Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Category: Brooklyn

  • Chick Corea Turns 75

    I guess he turned 75 this summer, but he’s celebrating by doing 8 weeks at the Blue Note in NYC with more than a dozen different bands. Last night we saw one of them.

    It was the classic “man we need to do this more often” night. My wife got tickets to the Miles Davis tribute band, knowing that I’m a Miles fan.

    The Blue Note is small and they basically pack in as many people as the fire marshal allows. It’s not particularly comfortable, but you are 10 feet away from jazz legends.

    BlueNote

    Chick is in the background, Kenny Garrett is playing soprano sax, Mike Stern on guitar and Marcus Miller is playing base. All played with Miles in the 80s. Wallace Roney (not pictured) played trumpet. He studied with Miles and plays just like him. And on drums was Brian Blade. He didn’t play with Miles, but he plays with Wayne Shorter who played with Miles.

    It was a simply incredible band.

  • Athletes in Brooklyn

    The NY Times has an article about the Brooklyn Nets and how most of them are living in Brooklyn, not Manhattan.

    “It’s different,” said Luis Scola, a forward from Argentina whose family has a three-bedroom rental in Carroll Gardens. “You walk places. We’re riding our bikes a lot. It’s a place with real personality.”

    Scola has also discovered some hard truths about life in Brooklyn — including its byzantine parking rules. Scola has one spot in the garage at his building. The problem is that he brought two cars. He figured he would stash his second vehicle, a minivan, on the street somewhere. How difficult could parking be?

    Two cars? What was he thinking?

    Less than a week after arriving, Scola found himself camped out behind the wheel of his minivan as he waited for a space to open. He waited some more. And then he made a decision.

    “I’m selling it,” he said.

  • Trump = Zoltar

  • Heard the Explosion, Went to the Deli

    An amusing round-up from BuzzFeed of New Yorker tweets following the Chelsea Flatiron bombing…

    https://twitter.com/kashanacauley/status/777335471181590529

    https://twitter.com/BobbyBigWheel/status/777900212358619136

    He elaborates…

    https://twitter.com/BobbyBigWheel/status/778043278474215424

  • Roots and Shoots

    Jane Goodall has an organization in 130 called Roots and Shoots that encourages kids to come up with practical community ideas for conservation. She recently had an event in NYC and my daughter and some friends got to represent their school.

    They got to meet Jane, discuss their idea and hear her speak.

    Not your average Saturday…

    20160917_122110

  • Remembering

    Time passes. The Packers start their season today. My brother is doing a full Ironman triathlon today.

    It’s been 15 years…

  • Drone Racing

    I’ve mentioned Governors Island before (four years ago, actually). It was once a Coast Guard installation and later the NYFD used the abandoned buildings for fire training. Bloomberg cleaned it up and turned it into a tourist destination.

    I took Victoria over on the ferry last Sunday. Her usual favorites are mini golf:

    20160807_111850

    and walking the goats:

    20160807_120539

    This time, near the farm we saw drone racing. Turns out it was the national drone racing championships.

    We didn’t stay long, there were goats to walk, but damn those things were fast. You will have to click to enlarge and then you’ll barely see one in the upper right:

    20160807_114409

  • You’re The Guy Paving

    I love Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee series. The latest episode has Lorne Michaels, long time producer of Saturday Night Live (assuming that explanation was superfluous). Given that Lorne isn’t a comedian, it may not be the funniest episode, but it has great quotes:

    …his grandfather came to America, and was told the streets were paved with gold. And when he got to America he found out three things:

    1) The streets are not paved with gold

    2) The streets are not paved

    3) He’s gonna be the guy paving them

    And I think anything you start, you’re in that position

    And a classic from a total New Yorker:

    There’s a thing that happens when you grow up in a city like Toronto. People are always saying things like, “I think the Italian food here is as good as any restaurant in New York”. And I say, “You know where they don’t say that?… (Jerry laughs) is in New York”

    Just watch it. A great car and cameos from Jimmy Fallon and Julia Louis-Dreyfus…

  • Roll Me Some Ice Cream

    One of many “things” that I wasn’t aware of. Apparently this is a Thai creation that is hugely popular in NYC.

    It’s hard to describe. You order ice cream with certain flavors. Say “oreo banana, caramel”. They take a couple Oreos and a small part of banana and some caramel and put it on this large round metal pan. This pan is apparently hyper cooled (-23 degrees?). Then they pour cream on top of it. While the cream is freezing they super chop the Oreo/banana (or whatever). They kind of scoop it together to get it all the right consistency and then they spread it super thin across the pan.

    At this point they roll it. You then have five rolled cylinders and they dump toppings on top. This is from a Manhattan place that apparently has lines around the block.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/5bDh2YmiDT/

    There’s a new place in Brooklyn that does this and we went last weekend. Lines were not around the block but it was excellent.

    blossom

  • Happy Belated Birthday

    The Brooklyn Bridge turned 133 years old yesterday.

    “Babylon had her hanging gardens, Egypt her pyramid, Athens her Acropolis, Rome her Athenaeum; so Brooklyn has her bridge,” read a sign in a Brooklyn shop window on the day of the Brooklyn Bridge’s opening to the public on on May 24, 1883

    The link has some great old photos and even a video (well, film) from Thomas Edison in 1899. This picture has always been a classic: