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Reporting From a Bar in Brooklyn

By Filed Under: Local Literature

To the memory of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández

While sitting one night with my friend Eric, a young woman came and sat next to us. She was the next musician to play that night. Her name was Jen. She is (as I was told later by my friend) the descendent of the great American literary theorist and philosopher, Kenneth Burke, whose primary interests were rhetoric and aesthetics. She is also the daughter of the musician Harry Chapin and is a wonderful musician in her own right. Her music explores the intersection of jazz, folk and pop.

Our conversation with Jen was permeated with the music coming from the back room. It was Les Bandits, whose melodies sounded as if a multitude of instruments were in synch creating music of the ‘20s. I was on my own, thinking about the life of Dr. Hernandez known as “Doctor of the Poor.” As a protector of Barbès, his bust sits diplomatically amid the wines and spirits.

“That is a dark place…for a different crowd,” my colleague Joanna says laughingly in reference to Barbès, a bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn. She is right. Barbès is a haphazardly designed establishment through which not much light filters. Its walls have no TV sets and it is difficult to read a book there, but you can still converse with folks like the writer Jean-Vincent as he jots down his impressions of Paris—a fictional account set in modern times, a time that has the aura of the mid-twentieth century. “French people are longing for something new,” he says, as he pauses in his writing. I didn’t inquire about the plot, theme, or characters of his work, leaving him to work alone. I returned to thinking about Dr. Hernandez and of his days in Paris studying medicine.

Live music constantly flows from the back room. It is a fitting complement to a nice evening; Barbès sounds as if it were a giant juke box. If you have read Ned Sublette’s Cuba and its Music you will immediately recognize the songs. Sublette’s book is premised on the idea that the impact of Cuban music on the United States is everywhere to be found. New Orleans, Sublette explains, was the port of entry for what became a unique musical relationship with Havana. The music of Barbès has, indeed, a Latin flavor even when a band called Sherita is playing a fourteenth century Sephardic/ Ladino song. Sublette’s book on Cuban music begins in Cadiz before the time of Christ—a time when the Gaditanos traded with North Africans and were bringing African musical sounds to southern Europe, called by the ancient Greeks “hispania.” Havana and New Orleans forged a unique commercial and musical relationship by the nineteenth century.

“Fifty Shades of Grey,” says Robert, a man from Ireland. We were talking about the erotic book by the British author E.L. James, “Why not Fifty Shades of Green?”, he adds as he enlightens us with the history of Ireland vis-à-vis England. The strong rhythmic groove of a song drowns out our conversation. On any given night it could very well be the Latin American sounds of Guinea’s Mandingo Ambassadors or Cumbiagra, whose Colombian songs interact nicely with other musical styles. The brass band Mexican Band of the Death, likewise, transports us to Sinaloa, and Les Chauds Lapins to French songs of the ‘30s and ‘40s. What is happening at Barbès, other than the music, is a gathering of individuals with similar tastes and ideas. It has become a meeting place, a kind of library where you can find information about politics, books, film, art, and sports, but most importantly, you are talking with people interested in the things other people have to say. And yet, just as we drink our beverages in a capricious way, we delude ourselves into thinking that alcohol drinking and music bring clarity to our reasoning. “Amo esas noches trágicas porque son las mejores…” said the late Peruvian poet Luis Nieto about his time spent on bars and drinking.

“Did you see the Woody Allen movie, Midnight in Paris?” “Yes”, I replied. I am reminded of the Parisian bars in Allen’s movie—Café Le Select, Les Deux Magots, La Coupole—that played a big part in the lives of writers belonging to what was called the “lost generation. Places like Barbès, I am told by a bar regular, allow people to enter a world of illusion and ideas, of solidarity and companionship. Bars are timeless, I am told, as I am reminded of a quotation by Charles Bukowski: “Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you’re allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It’s like killing yourself, and then you’re reborn. I guess I’ve lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.”

“Would Bukowski drink at Barbès?” I ask Aaron, whom I call the Book-Man for his vast intellectual knowledge. Aaron is, for the most part, a quiet man who prefers to be anonymous… “The whiskey might be too good for him here,” he replies in reference to Bukowski and Barbès’ costumers, who are mainly white and professional and not necessarily Park Slopers. Barbès exudes a kind of bohemian intelligence that is appealing I contend… pre-empting the thought of the new residents to Park Slope feeling more comfortable in a classier and brighter bar environment. Yes. Bukowski’s bar would be located elsewhere, in another part of Brooklyn. Barbès is located in a beautiful brownstone community that is being infringed upon by a recent influx of affluence determined to prettify the neighborhood. Moms, nannies, strollers, and an array of beautiful dogs crowd its tree-lined streets. The bodegas and bars of yesterday are disappearing—Minsky’s, The Gaslight Inn with its pinball machine, etc. In their place, a number of trendy places have emerged with names like Café Dada, Surfish…Those of us who moved to Park Slope many years ago would have never realized that this new manicured Park Slope would emerge and extend beyond Ninth Street and on Sixth Avenue. A Park Slope where nouveau wine and cheese stores collide with the other Brooklyn of endless pressing unwritten stories.

My conversation with Aaron transpires as we look at Pamelia (Pamelia Kurstin with Pete Drungle) playing the theremin. Looking at her, you feel like you are suspended in air; you are looking at a rare musical instrument that you have never seen before. What is suspended in air are her hands and fingers which control the instrument. Are there electrical impulses she controls to create the music? We don’t know for sure. What I saw was a woman manipulating marionettes or playing air guitar. You are mesmerized not only by the eerie sounds of the theremin, but also the desire of the musician to play a dated musical instrument that creates art for us to enjoy.

“Why do we like Barbès?” I ask Jason M, a regular who is reading The Foie Gras Scramble. Foie is about a motorcycle rider traveling from Brooklyn to Montreal. Jason is the author and is re-writing it. This is his reply: “Barbès isn’t a place for misfits (as I’d heard someone else characterize it). Rather, it is a place of serendipitous congruence where people from disparate backgrounds and bents can find areas of common appreciation and complaint. True, the creative types tend to frequent this place, but so do those whose work would cause them not to be categorized as such, perhaps as a salve for this and a chance at lending their voice to the chorus. Barbès is indeed beautiful.” The music of Los Yungas. (“Los Pobres También Somos Felices”) plays amid our bar merriment. The lyrics are reminders of other similar Peruvian chicha songs: “Los pobres también tenemos, tenemos nuestros corazones, somos más felices, sabemos amar…” In the end, the people who come here are the ones who make Barbès an engaging bar. I look around and, indeed, it is people like Jason G. who could be writing his short stories…alone in a corner. Pat, another regular, explains the meaning of a painting titled Wedding Dance by Bruegel. He is an art handler at a prestigious museum in Manhattan. Excited, we hear about the upcoming museum exhibitions. As the beers come and go and the music surrounds us, Peter, a cinematographer, shares his latest cinematography project, Casting By. This documentary film is about the innate talent of casting directors as they discover the right person (an actor) for a role to cast for a film.

The sound from the back room is steady each night. It could be the smooth melodies of blues guitarist Mamie Minch, whose musical sensibility and style sounds as “if she stepped out of a seventy-eight RPM recording.” Or, it could be Matuto’s “Brazilian Carnaval” played with an American bluegrass accent, or Spanglish Fly, which reminds one of the sounds of many Latin countries. So too, People’s Champ, Llama, Slavic Soul Party…whose fusion music is what a sociologist will call “multiculturalism in music”. The music complements our evenings, adding another level of mind stimulant. Dr. Jose Gregorio returns to my thoughts. In June 29, 1919 one of the few existing cars in Venezuela would end his life.

“Por favor, un chilcano de pisco” I ask Claire, the bartender. The drink goes appropriately with the singing by Yma Sumac. Claire apprises me, in a humorous way, of her time in Bolivia and finding chicha as a beer. The bartenders are Viola, Alita, Quince, Angie, Francesco, Geoff, Claire, Meredith, and Hanna. As one listens to them, one becomes aware about their lives as actors, musicians, and writers. Hanna Cheek, for instance, did a gripping erotic monologue as part of The Pumpkin Pie Show at The Theatre Under St. Marks. The bartenders share our conversations, but more importantly, they also have much to say about us, the regulars.

When Mondays arrive, and with them Chicha Libre, the music is that of the Peruvian jungle. The owners of Barbès, Vincent and Olivier, play these songs to the delight of their patrons. On a different day, Olivier’s wife and Las Rubias del Norte (Blondes of the North) play Peruvian “waynos”, which remind me of my own native Andean music. It has a French accent, but who cares if the melodies are inspiring? We are at this bar to hide from the outside world. That is why we are here, in a safe place (a kind of cave) for chatter and laughter along with the image of Dr. Jose Gregorio. The piano music and lyrics like that of Fats Waller (“Bless you for building a new dream…”) also helps, subdues our fuzzy and out of focus vision. It’s swing leads us musically on a different journey. It removes us momentarily from an uneven course of events that is all around us.

NOTE: The author of this paper should be named Jason Cuatro. VR was named an honorary Jason… Barbès has now five official Jasons.

