More Stuff Happening in Gowanus this Weekend

OK not only do we have the AGAST open studio tour, the e-waste recycling on Bond Street but now I have just heard that Jerko the Gowanus Water Vacuum is going to be docked at the end of 2nd Street on the canal. Jerko is " a salvaged houseboat that has been transformed into a laboratory and showspace for do-it-yourself sustainability projects."

Get there at 1:30 if you want to pre-register for a tour of Jerko. Go to the website for more info on all the projects that the Jerko crew are working on. There are some photos on the website and I swear in one of them, there is a guy with his hand in the water...yikes!

Tour at your own risk people! Go to the website here

There is also some sort of Green Sustainability type fair going on on Third Street between Bond and Hoyt Streets on Saturday afternoon. Proteus Gowanus will be there with a table top replica of their Hall of the Gowanus. Check it out!

Links to the other happenings on Saturday:
AGAST open studios here.
E-Waste Recycling here.

Coney Island Film Festival #10 Wrap

Bambi the Mermaid performs to the Andrew Sisters at the opening party for the Coney Island film festival.

Once again the opening films and following party was a smashingly entertaining affair that did not disappoint. Sideshows by the Seashore knows the meaning of entertainment. Burlesque, fire eaters, exotic snake handlers, human blockheads...now THAT's a party! You all better go next year!

The winners of the festival have been officially announced, and I am happy to say that I was lucky enough to see quite a few of them. Congratulations to all!

2010 Award Winners
Best Animation - Birth - Signe Baumane
Best Experimental - My Own Private March - Howie Alex
Best Silent Film - Loop-da-Loop and Giuseppe - Jason R. Jaworski
Best Horror Film - Alice Jacobs is Dead - Alex Horwitz
Best Music Video - "This Town" Gambit - Randy Scott Slavin
Best Documentary Short - The Faux Real - Suzanne Hillinger
Best Documentary Feature - Dirty Martini and the New Burlesque - Gary Beeber
Best Short - Flat Love - Andres Sanz
Best Feature - Satan Hates You - James Felix McKenney
Best "Made in Coney Island" - Last Summer at Coney Island - JL Aronson

Also! I just want to let you know that there is more burlesque happening this Thursday and Friday, and it's well worth the trip, they've got thee best in the business in that place!

Click here for the schedule and more details on that and many other events.

Urge to Purge? Recycle Books & "E-Waste" This Saturday.

Have old cel phones, broken ipods etc? Get rid of your unwanted and broken electronica or "e-waste" this Saturday.

This event is hosted by the Lower East Side Ecology Center, click here to find out more details and a complete list of what will be excepted and what will not.

Where: Bond Street between 3rd & 4th Streets.
When: 10 am to 4pm.

Then you can donate your unwanted books for a good cause at the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza. The even is hosted by Better World Books and will raise money for the Brooklyn Public Library as well as global literacy initiatives.

There will be music by Lost in the Stacks (great name!) and the event will also include a used book sale.

When: Saturday, October 3rd from 10 am to 3pm.
Where: Brooklyn Public Library Plaza at the Main Branch -10 Grand Army Plaza.

Art , Commerce & the Gowanus Open Studios (AGAST)

The poor dear....trapped inside the BO Concept Store window during the Dumbo Arts Festival.
Cocooning? Pod people? What's it all about? Probably brought people into the store, that's what!

Next Saturday is the unfortunately named but excellent A.G.A.S.T open studios in Gowanus, a bit more casual and less slick, it's a great way to actually go inside the studios of the many artists who are inhabit the Gowanus and actually SMELL the paint (that is, if they paint). I love the voyeuristic aspect of it. It's a fab opportunity to be able to go into the great buildings in the area such as the one on Union & Nevins and the big warehouse on 9th Street by the canal amongst many others. Some of the studios are even in people's row house apartments as well. As an artist, I really enjoy seeing the process part of art making, there is more to a work of art than just the finished piece and I find that checking out the vibe in the artist's studio and seeing what is hanging on their walls, hearing what they listen to and perhaps seeing sketches and stuff like that really gives you so much more of a window into just what drives an artist to make something.

It is usually 2 days long, this year it is just on Saturday, October 3rd, from noon to 6pm.

Click here for more details.

