Mid-Week Musing: Dreamin' of You

Perfect Weather in Brooklyn for...the Brooklyn Borough Hall Christmas Tree??

It'sa mild and sunny 66 degrees Fahrenheit in Brooklyn Heights, but the work crews

are preparing to raise the Brooklyn Borough Hall 2011 Christmas Tree. Given last year's

winter shellacking , to use the vernacular, I am not even thinking about listening to "Winter Wonderland" this year. Promise. As they say, "Watch out what you wish for!"

-Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

In Dreams

Hope you had an enjoyable weekend..Thanksgiving here in Brooklyn was very nice with our gang, as we were fortunate to host famiglia...lots of work, but so enjoyable and, thankfully, relaxed, heimisch, laid back…

Now, approaching the end of the year, a sense of disquiet, uncertainty, and wonder...maybe it’s the weather, so calm and mild in NYC as December approaches..the weather a metaphor perhaps as the warmth lulls us into a kind of seasonlessness....

The end of another strange year, as though worldwide tran$ition$ are happening just out of reach, not just those who gain wealth and those who struggle, but deeper, more subtle but powerful changes that we aren’t quite aware of, extra-structures and infra-structures rising and falling, as we try to personally gain control over our own houses in motion, while the world shops, protests, luxuriates and suffers...Amidst this barely controlled chaos, with a sense of the many anarchies, large and small, abroad and here at home in the US, is it truly as it seems, a polity and economy adrift, with a sense of leaderlessness, a game of pretend as we struggle to maintain some endless Status Quo acted out in the Floating World, while the truth somehow remains ever elusive...so we are reduced to trying to examine and explore our own What's Next only in dreams...

--TN, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Historian Will Not Be Silenced by Congressman at Hearing

Douglas Brinkley, historian, educator, and author, giving testimony before the Congressional Natural Resources Committee will not be silenced by an arrogant Congressman. Brinkley had corrected the Congressman Young for confusing his name and the university where he teaches. Young bristled: "You shut up and sit there!" Mr. Brinkley: "You don't own me. I pay your salary. I'm in the private sector... You work for the taxpayers."

Link here

More background on the Exchange here

Pie R Squared: Preparing for Thanksgiving

Photos by Tony Napoli 2011

Woke up this morning and realized our daughter had been in her mid-night baker mode;

house was filled with the delectable aroma of apple pies baked for our family Thanksgiving fete

tomorrow and to bring to a holiday party at her high school in lower Manhattan today.

Both of our younger daughters (who are, you will pardon the expression, twins, and

who attend different NYC high schools) had tests and quizzes today. Go figure. 

Whether you are a USA visitor to Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn or from another country,

 I wanted to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU for visiting my website now

and throughout the year. Thanksgiving is a traditional day of thanks

in the US, rooted in the commingling of European and Native American culture

and (relative) cooperation at the time of the European colonization 

of the American continent by the Pilgrims in the 17th century.

More here

FLUXUS: Art as Provocation

NYU's Grey Art Gallery, in a few short weeks, will be nearing the end of its exhibition of "Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life." The show at 100 Washington Square East, runs through December 3rd.  Comprising an international network of artists, composers, and designers that developed in the 1960s, Fluxus resists categorization as an art movement, collective, or group. It also defies traditional geographical, chronological, and medium-based approaches. Rather, Fluxus participants embrace a “do-it-yourself” approach to art and creativity, fashioning their activities from the casual and prosaic aspects of daily life, which has the effect of blurring the boundaries between art and life. George Maciunas, Fluxus’s Lithuanian-born instigator, envisioned art as social process. He and other Fluxus artists created works that celebrate collaboration, the ephemeral, and the everyday—often inflected with a touch of playful anarchy. Aiming to circumvent both conventional aesthetics and the commercial art world, they urged both their colleagues and the public to approach life with a Fluxus attitude.

Yoko Ono's Lighting Piece

In keeping with this spirit, the exhibit at NYU's Grey Gallery encourages viewers actively to interpret and respond to the works on view, and to explore art’s relationships with essential themes of human existence. Follow the provided map to locate the fourteen sections framed as questions, for example, “What Am I?,” “Happiness?,” “Health?,” “Freedom?,” “Danger?.” Featuring over a hundred objects, documents, videos, and ephemera, the show also foregrounds two Fluxus innovations: event scores and art-as-games-in-a-box, many of which were gathered into Fluxkits and sold at intentionally low prices via mail order or at artist-run stores. The events were even more accessible. Sometimes consisting of just one word—such as George Brecht’s “Exit,” in the section “Death?”—Fluxus events could be performed by anyone, anywhere, at any time.  

