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To extrapolate from the epigraph (below) chosen for Life Studies, this collection of short stories intends to explore the questions, "What is art?" and "To whom does it belong?" Four stories in, I have yet to find the answers here.
The lives that Susan Vreeland portrays are those that circle the periphery of Western art's great masters--Renoir, Manet, Monet, among others. And despite the characters' often dire circumstances, at least the first few of the collection are perhaps too awash in imagined awe and rarefied nostalgia to allow the reader to answer those questions in truth. Yet moments of beauty do glimmer on the page and, like a moment captured in paint and canvas, live on in the memory. Favorite quotes to come all week.

"The real question is: To whom does the meaning of the art of the past properly belong? To those who can apply it to their own lives, or to a cultural hierarchy of relic specialists?" --John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1977.

Today at 1pm, you can hear WNYC Radio's Leonard Lopate represent New York on the BBC's "contest" to find the world's most multicultural city (webstream at wnyc.org). We're up against London, Sydney, Toronto. Listeners can call in, and of course, vote by phone or email. WNYC already has a page devoted to listener's internet comments. While the program is about New York, I'd love to hear comments about Brooklyn. This is one point at which I feel my neighborhood (Carroll Gardens) doesn't represent. Thoughts?

You might have noticed we posted last week's flyer and promptly took it down. Sputnik Bar booked KRS-ONE and failed to mention that they needed both floors for the event. We're back this week and Dekker, Rich Woods, and Cosmo are at-large and in-charge. Sputnik Bar is located a block from the Classon Ave G stop, just minutes from most parts of Brooklyn, or a cheap car ride away.

I've often wondered why Brooklyn doesn't have its own magazine. When would the off-hand mentions of Brooklyn restaurants and issues in New York Magazine and Time Out get under the skin of some editorially minded entrepreneur and spawn a magazine? Like most questions I dream up, the answer already exists, this one in the form of The Brooklynite. The fledgeling mag's editor was kind enough to send me the first two issues of his magazine, which he helpfully pointed out is "the ONLY Brooklyn magazine to feature articles by a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee winner." The Brooklynite is free and distributed to Brooklyn businesses, but it is also arguably hard to find. It is, however, worth finding. Many of the articles are meaty, dealing with social or political issues facing the borough, and some deal with infinitely more pressing issues like what drink unites old Japanese people and Williamsburg hipsters? Subscriptions are $10 for two issues.