MotherSister Brooklyn

Friday, September 28 (+ Sat 29 and Sun 30)
DUMBO Dance Festival
Outdoor performances on Sun 1-3pm in Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park
Free (?)

See: Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution

Saturday, September 29 (+ Sun 30)
Coney Island Film Festival, incl. kid-friendly and hip-hop programs
Tickets $6 per program or $15 Saturday pass, $10 Sunday pass

José González at the Music Hall of Williamsburg
From 8pm
Tickets $20

Sunday, September 30
33rd Annual Atlantic Antic, on Atlantic Avenue btw Fourth and Hicks streets
From 10am to 6pm
Free

Monday, October 1
Girlfriends season premiere (directed by Debbie Allen!)
9pm

Tuesday, October 2
Eternal Ancestors opens at the Met Museum
Through March 2, 2008
Free (well, suggested donation)

Listen: PJ Harvey’s White Chalk, Siouxsie Sioux’s Mantaray

Wednesday, October 3
Gnarly Vines opening reception, 350 Myrtle Avenue btw Carlton and Adelphi
From 6 to 8pm
Free

Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings release party at BookCourt
From 7pm
Free

Friday, October 5
Making a Home: Contemporary Japanese Artists opens at the Japan Society
Through January 13, 2008
Admission $12, students/seniors $10, free for kids under age 16

Saturday, October 6 (+ Sun 7)
Open House New York weekend
Reservations often required for tours, workshops, and events
Free

Tuesday, October 9
Listen: Extra Golden’s Hera Ma Nono, Robert Pollard’s dueling records

Wednesday, October 10
Listen: Radiohead’s In Rainbows

Thursday, October 11
Kara Walker retrospective opens at the Whitney Museum
Through February 3, 2008
Admission $15 adults, $10 students/seniors, free for kids under age 12

Lest you think I only keep disproportionate tally of customer service sins, allow me to publicly envelope Bergen Bagels and Zaytoons in a warm embrace and squeeze them tightly against my pillowy bosom. I’ve been a weekly (sometimes twice or thrice a week) customer of both since they opened locations on Myrtle Avenue, and they practically never let the MotherSister Posse down. A nasty head cold and the sultry heat have left me with barely enough energy to hit speed dial, so both crews have come to my rescue today, with service so characteristically stellar that I’m moved to broadcast my loyalty on the internets. Three reasons:

1. The food is delicious and an excellent value. I am completely addicted to Zaytoons’ fatoosh salad (which went weird for a bit but is back in top form), babaganoush, and chocolate mousse cake, but it’s impossible to go wrong with anything on the menu. I don’t claim to be a major bagel connoisseur, but as far as I’m concerned, nobody beats Bergen’s bagels and cream cheese. If we’ve been out of town, our first meals are from Zaytoons and Bergen — that’s how we settle back into Brooklyn.
2. They don’t make excuses. When something goes wrong with an order — which rarely happens, but considering how often we call for delivery, it’s bound to sometime — they fix it. No argument, no “we’ll make it up to you next time you order from us.” Simple apology, a redelivery — done. Refreshing, that.
3. They value regular customers. The boys at Bergen know me by voice, the guys at Zaytoons know me by address, and they can practically complete my orders for me, graciously allowing for whimsical detours from our usuals now and then. I could be deluding myself, but the delivery guys seem happy to see us. When the staff across the board are consistently pleasant to deal with, you know management is on top of things.

Extra bonus points to Bergen for what I think is an excellent “hold-the-line” message: a Pavlovian description of the hot, fresh bagel action you’re craving, so matter-of-factly and unrepentantly delivered that it makes it hard to hang up even if you’re on hold for 5 minutes — which never happens, because they care.

I am way behind in my periodicals reading, which is why I only just discovered this 2006 Believer piece on writers’ houses. Anne Trubek questions the value of the tourist circuit of writers’ houses — a refreshing inquiry, as most articles about them tend to be thinly disguised interiors porn, highlighting literary abodes that may as well belong to Vanderbilts or Dukes. (I wonder if you ever see the writer’s bathroom in these places? Would probably tell you all you needed to know.) Besides, I’d rather see Zadie Smith’s house, Charles Bukowski’s house, Haruki Murakami’s house — but I guess it only works if the writer is dead and stinking rich.

