SteadyTumbling

via onbedford ave: Brooklyn Day Parade. Bedford at Park Place....

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:30:15 -0400

Brooklyn Day Parade.

Bedford at Park Place. 1920.

Via

Wax Poetics - Issue 54: Issue 54 split covers celebrate two...

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:30:28 -0400

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...

Sun, 19 May 2013 11:30:07 -0400

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 -...

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:30:00 -0400

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...

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:54:00 -0400

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

"Charlie Parker: Timeless Innovation" with Rudresh Mahanthappa

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:00:26 -0400

"Charlie Parker: Timeless Innovation" with Rudresh Mahanthappa:

Via CUNY Events Calendar, a jazz thing tonight at BMCC:

Rudresh Mahanthappa will present recontextualizations of Charlie Parker’s work as well as new material based on extractions of Bird’s vocabulary as both composer and improviser. Mahanthappa’s celebrated groundbreaking approach of synthesizing the traditions of jazz with modern musical concepts exemplifies the spirit of Bird. With some of NYC’s finest instrumentalists as a rhythm section, this evening will highlight the relevancy of Parker as a contemporary and timeless icon of modern music. Film screening: Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker Friday, May 17 at 7PM, FREE

Date: May 17, 2013

Time: 8:30 PM

College: Borough of Manhattan Community College

Address: 199 Chambers Street

Building: Main

Room: BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center

Phone: 212-220-1459

Admission: $25 / students, seniors $15

#CrowHill #CrownHeights #graffiti under the S tracks (at MTA...

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:43:10 -0400

#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...

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:10:50 -0400

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

THE UPPER ANACOSTIA —LOWER GOLD COAST SYMPHONIC: DRUMS ALONG THE POTOMAC—A Global Go-Go Fantasia TUALGCS will debut a polyrhythmic and romantic orchestral Go-Go suite inspired by 70s spiritual-jazz balladry and the work of DC’s greatest cartographers in verse— notably Sterling Brown, Essex Hemphill, Jonetta Barras, Edward P. Jones, Rita Dove, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Monica Hand, Toni Asante Lighfoot, and Etthelbert Miller.

TUALGCS is a collaborative experimental ensemble comprised of Greg Tate, Marc Cary, talking drum master Abou Mboup, tabla master Sameer Gupta, poet Thomas Sayers Ellis, noted Washington D.C. Go Go players, Donnell Floyd, Go-Go Mickey & Kenny “Kwick” Gross and musicians from Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber.

DRUMS ALONG THE POTOMAC—A Global Go-Go Fantasia was co-commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for the Target® Free Thursdays series at the David Rubenstein Atrium and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

THE UPPER ANACOSTIA — LOWER GOLD COAST SYMPHONIC
Greg Tate - conduction/guitar/laptop
Marc Cary - acoustic piano/electric piano/synthesizer
D. Floyd - MC
Thomas Sayers Ellis - poet
Sameer Gupta - tabla
Abdou Mboup - talking drum
Lisala - vocals
Meah Pace - vocals
Mazz Swift - violin & vocals
V. Jeffery Smith - tenor sax
Luqman Brown - trombone
Ben Tyree - guitar
Jason Di Matteo - acoustic bass
Jared Michael Nickerson - electric bass
Milton “Go-Go Mickey” Freeman - congas
Kenny ‘Kwick’ Gross - drums

Thursday, May 16th, 2013
“Target Free” Thursdays presents at The David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
61 West 62 Street
New York, NY 10023
showtimes: 7:30pm & 9pm
Free to the Public
All Ages
Information: (212) 875-5350

Target Free Thursdays is generously underwritten by Target.