Park Smoke

By Filed Under: Part of the Solution

Whether it be what you like to do at 3 a.m. while watching Golden Girls reruns and eating White Castle Microwaveable Cheeseburgers, or whether you consider it taboo, America’s views about marijuana are changing.

Eighteen states have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, Colorado and Washington became the first two states to legalize it for recreational usage, and according to a 2012 Rasmussen poll, fifty-six percent of Americans think marijuana should be legalized and regulated like alcohol and tobacco. Yet despite all this, there is still resistance. According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the US still spends nearly $42 billion per year in marijuana-related criminal justice costs and in lost tax revenues, there were 853,838 arrests made in 2010 for marijuana-related offenses, and a majority of states still ban it even for medicinal purposes. Under the Controlled Substances Act, the federal government considers it a Level 1 drug—every bit as dangerous as heroin with no medical benefit—and they continue to raid and prosecute marijuana sellers and users regardless of individual state legality. Where do you stand on this issue? Do you want to continue locking people up for nonviolent marijuana violations? Do you want to let marijuana be legalized? And where does New York and Park Slope fall within this dank, purple haze do you ask? I will share.

According to a Sienna College poll, fifty-seven percent of registered voters in New York state are for the legalization of medical marijuana. Though not yet for full legalization, Governor Andrew Cuomo, with the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, did introduce a plan to decriminalize the possession of small amounts. Like most progressive legislation in Albany, the bill died. If it had been enacted, it would have changed the punishment for possession of twenty-five grams or less from a criminal misdemeanor to a violation with a fine of up to $100.

In 2011, the New York City spent about $75 million arresting approximately 50,700 people for low-level marijuana offenses as reported by Fox News. Marijuana accounts for more arrests than any other crime in the city (nothing kills a good buzz like being put in a jail cell). The $75 million price tag includes court costs, police manpower and jail time. Data from the 2010 US Census and NY State Division of Criminal Justice Services estimate that approximately 1,150 people get arrested in neighboring Bedford- Stuyvesant each year for possession and about 1,600 get arrested in Brownsville. How many people get arrested in Park Slope? About 115 a year. Hmmmm… so police lock up about 1,035 more people in Bed-Stuy and 1,485 more people in Brownsville per year than they do in Park Slope. Why the disparity? (I’ve smelt more than my fair share of ganja wafting down Park Slope avenues in little green clouds.) Ailsa Chang of WNYC reports, “Though national studies show young whites smoke pot more, eighty-seven percent of those arrested for marijuana in New York City are either black or Latino.” But that would mean that Park Slope is more white than the surrounding neighborhoods… oh right. My advice to the 115 Park Slopers who did get arrested: stop skateboarding and taking bong hits in front of Precinct 78.

Except when it comes to the Top Notch Gentlemen terrifying young mothers by smoking blunts on the playground at Lincoln Place, Park Slopians don’t seem to mind marijuana much. David, a young African-American man who works in the area and smokes, believes, “It’s a victimless crime. I feel like law enforcement wastes a lot of time and resources on catching people smoking weed…Jail record [and] drug charges add up later down the line. People don’t need that.” Tom, a single, white working man in his thirties, who doesn’t smoke marijuana, believes there’s a double-standard, “If they’re gonna make alcohol legal, marijuana should be legal. Nobody smokes marijuana and goes home and beats their wife.” Jenny, a white mother who has lived here for over twenty years, and smokes occasionally, went even further, “If you commit a crime while using a drug, that’s different, but if it’s only drug use, then I say decriminalize all drugs.”

What would happen to Park Slope if marijuana were decriminalized or even legalized? How would the community change? Would the now-free 115 non-violent offenders consume all the Tasti D-Lite on Ninth Street and Seventh Avenue? Would they start a naked drum circle in front of the YMCA? Would they hallucinate that swarms of feral monk parakeets are flying overhead? (Actually feral monk parakeets do fly over Park Slope— there’s a colony of them that nest in Greenwood Cemetery).

Soffiyah Elijah, executive director of The Correctional Association Of New York and a Park Slope resident, states, “It costs about $56,000 a year to incarcerate someone.” That’s a lot of money when it comes to non-violent marijuana crimes. It costs approximately $1,479 to simply arrest a single low-level marijuana offense; this means if we were to legalize marijuana and let those 115 non-violent offenders go, over the next ten years Park Slope alone would see more than $1,700,000 returned to the community. This money could be used to build recreational centers, schools, parks, libraries, fix that pot hole on Fourth Avenue that nearly claimed my life, and all sorts of other uses. Police would be able to focus their time on violent crime, like, catching that perv who was sexually assaulting women or the guy who stole the wheel off my bike (I’m still pissed about that). The 115 non-violent offenders would be able to stay with their families and continue to serve the community by working, instead of costing us taxpayer dollars.

Hector, a Hispanic father who has lived in the neighborhood for years, has been fined a number of times for marijuana possession and was also locked up for five days. After being stopped-and-frisked, the cops ordered him to empty his pockets. When he produced a small bag of weed, they arrested him. Hector explained, “When you get to the precinct and you ask [other inmates] what you here for, what you here for? [They say] weed weed weed weed.” Personally I’d rather see more violent criminals in the cells rather than pacifists with bad short-term memories. It seems that far too much attention is being given to people minding their own business, than those who are real menaces to society.

New York is falling behind in the marijuana movement. We are surrounded by states that have legalized it for medicinal use, including New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware and Maine. Even if we legalized it just for medicinal purposes, those 115 non-violent offenders could open up medicinal dispensaries that would be regulated, taxed, and provide jobs and money to the community. We would benefit from their services.

There are people who say these 115 non-violent offenders should continue to be arrested. They argue that weed makes you lazy and stupid and that all you’ll do is play video games. (All I do is play video games when I’m sober too…) Michael R. Long, chairman of the NY State Conservative Party, posited that decriminalization could lead to the increased use in children.  at is actually not true. As reported by KPVI News 6, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, “Teens between the ages of twelve and seventeen say it’s easier to get marijuana than buy cigarettes, beer or prescription drugs.” Regulating marijuana and making it legal for those twenty-one and older is the best way to keep it out of the hands of kids. Laura, a white Park Slope mother of a two-year-old daughter, is still worried, “I think that parents are worried it’s a gateway drug, because eventually you will get bored with the high of marijuana and a lot of people will go onto another substance.” Again, not true. Gateway theory, as it’s known, is a widely fabricated belief.  The 2006 University Of Pittsburgh, the 1999 US National Academy Of Science’s Institute of Medicine, and the data compiled by the National Household Survey On Drug Abuse found no evidence that marijuana use led directly to the use of harder drugs.  The 115 non-violent offenders aren’t necessarily interested in taking bumps of cocaine in the bathroom stalls at a Black Keys concert. For many of them, a joint, a three-quarter pound Delirious Burger from Cheeburger Cheeburger, and a four-hour romp through Medal Of Honor are all that interests them.

As Bob Dylan sang, “The times they are a-changin.”  The legalization movement has picked up a lot of steam and we may see some changes to the marijuana laws in the next couple of years.

Whether you are for the legalization of marijuana or the continued prohibition of marijuana, we would like to hear from you. Please comment on whether you are for it or against it.

My Sick Hat

By Filed Under: Hypocrite's Almanac

Hello Park Slopers and others.

How are you? Have you begun the annual winter slide into mild or severe (depending on your DNA) depression? I find that if I don’t resort to too much glucose/alcohol therapy, I’m able to flat line it until the 78th Precinct Baseball Parade down Seventh Avenue in early April. The random piece, what can disrupt all of my well-laid emotional health plans, is getting a cold or flu. When I get sick, the world is a cruel place where horrible things happen to good people or well-intentioned hypocrites like me. Thankfully, I have my time-tested get-well regimen. And lucky for you, for the first time ever, I’m going to share it! Follow my directions for well-getting and you’ll be getting well in one short week!

We’re not that far into winter and I’ve already been clobbered by something I’ll call “Baby Flu.” The first symptom was achy feet. Then, there was a very covert neural procedure done in the darkest of hours, during which my spinal cord was replaced with a far inferior model. Day two was met with a sensation that my intestinal parasites, which were formerly under control, had ventured into other areas to set up pop-up shops in my nose and throat to hawk their pots of brownish grayish goo. It was time to activate my get-well emergency response system which, again, I will now reveal for the very first time!

First and foremost, I find Sick Hat. I, like many, many people all over the world, wear a hat when I’m sick. Mine is a pink fleece hat that I sport on no other occasion (unless it’s the only hat I can find and the dog desperately needs to go out). Sick Hat is a signal to all family members and close friends that I am very ill and cannot be counted on to meet their needs.

Once Sick Hat is on, I pretty much do whatever I want. I watch TV in the daytime, something I never do. I like to catch up on my Masterpiece Mysteries. I’m partial to Wallander (the Kenneth Branagh one) and Sherlock (the Benedict Cumberbatch one). If none of those are new, I can do an Inspector Lewis but I’ll rarely screen a Marple or a Poirot. They’re not dark enough. I need to feel haunted at the end of a mystery, and the cases that come across the desk of Wallander, a homicide detective living in a remote seaside village in Sweden, creep me out every time. Once I’ve seen a couple of those, I go online and check which stocks I should have bought five years ago. Then I eat. If I’m really sick—super achy and incapable of even thinking about food—I’ll drink peppermint tea with honey and lemon. If I still have my appetite, I’ll eat something spicy—kimchi and rice, eggs with jalapenos, turkey sriracha rollups. Hot foods kill viruses, I’m certain. I have no facts on which to base this, but I’m absolutely positive I’m right.

