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February 2010 I've donated a triptych to
art auction benefit for
the victims of Haiti's devasting earthquake which
takes place on Wednesday, 2/10 at 7pm.
December 2009 At 7pm on Sunday, December 13th,
I will give a reading at one of NYC's only leather biker
cafes, Motorcycle
Federation. Organized by Madeleine Beckman, the
reading will also feature Roberta Bernstein, Jean
Monahan, and Nicole Sprinkle. More details later.
November 2009 I will have a couple of stories
published in the Brooklyn Writers Space first anthology,
The Reader. The launch party is on Thursday,
November 5th at 7pm at BookCourt, 163 Court
Street, in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
July 2009 A photograph from my collaboration
with LuLu LoLo, Pierrot 2.0, was included in an
Italian mail art exposition here.
May 2009 My short story Back Trouble is
a semi-finalist (top 27 out of 654) in Nimrod's Katherine Anne Porter
Prize for Fiction. • Photos from my Suburban
Geometries series are published on Polar Inertia's Spring 2009
(#34) issue at the end of May.
April 2009 4/8: Max's cousin Elena
Takeuchi was born at 5:24pm Tokyo Time! • My long
story The Heart Is a Lonely Drummer is a finalist
(top 30 out of 900) in Summer Literary Seminars-2009
Unified Fiction and Poetry Contest judged by Lynne
Tillman. • A photo from my Visual Haiku series
was published in Shots's Spring 2009 issue
(#103).
February 2009 My short short story South of
the Border was awarded 3rd Place in the Sonora Review's Third Annual
Short Short Contest. The judge was Aimee Bender.
January 2009 My short story Second Actis a finalist won Honorable Mention in
Cutthroat Journal's 2008 Rick DeMarinis Short
Story Competition. The story will be published in
February.
November 2008 Brooklyn Writers Space Reading at
Union Hall, Sunday, 11/9, 5-7pm. BWS.
September 2008 Final LMCC Reading at U.S.
Custom House, Thursday, 9/18, 6-8pm. RSVP is mandatory
because of security. RSVP at LMCC's site here. Map of Bowling Green
here.
August 2008 Our Baby Boy Is Due! 8/15 is the
due date of our unnamed
boy. HE'S HERE! Max
Miles Takeuchi was born on Friday, 8-22-8 at
3:33pm! See tons of pix here.
Money wins. Daniel Goldstein, the founder of Develop
Don’t Destroy, has agreed to settle with Forest City
Ratner, the developer of Atlantic Yards, for $3
million. He lives a few blocks from my studio on
Pacific Street and was the last man standing in the
footprint who hadn’t been bought out. The $3M
apparently buys Goldstein’s condo, bought for $590K
in 2003, and his silence--Goldstein agrees to “not
actively oppose the project,” which primarily means
to abandon the only coalition actively opposed to the
project, DDD. Read more about this sad news here. Good news: Freddy’s, the great bar (and
Ratner hate HQ) around the corner from my home,
closes on April 30th, but will reopen on 4th and
Union.
In mid-March, Bloomberg et al commemorated the first
part of the Brooklyn Heights new park known as
Brooklyn Bridge Park. Formerly a bunch of abanoned
docks and warehouses, this land that borders the last
part of the East River is now verdant and hiply
designed. The first part, Pier 1, is open to the
public. Other adjacent piers are being converted and
should be open by summer. Read more about the plans
here.
You’re looking at the future site of the Brooklyn
Nets stadium. In 2011 with lots of traffic. Below is
a closer view, with the building in the top right
containing the home of Daniel Goldstein, the founder
of Develop Don’t Destroy. Most
likely all buildings around here will be razed
first before the eminent domain showdown for
Goldstein’s property and a few other holdouts
who refused to be bought out by Ratner’s deep
pockets.
Above is Joe Nocella holding my early 90s vintage
Bianchi Premio frame with a new set of wheels and
drivetrain. Joe runs 718 Cyclery, a one-man shop
on the edge of Park Slope which specializes in
refurbishing old bikes and fixed-gear
conversions. He’s unique in that he calls his
upgrades collaborations, which they truly are.
All aspects of the conversion were discussed,
and though I wanted to go exclusively fixed
gear, I knew that since I’d probably be riding
with Max occasionally, it was better to opt for
a flip-flop hub, with fixed gear on one side and
a singlespeed freewheel on the other. I highly
recommend Joe if you’re in the area and tired of
the attitude and incompetence at local bike
shops. Joe is honest and fair and he stands
behind his work. If you’re into bike porn and
want to see his blog posting on my conversion,
go here. And of course the most
important thing to report is that the bike rides
great--smooth, silently, and with total harmony.
I’m very happy.
In two years, we will have this glorious building
down the street from us. This afternoon, Bruce
Ratner’s ratpack of politicians, Paterson, Bloomberg,
Schumer, Markowitz, etc. pushed their ceremonial
shovels into some ceremonial dirt.
Thanks to taxpayer subsidies, Ratner’s pockets are
very deep, deep enough to buy almost everyone out.
Most likely there will be a few eminent domain fights
before Forest City Ratner can claim the last few
pockets of privately owned land, but the Supreme
Court has already spoken about that. Like the
Republican Convention held in NYC in 2004, protestors
were forced a block away from the ceremony. The Times
reported this, but the story was
mostly buried, strange given the scale of the
Atlantic Yards project. (Could it have something
to do with the NYT’s cozy relationship with Forest
City Ratner?).
While I’m all for jobs and the expansion of
affordable housing, this plan will do little good for
the borough except help the construction industry and
possibly build some borough pride with the Nets.
Aside from real estate speculators, I do not know a
single person who is in favor of this enormous
project. It is totally out of character with the
neighborhood, in scale and design. The traffic will
be a nightmare. There aren’t enough schools, the
subway and LIRR will be overburdened. And then there
will be the loss of neighborhood businesses as
anonymous mall life invades the borough. We live in
Brooklyn because we like the brownstone scale of
life. We like trees and parks and peace and quiet. We
like owner-occupied small structures. There’s a
reason we didn’t want to live in Manhattan. This is a
very sad day for Brooklyn.
The EPA did the right thing, naming the polluted
Gowanus a SuperFund site. According to this NYT
article, the cleanup could
take 10-12 years and cost $300-500 million.
Bloomberg and company were very disappointed, no
doubt upset about the prospects for crony real
estate development. Next up should be the
Superfund labeling of the terrible oil spill under
Greenpoint, one of the worst domestic oil
spills (even bigger than the Exxon Valdez).
This time it’s not faintly falling. Big, heavy flakes
accumulating into slush and wet snow perfect for
snowballs. A few inches today and more all the way
through the weekend.
Scott Adkins of The Brooklyn Writers Space
hosted a book launch party at Book Court to celebrate the
limited edition run of The Reader, and anthology
from the 2008 reading series. I have a couple of
absurd short-shorts in it, a copy of which Max
is proudly being forced to hold.