Saturday in Bed-Stuy: The Third Annual Gender Equality Festival in Von King Park

From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Herbert Von King Park in Bed-Stuy (back in our day it was Tompkins Park) was the site of the Third Annual Gender Equality Festival, sponsored by Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), featuring over 100 community artists, organizations, and local politicians coming together to celebrate girls, arts and everyday activism, offering performances and important information.

We got to the park early, getting in our morning walk all the way from Dumbo Books HQ in Williamsburg (hey, maybe we made better time than we would have on the weekend G train) before it got way too hot.

Actually, we made it so early that the Festival hadn't begun, so we had the privilege of watching an exciting Inner City Little League game featuring excellent pitching, some skillful base stealing, a well-executed sacrifice fly and power hitting from both teams.

The bottom of the sixth was pretty exciting, as the Mets had the tying run at the plate with two outs, but in the end the Giants triumphed, 10-7, and will be back in the league's World Series for the second year in a row.

We did notice on Gender Equality Festival day that all of the players on both teams were males, but there were a number of girls on the roster of the Angels and Nationals in the next game. Girls for Gender Equity, through its commitment to the physical, psychological, social and economic development of girls and women, has among its many programs lots of sports activities for girls.

Seeing the Festival was well under way on the east side of the park, we wished the Little Leaguers good luck and went over to see the booths and the action from the amphitheater. We watched a well-performed and informative series of skits on HIV-related stigma from kids in the programs of CAMBA, the Church Avenue Merchants Business Association, the lead agency for the local HIV care network in our old neighborhood.

We also heard interesting and inspiring talks by representatives from MIC-Women's Health Services and were thrilled to see some young poets from the New York Writers Coalition programs such as little Najaya Royal, who stole the show at last year's Fort Greene Summer Literary Festival with her tale of how a tidy neighborhood cat used bleach to clean out the heart of Mrs. Poopyhead, a woman so mean she’d eaten her own husband one Halloween night. (See our 2007 report at Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn.)

There was lots, lots more from many dedicated individuals and organizations, such as GGE's Sisters in Strength,for teen women ages 15-19 learning to be agents of social change by deciding on, planning, and implementing a grassroots organizing project. They also participate in skills-building workshops to receive assistance in applying to college, increase their financial literacy, and become more informed about political and social issues that affect them.

And like other organizations present, Sisters in Strength fights sexual harassment in New York City's public schools and elsewhere, trying to educate people about the seriousness of this problem.

We also spent a long time walking around the many tables from terrific community-based organizations, associations, and programs, from the Audre Lorde Project (named for the great writer whom we had the privilege of teaching with at John Jay College for Criminal Justice), a vitally important community center for gender variant people of color, to Turning Point, which addresses the needs of Muslim women and children through culturally competent crisis intervention, individual and group counseling, advocacy, outreach, education and training.

We feel bad that we can't mention every one of the wonderful groups that had tables at the Festival. All of them do good work in helping make our community a better place, and you should support at least one organization that empowers the girls and women of Brooklyn and makes life better for all of us.

It was getting hot for us, but we were grateful that we got to participate in this year's Gender Equality Festival. As we walked to the corner and caught the B43 bus back to Williamsburg, we reflected on another summer day in a New York City park where a 19-year-old boy from Brooklyn witnessed an earlier generation's struggle for gender equality.

Here are a couple of pictures we took at City Hall Park on the morning of August 26, 1970, the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women's suffrage. It was a historic day and it opens Gail Collins' recent magisterial history of the American women's movement.

Here's fiery Manhattan Congresswoman Bella Abzug, well known for her floppy hats and her fighting liberalism.

Abzug would never win her primaries for mayor or senator but remained in Congress for a number of years. Next to Speaker Tip O'Neill, she was probably the most well-known member of the House.

In the pic above, she's talking to New York City Consumer Affairs Commissioner Elinor Guggenheimer (who the previous year had finished fifth in the primary for city council president, managing to beat only Norman Mailer's ticket-mate, the incomparable writer Jimmy Breslin).


