Brian McFadden on "Santa's Intelligence Task Force" in the NY Times

Sleigh bells ring - who ain't listening? As Santa Obama flies off in his drone-powered sleigh, the elves address critical issues. O little town of Washington how still we see thee lie. 

-Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier at the Brooklyn Museum

As 2013 draws to a close, DITHOB catching up with events that time, work, family and obligation had pushed out of reach. A fantastic contemporary exhibit that, while interesting in its examination of  Monsieur Gaultier's amazingly creative work, also explores the frontiers of the display of art and fashion in the Future.

http://youtu.be/S1GKrZEXFFo

Interactive faces, created by high-definition audiovisual projections on mannequins in the "Odyssey" section of the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Production and staging by Denis Marleau and Stephanie Jasmin of UBU/Companie de creation of Montreal, Jolicoeur International of Quebec.

At the Brooklyn Museum through February 23, 2014.

Paul Simon: Recalling Days of Miracle and Wonder

Paul Simon writing in the NY Times recalls how the spirit of Nelson Mandela infused the music of “Graceland” and his tours with South African musicians.

"In a sense, the most amazing thing about Mr. Mandela is that he is not a fiction. He actually lived in our lifetime. The qualities he embodied — dignity, compassion, mercy and forgiveness — hark back to a morality we’ve come to idealize and long for in our leaders today."

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/arts/music/paul-simon-on-mandelas-role-in-graceland.html. 

"You can call me Al" Paul Simon from Graceland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-gYOrU8bA&sns=em

No One Left Behind: Homeless in NY

Homeless in NY:Thru a Child's Eyes- today an epic front page piece by Andrea Elliott in the NY Times. Yet another example of what makes the Times The Times... 

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/

"It makes me feel like there’s something going on out there,” says the 11-year-old girl, never one for patience. This child of New York is always running before she walks. She likes being first — the first to be born, the first to go to school, the first to make the honor roll.

"Even her name, Dasani, speaks of a certain reach. The bottled water had come to Brooklyn’s bodegas just before she was born, catching the fancy of her mother, who could not afford such indulgences. It hinted at a different, upwardly mobile clientele, a set of newcomers who over the next decade would transform the borough."

"Hold a Dollar Bill Up to a Mirror": Slow Growth, No Growth, Inequality and Social Mobility and What Still Needs to Be Done

"Hold a dollar bill up to a mirror/
 And I'll show you something funny/
 It's only a fast buck, but..../
 It's so hard to make that kind of money.."
--Fast Buck Freddy, Jefferson Starship

Following the 2007-2008 financial meltdown, we appear to have reached a new stasis, where the market is booming, unemployment is somewhat stagnant, having not rebounded substantially BEYOND 2008 levels, and household income is shrinking. Wonkblog provides the basis and Larry Summers provides the analysis of why things may not get better without more forceful involvement in monetary and fiscal policy.

As Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas's morning policy news primer Wonkbook/Wonkblog report, in recent speeches, both President Obama and Congressman Paul Ryan have adressed the issues of inequality and social mobility. Both men are quick to say that growth is necessary to reduce both inequality and poverty. But weak growth is no longer the central economic problem obsessing American politics. It's no longer treated as a crisis. No one on either side of the aisle believes new policy is politically possible. Washington has become used to these kinds of numbers and resigned to its inability to do anything about them. 

"Meanwhile, the economic profession is beginning to wonder whether slow growth is, for the United States, the new normal. That was the subject of Larry Summers's searing speech before the International Monetary Fund, and it's the subject of Tyler Cowen's work on "The Great Stagnation," and it's the subject of Brad DeLong's 9,000-word piece on whether "growth is getting harder".

Krugman: Secular Stagnation here

Larry Summers Explains It All – and it ain’t so good

Here’s what Summers said: The Fed’s job, most of the time, is pretty simple. Its main job is to set the federal funds interest rate, which ripples out and raises or lowers other rates on everything from mortgages to credit cards to business loans; economists and journalists tend to refer to the Fed as raising or lowering “the interest rate” rather than just the funds rate to reflect its wider influence on the whole economy. If the Fed wants to know what interest rate we should have at a given time, it can just plug the unemployment rate and the inflation rate* into an equation, which will spit out what the fed funds rate should be. Couldn’t be easier. The problem is that when inflation is low and unemployment is high, the interest rate that equation spits out is sometimes negative.

And the Fed can’t have negative interest rates; that’d mean peoples’ bank accounts would start losing dollars over time. If that were to happen, everyone would just start doing transactions in cash, which doesn’t decay like that over time. So what the Fed can do — and does do — is promise to keep interest rates at 0 for a very long time.

The hope is that doing that has similar effects to having negative rates, and will get the economy back to normal, where we can have positive rates again. But that approach only works if, when times are good, the interest rate we want is positive. For most of history to date, that’s been true. But Summers argues that it could be that the rate we want is negative. If that’s true, then keeping rates at zero indefinitely won’t get us where we need to be. We need to take much more drastic action.

Farewell, Madiba: Nelson Mandela 1918 -2013

Wednesday: Delicate Steve: Ramona Reborn

Musings for a Sunday in Late Autumn

It's December first in Brooklyn/Steam still rattling the pipes/Leaves just a memory, like Santa in the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade/But wait, rosebuds still red as spring on the bush out back/Of course! It's December  1st in Brooklyn...