After lunch, I’m off to the sauna at the Y. More heat. Here are my very specific sauna instructions: Right before you go in, drink an ocean of water. Do not shower. Enter sauna. When you can’t stand it anymore, leave and find a bench to rest on to acclimate. Then take a shower, lukewarm, not cold. Repeat. Repeat again. After the third shower, rub oil (I use jojoba) all over your body and put on lots of layers. Go home and get back in bed. Don’t forget to put Sick Hat back on. Fall asleep.

When you wake up, make yourself a snack. I usually make some broth. If you have a chicken carcass in your freezer, put it in pot with some halved lemons, cover with water, bring to a boil then simmer for two hours. If you don’t have a chicken carcass in your freezer—what the Hell’s wrong with you? Vegetarian or not, never throw out a good chicken carcass! Without it, you’ll have to make bouillon with cubes, powders or concentrate. That’s the price you pay for throwing away a perfectly good chicken carcass! Drink your real or imitation broth while listening to the Beach Boys channel on Pandora. Gently sway back and forth being careful not to dislodge Sick Hat. People need to know they cannot bother you for anything.

I finish the whole sick day off with a hot toddy: a steaming cup of chamomile tea, a squeeze of lemon, a tablespoon of honey, and a glug of whisky. The bigger the glug, the fewer toddies you’ll have to drink to get to sleep, which is important because you don’t want to have to get up to pee a lot when you’re sick. And you really don’t want to wet the bed, which will happen if you combine the toddies with Nyquil. I’m not a chemist, but I imagine that the structure for Nyquil is very similar to the structure for Rohypnol. On the dire occasion that I do take Nyquil, I like to write a journal entry right after I take the recommended dose. This is my most recent Nyquil-influenced entry:

Still sick. The kids had afterschool but I had to go in early because I’m helping solicit donations for the auction. The fundraising chair gave me a list of businesses on Fifth and around Atlantic and a really detailed map of the neighborhood so I shoved her to the ground, pulled her teeth and horns out, and swallowed them. Got the kids, went home, tried to make dinner. The peas spilled all over the floor up to our knees. Tony, our tax accountant, came to help us clean up and taught the kids how to ride the donkey. Tony’s face was a made of clay but the donkey was real. I have to make disposable lunches for the kids tomorrow. Both of them have field trips.

I will not take Nyquil unless I don’t have to do anything the next day until noon.

After the toddy or toddies I get in bed, again with lots of layers on because it’s important to sweat a lot when you sleep. Everyone knows that—except the silly science people.

So I repeat this routine for six or seven days or until Sick Hat begins to itch uncontrollably and I can’t think of anything else but taking Sick Hat off. That’s when I know I’m better. I wash Sick Hat and store it in a plastic bag labeled “WILD RICE.” What it says on the bag does not matter. That would be crazy! But maybe you should try a using a bag labeled “WILD RICE” just in case. Why mess with success? I’m very inflexible in terms of my recovery routine, but I am considering adding a flu therapy I recently heard on the radio: You slice the top and bottom off an onion and warm it (do not boil!) in two cups of milk until the onion is soft. Then add a tablespoon of honey and drink. It’s exactly what I look for in a remedy. It’s bizarre, scientifically unfounded, and kind of gross. I’ll let you know how it goes. Stay well.

See you next time.

The Next Step

By Filed Under: Local Literature

Dear Eli, as I write this letter to you Mommy is putting you to bed. She will read to you before you go to sleep. When I came home tonight you were both finishing watching Mrs. Doubtfire on the television. Wow—bed time past 9 p.m.—how did you get that one past her?

When it’s time for bed you make the nightly request, “Daddy, will you carry me to the bathroom?” You will say, “I’m starting to roll”. You’ll roll into my arms (if I make it in time to the couch) or you will wait frozen as I walk over to catch you and carry you to the bathroom. Sometimes I tell you you’re big enough to walk yourself. Most of the time I carry you while you act like a stiff board, or I make a seat for you out of my arms. You brush your teeth, pee, I carry you from the bathroom and throw you on the bed, and Mommy or I read to you before you go to sleep. Tonight, Mommy reads.

I wonder as we read, do you listen? Sometimes I know you’re listening, other times it’s as if you’re looking off into space, thinking. Does the sound of our voice create a vehicle or sacred space for you? A way for you to travel from the reality of this world to the universe of your dreams?

Mommy comes out. “He’s very tired.” Now that’s a description of a ritual and a routine. We have many in our home. Sacred and nothing special at the same time. Reference points for how we exist and move through space together, dance sometimes, play, and get along. Within the next half-hour if you don’t go to sleep you will call out, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy” literally, either her name or mine, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy” — always three times in a kind of song—summoning us to your bedside. You will ask that we cover you, or lay down with you, or provide you with essential information regarding a question you have about anything under the sun that is occurring to you, as you navigate the transition from awake to sleep to dream. It’s as if you are getting ready to go somewhere and you want to make sure things are in place when you return in the morning.

Mommy just gave me some chicken soup. Since I came home late and didn’t have dinner, I’m eating now. Where was I? I was at The Shambhala Center. What was I doing there? I was taking the next step. What is the next step? I will tell you.

The next step is reclaiming the work I was doing before you were born and that I have continued doing after your birth, but not in the same way. I’m taking something down off the shelf that I put on the shelf so that I could create the space in my life for you, for Mommy, for rituals and routines that I felt needed to be in place, so that I could work the way I want to work. That work is to write. I can hear you asking, “You mean like on the subway?”

Yes, it’s true; sometimes Daddy will go out to ride the subway and write. The subway has all the things I need to write well. It has movement, it has no guarantee about who is going to get on or off, it has grit, some danger, noise that actually creates an inner silence within; it has stops and starts in ways that encourage me to take a breath, to pause, to connect thinking with action. There are all kinds of stories unraveling on the subway. There’s a lot of action. Beginnings, middles and endings all happening at the same time, all interdependent and isolated like subway riders can be. The subway does not care whether what I write is good or bad. It also has a kind of deadline. There’s a point when it reaches the end of the line. I have to get up, walk across the platform, and get on the train headed in the other direction. The subway is neither for me nor against me.

But the next step that Daddy took tonight about writing has been a long time in the planning. It‘s less about riding the subway and more about getting off the subway. It’s more about what Daddy said earlier about ritual and routine. It’s about reference points. It’s about writing so that other people can have and read what Daddy has written so they can turn them into their own reference points.

Eli, those reference points are for you too. Maybe only for you. Daddy may not have any reference points for what it means inside your heart to be the happy, safe, loved, and wanted little boy that you are, but Daddy has some other reference points. It’s time to give them away now. Before I say more about that, there’s something I need to tell you. For a long time, I have often said that I have no reference points for how to be your father. That’s because the kind of father I had was nothing like the kind of father you have. But that’s not true. Our time together has shown me that I have very powerful reference points for being your daddy. Some of the most powerful reference points a man can have. They are born from a heart of genuine sadness, loss, and pain.

Daddy was a wolf child. Daddy was Oblivion’s child. There are others like Daddy. We know a lot about dark places. We found our way out of them. We love to play in the light of day. We are happy to be free of our childhoods—those of us that got out—but we can’t change our childhoods. My brothers and sisters and I who come from the same kind of childhood —we howl when we feel lost. That’s how we hear and know one another, that’s the ritual and routine we use to remind ourselves where we all are. We love and care for one another. Not the same thing as “Daddy will you carry me to bed,” but that was how I went to bed at night when I was a child. Howling inside and outside. I still howl, but not for the same reason. I howl to stay in touch with my other reference points. Don’t worry, son, Daddy’s not trying to tell you he’s a werewolf.

You don’t howl at night. You are an ordinary, imperfect child. No doubt you will do some extraordinary things, but at the heart of it, you are the simple, pristine, victorious, noble, pure, nothing special, ordinary, imperfect child beyond Daddy’s wildest dreams. Daddy knows nothing about the life you are living right now on the inside of yourself. On the other hand, Daddy is working with Mommy to create the world you are living all around on the outside. Isn’t that funny? Why is it that you would never trust a pilot who has never flown an airplane to take you up in the air, but that you can trust absolutely that, while I know nothing about the world inside you, I totally know how to create and sustain that world for you?

Granted, shit happens (and don’t tell Mommie I cursed), but one thing you can count on as long as karma or God or whatever allows, I will be showing up and delivering the goods for you in terms of presence, acceptance, and tolerance, and you will have no better or more learned friend than I if the shit ever really hits the fan in your life. I have lots of reference points for that.

Last night, the lady who is teaching us about how she writes, Susan, said that while it’s true that our actions impact our environment, so too does our environment impact on our actions. You live in an environment that is being created, sustained, and maintained by Mommy and I. I’m not talking about what happens when you are outside of the world, space, container we are creating for you. That’s part of the deal we both had to make with life on life’s terms when we fell in love and realized—not too long after that—that you were coming. “Eli’s coming! Hide your hearts, girls!” are words to a song that lots of friends were singing before they even saw you.

