Leaf-Out and About

Leaf-out on 12th St., one of the first I've seen. I just learned that term yesterday from Kyle of Urban Arborists who came to help me figure out if our trees need pruning. Yes, he said that is the scientific term, but I have trouble believing it. This tree is certainly an early riser, so many others still have their leaves tucked in soundly.

We have new roomates of a very old lineage: Triops, which may be one of the oldest living animal species on earth. You can't see them in the picture, they are just jumping bits of punctuation for now. Thanks, dad, and don't worry, we are being gracious and served them their first helping of fish-scented spirulina pellets this morning.

Window Parsley

The kids came home from Yachad with these cups full of dirt a month or so ago. I didn't know until later that the occasion for the planting was an observance of Tu Bishvat, "The New Year of the Trees." Never heard of it before in my life, but like it I do.

Perhaps we'll soon learn how to make the little planters out of newspaper and spare ourselves the plastic cups.

Around Ansonia

Into the Ansonia Court this weekend for a 4-year old's princess birthday party. They have pictures of the old factory hanging in the Court's entryway, but I wish they'd put up some images of the amazing clocks they once fashioned there. Back before the court was lined with trees, I imagine. I never noticed how all the trees planted every three yards around the courtyard have limbs that grow nearly straight up in most cases. A good choice for the tight space.

I asked Russell if he knew what the green stuff growing on this 12th St. tree could be. He said barley. Once I told him about it he kept calling it Lincoln instead of lichen and cracking up. He wanted to take some home, but I didn't have anything to put it in and didn't feel like putting it in my pocket. Perhaps I had my karmic retribution when a gel pen spilled its ink in my pocket, coating 2 of my fingers with a glittery blue patina.

Anaclastic Glasses

According to John Kiernan, in 1644 Daniel Denton left Stamford Connecticut for the Eastern section of Long Island, later publishing A Brief Description of New York, with the places Thereunto Adjoyning, called the New Netherlands. According to Denton, the flora, in brief:

Oaks White and Red. Walnut-trees, Chestnut-trees, which yield a store of mast for swine... and also Maples, Cedars, Saxifrage, Beech, Birch, Holly, Hazel with many sort more...Purslaine, White Orage, Egrimony, Violets, Penniroyal, Alicampane, besides Saxaparilla very common...Mulberries, Posimons, Grapes great and Small, Huckelberries, Cranberries, Plums of several sorts, Rasberries and Strawberries, of which last is such abundance in June that the Fields and Woods are died red. (actual spellings) p.4

This passage so ripe with such wonderful things reminds me of the many exuberantely carved festoons I've been noticing ornamenting so many of the old buildings as symbols of abundance, I imagine. In my backyard, though we still have long to wait for the bounty, I've found that the strawberries have foliated. I'm not sure if these fuzzy leaves are early risers or if they partied all night, but they've been up for at least 3 weeks now. Already effortlessly at work distilling that particular sweetness from the elements upon which the reputation of shortcake depends.

I read that strawberries are "false fruits" since they don't actually derive from a flower's ovaries. Such inconclasts.

In Headdress

Tell me where? Hint, not BK.

14 days

Lights Out

Thanks for the info, KR

Earth Hour 2009 is from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time, 2009-03-28. Currently, 82 countries and more than 2100 cities are 'committed to Earth Hour 2009', a huge increase from people participating in 35 countries for Earth Hour 2008.

Earth Hour is an international event organized by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund), and held on the last Saturday of March each year, which asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. Earth hour was conceived by WWF Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald in 2007, when 2.2 million residents of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights.[1] Following Sydney's lead, many other cities around the world adopted the event in 2008. (Wikipedia)