More interesting to peruse has been Jill Krementz’s The Writer’s Desk, a collection of photographs of writers, well, writing and talking about how they enter the headspace to produce. There’s Toni Morrison on a couch writing longhand on a legal pad, Veronica Chambers perched on her kitchen counter with a laptop, Dorothy West in front of her unabashedly messy, paper-strewn desk. Process-wise, while I’d like to be like my hero Joan Didion — coolly collected, as always, in a 1972 portrait sitting in front of a table with only a massive typewriter, a ready book of matches, and an elegant wastebasket at her bare feet — I suspect I’m more like Susan Sontag, captured in 1974 sitting at a long table covered with stacks of books, papers, notebooks, pens, mail, reviews, and a telephone. She says: “Getting started is partly stalling.” Indeed.

On reflection, there are three things I usually need to really settle down and drum out some writing. If I have these things, it doesn’t really matter where I am. They are:

• Forethought. I do a lot of advance thinking and research, forming and reconsidering sentences and even paragraphs in my mind before setting them down. I wrote entire term papers this way in college and grad school; I rarely revised anything and almost never regretted that. Even my blog posts are at least half formed before I get near my laptop.
• Food and water…but not too much. I can’t start writing on an empty stomach, but I do need a little edge of hunger and thirst to stay in the groove. A parched palate and a growling stomach drive me to finish the next sentence, the next paragraph, the next page. This slightly insane delayed gratification is the reason that anyone who interrupts me while I’m writing will probably have his/her head taken off. The combination of low blood sugar and broken concentration leaves me as agitated as an alley cat in heat.
• A fight with The Hub. I find it harder to settle down to work if we’re too friendly. Picking a fight with The Hub ensures that he will temporarily avoid crossing my path, which in turn ensures that I’ll have the solitude I need. Plus, I need to be a little pissed off about something when I write; I’m pugilistic that way.

The name of record seems to be Greene Avenue Dry Cleaners, but the awning says “Green Dry Cleaners,” which might explain why many people mistake this for a green dry cleaner. It would be great if it was — the name would advertise itself — but for now, it’s still old-school, owned and operated by a pair of cousins, the personable Mr. Park and Ms. Lee. Green has become my preferred spot in the neighborhood; it’s conveniently near the better supermarket, the library, and Mario’s, should the craving for a slice strike. Plus, it always seems sunny here, maybe because Mr. Park and Ms. Lee always greet their customers with friendly smiles. I didn’t happen to have any clothes for cleaning or hemming when I stopped by, but Ms. Lee still gave me a MotherSister Minute.

OPENED:  We have owned it for 4 years. [Their family owns dry cleaners in other locations.]

WHY FORT GREENE/CLINTON HILL:  We think there’s a good future here.

MOST POPULAR SERVICE:  Mainly dry cleaning.

COFFEE SHOP:  A&A Deli, on the other side of the Associated Supermarket [on Waverly]. We need more!

Green Dry Cleaners is at 141 Greene Avenue, at Waverly Avenue (718/230-1633). Open Monday through Friday from 7am to 7pm, Saturday and Sunday from 8am to 6pm.

The Scamp is a good-lookin’ little guy. We can barely get out the front door before people — women, men, young, old, rich, poor — are gushing ecstatically over his gorgeousness. And that’s before he breaks into a smile. The social impact of attractiveness has been well studied, from the heightened attention that cute babies receive from their own parents to the perception of greater intelligence, and we all hope (consciously or subconsciously) to reap the perceived benefits of beauty (the cosmetics and plastic surgery industries are big bucks for a reason, after all). The Hub worries that all of The Scamp’s handsome points have been used up in his infancy, that maybe he’ll be a dog of an adult. My worry about his adult attractiveness has a different edge: Will my brown baby boy be so adored when he’s a grown brown man?