--Anthony Napoli

Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn 

December roses in Flatbush

A Brief Epistle from Alex Battles

The ever intriguing Alex Battles has overcome greater odds than website failure no doubt, so the King of Brooklyn Country, author of Hong Kong Collision and so many tunes about love - unrequited and otherwise -- and of course beer and other libations as well as telenovelas   has sent out a missive to his legion of fans worldwide. Until his website returns Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn is delighted to post it below:

 

"I will be singing the songs of Frank Sinatra on his birthday, December 12, 2013, at The Jalopy Theatre. I'll be backed by the groovy rhythms of The Bob Windows Quartet, featuring Lou Dyanamo on saxophone, Calloway St. Clair on piano, Diana Fontana on bass, and Maxwell Danger on drums. It would be wonderful to see you there. (Tickets. Event invite.)

 

Many of you know LJ Lindhurst as the artist who painted the Johnny Cash Birthday Bash banner. I'm delighted to serve as curator on her upcoming show "The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, & God" opening at Littlefield on December 14, 2013. 

 

On New Year's Day, I will master the ceremonies of Hank-O-Rama X at the Rodeo Bar. The Lonesome Prairie Dogs' dynamite celebration of Hank Williams has assuaged hangovers annually since 2005. I am excited to take part once again.

 

The Johnny Cash 82nd Birthday Bash will return to the Bell House for two nights this year, on February 28, 2014 and March 1, 2014. Tickets will go on sale soon. Check the Bell House website and Twitter feed for updates.

 

I put a bunch of my music back onto iTunes, including the original master of Goodbye Almira, Fatback-Spo-Dee-O-Dee, Vol. 1, and Ev'rything's OK, Alex Battles. You will enjoy them.

 

My website should be up and running again by the end of the week. I updated something I shouldn't have. I think there was PHP involved. Oops! In the meantime, there's always twitter, facebook, instagram, and most importantly, Calvin & Hobbes.

 

Take care and have a wonderful day.

Ab

--Deep in the Heart ofBrooklyn 

Channel This: Groundbreaking Bob Dylan "Like a Rolling Stone" Interactive Video

Listen up all you Princes and Pretty People: Bob Dylan's official website just released "Like a Rolling Stone" like you've never seen it before -- everywhere and on every channel at once. This is a fun one. Link here

Anonymous: Contemporary Tibetan Art-"if you meet the visionary on the road.."

Mona Lisa by Dedron 2012

Anonymous: Contemporary Tibetan Art at the Samuel Dorsky Museum at the State University of New York at New Paltz seems to endeavor to bridge the chasm between the pop theocracy that the west seems to adore about Tibetan Buddhism and the complications faced by the remote mountain nation in its conflicts not only with the People's Republic of China but also with the encroaching modernization and consumer culture that no country no matter how remote can escape. This fine exhibit combines contemporary artists using traditional forms to view the present, and modern techniques to view the past. Anonymous offers Colorful, challenging and philosophical insights into a culture whose modern artistic expression is much less known in the West and whose cultural conflicts and ironies we prefer to take in the bite size pieces. Like a Zen koan these contemporary artists explore their culture as natives and as expats with a nuanced eye that shows that truths that seem to make no sense may be the most revealing expressions of all. The show is curated by Rachel Pereira Weingeist and is largely drawn from the private collection of Shelley and Donald Rubin whose art holdings serve as the heart of New York City's Rubin Museum of Art. The Dorsky Museum at SUNY-New Paltz never ceases to amaze. Through December 15, 2013.

Dorsky link here http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum/exhibitions/anonymous.html

-Tony Napoli

It Was Snowing in Brooklyn!

Say It Ain't So: Corgis-- An Endangered Breed

Guinevere, in repose, contemplating the future of the Breed.

The New York Post reports that "The Queen of England’s favorite breed of dog was placed on Britain’s Kennel Club’s “at watch” list — and could soon become endangered, the organization warns. Only 241 Pembroke Welsh corgis are registered with the club this year and, unless that number spikes to 300 by January, the pups will be placed on a “vulnerable native breeds” list, the club claims." Full article fro mthe NY Post here

Ain't No Stopping Him Now: Bill deBlasio in the Bronx

Bill deBlasio is touching New Yorkers in their hopes and in their hearts. As reported in Politicker, he wowed Halloween crowds in the Bronx in a pre-election visit. The NY Times endorsed Mr. deBlasion while in recent profile of Joe Lhota, suggested that he has deep managerial and technocratic skills that Mr. deBlasio does not. Given the recent failures to achieve full liftoff of the Affordable Health Care Act, there are no doubt concerns that Mr. deBlasio could mirror President Obama in his popularity and campaigning acumen, but also in his weakness with legislators and seemingly limited executive ability. However, this might be a false fear. Given Mr. deBlasio's experience on the City Council, his extremely strong organization, his efforts as Public Advocate, his energy and contacts at all levels of government and in the community,and in business, and the political capital resulting from a Big Win in a predominently Democratic city, absent a major crisis, he has the potential to successfully take the reins of New York City government in hand, hire a strong team, and get grounded, while beginning to press for some of his initiatives. If he can also make some inroads -- somehow -- into job creation and homelessness, while continuing current efforts to maintain safe streets address stop and frisk, while making gradual education improvements, it could truly be a Brand New Day and a next step in a remarkable evolution for the former NYU student activist. First it will be up to the voters -- and then up to our Next Mayor. Full article from by Jill Colvin from Politcker here

Behold the Man: Zizek on Ideology

He hates the celebrity that is imposed upon him -- summed up in labels like "the rock star philosopher" and "Elvis of cultural theory" --- but like a high speed car crash you can't watch but can't look away. When I saw Slavoj Zizek at the CUNY Grad Center last year he is an electrifying mass of brilliant- on -his -feet social and political critique delivered in a haze of tics and lisps. Now Zizek has starred in his second film with director Sophie Fiennes in which he analyzes and discusses ideology through the interpretation of popular film. It opens Friday in NYC and other locations. See the trailer below. Dilettantes Like Me interested in Cultural theory and critique- -ya gotta love the guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kB3d9qZZhs&sns=em