2nd Avenue Blues

The Bromance Continues

I believe this will be the third in a series of shows double-billing these two Windsor Terrace talents. I made the first at Jalopy, but missed the second at Barbes which I hear was only suited for a mature audience on account of the rather warm follow up act. Saturday's show is for distinctly intermixed quantities of all grades of immaturity. "I promise not to swear!" says Henry Tenney, "And when we sing the song about syphilis, i just won't explain it first!!" As per the invitation:

no rude words, no jutting or sprouting of naughty bits, lots of 4 part ...we'd like to say harmonies, but maybe will stick with '4 people singing different things at the same time', accordion, fiddle, cello, loud and exciting clangy bell things (2) , foghorn, jewsharp, harmonica, ukelele, warm smiles for our pals The Highland Shatners who shall play before us at 3pm (Bargainland are Cindy Brolsma, Spike McClure, Potter Palmer and Karen Brown)

I'd hate to miss this, am hoping that no less than three generations of Melsons will be in attendance.

The Desk Set Book Swap Comes South - Hooray!

**A Message from The Desk Set**

What: The Desk Set presents, "Writer/Reader Mingle & Book Swap"
An informal gathering for conversation and a book swap!
When: Monday, March 30th, 7-10 pm
Where: Pacific Standard, 82 Fourth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Cost: FREE!

Attempting to solve two quandaries at one party, the Desk Set is hosting the Writer/Reader Mingle & Book Swap on March 30th.

We love book talks, book readings, book signings, and presentations as much as the next nerd, but wouldn't it be nice to simply have a conversation with an author? Instead of sitting still in a formal atmosphere and raising your hand to ask a question of a novelist/journalist/poet, how about buying them a beer and talking one-on-one?

What to do with all those books you've already read or don't need? A New York City apartment-sized bookshelf needs weeding every now and again, and doesn't it feel good to get the books into other readers' hands? Or bring home some new books to read for free?

The Desk Set team of librarians, archivists and bibliophiles have once again devised a party scheme to fulfill your needs. The writers and readers of this great city are invited to bring their old books, swap 'em for other people's books, and have a drink and/or a chat with like-minded folks. All writers and readers are invited.

Leftover books will be donated to Books Through Bars, conveniently located right next to Pacific Standard. BTB fulfills requests for books from prisoners all over the country.

Directions: Pacific Standard is located at 82 Fourth Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, between St. Marks and Bergen Streets. It's a short walk from a dizzying array of subway and commuter rail lines at the Atlantic/Pacific station, namely, the 2, 3, 4, 5, D, N, Q, and R, as well as the Long Island Railroad. New York subway map. After you exit the Atlantic/Pacific station, just walk four blocks south on Fourth Avenue to get to our bar. We're not too much longer a walk from the F and G stop at Bergen Street, and are also close to the B61, B63, and B65 bus lines, which pleasantly shuttle people from many Brooklyn neighborhoods.

P.S. Author/Illustrator, Sara Varon designed the flyer.

old seed packet

This is at least 3 years old but this year I'm going to crack it open. Just to see if the Zeolights, if they grow, will really play with pink the way they appear to in the illustration.

A nod to the species, the wiki on it's medicinal uses. Even though their name evokes Caligula, it appears that the plants have much benefit.

Plant pharmacological studies have suggested that Calendula extracts have anti-viral, anti-genotoxic and anti-inflammatory properties. [3] Calendula in suspension or in tincture is used topically to treat acne, reducing inflammation, controlling bleeding and soothing irritated tissue.[4][5] There is "limited evidence" that calendula cream or ointment is effective in treating radiation dermatitis.[6][7]

Calendula has been used traditionally for abdominal cramps and constipation.[8] In experiments with rabbit jejeunum the aqueous-ethanol extract of Calendula officinalis flowers was shown to have both spasmolytic and spasmogenic effects, thus providing a scientific rationale for this traditional use.[9] An aqueous extract of Calendula officinalis obtained by a novel extraction method has demonstrated anti-tumor (cytotoxic) activity and immunomodulatory properties (lymphocyte activation) in vitro, as well as anti-tumor activity in mice. [10]

Into the Grid

Tax preparation appointment in the Lincoln Building on E. 42nd where J. Mehta told me, yes, he does like sudoku. I sat in one of two chairs in front of his desk as he spoke of his famous, ingenious and pulitzer prize winning clients whom he adores - Jhumpa Lahiri, Jeffrey Eugenides, Elizabeth Peyton (that was a while ago), Tony Feher. I wrote with Frank Nichols' roll-proof pencil, but as for my tax bill, I'll have to roll with it.