What I want to say, Eli, is that Daddy is taking the next step, which was part of the plan, my own plan. A plan I held deeply in my heart and had to trust and believe in and wait for so that I could be sure when I took the writing off the shelf—not just the words but the ritual and routine of writing that I also need to take off the shelf now—that fundamental things would be in place. Daddy had to create all of these on his own with a lot of help from Mommy and lots of help from friends. A world. A family. A purpose. A sense of belonging. Knowing that he is loved and can love. Daddy needed to put all of that into place, along with a nice place to live, a good paycheck, and the settling of a few scores (I’m not talking about soccer and will explain more about that to you in another letter), so that he could do exactly what Susan was talking about last night.

But that’s why it’s very cool for you that I’m your daddy. I’m not bragging or anything, I’m just saying that at fifty years of age, Daddy has successfully and fully extricated himself from the oblivion of his childhood. That is a world you will never know about via your own personal experience. But it is a world that I will need to tell you about some day. It’s not like you aren’t starting to pick up on some of the clues. You notice that Daddy is comfortable in places where others might feel very nervous and frightened. You notice that Daddy is awkward and frightened in other places where there is no need for anyone to feel frightened or awkward. Daddy always inhabits a new world with every step he takes.

A couple more things to say, then this letter will end. But it’s going to be added to the collection of letters to you that I hope will be of some help to you in later years.

First thing: Mommy showed me YOUR writing the other night. She brought it to me at the perfect moment: you know, when I’m sort of tired and it’s late at night, but I don’t want to go to sleep. Wow. Are you a writer? Of course you are. So was your grandmother. So is your Daddy. What a story. I’m glad that your teacher is challenging you to write on a higher level, too. Mommy did not like the teacher’s criticism because she wants to know what third grader could possibly understand the things you are being asked to do. Since she’s a teacher and Daddy is a teacher, we are very careful to see what your teachers are saying. I agree with Mommy—maybe your teacher is a bit unrealistic. But on the other hand, something inside of me is saying, “Yeah, Eli. Kick Ass!!”

Last thing: Daddy has no special place where he writes. There never has been a special place. Daddy has always written in the gaps. Creating a special place—like the place you go before dreamland, or the safe place called our home, our family, where you are being allowed to emerge in accordance with your being, which I have the paradoxical experience of having no identification with on the one hand, and which I am totally and equally on board for realizing for you, for Mommy, and for myself on the other—creating that place for the writer and the writing that Daddy is now gong to take off the shelf is going to work only if we understand that it’s really nothing special.

Maybe nothing will change at all. You will continue to see Daddy writing in his notebooks in the park or on the computer in the morning when you leave for school. You will continue to try to talk to Daddy sometimes, and I will say yes and continue typing. You will see that Daddy will go for a long subway ride with his notebook. But it’s going to be different. It won’t be writing for the shelf. It will be writing for something else. It will be writing for you. For Mommy. It won’t be writing for writing’s sake. It will be writing for the sake of voice, for realization, for the sake of any wisdom or compassion I can squeeze out of my experience from now until when I am dead. It will be writing that will be about death that comes from living, writing about life that comes from death. I will need to be as fearless and outrageous as you are on the soccer field, when you sing and dance for us, when you jump in bed to kiss us and tell us how happy you are. It will have to emerge in accordance with its being. As you do.

Brooklyn Cookbooks

By Filed Under: The Reader On Food

The cookbook is to food artisans as the signature fragrance is to pop stars; a rite of passage, a sign that you’ve made it. This being Brooklyn and all, there is no end to the options of ways to recreate what you love most about our markets, food trucks, shops, and restaurants in the comfort of your own (very small) kitchen. In this issue, we’ve highlighted just a few new releases for cookbooks brought to you from our borough’s best to help you with your menu planning.

Give into your cravings with Liz Gutman and Jen King, who bring you Liddabit Sweets—an innovative candy brand that started as a side project a mere two years after first meeting at the beginning of pastry school and “accidentally” bloomed into their full-time career shortly afterwards. Keep your fingers on the pulse with brothers Max and Eli Sussman who cook for Roberta’s and Mile End Delicatessen, respectively, and have been named on both Forbes (for Max) and Zagat’s (for both) lists of top thirty under thirty food professionals. Or, check in again with Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, now veterans of the cookbook racket with their third publication inspired by the beloved Baked.

The Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook

I consider myself a good baker and cook. But for some reason, making candy has always been my downfall. Every single attempt—from the time I tried to make Fluff by microwaving marshmallows when I was seven, to when my caramel sauce never made the transition from a mass of melted sugar a few months ago—has resulted in complete disaster. As a candy lover, this has always upset me greatly. I would have given up on the idea entirely if it had not been for The Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook, by Liz Gutman and Jen King. See, this isn’t just a collection of scrumptious recipes (we’ll get to those in a minute), it’s the best textbook you’ve ever had.

The first chapter is a fifty-five page crash course on Candy 101 and it’s packed with both practical and entertaining information. There is a surprising amount of science behind your sweets, and Gutman and King lay it out for you in a way that’s simple to understand and easy to translate to all of your endeavors in the kitchen. There are ten pages alone dedicated on how to melt chocolate—if something this deceivingly simple can be so complicated to warrant that word count, then no wonder candy-making can be tough to master! This section is full of tips, tricks, and troubleshooting, so it’s useful for both your practical needs and for arming you with the knowledge to truly understand what you’re doing in the kitchen. Reading about breaking down your dessert into chemical processes may sound like a bore, but fear not. Gutman and King’s voices are inviting, encouraging, and full of charm. You would think reading all this would make the idea of candy-making even more intimidating but, while they make no effort to hide that (it is complicated and requires a good deal of effort), I’ve never felt more ready to take on the challenge than after reading this book.

Good thing they provide you with an awesome collection of recipes to try while you’re all pumped up. They’re broken down into candy categories: Chocolates, Gummy and Chewy (caramels, jellies, marshmallows), Creamy (fudge, maple candy, pralines), Crunchy (lollipops, toffees, brittles), Homemade Candy Bars, as well as a catch-all category for Party Favorites (candy apples, cake balls, caramel corn). If you’re familiar with Liddabit Sweets from their stands at the Brooklyn Flea or Amsterdam Market (or pretty much anywhere in the city where the cool kids buy food), you’ll recognize their tendency to take something we all know and love and make it better by translating it to a more homestyle feel. You’ll find the recipes to their signature offerings here, including Snacker Bars—the creation that started it all with their take on Snickers, King Bars (a riff on Elvis’ favorite sandwich of peanut butter and banana), Beer and Pretzel Caramels, and Honeycomb Candy. But there are plenty of new things to try like Chocolate Toffee Matzo Crunch, Chai Latte Lollipops, or Hip-To-Be-Squares, which are, to put it in their words, “a creamy-crunchy combination of chocolate, hazelnut, and delicately crispy feuilletine wafers.” If you’re one of those people who, like my dad, lament that “you can’t get just chocolate ice cream anymore!” and are tired of all these crazy concoctions, there are tons of classics, too. We’ve got your truffles, turtles, cherry cordials, marzipan, Turkish delights, and their adorable homemade gummy bears, just to name a few.

Whether you’re looking to impress people with your array of homemade sweets at potlucks or to impress people with your newfound knowledge (I look forward to an opportunity to reference the “thread stage” of sugar in casual conversation), there’s something here for you. Even if you never try a single recipe, you’re sure to have fun simply spending time with The Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook.

This Is A Cookbook: Recipes For Real Life

The essence of Max and Eli Sussman’s This Is A Cookbook can be summed up in a single sentence: This is a cookbook with a foreword by Rob Delaney. Everything—from the range of recipes to the not overly stylized photographs, to the fonts—makes you feel like you’re hanging out with your coolest friends. Both brothers are hard-working food industry professionals (Max is the chef de cuisine at Roberta’s, and Eli is a line cook at Mile End Delicatessen) who live together in a sweet Brooklyn bachelor pad and, accordingly, the recipes have the feel of what cooks make for themselves at home on their day off—simple but not plain, comforting, nothing too labor-intensive, and just the right amount of trendiness.

Their introductory brunch chapter alone shows their wide range of cuisines, but it manages not to feel haphazard. A flip of the page goes from Chilaquiles (or “breakfast nachos” as I believe they’re traditionally called), to Fried Chicken and Waffles, to Latkes. The variety continues through the rest of the chapters: Backyard Grub, Night In, Dinner Party, Midnight Snacks, and Sweet Stuff. Korean Short Ribs, Turkish Baked Eggs, Avgolemono, Thyme Spaetzle, and Nutella Buns somehow all blend into a cohesive narrative. Along with the recipes, there are lessons interspersed throughout the book on how to tackle the culinary trends, including how to smoke your own bacon, pickle your own vegetables, and make your own pasta.

