SteadyTumbling

Wax Poetics - Issue 54:

Issue 54 split covers celebrate two scenes— blue-eyed soul and Brooklyn MCs—brought together as only Wax Poetics can.

 

Cover one features the poster boy for the blue-eyed-soul movement, Daryl Hall. Wax Poetics digs deep into the scene with features on Bobby Caldwell, Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, Laura Nyro, and Ned Doheny. 

 

Cover two sports legendary Brooklyn MC and Juice Crew alum Big Daddy Kane, backed with new Brooklyn mic killer Joey Badass. And we venture farther back in time to speak with the elusive old school BK rapper Jimmy Spicer. 

DC Makes Progress on Bike Lanes But Advocates See Room For Improvement - via WNYC’s TransportationNation:

The world got to see one of Washington’s most popular cycle tracks on Inauguration Day, when President Obama made his way down the center of Pennsylvania Avenue NW and over the two-way cycle track, located in the roadway’s median. 

On days when there are no presidential parades, the procession is more mundane: motorists idling at traffic lights, bicycles whirring by—and illegal U-turns.

[…]

Advocates say plastic bollards installed down the middle of the avenue would immediately stop the U-turns, but the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts opposes the use of plastic posts.

According to the D.C. Department of Transportation, there was a 200 percent increase in bicyclist volume along Pennsylvania Avenue after the cycle-track was installed.

A walking tour of Bedford Ave in Crown Heights - “Brooklyn’s Automobile Row” (organized by Municipal Arts Society of NY):

For the first half of the 20th century, Bedford Avenue, between Fulton Street and Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights, was known as “Automobile Row,” because of the many car dealerships, showrooms, garages and related auto businesses and events that lined the Avenue. What was going on around Bedford Avenue, architecturally and historically, during this time and why was Bedford Avenue chosen for these businesses? Join guides Suzanne Spellen, writer and architectural historian, aka columnist “Montrose Morris” on Brownstoner.com; and Morgan Munsey, architect and architectural historian, for a tour examining this important part of Brooklyn’s development. We’ll look at the fine architecture that distinguished these businesses, as well as the surrounding area. We’ll look at and we’ll take you to those same dealerships and garages, many now repurposed, what gave shape to the we will explore how that shaped the rise and fall of Brooklyn’s Automobile Row.

Date:Sunday, May 19th
Time:11:00 AM

Cost: $20 / $15 Members.

(Photo of the old Studebaker showroom via the OnBedfordAve tumblr)

Park Slope #Citibike station (at MTA Subway - Atlantic Ave/Barclays Center (B/D/N/Q/R/2/3/4/5))

#CrowHill #CrownHeights #graffiti under the S tracks (at MTA Subway - S Franklin Ave Shuttle)

Free shows tonight in NYC & Monday night in DC. Via Burnt Sugar’s fb:

— with Jared Michael Nickerson and Greg Tate.

NYC CitiBike bike-share program launches Memorial Day, 20 months after it was first announced. If you sign up for a $100 annual membership by tomorrow, you’ll be able to start using it from Day 1 (day & weekly passes go into effect a week later).

Station map here. More via Wikipedia:

The system will initially consist of 5,500 bicycles and nearly 300 stations in parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn.^[9] It will later expand to 10,000+ bicycles and 600+ stations in Manhattan south of 79th Street plus stations in several Brooklyn neighborhoods, including Greenpoint, Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Park Slope and Carroll Gardens.^[10]

Raw/Cooked: Michael Ballou at Brooklyn Museum:

The eighth exhibition in the Raw/Cooked series presents the work of Williamsburg’s Michael Ballou. A multimedia artist whose practice incorporates sculpture, performance, and collaboration, Ballou has altered three spaces in the Brooklyn Museum with site-specific installations. Connecting them is his interest in the appearance, behavior, and inner lives of animals. Spilling out of a large-scale vitrine in the fourth-floor Decorative Arts galleries, Ballou’s Dog Years is a monumental construction of over sixty dog head sculptures, modeled on animals of his acquaintance. Go-Go, a light and sound installation, enlivens the fifth-floor elevator lobby with a mobile puppet suspended from the ceiling, ambient music, and the play of projected light and shadows on the walls. Collaborative project Pencil Holders was conceived in response to the Museum’s Luce Visible Storage ▪ Study Center. Drawn to the Center’s encyclopedic holdings, which evoke a cabinet of curiosities, Ballou added several of his ceramic sculptures to a shelf. They’re accompanied by fictional texts created by six authors invited to respond to Luce’s holdings, accessible by QR code. The authors include Stephanie Barber, David Brody, James Hannaham, Kurt Hoffman, Helen Phillips, and Matthew Sharpe. The fictional Pencil Holders text can also be found atwww.pencil-holders.org.

The second season of Raw/Cooked presents a series of four exhibitions by under-the-radar Brooklyn artists who have been invited by the Museum, with support from Bloomberg, to show their first major museum exhibitions. The artists are given the opportunity to work with the Museum’s collections and to display in spaces of their choosing, however unconventional.

The four artists in the series were recommended by an advisory board of well-known Brooklyn artists. Museum curator Eugenie Tsai made the final selections. Michael Ballou was recommended by Amy Sillman.