we were headin' home."

Another band (rather, artist) that seems to have it all is Drew Henkels of Drew & the Medicinal Pen. He's playing at a Sound Fix-sponsored gig this Friday (Sound Fix: Bedford and North 11th; the event is at Automotive High (a real high school, not an ironic name!), part of the Rooftop Films series, which is building community, sustaining art, and perhaps saving something like Bohemia).

Here's a Fordham Observer article about Drew, and here are a couple of excerpts that particularly spoke to me:

"Around New York, Henkels is probably best known for his music, which follows in the tradition of contemporary singer-songwriters such as Elliot Smith and John Darnielle (of the Mountain Goats). Under the moniker Drew and the Medicinal Pen, his most recent undertaking is a self-produced collection of songs entitled "dream, dream, fail, repeat," which will be released March 31, 2007... His lyrics reflect an optimistic wistfulness. 'A lot of stuff that I write comes from free verse, I'll just pick up the pen and not put it down,' Henkels said. 'Growing up, I've had a lot of health issues, and the older I've gotten, the more I write, and figure out how deal with that stuff on my own...' Perhaps the strongest aspect of Henkels' music is his capability to craft poetic verses that fit like puzzle pieces with his folksy melodies - a skill previously mastered by classic American songsmiths and less common among today's artists in the genre. 'I love melody, and people that can craft melody and then match that with lyrics, that's what I aspire to.'"

Poem Interlude

Lost

Then the eye
I guess part
of it was lost
along with what
we stopped saying

She said I'll never
see perfectly again,
the cuts too close
to center, scarring
inevitable

as much there
as where we stopped
feeling or kept
feeling but stopped
believing in sight

Who Thought This Was A Good Idea: Part 1

Please enjoy the first part of a - yes, believe it or not - more than one-part series of home videos taken by people driving on the BQE. This video alone has been viewed almost 3,000 times and testifies to H. L. Mencken's pet opinon that democracy is "incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing."

Beyond Stones

...old photographs; a nap; tomatoes and carrots from Hearty Roots; bread from Settepani; solid poetry work at the café; the lingering warmth of real friends!; running without music; a simple bottle of Bordeaux; the feel of autumn in my bones...

"The Stone Age didn't end because there were no more stones. It ended because people became more intelligent." Ahmed Zaki Yamani

Poem Interlude

Not poems but a self-call: last week two of my poems were accepted by The Portland Review. They receive over 1,000 poems each year and only accept around 30.

Local Farms Verbatim

A letter from Benjamin Shute, Hearty Roots farmer:

"Farm Notes: Sustainable Farms in the Media

Small sustainable farmers are all over the media lately. A few years back, Hearty Roots might have been in an occasional story in our local paper or a food related magazine. These days, we have literally been inundated with requests from filmmakers, TV and radio producers, and editors of books, newspapers, and magazines. In fact, this week in Brooklyn we will have a crew from Japanese Public Television (NHK) filming distribution of the vegetables; this past weekend Stoneledge Farm, which is in a neighboring county to ours, had a film crew from ABC News documenting their Garlic Harvest for a national TV feature; and last week, I was invited to speak on the radio about the economics of small farming, on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show.



In the past few months alone, the New York Times has featured stories on young urbanites becoming farmers; corporate executives switching to the farm lifestyle; CSA in general; and people hiring gardeners to create their own organic CSA's in their back yards.

Is this just a fad, or is there something going on to merit all this attention? Judging by our experience at Hearty Roots, this is more than just media hype - we're in the midst of a local food and farming movement whose growth is momentous. Hearty Roots has seen unprecedented demand for our CSA shares this season, selling out far earlier than we ever have before. We are seeing new farms pop up and hearing from many people who are excited about learning to farm. We've been forced to turn down many neighborhoods, restaurants, and specialty stores interested in getting our produce, since even though we have grown our farm by nearly 100 percent each season, we are still unable to keep up with demand.