Above is Guggenheimer talking to the press (Ralph Penza of WCBS-TV and others) in City Hall Park at the start of the rally. New York Mayor John Lindsay (for whom we'd worked the previous year, in his unsuccessful June Republican primary and for his winning general election campaign as candidate of the Liberal Party) refused to grant a permit for a march up Fifth Avenue at first, and there was a standoff that later got resolved.

To Guggenheimer's right in the photo you may recognize Betty Friedan, whose book The Feminine Mystique, in which she discussed "the problem with no name" that American women faced, really launched second-wave feminism in this country.



The lady below seemed to be fighting for her own rights, though we're not sure of the relevance to women's liberation:

Here's a protester more in the spirit of the day:

We can remember that placard really well: Male Chauvinist, You Better Start Shakin', Today's Pig is Tomorrow's Bacon!

We've got our diary entry for that day in our forthcoming book, Summer in Brooklyn: 1969-1975. Lots has changed, in Brooklyn and the world, since those days.

Well, we feel privileged to have been even just a witness at 1970's Women's Liberation Day, just as we feel privileged to see the daughters and granddaughters of second-wave feminists at Von King Park today.

Isn't life wonderful!

Friday Night at Prospect Park: Deerhoof at Celebrate Brooklyn

We love Deerhoof and are very sentimental about this San Francisco-band since they were the first band we saw at the McCarren Park Pool the weekend after we moved back to Brooklyn in August 2006. (And ultra-talented vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki was one of our first celebrity endorsements in our campaign for Congress from Arizona.)

So are extremely grateful that last night we got to Prospect Park in time to hear the start of their amazing set. Of course, delayed by our seeing Leslie Stein at Desert Island, a recalcitrant G train, and stopping to see if we could help a teenage cyclist who crashed right in front of our eyes (he was okay but saying "fuck, it hurts" a lot after his dad managed to free his leg from under the downed bike), we did miss the Metropolis Ensemble's performance and their innovative interpretation of Stravinsky's Rites of Spring, "The Rite Remixed" -- but we didn't riot because it's available here, thanks to WNYC, the station to which our home radios are glued. (Thanks also to WNYC for the pics and video -- send them some money this minute!)

Although it was very crowded, we managed to find a seat in the back, but by the second song everyone in front had stood up and we either had to crane our necks to see the band or just listen to the great music and watch the kinetic kids in the aisle (too many of whom were smoking for our comfort).

The crowd was largely in their 20s and 30s, with some oldsters who'd come to hear Stravinsky and some little kids with Park Slope parents, and it was largely white and Asian (lots of Latino families were having picnics on the lawn just outside the entrance gate). We were hot and sweaty and occasionally fanning ourselves, but the show was just as good as the one we saw at the pool two years ago.

Deerhoof began handing out the Offend Maggie single "Fresh Born" in the form of sheet music. WNYC talked with the band about the project backstage, and then went into the audience with a bag of toy instruments, asking folks to take a stab at the tune:

Rather than bore any more with our enthralled but ignorant take on Deerhoof's performance, and mindful of what University of Florida law professor Roy Hunt taught us about fair use in our Intellectual Property class, we herewith present some cogent comments from bloggers more skilled at words than we are (please go to their sites for their extended commentary).

Evan Genest:

Deerhoof rocked the house and fans responded. Two indicators:

1) The aisles of the pavillion were packed with standing people, violating the usual decorum that keeps standing people out on the lawn. Fans couldn't help themselves.
2) The concession stand was dead. "Yeah, this is kind of a first." a casher said. " Usually during any set, there's a steady rotation of traffic for beer and food."

Deerhoof really has something for everyone. The foundation is Gang of Four guitars and Primus eggheadtechnical bass. The drummer is super spaz, flailing like a thresher trying to beat sundown.

Visually, it's a backdrop of three beanpole looking Berklee School of Music guys with bad posture, holding forth like a slacker Mt Rushmore behind a four-foot-something peppy girl who sings the entire set in Japanese.

