So what.  Things change.  You can never put your hand in the same river twice.  Water is always moving.  So what.

But I do find myself deeply sad that the age of Artisanal Recording is gone forever.

Now, I said sad, but not regretful.  I’ll explain that shortly.

Prior to the ubiquity of computer-based recording technologies, records were made at massive console desks, with inputs feeding into giant, needy tape machines; This resulted in extraordinary achievements of patience, coordination, imagination, mystery, and happy accident; and whereas this process, time consuming and often frustrating, resulted in hundreds of thousands of magical recordings (from Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5 recordings to the Ramones, and so very many more), there are times when the process itself —  that is, not just the act of a magical band being recorded, but the method itself being almost supernaturally inspired – resulted in Art, in Michelangelo’s David, in Brunelleschi’s Dome.

Now, let me state, very goddamn clearly, that generally I applaud this change.  Personally, I think the onset of the computer recording era actually engenders and encourages imagination, spontaneity, and a more perfect path between artistic vision and result.  Also, a good engineer, producer or imaginative musician can actually make trashier, noisier results on the computer; it is actually easier to make a “lo-fi” recording, reproducing the spirit of, say, the Sonics or the Monks or whoever, on a computer-based system than on a tape-based system.

When I speak of Artisanal Recording, I am not just talking about the Age of Tape.  I am talking about a very specific mind-set and creative process:  using the console, tape machines, human power, and instruments in extraordinary harmony to produce an extremely elaborate and holistic result.  In other words, I am not just talking about using hammer and tools and a few cranes to put up an apartment building; I am talking about using hammer and tools and a few cranes to put up the Cathedral of Chartres, using (essentially) manual tools to create something so delicate, so reliant on every other element, so firm but light, and so elaborate that the absence of even one element could lead to collapse of the whole thing.

When I speak of Artisanal Recording, you think I am going to cite Sgt. Pepper or Pet Sounds, yes?

No.  In essence, those amazing works of art are “just” recordings of extraordinary performances, extraordinary arrangements.  Artisanal Recording is the art of extreme coordination in the control room, with not just the instruments and arrangements being orchestrated perfectly (as is the case with Pepper/Sounds), but the coordination between those factors and the console desk and the tape machine being so precise as to be virtually – if not literally – at the level of the finest renaissance craftsmen.

When I consider the pinnacle of Artisanal Recordings, some wonderful records immediately spring to mind, especially the work of Queen and Abba.  Both groups combined stunning songwriting and performance talent with incredible, artisanal work in the control room, making the consoles and the machines do the artists’ bidding through elaborate synchronization, invention, and creative insight.  I have often thought that an instructor could teach an entire semester of a class on music production just by using “S.O.S.” by Abba. But one recording stands out as the pinnacle, the most gorgeous realization, of the lost age of Artisanal Recording.

And that’s “More Than A Feeling” by Boston.

I’m sure Boston could play “More Than A Feeling” perfectly well live, but that’s not what’s going on in the studio recording of that song.  What’s happening here is an astonishing union of hands, technical elements, tape decks, mixing desks, to produce a unique product that is a precise blend of intent, imagination, patience, melody, energy, and emotional resonance.

First of all, the song fades in, which boldly and plainly announces it as a studio concoction; how many songs can you name that fade in?  Probably, off the top of your head, just one — the Beatles’ “Eight Days A Week.”  After the fade-in (often obscured on the radio), the first thing the listener is really aware of is a shimmering, attentive arpeggio, an immediately identifiable signature that tells us very little about what’s to come, but announces that something very important is going on here.  The guitar sound on this arpeggio, like all the guitars in the song, are an expert mixture of multiple guitars – at least one acoustic and multiple electrics, and I suspect a balance of 12 strings and 6 strings  – morphed into one seamless and unique whole.

RELATED: READ ALL TIM SOMMER’S COLUMNS

From here on, we encounter a rare balance of mathematical precision and evocative contact with listener; even though a casual listener would not necessarily be aware of this – or need to be – there are no accidents in “More Than A Feeling” — every element is as deliberate and calculated as a scientific formula.  Very, very rarely has such cold precision been so effectively utilized in the service of such a truly emotionally suggestive result.  Every level is full of precise intent (even a drum roll, which signals the entry of the verse vocal, seems a little “hot” to the listener, but is clearly “intentional,” awakening the listener out of the slumber of the seductive arpeggio), and likewise, as the song moves from section to section (and there are a pile of them, subtly different but unified, all serving the emotional and structural grace of the larger piece without ever disrupting the flow), different guitars shift as needed, sluicing and gliding in and out without ever breaking the flow of the song or making the listener conscious of all the work going on.  As we move into the chorus (brilliantly set up by a melodically inventive pre-chorus, where a guitar sings a brilliant lead melody — and although there’s a lot of single-line guitar work in the song, there’s no soloing, every guitar ‘run’ is a part, not a solo), something extraordinary happens…

In the history of “heavy” rock, there are many stunning, staggering, shattering rhythm guitar sounds – It’s hard to beat the signature tear and roar of Leslie West, Fu Manchu’s Scott Hill, and Johnny Ramone – but very little in the history of riff-roar tops the sound that Tom Scholz achieves in the four-chord slurring, skipping chop on “More Than A Feeling.”  It beautifully combines the heavy with the fleet, the instantly attention-grabbing with the non-disturbing.

And unlike the aforementioned West, Ramone, and Hill (not to mention Iommi or Townshend), it’s a synthetic sound, and immediately identifiable as such, built of multiple guitars, expertly tweaked boxes and amps, and perfectly calibrated tape.  This is a signal moment in the history of guitar rock; although “processed” guitar sounds had been used extensively in music, rarely had they been applied to the fat, thick, sexy riffs of hard rock; that moment ends with “More Than a Feeling.”  And although this discovery would be greatly, horrifically abused in the future, for one shining moment, it is utterly perfect.  Like a thousand cups of sweet cream poured over a Golem-esque Dave Davies wandering through Stonehenge, the primary riff of “More Than A Feeling” crunches without aching, shakes without breaking, whirrs without screeching; it is, in a word, the rarest combination of a perfect riff with a perfect sound with a perfect song.  This so rarely happens; for instance, “You Really Got Me” may be one of the fundamental riffs of all time, but it’s difficult to listen to it without wanting the guitar to sound just a tiny bit, oh, wider; “Mississippi Queen” starts out as the best goddamn thing you ever heard, but kind of meanders through the un-mapped woods of a less than perfect song; it’s hard to top the “Sweet Jane” riff, but the “official” released version of the track is flawed, both in mix and composition; and so on and so on.  The riff to “More Than a Feeling,” the sound of the multiple guitars that build it, and the song it sits in are, well, perfect.  One would have to look forward to Roth-era Van Halen to find a comparable mix of riff, recording, composition, and personality.

Where Was I?

Lest we get too hung up on the riff – and it is phenomenally easy too – the rest of “MTAF” falls together with equal genius and precision, achieving the ultimate thing a pop or rock recording can do:  make the listener feel enraptured by the story and the texture while inserting enough changes and “surprises” to keep the listener alert.  This lasts until the very end of the song; while the piece is fading out, the bass does an octave drop for the first and only time, and you know that this was done just to state “You thought you had heard everything, right?”

