Unfortunately for Homer, Perkins is published by his main competitor; that firm is owned and run by a relative of Perkins’s. Paul has made the study of Perkins’s work, and to some extent her life, the main object of his avocation, and he knows, and so do we, and so does most of the interested public (thanks to Ida’s unquenchable forthrightness”), that Perkins has had affairs with both publishers, and various others, among and between her four marriages.

The early chapters set the stage, describing the world of mid-twentieth century publishing before (and during) the arrival of the Internet and the rise of on-line retailers like the bookseller Galassi calls Medusa. It’s a rather self-important world, and Galassi’s description is reminiscent of the world of Beerbohm’s “Zuleika Dobson” without, alas, the illustrations. The writing throughout is beautiful, as one would expect from a publisher and poet. Here’s Galassi’s description of Stern’s editorial staff, “ a raggle-taggle gatherum of talented misfits” (note the fun that Galassi has naming his characters):

portly Paddy Femor, an exceptionally gifted editor whose perfectionism made it nearly impossible for him to let go of the manuscripts he noodled over, sometimes for years; cadaverous Elsa Pogorsky, known around the office as Morticia, invariably dressed in black from head to toe and forever scowling through forbidding black glasses . . . ; crotchety, heart-of-gold copy chief Esperanza Esparza, renowned for her way with a red pencil, who seemed never to leave her desk surrounded by its array of scraggly avocado and spider plants that leached all the available light from her grimy office window.

Each chapter in the middle third of the book begins with a set piece – a farm in upstate NY, the Frankfurt book fair – they’re too good to be described as filler, and are interesting as an insider’s top-level description of the book business and the work of researching and, yes, writing a literary biography. Interested lawyers will note that Galassi does not include any depiction of publishers talking to each other or other merchants about a response to internet sales or publishing, though he does describe the general gnashing of teeth over mergers that sublimated most publishers into large conglomerates. The section also sets the reader, and Paul, up for the final third, a literary mystery. The heart of the story is here, told in many wonderful pages, not least of them Ida Perkins’s final poems, collected in a book to be called Mnemosyne; in them the “goddess of memory, the mother of the Muses was speaking the poems, remembering.” The mystery is easy to solve, for the reader who’s paying attention, but Galassi leaves the reader with many questions to ponder.

It may be that physical books are an anachronism, and “Muse” has an elegiac air, but the transition will be a long one and there are still apartments and houses filled with books and Common Readers, as  Galassi calls us, who happily keep reading books. If you’re one of them, you’ll enjoy curling up with “Muse” for a happy afternoon. If you’re not, read “Muse” anyway, because you’ll get a telling and vivid description of a particular kind of life, and what more can we ask of fiction?

Have a book you want me to know about? Email me at asbowie@gmail.com. I also blog about metrics at asbowie.blogspot.com.

Actor/Brooklyn Heights (technically/really Boerum Hill but we’re on a roll) resident Ethan Hawke says that Brooklyn is what Manhattan used to be in a Manhattan Magazine profile.

Page Six quotes the actor as saying, “The whole city’s changing, while Brooklyn feels to me the way New York was a while ago.” (Oddly this quote is not included in Manhattan Magazine’s digital version of the story.)

Hawke stars in “Predestination”, the film adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s “-All You Zombies-”, opening January 9.

The actor also recently worked on the biopic about jazz legend Chet Baker called Born to be Blue.

“@PageSix: Longtime Manhattan resident Ethan Hawke made the leap to Brooklyn Heights http://t.co/hr3qMQ5B18” very alternative, bk heights

— Rachel Jacoby Zoldan (@rjacoby13) January 2, 2015

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/72489

Watch the Circle, Square, Moose trailer

Greenlight Bookstore is located at 686 Fulton Street at South Portland Street.

Here’s Brooklyn Heights resident Dunham soaking herself.