Kevin K. at RumpRoast:

[G]ood cripes, were they stellar. They’ve added a fourth member, guitarist Ed Rogriguez, and the interplay between him and John Dieterich definitely kicked things up a notch compared to the show I saw last summer. Lead singer and bassist Satomi Matsuzaki was as adorable and captivating as ever and, man, Deerhoof’s founding member Greg Saunier is just a flat-out amazing drummer. Possibly the best working the indie rock circuit these days. What he accomplished on stage last night with just a bass drum, snare and cymbal was inconceivable. They’re not really touring right now, but If they play near you anytime soon, make sure you go.

Tue at En Amagerkaner i New York (fresh off the boat falbelader):

Brooklyns Prospect Park (designet af den samme mand, der designede Central Park) udgjorde rammen for koncerten. Opvarmningen var et mindre symfoniorkester, der spillede Stravinskys “Le sacre du printemps” - så var scenen ligesom sat for atonaliteterne. Agnete og jeg kom dog først netop som Deerhoof gik på. Ikke noget med at bevæge sig for hurtigt her i varmen - selv nu her lidt over midnat er det 27 grader. Koncerten var en af de her betal-hvad-du-vil ting med en foreslået entre på $3.

Det er faktisk sjældent jeg synes bands bliver bedre af at blive hørt live. Det er sjovt at gå til koncert, fordi man ser giraffen og der er forhåbentlig noget dynamik mellem musikere og publikum. Men hvis man hører optagelsen af koncerten bagefter, lyder det næsten altid dårligere end studieversionen. Jeg kan ikke huske hvornår jeg sidst har sat en live-plade på. Det skulle vise sig, at Deerhoof er et af de få bands, hvor koncert-formen næsten passer bedre end album-formatet.

En afsluttende trivia-kommentar: Deerhoof er et af Simpsons-skaberen Matt Groenings yndlingsband. Så ved I det, næste gang I får dét spørgsmål, når I står på den lyserøde.

Elizabeth at Wassup Rockers:

Deerhoof were absolutely lovely. I didn’t know a lot of the songs and assumed they played a lot of new shit, though after a few unfamiliar songs I panicked and was like, “What if they’re just old songs I’m not familiar with?!?!” Truth is, I only own like two of their albums; I’ve heard like three or four of them in their entirety and they’re mad prolific so who knows what I’m been missing!! They might have played old stuff, though I doubt it. The newer stuff, for some reason, sounded more melancholic to my ears. They played some great older shit, but c’mon, they didn’t even do “Panda Panda Panda.” I know “Running Thoughts” would be asking for too much, but why not “Panda Panda Panda”?? Inquiring minds wanna know.

Yo, Greg Saunier is crazy. He went up to the mic a couple of times and was Paula Abdul-level incoherent, though he managed to inform us we could pick up free sheet music for their first Offend Maggie single, “Fresh Born,” at the Celebrate Brooklyn booth. All the fanboys were geeking. There was one kid who was dancing so intensely he was like, having seizures. Imagine how crazy he dances when he’s alone in his room?!?! Anyways, Greg is fucking awesome, it’s like his inner rhythm machine has only three settings, Supersoft, Hard and SUPERFUCKINGHARD. It didn’t dawn on me until today that the reason he looks so huge at the drums is not just because he’s damn tall, it’s also because the kit hardly has any pieces. Maybe like three pieces… I mean, Nick Andopolis would laugh his ass off at Greg’s kit, y’know what I’m sayin’? The other thing that I realized is that as jerky and out of control he might seem, Greg is totally right on when it comes to keeping time. Dude’s brilliant.

To which commenter TwoDishes responded:

Wow, best show of any band in like two years, for me. Best moment is half the band off stage while they hold the feedback note on the guitar for, what, 40 seconds, frozen like statues.

An aged fan there to see the Rite of Spring was cranky, yelling at fans rushing the aisle between the folding chairs. He was super old. His reading material between sets was the plastic bag of free supermarket flyers that the mailman leaves on the doorstoop.