The mélange of recipes, the DIY element, and the design of the book itself are all quintessentially Brooklyn, but one bump in the road is that there’s a whole section on grilling. It seems a bit out of place in a book that otherwise assures you that great food can be made in the smallest of kitchens. But that’s not to say that the recipes themselves are unappreciated—hello, Grilled Figs with Burnt Honey and Pistachio Yogurt! Fifth-floor walk-up dwellers can easily adapt most of the dishes in this chapter to their stove tops or ovens with some know-how and creativity. Other than that, This is a Cookbook would fit right into the urban twenty or thirty-something lifestyle that it aims to reach. It’s accessible, but not boring. You’ll likely learn about a few new dishes, and it’s not restricted by expensive or hard-to-find ingredients. It’s the kind of book that you can pick up and actually use to make dinner on an average weeknight of your real life, not that fantasy version that you’ve portrayed on Pinterest that so many other cookbooks cater to. And for all you tablet-lovers, the digital version sounds incredible. It’s loaded with behind-the-scenes videos, pop-up tips and stories, step-by-step galleries, and even links to iTunes playlists curated by each brother. Overall, This is a Cookbook is a fun, charming, and useful book that would make both a great addition to a cook’s collection or an introductory volume for someone first making their way into the culinary world.

Baked Elements : Our 10 Favorite Ingredients

Baked Elements, the third cookbook from Baked owners Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, presents its recipes organized by ingredients, which is kind of genius. The urge to bake almost always comes from a craving for a certain ingredient. For Lewis and Poliafito, they were quickly able to come up with their shared top ten ingredients that grace their creations time and time again: peanut butter, lemon and lime, caramel, booze, pumpkin, malted milk powder, cinnamon, cheese, chocolate, and banana. (They do include recipes for homemade peanut butter, pumpkin puree, chocolate syrup, and three different caramels, if you want to be totally impressive.) There are seventy-five recipes here, and almost all of them manage to feel new and fresh. Dessert recipes often seem to be recycling the same ideas over and over again, but even the classics have their own Baked twist to them—like how their Key Lime Tarts have a pretzel crust. This book is presented more on the Martha Stewart side of the spectrum, but despite the fancy packaging, the recipes aren’t particularly high-end or pretentious. Most of them are pretty manageable, and have the added bonus of making it look like you spent a lot of time and effort on them.

Each section begins with a bunch of fun facts about the ingredient and an ode praising its value (Did you know that Milton Hershey’s initial venture was the Lancaster Caramel Company, opened in 1886, and he only learned about chocolate-making because he was looking for new ways to coat his caramels?). I especially enjoy the introductory sentence to the recipes: “If you have ever woken up with a slight hangover and a dubious, half-remembered, half-eaten jar of peanut butter at your side, we can empathize.” There’s a part of me that feels a bit guilty saying that some of their best recipes are to be found in their Booze section, from their Whiskey Peach Upside-Down Cake to their S’more-Style Chocolate Whiskey Pudding with Whiskey Marshmallow Topping to the Triple Rum Black Pepper Cake. But I was most intrigued by the malted ilk section, since it is an ingredient I think it’s safe to say most of us have very little experience with. It seems a bit old-timey to me, mostly associated with the malted milkshakes of old-school soda fountains (there’s a recipe for that), so it’s fitting that the chapter opens with homemade Devil Dogs With Malted Buttercream Filling. It also features updates on old favorites like Malted Milk Chocolate Pots de Crème and Malted Madeleines.

Their range of recipes transcends seasons and occasions. Of course, the lemon and lime recipes are suited to be enjoyed in the summer (oh for the Lemon Lime Champagne Granita on a hot day) and the pumpkin recipes in the Fall, but for the most part, you’d be able to turn to Baked Elements throughout the year. They also strike a nice balance between lighter and richer offerings and between more casual treats and decadent affairs. And while this is, in essence, a book of desserts, there are a handful of recipes that are just savory enough to be enjoyed as a breakfast or snack like their Good Morning Sunshine Bars, Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls, Honey Banana Poppy Seed Bread, and their brilliantly named Lacy Panty Cakes—which are essentially pancakes amped up with graham crackers and whiskey sauce. They subtly incorporate a few trends like the boozy milkshake (bourbon, vanilla, and chocolate), whoopie pies (banana), and pretzels (whole-wheat cinnamon sugar) too so it feels especially current. (Okay, so pretzels might not be a full-on trend yet, but they’re on the cusp of being the next big thing—you heard it here first!) This comprehensive collection leans towards being a companion for special occasions, but is rarely so far-reaching that it couldn’t be picked up to add some delight to an average weekend.

Station Stops and Subway Rising

By Filed Under: Local Literature

The subway is my living room. I sit next to a woman doing her makeup, wait for a train alongside a man clipping his fingernails. As we ride, ladies take off their shoes and plunge their hands toward the soles as their fingers search for that one irritating lonesome pebble or piece of lint.

One day, a large man sits next to me, his thigh touching my thigh. “Would you like a fig?” he looks past me and asks the man to my left. The other man shakes his head and reveals a quiet grin of confusion. I look down and see that the large man has a branch of dried, brown, prune-like fruits dangling on a diagonal off a vine, like the veins on a leaf.

“Those are dates,” I offer. The man looks at me with surprise then down to the fruit.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“I’m sure,” I confirm. I notice that below his wreath of dates is a box of date-filled cookies, the cover showing yellow round biscuits surrounded by the wrinkled fruit.

“See?” I say, motioning to the package.

He smiles and cries out in shock. “It is a date! I should know that,” he declares. “I’m a food writer.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Well I didn’t get this figure from nothing,” he says, running his hands down and under his rotund belly. From there the conversation continues. I learn his professional history. He is currently a minister, slash food writer; formerly a basketball player, slash hip-hop artist. “Google me,” he insists.

Another day, a smaller man sits beside me after bounding through the doors at Twenty-Third Street. He ruffles with a plastic bag between his feet.

“You know, I just bought this cologne and I don’t know if it’s any good. I drive a cab, so I always want to smell good,” he begins to tell me, without introduction. He pulls out a still-plastic wrapped brand name cologne I have now forgotten. He looks to me for approval. I shrug. I tell him I don’t know it.

He unwraps the box and pulls out the glass container, spritzing a small mist on himself. “What do you think?” He questions. His torso ends just inches below mine, so I can see most of his balding crown. Another passenger across from us looks on in amusement.

I lean to my left, nose bowing ever so slightly and I inhale. “You smell lovely,” I tell him.

The man nods, and satisfied, puts the cologne away. He thanks me for my input, and I can tell he feels better about his purchase. The next stop, I exit, saying a quick goodbye.

After Hurricane Sandy, my living room was dark. It was filled with water, and I imagined fish navigating its hallways, speeding past South Ferry along State and Pearl, the black and white mosaic of tree branches transformed to waving seaweed, bending with the rippling water. Even though I sat in my perfectly undamaged apartment, I still felt a small pang of loss. Not only of mobility and convenience, but of space, of refuge.

Spotted, molding, chipping walls; plastic bottle, potato chip bag, and rodent accessorized rails; piquant whiffs of urine or vomit that are not all too uncommon. But everyone in the subway experiences the same sensory assaults. As travelers, we are in it together. Like the funky odor the family car often takes on. It’s a familiar stink, a familiar rocking and squealing of motion.

I was relieved when I could finally return again, bounding down the steps at Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn, book in hand, ready to enjoy my half-hour ride, my productive time of underground commuting. It was like someone was handing me a ticket home. Like tasting my mother’s chocolate cake after one too many months without it. It was back. My living room, restored.

Picture Perfect

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville

By the middle of January, I’ve packed up all the Christmas ornaments, wrestled the fake tree back into its box and tossed the leftover candy canes into the trash. Last to go are the holiday cards. As I archive our family’s card by sliding it into the file folder right in front of last year’s, I can’t help but remember the behind-the-scenes drama which went into the making of the card, a drama which is as much a tradition for our family by now as the card itself.

It starts with me, in early December, unearthing a Santa hat and clearing the memory card on my camera. “C’mon kids, we’re gonna take a picture,” I announce, tossing their holiday apparel at them.

This is, of course, not the whole truth. We’re not just going to take a picture. We are going to take the Christmas Card Picture. That’s a whole different ball of wax.

“What kind of picture?” asks my eight-year-old son, known in these parts as Primo. Then he glances down at the plaid buttondown shirt I’ve handed him and a look of dread comes over his face, “Why are you giving me my party shirt, Mommy? Is it—it’s not—are we taking our Christmas card picture?”

I zip my five-year-old, Seconda, into her red taffeta party dress before replying, “Yes.”

Seconda spins around to face me.

“No!” she gasps.

“Awww mom,” whines Primo, like a rotten kid in a sitcom, “do we have to?”

“Do you have to?” I shoot back and just like that, the fiasco is underway. The mere phrase, “do we have to?” is all it takes to get me started. Hell, I’m still mad from last year’s photo shoot.

“What do I ever ask from you kids?” I lament, like I’m doing an impression of my own mother, except I’m dead serious, “Nothing! Just a few decent pictures of you all together, just twice a year, on Halloween and Christmas—”

“And Easter,” Primo points out.

“OK, and Easter.”

“And my communion,” he continues.

“That was a one-time thing!”

“And the baby’s baptism.”

Already, I’m at a six on the Mad Mommy Scale. Already. And we haven’t even turned the camera on yet.

“Just get outside!” I hiss as I usher them out the door, hoisting the baby, eight-month-old Terza, onto my hip.