And all of it is an extraordinary product of Artisanal Recording.  Tracks like “Dear Prudence” or “Getting Better” by the Beatles, or “Knights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues or “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd are just extraordinary recordings of extraordinary performances of extraordinary arrangements of extraordinary songs played by extraordinary bands; “More Than A Feeling” is a piece where the studio (by which I mean the whole apparatus – console, tape machines, outboard gear, EQ’s, etcetera) is an extra musician, and that musician is expertly, precisely directed by very, very skillful hands who (as Einstein said about God) do not play dice.  There is zero dice playing on “More Than A Feeling,” and what makes all this so much more remarkable, it is accomplished entirely in the era before there was computer automation of recording boards, much less computerized mixing or recording.  “MORE THAN A FEELING” IS THE PRODUCT OF HUMAN HANDS CREATING ART, WORKING SO CAREFULLY AND DELIBERATELY THAT THE PRODUCT OF THE HANDS AND TOOLS CAN AND MUST BE SEEN AT THE LEVEL WHICH WE WOULD APPRECIATE THE WORK OF THE MOST SKILLED ARTISAN.

(And that’s even without discussing the amazing vocal performance, achieved entirely without auto tuning or the vari-speeding that, for instance, was used so widely by Led Zeppelin.  It is genuinely heartbreaking to think that no one will ever sing like that again, like Brad Delp or Freddy Mercury or Steve Marriott; auto-tuning, which, when expertly used, is undetectable, makes the art of pure rock singing extinct).

And it’s all gone, gone, gone.  The day of Artisanal Recording is literally as dead as analog television, the rotary dial phone, or the typewriter ribbon.  Never again will hands (or a series of hands) scramble in frenzied coordination across a mixing desk to achieve precise, seamless results; I am old enough, thankfully or not, to remember being part of recording mixes where you would have six or eight hands on a single mixing desk, moving in excited and exact calibration, a performance in and of itself.

Now, these days computers do it all.  And I am NOT a Luddite; in fact, as a producer and musician, I probably PREFER that. Never again do you need to go with a very, very slightly botched mix because you just can’t run that whole complicated mix one more time and fix that tiny little mistake four minutes into the song; likewise, computer recording programs encourage the musician to create wonderful and subtle events for the briefest moments or towards the most delicate end.  So, personally, I am actually all for the computer recording era, I just honor the extraordinary artisans who would do it all with their hands.

And, as it happens, there are plenty of luddites out there who will tell you “Oh, ya gotta use tape, man.”  But unfortunately, the kind of musicians who do insist on using tape are not the kind of musicians who are building Brunelleschi’s Dome, like Tom Scholz did with Boston, or Bjorn and Benny did with Abba, or Roy Thomas Baker and Queen did with “Bohemian Rhapsody” and a pile of others.  The musicians still using tape are, without exception, trumpeting some kind of useless primitive theory, and as I stated much earlier in this piece, I have found I can make garbage sound more like garbage with computers.

There will probably come a time, in the relatively near future, where some filmmakers with a small digital camera, a green screen, and a computer can make something absolutely as mysterious and beautiful as the extraordinary chiaroscuro of the sewer chase scene in The Third Man or the Bruegel-esque dreamscapes of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.  That moment has already happened in music, and the age of the Artisanal Recording is over.  Next time you hear “More Than A Feeling,” remember what the grace, coordination, wisdom, time and art it once took to make a seamless pop recording, and honor it.

Not infrequently, I receive emails intended for this Thor Sommerseth.  This is true. These are written in Norwegian and include a lot of exciting looking words featuring o’s with slashes through them.  I have translated a few of these emails, and they are disappointingly mundane; they often involve work in risk management, and one even detailed what mighty Thor was expected to bring to a Church brunch.

Nevertheless, sometimes I like to pretend that I AM THOR SOMMERSETH, I mean JEG ER THOR SOMMERSETH, and not mundane ol’ Timothy Sommer; and I imagine what it would be like to march around the apartment, loudly proclaiming “I AM THOR SOMMERSETH, my will shall be done, now bring me a Fresca or I shall DAMN you to the Gods of the Clan Æsir, though honestly a Diet Ginger Ale will probably do the trick, too, preferably Canada Dry.  May the God Nídhögg rain FIRE on you if you bring me Schweppes! Actually, if it’s all you’ve got, Schweppes would be okay.”