Nam June Paik's Nothingness (from Zen for TV 1963/78)

The exhibit features work by one of the best known Fluxus artists, Yoko Ono, as well as Nam June Paik, George Maciunas and Ben Vautier, among many others.  Intended as "provocations to 'high'” culture and the increasing commodification of art, Fluxus works were meant to be picked up and handled, not simply looked at. Exhibiting Fluxus today highlights yet another question: How can we maintain the defiant and playful spirit in which these objects were made, while at the same time safeguarding and preserving them for future audiences?

NYU "Fluxus" exhibition website here

--Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Think Things Are Bad Now ? Just Wait: Climate Reports

FATAL FUTURES? - Alexis Rockman's Manifest Destiny

A new report suggests that global warming will open up the floodgates to infrastructure and economic chaos in NYC here 

International Energy Agency suggests the world has a mere five years before irreversible climate damage occurs here

Richard Muller, a scientist funded by the notoriously Conservative Koch Brothers, states that global warming is real, here  

--Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

I Know, I Know...

...Call me Johnny-Come-lately but sometimes I can't get this song out of my head...Brian Jonestown Massacre's original "Straight Up and Down" which was re-done by Dominick Hauser as the theme for "Boardwalk Empire"

Monday Morning Going Down

Monday roundup:


NYC Controller John Liu - New York City's first Asian-American citywide elected official may be under fire for shoddy fundraising practices in his political campaign operation but don't count him out yet -- John Liu is "a bad ass"  reports City Hall News here

NYC Mayor  announces 'Loan wolf terrorist' arrest - part alert and part distraction from NYPD's recent miserable showing with beatings of OWS demonstrators, ticket quashing scams, etc?  NYC's crimefighting team under long-time Commissioner Ray Kelly is great - -make that awesome-- with intel/counterterrorism, but maybe not so great lately on the nuts and bolts of local policing. Reading between the lines, AP here and NY Mag's Chris Smith here

Breitbart reports that MSNBC's Dem pundit Chris Matthews rhetorically asks President Obama what he intends to do with a second term -- "I hear stories you wouldn't believe" -- doesn't talk to Congress; over-reliance on "virtual campaigning" not enough one-on-one meetings, gatherings - "I'm sick of those emails"... here

Dem pollsters Caddell and Shoen - President should abandon campaign, turn party over to Hillary, here

Egypt sees worst clashes since Mubarak; 35 protesters dead following clashes with military, here

Secretive North Korea opens up to cell phone here

U.S. Congress's Supercommittee -- Super failure here

GOP Strategist - 'GOP campaign will go on and on and on and on..." here

GOP's David Frum on "The GOPs Gone Mad-- gee, taht's too bad' here

When did liberals become So Unreasonable? here

--Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

OWS: November 18 & Beyond

Zuccotti Park, November 17, 2011

 Photo - Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

To go to a parent teachers conference at our daughter's public high school, of all things, we ventured into a lower Manhattan that had been converted into a sort of police state. Certainly friendlier than the real thing, I guess, as long as you weren't an OWS protestor, but a police state nevertheless. Even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I don't recall  quite such a sense of lock down, from Chambers Street to the Battery. The bars and restaurants along Wiliams and Stone Street weren't full, but you had a sense that for Wall Street, it was business as usual. Maybe the heart of America' s economic engine thrives under certain kinds of adversity, though perhaps not all. Maybe that's why there was a sense that Wall Street, the beating heart of our Hamiltonian Democracy, is protected at all costs by the State. While cops in the past weeks have maced women (and even, recklessly, their fellow cops for that matter), and arrested and in some cases beaten lots of protestors  (and City Councilman and reporters), the folks pulling the levers-- in some cases, arguably themselves criminals for economic malfeasance--remain virtually invisible, aloof, behind the curtain, untouchable in their Fortresses of Solitude.

