Brooklyn The Borough Posts

February 4, 2010 / / Reading
February 3, 2010 / / LGBTQ

Dan Via is the playwright and actor starring in Daddy, a new play about gay relationships, currently running at TBG Arts Center’s Mainstage Theatre through Februrary 13. I was able to get the inside scoop from this handsome writer, who is currently based in Park Slope, as the show was kicking off.

February 2, 2010 / / Visual Art

Phillip Stearns (a.k.a. Pixel Form) creates art that involves unique networks of wires, connectors, light sensors, and miniature speakers. If you’re willing, his art interacts with you, creating an energetic intimacy between the observer and the observed

February 2, 2010 / / Housing
February 2, 2010 / / Reading

Holden’s hunter’s cap haunts me as a lasting symbol of American literature as few others do. At once evocative of the hunt—of searching—and an insulation against the world, Holden’s defining sartorial article works nicely as a metaphor to be mined by high school English students in sophomore term papers year after year. But as nexus between the “very corny” trappings of life and the way we occasionally can’t help but fall for them ourselves, it also serves as a perfect reflection of the place Catcher in the Rye has staked out in the canon.

January 28, 2010 / / Politics

Beth Fertig, a senior reporter on education for WNYC, contextualizes this week’s public hearing at Brooklyn Technical High School where the Panel for Educational Policy voted to shutter 19 city schools.

January 27, 2010 / / Politics
January 26, 2010 / / Reading

Welcome to our newest literary feature, Live From the Franklin Park Reading Series. Our first installment of video from this series, which runs the first Monday of the month at Franklin Park in Crown Heights, features storyteller Jake Goldman, and the (very) amusing tale of how he used his screenplay writing degree (read: useless) working for a (ahem) new media company here in New York. Mr. Goldman is co-host of True Tales of College, a monthly storytelling series that was highlighted in the New York Times. We’ll feature one local reading from this series per week, so get excited, and join us live the second Monday of the month for a comforting beverage and some great stories.

January 25, 2010 / / Reading
January 14, 2010 / / Politics

Part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Race to the Top is a $4.35 billion grant program that rewards states that are making strides in turning around struggling schools and enhancing education standards. Here’s what some of the players in New York’s education system are saying about the state’s application.