Not everyone is greeting this publicity stunt – meant to raise funds for ALS – with sunshine and lollipops. Take this piece from Vice:

There are a lot of things wrong with the Ice Bucket Challenge, but most the annoying is that it’s basically narcissism masked as altruism. By the time the summer heat cools off and ice water no longer feels refreshing, people will have completely forgotten about ALS. It’s trendy to pretend that we care, but eventually, those trends fade away.

This is the crux of millennial “hashtag activism,” where instead of actually doing something, you can just pretend like you’re doing something by posting things all over your Facebook. Like the Ice Bucket Challenge, good causes end up being a collective of social media naval gazing. We reflected on our favorite social-movements-gone-viral and found out what happened to them after the fell off our Twitter feeds. Because, yes, social problems continue even after you stop hashtagging them.

Novelist and Brooklyn Heights resident Elizabeth Gaffney was at the Brooklyn Historical Society yesterday evening to read from her second novel, When the World Was Young, on the date of its publication by Random House. She read two segments of the novel. The first told how a physician forced to give up her career because of injuries, both physical and emotional, suffered because of an auto accident in which her fiance, another physician, was killed, was courted by and married an old friend from her childhood and youth. Ms. Gaffney concluded this segment by saying, “So began a very bad marriage.” The second was from the 1950s youth of that couple’s daughter, Wally Baker, the novel’s protagonist, and told of her going to the St. George Hotel pool with a friend, Ham, who was black, and of the cicerone who guarded the pool entrance directing Ham to the “colored changing area.”

Following the readings, Ms. Gaffney was joined by Marcia Ely, BHS’s Vice President for External Affairs and Programs (on left in photo) for a discussion. Ms. Gaffney did extensive research for her novel at BHS, using its library and archives. Asked what were the most interesting materials she came across in her research, the author said she found maps of Brooklyn Heights and nearby neighborhoods in which each block was coded according to the number of black people who lived there. These maps were to facilitate banks’ practice of “redlining”; that is, to deny mortgages in places where there was a majority of black residents, and to increase rates in others that were seen to be likely to become majority black.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/69173

Writer Emily Gould has upset Brooklyn Heights resident Lena Dunham. Apparently the author of the new book Friendship has been using an anecdote about the “Girls” star and her boyfriend/rock star Jack Antonoff engaging in “PDA” at a party here recently. This resulted in Dunham reportedly (and rightly) direct messaging the author saying “you fully suck”.

Gould now says she’s sorry.

Huffington Post: “I really wish that none of it had ever happened,” she told HuffPost Live’s Ricky Camilleri. “I’m a big fan of hers. I really am and I always have been. It was really disappointing to me that she felt like, because I had been outspoken in interviews about being jealous of her, she felt like she couldn’t support my book. I feel really hurt by it.”

The anecdote in question detailed the 28-year-old Dunham engaging in “elaborate PDA” with her musician boyfriend, Jack Antonoff. While Gould admitted that if she was in her shoes, she may not’ve “behaved any differently,” she still hoped for more from the actress.

Silly Millennials! This is hardly a good show biz feud. Take it from the masters Gore Vidal and Brooklyn Heights legend Norman Mailer. Ladies, this is how it’s done:

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/68841

Jack Antonoff of fun. who is currently enjoying success with his latest project Bleachers, talks to Vulture about what he’s been up to lately. Part of the interview includes a passage about how he and girlfriend Lena Dunham have recently traded up here in Brooklyn Heights:

Vulture: It took a full year to close on his new apartment in Brooklyn Heights with Lena Dunham. “If you’d told me that when we bought it, I would have just exploded, like my head would have fallen off,” he says. They’d been looking to upgrade for a while since Dunham’s apartment felt too small for two people with a lot of stuff, plus a dog. Also, their neighbors were smokers, so their apartment always smelled. And, most irksome to Antonoff, the building was so old they only had two-pronged outlets, which meant they couldn’t plug in electronics that had three prongs, which is basically all modern electronics. The new place will have a studio for Antonoff and an office for Dunham, and hopefully a Victorian doghouse for their rescue dog, Lamby.

