[brooklyn now]

Topic: Around Town

Bococa.com, the fine little website that provided restaurant menus and event listings and the like for our beloved neighborhood (that’s BOerum Hill, CObble Hill and CArroll Gardens, of course), is getting ambitious. They’ve changed their name to BrooklynNow.com and plan expand their coverage to the Columbia Street Waterfront District, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO and Park Slope — just in time for summer, when I can indulge in my favorite New York pastime of exploring new neighborhoods and then eating in them.

[nyc fact of the day]

Topic: Around Town

In 1901, while the subways were still under construction, New York City converted its streetcars from horsepower to electricity, which allowed them to move much faster — especially in Brooklyn, where the traffic was less dense. So frenetically did these new electric cars hurtle through the streets that Brooklynites began to call themselves “trolley dodgers.” Around that time, a local baseball team that had been known as the Superbas, the Kings, and the Bridegrooms, became the Brooklyn Dodgers.

[lookie here, i’m the media!]

Today I received my very first press release. Apparently someone out there things I’m a publisher of some kind. Ha! Heck, I don’t even read this blog. But anyway, here’s the press release in full:

You –> you’re a blogger.
Us –> we’re Concerts for Kerry; we create fantastic music shows that are fundraisers for John Kerry.

We want you to blog us! We have an upcoming show in Brooklyn this Friday, April 30 (details below…)

Atrios blogged us… So did Gawker… Now we want you. Please help today!

thanks in advance,
the Concerts for Kerry Team

http://www.ConcertsforKerry.org

Our next NYC show:
Concerts for Kerry Brooklyn Gallery Show!

April 30th Concert for Kerry!
http://www.ConcertsforKerry.org
Friday, April 30, 2004
at Proda Studios
25 Jay Street, Brooklyn, 11201
10pm.

Tickets: $15 online, $20 at the door.
100% of ticket sales go directly to the Kerry Campaign.
Buy tickets online: http://www.ConcertsforKerry.org

featuring…
theXpo Spring Collection
THE VITAMEN
FRANK
and
DJs Minway Mosco and ebuzZ

Buy tickets right now!
http://www.ConcertsforKerry.org

Buy tickets. Please forward to friends. Elect John Kerry in 2004!

– the Concerts for Kerry Team
questions? email: info@concertsforkerry.org

I know, it’s totally square — I love the generic rocker dude on their website, complete with wristband and Bon Jovi hair, and I’m also fond of the phrase “fantastic music shows” — but it is for a good cause, or at least the best cause we managed to nominate. Of course, you could save yourself the trouble and embarrassment and just write a check.

[when it’s someone you know]

Topic: Culture
For those of you who’ve been regular Doonesbury readers at one time or another but haven’t been paying attention, the strip recently took an astonishing turn: BD is wounded.

The lead time on weekday strips is two weeks, so it’s a sad coincidence that as this famous fictional football player’s Iraqi tragedy was playing out, an actual NFL player, former Arizona Cardinal Pat Tillman, was killed in Afghanistan.

[blame sweden]

Topic: Politics

According to Slate’s reading of Bob Woodward’s latest political gossip-fest, Plan of Attack:

Karl Rove, a Norwegian-American, is obsessed with the “historical duplicity” of the Swedes, who seized Norway back in 1814. This nationalism manifests itself as hatred for Swedish weapons inspector Hans Blix.

So if you were wondering why our intelligence was such a mess, now you know: blame Sweden.

And come to think of it, wasn’t Hans Blix not only entirely right but entirely successful at ridding Iraq of WMDs via the inspections regime? Because they didn’t have any, actually, so I guess all that heavily disparaged Clintonian sanctions-and-swatting-flies stuff was in fact wholly effective. Boy, I’m glad we traded in those policies for our Glorious Liberation!

[doobieous theories]

Topic: Culture

Today is April 20, popularly known as 420. If you’ve ever wondered why the number 420 is associated with marijuana, Phish.Net FAQ has answers. Unfortunately, they have too many answers, which is not much better than none at all, at least epistemologically. Nevertheless, what better way to celebrate 420 than with piles of ludicrous, contradictory hypotheses?

And yes, I have my own theory to add. The Phish site mentions Salman Rushdie’s reference to 420 as a number of chaos and trickery. In Hindu mythology, Shiva is the god of chaos (or destruction). He is also an inveterate dopehead who whiles away the millenia getting high atop Mount Kailash and engaging in cosmic nookie with his consort Parvati. So my crackpot (emphasis on the latter syllable) theory is that 420 became associated with the ascetic followers of Shiva, who wander India in loincloths and matted dreadlocks, smoking marijuana chillams, increasing the average holiness of the population, and making respectable folk just a tad nervous.

Whatever your theory, have a happy 420.

[palaverist is back]

Topic: Personal

After a splendid week in California, I’m back again in New York, which switched from drizzly, crappy early spring to hot and sunny early summer in my absence. The ginko leaves are peeking out, as are the occasional bare legs beneath a short skirt. Ah, summer!

In this new season, I may have to scale back a bit for work-related reasons — i.e., I need to actually do some — but I’ll try to get out a couple of good posts each week. So keep checking in!