Dear readers:
Please turn your attention to my other blog, Singing My Days, for the next month. Chris and I are in India, and that is where you can read all about it. Hopefully I'll post a picture of me riding an elephant soon.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
neglect
Yes, I have been neglecting my little trio of blogs. May and June are my busiest time of year, between state exams and end of the year hoopla that I have a lot to do with as the senior advisor at my school. Graduation on Tuesday marks the end of all that. And even today, as I embark on a trip to my favorite place in Brooklyn, I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps I'll take pictures, but I won't tell you how to get there. Some secrets are better left kept.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
rent our apartment, love our cat
As you may have read on my other blog, we are going to be in India from July 7th through August 5th. We would like to sublet our Prospect/Lefferts Gardens apartment to a cat lover with a green thumb while we're gone. It's a nice size one bedroom, perfect for one or two people. It's got all new appliances in an elevator building overlooking Prospect Park, steps away from the train and convenient to many of the fun activites I've described on this blog.
Picture yourself living right over the Q train (15 minutes to Chinatown!) looking out the window at Prospect Park (right across the street), shuffling down the block to the Prospect Park Zoo or the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, riding your bike or riding two stops on the train toward Manhattan to hit the Prospect Park Farmers Market, the Brooklyn Public Library or the Brooklyn Museum.
What can you eat in our neighborhood? What's not to eat? Have yummy Mexican at Enduro; have Chinese or Sushi delivered to your door. Gobble Jamaican beef patties or roti around the corner. Buy a fabulous curry at the drum circle (also right across the street) on Sunday afternoon.
Check out the Celebrate Brooklyn free concerts across the park. This year's line up has yet to be posted, but last year's performances included:
TV on the Radio
The Hidden Cameras
Ray Lamontange
Maceo Parker
Yo La Tengo
Queen Latifah
and even a surprise visit by Prince!
Specific dates: July 7th through August 5th.
Asking $950; less if you're willing to cat sit. Looking for a non-smoker.
Did I mention that it's a short train ride to Coney Island, a long bike ride to Jacob Riis/Fort Tilden and a hop, skip and a jump to Di Fara's Pizza - the pie that stole my heart away from Angelo D'Angelo?
And our cat, Eliza, is wonderful! If it's a deal-breaker, let us know!
Picture yourself living right over the Q train (15 minutes to Chinatown!) looking out the window at Prospect Park (right across the street), shuffling down the block to the Prospect Park Zoo or the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, riding your bike or riding two stops on the train toward Manhattan to hit the Prospect Park Farmers Market, the Brooklyn Public Library or the Brooklyn Museum.
What can you eat in our neighborhood? What's not to eat? Have yummy Mexican at Enduro; have Chinese or Sushi delivered to your door. Gobble Jamaican beef patties or roti around the corner. Buy a fabulous curry at the drum circle (also right across the street) on Sunday afternoon.
Check out the Celebrate Brooklyn free concerts across the park. This year's line up has yet to be posted, but last year's performances included:
TV on the Radio
The Hidden Cameras
Ray Lamontange
Maceo Parker
Yo La Tengo
Queen Latifah
and even a surprise visit by Prince!
Specific dates: July 7th through August 5th.
Asking $950; less if you're willing to cat sit. Looking for a non-smoker.
Did I mention that it's a short train ride to Coney Island, a long bike ride to Jacob Riis/Fort Tilden and a hop, skip and a jump to Di Fara's Pizza - the pie that stole my heart away from Angelo D'Angelo?
And our cat, Eliza, is wonderful! If it's a deal-breaker, let us know!
Saturday, May 05, 2007
busy bee in PLG
The fact that spring has sprung is old news these days, but I still want to share some of the tell-tale signs around the neighborhood. The drum circle is in full force right across the street all day Sundays, and the woman who sells hot sauce and nuts is back in business out in front of the building. The other day I saw a guy on the train returning from Coney Island toting a fishing pole and a bucket with a sizable fish poking out of it. And let's not forget, the UniverSoul Circus is in town and blaring across the park like prayers from a minaret.
Here are shots of some local happenings I've witnessed of late, including the Hanami festival last weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a darling little Earth Day parade I caught at the Prospect Park Boathouse a few weekends back and a a Sweet Sixteen procession I watched leave my building the other day. They've been practicing in the lobby for weeks.
Geisha!
The place was packed.
Wow! Manga!
Look, ma, no beard!