It wasn't us! Honest! Deerhoof made last night wonderful!

Friday Evening in Williamsburg: Leslie Stein's "Eye of the Majestic Creature" at Desert Island Comics

On our way to Prospect Park on Friday, we stopped early on at our favorite comic store Desert Island's 7-9 p.m. event featuring the multi-talented Leslie Stein, who was actually giving away copies of issue #3 of Eye of the Majestic Creature, whose last outing one critic at High-Low called "my favorite mini-comic to date of 2007."

We arrived before the promised sitar player got started (see him here), but it looked like it was going to be another great Desert Island event, and on an uncomfortably hot evening the store was delightfully cool in more than just one way. Leslie, who's billed on her books as Leslie Anne Mackenzie Stein, graciously signed our copy of the new Eye of the Majestic Creature. Here's High-Low's Rob Clough on the last issue:

Her stories are the product of an unhinged imagination, yet there is a coherent narrative to be found. Indeed, one senses that much of the story is directly autobiographical, if adorned with all sorts of weirdness. The story is about a young woman named Larry who has moved out to the country after living in the city made her too anxious. She lives alone in a house with her anthropomorphic guitar (named Marshy) and ponders misanthropy and the desperate need to connect, two contradictory impulses that nonetheless drive her...[Stein's] ability to create intricate fine-line drawings whose simplicity leads the eye around the page with ease is matched only by her many decorative touches.

Born in Chicagoland, Leslie -- a graduate of the wonderful School of Visual Arts (where we teach) -- has lived in Brooklyn for years. Fascinatingly, she employs a vastly different style and technique in her celebrated Yeah It Is!, an amazing full-color book we have back in our Arizona winter HQ. The Comics Reporter said of it:

The best thing about Leslie Anne Mackenzie Stein's debut Yeah, It Is! is the general look of the piece, a way of presenting comics narrative as dependent on colored paper cut-outs as it is on traditional alt-comics cartoony abstractions. Stein's establishing shots have this really nice, layered quality that replicates the way the author's reasonably innocent lead looks at the world, a vast unknown that is broken down into smaller units for better understanding. As body shapes play a supporting role here, the technique allows Stein to concentrate on how clothing can hide, accentuate or even distort the form underneath it - the artist even manages to get a sense of see-through cloth around her skirts.

Yeah It Is! received a richly-deserved Xeric Foundation award, and it looks as though Leslie's got a new book using some of the same innovative techniques. She told us she enjoys working in varied styles, and each has different challenges and rewards.

Also on display were some of the charming crafts (pins, pillows, bags) Leslie makes for sale at Etsy.

We thanked Leslie for the free comic and thanks as always to Desert Island for bringing comics to our stretch of Metropolitan Avenue.

Heading off for our date with Deerhoof, we did get to enjoy Eye of the Majestic Creature on our way to Prospect Park, and it's a not-to-be-missed delight: most of the book is a narrative of Larry's trip back to her childhood home and the resulting adventures with her old slacker friends; her volleyball-playing, salsa-dancing mom; her oleaginous dad and his feuding second and third wives, Smusan and Shmelia; her odd siblings Salmon and Snickers; and lots of alcohol and ennui. Leslie gets a lot of things right, and for a 25yo, she's particularly perceptive about older, mostly Jewish, women.

Stuck in the Metropolitan Avenue waiting an unconscionable amount of time for a shockingly indifferent G train, we're grateful to have had Leslie Stein's wonderful comics as a boon companion. Isn't life wonderful!

Saturday Evening Theater at the McCarren Park Pool: Woodshed Collective's "12 Ophelias"

We've been staying mostly in Williamsburg lately, enjoying its midsummer pleasures: the Feast parades which passed the Dumbo HQ twice (Ringraziamenti per il pane!); the annual Crest Hardware Art Show (OK, we actually went Friday, because we'd blown a fuse and needed a replacement but we stayed for the aesthetic pleasure while our veggie burgers defrosted); a visit to the Leonard branch library; and relatively painless trips to the dentist and post office (we nearly fainted when we got our package just four minutes after arriving at 9:30 a.m.). Also some Italian ices from Ralph's and stoop-sitting and checking the progress of the figs in the backyard.

