I Got 99 Problems, But Eminent Domain Ain’t One: White Brooklynites Against Jay-Z @9:50 AM
Jay-Z has been dipping his toes in the political waters of late. First, he and Beyonce showed up at the White House (which was stellar). Then, he surfaced as entrenched in an imbroglio (not so stellar) with the New York Guv, a potential Queens "racino," and Rev. Floyd Flake, the borough’s behemoth ex-Congressman-cum-powerbroker. Then the governor, even while busy swimming in a flood of scandal, killed the deal. And yesterday, Jay-Z appeared standing shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of New York politicos and dignitaries to take a big step towards building his dream: a stadium for the Brooklyn Nets. And lots of people are peeved about it. READ MORE 11
A Doody Grows In Brooklyn @1:40 PM
Tough times in Brooklyn, where an altercation between neighbors got very, very real: "The victim, who lives between Third and Fourth avenues, told police that he and his girlfriend returned to their building at 5 am to be welcomed by the aroma of excrement. The couple investigated the smell, only to find — we kid you not — a drunken man 'covered in fecal matter' sitting on the stairs outside his own apartment in the building. The man had damaged the victim’s door, which was now also 'covered in fecal matter,' according to a complaint filed with the Brooklyn DA’s office." READ MORE 14
The Spandex Report: Williamsburg Fashion Weekend @1:50 PM
On Saturday night, about ten men and women in white body paint and blue lips were standing on a stage; they wore knitwear short shorts made from recycled sweaters. Only one was wearing a furry bunny mask but they all held croquet mallets. Surf music played in the background as styrofoam "snow" fell from the ceiling. Then Arthur Arbit bounded onstage holding a tallboy can of Pabst Blue Ribbon and welcomed us all to Williamsburg Fashion Weekend. READ MORE 16
Insane FDNY Brawl Takes Place After Dinner at Unattractive Restaurant @10:15 AM
"Walk in the door and you are transported to another place and time… Ambiance? Hmm… the lack of ambiance is the ambiance, but in a good way," begins a review of Two Toms restaurant in Brooklyn. After a dinner there, on Friday night, two dozen firefighters, out for their annual dinner, beat four civilians to a pulp because one of the civilians spilled a drink. This was at The Salty Dog ("I love when vehicles are indoors, hence the half of firetruck that is inside.") Other reviews suggest that Two Tom's is not a good date restaurant. "The only thing is the neighborhood can seem sketchy so make sure you are not walking to/from the train late night if you are a girl or with a girl. Probably a good idea to leave them at home anyway because the place has zero aesthetic appeal and it can turn them off quickly if they are medium maintenance or higher." 31
The Spandex Report, with Erica Sackin: The Great Bedford Avenue Bike Lane Debate @12:21 PM
On Monday night, Pete’s Candy Store—on Lorimer Street, in Williamsburg—was packed. Flannel shirts, skinny jeans and thick-framed glasses with people inside them filled every seat, blocked the door and spilled out into the street. Outside the bar, there were two cops wearing “Community Outreach” jackets and also a smattering of Hasidic men. This was because people in Williamsburg really care about bike lanes, and so they had all showed up for a “debate” about a recently-disappeared Bedford Avenue bike lane. READ MORE 15
Death Bear Confronted by Ex, Screaming Women, Panties @11:12 AM
Remember how we told you, with great excitement, that Death Bear would be touring Brooklyn over the weekend? (Death Bear is a conceptual art project (OKAY) in which a fellow named Nate Hill dresses up as a big scary bear, comes to your house, and takes away objects that cause you pain or anxiety.) Apparently this did not end well. (Surprise?) Or it ended too well, when Death Bear ended up at the home of his own ex-lover. And was unable to take away her pain. READ MORE 71
"When you summon Death Bear to your door, you can rest assured that help has come" @2:40 PM