In that spirit, I also like to imagine what kind of letters I would write if I was, indeed, Thor Sommerseth.

Dear Columbia Pictures Television:

My name is Thor Sommerseth.  My father and his fathers before him were proud holders of the bloodline of the clan Sommerseth, and may I remain true to the spirit of my paternal ancestors until the day the God Ragnarok dies and brings this world to an end in shuddering cataclysm of fire and ice; my mother, of the clan Adelbaum from Bayside, New York, was named “Most likely to Get a Partial Tuition Flute Scholarship” in the 1959 Miss Beth-El Synagogue Competition.

Over the last few years, I, Thor Sommerseth, have made quite a name for myself in the Norwegian television industry.  But you probably already know that.

I, Thor Sommerseth, initially rose to prominence as associate producer of Trondheim’s second most popular morning show, titled En Annen Morgen av Svarthet is Og ld Med Sporadiske Muppets  (Translation:  Another Morning of Blackness, Ice and Fire with Occasional Muppets).   More recently, one of the shows I, Thor Sommerseth, developed, Black Metal Idol, made headlines when the winning act was found to be responsible for the burning of 8 churches in the Sørlandet district.

After receiving the blessings of the God Loki of the Jötnar Clan, and under considerable pressure from my mother’s side of the family, the Adelbaums, I, Thor Sommerseth, have decided to attempt to sell some properties to the American television industry.  I have geared these specifically to the American marketplace.

Three of these shows are what you Americans call “sit-coms” (here in Norway we call these types of shows “Dagligdagse Distraksjoner fra Dorbannelsen av Endeløs Natt Enøydes, Raven-Flankert Gud Odin har Kastet Over Oss” – that translates as “Mundane Distractions from the Endless Night that the One-Eyed Raven-Flanked God Odin Has Cast Upon Us”); one of these “pitches” is a “reality” show, and the final idea, which is my favorite, is a courtroom show.

Here are the sitcoms:

SHE’S THE MONKEY SHERIFF

WHO’S DAT MONKEY

MAMA’S MONKEY

Each of these are fairly self-explanatory.

The reality show, which is also fairly well explained by the title, is called:

WHO WANTS TO MARRY A MONKEY

Finally, I, Thor Sommerseth, have saved the best for last:

JUDGE C*NT 

This is a show in which everyday cases are brought before a judge, who happens to be a total c*nt (this sounds like a winner to me, Thor Sommerseth!).

You may be surprised that I, Thor Sommerseth, am not suggesting any shows of the “saga” nature, involving great mythical kingdoms and the actions of fantastic beasts and giants; I, Thor Sommerseth, understand these are quite popular in the United States.  I have dabbled in this genre before, but I find it brings me bad luck:  in 2006 I produced a series called Gilligan’s Island of Ice and Lava, which was cancelled before it was even aired due to the presumption that it would offend Njörðr, one of the Gods who protects the sea; and I personally believe that a mini-series I co-wrote in 2009, My Mother The Car Who Is Inhabited by The Soul of Hrímthursar the Frost Giant,  angered the Gods, since the Adelbaum’s had a significant alignment problem with their Hyundai very shortly after the series was aired.

Thank you for your time.  I, Thor Sommerseth, look forward to working with you, and bringing the power of the creative spirit that originated in the bowels of the primordial realm of Niflheim to the American syndicated television market.