Poor Jugal did not seem thrilled to deliver the news. Very grim infact. I felt I should have comforted him, I'm used to the lance in freelance.

Apotomy?

I very much enjoyed reading Reverend Doctor Daniel Meeter's sermon for March 22, "Apotomy," but have to admit I just don't get the word apotomy. Yes, I looked it up and the definition left me even more confused. I'm hoping to bother Reverend Meeter for a resolution to this mystery at some point but I know he's a busy man.

My confusion didn't stop me from enjoying the sermon which taught me new things about the staff of Asclepius, and I heartily enjoyed all that talk of poisonous medicine, with which I've grown very familiar, as it seems to rise up to meet me like an old friend wherever I walk these days.

I'd noticed these snake-handled cauldrons for the first time on Saturday when I walked to Vajradhara for the Tara Puja. I'd also never participated in a Tara Puja before. The poetry in the prayers devoted to Green Tara, who is viewed as uniquely able to deliver humanity from the pain of samsara, was very beautiful, as was the wish behind the practice, that all humanity be liberated from sorrow caused by our fundamental ignorance about the nature of reality. As part of the discussion Matthew Reichers finessed the idea that Green Tara or any Buddha or Bhodisattva exist only as a represention of a person's highest potential for compassion, freedom and wisdom. But I still like to believe SHE'S REAL. Just as we finished we heard a car parked outside on St. Mark's begin to loudly broadcast Al Green singing "Help Me Mend My Broken Heart," and no one could keep from laughing. It seemed like someone had a sense of humor.

Salon at BAG Tomorrow

In conjunction with SURFACE: Contemporary Artists Interpret Landscape, a show that runs from March 20 - April 2, the BAG gallery is hosting a salon Wednesday, March 25, 6-8 p.m., where writers and artists will talk about their work.

The opening Reception for SURFACE is Saturday, March 28, 6-9 p.m.

Artwork by: Bill Ades, Jordan Baker, Recep Batuk, Kevin Bell, Ryan Boatright, Jeremiah Brown Steve Brown, Kate Burnet & Dan Woerner, Virginia Cassetta, Timothy R. Cleary, Eric Corriel, Steve Coy, Reuven Dattner, Rachel Eckstein, Mayuko Fujino, Herman James, Amanda Kavanagh, James Kennedy, Richard Kessler, Giuseppe Luciani, Henry Mitchell, Ben Pinder, Kasia I. Polkowska, David Schulz, Lorna Turner, Max Tzinman, John Williams, Josh Willis and James Wrona

Curated by Michele Jaslow. Assistant curated by Spring Hofeldt and Rebecca Paul.
more....

Brooklyn Artists Gym
168 7th Street, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.858.9069
info@brooklynartistsgym.com

split at the surface

Sectioned at the core. I found these under a slender tree behind the Vanderbilt St. Playground, near that small mounded area where kids often build lean-tos with sticks. Thought they were acorns at first until I saw they had no stylish cap and bore a pentacle of cracks at the bottom. I'm wondering if the five-sectioned fruit developed from a five-petaled flower.

I've learned that long before the pentacle became associated with things demonic it was viewed by Greeks as very auspicious, symbolizing the spirit bringing the elements into natural harmony, the opposite of chaos; a concept taught by Empedocles, ca. 475 BC, and it was also associated with Persephone, who represented the spirit of grain. To the Egyptians the star represented an underworld womb and was associated with Isis and her twin Nephthys. One could also just call the fruit cinquefoil and invite an alternate set of associations.

Update: Tree Specialists associated with the Prospect Park Alliance report that these look like the seed capsules of a Franklinia Tree. My belated but sincere thanks!!