Going to Prospect Park on the weekend is really all about babies and dogs! At this little Earth Day parade it was about mice, alligators, horses and birds too.
I thought the trumpet serenade was for me, until I looked out the window and realized that the Sweet Sixteen rehearsal that's been occupying the lobby of our building had finally become a reality.
Here are shots of some local happenings I've witnessed of late, including the Hanami festival last weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a darling little Earth Day parade I caught at the Prospect Park Boathouse a few weekends back and a a Sweet Sixteen procession I watched leave my building the other day. They've been practicing in the lobby for weeks.
Geisha!
The place was packed.
Wow! Manga!
Look, ma, no beard!Going to Prospect Park on the weekend is really all about babies and dogs! At this little Earth Day parade it was about mice, alligators, horses and birds too.
I thought the trumpet serenade was for me, until I looked out the window and realized that the Sweet Sixteen rehearsal that's been occupying the lobby of our building had finally become a reality.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
how sweet it is
My sister, Caroline, and my nephews, Justin and Ricky, came to visit a few weekends ago. Hooray! We only had a cold Monday to sightsee, but we did our best. The night they arrived, Chris and I took them to Chinatown for soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai. Then we ate ice cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, which is what we always do with company. Monday, we started out with a quick drive to Coney Island. It was kind of cold, lonely and deserted, but I think I prefer the boardwalk that way. Then we went to the Bodies exhibit and to the top of Rockefeller Center. We wrapped up with burgers and some killer sweet potatoe fries at Great Jones Cafe, before we dragged ourselves back to Brooklyn. At the end of the day, as much fun as it all was, the best part was just getting a chance to be together.
So photogenic.
Hey, sis!
Jump, I'll catch you!
Please, no more walking!
So photogenic.
Hey, sis!
Jump, I'll catch you!
Please, no more walking!
Saturday, April 07, 2007
deep in the heart of brooklyn
This is a belated posting. A few weeks ago, Chris and I woke one Sunday morning with a sense of adventure in our hearts and a rumbling in our stomaches. It was the morning we decided to check out DiFara's Pizza and other points south. I'm mostly going to let the pictures do the talking here. 
Our first stop was Vox Pop, a coffee place on Cortelyou Road I've wanted to check out, because I've noticed it on some neighborhood blogs. The coffee was great (Chris also had some foamy cider or something that he really liked). The atmosphere was like a little bit of Ithaca dropped in the middle of the borough.
From there we went to Di Fara Pizza on Ave. J after hearing countless recommendations and reading about it everywhere from Slice to Zagats.
We arrived hungry from our journey (note Chris's "hungry" face), but it was worth it! Suffice to say, DiFara's is the BEST pizza I've had in my life.
The burnt bubbles of dough and cheese, the ripe fresh tomatoes that stand out from the sauce. The line wasn't bad enough on the chilly day we were there to overshadow the experience, but for some (for example this bummer review) I have read that isn't the case.
Domenic De Marco -who makes each pizza himself, uses cheeses from his home village in Italy and cuts fresh basil from a green leafy bouquet onto the finished pies - has given my two Auburn, NY, hometown faves, Angelo D'Angelo of Angelo's Pizza and Wheel of Picarillo's, a run for their money.
Some background on Angelo - He finally sold his business, but in his heyday refused to make anything but pizza, even as pressure mounted to add wings or fries to his menu, or to at least get a liquor license. He also used to clean his oven with a mop. The oven was fully visible to the street through the large picture window at the front of his shop, so this was no secret. Local germophobes felt the practice was unsanitary, but Angelop generally responded to this criticism by sputtering some profanity and explaining that the mop was clean and the heat from the oven killed any germs anyway.
And Wheel? His storefront is a full Italian restaurant, checkercloth tables and candlelit ambiance in place, in which he NEVER serves anyone. Take out and delivery only / prices determined at whim. Go for the delivery, because I learned the hard way that a chance meeting with Wheel - who makes wonderful pizzas but takes very little interest in his personal toilet - may lead to loss of appetite.
Researching De Marco a little bit, I have learned that he makes each and every pie himself while his children man the back of the shop. He eats one meal at the end of each day and drinks one good bottle of wine. I have to ask, what is it with these eccentric pizza makers? I also have to wonder, De Marco has found his one thing, what is mine?
Di Fara1424 Ave. J
Brooklyn, NY
718.258.1367
Friday, August 11, 2006
it's a mystery...