Clearly Zuccotti Park is more of a plaza than a bucolic redoubt. Consequently, during the OWS occupation, it had no doubt been transformed into an unsightly, smelly, gross, and downright nasty campground.  Anyone willing to remain there if they had somewhere better to stay, would have been devoted to the cause indeed. At the same time, that is why it is so interesting that the criticisms of the protestors by some in the government, by the Right, and some in the media, have been so inconsistent: They are homeless loonies; they are slumming ideological trust funders; they are college students whose parents pay their tuitions and let them live in the basement. None of which appear to be reasons why someone should not protest against economic inequality and greed. At the same time, the above criticisms are usually levied by those with jobs, with the critics excoriating the OWS crowd and proclaiming "they should just get a job." Those of us blessed with jobs at the moment, most of whom can look forward to decades and decades more of work with little additional economic incentive other than sheer survival and just keeping afloat (if we are fortunate) may have a right to have been a bit peeved at any inconvenience the OWS's Day of Action posed. But at the same time, anyone being honest with him or herself can't help but acknowledge that in your heart, you know they are right.

Also interesting to note how Commissioner Kelly and the Mayor have sullied the reputation New York's Finest by forcing them into the role of Goon. We passed a mob of cops in riot gear on lower Broadway, some of them looking so young that it appeared as though they had just ripped open the box containing their official-issue-NYPD-riot-helmet like it was a present under the Christmas tree. They knew they weren't fighting trained terrorists. Just a bunch of kids, seniors and unemployed salarymen. No surprise then, the violence. I am sure November 17 was a Rite of Passage for many of the young cops; the opportunity to unleash their aggression in acts of unchecked and often anonymous violence against unarmed protestors as a sign to the White Shirts and Higher Ups that  they were willing to do anything in their desire to Move On Up in the organization.  The Mayor rushed to the hospital to visit the cop who had a hand laceration as a result of a thrown bottle, while, on NY1, Deputy Mayors Wolfson and Halloway stone-walled host Erroll Lewis who dared to question the arrests of reporters and the exclusion of the media from the Battle of Zuccotti Park. (see NY Press Club Letter below)

The trope is that the kids who supported President Obama the first time around have abandoned him to apathy. Perhaps, but I wonder if many of those who were most fired up are now in the ranks of OWS around the country. Could that account in part for 44's lackluster support?  There is an absence of leadership, political or economic. The sectors of society, private, non-profit, public, executive, legislative and judicial are all jumbled up and confused.

The Mayor, who is no doubt by now quite sick of his dollar-a-year-hobby as head of the largest, most wonderful city in the world, fearing the worst, may have been sincere in his desire to maintain order in the City at all costs.

However, for many New Yorkers struggling under the weight of an economic disaster not of their making, the worst has already happened and there is no sign of it abating any time soon.
--Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn
-------------------------------
NY PRESS CLUB Letter to the Mayor and Police Commissioner


Dear Mr. Mayor and Police Commissioner Kelly:


On Tuesday morning, November 15th, as police officers acted to remove Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park, several reporters protested that they were the victims of harassment and that their rights under the First Amendment were violated.
A few were arrested or detained.
The actions of some police officers were not consistent with the long-established relationship between the NYPD and the press.
The brash manner in which officers ordered reporters off the streets and then made them back off until the actions of the police were almost invisible is outrageous.
We want the department to investigate the incidents involved in this crackdown on Zuccotti Park and we want assurances it won't happen again.
Sincerely,
Gabe Pressman
President, New York Press Club Foundation
Chairman, Freedom of the Press Committee
Glenn Schuck
President, The New York Press Club
------------------------------------------

CODA: November 17

Heading down to the Wall Street area later this afternoon to attend Parent Teachers conference for one of our daughters....

HIDE/SEEK: From DC to the Brooklyn Museum

What the National Portrait Gallery couldn't show, the Brooklyn Museum sure can -- David Wojnarowicz's film, which was removed from the exhibit in Washington last year will round out the exhibit HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture which opens tomorrow and runs through February 12, 2012.

As previously noted here, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn's author was acquainted with the late Mr. Wojnarowicz back in the late 70s and early 80s as fellow employees at the old Bookmasters chain in Manhattan.  I also was fortunate to maintain a correspondence with DW during his stay in Paris and after. David, born in NJ, was, at one point, a Brooklyn resident.

Although David's work, "A Fire in My Belly" will certainly obtain a lot of attention, I am looking forward to seeing this full exhibit with its focus on "the underdocumented role that sexual identity has played in the making of modern art, and highlights the contributions of gay and lesbian artists to American art."