"Death Bear will take things from you that trigger painful memories and stow them away in his cave where they will remain forever allowing you to move on with your life." Call Death Bear this weekend for service in Brooklyn: send texts to 347-742-2293. 42
The Brooklyn Craft Fairs Write a Love Letter to You @4:20 PM
Brooklyn had about 12 craft fairs this weekend, with four or five taking place in Williamsburg-Greenpoint alone. There was the 3rd Ward Fair in Williamsburg, and the Hearts and Crafts Affair at Cafe Grumpy, in Greenpoint. These are often grandiose affairs, like Etsy on acid, with DJs and gift bags, and someone serving happy hour-priced mixed drinks and Colt 45 in juicebox-size bottles. For sale, everything from clothing to recession-based holiday gifts, like keychains for keys to things you do not have. It makes sense, of course. With so many struggling artists per capita, why not connect them with the masses desperate to buy that one unique gift? READ MORE 10
The Spandex Report, with Erica Sackin: The Underground Press @12:17 PM
Joe is a bearded 24-year-old who tends to wax philosophical. Julian is 18 with a cloud of frizzy hair who plays drums for 13 bands. On a recent Saturday, I ran into both of them at a Bushwick swap meet. This was held in a warehouse. There were 4-dollar Bloody Marys, David Hasselhoff tote bags, used t-shirts and furniture that you could only pray didn't come from someone's bedbug-infested loft. Joe and Julian were monitoring the influx of used CDs at the swap meet's used music section. Neither can remember their first concert, only that they've always been going to shows. READ MORE 32
The Shadow Editors: Meat and Real Estate are both Murder @3:07 PM
Tom Scocca: Did they time this whole rollout around Jonathan Safran Foer's vegetarianism book so as to get the maximum number of semi-precocious 15-year-olds to ruin their family Thanksgiving dinners?
Choire Sicha: Well it may just be the need for a Hot New Nonfiction Airport Book for fall, as Malcolm Gladwell only had a "best of" book. And I think David Sedaris is off this year.
Tom Scocca: Nice of J.S. Foer to swing over from the fiction team to fill the gap.
Choire Sicha: He took one for the team.
Tom Scocca: My advice to young would-be reporters is to write a novel, because once you've written a book-length made-up story, you're qualified to write about any sort of factual business you please. READ MORE 48
Terrible Group Attacked By Horrible Joke @3:45 PM
Look, all right-thinking people despise the Westboro Baptist Church, and it's lovely that a counter-demonstration caused them to turn tail prematurely during their Brooklyn protest today, but c'mon, it's been almost two weeks now: Can we please let this joke die? 18
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Brooklyn Found There @12:30 PM
Hard times at Meier Tower: "FACED with anemic sales, the developers have slashed prices by as much as 40 percent. They combined units – there were originally 114 – to boost the percentage sold in order to ease the path to mortgages. But potential buyers have walked away from at least $20 million worth of contracts. And the handful of people who moved in have been left exposed not only to the perils of buying at the peak of the market but also to the stifled laughter of their neighbors following their every move." 4
"Brooklyn's Bernie Madoff" Slightly More Downmarket Than Manhattan Analogue @10:00 AM
A day after news of the Lebanese Bernie Madoff comes word that Brooklyn has a Ponzi schemer of its very own. (Honestly, shouldn't all the Ponzi schemers have been flushed out by now? There's only so much longer that someone can be referred to as [Name of Location]'s Bernie Madoff.) Anyway, meet Philip Barry of Bay Ridge. Barry was charged yesterday with operating a $40 million scam. But were there any signs that might have made the friends and neighbors bilked by Barry over a period of 30 years suspicious? READ MORE 4
'Managed Expectations': The Bitter End, The Final Chapter @12:31 PM