So what's next? In order for this local food movement to keep up with the media attention, and demand from a locavore-savvy public, we need more farmers! Even in our area, which faces development pressure due to its proximity to NYC, there is lots of land that is currently growing low value crops like hay - land that could be used to grow higher value crops to meet NYC's demand for fresh, local produce. It will be no easy task to achieve this: we need changes in local, state and federal policy; we need young people who are working for farmers now to have the tools they need to launch their own farms; we need to protect our existing farmland from development; and we need existing commodity farmers to diversify into direct-marketing. It won't happen overnight, but now is the time to build our capacity for a strong, local, sustainable agricultural sector in the future."

"You don't need to be wearing a cummerbund."

A shout-out to the recently interviewed, soon-to-be-featured in Spin, Chris Owyoung, who takes amazing photographs (many of them at the Pool), throws a mean roundhouse kick, turns tea to poetry, digs up delicious things in Chinatown, and does NOT club baby seals.

Hipster Cake!

The photographer calls it Redneck Cake, but it's a short stroll from Pascagoula to Conselyea.



A few ways to create non-hipster spin-offs:
*O'Doul's cans
*boxes decorated with social justice messages
*white AND black candles
*expensive beer
*real cake

p.s. I didn't take the photo.

Better than Borrowing a Cup of Sugar

So it turns out that Williamsburg is Dead, still quite alive, is largely penned by my lovely neighbors, Corrina and Brian. The funniest part is that when I requested a link exchange with the site, I had no idea that much of it originates just 20 feet away (or - thanks Malenches! - one foot away door-to-door). I would say that both 1L and 1R are living proof that "anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he's supposed to be doing at the moment" (ah, Benchley) - except that my catsitting extraordinaire neighbors are in high demand to do just this kind of writing work...perhaps because, unlike me, they're hilarious and stay on topic. Props!

Traveling Again

"I think it started with driving: more speed, more deals, more
sky, more wheels,
More things to leave behind, now it's all in a day for the
modern mind.
And I am traveling again,
Calling this a ghost town, and where is the heartland?
And I'm afraid, oh, was there any good reason, that I had to go
When all I know is I can never come back." Dar Williams

This Is Where We Are

Before the rain came we went out walking in this borough of summer life, winding up near a stretch of the BQE I didn't know, near Newtown Creek, near more defunct factories, all permeated by an intense river smell that I now realize is the Greenpoint Sewage Plant.

Finding a new stretch of the dear expressway made me want to pay it a little more homage, so I dug up this BQE history site, which contains a lot of interesting information. I especially like the depiction of BQE as underdog: "The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway was plagued with design flaws. Sharp curves, lack of shoulders, short acceleration and deceleration ramps, and confusing left-exit configurations were characteristics of the pre-Interstate era expressway."

And the description - eerily foreshadowing today's development (yet also providing comfort that, yes, history is a cozy circle that hopefully is moving us, slowly, slowly forward) - of Robert Moses looking out over his misunderstood monster:
"During construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Moses rented the penthouse floor of the Marguerite Hotel - an old, sedate establishment right next to the expressway - and used it as an office. It had two advantages: only very few people knew of its existence, so he was interrupted by few telephone calls, and he could look down on the construction as he worked. And he spent a lot of time looking down at it, watching the cranes and derricks and earthmoving machines that looked like toys far below him moving about in the giant trench being cut through mile after mile of densely packed houses, a big black figure against the sunset in the late afternoon, like a giant gazing down on the giant road he was molding. 'And I'll tell you,' said one of the men who spent a lot of time at the old hotel with him, 'I never saw RM look happier than he did when he was looking down out of that window.'"

For those who want their Brooklyn looking, sounding, and smelling a little more lovely, come see Ravens & Chimes on Monday at the Bowery Ballroom.

"Do you think when he died
He was alone
There in the room with yellow walls?
When I left it was rising
Not the sun this time
The tide if I recall.
And you built there a fire
To remind us of the people,
The people that we are,
And the flames rose like spires
In the houses, yeah,
And each person there said,
'Do you think when I die,
I’ll be alone
Deep in the room with yellow walls?
Will you leave when its rising up all around you,
All around you?'
And you build me a fire
To remind you
of the person that I was,
And the flames rise like spires
In the houses
And each person there says,
'This is where we are.
This is where we are.
Don’t be frightened.'" Ravens & Chimes

Vinho Verde and Berlin

My body cleaned of sickness, after 10 days I re-entered the world of drink, with a glass of the perfect summer wine, vinho verde, at a place with the perfect summer name, Shade. Okay, it's not Under the BQE. Nor is Berlin, whether in Germany or at Film Forum (I love it there...).

