ZUMBA!
with Mariko Masaoka-Drew

WEDNESDAYS, AUGUST 3 – 31
6:30 – 7:30PM
@ Force and Flow (www.forceandflow.com), 1102 Dean St. #4 between Franklin & Bedford Ave’s

RSVP REQUIRED: info@forceandflow.com

First class is FREE for Nostrand Park Readers

Mariko Masaoko-Drew
Let Mariko and the spirit of Zumba lead you to a fit and fun lifestyle! Zumba combines Latin and International music with a fun and effective workout system. Whether you are an exercise fanatic or just looking for some summer fun, Zumba is designed to encompass all levels of dance and fitness experience. The routines feature interval training sessions where fast and slow rhythms and resistance training are combined to tone and sculpt your body while burning fat, and most importantly, having fun! Mariko brings 20 years of formal dance training in ballet, modern, hip hop and Latin to her unique and vibrant Zumba classes. Let’s get it started!

On Saturday June 11th, the St. Marks Avenue Independent Block Association is hosting its 2nd Annual Summer Street Festival.  The festival will run from 10am – 3pm along St. Marks Avenue between Brooklyn & New York.  In what is quickly growing into an area tradition, The St. Marks Avenue Independent Block Association has brought together a variety of vendors and performers for this splendid showcase of local talent.  Performers include Christine Dixon’s reenactment of Harriet Tubman, and music by DJ Bryant Smith and the Gospel Ensemble.  Immdiately following the festival, at 3:30pm the bard will also make a cameo in Crown Heights as the Friends of Brower Park will premiere a 45-minute production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

This event is free and open to the public.  For more information contact Denene Williams at smiba11213 at gmail.com

You loved them as a kid, heck you still love them as an adult, so what better way to derail your those six-pack abs fantasies that you’ve been harboring of late than by going out and enjoying some Girl Scout Cookies.  This Saturday May 7th a local troop will be on hand at LaunchPad will be on hand from 10am – 1pm to to sell those oh so delightful indulgences.  So if you’ve been craving some thin mints, and don’t have a supplier, head over to LaunchPad on Saturday and indulge to your heart’s content.  We guarantee you’ll love ‘em: Scouts Honor:)

LaunchPad is located at 721 Franklin Avenue and the sale runs from 10am – 1pm on Saturday May 7th.

A group of Prospect Lefferts Gardens residents are doing   large neighborhood cleanup on Saturday April 30th from 11am-3pm.  The conveners are asking everyone to meet at the offices of State Senator Eric Adams’ office at 572 Midwood.  This clean-up will cover a 48-block radius, which includes Nostrand Ave.  All cleanup supplies will be provided and several businesses in the neighborhood will be donating water, juice and coffee as well as providing rest areas for the volunteers to take a break.  For more info contact Carmen: 646.420.1880.

We hope you can join us this Monday, January 10, for our second annual Short Fiction Night, featuring celebrated authors and emerging local talent.
Four short fiction writers and one storyteller will share provocative work in a range of styles. Headliner DANIELLE EVANS (Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self), who was named a literary prodigy by Salman Rushdie and The Paris Review, will be coming in from D.C. just for this event. The lineup also includes This American Life contributor DAVID ELLIS DICKERSON, flash fiction star GREG GERKE (There’s Something Wrong with Sven), and Crown Heights writers J.E. REICH & ANTHONY JONES.

Details:

FRANKLIN PARK READING SERIES — Second Annual Short Fiction Night
January 10, 8-10pm
Franklin Park Bar and Beer Garden
618 St. Johns Place, between Franklin and Classon Avenues
FREE; $4 PINTS
ONGOING SCHEDULE: Second Mondays
www.facebook.com/pages/Franklin-Park-Reading-Series/136238993071415

Our authors:

DANIELLE EVANS (Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self)
DAVID ELLIS DICKERSON (This American Life, House of Cards)
GREG GERKE (There’s Something Wrong with Sven)
J.E. REICH (Paradigm Journal)
ANTHONY JONES (The Furnace Review)

DANIELLE EVANS is the author of the short story collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. She is a graduate of Columbia University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her stories have appeared in The Paris Review, A Public Space, and The Best American Short Stories 2008 and 2010. She teaches writing and literature at American University in Washington, D.C.