Kind regards, I am Thor Sommerseth

But few people know this trend is well over half a century old, and it was started by a Brooklyn native, Dr. Allen B. DuMont! Dr. Dumont, of course, was the mastermind behind the doomed DuMont Network, which was television’s fourth network between 1946 and 1956. In 1951, the network (whose flagship station was Channel 5 in New York) needed a show to fill a fifteen-minute slot between the end of Captain Video and His Video Rangers and the (often erratically timed) beginning of Boxing From Eastern Parkway. Ol’ Dr. DuMont himself conceived of I’m A Bad Widdle Doggie, which was hosted by Chaim ‘Hy’ Silvers (the twin brother of famed funnyman Phil Silvers) and Dagmar, the blonde-bombshell who was the Anna Nicole of her day. The premise of the show was simple: ordinary people came on with their pooches and told (presumably) funny stories about their pets’ embarrassing behavior. But in reality, the show was a disaster: under the hot lights, the dogs frequently became aggressive, had accidents, dashed for the exits, and consistently performed in a manner inappropriate for live television. In an attempt to retain order amongst the chaos, Silvers and Dagmar were forced to improvise constantly and sometimes recklessly: one night this resulted in Silvers telling an only-somewhat sanitized version of Mantan Morland’s famous “Mashed Potato” joke, and the next day the show was cancelled, after only being on the air for six episodes. Hy Silvers’ career never recovered, and he ended his days emceeing kiddies’ talent shows at Mount Airy Lodge in the Poconos. But the legacy of Dog Shaming as a national pastime endured, all thanks to Brooklyn’s own Dr. Allen DuMont!

Remarkable Remarks! Call me crazy, but I prefer Blimpie to Subway…Why is it so hard to find good ol’ fashion Bazooka Bubblegum? It’s still the best, my friends…A tip of the Christmas cap to Duane Reade on Court and Montague for staying open until midnight during the holiday season!…Has there even been a sexier woman than Miss Joey Heatherton?…I’m not saying Tofu comes from outer space, but spell it backwards and you got UFO!…When are they gonna develop a post-season award that properly honors the importance of the Middle Reliever?…A morning in the Heights isn’t complete without a Banana Nut Muffin from Connecticut Muffin!…Every time someone says “Bachman Turner Overdrive” I say “Yes, please!”…I’m not saying everyone living in North Williamsburg is young, but the hippest place there is the Monkey Bars! AND THAT’S WHY I LOVE LIVING IN BROOKLYN!

(Mr. Sommer’s opinions and grasp of reality are entirely his own)

Tim Sommer has been employed to varying degrees of gainfulness as a musician, record producer, DJ, VJ, and music industry executive. He is currently recording an audio book version of his much-acclaimed four-volume biography of the pioneering vaudevillians Weber and Fields; and, with a grant from AACSM (The American Association of Celery Salt Manufacturers) he is seeking to advance awareness of the Bloody Caeser in the United States.

And you watch as a new team moves across two rivers to take up residence in what had long been Knicks territory, and you watch as they dominate the local press, and you watch as this heretofore suburban team attempts to re-invent itself by embracing urban cool.

You’re a lifelong Knicks fan. So what you do?

If you’re Mike from Gowanus—who’s got the perfect name for a sports-talk radio caller—you create…Knicklyn.

Knicklyn is a website…and a state of mind.

“I’m a resident of Brooklyn,” said Mike, who asked that his last name not to be used, preferring to keep his site separate from his professional life. “I’m a devout Knicks fan. And when the Nets moved, I just felt that a lot of people were supporting the Nets kind of blindly, which I get, because there’s a lot of pride in the neighborhood.

“But I felt that there had to be people out there that wanted to be able to relate to the team that they’re loyal to. It’s a pride thing.”

Knicklyn was born when Mike started “fooling around” with some graphic art, which eventually grew into a website. It grew virally, he said, as Knicks fans in Brooklyn found the site, so he expanded into a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, an Instagram account.

This week, Knicklyn started offering hats and stickers for sale, in response, said Mike, to user requests.  Aware of his brand as the Knicklyn logo started to spread, he wanted to capitalize on the interest before someone else latched on to it.

“With so many social media streams,” he explained, “the art was starting to spread without any real credit, and before anyone could compromise the integrity of what I was trying to do, I started to produce some products.”