A previous link to the film appeared here.

--Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Wednesday Revery: From "The Nice Age" to "Wild Palms"

Yellow Magic Orchestra 1980, The Nice Age.

Ryuichi Sakamoto is one of our main men here at Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn. Another unforgettable piece by Mr. Sakamoto is "Harry to Hospital,  a remarkable "trance opera" work featured in the 1993 ABC-TV mini-series "Wild Palms" screenplay by Bruce Wagner.

The mesmerizing Harry to Hospital here. 

More on Wild Palms here

-Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

NYC, America and the World: Occupado

The NY Times reports on the Shrinking Middle as Income Inequality Grows here

NY Times: London Occupiers Warily Watch NYC here

Italy banks on its technocrats to find a way out here

Thursday, November 17, promises to be a bit chaotic in New York City as Occupy Wall Street, though dislodged from its encampment at Zuccotti Park, and now free to return on a Per Diem basis, plans a Day of National and International Action, on a variety of fronts, such as student strikes throughout Europe and rallies promised throughout the day at locations around NYC, including --arggh-- "Occupy the Subways."  Details here

 Image Source: R Black & Occupy Wall Street

CODA: Occupy Tribeca?

Working Families Party reports that OWS protestors are taking over a park at 6th avenue and Canal Street. Occupy Tribeca? Are you talkin' to me?

Mayor "Temporarily' Evicts OWS from Zuccotti Park; Park Will Be Reopened to Protestors and the Public ASAP, says Mayor at 8 AM Press Conference

NYC police and sanitation teams descended on Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan early this morning, rousting Occupy Wall Street protestors from tents under the orders of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The evicted tenants were told they would be permitted to return, but without tents, generators, tarps, sleeping bags, etc. "

"Unfortunately, the park was becoming a place where people came not to protest, but rather to break laws, and in some cases, to harm others," he said. "The majority of protesters have been peaceful and responsible. But an unfortunate minority have not been – and as the number of protesters has grown, this has created an intolerable situation."


He said protesters will be welcome to use the park to protest but won't be able to have tents, sleeping bags or tarps.

In his press conference, the Mayor said it was his intent to immediately reopen the park, but it would remain closed until a court restraining order enjoining the city in this matter was resolved. The park would be reopened for protestors and the public to enjoy. "They will now need to occupy the park with the force of their arguments" the Mayor said.

"Until matter is heard on date set forth, respondencne/defendents (NYC) are prohibited from evicting ..protestors; enforcing "rules" Text of Restraining order here

Transcript of Mayor's Statement here

City of New York official site  here

'Information doesn't deserve to be free': Jaron Lanier from You Are Not a Gadget

"Information of the kind that purportedly wants to be free is nothing but a shadow of our own minds, and wants nothing on its own. It will not suffer if it doesn’t get what it wants.
But if you want to make the transition from the old religion, where you hope God will give you an afterlife, to the new religion, where you hope to become immortal by getting uploaded into a computer, then you have to believe information is real and alive. So for you, it will be important to redesign human institutions like art, the economy, and the law to reinforce the perception that information is alive. You demand that the rest of us live in your new conception of a state religion. You need us to deify information to reinforce your faith."

-Jaron Lanier - You Are Not A Gadget - Random House 2010

Monday Night Movies: Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

One of the most intelligently written films to feature the brilliant stop action animation of the legendary Ray Harryhausen, 1963's Jason and the Argonauts remains and entertaining and compelling work of imaginative history and visual mythology. See 4:04 for Jason's (Todd Armstrong) encounter with the god Hermes and his side trip to Mount Olympus with his protector, the goddess Hera (of UK tv's The Avengers,   Bond-girl Honor Blackman)

'Whenever I Find Myself Growing Grim About the Mouth'

Last night I was thinking about the Carl Sagan quote: "We are star stuff contemplating star stuff."

Today, maybe it is the intermittent clouds and shpritz, but it is more like:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

 
More on Herman Melville's towering 19th century masterpiece of American literature here 
 
Read more here

Before I Die Wall: Still Going Strong at the Shake Shack on Fulton Street

Photo by TN/Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

A construction wall surrounding the future home of the Brooklyn outpost of Danny Meyer's "Shake Shack" on Fulton and Adams Street in downtown Brooklyn is still attracting dreamers, philosophers and wags who post to the Before I Die Wall.