DAVID ELLIS DICKERSON, the author of House of Cards: Love, Faith, and Other Social Expressions, is a comic, storyteller, crossword constructor, and ex-greeting card writer. A regular contributor to This American Life, he holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in American literature from Florida State University. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly and The Gettysburg Review, and his puzzles have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Games magazine, and Time Out New York. He lives New York.

GREG GERKE is the author of There’s Something Wrong With Sven, a book of short fiction published by Blaze Vox Books, and his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Quarterly West, Mississippi Review, Gargoyle, Rosebud, and Fourteen Hills. A Brooklyn resident, he edits very short fiction for ArtVoice and is a member of the National Society of Book Critics.

J.E. REICH is a Pittsburgh native and Emerson College graduate. She was nominated for an Emerson College EVVY Award in “Outstanding Prose: Fiction” in 2009 and a 2010 Pushcart Prize for her story “This Right Now Is a Love Story.” Her fiction has appeared in Paradigm Journal, Blast Magazine, Frostwriting, and The Emerson Review and is forthcoming in Plain China, edited by The Atlantic Monthly’s fiction editor C. Michael Curtis, and in The Best of Undergraduate Fiction. A Crown Heights resident, she is a graduate student at Brooklyn College and is working on her first novel.

ANTHONY JONES is a writer and basketball coach living in Brooklyn. His short stories have appeared in Westwind magazine and The Furnace Review. He was the 2008 recipient of the Ruth Brill Scholarship, awarded to the most outstanding fiction writer at UCLA. He draws inspiration for new stories from ex-girlfriends and television shows. Recently, he’s spent a lot of money on the arcade basketball game in the back of Franklin Park. His best score is 153.

You’ll never hear a bad word from us about Joey’s Lunchboxx after the way they showed and proved during NP’s recent Nostrand Avenue clean-up effort.  But, if I were to voice a complaint, it’s that they’re never open regularly enough to take my money.

You see, I’m one of the thousands of Crown Heights residents who’s often foolish enough to drop a dollar or three on a breakfast sandwich that I could just as easily make at home.  And sometimes, if I’m on a writing deadline and my fridge is bare, I’ll willingly drop another buck or six on a lunch sandwich that I could easily make at home for a 1/3 of the cost.  It’s during moments like these that I need Joey’s to separate this fool from his money….

After a good run this summer when I was able to pop into Joey’s for an egg & cheese sandwich in the morning and a burger in the afternoon, it seems as if Joey’s has begun rejecting mis dolares.  What gives?

Didn’t I send enough friends?  Or was it the type of friends who I sent?  Were you offended when I refused to take a bag?  If so, I didn’t mean to offend, I was only trying to save the environment?

What was it Joey?  Tell me?  Why won’t you open in the mornings to take my money?

Last year we posted an announcement for a Bike Gemach that had opened up in Crown Heights. Imagine our surprise then when we dropped by the recently opened CH Cycles and discovered that it was also the brainchild of Gemach founder Yossi Strassberg. After escorting countless neighbors and Gemach subscribers to an area bike shop and relying on this same shop to service the Gemach’s bicycles, Strassberg concluded that he had a viable business on his hands, and from there CH Bicycles was born.

Selling a full range of bicycles and accessories for children and adults, CH Bicycles is located at 537 Empire Boulevard (between Brooklyn & Kingston). The store also has a repair shop on premises capable of handling all your bike maintenance needs.

CH Cycles is open Sundays – Fridays and is closed on Saturdays as well as all Jewish Holidays. For more information on the shop email info@chcycles.com or call 718-484-0943.