He also adds that he was kidding around about being on a “double date” with the first family:

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/68674

Brooklyn Heights resident/member of fun. Jack Antonoff’s side project, Bleachers, dropped a new music video this week. The clip for “I Wanna Get Better” was directed by his girlfriend and fellow Brooklyn Heights resident/former Mr. Video III staffer/’Girls’ star Lena Dunham.

Radio.com News: The clip has Antonoff showing off his acting chops (and his pjs) as he tries to get his girlfriend to stay. “I’ll make you an espresso,” he pleads. But alas, she’s not interested in caffeine.

The break-up leads us into Antonoff’s day, which follows him through coffee spills and therapy sessions with patients that include Retta from Parks and Recreation and the bleached blond girl on the single’s cover singing his lyrics back at him. And of course, talking about take your daughter to work day, power clashing and abortion dogs.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/66429

Brooklyn Heights resident/Girls creator and star Lena Dunham is the subject of the cover story in Vogue Magazine. In the piece we learn that her boyfriend, rock star Jack Antonoff of the band fun., has moved in with her. And while she spends several weeks each year in Los Angeles working on Girls post-production, she tells the magazine that she does not feel at home there and if she ever does, “someone should really worry about me.”

So what’s her Brooklyn Heights apartment like? Read on:

Vogue: Dunham’s apartment is quirky, well appointed, and—considering that she sits at the center of one of the most coveted television-comedy enterprises today—concertedly unostentatious. There’s a small galley kitchen, hung with a fading schoolhouse photograph of her grandmother in Connecticut and pepped up with a hot-pink Hello Kitty microwave. The dining area comprises a square four-person table. In the living room—large enough to fit a big TV, a couch, a desk, some shelves—she has hung work by her family and friends: Dunham’s mother, Laurie Simmons, is an acclaimed artist best known for her photographs of miniature, dioramic domestic scenes, while her father, Carroll Dunham, is a painter celebrated for his vibrant biomorphic abstractions and top-hatted figures with phalluses for noses. (More recently, he has been exploring the female anatomy; his daughter calls the abstract drawing in the dining area “the only work of his that I could hang without people being like, ‘So, what’s the deal with that penis on your wall?’ ”)

Nearby, Dunham has arranged what she refers to as her “salon wall,” a small selection of professional-type artifacts: fan letters from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks; a birthday drawing from the New Yorker cartoonist and Girls producer Bruce Eric Kaplan; a portrait of Zosia Mamet by Jemima Kirke; and other cherished works. Much of the furniture in the apartment Dunham took from the Girls set.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/65113

After her Brooklyn Heights home was broken into earlier this month, it was revealed that actress Keri Russell had separated from her husband Shane Deary. Now comes word that she’s been spotted in the neighborhood with her co-star in The Americans Matthew Rhys:

People: Russell and Rhys, 39, were seen walking around her Brooklyn Heights neighborhood a few days before Christmas, shopping and looking at furniture on the street.

“They looked very much like a couple,” a source tells PEOPLE. “They were laughing and walking closely together.”

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/64627

The Mike and Duane Show, based out of a co-ed private school in Chicago, is known for their annual wacky takeoffs of video classics. Their latest release is a version of the Beastie Boys’ legendary video ‘Sabotage’ featuring librarians.

Talk about citizens saving libraries – this video is already going viral and it makes librarians look AWESOME.

Of course there’s the obvious Brooklyn Heights connection – the late Adam “MCA” Yauch grew up here and Mike D. attended St. Ann’s School.

However, there’s one more very subtle Brooklyn Heights connection in the video – can you name what it is?

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/61880

Brooklyn Heights resident/actress Lena Dunham appeared at a fundraiser for NYC comptroller candidate Scott Stringer at the Maritime Hotel Tuesday night. Dunham’s friend and ‘Girls’ guest star Audrey Gelman is the spokesperson for the campaign. Dunham is also supporting Christine Quinn for mayor.