Lou Reed was so human. I think he's one of the finer examples (see: Johnny Cash) of artists whose pathos has grown huge over time and who can now, in age, evoke much with little. Having waited in vain to see Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, it was good to see his latest film and to imagine the reasons that Reed would pour out a passion in 1973 and then close up that piece of himself for 33 years (Berlin was not peformed live until 2006, at St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO - lest I lose my thread completely, check out this site, which fascinatingly traces the BQE through that neighborhood). It made me consider the pressures that would cause a man to bottle himself up, letting doubt and outside perceptions get in the way of himself...and then I thought about how easy it is to cling to notions of what is right while what is good and often truer (but harder) languishes or, at worst, is lost altogether. Since I'm writing again (poetry), I think these themes will pop up in something or another. For now, and on a lighter note, I'm eating crushed pineapple (crushed!) and getting ready for sleep. Good night, Brooklyn.

"Apparently the only signature the Mayor needed was my fist."

Thanks to Noah for making me laugh. This preview features some of the people and all of the writing that back in 2002 made the cult classic Firefly, a Fox-doomed series that contains some of the funniest, movingest dialogue out there. Dr. Horrible, an outside-the-box online musical from the brilliant Joss Whedon, begs two questions: 1) who'd have thought Neal Patrick Harris could make such a comeback (I mean, this and Harold and Kumar?)? and 2) Nathan Fillion, will you go out with me?


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Over the BQE: Corn Ethanol II (In a Corner)

I'm going back to a post from 6/23/2008, and quoting here from a Rolling Stone interview with Obama (July 10-24, 2008), by Jann Wenner:

JW: You've been a big supporter of ethanol. But studies show it doesn't do anything to reduce global warming, it's actually a less efficient way to produce energy than gasoline, and it's contributing to growing food shortages worldwide. Are you going to continue to back it?
BO: Corn-based ethanol I see as a transitional technology. We've got to invest in alternative fuels.
JW: This one is ranked as pretty bad.
BO: I understand, which is why we're going to have a transition from corn-based ethanol to cellulosic ethanol, not using food crops as the source of the energy.
JW: So you foresee this coming to an end.
BO: What I foresee is us transitioning into other ways of developing these energy sources. The fact that we had corn-based ethanol, and that industry has matured, provides us with distribution networks and infrastructure that can ultimately be used for other ethanol sources.

Obama is one of many who tout corn ethanol as a bridge to different kinds of ethanol. But while there is still promise in sugarcane ethanol, the jury is either out or has returned with a guilty verdict against corn, cellulosic, and other kinds of ethanol most fervently pushed by Americans.

Obama speaks of "distribution networks" for ethanol. Incidentally, I heard Naomi Klein talk about The Shock Doctrine last Wednesday, at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square (walking in with a Starbucks, she apologized for the "sold-out" event). One of her most important points, in my opinion, is that times of crisis are times of fear and growth; when the former wins, you get Fascism, when the latter triumphs, you get the New Deal. In terms of energy and the environment (and a dozen other issues), we are now at a crossroads not dissimilar to the early 1930s. In the U.S. then, Harold Ickes (Public Works Administration, which grew U.S. infrastructure), Harry Hopkins (Works Progress Administration, which grew the U.S. workforce), and many others spearheaded the investment of billions of dollars into building just the sort of "distribution networks" Obama mentions and Klein emphasizes are so critical to economic and environmental reclamation today.

If we play it safe and wrap ourselves in cozy blankets of rhetoric, we will be in a much worse place in 10, 50, 100 years. On the other hand, if a government can take the reins and create the infrastructure and the jobs for change, we'll be getting somewhere. In this case, what will the infrastructure and subsequent jobs look like? Maybe a large-scale mix of plants to develop hydrogen, solar, wind, and electric power...all better long-term options than ethanol.