At 7:45 p.m. we walked up Lorimer Street to the pool, where a small crowd of strangely non-hipster-looking humans had gathered. They were there, as we were, to see 12 Ophelias, a play with lyrics by Caridad Svich and music written and performed by the excellent bluegrass band The Jones Street Boys. This was a preview of the production conceived and designed by the Brooklyn-based Woodshed Collective and directed by Teddy Bergman, who also did the famous Hell House, about the agonies that await the unborn-again.

The gates to the pool were locked at the play's starting time of 8:00 p.m., but we were soon let in as a young man started checking our names from a list of those of who'd made reservations. We didn't have any, but after three people were checked off, they let in all of us groundlings -- and we even scored one of the white folding chairs, which along with blankets anchored by rocks, surrounded an elliptical performance area in the middle of the pool, with the band and their instruments set up on a platform on the perimeter with the audience.

We were told that the night was only their second preview and glitches were to be expected. The main ones were with the body mikes, which worked sporadically at times for a couple of performers, but their voices carried well enough so that we, at least, heard them at all times.

12 Ophelias is a surreal take on Hamlet in which Ophelia (Pepper Binkley) rises from her pond, undrowned, and tries to deal with her past in a backwoods Appalachian version of Elsinore. Hey, they do say regional Appalachian English is the closest today's Anglophones come to the early modern English of Elizabethan times.

In this shantytown-Deliverance setting, trashy-flashy but regal Gertrude (Kate Benson) presides over a brothel; Rosencranz (Grace McLean) and Guildenstern (Preston Martin) are an antic genderqueer pair of silly hillbillies; Horatio (Ben Beckley) is a brutal, coarse backwoodsman sexually involved with the hooker Mina (an engaging Jocelyn Kuritsky) - and apparently Gertrude herself; and then there's Rude Boy (Dan Cozzens), a slovenly Ozarks Hamlet in a filthy wifebeater with a black eye and a lot of attitude.

This sounds like it could be either really terrible or really wonderful. We were a little concerned at first, but soon the performances -- and the surprisingly haunting songs -- shot it over into the "really wonderful" category. Shakespeare's language is both mocked (R & G do a deliciously wicked parody of the final meeting between the prince and Ophelia in Hamlet) and transformed so that, even with all the countrified expressions and Appalachian diction, it becomes eloquent in conveying the characters' struggle to reconcile past mistakes and burdens and in exploring the line between madness and passion.

We knew playwright Caridad Svich as a translator of Lorca, and the influence of the Spanish dramatist, along with that of Maria Irene Fornes, shows here. 12 Ophelias is also an interesting companion piece to Svich's rave fable Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That was Once Her Heart, which we know from its production at our winter home, Arizona State University, where we've taught English and been a graduate student in journalism. (The two plays are collected in one book you can buy at Lulu -- the POD service that Dumbo Books also uses.)

The cast was uniformly outstanding, with Binkley, McLean and Martin having some amazing moments; the musical performances by the cast and The Jones Street Boys,

when not hampered by sound-system problems, were strong; in addition to Bergman's direction, the creative team also includes Nicola Bullock (choreography), Gabe Evansohn (set design), Emily Fishbaine (musical director), Jessica Pabst (costume design), Adam Rihacek (fight choreography) and Jerad Schomer (lighting design).

According to its website, the mission of Woodshed Collective is to "create a tangible, immersive world" for audiences, by creating interactive performance pieces in which all members of the Collective are involved in "all aspects of production, from concept development to direction and design."

The pool will be host to more performances of 12 Ophelias at 8 p.m. on July 16, 18-19, 23-24, 26 and 30-31. August performances include Aug. 1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 14, 16 and 20-22. Setting this production in the middle of the empty pool as dusk turned to night worked really well. Last night was breezy and cool, and ultimately quite windy, but the billowing sheets of the set's shantytown seemed to fit the mood, as did the occasional sounds of firecrackers by the junior high behind the pool and motorcycles racing down Leonard Street.