DRUMS ALONG THE POTOMAC—A Global Go-Go Fantasia was co-commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for the Target® Free Thursdays series at the David Rubenstein Atrium and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

***********************************************

Monday, May 20th, 2013
The Grand Foyer Millennium Stage
at
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
2700 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20566
6pm showtime
Free to the Public
All Ages
Information: 800-444-1324 or 202-467-4600
The Millennium Stage was created and underwritten by James A. Johnson and Maxine Isaacs to make the performing arts accessible to everyone in fulfillment of the Kennedy Center’s mission to its community and the nation.
The Millennium Stage is brought to the public by Target Stores, with additional funding provided byCapital One Bank, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, The Isadore and Bertha Gudelsky Family Foundation, Inc., The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, Jaylee M. Mead†, The Meredith Foundation,The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation,Suzy and Bob Pence, Dr. Deborah Rose and Dr. Jan A.J. Stolwijk, Thomas W. Haas Foundation,U.S. Department of Education, and the Millennium Stage Endowment Fund.
Millennium Stage Endowment Fund - James A. Johnson and Maxine Isaacs, Fannie Mae Foundation,James V. Kimsey, Gilbert† and Jaylee† Mead, Mortgage Bankers Association of America, Anonymous,and other gifts to secure the future of the Millennium Stage.
http://burntsugarindex.com/the-upper-anacostia-lower-gold-coast-symphonic-drums-along-the-potomac-a-global-go-go-fantasia/

— with Jared Michael Nickerson and Greg Tate.

NYC CitiBike bike-share program launches Memorial Day, 20 months...

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:04 -0400

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...

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:35:00 -0400

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 at www.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.

“Scratch Goes to the New Museum – NYC 1993: Experimental...

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:03:12 -0400

“Scratch Goes to the New Museum – NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star” (by Scratch Vimeo)

Italian deli, now under Uruguayan ownership (at M & S Prime...

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:03:06 -0400

Italian deli, now under Uruguayan ownership (at M & S Prime Meats)

“CourtVision: Just How Good Are Stephen Curry and Klay...

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:30:21 -0400

“CourtVision: Just How Good Are Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson? - The Triangle Blog - Grantland” by Kirk Goldsberry (@kirkgoldsberry) “a professor, a cartographer, and a contributor to Grantland”

Re Steph Curry:

He’s an incredible shooter. In fact he may be the best in the world at converting jump shot opportunities into points. To borrow a concept from the legendary Bob Ryan, if the aliens came down and challenged humanity with a winner-take-all game of H-O-R-S-E, of all the current NBA players I would definitely nominate Stephen Curry to be our representative in that game. Curry’s shot chart reflects this greatness; he puts up stellar numbers virtually everywhere along the perimeter.

NYC, get your bikes tuned up: Bike to Work Day | BikeNYC is this...

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:00:18 -0400

NYC, get your bikes tuned up: Bike to Work Day | BikeNYC is this Friday, May 17. With 7 different AM fueling stations and a PM Bike Home From Work Party in Dumbo.

In 1897, a Bicycle Superhighway Was the Future of California...

Mon, 13 May 2013 08:42:59 -0400

In 1897, a Bicycle Superhighway Was the Future of California Transit | Motherboard:

In 1897, a wealthy American businessman named Horace Dobbins began construction on a private, for-profit bicycle superhighway that would stretch from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles. It may seem like a preposterous notion now—everyone knows Angelenos don’t get out of their cars—but at the time, amidst the height of a pre-automobile worldwide cycling boom, the idea attracted the attention of some hugely powerful players. And it almost got built.

Egotrip posted this: This Mothers Day, you might think twice...

Sun, 12 May 2013 12:00:24 -0400

Egotrip posted this:

This Mothers Day, you might think twice about dedicating any of THESE songs to your mom: bit.ly/13K5aBz

— ego trip (@egotripland)

May 10, 2013

..which led me to look up this Ghostface’s classic. Simultaneously touching and harrowing. Read along on Rap Geniius.

Iron Mike (at Free Candy)

Sat, 11 May 2013 23:00:36 -0400

Iron Mike (at Free Candy)

Thursday on San Francisco’s Market...