This summer's serial novel by Marisa Meltzer has followed our heroine Nicole from the wilds of Park Slope—well, let's be honest, Prospect Heights—to the terrors of Portland, Oregon, from yoga to therapy, from the grasping arms of men on bad first dates to a terrible two-timer to, whoops!, the bed of her now-engaged ex-lover Jared. It culminates in the sudden wedding of her best friend. All this, during the short, not-so-hot and totally wedding-full summer of 2009, complete with major pregnancy scare. (Like your summer was any less dramatic or terrible?) And now, as they say on T.V., the stunning conclusion…
The unofficial theme to Darshan's wedding was Bollywood meets Bolinas. Luckily the ne plus ultra of hippie weddings was to have a Hindu ceremony, so the two themes coexisted fairly peacefully: sitars, garlands of marigolds, and chapattis were equally beloved by Brooklyn vegans and bankers from Mumbai. READ MORE 11
How Race Is Lived In America @9:52 AM
So last night I was meeting a couple of friends for drinks in Brooklyn, which is always a dicey situation because I have no idea where the hell anything is in that borough and am reliant on cab drivers or bad directions from the subway to get to my destination. (Those of you from out of town should know that Brooklyn is laid out completely illogically, with bizarre and unpronounceable road names rather than an orderly set of numbered streets and avenues. There is also, excepting for a couple of bridges and a place that is famous for cheesecake, a distinct lack of local landmarks by which one might orient oneself.) Because of the sweltering heat and a recent bounty that fell into my lap via the good offices of the New York State Lottery Commission, Scratch-Off Card division, I felt both sweaty and flush enough to take a taxi. This was my first mistake. READ MORE 104
Shocker: Extramarital Workplace Affair Ends In Hostilities @9:12 AM
Oh, people/animals. Don't you hate it when you're sleeping with a married guy high up the totem pole at work—you know, because you have such excellent judgment skills—and then you decide he is a liar and then you dump him and then you suddenly get fired? Because then you get to destroy his life in the press and in court, which is fun, because why shouldn't you? He's a schmuck, you're a schmuck, you can roll around in the schmuckiness together. It's sort of like if seagulls had newspapers and wedding rings. It's all "Squawk squawk squawk." 13
Here You Can Buy McSweeney's And All Those Other Various Random Literary Journals That Are Just Like It @2:41 PM
From our Brooklyn Bookstore Correspondent Emily Gould comes this photo. It was taken in Word, the lovely independent bookstore in Greenpoint. Go on over, and support your local bookstore! Oh and while you're there, please steal this hilarious sign. Emily points out: "It's like if instead of 'FICTION' at Barnes and Noble there was a sign that said 'Twilight and other novels.'" 29
Hiram S. Thomas, The Troublesome Colored Man of Fort Greene @2:16 PM
"The residents of Fort Greene Place, between Hanson Place and Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, have been greatly perturbed of late, as it was whispered among the neighbors that a colored man had purchased a house in that very select block." Thus began an article in the October 1, 1894 edition of The New York Times titled "They Want No Colored Neighbor." READ MORE 12
Social A's: Do I Have To Go Visit Those Babies? @1:30 PM
Dear Answer Lady,
I'm a lady at or around the age of 30, as are many of my friends. I live way up at the top of Manhattan, in faraway Inwood, but many of my friends live down under Manhattan, in faraway Brooklyn. When I want to see one of my Brooklyn-dwelling friends, we generally get together somewhere in between, so neither of us has to make the 1-1.5-hour trek to the other's house (and back, which is usually worse, or more expensive, on account of it being at night). READ MORE 27
Joanna Smith Rakoff @3:13 PM
The reviews are coming in for Joanna Smith Rakoff's new novel, "A Fortunate Age," which is not named 'Brooklyn': The novel ably captures the zeitgeist, with venture capitalists financing magazines headed by M.I.T. prodigies and young people worrying about the gentrification of their Brooklyn neighborhoods. But where [Mary] McCarthy's histrionic rich girls enabled her to skewer contemporary mores, Smith Rakoff's are almost indistinguishable in their blandness. 0