"Mr. Fennyman, let me explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. Believe me, to be closed by the plague is a bagatelle in the ups and downs of owning a theatre…Strangely enough, it all turns out well."
Henslow, Shakespeare in Love
Yesterday began around six in the morning with a discussion of whether or not I should go wait in line at the Delacourt Theater in Central Park to get free tickets to see Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Austin Pendelton in Tony Kushner's revamped production of Brecht's Mother Courage. The Public Theater's summer Shakespeare in the Park is one of the perks of living in New York that I have always meant to take advantage of but haven't... or hadn't, until now. So the conversation was driven in part by my guilty self-knowledge that yes, I probably could pass up the chance to sit under the stars in a small theater in Central Park a few feet away from Meryl Streep, because I've certainly passed up such chances before.
But could I really? I still remember bawling at the end of Sophie's Choice, which I saw when I was nine years old, during the weird time in my young life that I became my recently separated, then widowed, mother's movie date. As a result of her single status, I was her companion for a handful of age-inappropriate movies that also included Reds, The Elephant Man and An Officer and a Gentleman. In later years, my mother denied me the pleasure of Flashdance, Footloose and Purple Rain - popular slumber party rentals among the 12-year-old set with the explosion of VHS. This was probably unfair, and, as a result, unlike my friends fantasizing about purple-suited Prince, I had nightmares about the disfigured gentleman who breathed funny and was forced by polite society to wear a bag over his head.
But, I digress. Obviously I had plenty to think about while I waited in line, where I landed after tossing caution to the wind and ignoring weather forecastss that warned of possible afternoon thunderstorms. I trekked off to the park, my i-pod, my copy of Anna Karenina and my patience in hand. I arrived a little before 8 am, and, I should tell you now in case you ever undertake to get free tickets to any of the Central Park Public Theater shows, that's cutting it pretty close. There were a number of folks at the front of the line camped out like urban gypsies on inflatable mattressess and picnic blankets who had clearly been there since around four or five in the morning.
After a not-so-bad three-hour wait - most of which was spent sitting on a shady park bench, eating my picnic lunch, enjoying my book or catching a few rays on the patch of park that was mine, the line began to move. Shortly after my arrival, two people a few spots in front of me actually left the line in a huff. One of them had come to hold a place in line while the other ran to the deli to pick up coffee, etc. But, holding a place in line for someone is a no-no, as was explained by the line attendants when they told the guy who went for coffee he was going to have to go to the back of the line. The couple yelled a little and finally just left instead. This was actually a smart move on their part and a stroke of luck for me. Why? Because they would not have gotten tickets had they moved to the back of the line, and I wouldn't have gotten tickets if they had stayed. As it was I got the last pair of tickets for that night's performance, tickets which guaranteed me and Chris the worst seats in the house, as far away from the stage and from each other as humanly possible.
Luckily, fate intervened. At around 7:40, as I hurried out of Whole Foods, late, to meet Chris in the park with a picnic dinner, I looked up to see a black sky that would make George W. himself think the apocalypsee was finally at hand. I had smugly thought the thunderstorms warned of had come and gone in a little shower we'd had at three in the afternoon. I was wrong. By the time I ditched the subway (of course my train was going express to 125th) and hopped a cab at Columbus Circle, the sky had opened up with the worst thunderstorm I have ever seen in New York. I was soaked in two seconds flat. When I disembarked at 82nd Street, it was raining even harder. But I persevered and ran into the park to meet Chris by the public restrooms as we had planned earlier in the day. The paths through the park were raging rivers - seriously. At one point I even stepped up to my hip in water as I attempted to wade under one of the arched bridges to get to the path that led up to the theater. I want to think that whatever debris I felt floating past my legs and squishing through my toes at that time was mulch from the landscaping in the park. Mulch. I had to backtrack and, at one point, even had to hop from bench to bench with a group of other intrepid theater-goers to avoid being sucked into a sea of mud. Once I got to the theater to join a surprisingly large group of people huddled around it, I was soaked to the bone. When I turned to a woman wrapped dryly in a Public Theater rain parka to ask where I could find one, she looked me up and down and said, "Is there any point?"
