The Brooklyn Ink
Book-lyn and other stories
Brooklyn as Muse: Why So Many Writers?
“At a recent talk at Columbia University, the British novelist Zadie Smith, whose mother is Jamaican, said that it would be “really boring” if she could only write about half-Jamaican half-British girls raised in London. The same logic applies to a novel’s setting. It would be really boring if authors could roam no further than the places they have lived.”
The (not so) Little Bookshop that Could
“BookCourt is something of a visual aberration for anyone walking down the northern part of Court Street. Sandwiched between a deli, a UPS store and a Starbucks, the bookshop stands out against the background. It’s too indie to be there, only blocks away from Barnes & Noble – and too nice.”
The Kominas Rock Brooklyn Bowl
“It starts with a question: “Is he going to make it in time?” He is the bassist, the founding member of the band, Basim Usmani of the Kominas. Basim lives in Boston. His phone died on the bus to Brooklyn, a few hours ago.”
Death and Life, a Church in Wartime
“Windsor Terrace is a quiet section of Brooklyn where war isn’t far from people’s minds.
The neighborhood has sent more than its share of young men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan – in 2003 the New York Times reported that seemingly everyone in Windsor Terrace “seems to have a relative or neighbor who is actually in combat or could soon be…”
The Kominas Rock Brooklyn Bowl
“It starts with a question: “Is he going to make it in time?” He is the bassist, the founding member of the band, Basim Usmani of the Kominas. Basim lives in Boston. His phone died on the bus to Brooklyn, a few hours ago…”
Michael Moore occupies BookCourt
“Michael Moore has spent the last three weeks at Occupy Wall Street, but it was a Brooklyn bookstore he occupied Friday night. The activist filmmaker came to BookCourt, one of the oldest bookshops of the borough, to read from his new collection of short stories “Here Comes Trouble: Stories From My Life.”
And Brooklyn was clearly looking for trouble that evening…”
Praise for the Good Book (Store)
“It was hard to find a seat at the Old First Church on the corner of Carroll Street and Seventh Avenue last Saturday afternoon. People filled the benches, jealously guarding places for their latecomer friends. A man with a feather earring sat by a quiet old woman. A group of tattooed twenty-somethings laughed, as if remembering a joke.
This was not to be a religious service. And yet the gathering assumed a form of worship, if not for The Book, than for those who for 40 years had made it their business to provide all types of books – the Community Bookstore…”