We always take the pictures outside because the natural light eliminates the possibility that I’ll go through all the trouble of the Christmas card photo shoot and end up with blurry or shadowy or backlit pictures. I learned that lesson the hard way in years one and two of Primo’s life.

Shooting on the bench in front of our building means we get good light, but it also means we are on public display, which is unfortunate because my parenting during the Christmas card photo shoot is not something I want witnessed by an audience.

“Can I have an M&M?” Seconda asks on the way down the stairs.

“No way,” I reply, “You know the drill. Take a good picture, get an M&M.”

“Uuuuuugh,” she groans.

In theory, taking a decent picture of my children shouldn’t take more than four, maybe five minutes. You sit still, you smile for the camera, you get a heaping handful of M&Ms. Everybody’s happy. We get on with our day. It doesn’t have to be a living nightmare.

This is the same pep talk I give the kids year after year, and every time I believe it can be this simple.

Part of what makes our photo shoot so difficult is that my kids haven’t gotten much practice posing for pictures. For the most part, my husband David and I prefer slice-of-life candid shots, the kind of photographs that capture a real moment in time, that tell a story. I mean, who really wants canned pictures of kids with forced smiles plastered on their faces? Me, that’s who. Two or three times a year, I want those fake smiles and unblinking eyes and arms slung around each other’s shoulders. It’s a lapse in my taste and my sanity, but I can’t help it. I want the perfect Christmas picture. I want pictures that could be mistaken for the stock photographs which are pre-set in frames when you buy them, which Seconda is always confused about (“Why are you buying pictures of these strangers, Mommy??!!”).

Because when I make my Christmas card, what I am really doing is making a little commercial of my family. I want the commercial to be pretty and shiny and happy and touching so that everyone who views it wants to go out and buy a family exactly like mine.

Unfortunately, my kids are not particularly adept at making this kind of commercial. It takes a lot of hard work, a shameful amount of bribing, and the better part of an afternoon to get them picture perfect. Each tiny step takes ten times as long as it should.

The first step—sit on the bench—goes like this: Primo perches on the back of the bench and Seconda sits on the ground. When I correct them, they switch and Primo’s on the ground with Seconda on the back of the bench. Then Primo lays down on the bench and Seconda beats him senseless for stealing her spot. Then Primo kicks her in the guts. Then, mass hysteria.

When they are both sitting next to each other on the bench, I have to insert the baby into the equation. This is, of course, no simple affair. They both want to hold the baby. The baby, on the other hand, wants to be held by no one. She screams on Primo’s lap. She screams on Seconda’s lap. I take a few Baby Screaming shots, thinking we could go for a funny Christmas photo this year. But inevitably, the baby’s hand is blocking one of the kid’s faces, or the kids are hitting each other behind her, and that takes the picture from funny and cute to depressing and troubling.

The baby can’t be bribed with M&Ms. To make the baby happy, I have to do the Mommy-Be-Stupid-and-Crazy Show in which I jump up and down making monkey sounds or stick my tongue out and spit continuously for a full minute, all while trying to hold the camera steady.

This works, and the baby starts smiling. But at that exact moment, Seconda decides she’s had enough and wanders off set. Then Primo figures, “Hell, if she’s leaving, I am too,” and jumps off the bench while he is holding the baby. I have to lunge to catch Terza, dropping the camera in the process and letting forth a pretty ferocious, R-rated string of expletives.

“Lets try not to KILL ANYONE during this photo shoot please!” I shriek.

“Well, it’s your fault for torturing us!” Primo shrieks back.

“Torture?” I bellow, now at least an eight on the Mad Mommy Scale, “You wanna see torture?”

We’ve been outside for ten minutes and do not have one decent photo.

“Kids,” I growl, “I can do this all day. All! Day!”

They know I mean it, too, so they head back to the bench for round two. This time, I let the baby hold a rattle so she’s distracted. Now it’s all about getting the other two not to make totally weird faces. Seconda is eerily photogenic, but she always ends up looking irate. And while it works for Vogue Italia, “furious fiveyear- old” just doesn’t work for our Christmas card.

Primo has a bunch of possible weird faces. There’s the “I’m trying to look really sweet but look like I am doped up on opium with my eyes half-closed” expression. There’s the “I’m trying to look excited but my eyes are popping out of head and my nose is flared like a fire-breathing dragon” expression. And then, of course, there’s the “I’m trying to look pensive but I look like I’m on the toilet” expression, which let’s face it, all of us fall prey to.

So I stand there with my camera, trying to coach him: “Smile! No! Not like that! Less teeth! Ah, no, no, no. that’s the dragon look. More teeth again. No! No, honey, no! That’s the opium look, that’s the worst one! OK, forget smiling. No smiles! STOP SMILING! Good, yes, OK, Oh God, Oh no. That was the toilet look. Ok, let’s take five.”

We huddle up and I give the kids an M&M to keep their heads in the game.

“We can do this,” I tell them,“ We are not inventing the camera. We are not even taking a photograph with a manual camera. We are just taking a picture. Easy peasy.”

Then the kids try, they really do, but the baby’s tired and I’ve confused Primo so much he can’t control his facial muscles anymore, and then the neighbor’s dog wanders into the frame and drools on Seconda’s dress, during which the baby grabs his ear and bedlam breaks out.

I shout, “It’s a wrap!” and toss M&Ms to anyone with a pulse and wonder if there’s a bottle of wine I can uncork post-haste.

“Ok, that was good,” I reassure the kids as we walk up the stairs, “You guys did good.”

Which is stretching it.

Later that night, I check out the fruits of our labor and am royally disappointed. I spend a few hours trying to crop creatively, and eventually decide that rather than a card with one great picture, I’ll make a card with four or six lousy ones, the idea being to inundate my recipients with so many images, they won’t be able to give any of them real scrutiny.

I click and drag and add some punchy copy and then, with a sigh of relief, I hit “Checkout.” And I forget about it.

But when the box of cards arrives in the mail and I take a look at what we’ve created, something miraculous happens. The pictures aren’t awful at all. Sure, Primo’s eyes are kind of droopy in that one, and yes, a large portion of the baby’s forehead is cut off in this one, and Seconda’s smile is pretty goofy here, but when you see it all together, it’s great. Better than great. It’s my family. Definitely not perfect. Not the family everyone, or even anyone else, would buy. But just the way I like them.

To read more of Nicole’s adventures in Mommyland, visit her blog at amomamok.blogspot.com.

Winter Wellness, Park Slope Style

By Filed Under: Healthy Living

It’s not your fault. The skies are gray and it’s too cold to leave your bed for any reason except to pee and to make more tea. Winter is a threat to mental stability, and gorging on eggnog and leftovers is one of the few ways to persevere. Unfortunately, all that deliciousness also means the dreaded holiday fifteen, or twenty, or thirty, if things really get out of hand. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

Whether you have an established fitness routine or an unused gym membership, now is the perfect time to try something new. I’m not saying put down the hot cocoa, but working out can be another way to ward off seasonal affective disorder. And it doesn’t have to be twenty minutes on the treadmill followed by fifty crunches and ten reps of whatever. Here is where we call in the experts. Janine Flasschoen owns The Fifth Line, which offers your yoga and Pilates classes, but also teaches the Gyrotonic method. Gyrotonic may seem at first to be the new Pilates with a super-official name. But it’s more than a fitness fad—it’s a way of life and a defense mechanism extraordinaire against the winter blues.

And what is this newfangled Gyrotonic you ask? Flasschoen explains it best: “Similar to dance, it uses the entire body in continuous movement, building elongated muscular strength while increasing flexibility and range of motion. The coordination component keeps the mind actively working and refining the neuromuscular pathways. Like yoga, it emphasizes various breathing techniques that center the mind, calm the nervous system, or, when coordinated with movement, efficiently propel the body. Movements can be done with speed, stimulating the cardiovascular system, or it can be done slowly and more meditatively, nourishing the body and mind.”

So basically it’s all the best elements of a workout combined into one. Flasschoen’s mentality about working out pretty much sums up the energy of the Gyrotonic method and the point of this article: “Fitness is not only about toning, conditioning and fitting into those skinny jeans, but about physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.”

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention yoga when talking about physical and mental well-being. Yoga is one those fitness trends we’ve probably all tried a few times before losing our yoga mats in the depths of our closets. But perhaps we haven’t been seeing beyond the hippie-dippy mumbo jumbo of it all.

The point of yoga isn’t to immediately escape our tendencies toward hibernation or “turning inward,” as the founder of Yogasana, Kristen Davis, calls it. Rather, it’s a way to give in to those tendencies while simultaneously breaking free from them. According to Davis, “We see our habits; we see the imprint of our thinking, our way of being, on the body. It’s far more profound than just stretching and strengthening (although it is that too). It changes us.” It’s like therapy: you have to want to get better for it to work. Davis’ description of her first experience with yoga exemplifies her open-mindedness towards the exercise: “The first yoga class I took left me feeling like some strange cubist painting, like I’d been taken apart and put back together again. I fell in love with it!” I think we’d all benefit from temporarily being a cubist painting, and the instructors at Yogasana will help you do just that. They tend to the needs of each individual student, so it’s almost like seeing a shrink. Except instead of probing your mind, they probe your mind-body-soul.