While admitting to some resentment about the people who have jumped from the Knicks to the Nets, Mike, a marketer by day, acknowledges the success of the Nets’ marketing scheme.

“I thought it was a little gimmicky—‘Hello, Brooklyn!’—but in Jay-Z, they chose the best person possible to be the face of the team; a lot of people from the neighborhood can relate to him,” he said.  “They did everything how you should do it, but some people see through it and their loyalty remains with the team they grew up with.”

During Knicks games, the 26-year-old tweets commentary, engages in ardent debate with other fans, and after each victory, “tapes” the logo of the opposing team. Knicklyn’s Facebook page has more than 1,600 likes, and its Instagram account attracts regular commenters along with requests for Knicklyn gear.

In short, Knicklyn is doing exactly what Mike wants it to.

“Knicklyn is about bringing community together,” he said, “people who have the same passion and loyalty to both my neighborhood and my team.”

Their announcer of 18 years, Ian Eagle, had to wait a little longer to make his Brooklyn debut, calling his first game on Monday when the Nets lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Eagle became part of the Nets broadcast team in 1994 and joined the YES network, the Nets’ television home, 10 years ago. And though he grew up in Queens, coming to the Barclays Center is a sort of homecoming.

“My dad was from Brooklyn,” Eagle said last week, preparing to head out of town to cover the NFL.  “He went to Erasmus Hall for high school, and that was his life, growing up in Brooklyn.”

“After my father got divorced, his first wife lived in Brooklyn, and I spent weekends in Brooklyn with her for the first five years of my life. I remember going to Prospect Park, getting off at the Church Avenue station; she had an apartment on Caton Avenue, and Brooklyn made up a lot of my childhood memories. It definitely made an impression on me.”

Eagle also spent time in Mill Basin, as a teenager frequently visiting a sister who lived there. “I used to go out there about a once a month,” he said. “Growing up in Queens, the only frame of reference I had for an indoor mall was Kings Plaza.”

Eagle’s first impressions of his return to Brooklyn are equally favorable.

“I’m really impressed,” he said. “It’s very tastefully done, not over the top like a lot of the newer buildings. It feels intimate, and the lower bowl feels very close to the action. I went upstairs, too, and for a basketball game, I don’t think there’s a bad seat in the house.”

Of the move across two rivers, from New Jersey to Brooklyn, Eagle said that the first task was persuading the players that it was a good idea. “The biggest challenge initially was convincing players that Brooklyn is a legitimate destination,” he said. “That happened pretty quickly.”

“There’s automatically a fan base in Brooklyn,” he went on. “Knicks’ ans aren’t going to give up their allegiance, but Brooklyn is a proud area, and a number of fans have already accepted this team.

“That’s a byproduct of the pride within the borough. There’s a different vibe with this team.”

While Eagle is enthusiastic about the move, he has no plans to move from his New Jersey home to the Brooklyn.

“I have a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old, and the timing just doesn’t work. But I’ve already done the drive a couple of times and it really hasn’t been that bad at all,” he said.

“I’m Mr. Traffic,” he continued. “I listen to all the traffic reports.”

The Nets’ next home game is Sunday at 3 pm against the Orlando Magic.

Photographer Fiona Gardner and journalist Amy Zimmer tracked down former contestants, taking portraits in their new surroundings and recording their stories. Gardner first became interested in the campaign after seeing the many pageant advertising cards displayed on the walls of Ellen’s Stardust Diner, owned by Ellen Hart, a former winner herself. Ms. Gardner began a long-term project to create new portraits of the contest winners, reflecting the reality of their lives some thirty years later. Gardner and Zimmer are working on a book to be released this winter . The project is sponsored by Artspire, a program of the New York Foundation for the Arts. Generous support was provided by Foto Care.