And speaking of roads and change, I like this photo of a WPA crew removing old street car tracks on 4th Avenue in NYC. The photo was taken at 16th Street, facing south to 14th Street (the Orbach's department store was located at 48 East 14th Street from 1923 until 1954, and is now the location of the Union Square Whole Foods); note the treeless Union Square and its different statues.

Radio + Turnips = Saturday

Man, I love WNYC. (Join me Under the BQE and tune into 93.9 FM.) On Saturday and Sunday afternoons it brings especial happiness because Jonathan Schwartz comes on, one of those radio voices that speaks just to you and tastes every syllable.

Sampling from last summer:

It's a good escape. He just played "Summer in Ohio," "wasn't that just great?" he asks with a pregnant pause when the last notes fade.

"I could chew on tin foil for a spell
I could get a root canal in hell
But it wouldn't be as swell as this summer is gonna be!
'Cause the torture is just exquisite, while I'm waiting for you to visit
So hurry up, schmuck, get unstuck and get on the scene."

I love musicals.

It's brutally hot out, and Williamsburg, with its increasing dearth of buildings (can there be an increasing dearth?), feels like a big airstrip, concrete pulling light down on our heads like some hellbent avatar. (My first memory of an airstrip, incidentally, and the reason for their forever being associated with brutal summer, is of me and my grandparents at a Campvention in Ottumwa, Iowa, 1987.)

I'm caved up, sorting through today's CSA produce: turnips, beets, lettuce, savory (which I seem to have lost on the way home), tiny yellow squash, sturdy kale, and scallions that are all bulbs now, their tops shrivelled and cut as summer wears on.

Here's what I'm doing with two pounds of turnips:

1. Wash turnips, cut into matchsticks, and put into big bowl. Squeeze on some lime juice and grate out a bit of orange zest. Refrigerate until ready to use.
2. If you can bear it, once you've dropped off the compost and bought cat foot, go back out to fetch some plain yogurt and dried apricots.
3. Chop a few apricots into quarters and add to turnips.
4. Blend yogurt, soy sauce, dijon mustard, olive oil, savory (if you found it), salt and pepper, and maybe a little orange juice; dress turnips. (I snipped in some chives, too, and added a little bit of feta.)
5. Serve with some bread and beer when the sun goes down and appetites return.

Dance of the Lily

It doesn't get more magical than turning onto your street one night in July to find a spinning tilt-a-whirl ride just a few doors down from your apartment, lights a-flashing, and a glimpse of a precarious spire around the corner on Havermeyer. The spire is the "giglio," or lily. For two weeks, bands strike up at odd hours, men walk about distributing loaves of bread, people line up to ride the ferris wheel and buy zeppoles, and general merriment ensues. The reason?



According to a good local flier, "Each year the Italian community of Williamsburg reenacts a fourth century pageant which commemorates the return of the Bishop of Nola, Paolino, from captivity. His release from Moorish slavery was cause for a great festival which became famous throughout southern Italy. The same celebration has occurred here in Brooklyn for the past 120 years, at the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Paolino was returned to his people by boat, a Moorish galleon with an Arab crew. On the shores of Nola, the joyous townspeople held raised lilies in their hands as a sign of homage to San Paolino."

(I wonder what happened to the Arab crew?)

The major part of the celebration consists of hundreds of men lifting both the lily and the galleon onto their shoulders and marching it through the streets. This occurred on Sunday. A nice twist this year is that I have had a brutal fever for the past three days, and my sleep on Sunday was, like some hallucinogenic Fellini scene, punctuated by oom-pa-pas and shouts, as dozens of people convened outside Bamonte's for food and fellowship.

The celebration continues through this Sunday, July 20th, so check it out.