I had made it, but there was no Chris in sight. When I pulled out my cellphone to check the time, I realized I had a message from him. He had called to let me know he was waiting out the storm under some scaffolding on the corner of 82nd Street, but warned that his phone was running out of juice. I tried to call him. His phone was dead. I started to weigh my options. I could wait, cold and wet, but sheltered by the narrow overhang that hung over the path around the theater. Or I could go back out through the park to find my love on the outside. I went to the ticket window to check the status of the show, given that the Delacourt is an open theater and it was still pouring and, now that I noticed it, there was thunder and lightening too. The young guy at the ticket window told me that the show would probably be canceled, but wouldn't be called for another 30 minutes. So I decided to make like Logan and run.
It was just as bad running out as it had been running in. Maybe worse. Because now there was the lightening and my sandals (did I mention the mulch?) had metal clasps on them and I was running in water and I began to think, as I hopped up over the benches a second time and caught a whiff of backed up sewage not too far away, that if anyone was going to die in the rain that night, it was going to be me. But I was wrong. The trip out was a little faster, because I knew to avoid the drowning bridge, and before I knew it, I could see Chris, dry as a bone, pacing among about a hundred other people huddled beneath thescaffoldingg across the street. By the time I schlepped my soaking self over there, the rain had stopped.
Word on the street was that the show had been canceled, but, miraculously, my picnic dinner had made it through. We wandered over to the Museum of Natural History to find a dry place to eat. At the top of the steps there, a woman who had worked at the museum for years told us they never cancel shows at the Delacourt Theater. They just mop off the stage and go on. Hearing that, as we watched the last of the drizzle let up and twilight descend over the park, we decided to give it another try.
On our way back into the park, I proudly pointed out to Chris where I had almost drowned and showed him the ropes of jumping from bench to bench to avoid the cesspool of mud that had once been a sidewalk. He even helped a little old lady hop a fence. At the theater we got the good news that we could sit right next to each other a few rows from the stage, as most of the audience had gone home.
The play was great, set in the 17th century during the Thirty Years War, it follows the fortunes of a tough, resourceful woman, Mother Courage, played by Meryl Streep, who survives by running a commissary business that profits from all sides. It seemed suitable given the day's events. And worth it. The characters in the play are doomed, but Mother Courage is a survivor. We were survivors too. Part of the magic of Shakespeare in the Park is that anyone can go - anyone willing to wait in line and pay not with money but with his or her own time. And on that night, those of us also willing to risk death by drowning, lightening or hypothermia, had a great reward.
Henslow, Shakespeare in Love
Yesterday began around six in the morning with a discussion of whether or not I should go wait in line at the Delacourt Theater in Central Park to get free tickets to see Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Austin Pendelton in Tony Kushner's revamped production of Brecht's Mother Courage. The Public Theater's summer Shakespeare in the Park is one of the perks of living in New York that I have always meant to take advantage of but haven't... or hadn't, until now. So the conversation was driven in part by my guilty self-knowledge that yes, I probably could pass up the chance to sit under the stars in a small theater in Central Park a few feet away from Meryl Streep, because I've certainly passed up such chances before.
But could I really? I still remember bawling at the end of Sophie's Choice, which I saw when I was nine years old, during the weird time in my young life that I became my recently separated, then widowed, mother's movie date. As a result of her single status, I was her companion for a handful of age-inappropriate movies that also included Reds, The Elephant Man and An Officer and a Gentleman. In later years, my mother denied me the pleasure of Flashdance, Footloose and Purple Rain - popular slumber party rentals among the 12-year-old set with the explosion of VHS. This was probably unfair, and, as a result, unlike my friends fantasizing about purple-suited Prince, I had nightmares about the disfigured gentleman who breathed funny and was forced by polite society to wear a bag over his head.
But, I digress. Obviously I had plenty to think about while I waited in line, where I landed after tossing caution to the wind and ignoring weather forecastss that warned of possible afternoon thunderstorms. I trekked off to the park, my i-pod, my copy of Anna Karenina and my patience in hand. I arrived a little before 8 am, and, I should tell you now in case you ever undertake to get free tickets to any of the Central Park Public Theater shows, that's cutting it pretty close. There were a number of folks at the front of the line camped out like urban gypsies on inflatable mattressess and picnic blankets who had clearly been there since around four or five in the morning.