Originally conceived as a way to draw attention to nearby ads, Winners’ photos and biographies were displayed in trains throughout the city. The publicity often led to work in radio and television, and the contest became a compelling platform for civil rights debates in the city. In the 1940s, African-American advocacy groups pressured John Robert Powers, the modeling agent in charge of selecting winners, to integrate the contest, finally succeeding near the end of the decade. Thelma Porter, the first black Miss Subways,  was celebrated on the cover of Crisis Magazine.  In 1949, Helen Lee became the first Asian-American winner.

In 1963, contest selection opened up and the public voted for their favorite candidates via postcard. With this change, prospective Miss Subways aggressively marketed themselves to their communities and beyond. In the 1970s, the growing feminist movement and New York’s broadening fiscal crisis led to a decline in interest in the contest, which ended in 1976. In 2004, the MTA briefly revived a “Ms. Subways” contest in honor of the 100th anniversary of the subways.

At the Transit Museum exhibit, original pageant cards will wrap around the room at ceiling level, as they would have been seen by straphangers years ago. Modern portraits by Fiona Gardner will hang below. The Rush Arts Gallery describes her prints in this way: “Her photographs’ dramatic lighting references the glamour of pageantry, while the settings—homes and places of work—are the everyday spaces of the women’s lives.” In addition to the vivid portraits, visitors will be able to hear audio clips of interviews with ten women on antique phones placed around the room. The exhibition text, culled from countless interviews with Miss Subways winners and written by Amy Zimmer, touches on both personal revelations as well as larger social changes which impacted the lives of women everywhere.

On Thursday, November 29th, City Lore’s Steve Zeitlin will speak with Fiona Gardner and a former contestant about the significance of the Miss Subways pageant as a form of urban folklore. The event is free and will take place at 6 pm inside the Transit Museum. City Lore documents, presents, and advocates for grassroots cultures to ensure their living legacy in stories, histories, places, and traditions.

On November 11th and December 9th at 3pm, the Museum will host free events investigating the history of subway advertising as displayed in the Museum’s car collection and Meet Miss Subways exhibition.

More than 500 artists and 100 programming partners participated in the 16th annual celebration, which once again successfully achieved its mission of shining the spotlight on Brooklyn’s cultural side. The entire neighborhood was transformed into a creative wonderland throughout the duration of the three-day festival, as studios, galleries, storefronts, park space, street corners, building lobbies, bridges and even shipping containers became canvases for artistic expression.

“I thought a lot of the photo pods were really interesting and compelling,” remarked first-time festival attendee Melinda Lin of the shipping containers on Main Street. The containers had been repurposed into tiny photo galleries showcasing images from Papa New Guinea and other areas of the world, as part of the foto/pods 2012 exhibition by United Photo Industries.

Lin, a Manhattan resident, was one of thousands who thronged the streets of Dumbo during the course of the festival, which was held Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

“We’ve gotten a lot of people who are Dumbo residents and then a lot of people who have traveled from different boroughs – and even different countries – to come to the festival,” noted Elise Gonzalez, who was selling merchandise for the Dumbo Improvement District at a booth under the Brooklyn Bridge.

Indeed, international visitors abounded, with tourists from Korea to Israel making their way to the neighborhood just to check out the Dumbo Arts Festival.

“I learned about the festival in Time Out and thought it sounded interesting,” said Yael Hurwitz, a tourist from Jerusalem, Israel, who had last visited New York City 20 years ago. “I think it was a really great event,” Hurwitz added, noting that she was especially impressed with the Entasis Dance performance in Main Street Park, which involved dancers positioned themselves around sculptures to become living extensions of the artwork.

Every conceivable artistic discipline seemed to be on display during the festival, which offered attendees an extraordinarily comprehensive view of the creative community in Brooklyn and beyond via indoor and outdoor art installations and exhibitions, large-scale projections on store facades and the anchorage of the Manhattan Bridge, and performances that encompassed music, dance, poetry, comedy and even the circus arts going on all throughout the neighborhood.

