Thursday, November 29, 2012

Where the Wild Things Are: Staten Island Edition

View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.


A few years ago when I was working on Staten Island, my colleagues teased me about a deer running in the parking lot. By now, due to urban development and sprawl, deer on the Island are fairly common place. But wild horses and zebra?  As Chuck Berry sang, it just goes to show, you never can tell.
-Tony, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Got Color-Glass Condensate?: Tales from the Large Hadron Collider

Is the Large Hadron Collider in CERN producing new types of matter, perhaps emerging from a post-Big Bang reminiscent Soup? Researchers speculate on ethereal, celestial  technologies. Article from Physics.Org here

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving -- and Peace!

It's a day for family and food, swing and standard tubes in the air, turkey of course,and Persian rice with truffles and piseli, quinoa with beans and onion, tempeh with mushrooms and okra and green beans, salad with autumnal roast veges, candied yams, roasted taters, corn bread, corn pudding , biscuits, broccoli soup with potatoes...

Hearing from our oldest daughter, potentially peaceful in Tel Aviv, rockets fall, turkey there among Espats and aliyot .. Wondering what tomorrow would bring...

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

And For Now -- A Cessation in the Hostilities. How Long? Who Knows.

Washington Post Reports that the Egyptian government announced Wednesday night that Israel and Palestinian leaders in the Gaza strip have agreed to halt hostilities after eight days of Israeli bombardment of the enclave and hundreds of rocket strikes inside Israel. (However, the cease fire falls short of the long-term aggreement both sides were apparently hoping for.)


Standing alongside Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who engaged in intensive shuttle diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr told a news conference that the cease-fire would begin at 9 p.m. local time (2 p.m. in Washington).

Full story here

COLOR RED Phone App provides early warning on attacks by incoming rocket; details here

Twitter "Tweets" between Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas here


A Pre-Thanksgiving Soliloquy

For Danielle and Rami in Tel Aviv Right Now



The Rolling Stones, 1969, on The David Frost Show, perform You Can't Always Get What You Want

The song was recorded at Olympic Studios in London on November 16 and 17, 1968. 

Bon anniversaire also to Nanette Workman (aka Nanette Newman), one of the background singers on the track, a great Brooklyn-born, now Canada and formerly Mississippi based chanteuse who celebrated a birthday on November 20, who recently returned to rock with a powerful blues and roots album, Just Gettin' Started.





Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Israeli Soldier Killed; Hamas Announces Truce; Israel Prepares for Ground Offensive

Truce

Truce between Israeli and Palestinian forces to be announced Tuesday November 20 at 2 pm EST and goes into effect at 5 pm EST

Saturday, November 17, 2012

When Tigers Fight It Is The Grass that Suffers

Gaza operation enters day 5
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/live-blog-day-5-of-israel-s-gaza-offensive-1.478624

How would a cease fire pan out?
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/waiting-to-see-how-a-cease-fire-would-pan-out.premium-1.478838

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Andy Warhol Museum's Eric Shiner to Curate 'Focus' at the Centenniel Armory Show

Exciting news in the Art World. The 2013 Armory Show, which this year will commemorate the centenniel of the original Armory Show in 1913, which was a groundbreaking exhibition credited with bringing Modernism to the United States, has invited Eric Shiner, Director of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, to curate Armory Focus: USA, presenting a broad snapshot of the country’s contemporary cultural practice.

Armory Focus, the curated section of The Armory Show, highlights the gallery and artistic landscape of a chosen geographic region.


Notes from the Armory Show: "As American artists, galleries, and institutions continue to grapple with and re-position modes of self-reflection, Armory Focus: USA will examine the forefront of artistic practice—the core of our inherited legacy stretching back to the 1913 Armory Show—by showcasing contemporary responses to integral questions of artistic production in the United States. In recognition of our country’s extraordinarily diverse cultural output, [The Armory Show] will offer a select group of galleries from across America the opportunity to present their unique programming, providing a forum for an ever-expanding national conversation at the fair.