Dunham’s comment about gentrification at the Young New York for Stringer event set off some interesting Twitter comments between Capital New York’s Azi Paybarah, the New York Daily News’ Josh Greenman and web producer Brian Van Nieuwenhoven. (Her actual quote is in the video above.)

.@lenadunham & @joshrobin's hand pic.twitter.com/7SO0TBdolV

— Azi Paybarah (@Azi) August 7, 2013

.@lenadunham & @stringer2013 pic.twitter.com/Mrdm4lp8r8

— Azi Paybarah (@Azi) August 7, 2013

Tweets about “lena dunham -jbarro”

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/61565

DUMBO resident/actor/80s icon Fisher Stevens is featured in a DNAInfo article today. In it, he reveals that he’ll be moving out of the neighborhood soon.

He says about the area, “To be honest, some of it’s better and some of it’s worse. I love Citi Bikes, but they seem to be on every corner in DUMBO now and Bloomberg is kind of — he’s just made one of the main thoroughfares a two-way, so it’s opened up a lot of traffic. It’s packed. When I moved there, it was just beginning to get crowded, but now it’s pretty packed.”

Stevens says he spends a lot of time in Brooklyn Heights:

DNAInfo: Well, I live off Brooklyn Heights, I go to Brooklyn Heights too. The places I love are in Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO. I love a bar called Jack the Horse. That’s at kind of the beginning of Brooklyn Heights. I love a restaurant called Henry’s End in Brooklyn Heights — classic, amazing food. I don’t eat much meat, but it’s wild game so the elk is spectacular. Even though you’re in Brooklyn, you feel like you’re in Jackson Hole. And then of course, I go to eat pizza at Grimaldi’s and Juliana’s — I kind of alternate now that there’s pizza wars in my neighborhood. I love them both.

And then the best sandwich in New York, I think is in DUMBO. It’s at a place called Almondine. It’s a French bakery and it was really wiped out — a lot of places were hit bad during Sandy, but now it’s coming back strong. It’s a vegetarian sandwich that’s just off the charts. It’s the bread that’s so good.

And then I love Vinegar Hill — I eat dinner there a lot.

Stevens will be a judge at the short film festival Tropfest, June 22 in Prospect Park.

Photo: DNAInfo

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/60205

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/59862

BHB reader/Instagram user “condimented” sends us this dispatch and photo regarding Adam Yauch Park:

[Someone stole stuff] from the Adam Yauch memorial in the playground. weirdly, they took the photo and the candle glass, but left the frame and the wax.

The memorial was added the weekend of the park’s dedication to the Beastie Boy, who grew up in Brooklyn Heights. He died of cancer in 2012. The shrine included a 1995 photo of Yauch, a devout Buddhist, and the Dalai Lama taken in Boston:

The memorial as it was (photo via KRRB)

Yauch’s fellow Beastie Boy, Adam “Ad-Roc” Horovitz, recently auctioned off limited edition Beastie Boys watches to benefit the park. They’ve since sold out but donations for the park’s upkeep can be made here.

And while Adam Yauch Park is still a great place for kids to play, it is also becoming, like Jim Morrison’s grave at Pére-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, a destination for Beastie’s fans from around to world to pay their respects as these social media posts attest:

Some wanker at Adam Yauch Park #MCA twitter.com/Chris_Quartly/…

— Chris Quartly (@Chris_Quartly) May 28, 2013

Made it to Adam Yauch Park in Brooklyn. #beastieboys #mca #adamyauchpark #adamyauch #adrock #miked… instagram.com/p/ZyhZNfLh_J/

— Corduroy Paco (@CorduroyPaco) May 26, 2013

Paying respect at Adam Yauch Park. instagram.com/p/Zs9pvwLIsW/

— Marc Weidenbaum (@disquiet) May 24, 2013

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/59588

Juno with Kate, Paddington, Winnie,and Ballo

When Brooklyn Bridge Animal Welfare Coalition took in a pregnant cat who appeared  after Hurricane Sandy, the organization had no idea that she would become a TV star.