On Hipsters

I don't dislike "hipsters," I'm just curious. Why do I look like one but not feel like one? No good answer...but...a few signs that you might not be a hipster:
1. You get up early on Sundays.
2. Born-and-bred Williamsburgers tell you about the one and only remaining bar in which they feel comfortable.
3. You know the priest at a local church.
4. No skinny jeans.
5. Your vintage scarves were your grandmother's.
6. You moved to the city with a single suitcase.
7. You smile at people.
8. Wearing short shorts and track shoes means you're going running.
9. Earnestness!
10. You have health and dental and are grateful.
11. You've never been to a Pool Party.
12. Avoiding Bedford is the key to happiness.
13. You are uncomfortable surrounded by hipsters.
14. You sometimes feel guilty for living in Williamsburg.
15. You're not in a band.
16. When in Hana after midnight, you're usually buying carrots or catfood.
17. Your Leroy's Minnows t-shirt is from a bait-shop you used to go to in northern Minnesota.
18. You hate PBR.

There's something about #9 that is essential, and which separates non-hipsters from hipsters, those "members" of a "movement" that "journalist Christian Lorentzen says 'fetishizes the authentic' elements of all of the 'fringe movements of the post-war era - Beat, hippie, punk,...grunge, and white trash chic' and draws on the 'cultural stores of every unmelted ethnicity' and 'gay style,' and then 'regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity' and a sense of irony." Lorentzen, who prefaces many of his articles with thoughts on hipsterdom goes on to say that hipsters, comprising a group of mostly white 18-34-year-olds, "have defanged, skinned, and consumed" all influences "into a repretoire of meaninglessness."

But do all generations do this, in different ways? And, underneath the omnipresent surface, mustn't there be some tremendous socioculturalpoliticoeconomic, heartwrenching reason for the seeming absence of heart?

Poem Interlude

I'm crossing Under the BQE tomorrow to head back to Illinois for a few days to visit the fam. A year ago today, my grandmother died, and I was about to fly home for the funeral, where I felt like a part of me was going to be buried too. I'm swimming back into my journal from those days, and I found this entry, which gives me hope now, at a time when hope and mourning and love are all tangled up again:

7/6/2007: There was something very practical about Grandma. I can hear her saying that death must happen and asking me questions about my life to distract me from tears."

The next day I wrote about my grandfather, my favorite person in the universe:

Sometimes my heart feels bigger than my whole body.

And here's a poem I wrote on 7/7/2007, the day I flew back to New York, and the date, this year, when I will fly back to New York again.

Untitled (July 7, 2007)

We make such a slight shadow, flying
over Illinois fields, roads, farms like Swiss dots, lives stretching
beyond sight into haze. Over cemeteries,
too, our wings make such a slight shadow, faint
as a white monogram on a white
handkerchief. Clouds cast bigger shadows, and,
slipping amongst them, we lose ours completely,
such as it was, barely a finger
of shadow brushing the face of the earth.

I Am Hussein

So great.

The movement reminds me not just of Spartacus but also this David Massengill folk piece (and nothing says summer like these little outdoor festivals that bloom all over the country, crummy videographers and all):

Learning to be Ailanthus

The tree in the photograph from 6/18 has been cut down. Developers have sunk pylons, ailanthus is already starting to sprout - most persaverant of all - and the packed earth fills when it rains.

And now, two poets, Malena Morling (whom I've mentioned before) and Allen Ginsburg - both of whom knew Utopia Avenue, decades apart - and their poems, one containing ailanthus, each requiring a gun.

For F.M. Who Did Not Get Killed Yesterday on 57th Street
by Malena Morling

When they shot you,
you did not become a stone or a tree,
you did not become lake water
or the unwieldy shadow of a cloud.
You darted like a fish
through the hole the bullet made in the air.
You became air,
refusing to thicken, refusing to talk back
or move unless the wind moved
as it does now through the elms
and the ailanthus. Today I can hear
the ocean at the end of the block
tossing itself up on the beach,
the sound of it has entered everything in the house,
even the thimbles in the drawers.

Dream Record : June 8, 1955
by Allen Ginsburg

A drunken night in my house with a
boy, San Francisco: I lay asleep:
darkness:
      I went back to Mexico City
and saw Joan Burroughs leaning
forward in a garden-chair, arms
on her knees. She studied me with
clear eyes and downcast smile, her
face restored to a fine beauty
tequila and salt had made strange
before the bullet in her brow.

