Eat Your Vegetables, Eat On The Roof

Ben Flanner and his cool parents

Dinner and a movie on the roof

Are vegetables good for you?

Of course!

Are they fun?

Fun?  And cool.

Here at the SMP Building in Long Island City, up on the roof,  Ben Flanner has created a one acre farm with a killer view.  Ben has always wanted to run a farm, according to his mom.  I don’t know if he ever imagined that farm to be on top of a former auto parts manufacturing building on Northern Boulevard but that’ s what makes his farm so cool.

We had a dinner for about fifty people followed by a screening of one minute videos created by local artists in their favorite restaurants in Queens.

This is a little film project we call the Moveable Feast.   Do you want a peek at where artists like to eat?  Check these out.

We had salad with greens from the farm and desserts made by aspiring pastry chefs from the food incubator program down the block.  I nibbled on beet greens which are a beautiful deep red color and delicious in a mixed green salad.

Locals Rule

I love being a local.

I love buying local produce, working with local artists, supporting local businesses. There is an unmistakeable sense of pride that is part and parcel of local creative industries.  It is a distinctive Queens edge that comes through.

Especially in the lettuce.

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Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

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Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

The Art Of Transforming A Landfill, One Haiku At A Time

This post first appeared on The World’s Strongest Librarian

photo by jag9889

I have a secret superpower.

It is my amazing ability to change my world into syllables.

The girl who makes me a cappuccino in the local Italian bakery tossed me an approving nod the other day when I told her every meeting I have deserves  una bella scatola di biscotti.

“You are – ” she leaned over the counter and pushed the bakery box filled with hazelnut and chocolate biscotti towards me.  ” – how you say, smart?  No, not smart.”  I kept smiling although I wasn’t sure where she was going with this and I was still waiting for my cappuccino.

“You know how to – fix things.  Like a the guy who come to clean out that stupid pipe in the back.  Madonna!  What a mess.”

I slowly started to turn on my superpowers to take control of the world.  Take a deep breath, clear my thoughts, focus my mind on the task before me.

Coo-kies and cof-fee…

I lowered my eyes and pulled out my unread New York Times and concentrated on changing her from an absent minded bakery employee  into an efficient milk steaming barista.

For a morn-ing meet-ing of…

She turned to her machines and started making the coffee.  Suddenly she slapped her forehead and said with a wide eyed look of triumph,  “Ah!  I know.  You know what you are?”

So close, my cappuccino is so close.  Must remain calm and the world will be mine.  All I need is one more line and my coffee.

“Di me, bella.  What?”  I said in my best superhero-under-duress voice.

In a conspiratorial whisper she breathed,  “You are one of -  i cognoscenti, the people who know.”

I cognoscenti.

I cog-no-scen-ti

I closed my hands around the coffee cup she handed me and I opened my eyes to meet hers.

Cookies and coffee

for a morning meeting of

i cognoscenti

Perfect.

Mission accomplished, with cookies for later, coffee for now and my morning captured forever in a spillproof haiku.  But what impressed me more was an article in the newspaper that caught my eye as I was syllabicating the world to my liking (is that really a word?).  I realized that my superpowers pale in comparison to what the deceptively simple haiku can accomplish.

What can a haiku do?

It can transform a one of the city’s largest eyesore of a landfill into “urban oasis with wildlife habitats, horseback riding, mountain biking and meandering nature trails”.  The  City’s Parks Department invited people to envision what this future Staten Island park could be like in a seventeen syllable snapshot, a haiku.  The results of their third annual Freshkills Haiku  Contest include this gem:

Somewhere underneath

The bike paths I will ride on

My old love letters

-Stevie D’Arbanville

Imagine that!  The power of i cognoscenti in seventeen syllables can change the world, one landfill at a time.

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If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

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Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

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Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

How Is Your Inner Beach Bum?

The season of flip flops, guys in shorts with baseball caps, American flags flapping wildly in the ocean breeze,  boys like Sky, with boogie boards tucked under their arms riding their bicycles to the beach and beach bums  has finally burst through the last gasp of winter. Welcome summer!  Welcome to Rockaway Beach!

My summer checklist

Outdoor grill working?   Check.

Outdoor shower stocked with towels?  Check.

Patio furniture hosed down?  Check.

Fresh supply of sunblock?  Check.

Summer in Rockaway Beach is not a season.  It is the point of the exclamation ending the sentence, “Surf’s up!”  It is the sand in your shoes that will not go away.  It is  “Margaritaville” cued up as your personal soundtrack.

Did I mention pride?
Locals are swimming in it.

I must confess that Seth and I started our weekend in Manhattan at a Ford dealership on the west side of Manhattan. It is hard to believe but we had a great experience mostly because Todd Nighe, the guy in the picture next to Seth, really took care of us. And you know what? Great service like this just made us lifetime Ford Explorer fans. I feel the same way about my dentist, the woman who cuts my hair and the bank representative who does our refinancing.

Weekend of Gay Honkers

We spent a few early morning hours by the water waiting for our car to be serviced and were startled out of our caffeinated stupor by a sudden flock of geese landing in front of us.

“Honkkkkk!” yelled one of them swimming towards us.

“Honkkkkk!” replied the other one swimming away from us.

Rinse and repeat.