After a not-so-bad three-hour wait - most of which was spent sitting on a shady park bench, eating my picnic lunch, enjoying my book or catching a few rays on the patch of park that was mine, the line began to move. Shortly after my arrival, two people a few spots in front of me actually left the line in a huff. One of them had come to hold a place in line while the other ran to the deli to pick up coffee, etc. But, holding a place in line for someone is a no-no, as was explained by the line attendants when they told the guy who went for coffee he was going to have to go to the back of the line. The couple yelled a little and finally just left instead. This was actually a smart move on their part and a stroke of luck for me. Why? Because they would not have gotten tickets had they moved to the back of the line, and I wouldn't have gotten tickets if they had stayed. As it was I got the last pair of tickets for that night's performance, tickets which guaranteed me and Chris the worst seats in the house, as far away from the stage and from each other as humanly possible.
Luckily, fate intervened. At around 7:40, as I hurried out of Whole Foods, late, to meet Chris in the park with a picnic dinner, I looked up to see a black sky that would make George W. himself think the apocalypsee was finally at hand. I had smugly thought the thunderstorms warned of had come and gone in a little shower we'd had at three in the afternoon. I was wrong. By the time I ditched the subway (of course my train was going express to 125th) and hopped a cab at Columbus Circle, the sky had opened up with the worst thunderstorm I have ever seen in New York. I was soaked in two seconds flat. When I disembarked at 82nd Street, it was raining even harder. But I persevered and ran into the park to meet Chris by the public restrooms as we had planned earlier in the day. The paths through the park were raging rivers - seriously. At one point I even stepped up to my hip in water as I attempted to wade under one of the arched bridges to get to the path that led up to the theater. I want to think that whatever debris I felt floating past my legs and squishing through my toes at that time was mulch from the landscaping in the park. Mulch. I had to backtrack and, at one point, even had to hop from bench to bench with a group of other intrepid theater-goers to avoid being sucked into a sea of mud. Once I got to the theater to join a surprisingly large group of people huddled around it, I was soaked to the bone. When I turned to a woman wrapped dryly in a Public Theater rain parka to ask where I could find one, she looked me up and down and said, "Is there any point?"
I had made it, but there was no Chris in sight. When I pulled out my cellphone to check the time, I realized I had a message from him. He had called to let me know he was waiting out the storm under some scaffolding on the corner of 82nd Street, but warned that his phone was running out of juice. I tried to call him. His phone was dead. I started to weigh my options. I could wait, cold and wet, but sheltered by the narrow overhang that hung over the path around the theater. Or I could go back out through the park to find my love on the outside. I went to the ticket window to check the status of the show, given that the Delacourt is an open theater and it was still pouring and, now that I noticed it, there was thunder and lightening too. The young guy at the ticket window told me that the show would probably be canceled, but wouldn't be called for another 30 minutes. So I decided to make like Logan and run.
It was just as bad running out as it had been running in. Maybe worse. Because now there was the lightening and my sandals (did I mention the mulch?) had metal clasps on them and I was running in water and I began to think, as I hopped up over the benches a second time and caught a whiff of backed up sewage not too far away, that if anyone was going to die in the rain that night, it was going to be me. But I was wrong. The trip out was a little faster, because I knew to avoid the drowning bridge, and before I knew it, I could see Chris, dry as a bone, pacing among about a hundred other people huddled beneath thescaffoldingg across the street. By the time I schlepped my soaking self over there, the rain had stopped.
Word on the street was that the show had been canceled, but, miraculously, my picnic dinner had made it through. We wandered over to the Museum of Natural History to find a dry place to eat. At the top of the steps there, a woman who had worked at the museum for years told us they never cancel shows at the Delacourt Theater. They just mop off the stage and go on. Hearing that, as we watched the last of the drizzle let up and twilight descend over the park, we decided to give it another try.
On our way back into the park, I proudly pointed out to Chris where I had almost drowned and showed him the ropes of jumping from bench to bench to avoid the cesspool of mud that had once been a sidewalk. He even helped a little old lady hop a fence. At the theater we got the good news that we could sit right next to each other a few rows from the stage, as most of the audience had gone home.
The play was great, set in the 17th century during the Thirty Years War, it follows the fortunes of a tough, resourceful woman, Mother Courage, played by Meryl Streep, who survives by running a commissary business that profits from all sides. It seemed suitable given the day's events. And worth it. The characters in the play are doomed, but Mother Courage is a survivor. We were survivors too. Part of the magic of Shakespeare in the Park is that anyone can go - anyone willing to wait in line and pay not with money but with his or her own time. And on that night, those of us also willing to risk death by drowning, lightening or hypothermia, had a great reward.
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