T’ai chi is another one of those buzzwords you’ve heard floating around the New Age fitness atmosphere, and it’s also a recent addition to Park Slope. T’aichiinparkslope, currently hosted at the Annex at Ellie Herman’s Pilates Studio, opened just three months ago. T’ai chi is an age-old martial art that uses slow but precise movements to strengthen and relax the muscles. At first glance, it may appear to not be much of a workout. But you’ll actually be getting the chi flowing, and you won’t have to walk the streets sweaty and red-faced afterward.

Susan Hamovitch, the founder and director of T’aichiinparkslope, acknowledges your skepticism. “It may sound hocus pocus. What is chi, after all? The truth is, it’s an invisible ‘force;’ it can’t be seen or traced. But it has been shown over and over to not only exist, but to follow the meridians that have been identified in ancient Chinese medicine. Think acupuncture. Think remedies for arthritis, coughs, back pain, muscle aches—and far more deep-seated emotional and psychological stresses.”

Did that strike a chord with your inner hypochondriac? Because those dedicated to the practice of t’ai chi claim to rarely succumb to the common cold, and recent studies have shown the effectiveness of t’ai chi in helping with chronic pain in those with serious illnesses, as well as those of us suffering from the general ills of everyday life. According to Hamovitch, “The head of neurology at Methodist recommends patients with Parkinson’s get themselves into a t’ai chi program pronto.”

Jikishininkan Aikido Dojo is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching aikido, another martial art form, but one that focuses on the art of defense. Jikishininkan translates to “direct mind” and reflects the Buddhist teachings the dojo promotes in its practice of aikido as well as zen meditation.

One normally doesn’t associate zen with defending oneself against an attacker, an attacker who may very well have a knife or Samurai sword, for that matter. But Sensei Stewart Johnson, head instructor and dojo cho, explains, “The goal is to develop the necessary skill, focus, awareness and compassion to control an attack without injury to your attacker or yourself. Aikido is purely defensive in nature, relying on throws, joint locks and pins rather than disabling strikes. We strive to blend with the energy of the attack, redirecting and guiding it to a throw, joint lock or pin.”

The experience of being on the receiving end of an aikido defense demonstrates the level of control over both mind and body that is possible to achieve through aikido. Johnson says, “As a beginner student I had an opportunity to attack my sensei, and I remember that my reaction can be summed up in one word: bewilderment. I felt like I had voluntarily turned my punch into a gentle ellipse that spiraled down to the mat. I never once felt sensei ‘do’ anything to me. I was convinced I had done it to myself for reasons I simply could not fathom.”

But maybe you’re more of an adrenaline junkie than a zenmaster. Maybe you’re not. Maybe you just want to make more friends? The Brooklyn Road Runners Club may be the answer to two of your New Years Resolutions this year: 1) get fit and 2) meet new people. According to Michael Balbos, communications director of Brooklyn Road Runners, two members met through the running group and ended up getting married. Balbos himself invited two members to his own wedding. Balbos says, “The best thing about Brooklyn Road Runners are the friendships you make.”

Steve Bonal, founder and president of the Brooklyn Road Runners Club, wanted to start a runner’s group that balanced the serious with the social aspects of running. The group trains for races, and the standard route is around Prospect Park roadway, about 3.35 miles, and while they try not to leave anyone behind, be prepared to at least jog the distance. Even if you’re doing more chatting than jogging.

Balbos says, “Running is a very communal activity with lots of discussions going on during a group run. Many of our runners get together socially or coordinate separate runs together if life interferes and they can’t make our standard group runs. We also have a yearly awards ceremony and holiday party, a pre-New York City Marathon get together, and other social activities.” So even if you don’t meet the love of your life, you’re bound to make some new friends, and all of you will be hot and fit and ready to meet babes. Sign me up.

What it all boils down to is finding the right fitness routine for you. One that is fun, feels good, and keeps you motivated enough to keep going back. Let’s all take one final note from the fitness guru Janine Flasschoen: “As we head into the stress of the holidays, the cold winter months ahead, and feel the tendencies to hibernate, I think it is important to let fitness be all encompassing. Listen closely to what your body needs on any given day and allow your exercise to be nurturing.”

The Ghost of the Boy Who Fell from the Sky

By Filed Under: Spirits

excerpt from The Ghost of Brooklyn: Thrilling Accounts of Souls, Spirits and Ghosts

The 78th Police Precinct, located at 65 6th Avenue, is the site of a peculiar haunting.  This police station, as is not uncommon given the nature of world, is a place where people have died, prisoners have attempted suicide and distraught spirits linger.  There are, in other words, a good number of instances of paranormal activity.

It is thought that these ghosts have now become more active.  Some psychics believe the construction of the Nets arena a block away has animated them. They have grown curious about the changes in the neighborhood. It is, psychics suggest, the reason these spectral beings have become more visible.

It is not any of the ghosts inside the 79th Police Precinct that concerns this haunting, but rather it is the Ghost of the Boy Who Fell from the Sky.  The Ghost makes his way to the police station to report his luggage is lost.  He doesn’t know where to find it.

He is believed to be the ghost of the one surviving passenger — a young boy — who fell from the sky when United Airlines flight 826 and Trans World Airlines flight 266 collided over Staten Island on December 16, 1960.  United Airlines flight 826, with 84 passengers and crew aboard, departed Chicago O’Hare and was bound for New York Idlewild International Airport (now renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport).  It crashed in Park Slope along Sterling Place and 7th Avenue. Trans World Airlines flight 266, with 44 passengers and crew aboard was scheduled to land at LaGuardia Airport, arriving from Dayton and Columbus, Ohio.  It crashed into a vacant airfield, now part of Gateway National Park, on Staten Island.  The disaster killed all 128 people aboard both aircraft and six people on the ground.

One passenger survived the initial impact.  Stephen L. Baltz, an 11-year-old boy from Wilmette, Illinois, was thrown from the tail section of the United Airlines jetliner and landed on a snow bank.  Residents rolled him in the snow to extinguish the flames that engulfed his clothes.  He was conscious, and Dorothy M. Fletcher, who lived at 143 Berkeley Place, rushed to help.  The photograph of her holding an umbrella to protect the child from the falling snow made headlines around the country.

In 2004, at the age of 91, she was interviewed by Nathaniel Altman of the Park Slope Reader. This is how she recalled that day:

There were two men walking by, and I called out to them, “Do you have a car?”  Because there were so many people around there, and so many automobiles that ambulances couldn’t get through.  And they said, “Yes, we have a car.” It was on Lincoln Place. … We lay Stephen on the back seat and I knelt down beside him.  All the way up to the hospital he talked to me.  What broke my heart was when he asked me if he was going to die.  I said, “Not if we can help it.  We’re taking you to Methodist Hospital.”  And he said, “That’s good, because I am a Methodist.”  He also told us that his daddy was still in Illinois, in Chicago, and his mother and sister were waiting for him at the airport.  They were going to spend Christmas with his uncle up in Yonkers.  It’s almost as though he were talking to me now.  I can hear him … Up to three years ago, Mrs. Baltz and I sent each other Christmas cards and would report what was going on with our families.  And then it stopped like that, and I just surmised that she had passed away.

The boy died from his injuries the following day, peacefully, with his mother and father by his side.

In the intervening decades, there have been reports of the Ghost of the Boy Who Fell from the Sky making his way from the intersection of Sterling Place and 7th Avenue to the 78th Precinct at 65 6th Avenue to report his lost luggage.

Is the Ghost of the Boy Who Fell from the Sky none other than Stephen L. Baltz, the 11-year-old Boy Scout from Illinois, who was flying to New York to spend Christmas with family in Yonkers?

There is a consensus that the ghost is indeed that of Stephen L. Baltz.  He is seen wandering the streets.  He is holding his boarding pass for United Airlines flight 826 and a luggage claim ticket. He says he is confused, and doesn’t know where the airport baggage claim is located.  He is sure his mother is waiting for him at the end of the jet way, but he doesn’t remember how he got here.

The Ghost of the Boy Who Fell from the Sky has communicated with psychics to let them know that he’s a Boy Scout and knows First Aid.  He says he can help the injured.  The Ghost of the Boy Who Fell from the Sky further claims that when he arrives at the 78th Precinct, the police officers ignore him.

Is it because he’s a minor and his parents aren’t with him?  Is it because they don’t believe him when he explains that his airplane crashed a few blocks away?  Is it because they don’t have time for him?

The Ghost of the Boy Who Fell from the Sky claims he becomes exasperated at being ignored.  He leaves the station and just sits on the steps.  He wonders what Yummy Tacos are. He is curious — but a bit scared — to go into Hungry Ghost.  He only has 65 cents, so he can’t even buy a can of soda at the corner store.

The police officers at the 78th Police Precinct may not see or believe the Ghost of the Boy Who Fell from the Sky, but do you?

Do you see him as he approaches the 78th Police Precinct?  Do you see him when he’s sitting on the steps?  Do you see him as he walks the streets, holding his boarding pass, baggage claim ticket and 65 cents?

Do you believe the Ghost of the Boy Who Fell from the Sky when he claims to have fallen from the sky over Park Slope?