We talked of the life since then.
Well, what's Burroughs doing now?
Bill on earth, he's in North Africa.
Oh, and Kerouak? Jack still jumps
with the same beat genius as before,
notebooks filled with Buddha.
I hope he makes it, she laughed.
Is Huncke still in the can? No,
last time I saw him on Times Square.
And how is Kenney? Married, drunk,
and golden in the East. You? New
loves in the West -
      Then I knew
she was a dream : and questioned her
-Joan, what kind of knowledge have
the dead? can you still love
your mortal acquaintances?
What do you remember of us?
      She
faded in front of me - The next instant
I saw her rain-stained tombstone
rear an illegible epitaph
under the gnarled branch of a small
tree in the wild grass
of an unvisited garden in Mexico.

Williamsburg is (not) Dead

Check out the top Brooklyn listing on Keith Wagstaff's blog, Williamsburg is Dead. Hurrah for reverse alphabetization and friendly promotion. Keith also manages the site Fashion Geek (soon to be housed on the blog Bottomless Dish); he's the Citysearch Shopping Editor. As thanks, here's a photo of my latest fashion creation, the one-wear, homegrown cabbage leaf cloche, in green:

Over the BQE: Corn Ethanol is Driving on Fumes

With all those cars whizzing constantly by, one's mind occasionally turns to what's making them go. If only it were as simply joyful as Dr. Seuss implied.

The current Times headline article underscores the complexity, reporting on Obama's support of subsidies for farmers producing corn for ethanol. I disagree with Obama's embrace of corn ethanol and in fact find more sanity, on one level, in the laissez-faire position of folks (like, like it or not, McCain) who support eliminating the tariff on sugarcane ethanol, which is much more efficient than its corn counterpart (an 8:1 versus 2:1 energy ratio, meaning that corn ethanol just barely produces enough energy to make it even remotely viable).

In a nutshell (cornhusk?), corn ethanol owes its existence to massive inputs of, yes, petroleum-based energy, in the form of farm and processing equipment and fuel. It requires enormous amounts of land, at a time when the world faces an impending food crisis. Because it relies so heavily on petroleum, not to mention inputs of fertilizer, water, and other limited resources, it is not an environmentally sustainable solution. It has worldwide, lesser-known environmental impacts, too, like contributing to Amazon deforestation because increased U.S. corn production means soybeans must be grown elsewhere, and elsewhere is often Brazil. It's unreliable: as Midwestern floods have underlined, shifting weather patterns leave us on shaky (sodden) ground if we're relying on single regions for traditional sources of food, and now energy (millions of acres and billions of dollars in crops were lost in the waters). And it produces far less energy than other alternative sources, such as the just-mentioned sugarcane ethanol, wind power, solar power, geothermal power, hydropower, and ethanol produced from wood and other scraps.

As for corn ethanol subsidies, consider this, from economist Steve Stoft's zFacts:
"Corn ethanol subsidies totaled $7 billion in 2006 for 4.9 billion gallons of ethanol. That's $1.45 per gallon of ethanol (and $2.21 per gal of gas replaced). Even with high gas prices in 2006, producing a gallon of ethanol cost 38¢ more than making gasoline with the same energy, so ethanol did need part of that subsidy. But what about the other $1.12? Not needed! So all of that became a $5.4 billion windfall paid to real farmers, corporate farmers, and ethanol makers like multinational ADM. That's quite a bit [of money, especially] when you figure it only made us 1.1% more energy-independent and only reduced U.S. greenhouse gases by 1/19 of 1%."

Cleantech Blog offers a simple breakdown of elements of the corn ethanol controversy. I come from a long line of farmers, and I support small farmers everywhere, but there has got to be a better way to support their work (it's the big commercial farms getting the lion's share of the ethanol subsidies anyway), feed people, and sustain the planet.