As we walked home under a gibbous moon, we felt happy that we'd gone. Plus this great play was totally free! Isn't life wonderful!

Friday Night at J.J. Byrne Park: The Piper Theatre's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?

After leaving Desert Island's comic book nirvana last evening, we made our way to the recently-unveiled chrome-and-glass Kellogg's Diner Redux and walked down to our wonderfully reliable weekend G train to get to J.J. Byrne Park for the Piper Theatre's amazing production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Thanks to the MTA's scheduling, we barely had time to glance at the sardonically-changed subway advertisements (our favorite so far was when some benign wit changed the tagline for the [very funny] film Forgetting Sarah Marshall's rather cruel tag line YOU DO LOOK FAT IN THOSE JEANS to YOU DO LOOK GREAT IN THOSE JEANS) or stand on the Smith St.-Ninth St. platform contemplating the lambent sky before we were approaching the park where we, more than thirty years ago, used to drive by with our friend's younger brother to purchase nickel bags and take them back to the brownstone on Ninth Street where our friends and rolling papers were waiting.

We were motivated to head for the park by Louise Crawford's this glowing report at Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn (from which we also purloined one of Hugh Crawford's excellent photographs of the performance by Hugh Crawford):

A rollicking, frolicking Midsummer Night's Dream delighted a large opening night crowd on the green in JJ Byrne Park on Thursday night.

And what a night it was. The weather was glorious, the sky clear, the half moon luminous and bright.

Directed by John P. McEneny, who teaches drama at MS 51 and runs the Piper Theater, this version of MSND takes place in 1908 Coney Island, a natural setting for the play. "The parks at Coney Island symbolized a reachable escape, a place where almost anyone could go for a day and get lost in the crowd. It was a place where everyone was searching for fun and often found it in the exotic displays or seemingly death-defying rides," write Rosa Schneider, Piper's dramaturg.

Indeed, Shakespeare's popular play is all about magic, escape, identity, and the fantastical. What better way to bring it home to a Brooklyn audience then to set it in our very own urban dreamland.

There were many highpoints in last night's show, which will run this weekend and next in the park located at Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope, but the cast's high energy, high octane performance of the play surely gave it the kind of bigger than life impact that works wonders in an outdoor show.

Still, the fairy dances were gently rendered even as airplanes passed overhead. A strong cast really packed a wollop in a production that was alternately bawdy, poetic, magical, sexy, acrobatic and really fun in all the right ways.

Owen Campbell, a 14-year-old professional actor was notable in the role of Puck. But all the actors brought great energy and joie de vivre to Piper's memorable version of the play. The lovely set by Lila Trenkova, complete with life guard chairs and twinkling lights, transformed the park. Costumes by Deirdre Cavanaugh were also a treat, as was the sound design by Andy Christian.

Louise pretty much describes the joyous experience we had, though we'd add that we were really impressed by Owen Campbell, too, as well as Sean Phillips as one of the best Oberons we'd ever seen. And we didn't hear any airplanes (perhaps the major carriers all went bankrupt today?).

This wasn't the first time we'd seen A Midsummer Night's Dream in a park. Back on Thursday evening, July 23, 1970 [this is why you should keep a diary too] we saw the fondly-remembered BACA Repertory doing the play in Prospect Park at Wollman Rink, very intimate and informal, with teens and twentysomethings making magic, though without the kind of advanced production values the Piper Theatre's got going on now.

We took two young members of our household, 9yo Jonny and 6yo Jeanette, to that show,

and the kids were as enchanted and quiet as nearly all the many kids sitting on the lawn at J.J. Byrne Park last night. (And the next week, at Riis Park's Bay 1, we got to put our beach blanket next to the blanket of the boy playing Oberon!)

Back when Robert Wagner was mayor and Abe Stark borough president, we Brooklyn kids were introduced to Shakespeare early.