Juno gave birth to three of her own kittens, and then the magnanimous mom also adopted an orphan kitten, nursing her along with her own babies, who are now all of adoptable age and who will be featured at this Sunday’s Maddie’s Pet Adoption Days free adoption event in Union Square.

Also attending the event will be an Animal Planet television crew, filming the final episode of a Too Cute series that will feature Juno and her babies, focusing on the day that they get adopted and get to go to their forever home.

“She was just an amazing mother to her own kittens,” BBAWC’s Anne Levin said of Juno. “She’s incredibly sweet and good-natured.”

“In February we got a call from Animal Care and Control—not everyone will take orphan bottle babies, and these were particularly sad cases, and Juno was just so sweet and affectionate towards them.”

Juno has been fostered in Brooklyn Heights since she was taken in last fall, and she and the four kittens—three of her own and one she “adopted”–have been filmed every couple of weeks since they were born.

Levin doesn’t know exactly when the Juno episodes will air. Animal Planet airs in Brooklyn Heights on TWC channels 86 and 786 and FiOS 130/1565.

Click here for more photos of Juno and her babies here, and here to see other cats and kittens available for adoption from BBAWC.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/59554

Following May 3rd’s ceremony in Brooklyn Heights dedicating the newly named Adam Yauch Park in honor of the late Beastie Boy, the childhood Heights’ resident will now be acknowledged with a special tribute at the 2013 Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival. Yauch, a.k.a. MCA, lost his battle with cancer in May 2012, at age 47.

Wes Jackson, executive director of the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, tells ABC News, “We reached out to (bandmate) Ad Rock right after MCA passed last year and asked if there was anything we could do to help celebrate the life of his brother. It was so soon that we were hesitant to even reach out. We wanted to give them space and time.”

But now, Jackson says, “We couldn’t go another year without taking time out to honor what MCA did for our culture and our music.” Included in the tribute will be a moment of silence in Yauch’s memory.

The ninth annual festival, July 10-13 around the borough, will feature headline sets from Redman, EPMD and Pusha T. Established in 2005, it is designed to showcase “the positive aspects of hip-hop culture by highlighting its legacy as an agent of artistic progression, community building and social change,” according to the festival website. In addition to musical performances, it offers panel discussions, exhibitions, parties, an awards show and a family-friendly block party.

The festival kicks off July 10 with its Bodega Education Initiative (BEI), a political forum at The Brooklyn Historical Society in Brooklyn Heights.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/59034

“The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ is filming in DUMBO this week, as the neighborhood was taken over by police cars, the “Midtown bus,” crowds of extras and all sorts of whacko action.

McBrooklyn offers pics, including lead Andrew Garfield—and Brooklyn Heights’ own Paul Giamatti, who plays villain “The Rhino.” In the film, his alter ego is Russian thug Aleksei Sytsevich, complete with tattoos on his neck and forehead.

RELATED: Spiderman Shoots In DUMBO [VIDEO]

Also in the flick: Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Jamie Foxx as Electro and Sally Field as Aunt Mary. (Photo: MK Metz)

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/58906

BHB sources claim that the Palmetto Playground will officially be renamed the Adam Yauch Playground this week. A ceremony to usher in the new name will reportedly be held this Friday May 3.

Yauch, who grew up in Brooklyn Heights before achieving fame as a member of the Beastie Boys died on May 4, 2012 of cancer. Yauch played at Palmetto while growing up in the neighborhood.