After the Clifton Place shooting last week, someone diligently visited the police precinct to view a photo of the suspect and report a description on a local message board. The description this viewing produced went something like this: “black male,” “young,” “very short hair,” “thin face,” “well-defined top lip,” “frequently on a bike.” I wish this description hadn’t been posted at all. Why? Well, here’s a black male:

And here’s another black male:

Lookie, another black male:

Now that I’m done fanning myself, it seems safe to say that the suspect wasn’t Isaach de Bankolé, Gary Dourdan, or Boris Kodjoe. Was the Clifton Place shooter light-skinned, dark-skinned, or of medium skin tone? Long, thin, broad, stubby nose? Dark brown, light brown, hazel, blue, green eyes? Thick or thin lips? Curly hair, straight hair, kinky hair, shaved, dreaded? Square-jawed, heart-shaped face? I could go on, but you get my point: Black people are as multi-hued and multi-featured as anyone else. If you know this, then you know “black” is a near-useless descriptor, as useless as “white.” (Truly: Who is actually black? Who is actually white? Those words are just stand-ins for presumptions and stereotypes.) I can understand a victim being unable to conjure up more details, but not someone who actually viewed a photo (even a crap one) with the intent of reporting details.

I have long hated most suspect descriptions for precisely this reason, and using them propagates confirmation bias. (Suspect is a young black male? Then all young black males are suspect.) Some media, like the Baltimore Sun (bless), won’t even publish vague descriptions.

Someday, The Scamp will be described as a young black male with very short hair and a thin face; you could argue that his top lip is well defined, too, a Cupid’s bow that I love to see puckered in concentration or to give me a kiss. He, like his dad, will probably enjoy riding his bike. I wonder if the same people who coo over how adorable he is at 19 months old will assume he’s as magical and innocent when they see him coming down the street at 19 years old.

I know anything can go down in New York City at any time anywhere, and usually I can cope with that, even on the days when you can feel the sidewalks vibrating with collective mental unrest. However, the news of this random shooting on Clifton Place — which may have been another one of those “disrespect” homicides that are increasingly common these days — has really unsettled me today. (Not least because the unhinged suspect is still at large.)

The Hub is grown — New York-born and bred, in fact — so I try not to worry about him, though, y’know, stuff happens to native New Yorkers all the time. But I do wonder about teaching The Scamp street smarts when there’s a special type of alertness and wariness you need in most American urban environments, especially New York. From the regular reports of pedestrians and bicyclists (often young children) hit by cars to unstable, desperate people, it’s sometimes overwhelming to think of how The Hub and I are supposed to help him stay out of danger. Luckily, The Scamp is naturally reserved with strangers, and while it often makes people huffy (”Why won’t he smile?”), it’s a lot easier to encourage him to follow his instincts and await proof of trustworthiness in someone he’s just met than it is to dissuade a super-friendly child from chatting up and taking the hand of just anyone.

I walked Clifton Place frequently with The Scamp this summer, having been impressed by the way its intersection with Grand Avenue seemed to clean up with the opening of Le Grand Dakar, Choice Market, and Still Hip. But I also noticed signs of the old drug trade hanging around, obviously having missed the gentrification memo. It’s a lovely stretch, and it’ll soon be home to the Brooklyn School. I hope for the sake of the children — hell, for the sake of us all — the 88th Precinct and the community can turn it around. But it’s just one block of many in this city that has witnessed cruel horrors, and the concepts of protection and safety sometimes seem like a distant shore.

[ETA: The Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Courier reported on October 12 that “Psycho,” as he is apparently known, was caught.]

Friday, September 14
Leonard Lopate Show: On Brooklyn and How the Mind Works, WNYC 93.9 FM
From noon to 2pm
Free

Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy
Through Sept 23
Free

Saturday, September 15 (and Sun 16)
Apple Picking at Prospect Park’s Lefferts Historic House
From 1 to 4pm
Free

Sunday, September 16
Brooklyn Book Festival, Brooklyn Borough Hall & Plaza
From 10am to 6pm
Free

Monday, September 17
Derek Walcott and Ishmael Beah at the 92nd Street Y
From 8pm
$18 for Walcott, $26 for Beah

Tuesday, September 18
Naomi Klein reads from The Shock Doctrine at Barnes & Noble, Sixth Ave. btw 21st and 22nd Sts.
From 7pm
Free

Listen: Thurston Moore’s Trees Outside the Academy; Eddie Vedder’s Into the Wild soundtrack

