As the temperature in Brooklyn inches closer and closer to 60 degrees and we begin to shed our layers of clothing once again, it’s time to emerge from our cold weather cocoons. Here’s to the rebirth of spring and the rituals that keep us sane: gardening, nurturing the mind and body and learning to live sustainably.
Brooklyn locals Atomic Tom released the homemade video for their latest single on October 14 and nearly two million YouTube hits later found themselves charting below Lady Gaga in iTunes sales for the week — all without touching an instrument that does not require charging. The viral video features the band playing “Take Me Out” using their iPhone instrument apps to a sparse crowd on the B train as it crosses the Manhattan Bridge.
Singer/songwriter Kevin Devine tells us about his treacherous trip with Capitol Records, and finding a new independent home on Favorite Gentlemen Records.
A secret garden lurks in Bushwick while city legislators introduce a bill to make community gardens an integral part of the city’s supply of fresh fruit and vegetables. The Secret Garden – its actual name – which is part of the Linden-Bushwick Community Garden, is one of hundreds of community gardens in Brooklyn that has the potential to nourish its community both nutritionally and mentally. The FRESH Zoning amendment, if passed, would make it easier for the fruits and vegetables grown in these gardens to travel from soil to plate.
Cinema loves Brooklyn. In classic films like Dog Day Afternoon, Do the Right Thing, and Saturday Night Fever, Hollywood takes us to the bumper cars at Coney Island, through the Bed-Stuy of the 1980s, and across the Brooklyn Bridge. But in Brooklynite Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia, our borough is present only through its absence—as the beloved home that one of our protagonists wishes she weren’t leaving. Here, Brooklyn represents comfort and familiarity, rather than the brand new adventure that it does for so many of the young people who are now settling into it.
Tucked into the fourth floor of the Armory’s edifice is The Arsenal, a multipurpose loft run by fashion designer Bob Bland, who has turned the ancient space into one her clients may customize to fit their modern creative and professional needs.
Thirty years later, on our Independence Day Jimmy Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech is still apt. The televised warning to Americans was given just shy of 30 years ago on July 15, 1979 and quickly derided by republicans for attacking American values, government and way of life.