Green Saturday Night

I've been thinking about environmental sustainability more and more lately and how ordinary people can become - and remain - involved in work to help each other and the planet. Part of my personal commitment involves the following "pacts" with myself, a list bound to grow:
*To buy used products and clothing whenever possible and to give away things I no longer want. (e.g.,I found silver Ann Taylor shoes that cost $3.99 at a Salvation Army today!)
*To freeze all fruit/vegetable scraps, eggshells, and the like and take the bag of scraps to the local composting project, at Green Dome Garden (drop off your bags in the wagon by the dog-run on Saturdays until 2 p.m.).
*To participate in Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), by being a shareholder in the Hearty Roots Farm.
*To talk to people about what's going on in the world and little things that anyone can do to make a difference.
*To be more conscious of my water use and not leave the sink and shower running longer than necessary.
*To make at least one annual contribution to offset my carbon footprint.
*To remember to carry tote bags when I go places, to reduce my use of plastic bags.
*To buy local and/or organic food as much as possible.
*To recycle metal, glass, and paper as much as possible (related sidenote: New York 1 just ran a story that explains how the NYC Transit Authority sorts and recycles trash in subway platform cans).
*To walk and hitch rides on subways and busses as much as possible (except when poetry demands I take to the road).
*To keep on veggin'.
*To use energy-efficient lighting as much as possible (I still need to come up with a twinkle light solution...).
*To give gifts and request gifts from organizations like Kiva and Heifer International. Through the first, your dollars are channeled as microloans to individuals in need of help starting or sustaining a business. Through the second, your dollars, ostensbily paying for an animal or resource needed by a community, are put into a general fund and used to empower communities to fight hunger, protect the environment, and generally improve local quality of life.
*To continue supporting the work of the National Resources Defense Council.
*To pay attention to candidates' stances on environmental issues.
*To pay attention to what I'm consuming by being alive (damn paper cups of coffee!) and what I'm giving back - and to work hard to increase the latter.

Cats and (Balloon) Dogs

Tonight we trooped to see the lovely Sara Taksler's (and Naomi Greenfield's) documentary about people whose lives have been changed by, yes, twisting balloons. And we learned how to make balloon dogs. Sarah talks about the film - Twisted: A Balloonamentary - in this Huffington Post article. Basically, the movie's about about weird people who don't quite fit in finding a way to relate to the world and each other. Balloons, dammit. Happiness! Which the world, as evidenced by the documentary film industry, sometimes has a hard time swallowing: "While it would seem obvious that, at some point, counter-programming would be desired to offset the over-saturated downer-documentary market, distributors can't get enough sad stuff, which, at one point, left us wondering if our film would ever see the light of day."

My cat Tank doesn't care one way or the other about balloons and more existential matters. But the dog must die.

Because I can't RSS feed, podcast, record, e-mail, blogroll, text, post, download, photograph, chat, hyperlink, attach, map, bookmark, or embed a scent - the scent on the air tonight - I'm forced to use words to say, blessedly, there are still so many things that one just has to be there for. Running, the just-washed air vibrated with grass and flowers, and a big golden moon, like a cat's-eye marble, shone down on the BQE.

I ran by the dove on Berry and 13th:


And I felt like a warrior, listening to Irish battle songs in air that smelled like Ranelagh (Williamsburg/Greenpoint is magical for embodying so many of the places I love in this world: see Ranelagh photo below, on the Grand Canal, freely associated with Patrick Kavanagh, who loved it) - while everything felt like peace.



"O commemorate me where there is water,
Canal water, preferably, so stilly
Greeny at the heart of summer." - Patrick Kavanagh

Spotlight on Here

Daniel and I (and especially before he discovered Kensington!) have been exploring restaurants in the hood. A couple of good recent finds include
Dokebi - a tasty Korean joint, particularly cozy on a rainy night. Grand between Bedford and Driggs.
Bozu - a peculiarly wonderful little Japanese spot serving eclectic sushi, including the best vegetarian options I've seen, and a pungent wasabi martini (sooo good). Grand between Havemeyer and Roebling.

Perhaps I will start an Under the BQE restaurant blogroll...and a roll of Brooklyn-friendly blogs. Yes. Soon.