Our fantastic eighth-grade English teacher at Meyer Levin Junior High, Mr. Neil Berger, had us read Twelfth Night in preparation for viewing a production at Grady Technical High School in Sheepshead Bay that we still remember. (In the summer of 1990 we went to a star-studded production of Twelfth Night at Central Park -- it featured Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Goldblum, Gregory Hines, Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio, Stephen Collins, Fisher Stevens, John Ames, et al. -- and our 8SPE2 classmate, author/literary agent Linda Konner, with us that night along with her boyfriend, longtime Newark Star-Ledger theater critic Peter Felicia, agreed that the version we'd seen in a Brooklyn high school in 1964 was superior.)

In ninth grade, Mrs. Hazel Sanjour had us read Julius Caesar. We each memorized and delivered a soliloquy, put out a Roman newspaper, saw the 1950s film version at the Eighth Street Playhouse and learned a lot more about Mrs. Sanjour's favorite writer, "the inimitable Bard," as she called him.

And in our senior year at Midwood, we took a fall-semester Shakespeare course with the legendary teacher Mr. Joseph Grebanier. We sat up front and center and can still picture Mr. G in front of us reading the parts of everyone from Polonius to Prince Hal to Sir Toby Belch with enthusiasm. (He told us Polonius's famous advice to Laertes was fatuous: "Why should you never a borrower or a lender be? And plenty of people who are true to themselves who constantly lie to others!") Can we be wrong in thinking we read 24 Shakespeare plays in the fall of 1967?

We miss Mr. Grebanier, but we still have our Brooklyn College 1973 Ottilie Grebanier Drama Award, received for the best play by an undergrad, in honor of the mother of Mr. Grebanier and his less-nice BC English professor brother (their French-sounding family name came from Reinberg, only backwards).

Now we are lucky enough to get to teach Shakespeare to college students. And still go to see great crepuscular productions like Piper Theatre's Midsummer Night's Dream. Catch the magic at J.J. Byrne Park this weekend or next. Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!

Friday Evening in Williamsburg: Gabrielle Bell's "Lucky" at Desert Island

On our way from Dumbo Books HQ to the G train early Friday evening, we made a stop at our favorite neighborhood comic-book store, Desert Island, for the launch party of the new issue of Lucky (Volume 2, Number 2), by the extremely talented Gabrielle Bell, whose work is both wry and knowing, bittersweet and resonant.

Amid the good-sized crowd (the party had just begun) -- of which Gabrielle's kindly uncle saved us from from being the oldest in the room (but he looks younger than us!) -- we waited patiently for Gabrielle to inscribe our book. She apologized needlessly for being slow as she drew a cartoon version of us that was pockmarked, potato-faced, tangle-haired and Dumbo-eared; in other words, it was a perfect likeness!


Publishers Weekly called Gabrielle Bell's book version of Lucky "completely engrossing...even addictive

—because Bell has such a flair for communicating a specific brand of postcollegiate ennui. Her day-to-day existence is a litany of dilapidated rental apartments, low-paying jobs, yoga classes and artistic frustration, but Bell's straightforward storytelling reveals a true poignancy amid the tedium. Far from being depressing, these snippets of daily life in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, N.Y., are comforting in their frankness and familiarity; by settling into the rhythm of the artist's daily life, the reader experiences the heft of small victories and simple pleasures. Never laugh-out-loud funny, brief tales of yoga roommate miscommunication, ignorant comics buyers, the anguish of nude modeling, and sex-obsessed, adolescent art students radiate good humor and are sure to resonate with a certain stripe of well-educated, underemployed 20-something comic reader. Lucky is yet another sophisticated, nuanced pleasure.

This week Racked called Desert Island "[a]n adorable, quirky comic book store." We hope you'll visit Desert Island to get a copy of Lucky or some of the other amazing stuff on sale there. Meanwhile, we had to skeedaddle out of there last night to get to J.J. Byrne Park for an 8 p.m. date with Shakespeare. But Lucky's new volume is terrific -- Gabrielle's brilliant take on her MySpace experience alone is worth the small price for it. Isn't life wonderful!