Last year BHB pal/King of All Rock Journos Who Went to St. Ann’s Sasha Frere-Jones remembered Yauch in a New Yorker piece:

New Yorker: I first met Adam Yauch in 1982, in Brooklyn, when I was fifteen. I was sitting on the red steps in the lobby of St. Ann’s, where I was a sophomore in high school. His bandmate, Michael Diamond, was a grade ahead of me. Occasionally Mike and I would talk about records and argue. We talked about doing a newsletter, but that was also just talk. His hardcore band, the Beastie Boys, was getting bigger in the very small pond of downtown Manhattan. (In the nineteen-eighties, folks didn’t play rock music in Brooklyn. You had to go to “The City” for that.) The Beasties had managed to open for the Bad Brains, which was about the best thing that could happen to a young punk in 1982. People sometimes made fun of the Beasties for not being real or hard enough or some other imaginary variable. I only heard Mike complain once, about their name being spelled as Beasty Boys, because it sounded like a pet food store.

DEVELOPING…

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/58060

Lena Dunham—2012 BHB Top 10 honoree and creator, star, writer, et al, of HBO’s “Girls”—may lead a quiet existence at her Mansion House digs in Brooklyn Heights, but apparently she’s having such an impact on pop culture that a boom is taking place in once-sleepy Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the setting of the hipster series.

Stories have appeared in both The Real Deal and Crain’s New York Business over the past few weeks about the impact of Dunham’s hit show on the nabe. The former notes, “Exposure has boosted the neighborhood’s rental market,” quoting David Behin of brokerage MNS: “We get more and more calls there for rentals every day,” while the residential sales market is also seeing an uptick.

It doesn’t hurt that the area is seeing “a slew of new residential buildings, including two massive rental projects,” with plans for two more large rez developments in the works.

Crain’s, meanwhile, documents the Dunham effect via an increase in foot traffic, focused around coffee joint Café Grumpy—where Dunham’s character Hannah Horvath works: “The hit HBO show is boosting foot traffic on Manhattan and Nassau avenues and Franklin Street, Greenpoint’s main drags, and pumping cash into the local economy. (In addition) some longtime residents fear it is also drawing more people into the neighborhood and emboldening more landlords to boost rents.”

Crain’s continues, “Like it or not, what’s undeniable is that images of Greenpoint’s shops, restaurants, streets and people beamed into millions of homes around the globe are having an impact on the area that was once primarily known for its large Polish population.”

In Brooklyn Heights, meanwhile, our slew of celeb residents—including Paul Giamati, Björk, Nate Silver and various writers and artists—perhaps offers the opposite effect, providing a quiet refuge for name brands, where they can blend in with the overall fabric of the nabe. Doesn’t that make Heightsters the true hipsters, eh?

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/57110

Lena Dunham’s empire continues to blow the lid off pop culture, as she covers the February 8, 2013 Entertainment Weekly with the headline, “How (She) Became the Voice Of A Generation.” Add that to the news that the “Girls” creator and Brooklyn Heights rez will pen a new pilot for HBO based on the upcoming memoir “All Dressed Up And Everywhere To Go,” by legendary Bergdorf Goodman personal shopper Betty Halbreich. Entertainment Weekly reports that “while there’s no word on whether show’s portrayal of the now 85-year-old Halbreich—once described as ‘part Angela Lansbury and part Lucille Ball’—will be more Golden Girls than Girls, it’s safe to assume the wardrobe will include plenty of designer labels.”

Dunham will work on the project with her “Girls” co-showrunner, Jenni Konner.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/54773

Singer, songwriter & Brooklyn Heights resident Björk wants your cash, baby! The artist has posted a plea on Kickstarter to raise funds to develop a Biophilia app for Android/Windows 8 to support her Biophilia Educational Program.