This went on for a while. “They must be mates.” said Seth. “Or they’re flirting with each other.”

I peered at their coloring and said, “Those are males, that’s why they’re honking at each other. Females have different colored feathers and they are much better behaved.”

Seth shook his head. “Those two look the same to me, ” he listened to them squawking across the water and said, “They must be gay honkers.”

Gay honkers.

With that image fixed forever in my mind’s eye, clearly, it was time to get out of Manhattan and back into the Rockaways.  I simply cannot take him anywhere anymore.

This first weekend on the beach swelled with high numbers of beachlovers, surfers and boogy boarders. Rockaway Beach shone like seaglass.  Hey, we are a beach town nestled in the borough of Queens,  really not far at all from Manhattan.  Closer than you think.  Imagine, a New York City beach!

Here’s how to make sure your inner beach bum rocks:

Wear sunblock

Bring a beach book

Stroll down the boardwalk and people watch

Have a Blue Island Coffee or a Rockaway Taco

Take a surfing lesson

Still here after the lifeguards have gone?  Check out the Bungalow Bar for a great meal by the water

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

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Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

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Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

The Zen Of Faux Pas: Six Ways To Turn A Mistake Around

photo by Something Cheeky

Does this happen to you?

You are at some important fancy schmancy place with all kinds of people you need to impress and what do you do?  That’s right, you put your Louboutin  right in your mouth and say something that offends the person you are talking to.

You are sitting with someone in a meeting and you immediately forget his name, mispronounce it and can’t recall what his title is.

You are about to introduce someone on stage to a large audience of very smart, informed people and you have left your notes at home on the kitchen table.  With your reading glasses.

Mon petit, you are about to commit le faux pas.

I am learning to love when this happens to me.  Of course, I have to get over the “Mon Dieu! How could I have been so stupid!” and stop beating myself up.  Since this does occur with increasing and alarming frequencey, I have no choice but to get over it quickly and find a path of grace out of the mess I have made.

This is what I do.  A lot.

Admit it

“Boy, did I make a big mistake.”  It gets easier the more you say it.  Owning the blame also allows you to own the attention.  As Madonna says,  “There is no such thing as bad publicity.”  Work the attention but first admit you goofed up.

Apologize

Josh, the World’s Strongest Librarian, advises people to apologize as much as you need to, then move on.  Guilt does nobody any good.

Ask for help

This is an amazing way to turn the tides.  People are essentially wired to share information and to be helpful to underdogs.  You will learn exactly what you need to do to get back on track and they will feel like part of the solution.

Advertise your blooper

People like reading stories about how someone overcame great challenges and succeeded, or what you can learn from someone’s actual experience.  You can turn your mistake into a human interest story for others to gain insights from.

Activate your sense of humor

I thought Penelope Trunk was hilarious when she said she was gifted with donkeys.  You will be a more lovable person to forgive if you are able to laugh at yourself.

Allow yourself to be forgiven

Forgiveness is an awesome thing, whether you forgive yourself or someone else.  Alisa Bowman issues a forgiveness challenge, a marital sin actually, which I think is kind of cool and something to aspire to in a marriage.

Human nature is consistently counterintuitive.  What you think is the end of the world can turn out to be the biggest opportunity of your life.  I personally think people actually sympathize with flaws and weaknesses.  It reinforces our unmistakeable talent for screwing things up no matter how hard we try not to.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

What Twitter Can Do For Three Comics in Astoria

This sounds like one of those Catskill comedian jokes but I swear this actually happened.

I walked into the Quinn Funeral Home on Steinway Street in Astoria to meet a group of local artists. As I entered the large lobby that was stylistically embalmed in the late sixties, a young man smiled sympathetically at me and offered me a box of Kleenex.

“I’m not here for a service, I’m here for a Queens Art Express meeting.”

“Ah, fourth floor, just past Weight Watchers.”

On the fourth floor, about twenty people were talking about their art, their upcoming shows and exhibitions. There were some theatre folk, several gallery owners, a photographer who lives in a carriage house in Long Island City, three comics from Astoria and a baby.

These three guys do their performances in unexpected places. Their living room, streets, the backs of bars. Marketing their events will take some creative thinking. I am happy to hear they already have a strong presence in places like Twitter and Facebook.

Meeting face to face is, in my experience, the only way to create local universes and to “hasten serendipity”. Other means exist to further the connection and thankfully, they are becoming more intuitive for people like me.

The one tool I am working on now to master is Twitter. It can be a powerful piece of your social media marketing if you do things simply and logically.

I found these Twitter tips by Robin Stephenson to be really do able and helpful.

Here’s one of her tips that I think my Astoria group could really benefit from:

” Be Authentic: If your organization puts out a couple of tweets a day of your own content with nothing more, Twitter is probably not working for you. People want to know that behind the curtain a real person exists who authentically cares about your cause. Don’t assign Twitter to someone in your organization that doesn’t have an interest in using it effectively. The community can feel lack of interest. If you are having an office celebration or having an interesting event, share it with a twit pic. If you are reading interesting news articles around your issue, be the hub of information and share. Don’t be afraid to put out the occasional silly tweet that will make your followers laugh or an inspiring quote that makes people think.”

Why couldn’t these three funny guys create some kind of cool performance on Twitter itself? That would be an unexpected blast of serendipity, don’t you think?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?