Robert Guskind Memorial Gathering

The magnolias at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden are not yet in bloom, but they remind me of Robert who took lovely shots of the beauties last spring, ones that left me chagrined because they were so much lovelier than mine. I viewed them on his flickr page, back before there was a Gowanus Lounge photo pool, and can't find them now. Anyway here is information on a tribute to him that will take place at the Brooklyn Lyceum in early April. Update on Guskind's blossom photos: Xris found them here.

Robert Guskind Memorial Gathering
Saturday, April 4

A memorial gathering to honor the memory of Robert Guskind will be held from 2 pm to 5 pm Saturday, April 4 at the Brooklyn Lyceum, 4th Avenue between Union and President Streets in Park Slope.

Please RSVP if you can. (There is an opportunity to sign up to speak.)
There will be an opportunity to donate to charities in Bob’s name.

Further details will be posted on Gowanus Lounge

some red arrives

And the Good News is...

...I've radically expanded my potential for cheerful self disgust. Hmmm, this is what healing looks like? OK.

Also, I'm using the chickpeas I soaked all day yesterday and simmered all morning to make Gypsy Soup.

Pied Robin?

I took this for a Robin even though it had patches of white throughout its wings and tail. Perhaps I'm wrong, or perhaps it's a Robin afflicted with leucism, which I've read is relatively rare and a bummer because these individuals are less likely to find a mate and avoid predators. I saw a sparrow with an uncharacteristic white wing as well last fall, so perhaps this condition is not so rare in Brooklyn. Here's the sparrow, and another oddball Robin.

Ethical Slaughter

Came across information about this lecture topic on the Kensington-Windsor Terrace CSA website. It sounds like a contradiction, maybe it is, but we can do what we can to be less ghastly. By the way, the next orientation for the CSA is on March 29, and I had better be there.

This Sunday, March 22 at 2pm at the Park Slope Jewish Center, Dr. Maya Shetreat-Klein, the founder of Mitzvah Meat, will be giving a special talk about her organization's commitment to ethically raised and slaughtered Kosher meat.

When: Sunday, March 22, 2pm
Where: Park Slope Jewish Center, the corner of 14th Street and 8th Avenue

More info here.

spot on dotty

Tara Puja at Vajradhara

Here I come Tara. I can use all the help I can get. Are we clear?
The information below was published by Vajradhara.

Liberation From Sorrow
How to Engage in the Practice of Tara, Mother of the Conquerers

Saturday, March 21
10 am - 1 pm, ($15)

"Homage to Tara, The swift one, the heroine
Whose eyes are like a flash of lightning...."

-From Praises to the
Twenty-One Taras by
Buddha Shakyamuni

The practice of the blissful female Buddha Tara, Liberation from Sorrow, is a powerful method for connecting to our own unlimited potential. Tara is sometimes called the 'Mother of the Conquerors, and she manifestation of the ultimate wisdom of all the Buddhas.

In this practice-based class, we will learn about who Tara is, how to make a connection with her, and how to use the practice of Tara to increase our own wisdom and inner freedom. Join us and learn how to engage in these beautiful prayers and praises and connect to the enlightened female energy, a pure manifestation of our own potential.

"If we rely upon Mother Tara sincerely and with strong faith, she will protect us from all obstacles and fulfill all our wishes. Since she is a wisdom Buddha, and since she is a manifestation of the completely purified wind element, Tara is able to help us very quickly. If we recite the twenty-one verses of praise, we shall recieve inconceivable benefit."
-From the introduction to Liberation from Sorrow, Praises and Requests to the Twenty-one Taras

Vajradhara Meditation Center
235 St. Marks Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11238
Tel: (347) 715-6999

www.BrooklynMeditation.org

here come the bleeding hearts

According to last year's blogging I gather these will be in full bloom by the third week in April, but for now they're barely visible.

Soil and Dirt

I think a lot about mothers, about my mother's mother's mother's mother, following the chain as far back as possible, how many mothers have I had? Where did they come from? What happened to them? What did they suffer and enjoy? I haven't even considered all the fathers yet.