She writes on the webbie…

the biophilia educational program is a new way to teach children about science and music. it has met with success in many cities, sparking interest from kids and educators all over the world, from south america to east asia to africa. the most interest has come from students from low-income households and schools with underfunded art budgets, and the only way to bring the project to those people is to have biophilia reprogrammed for android and windows 8. the biophilia educational project is strictly non-profit and volunteer-based, and that’s why we need your help.
warmth
björk

Check out her video and read lots more on Kickstarter.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/54619

Brooklyn Heights’ resident and actor, director, executive producer, writer and creator of HBO’s “Girls” Lena Dunham sold her narrative “Not That Kind Of Girl,” in October to Random House for $3.7 million based on the strength of an illustrated 66-page proposal.

The book, packed with “frank and funny advice on everything from sex to eating to traveling to work,” is previewed on Gawker, which notes that the proposal, by itself, is worth about $56,000 a page.

Dunham, 26, proposed to structure the book as an advice tome in the tradition of Helen Gurley Brown’s “Having It All.” When her proposal was first announced in October, “Not That Kind of Girl: Advice by Lena Dunham” had a starting auction price of $1 million. “Girls,” meanwhile, launches its second season on HBO in January. Check out details at L Magazine.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/52692

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/52628

New York Magazine writes:

Now that the clip has taken off, “my friends have all gotten in touch with me, and I have a zillion requests to be Facebook friends with people,” said Grossman. Her jealous 12-year-old granddaughter said, “I wish I could hang out with Jay-Z, too.” And yes, she’d definitely be willing to collaborate with Jay, suggesting that maybe her work with chain-link fences would match his aesthetic. “I don’t think I’m capable of altering what I do to tailor to him, but I think there might be some intersection,” she said.

Tanzina Vega writes in the NYT’s Media Decoder:

When I got into the office in the morning, I watched the clip that was embedded in a Gawker post with the headline, “Jay-Z Rides the Subway, Adorably Explains Who He Is to an Adorable Old Lady”

My immediate reaction? That’s no “adorable old lady,” that’s my dear friend Ellen Grossman. In an instant she had gone from being a largely anonymous New York artist, to Ellen Grossman, the Amiable New Yorker Who Asked Jay-Z if He Was Famous as He Was on the Way to Performing at the Barclays Center.

Tablet Magazine writes:

“Jay-Z sat down next to me and I did not recognize him, but everyone was taking his picture. But I thought, because I didn’t recognize him, that it still could have been a flash mob. I know people do fake celebrity stuff. So I said what was on the video ‘Are you famous?’ and he said ‘Yes’ and I believed him. I asked what his name was and he said ‘Jay’ and I didn’t catch that it was Jay-Z and after we were talking for a while I thought ‘He’s pretty famous,’ I noticed his security people and we were in a little bubble because they were around us and then I asked ‘What’s your name again?’ and he said ‘Jay-Z.’ We had a really great conversation, it felt really genuine.”

Brooklyn Heights’ rez and HBO’s “Girls” creator Lena Dunham is among more than a dozen celebs who took to their webcams and lip-synced Lesley Gore’s 1964 hit “You Don’t Own Me” in a pointed political anti-Mitt Romney PSA. Spinner.ca notes, “The lip-syncing is interspersed with messages about (Presidential hopeful) Romney and the Republican Party’s plans to defund Planned Parenthood and overturn Roe vs. Wade, among other threats to women’s rights.”

Others participating in the clip that’s housed at Vimeo and has become a webbie sensation include Carrie Brownstein, Miranda July, Karen Elson, Leah Siegel, Alia Shawkat, Zoe Kravitz—and Gore herself, who says in a narrative after the video, “I recorded ‘You Don’t Own Me’ in 1964 and it’s hard for me to believe we’re still fighting for the same things we were then. Yes, ladies, we’ve got to come together, get out there and vote, and protect our bodies. They’re ours. Please vote.”

Check out the full video below the jump.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/49872

On this date in 1915, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Brooklyn Heights resident Arthur Miller was born (d: Feb. 10, 2005). He is best known for “Death of a Salesman” (1949), “The Crucible” (1953), and “A View from the Bridge” (1955/1956). As BHB readers well know, in June 1956, Miller left his first wife Mary Slattery and married Marilyn Monroe—who insisted the couple set up house in Manhattan. He probably should have stayed in Brooklyn Heights: The pair divorced in 1961.