Organisms

I'm wagering you don't, but remember the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (Encounter at Farpoint)? (Incidentally I remember its airing on September 28, 1987, me an eight-year-old thrilled even then by the swelling of the orchestra, by Patrick Stewart's voice and the tweaked language of the show's preamble. "Where no ONE has gone before?" What? Really? I could go into space, too?)



Anyway, in that episode (spoiler alert), it turns out that Farpoint, the space station at which they dock to pick up the Enterprise's crew, is actually a living organism that can shapeshift to provide visitors with their heart's desire (e.g., the ship's physician, Dr. Crusher (she's no Dr. Leonard "I'm a doctor, not an escalator" McCoy), is perusing silk in a shop and says she wishes there were more of a particular kind. She turns away, and when she turns back an entire bolt of the desired fabric has appeared.) Anyway (again), sometimes I'm struck by how much the world we live in mirrors, in fractal-like manner, the organisms we are. Which is pretty great, even if this waystation doesn't always give us what we desire. Or perhaps it does.

This tree persaveres in a razed lot on Union, between Frost and Richardson, still pulling memories, stories, sensations out of a synaptic sky.

Series of Dreams

I was laughing, walking toward Armando, Nickie, and Antoinetta, the old-timer Italians on my street. Today's Bloomsday, the world in a day, and the sky was roiling, as it might over Dublin (Withers being Eccles, here). "I can feel it in my fingertips! The air is charged! It's going to rain," I cried. I amuse them to no end. Then, how great, we watched the rain begin on the Bamonte's side of the street, we staying dry...before it crossed to our side (after looking both ways), and I went in.

I was listening to "A Series of Dreams."

"Dreams where the umbrella is folded
Into the path you are hurled
And the cards are no good that you're holding
Unless they're from another world

In one, numbers were burning
In another, I witnessed a crime
In one, I was running, and in another
All I seemed to be doing was climb
Wasn't looking for any special assistance
Not going to any great extremes
I'd already gone the distance
Just thinking of a series of dreams" - Bob Dylan

I-95 to I-78 to I-81

It's not so far from the BQE to Stephens City, Virginia, and it's ridiculous how much of your heart you can leave out there on the great American road.

Gardens

I'm about to step through the summer morning to the Red Shed Community Garden, to collect a bag of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) vegetables (photo courtesy Miss Heather).



I particpated in this East Williamsburg CSA last year: all you do is pay around $400 upfront, providing the farmers with spring money for seeds and other farm costs. Then, every week from June until November, you go, meet friendly souls, and fill your tote with radishes, garlic scapes, eggplants, melons, celery roots, basil, turnips, tomatoes, and much more, all fragrant with dirt and sunshine, all delicious. The farm in whose earth my vegetables grow (and in whose earth, essentially, I am a shareholder) is Hearty Roots Farm, in Tivoli, New York, 114 miles from Withers Street, on the west bank of the Hudson, just across the river from Catskill Park and the Ashokan Reservoir, which provides New York City with much of its water, and which, close-to-but-far-from the city, holds its own secrets of gentrification, displacement, and controversy.

Yet...the impetus for my posting at this moment was not the farm, this morning, or my momentary departure, but the radio. Studio 360 just offered listeners, like an aural cup of coffee, a story about the artist Fritz Haeg, who turns suburban front lawns into vegetable gardens. His notion of art today - as something that must activate people and inspire thinking not through the overused lenses of shock, sex, and violence but through the gentler windows of thoughtfulness and possibility - resonates with me, and the story of the suburbs and lives he has gently touched - dealing with a real America (50 percent of Americans now live in suburbs) - is wonderful:

Poem Interlude

Poem for an Empty Lot

The empty lot was cleared overnight,
I'd imagined running by it this summer.
The things I miss most are the things
I never had, like a hug from you any
night I wanted it, non-furtive soup.
Cats stalked and peed in that lot - such
green, the smell of green all summer
long - and one by one they've been
taken in, cleverly whisked off the
streets by strategically placed cans
of food. A few still haunt, casting
longingly at doors. The rest scent
unfurling leaves and feel wild again.
If you were here, I'd take you running
to the place where you can almost
touch Manhattan. I'd ask for something
blessedly ordinary, like Wednesday night.