Inside Gleason's Gym

The Dumbo Arts Festival brought loads of people to Dumbo over the weekend. I have to say even though I went into a bunch of the galleries and studio's, it was a bit too "slick" and organized for me. I guess I just crave grit because the high point of the checking out the Dumbo Art Festival was having the opportunity to go inside of Gleason's Gym.

Gleason's is world famous for training the World Champion boxers. From Cassius Clay to Jerry Cooney to Mike Tyson and all the greats before, in between and after, they all have passed through Gleason's doors at some point. And guess what? Many of the boxers are artist's too. It really doesn't surprise me.

No one was was working out that afternoon and the open space's walls were covered with photos of boxers and newspaper clippings of boxers who have trained at Gleason's.

The rings had art displayed along the ropes. Hardly anyone wandering around Dumbo that crowded afternoon seemed to notice the piece of paper taped to the front of Gleason's that they were also a part of it.

Snack bar inside Gleason's. If this was in a gallery, this would be called an "installation", yawn. Sorry artsy people, this is real. It actually functions. Imagine that?!

This is the third incarnation of Gleason's, they started in the Bronx, then to Manhattan and then in moved to this location on 77 Front Street in D.U.M.B.O in the early 80's. Long before it before West Elm and the like.

Back when it was "dangerous", I recall traveling from Astoria to attend some art thing in a warehouse down there in about 1987 and walking the streets alone trying to find it and as the subway roared over the Manhattan Bridge over my head, I thought, "If something happens to me around here, no one would hear me scream!" Obviously things have changed, there was an abundance of well heeled people toting fancy designer shopping bags yesterday. I guess that's progress?

Click here to read about the history of Gleason's gym.

Click here to find out how you too can work out there.

P.S- Excuse the wonky layout, blogger has been out of whack lately....



So many festivals, so little time!! All happening NOW!

The amazing Angelica performing last night at the Coney Island Film Festival kick off party.

I know, I know, I am talking about the weekend AS it is happening but whatever...F.I.B once again attended the fab kickoff for the Coney Island Film Festival and if the opening films were any indication of what else to come on the programs, it would be worth your while to check the festival out. It goes until Sunday night so there is still time. Get some sun and catch a flick!

Schedule and info here!

So hard to pick what to do because this weekend not only is the film festival happening but the Dumbo Arts Festival and also the Atlantic Antic!

Dumbo Arts festival goes until Sunday. It has all sorts of art and music happenings. The schedule and all info is here.

Atlantic Antic runs the length of Atlantic Avenue from Hicks Street to 4th Avenue. F.I.B tends to hang out around the Last Exit bar where Les Sans Culottes perform every year as they do this year with sets at 2 & 4pm.

Coney Island Film Festival 10th Anniversary this weekend! Brooklyn Boy Darren Aronofsky Honored!

The Coney Island Film Festival  held at the fab Coney Island USA on Surf Avenue is one of the most unique film festivals in the world. The location of the festival, put together yearly by the talented Rob Leddy, is condusive to the fun spirit of the festival. As the press release says, "The festival's ties to carny culture are undeniable."

I highly recommend going to the kick off opening party as I have for the past four years. For 25 bucks you get to see the opening films, be entertained by the finest burlesque and sideshow entertainers in the USA and partake in a buffet and open bar which is also included. The films shown at the Coney Festival run the gamut; humor, oddities, shock, horror and films that take place in Coney are prevelant but you never know what you might see! A few of the programs are already sold out, and at 6 bucks a program that is not surprising.

And dig this! On Sunday, September 26th at 5pm inside the Coney Island Museum, the festival organizers will honor South Brooklyn born auteur Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Wrestler, The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream, Pi). Immediately following the ceremony, the festival will screen Aronofsky's harrowing masterpiece Requiem for a Dream.

Click here to see what is playing when and get your advanced tickets! For 45 clams you can go to the opening party AND see all the movies (except for Saturday nights screening of the Warrior's which you also do not want to miss!) You will also find info about how to get there and other stuff to do in the area if you haven't been.

Coney Island USA :  1208 Surf Ave. Brooklyn, NY, Coney Island!

TIckets can also be bought on the day of screening and can be purchased at The Coney Island USA Gift Shop/Box Office -718-372-5159.