So on this Open Thread Wednesday, what prize-winning ideas are on your agenda? Comment away! (Photo: Chuck Taylor)

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/49314

BHB legend has it that our own Claude Scales once “starred” in a Zombie flick. Okay, it’s not really a secret, but now an Italian movie fan is giving the film a big thumbs up. Or maybe it’s really a big che diavolo è che. Watch the full clip after the jump.

Self Absorbed Boomer: In the second installment of my Dewey & LeBoeuf saga, I told how my late friend Charlie McCrann wrote a feature length horror movie script as an NYU class project, then later produced, directed, and starred in that film, in which I played a minor role. The movie has been released in various places and formats under various titles: Forest of Fear, Charlie’s working title, in Asia; Bloodeaters, by which it was known at movie houses and drive-ins coast-to-coast in 1980-81; Blood Butchers I’m not sure where; and Toxic Zombies, under which it was packaged as a VHS tape, later DVD, and played on the USA Cable network.

Now I’ve learned that it’s been revived in Italy under the title Il ritorno degli zombi (The Return of the Zombies). The video above is of a review by “Mr. Massy” who, I gather (my Italian doesn’t go much beyond ciao and O che sciagura d’essere senza coglioni!, my favorite quotation from Voltaire), does not think much of the film. Perhaps there’s a strong hint in the graphic at 0.33. There’s a snippet of my part, the very end of it, in which I die perhaps the least gory death in the movie, starting at 10:50.

Skip directly to Claude’s star turn here.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/48968

Poor, poor misguided Uley… On the “Entertainment Weekly” website, he comments, “Is Lena Dunham honestly that big of a draw? To the general public, she’s a no name. I know of her, but I’m not interested in reading a book by her. Seems like publishers might be jumping the gun on this one.” Those literary types, however, obviously recognize the Brooklyn Heights’ resident as “an influential creative voice for young women.”

And so… the heat is on. BHB reported Wednesday that our neighbor was peddling a book deal for a collection of essays titled “Not That Kind of Girl: Advice by Lena Dunham,” with an auction for publishers starting at a robust $1 million. A day later, you can strike that figure, as the Emmy-nominated actor, director, executive producer, writer and creator of HBO’s “Girls” has already fostered bids as high as $3.6 million.

According to Deadline New York, Dunham’s lit agent Kim Witherspoon from InkWell Management is working the deal, which will soon be finalized. The numbers for the book of advice & anecdotes from the 26-year-old entrepreneur will likely head even higher as

Perhaps she was playing it a little safe when she purchased a one-bedroom, 800-square-foot apartment at Mansion House back in June. (Photo: Curbed)

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/48837

Now you can add “author” to the lofty list of accomplishments from Brooklyn Heights resident and Emmy-nominated actor, director, executive producer, writer and creator of HBO’s “Girls” Lena Dunham. The critic’s darling is shopping a book proposal, according to Slate. “Not That Kind of Girl: Advice by Lena Dunham” is currently in proposal form, with a $1 million price tag attached to the publishing auction.

Dunham has previously published “First Love” in The New Yorker and a short essay in “Rookie,” which Slate calls a candid look at love, sex and youth. She also has more than 354,000 followers on her Twitter feed, posting commentary about her life and loves. “Advice,” according to the proposal, offers a collection of essays about Dunham losing her virginity, trying to eat well (detailed diet journal included), obsessing about death, along with tips about staying focused on work, how not to ruin a potential relationship, and so on. More at Slate here.

“Girls” launches its second season on HBO in January 2013.

This afternoon Dunham Tweeted this photo:

From the highlight reel of life: it’s mother effing Billie Jean King instagr.am/p/QSvkmKC1Ey/

— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) October 2, 2012

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/48742