In your life, when was the last time you fell and depended on the kindness of strangers?

Sex, Chocolate and Death

By Filed Under: Hypocrite's Almanac

What!?!  Summer is over?  I just got around to shaving my legs!  Not that hairy legs stopped me from going to the local public pool.  Sorry about that.  Hope it didn’t gross you out.  I figured since there’s plenty to be skeeved out about there, I’d fit right in with the floating hairballs, used band-aids and snakes of phlegm surfing the waves.  Back to summer though.  As much as I hate to see it go, I adore Fall when it appears.  But know this about me. I fall in and out of love easily.  I get these crushes, see?  I bet I’d get a crush on you if I ever met you.  You’re perfect for me in every way.  You don’t turn away from me when I’m talking to (or writing to) you and you give me the space I need.  You don’t leave your shit everywhere and your breath is as fresh as the air in the room I’m in right now.  You could work a little on your conversation but that’ll come later.  I like silence.  I do.  But wait, do you like me?  Look at this.  3=>  That’s what I look like naked when I’m lying on my side.  Hot, huh?

That was a lot of fun.  Guess what’s not going to be fun?  The rest of this column.  Yep. Summer’s over.  Fall is the universal season of decay.  I need to be seasonally appropriate.  We had a great time but it just wasn’t meant to last.

So.  I have this one relative that is absolutely birdshit crazypants.  And how her insanity manifests is by saying the absolute rudest and most inappropriate things every time she opens her birdshit crazypants mouth hole.  If you were standing in your wedding dress about to go down the aisle and she passed you on her way to the bathroom she would say.   “Ohhhh.  Are you allergic to lobster?  My face gets puffy like that when I eat shellfish.  That reminds me, I was wondering if the man you’re marrying has Oriental blood in him.  His eyes look Oriental.  But his last name is Wang.  Isn’t that a German name?  Is he a Nazi?  He looks like a Nazi-Oriental to me.”

This is only an example.  And it’s watered down at that. I wish I could give you an actual transcript but I’m saving it for my book: Can You Believe Someone Actually Said This?  I really could regale you for a solid week with her nuttiest chestnuts.  But, believe it or not, I get paid to write this column and I’m supposed to tell you how to live your life, not complain about my relatives.  So, here.  I’m going to tell you how I learned to deal with her.

After about 10 years of her remarks leaving my jaw unhinged and my mind racing around in its attic trying to find some response, any response besides the instinctual WHHHHHAAAAA?, I stumbled upon a strategy.  Now when she drops a conversational bomb on a crowd big or small, I pretend she’s dying of a terminal illness but doesn’t yet know it.  The scenario is detailed:  I was in the lab the night before when the results came in.  The physician on duty had never seen anything like it.  The prognosis is catastrophic.  She only has two days to live.  We decide to let her primary physician break the news to her but he’s at his granddaughter’s piano recital so he’s going to call her in the next day.  This is the next day.  While she’s talking to me, I can hear her phone ring in her purse but the ringer is on low — only I can hear it.  It’s just so sad.  Only 48 hours!!  The doctor was contemplating not even telling her.  But that’s him, on her cell phone, calling to deliver the news.

Ring ring.  That’s what I pretend to hear under everything she says.  Ring ring.  Ring ring.  The imaginary sound cue fills me with patience and compassion and allows me to respond to one of her doosies not with, “SHUT YOUR FACE!” but with something akin to, “How’s your car running?”  (This is very safe territory.  She has a Ford.  It is always running well.  This is not a paid advertisement from Ford.)  Usually she’ll say “Fine,” and then go into another room wondering how it’s possible that I could be so very dull as to ask about her car.  This is a very successful interaction with her.

Now, we all have a terminal condition.  (Pssssst.  We’re all going to die.  Even you, reading this at the gym while you’re elliptical-ing.) But being in close proximity to someone struggling with real health issues can affect our behavior.  Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.  Which brings me to my first and only letter.

Dear Hypocrite.

I love you.  I think you’re the greatest free-of-charge hypocritical life coach there ever was.  I wish you had a TV show.  Not that I watch TV.  I mean, I watch HBO and Mad Men, but that’s not TV.

I’m writing to you for help.  My mom is sick.  Two years ago she got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  Her decline has been swift.  Fortunately, my older sister lives nearby and has been checking in on her daily.   This morning, however, she informed me and my younger brother that my mom needs a higher level of care than she can provide. 

I am frozen with fear.  All my life I told myself that I don’t know what I’d do if my mom died and now that the reality is closer, I am incapacitated. I’m in a plane that’s going down and all I can do is read the safety card in the pocket in front of me.  I hate that I’m like this but I don’t know how to be any other way.  My mom means the world to me.  Growing up, my dad wasn’t in the picture.  My mom had to work two jobs and went to school at night to give us everything we wanted.  Plus, she was fun.  She’d wear silly hats when she woke us up in the morning.  She was just the best.  Literally, the best mother you could ever, ever want! 

She put me through college and law school.  And now, because I’m a partner at a big fancy firm in Midtown, I can afford to get her the best care.  But I don’t want to just throw money at this.  It’s my mom, I want to be there for her.  But like I said, I’m so sad I can barely pick up the phone to ask my sister how she is.  I feel terrible.  How do I snap out of this?

Depressed and Not Dealing Well on Dean Street

Dear DaNDWoDS,

Whoa.  Okay.  First things first.

Thank you.  I love you too, and I bet you are an amazing lawyer. From your letter, I can tell you have passion and compassion, which is useful in your job.  I think.  I’m not sure.  I have a friend who is a corporate lawyer.  He says what he does makes him sick to think about, so he goes on autopilot most of the time.  I hope that you aren’t in this situation.  You have enough difficult emotions churning inside you to process.  Let’s talk about a way to help you face your fears.

But wait, there’s some housekeeping to do.   HBO/Mad Men is TV.  I grant you that it’s very good television, but that doesn’t mean you can call it something else.  I hate asparagus unless it’s broiled in duck fat, but I still have to call it asparagus. Moving on.

For the lawyers:  I am not a licensed therapist.  You should find one.  Ask your friends or your doctor for referrals. You live in Park Slope.  Nine out of 10 people you pass on the street are therapists.  Just ask the woman next to you in line at the Coop where her office is.  Don’t feel like you need to choose the first one you meet with.  First up: you should feel safe and not sexually aroused.  It’s the opposite of the bar scene. I never follow this rule, but it’s essential.
Now.  Let’s really begin.  I’m sorry you’re going through this.  It’s hard to see a parent hurting. You probably know this but with degenerative brain diseases, your mom can actually live many more years — although the mom you know might not be around much longer.  My dad has Parkinson’s.  It’s different, but still sucks.  He first started showing signs 10 years ago and it’s been a very steady downhill slide since then.  I look at pictures of him a decade ago and I can easily see him as my young dad, 40 years prior.  But to compare those same photos to how he looks now, the connection is much harder to make.   I’d like to tell you everything is going to be fine, but it isn’t.  It’s going to be hard.  It’s very sad to see someone you love deteriorate in front of your eyes, but there are some things you can do to help yourself and your mom.

I know you feel immobilized but there are still things you can do.  You’re a lawyer.  You know how to research.  Start by researching the beJesus out of the disease — especially the symptoms so you know what to expect.  Find out about all of the medications your mom is taking.  Meet with her doctors.  Interview caregivers.  Get into the details of the management of your mom’s illness.  This will be a big help to your siblings who might not be able to do what you do as well as you do.  Everyone can contribute in his or her own way to keeping your mom comfortable during this time.  Work as a team.   Oh, and I’m sure you’re on this, but make sure all her finances and documents are in order.  That’s really important to do now.  Stay organized.  I bet you can do that.  See?  You’re not incapacitated.  You’re helping!

When you’re with your mom, meet her where she is.  If she’s happy, be excited and give your voice enthusiasm.  If she’s solemn, use a lower, more serious tone.  And don’t deny her reality.  If she’s worried about a deadline for work assignment at a job she hasn’t had in 20 years, tell her that you’ll help her with it.  Offer to call her boss and ask for an extension.  Address her fears and don’t try to convince her that they are unfounded.  And when at a complete loss for words, use eye contact and touch.

You will get frustrated. Remember that it’s not her, it’s the Alzheimer’s that you’re frustrated with.  No doubt, this illness will rip your heart out, especially as the mom you know fades from view.  Take lots of deep breaths.  And for me, a strong gin and tonic every night is extraordinarily helpful.  Unless it’s the winter.  Then I switch to crank.

And the big thing.  The number one big tip is to care for your mom in the way you would want to be cared for.  She’s in there.  Give her your love.  Play music for her, bring her flowers, bring her a dog to pet (don’t leave it there), brush her hair.  C’mon.  You can do this.  Don’t let your fear of her illness keep you from spending time with her.  She’s still your mom.  The best mom in the world.

Did I lose a couple of you out there?  Figured.  People don’t like to think about death or illness unless they absolutely have to.  I’m sorry you have to at this point, Depressed and Not Dealing Well, but it’s all part of the package.  You get to have sex and eat chocolate but you also have to get sick and die.  That’s the dealio.

Good luck to you, and give your mom my love.

Until next time …