The wall, an idea of one of the construction site's supervisors, is based on Candy Chang's Before I  Die Wall in  New Orleans. Each day, the wall is covered by chalk graffiti on the theme, only to be merrily washed away by the construction crews each morning, leaving room for the next day's dreamers and philosophers. I've been passing the wall regularly on my walk from the DeKalb Station to my office on Court Street, and it is literally covered with chalk musings each morning. As I pass it on the way home in the evening, there are (mostly young) folks writing away. The wall will probably remain up until the Shake Shack opens later this year.

Comments I've noticed ranged from "See Paris," "Marry my girlfriend, have a family and a big house," "Become a movie star," "Get a job--any job!" "Live life to the fullest"--- to one of my favorites:  "Write on a wall what I want to do Before I Die!" 

If it was a contest, I'd say we might have a winner..

-Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Countdown to....

Elizabeth Warren and the Heckler here

Robert Reich talks about reviving the American economy here

Robert Reich: "The two worlds are on a collision course: Americans who are losing their jobs or their pay and can’t pay their bills are growing increasingly desperate. Washington insiders, deficit hawks, regressive Republicans, diffident Democrats, well-coiffed lobbyists, and the lobbyists’ wealthy patrons on Wall Street and in corporate suites haven’t a clue or couldn’t care less.I can’t tell you when the collision will occur but I’d guess 2012. Will 2012 go down in history like other years that shook the foundations of the world’s political economy – 1968 and 1989?...Here, as elsewhere, the people are rising."


Or is it just too late for revival? WS, OWS, DC and the Next Steps for Addressing the Ravages of the Late Stages of Advanced Capitalism here

Occupied With Wall Street: Congress Considers Tax on Stock Transactions

Well, the question of Occupy Wall Street having an impact may be answered. Although it may not have precisely come from the Human Microphone, the protests as Zuccotti Park and Occupy Everywhere may have broken through to the mainstream: Lawmakers are discussing legislation to introduce a tax on financial market transactions, similar to what has been introduced in Europe. This idea was discussed in an article on OWS by Matt Taibbi. "The lawmakers have the backing of union groups and associations that fought for tighter regulations in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The AFL-CIO and National Nurses United, a professional association and union for nurses, have scheduled a rally in front of the Treasury Department on Nov. 3 in support of the fee. Americans for Financial Reform, an umbrella group of unions, civil rights lawyers and consumer advocates, is circulating petitions in support of the measure. Obama administration officials support efforts to assess fees on financial firms that pose a risk to the larger economy; however, they oppose levying fees on ordinary investors."

Off course Wall Street declares that this will result in the ruination of the stock market. Why is it that anything that smacks of regulation is the death knell for the economy at large to the bankers and brokers. But when toxic derivative take the market down, the Wall Street world plays "inside baseball."

As Will Emerson, Paul Bettany's character observes in Margin Call: "Jesus, Seth. Listen, if you really wanna do this with your life you have to believe you're necessary and you are. People wanna live like this in their cars and big fuckin' houses they can't even pay for, then you're necessary. The only reason that they all get to continue living like kings is cause we got our fingers on the scales in their favor. I take my hand off and then the whole world gets really fuckin' fair really fuckin' quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do but they don't. They want what we have to give them but they also wanna, you know, play innocent and pretend they have know idea where it came from. Well, thats more hypocrisy than I'm willing to swallow, so fuck em. Fuck normal people. You know, the funny thing is, tomorrow if all of this goes tits up they're gonna crucify us for being too reckless but if we're wrong, and everything gets back on track? Well then, the same people are gonna laugh till they piss their pants cause we're gonna all look like the biggest pussies God ever let through the door." The film has no heroes or villains per se, only a strong dose of reality for everyone.

Bloomberg News on the financial transaction tax here

Matt Taibbi's post here

Dia De Los Muertos

Mexico celebrates a yearly tradition called Day of the Dead during the last days of October and the first days of November. Due to the duration of this festivity and the way people get involved it has been called "The Cult of Death." Mexico celebrates a yearly tradition called Day of the Dead during the last days of October and the first days of November. Due to the duration of this festivity and the way people get involved it has been called "The Cult of Death."

More here and here

Speaking of The Dead, Tomorrow in San Francisco

the annual Day of the Dead celebration in Garfield Park, coordinated by the Marigold Project