On Friday August 27th, Force and Flow is providing another holistic workshop experience to Crown Heights residents.  Friday’s presentation is a soothing aural presentation entitled Sound Bath.  According to Force and Flow Founder Ophra Wolf: Sound Baths are an opportunity to immerse oneself in sound through the use of different drone instruments including Tibetan bowls, didjeridoo, Indian tambura and shruti box, North Indian bansuri, crystal bowls, tuning forks, voices, to name a few. The goal of the sound bath is to give the “bathers” the experience of being held by sonic vibration while participating in as an active listener and sound maker at times through guided voice work. Each facilitator has a background in sound healing with their respective instruments and each sound bath is unique every month.

Sound Bath takes takes place:

Friday, August 27th from 7:00-8:30 PM
Sound Bath featuring Michael Braudy
Indian and Western Violins and Vocalizations
$15, No one turned away for lack of funds!
RSVP: ophra@forceandflow.com

Force and Flow is located on 1100 Dean St. #5 (between Franklin & Bedford Avenues)

And on Sunday, September 26 from 2:00-4:00 PM Force and Flow presents:

Couples Thai Yoga Bodywork
Partners $55/Individual $30
RSVP: ophra@forceandflow.com
Come experience the pleasures and benefits of giving and receiving Thai Yoga bodywork. Learn how to stretch, release tension, and encourage relaxation in your partner and yourself simultaneously! This is a beautiful way to spend a couple of weekend hours, and a gift that you can continue giving yourself and your loved ones throughout the year. If you don’t have a partner, we can pair you up with someone.

For those who love Crown Heights as much as we do, we thought you might be interested in becoming a volunteer greeter with the Big Apple Greeter program:

If you love New York City, enjoy meeting people from around the world and would like to share with visitors a New Yorker’s New York, Big Apple Greeter has just the volunteer opportunity for you!

Many first-time and even repeat visitors to our city are intimidated by its size. Big Apple Greeter volunteers welcome visitors to all five boroughs and show them that “the big city” really can have small town charm.

• Visitors request specific neighborhoods they’d like to see, or leave the neighborhood up to the Greeter.
• A Greeter takes a visitor on an informal, unscripted walk through neighborhoods the Greeter knows well.
• Greeters share personal stories and favorite spots.
• We encourage visitors to experience diverse neighborhoods in all five (5) boroughs.
• Your knowledge of any ethnic areas and off the beaten track neighborhoods is a plus.
• Knowledge of foreign languages or American Sign Language is also helpful.

Visit the website, www.bigapplegreeter.org, for more details.  (We’ve already filled out our application)

It would also be great to see a version of this program that older high school students could participate in.  Could be a powerful way to instill a sense of community pride in the younger generation!

P.S. – Of course, we couldn’t close out this post without highlighting two already popular Crown Heights tours: Crown Heights North House Tour and the Hassidic Walking Tour of Crown Heights.

P. P. S. – As the folks at BAG explained to us, the difference between being a greeter and being a tour guide is that, in contrast to being a tour, greeters have no licensure requirement and do not necessarily cover a fixed, pre-determined route.

P. P. P. S. – If you ever have an urge to tour the neighborhood, but just can’t seem to make it out of the house, we encourage you to check out Brownstoner’s Walkabout with Montrose series, which is an exploration of architecture around Brooklyn, including a number of gems from Crown Heights North.  We’ve shouted out this fantastic series before, but just thought we’d mention it  again.

Are you a photographer, photographer-at-heart, or just love snapping pics with your camera phone?  Well we are inviting any and everyone to share pictures of “your Crown Heights.”  

We will select pictures to publish as part of our new “My Crown Heights” series.

Just send an email with the picture to nostrandpark@gmail.com.  If you want to share a little blurb about the picture, feel free.  Let us know your name or the attribution you want us to use.  And if you have a website that you want to plug, feel free to send that along as well.

Happy clicking!

NP Staff