Thursday, September 20
Cinderella Samba on Myrtle Avenue Meadow at Fort Greene Park
From 10am
Free

The Brooklynites reception at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO
From 6 to 9pm
Free

Margaret Garner at the New York City Opera
From 8pm (Sat 22nd 1:30pm, Wed 26th 7:30pm, Sat 29th 8pm)
Tickets $16-$130

Saturday, September 22
Hawk Weekend at Prospect Park’s Audubon Center
From noon to 5pm (also Sun 23)
Free

New York-Tokyo Music Festival feat. MF Doom and Teriyaki Boyz at Central Park
From 2pm
Tickets $22-$25

Sunday, September 23
Design for the Other 90% closes at the Cooper-Hewitt
From noon to 6pm
Admission $12

Tuesday, September 25
House, M.D. season premiere
9-10pm

Listen: Foo Fighters‘ Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace; Chaka Khan’s Funk This; Habib Koite’s Afriki; Meshell Ndegeocello’s The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams; Jill Scott’s The Real Thing (bring it this time, Jill!)

*Make a note of it now:
Friday, September 28
See: Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited; Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution

Sometime in 1983, I remember sitting at my orange-and-blue flowered kiddie table — which served as teacher’s desk, restaurant setting, doctor’s examination table, manicure station, and whatever else I used it for — and doodling idly on a piece of paper:

1984. 1985. 1986. 1987. 1988. 1989. 1990. 1991. 1995. 1999. 2000.

Whoa. 2000. “I’ll be 25,” I thought in amazement. “What will my life be like then?” I carefully traced and re-traced the numbers with my yellow no. 2 pencil, trying to picture the days when writing those years would be normal, of the moment.

Do you remember? Remember when we thought the future looked like this?

I’ve loved Aarnio ball chairs, but I didn’t know that one of his countrymen took the aesthetic all the way to an entire house!

Complete photo and more here.

So at last Saturday’s SalvageFest, a classy little piece of furniture caught my eye. Sort of a lingerie chest/cabinet thing topped by a mirror; sort of like this (in form, not detail)

but not quite. It was immediately familiar; I could almost smell my grandmother’s house again, with its green carpeting, 2-ton television set topped with framed family photographs, my grandfather’s big leather chair, and the ashtrays still full of his cigarette butts long after his sudden death when I was 3 years old. Perhaps because my brain was melting from the unexpected heat, I didn’t inquire about the piece (I wouldn’t have wanted that one specifically, but something just like it — at least I would’ve known the formal name for it) or snap a photo of it. Idiot.

I’ve been searching restlessly for something similar, and now I’m afraid I’ll never find it again. My fruitless hunt has also motivated me to try to acquire a gossip bench and at least one step table, furniture that also figured prominently in my grandmother’s house, which has been in freefall since her death half my lifetime ago. Midcentury furniture has been very trendy for the past decade, but for me, it’s very comforting and oddly old-fashioned, jogging memories of Star Trek, Gunsmoke, and Perry Mason reruns; flat Coca-Cola, boiled chicken, and pecan trees; Reader’s Digests and Ladies Home Journals piled up; ripe August peaches that seemed as big as the moon; and my Buddha-faced homemaker grandma, wearing my late grandfather’s old Army shirt and working on a quilt.

Chest in photo above available here.

Your ol’ MomSis had a birthday a couple of weeks ago, and as far as my ability to cope with my age goes, it is the best of times and the worst of times. By my reckoning as a child, 32 is the age when a woman reaches full flower: Think Dorothy Dandridge circa Carmen Jones (below) or Marlene Dietrich circa The Blonde Venus. It’s the age of my own mother when I began to recognize her as a fully separate, mysterious, unknowable entity. But in spite of all the ways that giving birth and raising my boy has elevated me, it has left me feeling a little physically battered and emotionally as if I’ve aged 18 years instead of 18 months. Maggie Gyllenhaal may be MILFing it up while her daughter’s still in diapers, but I’ve been tongue-tied when attempting to carry on conversations with women just 6 years younger than I am. Don’t be so quick to dismiss my hand-wringing; someone at The Onion knows what I’m talkin’ ’bout.

I don’t know that I can do anything about the burning AARP sensation I get when I talk to a 25-year-old now — except avoid sentences that begin with the words “Back in my day…” and conclude “you’ll feel differently when you’re a little older” — but physically, it’s time to do something besides serve as The Scamp’s balance beam. After penciling into my calendar the resumption of marital relations sometime in 2016 or when The Scamp goes to sleep-away camp (whichever comes first), I decided that the first order of business was a massage. In my postpartum fog, I missed a 90-minute rubdown at SoHo Sanctuary, the most valuable present I’ve ever wasted. Though I was tempted to try there again, with the encouragement of The Hub and a recommendation from a local listserv, I decided to keep it local and give Cynergy Spa the business.

You could almost miss Cynergy, which is in a brownstone just tucked into Fort Greene Place. I ran a little late for my appointment, but when I arrived, they didn’t tsk-tsk me; Tomoko, the masseuse, met me at the front door and swiftly led me to the treatment room. After I disrobed and settled myself face-down on the table, Tomoko proceeded to tenderize and flatten me like empanizado. She was professional and focused, which is the highest compliment I can think to pay a masseuse; she didn’t (a) chat me up, (b) quiz me about my tattoo, (c) ask me a million times if the pressure was okay, (d) do any weird whispery chanting over my head and end with “namaste,” or (e) offer me her card to contact her for private services. (Yes, all have happened to me during past massages, and yes, [e] was a male. With a ponytail.) She gave me the full 55 minutes, and I swear once she was done I looked about 55 years younger (or maybe the dim lighting in the treatment room helped give a more complimentary reflection in the mirror — whatever, I’ll take it). Tomoko delivered what I came for and sent me sauntering home on a lavender-scented cloud. Although I’m a bit of a cheapo when it comes to massages — I’m somehow still stuck on what I paid back in 1997 in San Diego, $30 for 60 minutes — my experience at Cynergy was worth every penny.

According to a recent Myrtle Minutes blast, Walgreens is opening in the neighborhood — welcome news to some, it seems. We’re mostly well-sorted for pharmacies ’round here, to the point that we may even be getting an Elephant Pharm-style spot soon, so I’m less than enthusiastic anyway, but beyond that, I just can’t get excited when a major chain opens in Brooklyn.

Let me clarify: Though I champion the well-done independents, I’m not opposed to chain stores across the board. Boots the Chemists, Borders Books, Buy Buy Baby, Trader Joe’s — love. They get it right. Would spasm with joy to have one of each in spitting distance. But what is it about a Brooklyn address that prompts some chains to bring their Z-game? The facilities look run down as soon as they open (I’m looking at you, Applebee’s and Target), the customer service is indifferent to lousy (Target again), and worst of all — since this is supposedly the chain’s biggest advantage — they’re poorly stocked (Barnes & Noble, Target for the win!). I can think of one exception: Hale & Hearty Soups in Brooklyn Heights, which has borderline friendly employees (if they recognize you after you’ve been there a couple of times) and is always neat. But otherwise, the contrast between a Home Depot in Bed-Stuy and a Home Depot in Orlando (or lower Manhattan, even) is so striking — clean(ish) surfaces! stock staff who know where stuff is! cashiers that actually acknowledge your existence with a hello! — that they don’t even seem to be the same corporation.

Let’s state one obvious factor at play here: Chain stores have avoided predominantly black neighborhoods, and those that do finally come around often offer goods that are not of the same quality or quantity as in other locations. Grocery store chains are one of the most discussed offenders, but it applies to all kinds of services (otherwise, Magic Johnson wouldn’t have stepped in so successfully in Harlem and Los Angeles). Walgreens itself is at the center of an EEOC lawsuit now, in part for allegedly referring to certain branches as “ethnic stores” and treating them as substandard stands for stymieing black employees and managers. If the first front in the battle was to bring some of these stores to places like Clinton Hill in the first place, then the next step seems to be pressing them to bring their facilities and services up to the standards they’ve set elsewhere. And maybe, just maybe, the mom-and-pops will also step it up to keep their formerly captive customer base from deserting them. It would be nice to see that fabled New York competitiveness help all boats to rise.