Sat, 11 May 2013 12:00:18 -0400

Thursday on San Francisco’s Market Street—”Bike to Work Day Breaks All Records”:

Manual bike counts by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency at Market Street and Van Ness Avenue showed that bikes accounted for 76% of all eastbound traffic between 8:30 and 9:30AM, the highest percentage since the SFMTA began counting in 1998. In the last five years, Bike to Work Day bike counts have increased 20%, from 54% of traffic to 76%.

While the highest ever Bike to Work Day bike counts are impressive, the counts the SFMTA conducted on an average workday are equally impressive. On Thursday, April 18, bikes accounted for 66% of all inbound traffic at Market and Van Ness, up 3% since last year. Bike traffic has soared in the last five years on Market Street on regular days, going from about 38% of trips to 67% of vehicles on the street.

Via @anildash: 25 years ago today, Prince released his album...

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:47:00 -0400

Via @anildash:

25 years ago today, Prince released his album Lovesexy. Please change your avatar in recognition. #LookAtThatStamen twitter.com/anildash/statu…

— Anil Dash (@anildash)

May 10, 2013

Via Wikipedia:

Lovesexy is the tenth studio album by Prince, released on May 10, 1988. Lovesexy was issued as a substitute record after the release of the infamous The Black Album had been suddenly cancelled. The Black Album and Lovesexy almost act as companion pieces, sharing the song “When 2 R in Love”, but are nearly opposite in theme. The album was recorded in just seven weeks, from mid-December 1987 to late January 1988, at Prince’s new Paisley Park Records, and most of the album is a solo effort from Prince, with a few exceptions…As opposed to the LP release, early CD copies of Lovesexy have the entire album in sequence as a single track, so the album is heard in the context of a continuous sequence, though later editions have it as nine separate tracks.

And a review via AllMusic:

It’s nearly impossible to judge Lovesexy as anything but a hastily assembled substitute for the withdrawnBlack Album, which does the record a disservice. An exactingly sequenced song cycle — the compact disc didn’t have index markings to separate the individual tracks — Lovesexy is quite a different record than not only The Black Album, but anything else Prince had recorded. Where Dirty Mind was single-minded in its lust, Lovesexy connects the carnal with spiritual, and the calmness of the music reflects this outlook. Even when the record dips into hard funk, such as on the title track or the single “Alphabet Street,” there’s a relaxed, casual quality to the music that is shocking after the dense paranoia of Parade, Sign ‘o’ the Times, and The Black Album. Prince intends to enter a new phase of maturity with such considered music and ambitious lyrical themes, but neither his music nor his lyrics are consistently well stated over the course of the album. A handful of tracks are worthwhile — the sappy ballad “When 2 R in Love,” the moving “I Wish U Heaven,” the weird psychedelia of “Anna Stesia” and “Glam Slam,” as well as the wonderful “Alphabet Street” — but Lovesexy is his weakest album since Controversy.

Hard to argue with that conclusion—in retrospect this album marked the end of Prince’s remarkable creative run. with 9 albums in 10 years:

For You (1978)
Prince (1979)
Dirty Mind (1980)
Controversy (1981)
1999 (1982)
Purple Rain (1984)
Around the World in a Day (1985)
Parade (1986)
Sign “O” the Times (1987)
Lovesexy (1988)

The St Paul to London Intercontinental Railway. 1871....

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:08:48 -0400

The St Paul to London Intercontinental Railway. 1871. wnyc.org/blogs/transpor… @transitmap
— Taras Grescoe (@grescoe) May 10, 2013

Link is WNYC’s TransportationNation blog repost of an MPR item on this Minnesota Historical Society map:

Who says people out here in Flyoverland don’t dream big transportation dreams? Remember the contemporary kerfuffle over the bridge to nowhere? Well, here’s a circa 1871 vision for a bridge to somewhere — a rail line from St. Paul to the East Coast, with a bridge to London! Note the heading reads “St. Paul in the year 1900.”

It’s a map in the Minnesota Historical Society collection in St. Paul. MnHS curator and map wrangler Patrick Coleman says the idea was created by the Tea Partiers of that era. Check with him for more on that.