Festivalgoers also had numerous opportunities to get an up close look at the actual creative process, thanks to events like the Molten Iron Spectacular, which involved the heating and pouring of iron to create souvenir medallions that were then handed out to the crowd. It made for a dramatic spectacle on Plymouth Street, where flames were shooting out of a portable furnace that had been transported from Buffalo, New York for the event.

“We wanted to show the public a little bit about our process,” said sculptor Mike Dominick, who organized the event with fellow members of the Sculptors Guild. “People never get to see what goes on behind the curtain of the foundry and we take that away so you can actually see what happens,” explained Dominick, whose group had returned for the second year to conduct their iron pour at the Dumbo Arts Festival.

Other festival events encouraged attendees to delve into the creative process by trying it out for themselves via interactive exhibitions and art-making activities. At the Monster Drawing Rally hosted by the Dumbo Arts Center, for example, visitors of all ages drew and colored on massive sheets of paper tacked to the gallery walls. And tucked away in the gallery’s side room was a bubble drawing station run by Philadelphia-based artist Tim Eads, a first-time festival participant who taught visitors how to make colorful artwork using bubble solution tinted in a variety of bright hues.

“My work is really about trying to create these childhood fantasies, if you will, so I think of things that I used to love as a kid and just go crazy with that,” explained Eads, who described his art installations as “wacky machines.” One such installation, Traveler, drew a steady stream of curious onlookers to Eads’ bubble making station. Adorned with a feather skirt and comprised of a mannequin stand, fan, lamp parts and a motor, Traveler pumped out bubble after bubble that elicited squeals of glee from various visitors.

“It brings out the kid in everyone,” remarked festivalgoer Natalie Biggs of Flatbush, as she eagerly awaited an opportunity to create her own bubble drawing. Biggs, who had not previously attended the Dumbo Arts Festival, came away impressed with the celebration. “It was an enlightening experience that inspired wonderment and curiosity.”

The festival’s creative environment also sparked impromptu performances from artists who were not part of the official lineup, such as a charming puppet show on Main Street put on by five-year-old Ling Ling “Corn Snake” Ende of Bushwick with the help of Pablo del Hierro, a puppeteer visiting from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“I asked him what should happen between these characters and he told me,” explained del Hierro, a member of the Puerto Rico-based traveling puppet company Poncili who was in town visiting Ende’s family. “Poncili is largely based on having child-directed shows.”

“We’ve been working together in the studio – all of us playing, creating things and making music,” added Adam Ende, Ling Ling’s father and the director of Brooklyn-based Jawbone Puppet Theater. “I came to this festival two years ago to visit and since the spring, I’ve been doing these street shows with my son, so I wanted to come and do them here.”

As the elder Ende packed up props and puppets, his son was reluctant to leave. “The show’s not over!” he called to the crowd. As your Brooklyn Bugle correspondents looked around at all the art and performances going on around us, we couldn’t have agreed more.

Photos 1- 35 by Tim Schreier
Photos by Lori Singlar
Click on image for larger version

Tale of the Tweets: DUMBO Arts Festival

This year’s DUMBO Arts Festival tried to convince folks that hackeysack is art. Yeah, no.

Storified by Brooklyn Bugle · Sun, Sep 30 2012 10:42:43

Protesters, still clinging onto the notion that politicians tell the truth and keep their promises, gathered outside as fans filed into the show. The road to Brooklyn having it’s first major sports team in two generations was indeed a bumpy, slimy and sordid road. For a full account of how Brooklyn got this arena and what was learned about how things get done in the borough, read Atlantic Yards Report’s definitive primer.

Now here’s what the folks who were there this weekend had to say:

Tale of the Tweets: Jay-Z Opens Barclays Center

Jay-Z opens Brooklyn’s Barclay Center with a bang. Here’s the tweets to prove it including from our own @JasonShaltz:

Storified by Brooklyn Bugle · Sun, Sep 30 2012 09:57:40

Photo: The Shaltzes