Mr Shiner notes, “I am most excited to curate the 2013 Armory Show Focus section and to gauge the pulse of contemporary art production in America today. A celebration of the first Armory Show in 1913—an event that ushered in the avant-garde to this country—next year’s fair will stand as a testament to the fact that the avant-garde took root here and prospered, just as it will highlight the very best artists and artworks available today. Although it will certainly be challenging to give a barometer of what contemporary art from America has become, I hope to put together a witty and far-sweeping Focus section that makes visitors stop and think about America, art, and ultimately their place within it.”

Michael Hall, Creative Director of The Armory Show, says, “We are delighted to announce the appointment of Eric Shiner, whose curatorial insights will craft an exceptional take on the visual culture flourishing in our own back yard. At the helm of a cutting-edge institution in the heart of America, Eric was the perfect choice to lead this section, defining the new avant-garde of the early twenty-first century.”

Noah Horowitz, Executive Director of The Armory Show, states, “America has always been a country defined by its attraction to the frontier, and a century after the original Armory Show gave American artists license to break conclusively with the past, that frontier is increasingly being explored through art that addresses the most complex issues of our time, from the pervasive influence of technology on modern life to the atomizing force of globalization. In Armory Focus: USA, we are proud to survey this artistic vanguard through the lens of our distinguished curator, Eric Shiner.”

Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn is an enthusiastic fan of both The Armory Show and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, which, for the art world in general, and New York City and Pittsburgh, respectively, are the Really Big Shows, and the only games in their home towns.

The 2013 Armory Show will be coming to New York City on March 7-10, 2013, Piers 92 & 94
Twelfth Avenue at 55th Street. For more information visit here

-Anthony Napoli, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Monday, November 12, 2012

Start Me Up: Rolling Stones Play Barclay Center

The Rolling Stones 50 th anniversary mini tour will have a stop off on December 8 in Brooklyn after all..I guess the number's finally worked out.. Is there more of a story to this ?
Details here http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/coldplay-and-jay-z-to-play-barclays-center-on-new-years-eve/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Rehearsing for the Apocalypse

Waiting on a Gas Line. Reflecting on An unrecognizable, perhaps unimaginable, New York City following The Storm. Hundreds of houses burned out in Breezy Point in one of the largest fires in our city's history but now just one painful facet of the hurricane.Thousands of families displaced, homes flooded. Thousands of people still without basic services, electricity, in the region. The scope of the economic impact on the area hard to predict. But it can't be simple to resolve. Drivers in NYC searching aimlessly and often fruitlessly for fuel. Long lines like a failed planned economy. Schools disrupted. Brooklyn Battery Tunnel still flooded and closed. LIRR disruptions.Trying to pretend the return to normal is just a couple of days away but recognizing that for some, there will never be a return to a pre-storm stasis. Folks comparing this to 9/11, which was filled with its own tragedies and fears. But coming on the heels of the recent election, it appears that among the battles fought and won will be a new reality and acceptance that climate change may in fact be well upon us. This was further bolstered by a recent report on our warming planet. Whether it is too late to reverse it and it is now time to erect sea barriers and move further from humankind's original home, at the shore. But for now the days ahead and our ability to rebound and fully cover will no doubt frustrate -- and disclose.
--Anthony Napoli, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn
See climate report link here http://m.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/warmer-still-extreme-climate-predictions-appear-most-accurate-study-says/2012/11/08/ebd075c6-29c7-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

Thursday, November 8, 2012

...and the Beginning of a New Era: Odd and Even Gas Rationing in NYC

New York City is imposing odd and even day gas rationing in NYC beginning Friday, November 9, at 6 AM.  License plates ending in an even number may only fill up on even numbered days, and plates ending in an odd number may fill up only on odd numbered days.

