Streb's Moment

Streb via the New Yorker

Axel just had his last class at Streb for the season.

There's a big profile of the choreographer and dance company behind the school in this week's New Yorker, and his teachers Daniel and Jamarius are quoted (plus there's a great embedded video of scenes from a rehearsal.) Almost as cool as Axel's action video from class late last year!

I've said it before but these classes have been among the most amazing, inspiring, creative things I've experienced in New York, which is rare to say for something that's also toddler-appropriate.

Reading Group

via The New York Times

So what have I been reading lately?

This sort of funny / mostly annoying story in the Times titled "How I Became a Hipster."

This also sort of funny / mostly annoying piece on the director Noah Baumbach in the New Yorker.

This fab rebuttal to a "takedown" by my former colleague Mandy (an interesting view into often the seedy, in-fighting world of NY journalism.)

The "Doing Money" pieces on The Billfold. Voyeurism at its best!

More amusing anthropology from Nicholas Day's Slate column, How Babies Work.

This piece on Oddfellows, a new ice cream joint coming to the neighborhood.

11211 Love

Tiny Empire via MilkWithOneSugar

My poor sad camera is at the repair shop this week, hence the spotty posting...

I am seriously hard on cameras (like throw-them-on-the-ground-by-accident-at-regular-three-month-intervals hard) but I've been putting off taking it in since I feel naked without it. While I wait for it to return to me I figure it's a good time to check in on some recent Williamsburg happenings.

First up, Tiny Empire, my latest obsession. It's a ridiculously twee and amazing juice shop that sells ridiculously twee and delicious $10 cold pressed juices (think kale and pear or beet and carrot.) It's just the kind of non-decadent decadent thing to do after a weekend of epic Brooklyn brunches.

Sweet Chick via Thrillist

Then there's Sweet Chick, which opened a stone's throw from our apartment today. This place is dedicated to its namesake dish, fried chicken and waffles (talk about mixed messages Williamsburg.) It's the sort of place that serves artisan-made soda water and fancy cocktails along with its pseudo-ironic hearty fare, but when I walked past it tonight it looked cozy and well lit.

Aska via Bon Appetit

Frankly, we've missed out on a lot of the Williamsburg openings lately. I suppose with a new (okay, new-ish) baby we tend to stick to what's tried and true (spots like Fada, Walter Foods, and Spritzenhaus.) But it seems like every day somewhere new is opening its doors, selling oysters and absinthe or organic doughnuts or exotic sausages. There's even a Scandinavian restaurant with a very esoteric tasting menu that includes ingredients like lichen.

When I moved here nearly ten years ago, there were very cool things going on here, but you had to seek them out. Have an address in your back pocket.

Today, there are moments when I find myself in a boutique like Brooklyn Fox, eyeballing a $400 top and wondering where the heck I am. It's fairly disorienting to see so much slickness proliferating and to see hip young tourists wandering Bedford Avenue with maps in hand. I sometimes feel like I'm having an out of body experience, unsure whether I've been teleported to Tribeca or L.A. The Ides? It definitely feels like a Manhattanized version of a neighborhood I used to know really well.

Bamonte's via Saveur

I can hardly complain (after all, I actually bought that kale juice.)

But I'm still glad that the old school joints like Bamonte's are still going strong. Hopefully Axel will someday be able to remember living in a quirky place called Brooklyn, before Williamsburg was big in Sweden or lampooned on the cover of the New Yorker.

The New Yorker

Book Club

Axel, 2013

We have a book eater on our hands. A new meaning to the expression "media diet?"

I've also been busy updating my blog roll. There are some Williamsburg blogs I've recently discovered, like Motherburg and WillyB Mum, as well as the wonderful Almost Fearless, about a family (of three, soon to be four) who've spent the last 2 years traveling around the globe, visiting some 38 countries along the way. They are now semi-settled in Mexico, and it makes for some good escapism on this white-skied January day. I've also been checking out Writing Chapter Three, a really frank take on being a stay at home mother.

I find myself reading a good deal about babies and parenting, because that's my default mode these days, but I'm also working on my New Years' resolution to read more in general. Like this New Yorker article about re-wilding Europe.

Also on my list? Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and NW by Zadie Smith. I may even finish them by 2013.

The Latest

New York, 2012

New York, 2012

Had a regular doctor's checkup (all fine in babyland) and then walked up through Soho to Union Square for a few errands today.

Got home and put my feet up. Saw baby's thumps from the outside for the first time. Some days are much more active than others, but I am definitely feeling some action every day now.

Also got a kick out of (ha, get it!) this week's New Yorker. One article, "The Case Against Kids" cites the book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, by Bryan Caplan.

The piece explains his thinking: "Kids are a pain in the ass when they're small. They require lots of care just at the time their parents tend to be busiest establishing themselves in their careers. As a result, most people stop producing children before they've reached the number that would, over the long haul, maximize their self-interest."

Caplan asserts that the perfect number of children (short term pain versus long term gain) is three. He also argues that genes trump environment, so once you have the the kids in the bag, you don't have to worry as much as you might think about being the perfect alpha parent. Chances are, he says, they'll be just fine.

As an only child, I've always been envious of large families, and Will, one of four, loves the idea of a tribe. So is 3 the magic number?