I think a lot about soil, too, and earth. Today I cracked open William Bryant Logan's Dirt randomly and was harpooned by this passage on page 55:

Whitman wondered why diseased corpses, when buried in the ground, did not poison the earth. "Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?" Is not every continent worked over with sour dead?" he wrote. Yet he concluded in awe at the Earth: "It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor."

Oh! Brooklyn in the house! Logan and Whitman both found their way here. Logan runs Brooklyn based Urban Arborists and also teaches at the NY Botanical Garden. And I know you know all about Whitman so I won't waste your time.

Now, not a drop of poison on my mothers, please. I imagine when and if our dealings with the Earth are immaculate, humanity will have overcome habitual abuse, neglect and exploitation of our kind as well. Uh, maybe. And hopefully soon I'll offer you a post that doesn't reek of the charnel grounds quite as much.

Round and Fluffy

I found this on the ground recently and am wondering what it might be. Something that broke of the tree before its form resolved, I suspect. Meanwhile this morning's snow was not the individualistic kind, but the sort where a menagerie of crystals cling to each other, each clump a small falling party. Here's to individuation in less individualistic times! And happy spring!

Applewood on 17th

It seems that the Lucky 13 Saloon is not the only source of wood these days. I came across this immaculately organized pile up in a tree pit on 17th the other day, went to take a picture but realized I'd left my CF card at work. DOH! The next day I was ready, but when I stopped to pull my camera out I found myself blocking someone from entering his yard. This turned out to be the handsome son of the man behind the wood arrangement, who told me his father had become obsessed with gardening and needed to remove this apple tree, which didn't bear fruit, to allow more sun for his garden beds.

He left a sign saying "Free Applewood, good for barbecues" on the largest stump of the group and weighed it down with another stick. So if you need any Applewood, look no further than 17th near the corner of 11th Ave. But hurry, because I hear the UPS man was going to take a bunch of it.

Compost Salad

The smaller the bits, the faster it decays, so we've begun hand chopping the trimmings. It's an odd feeling, but not that different from crushing the carboard boxes or tin cans for recycling the way my grandfather used to with his foot. He was rather impeccable, but I did feel a little bad for their kitchen floor when I saw him flattening the metal against it.

I've solved the aeration problem for now by rolling the composting can. Now the challenge is to get more of the dry brown stuff in there. I understand I can use newspaper but I don't want to use newspaper. I'm developing an obsession with the pine needles my daughter tells me lie a foot thick in her friend's Park Slope backyard.

Designer dirt... I'd better nip this one in the bud.

Oysters on the Airwaves

Tomorrow, you needn't travel beyond the comfort of your own eaves to find out about the NY Oyster Garden's restoration efforts. Thanks WNYC and Katie Mosher-Smith for conserving my babysitting allowance.

Oysters on the Radio
WNYC, 93.9 FM, Th. March 19th, 12:00 - 1:30.
Tune in to the Leonard Lopate Show for a segment on oyster restoration projects in NY Harbor featuring The River Project and Baykeeper. Dr. Beth Ravit, NY/NJ Baykeeper's project partner and scientific advisor will be on the air from 1:00-1:20pm.

9th Street Mystery Tree

More arboreal fashion. I quickly became a fan of this tree I came across whose dotty branches and silver and dark brown bark struck me as unusual and especially charming. I'm wondering what exactly those little balls that line the twigs like buttons will turn into.

A sucker born every minute

From what I read those shoots that have grown up around the base of this tree near the ballfield in Prospect Park are called suckers. In many gardens I suppose they'd be cut back, so I'm glad the Park's Department has let this tree develop its curious and dramatic natural habit. I don't know what kind of tree this is, but I've noticed the bark is hypnotically groovy.

An Email From Mr. Tenney

Hey St. Patrick's Day fan!

Still trying to figure out where you're gonna go tomorrow night so you can wear an unflattering novelty T-shirt ("The road rose to meet me -- and broke my nose!" "Show me your shamrocks!" "Irish the bed would stop a-spinnin'"), brag about your enormous post-bailout AIG bonus a little too loudly, insult a stranger's facial hair, start making out with an old office mate and pass out in an Eddie Money-style awkward position with a flap of corned beef in your hair and a smear of vomit on your cheek????