The Mayor reported that due to power outages and related distribution issues, at present only 25% of the fuel stations in NYC are opened and providing fuel. Details from the NY Times City Room here

Has it really come to this? Apparently it has...

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

End of an Era, To Be Sure

R.I.P. - The Old, the first Presidential Election in New York City without the old lever voting machine...

Those New Yorkers who grew up on the experience, know, there was just somethign about the mechanical voting machines. They were massive. Like voting on a huge soda vending machine.

The New system using coded sheets and scanners seems like low tech under the guise of high tech, since, while the numbers can be more effectively crunched on the other end, I guess, it relies on Joe Shmo the voter to perform the manual data entry which may have contributed to some of the delay. Plus one poll worker observed that, maybe duye to the heavy number of voters in NYC, the system was down intermittently. 

But in the old machines, you did your gentle little click and then went on your way...and somehow that sense of “massiveness” translated into the voting process….can’t explain it, like the little lever click that combines with the heavy interior gears and everything and somehow is translated into the body politick of the American scene.
The New

--Anthony Napoli

The 45th President of the United States of America



Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech as he wins reelection as the 45th President of the United States of America.

"Let me say this publicly: Michelle, I have never loved you more. I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you, too, as our nation’s first lady.

(APPLAUSE)

"Sasha and Malia, before our very eyes you’re growing up to become two strong, smart beautiful young women, just like your mom."
(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: "And I’m so proud of you guys. But I will say that for now one dog’s probably enough."

Full Transcript of his acceptance speech here

Full transcript of Mr. Romney's concession speech here

44/45

Barack Hussein Obama reelected to a second term as the 45th President of the United States of America.

Lots of challenges ahead.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Election 2012: Chaos? Even for Mayor Mike?

Even Mogul Mayors can have problems at the polls. Election worker can't find Mayor Michael Bloomberg's name on the voter registration list. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2012/11/6539084/total-chaos-scenes-polling-sites-throughout-new-york-city

Election 2012: The Optics Are Optimistic

Nate Silver, Sabermetric and Political Expert, King of All Stats, sees combined poll results giving President Obama a lead. But it ain't over til it's over. Details here

Election Day 2012


Hard to believe it is Election Day in the United Staters of America, in general and New York City, in particular.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Election Day will seem like an afterthought to many in the New York City metropolitan area, but this of course is a year of many important races. Hopefully, those who can vote, will.

The New York City Board of Elections, which continues to take many hits, to its credit, has a comprehensive website loaded with information and resources for voters (those who can access it.)

Find your local polling place and see your sample local ballot here

Information on polling sites relocated due to the storm here

From the Board of Elections: The polls are open from 6 A.M. to 9 P.M. BoE Phone Bank is 866 VOTE NYC, the Phone Bank is open on Election Day from 5 A.M. to 9 P.M.


El Día de Elecciones es el 6 de noviembre de 2012. Los centros de votación estarán abiertos de 6 AM a 9 PM. Nuestro número de servicio (Phone Bank) 866-VOTE-NYC estará funcionando el Día de Elecciones de 5 AM a 9 PM.

2012年11月6日是選舉日。所有投票處從早上6:00開放至晚上9:00。選舉局熱線為866 VOTE NYC(866-868-3692)。熱線從選舉日早上5:00開放至晚上9:00。

2012년 11월6일 선거일, 투표소는 오전 6시부터 오후 9시까지 개장합니다. 전화 교환국은 866 - VOTE - NYC이며, 선거날은 오전 5시 부터 오후 9시 까지 근무합니다.

নির্বাচনের দিন হচ্ছে ৬ই নভেম্বর, ২০১২। ভোটকেন্দ্রগুলো ভোট গ্রহনের জন্য সকাল ৬টা থেকে রাত ৯টা পর্যন্ত খোলা থাকবে। নির্বাচনের দিন আমাদের ফোন ব্যাংক সকাল ৫টা থেকে রাত ৯টা পর্যন্ত খোলা থাকবে, আমাদের ফোন ব্যাংকের নম্বর হচ্ছে 866 VOTE NYC ( 866-868-3692 )।

Monday, November 5, 2012

New York New York: Life Lines

I. CITY IN CRISIS
Like yours, my heart goes out to the folks who were struck by so much hardship and loss from the storm.

