Review: Van Leeuwen - Boerum Hill Brooklyn - New Mexico Mocha

Van Leeuwen is best known throughout the city as the operation dispensing haute ice cream and (attempted) well-crafted espresso via bright yellow trucks.  But they also maintain two brick-and-mortar stores in Brooklyn, one in the increasingly hip Polish enclave of  Greenpoint and one on the edge of the brownstone neighborhood of Boerum Hill near Cobble Hill.  

The Boerum Hill store on Bergen off Smith is conveniently located next to the F/G stop.  The store is naturally well-lit, but not overly bright - the front being almost entirely glass, including the door, with thin lead borders around the panes.  The whole effect is that of being in a neighborhood in Amsterdam or East London.  The cafe itself is rather small, with tables to the left upon entry and the espresso bar and ice cream area to the right.  The baristas are young, what passes as edgy these days, and don't really belong in the neighborhood that has increasingly become home of the organic white affluent Brooklyn parent.  Ordinarily, I drink espresso. But for some reason - maybe the shift in seasons - I opted for a drink called a New Mexican Mocha. 

Brooklyn Book Festival - 9/23/12 - Joyce Carol Oates, et al

One of the premier readings/panel events at the 2012 Brooklyn Book Festival, consisted of "American Masters" Bernice L. McFadden, Joyce Carol Oates and Colson Whitehead.  As expected, the primary draw was the literary star Joyce Carol Oates.  The event took place within the cavernous confines of St. Ann's Church, and the audience filled most of the pews, including the balcony and lower sides.

Repurposing at Swoon's "Pearly's Beauty Shop"

Saturday night I attended a party/event in LIC called "Pearly's Beauty Salon" produced by the street artist Swoon.  A number of artists, including Swoon herself, were enlisted to provide various beauty services - some more traditionally qualified than others in their particular "beauty" area. The event also had basement with a DJ that attracted various grooving partygoers - many of them artists and eurotrash, although not at the same time.  Twice outside during the night, women dressed in semi-burlesque 18th C. French aristocratic get-up performed acrobatics on silk ropes, twirling softly and, at times, erotically, in mid-air between and through each other.  The party was a benefit for the space it was in, with proceeds to be used to help convert, or, as the narrative recited - to "repurpose" the space into an arts and performance center.

Along the theme of "repurposing", one of the artists, who was adhering bindi's to the foreheads of lovely attendees, was disseminating pamphlets on "repurposing."