Well your pal H.Tenney has the perfect solution:
Come and see The Highland Shatners play a set of music, most of it from some damn country over thereabouts
at Freddie's, the 2nd Best Bar in Brooklyn! (Corner of 6th Avenue and Dean Street, Prospect Hts, Bklyn)

We have a brand new (adorable) bassist and are lucky to have the stunningly handsome Slippery Shatner back for this very special show. Plus ME and all the rest of the fantastically talented Shatners are there, ready to beam up some kick-ass Caledonian shizzle for you to groove upon.

We go on at 9ish and are preceded by the fantastic County Kings, starring the Keener brothers.

It'll be a bloodbath! But the good kind! The kind where no one gets hurt!

see u there!

Freddie's is just around the corner from the numbers 2 & 3 subway stop at Bergen Street and a short walk from almost every other subway at Atlantic/Pacific Street station.

silver linden

There's the trunk, and then there's the branches, but what do you call the place where the trunk becomes branches?

I'll have what she's having

stashed

Inspiration from a stack of shells and minerals by my bed, which reminded me of a misunderstanding; listening to Emmylou Harris sing The Pearl I thought I heard her sing "Brooklyn Home," when she sang the words "broken bone." Damn the woman can write songs, many of which rip your heart out, beat it with a club and then hand it back to you to drink.

"Like falling stars from the universe we are hurled
Down through the long loneliness of the world
Until we behold the pain become the pearl"

She reminds me of Hafiz, but she sounds far more wounded. For some the grind of shell grit is far more irritating than for others, that irritation that yields prizes for a few of the lucky, like the Brooklyn widow dining in Atlantic City who found a pearl worth $2,000 in her dinner. That was in 1922, the glory days of that now bleakest of beachside destinations.

Kiernan

I'm sad to have finished A Natural History of New York City by John Kiernan. I spread the pleasure out over several months and mixed it well with The Bottom of the Harbor by Joseph Mitchell, and was happy as soft butter.


This book is out of print, I believe, since all of the information in it is "out of date," which is why I like it so much I think – it was originally published in 1959, and the revised and abridged edition went to press in 1971. Though JK is gone he is not forgotten, the Park's Department named a trail in the Van Cordtlandt Park in the Bronx after him. He loved the swamp up there and learned so much from it, and I as well, even as I road the subway back and forth from Brooklyn to Manhattan with his deteriorating work in my hands.

A young man may say with regret that he has never traveled, but if he is twenty years old he has traveled well over 10,000,000,000 miles within our own little solar system, not to mention that far greater distance in galactial rotation at a speed of roughly 175 per second. And never a single mile of this amazing journey retraced! –John Kiernam

Light in the House

And some shadow. Something went bump in the night, I bet it was a book or shoe falling off my daughter's bed.

How nice to awake to a world filled with light after an eerie night and those gloomy days, even if I found I had glue eye.

I'm off work today, and drunk on light. I've just updated my meditation blog for the first time in more than a year. The post is called The Puzzle of Order, and I hope some of you metaphysical types might take an interest.

On the Berm

I was happy to learn from The Flatbush Gardener that the hill I'm fond of, the one that rises from the Brooklyn Museum parking lot to the hilltop lined with Ginkgos in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, is called a Berm. I somehow had missed out on that term all my life, perhaps because I've participated in too little medeival fort building.

Soon after I quit my full time job two years ago there was a day when the two littlest ones and I were hanging out there on that hillside, drawn to it for some subtle promise too delicate to tie down. We were exploring the hill and talking about the trees when all of the sudden my son became terrified and told me he'd just seen a man with rainbow hair come out of a hole in the ground. I found this very interesting.

Last I heard the Garden will be building a new welcome center somewhere around there. Change is hard for people, and from the Icelandic tales I hear it is also hard for fairies, trolls and the like. I hope the man with rainbow hair doesn't pick up and look for a new berm.