I thought this was a very telling quote from today's NY Times:

"The offices of The Jewish Daily Forward occupy the eighth floor. Samuel Norich, the publisher, said he was allowed    into
the building for about a half-hour on Friday to retrieve servers and hard drives. He said that there were water marks on the lobby’s white marble walls that reached two to three feet above the floor line. Building management, he said, told him that some eight million gallons had been pumped out of the basement.


“We had prepared for an emergency,” Mr. Norich said. “The emergency we had prepared for was an act of terrorism, not this.”

Given the very large number of people seeking to volunteer and make donations of supplies, and now that the government and NGO organizations are on-site and in action, dispensing emergency and corporate donations, volunteers are being turned away, and recommendations made that financial contributions be made instead to suitable organizations. Details here

The following agencies are among those accepting contributions to assist people affected by Hurricane Sandy:

N.Y. Times area services update here

II. LOCAL COLOR

Despite the tragedies faced by those impacted first hand by the storm, the rest of us are fortunate that the inconveniences experienced by some, of no power, no phones, no cable, no internet, and for most in the region, no gas, are worrysome but hopefully beginning to abate.

After the fairly long hike from Fiske Terrace to alternative subway options, it was really convenient having the Q back up and running. Early this morning, it was a smooth, fast ride.

We were conserving fuel and doing errands on foot for the last couple of days. The lines at filling stations were of course overwhelming. Since I am a subway commuter, I was more than willing to leave the car until the gas situation resolved itself, hopefully in a few days. However, My Better Half, who works in Bushwick/East New York, once again proved remarkably resourceful in overcoming gas line adversity and strategically getting a fill up so that she could make it to work at her school. A projected two-hour bus ride plus walk, with limited ability to shlep supplies for her students, wasn't going to cut it. Early this morning, she checked out www.Gasbuddy.com to narrow available fuel options and then made a few phone calls to stations to assess the status, and then headed out for a roughly one hour wait to get fuel and head to work with her students.

Hopefully in the days ahead, just as the critical needs of many thousands of survivors of the storm hit the hardest, for food, shelter and other resources, will be met, so too the other disruptions, power outages, phone problems, gas shortages, etc. also will begin to ease, and NY-ers not immediately and seriously impacted will return to some sense of non-crisis, so that the focus can remain on assisting those who are most in need.

-Anthony Napoli, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn


NY TIMES: Post-Storm Service Update

N.Y. Times area services update here




Sunday, November 4, 2012

Q Train Running in Brooklyn; Partial Service Restored

The Q train is running in Brooklyn northbound between Kings Highway and Atlantic Avenue; Southbound between Jay Street/Metrotech and Kings Highway

Other details here http://www.mta.info/

We south central Brooklyn residents - especially Fiske Terrace Flatbush love our Q (and hopefully soon B) train!

Update on Donations and Volunteering

Our friends at Ditmas Park Patch compiled an excellent list of information and opportunities to help:

http://ditmaspark.patch.com/articles/5-things-sunday-71ca71bf

Don't forget to Like the Ditmas Park Patch on Facebook.

On the Upcoming: It's All in the Numbers, says Silver

Nate Silver, Five Thirty Eight's statistician and pollster at the New York Times, calling the election for President Obama, based on a preponderance of polling data from critical electoral college states. But since an election is still an horse race and Silver is striving to be statistically objective he has discussed the remote circumstances where those numbers could go wrong -- but still sees the reelection of the incumbent President statistically more than likely and probably a done deal. Details here:
http://nyti.ms/U6UJX5

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Vlacke Bosh Chronicles: Post-Storm Sociability

The most amazing quality of New York is its fantastic resiliency. Friday night after work at Sycamore on Cortelyou Road.

