The War Comes Home
Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Brooklynite Luis Carlos Montalvan, a veteran of the Iraq War who came with Philip Napoli to see our exhibit In Our Own Words: Portraits of Brooklyn Vietnam Veterans. Mr. Montalvan's assistance dog Tuesday was a wonderful visitor to the museum! Here Luis Carlos Montalvan and Aaron Glantz, author of The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans speak with Laura Flanders:
Kent Ave Bike Lane
While not a solution to the Kent Ave Bike Lane Debate, this is a good idea:
Narrative Medicine
While reading on the train this morning, I saw an ad in The New Yorker for a Master of Science in Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University: enhance your 'witnessing' skills as applied to providing quality healthcare Doctors and nurses are picking up deep-listening skills from the Columbia Oral Research Office! What a wonderful thing, and much-needed training for many of the medical professionals I've encountered.
Abandoned Brooklyn
Brooklyn photographer Nathan Kensinger has a show opening on January 24th at Union Docs, a documentary arts collaborative in Williamsburg. He photographs abandoned industrial spaces in Brooklyn, getting into those haunted spaces in your neighborhood you've always been curious about.
The Impact of Listening and Being Heard
I just rediscovered this video on Channel Thirteen's website of a panel we hosted here at BHS in conjunction with the exhibit In Our Own Words: Portraits of Brooklyn Vietnam Veterans:
Student Exhibit in Park Slope
We worked with these students on the oral history elements of their project (stay tuned to hear some of their interviews on our website). They're a great group and I can't wait to see their exhibit!
Jay-Z & Santogold: Brooklyn (Go Hard)!
Apparently Kanye West and Jay-Z are as obsessed as I am with Santogold & Diplo's mixtape Top Ranking - as it inspired this awesome track from the new Notorious B.I.G. biopic. (Thanks, Peter!) Jay-Z on iLike - Get updates inside iTunes
Real World: Brooklyn
MTV's Real World: Brooklyn premiered last night. I haven't seen the show since the 1990s and although I admit to being curious about their Red Hook habitat, I think reading the Recaps on Gawker will suffice: Every time they mentioned Brooklyn or played a song about Brooklyn they used, well, a black male chorus of dudes shouting "Brooklyn!!" Which is all well and good, that kind of Bed-Stuy braggadocio is certainly a significant part of popular, visible Brooklyn culture. But I hope they switch it up sometimes. To like a bunch of Lubevitch from Midwood singing "Brooklyn!" or some old Polish…
Moving the Astroland Rocket
Oh wow. An icon of Coney Island and nostalgic symbol of enthusiasm for the Space Age, the 14,000 lb Astroland Rocket was moved today... To Where? We don't know yet. video courtesy of magicalthemeparks on YouTube
Face of Brooklyn
Interpreting Brooklyn artist Nora Herting's project Face of Brooklyn is nearly completed!
Check out her amazing portraits of Brooklynites.
Polar Bears for Coney Island
On New Year's Day, when the Polar Bears take their annual chilly swim in the Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island, they were joined by Reverend Billy (of the Church of Stop Shopping), Lola Staar and others hoping to Save Coney Island as we know it.
Happy New Year!
Something lovely for the New Year from Brooklyn Photographer Etienne Frossard:
Vanity Fair: Oral History of the Bush White House
I don't think I can bring myself to read this just yet but Vanity Fair just published Farewell to All That: An Oral History of the Bush White House which is bound to be interesting if you can stomach it.
Bowery Boys Blog Brooklyn Too
The Bowery Boys gave us a shout out on their blog today in a post about Mayor George Hall. They admit to being a little Manhattan-centric so cheers for the Brooklyn post! And I just listened to their fun podcast about Green-Wood Cemetery.
Interestingly, one of the first people we interviewed when our Oral History Program began in 2006 was Charles Hamm whose grandfather commissioned the statue of Minerva who stands in Green-Wood Cemetery keeping watch on the Statue of Liberty.
Zinn at Studs Terkel's Memorial
Voices of Rwanda
Voices of Rwanda documents the testimony of survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Oral histories are a very powerful tool in the protection of human rights.
After the Forgetting
WWII Army Nurse
This is neat: a local paper in Michigan posted an oral history interview (transcript and audio) with Imojean Ketter who served overseas during WWII as an Army Nurse. What a great project for local papers. I do know that the role of the woman has changed over the years. We are recognized as someone that can contribute. I think that now that we see a woman running for president and vice-president, not long ago that wouldn't have happened so I'm sure that women in the military now have not only changed the military but have changed people's ideas of what women can do.…