F.I.B coverage of Coney Island Film Festival gone by are here.

Third Avenue Night

Lots of automotive repair shops on Third Avenue..I was shocked to see a Chevy Chevette, not a car known for it's longevity! I think you can have it for $1600.00.
Icon of Third Avenue.
This bus parks all over the Gowanus, who ARE they? Reminds me of when I briefly lived in the upper Haight of S.F and buses like these were de rigueur.
READ is still here but all kinds of cluttered these days.

The Day the Gowanus Went Day-Glo

Let's pretend that that psychedelic pattern in the Gowanus Canal water (that has taken on an seriously almost artificial green hue lately) are not "floatables" (stuff that comes from the outflow of the sewers into the Gowanus) but an abstract painting with a little Rousseau like palm leaf thrown in for a compositional effect.

Sunset Over NY Harbor on 9/11/10.

The weather was just like it was on "that day" 9 years ago. Perfect with a crystal blue sky. I was invited to a picnic on Governor's Island and I have to admit, I was a little nervous about going somewhere where the only way out was by boat. Last year, 9/11 passed by quietly. This year it did not. But the day did pass peacefully if you avoided lower Manhattan and eclipsed with this sunset, the clouds dramatic and glowing. A sky that seemed like it was honoring the people that didn't make it home that day nine years ago.

"Paradise" Show opens Friday @ Proteus Gowanus

This image is not in the show! Just looked Paradise-like to me...

Proteus Gowanus is unique in that they pick a theme and go with it all year; curating three shows within the theme. I really like the theme they have this year....Paradise!

From the gallery's press release:

"Whether a garden of innocence or a heaven that only the chosen few can enter, the concept of paradise has entranced us across cultures and eras. In stark contrast with the daily grind, Paradise calls to us and we respond with our imaginations. Pliny the Great added to his idyllic description of the Islands of the Gods:

"These islands, however, are greatly annoyed by the putrefying bodies of monsters,
which are constantly thrown up by the sea."

And this is, indeed, the paradox of paradise: for every heaven, there must be a hell.

This year, Proteus Gowanus will explore the theme Paradise, examining the light and
the dark sides of this alluring word and inviting our friends and visitors to join us as we roam with irony, sensuality and longing in search of paradise."

Paradise Artists:
Angelo Bellfatto, Diane Bertolo, Svetlana Boym, Dominique Cooper, Ernst Haeckel, John Hudak, Okay Karadiyalar, KC Lack, Eva Melas, Lado Pochkua, Lance Rutledge, Adine Sagalyn, Erik Schurink, Suzan Shutan, Suzanne Silver, Josh Stern, Robert The, Friese Undine, Kit Warren, Audra Wolowiec

When: Friday, September 10, 6:30-8:30 pm
543 Union Street down the alley off Nevins Street

Click here for the gallery's website.

Third Street Eye

Carroll Street F train stop.

Found in Red Hook

Red Hook Lane is one of the loveliest blocks in the neighborhood. After a row of beautifully maintained houses, this unmaintained house featured some beautiful art.
Anyone know who the responsible party is? Is it Elbow Toe?

"Let Me Ascertain You: Atlantic Yards"-September 10th @ Joe's Pub

These are not the actors in the show, these are the real people that this perfomance is based on.Photos credit Jonathan Barkey/pbase

I received an email about this performance at Joe's Pub on Friday, September 10th. It's a precursor to "In the Footprint" which will happen at the Irondale Center in Fort Greene in the fall. Let Me Ascertain You: Atlantic Yards explores the many voices of an urban community facing industrial-sized growing pains.
This particular performance on Friday includes monologues taken from interviews with Brooklyn residents, community activists, and politicians, including Marty Markowitz, Bertha Lewis, Daniel Goldstein, Jonathan Lethem and Letitia James.

The details:

Let Me Ascertain You: Atlantic Yards
Friday, September 10 at 9:30 PM
Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, New York
Tickets: $15

To learn more, visit TheCivilians.org.

To purchase tickets, click here.

The Rockaway Riviera

Rockaway Beach near Beach 16th Street. I don't know WHAT the Ramone's were talking about because I found Rockaway Beach very hard to reach (at least from Brooklyn)but well worth it once you make it. The waves this afternoon were powered by Hurricane Earl. Surf's UP!