Post-Storm New York: Ways to Help

Despite the emerging efforts of FEMA and Red Cross, many opportunities to help still exist.

A comprehensive rundown of Volunteer opportunities and ways to help from our colleagues at the Ditmas Park Patch:

http://ditmaspark.patch.com/articles/post-sandy-update-where-to-volunteer-in-brooklyn

The World Keeps Turning

Sundown following a 90 degree beach day in Yaffo near Tel Aviv, Israel. November 3, 2012

Photo by Danielle Moghadam

Thursday, November 1, 2012

CODA: Storm Giving You Gas? Just Wait.

Fuel analysts blame distribution issues that are by-products of Hurricane Sandy -- including power outages that prevent transport of fuel from storage facilities to trucks to local stations -- and not actual fuel shortages as among the principal reasons for lines at the pump and empty stations throughout the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area. It could result in a temporary price spike at the fuel pump and take several days, possibly a week, to stabilize.  

More details here .

Current Reading

  • Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War- Tony Horwitz
  • A Sultan in Palermo - Tariq Ali
  • Hitch-22: A Memoir - Christopher Hitchens
  • Negropedia- Patrice Evans
  • Dead Funny: Humor in Nazi Germany - Rudolph Herzog
  • Exile on Main Street - Robert Greenfield
  • Among the Truthers - A Journey Among America's Growing Conspiracist Underworld - Jonathan Kay
  • Paradise Lost - John Milton
  • What Is Your Dangerous Idea? Thinking the Unthinkable - John Brockman
  • Notes from the Edge Times - Daniel Pinchbeck
  • Fringe-ology: How I Can't Explain Away the Unexplainable- Steve Volk
  • Un Juif pour l'exemple (translated as A Jew Must Die )- Jacques Cheesex
  • The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
  • Pale King - David Foster Wallce
  • David Bowie: Starman bio - Paul Trynka
  • Tobacco Stained Mountain Goat - Andrez Bergen
  • The Future of Nostalgia -Svetlana Boym
  • Living in the End Times - Slavoj ZIzek
  • FIrst as Tragedy Next as Farce - Slavoj Zizek
  • How to Survive a Robot Uprising - Daniel Wilson
  • Where is My Jet Pack? -Daniel Wilson
  • Day of the Oprichniks - Vladimir Sorokin
  • Ice Trilogy - Vladimir Sorokin
  • First Civilizations
  • Oscar Wilde -Andre Maurois
  • The Beats - Harvey Pekar, et al
  • SDS - Harvey Pekar, et al
  • The Unfinished Animal - Theodore Roszak
  • Friends of Eddy Coyle
  • Brooklands -Emily Barton
  • Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahme-Smith - Entertaining and historical
  • Dictionary of the Khazars - Pavic
  • Sloth-Gilbert Hernandez
  • War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy
  • Charles Addams: An Evilution
  • Life in Ancient Greece
  • Time - Eva Hoffmann
  • Violence - S. Zizek
  • Luba - a graphic novel by Gilbert Hernandez
  • Life in Ancient Egypt
  • Great Apes - Will Self - riveting and disturbing
  • Lost Honor of Katherina Blum - Heinrich Boll - could not put it down
  • Yellow Back Radio Brokedown - Ishmael Reed (author deserving of new wide readership)
  • Living in Ancient Mesopotomia
  • Landscape in Concrete - Jakov Lind - surreal
  • 'There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby'-Ludmilla Petrushevskaya - creepy stories - translation feels literarily "thin"
  • Mythologies - William Butler Yeats (re-read again & again)
  • How German Is It ? - Walter Abish
  • The Book of Genesis - illustrated by R. Crumb - visionary
  • "Flags" - an illustrated encyclopedia - wish I could remember all of these. Flag culture
  • Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
  • Ubik - Philip K. Dick
  • Nobody's Fool - Richard Russo
  • Hitler's Empire - Mark Mazower
  • Nazi Culture - various authors
  • Master Plan: Himmler 's Scholars and the Holocaust - Heather Pringle
  • Eichmann in Jerusalem - Hannah Arendt
  • Living in Ancient Rome
  • Traveling with Herodotus -R. Kapuszynsky
  • Oblivion - David Foster Wallace - Some of his greatest work
  • Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace - still wrestling with this great book
  • Netherland - Joseph O'Neill - staggeringly great read
  • Renegade - The Obama Campaign - Richard Wolffe
  • Mount Analogue - Rene Daumal
  • John Brown
  • Anathem - Neal Stephenson - love Stephenson but tough slogging first few chapters
  • 7 Deadly Sins
  • ALEX COX - Alex Cox
  • FIASCO by Thomas Ricks
  • I, Fellini - Charlotte Chandler & Federico Fellini
  • Best of 20th century alternative history fiction
  • Judah P. Benjamin - Eli Evans - Confederacy's Secretary of State & source of the W.C. Field's exclamation
  • Moscow 2042 - Vladimir Voinovich - Pre-1989 curiosity & entertaining sci fi read; love his portrayal of Solzhenitsyn-like character
  • Gomorrah - Roberto Saviano - Mafia without the It-Am sugar coating. Brutal & disturbing
  • The Sack of Rome - Celebrity+Media+Money=Silvio Berlusconi - Alexander Stille
  • Reporting - David Remnick - terrific journalism
  • Fassbinder
  • Indignation - Philip Roth
  • Rome
  • Let's Go Italy! 2008
  • Italian Phrases for Dummies
  • How to Pack
  • Violence - Slavoj Zizek
  • Dali: Painting & Film
  • The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight - Jimmy Breslin
  • The Good Rat - Jimmy Breslin
  • Spook Country - William Gibson
  • A Blue Hand - The Beats in India - Deborah Baker
  • The Metaphysical Club - Louis Menard
  • Coast of Utopia - Tom Stoppard
  • Physics of the Impossible - Dr. Michio Kaku
  • Managing the Unexpected - Weick & Sutcliffe
  • Wait Til The Midnight Hour - Writings on Black Power
  • Yellow Back Radio Brokedown - Ishmael Reed
  • Burning Down the Masters' House - Jayson Blair
  • Howl - Allen Ginsberg
  • Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
  • The Palace Thief - Ethan Canin
  • John Adams - David McCullough
  • The Wooden Sea - Jonathan Carroll
  • American Gangster - Mark Jacobson
  • Return of the King - J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Gawker Guide to Becoming King of All Media
  • Jews and Power - Ruth Wisse
  • Youth Without Youth - Mircea Eliade
  • A Team of Rivals - Doris Goodwin
  • Ghost Hunters -William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death - Deborah Blum
  • Dream -Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy - Stephen Duncombe
  • Love & Theft - Eric Lott
  • Exit Ghost - Philip Roth
  • Studio A - The Bob Dylan Reader

Current Listening

  • Alexi Murdoch Wait
  • Wilco Summer Teeth
  • Wilco The Album
  • Carmina Burana - Ray Manzarek (& Michael Riesmann)
  • Polyrock - Polyrock
  • 96 Tears - Garland Jeffries
  • Ghost of a Chance Garland Jeffries
  • Yellow Magic Orchestra
  • Mustang Sally Buddy Guy
  • John Lee Hooker
  • Black and White Years
  • Together Through Life - B. Dylan
  • 100 Days 100 Nites - Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
  • DYLAN: 3 disc Greatest...
  • Glassworks - Philip Glass
  • Wild Palms - Soundtrack -Ryuichi Sakamoto
  • Dinah Washington - Best of..
  • Commander Cody& His Lost Planet Airmen Live at Armadillo