Wheels Up // NYC Bike Share Exhibition Opens TONIGHT At The Center For Architecture

It's 2012, and you know what that means? Well, lots of things—election year, leap year, Summer Olympics, end of Mayan calendar—but it's also the year that New York City gets its own bike share. The program is scheduled to launch this summer, but you don't have to wait until it's warm again to get in on the action. In fact, you can learn all about the program tonight at the opening reception for Two Wheel Transit: NYC Bike Share, an exhibition at the Center for Architecture (536 LaGuardia Place).

The free reception is happening from 6-8pm this evening and will feature a conversation with Janette Sadik-Khan, the NYC DOT Commissioner, and Alison Cohen, President of Alta Bicycle Share, the company that was selected to implement New York's program. The exhibition runs through February 4 and feature bike share bicycles from other programs around the world, as well as videos and other bike share information to give you a better idea of what the summer will bring.

Even if you can't make it tonight, you can get involved right now by suggesting a location for a bike share station via the program's interactive map. Naturally, 3rd Ward has already received a few votes, but cast yours now and make sure our voice is heard!

-- John Ruscher

ESSENTIAL EVENT // 3rd Ward Hosts Lie-Nielsen For a Day of Hand Tools and Woodworking Fun

If microplanes get you all hot and bothered and you like nothing more than a flawless dovetail, you'll want to clear your calendar for January 6th and 7th, when Lie-Nielsen Toolworks swoops into town to teach you about hand tools.

Lie-Nielsen began in Maine in 1981 with the goal of producing high-quality American-made tools. They now produce more than 50 types of saws, planes, scrapers, shavehorses and more, all out of high-quality metals like ductile iron and manganese bronze. These are materials that are meant not to rust or dull, so that your pretty little saw (seriously, these look really nice) will last for years, possibly even generations.

Of course, they'll explain all this and much more better than we can, and possibly even engage in some showdown fun like they did with former 3rd Ward member David Yepez, who actually had a dovetail competition with a master at Lie-Nielsen's headquarters. 

If that's not enough to get you excited, there will also be demonstrations by fellow toolmakers Tools for Working Wood, Brese Plane, MS Bickford, and Daed Toolworks as well as Exotic Lumber. We're anticipating a fun few days of learning, inspiration, and a healthy number of jokes about wood (hehe--sorry, NYE recovery's been slow going.) RSVP if you want in.

--Layla Schlack

ESSENTIAL EVENT // This Weekend: Brooklyn Craft Central Holiday Market

Poster design by Nate Duval

Forget mall santas, fairy lights, even It's a Wonderful Life. For us, the reason for the season is holiday markets--they combine tasty snacks and drinks, good cheer, and, yes, commerce. 

If our own Handmade Holiday Craft Fair last weekend whet your whistle for wintertime cheer and lovely handmade goods, then might we suggest a trip to the Brooklyn Craft Central Holiday Market at Littlefield art space in Gowanus this weekend. This two-day event has different vendors Sunday than it does Saturday, for a total of 65 carefully selected pop-up shops. 

You can fuel your wild shopping orgy at food trucks--Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, Mexicue, Eddie's Pizza, and El Olomega will all be on hand. And there will be a full bar serving fancy Christmas cocktails, because you'll have much better ideas about what your friends & loved ones want and need after you knock back a few.

We trust you'll sober up in time to wrap all your gifts (in post-consumer handmade paper, of course), and then you'll have the remaining week until Christmas or two days until Hanukkah to watch Miracle on 34th Street, don a reindeer sweater, and drink a punchbowl full of eggnog. Happy holidays, you crazy shopping machines.

--Layla Schlack

ESSENTIAL EVENT // This Friday: Winter Solstice Feast Benefit

You like to eat and you enjoy helping local farms, right!? Good. So why not roll those two things into one tasty evening, as in: This Friday, December 16 at the Winter Solstice Feast to benefit Bushwick Farmers' Market and EcoStation: NY.

EcoStation: NY is a nifty organization working for "environmental and food justice." Its goal is to fight the vast food desert phenomenon by growing good stuff in the inner city--and then using farmers markets and food trucks to sell fresh fruits and veggies in other inner city neighborhoods.

The feast itself--located at Brooklyn Fire Proof's Nut Roaster Studio--will have eats from Roberta's, Northeast Kingdom, and Verde Coal Oven, among others; as well as a pig roast courtesy of The Hurricane Club's Lawrence Knapp. Sixpoint will be providing some brews. Live music happening courtesy of Reverend Billy & the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir and Handstand Andy & the Handsome Man Band. There'll be a silent auction in case (if you're anything like us) you still have holiday shopping to do.

Suggested donation is $20 per person, which we think sounds like a bargain for a seriously awesome event, though no one will be turned away for inability to pay. Hope to see you all there--you'll find us resembling Wile E. Coyote over by the pig roast.

--Layla Schlack

ESSENTIAL EVENT // Brooklyn Night Bazaar Returns With A Massive Three-Day Extravaganza Starting Thursday

All images © JDS.

Back in October we told you about the first Brooklyn Night Bazaar, which took over the Dekalb Market for a lively Sunday evening. Now the bazaar is returning to Brooklyn for an even bigger blowout. This Thursday, Friday and Saturday the bazaar will take over a 40,000 square foot warehouse along the Williamsburg waterfront to present more than 100 local vendors, art installations, three solid nights of live music and plenty of local beer and wine. And all of this goodness (except the ticketed music space) is free and open to the public.

Check out the long list of vendors that you'll find at the bazaar here. If you still need to grab some gifts following our Handmade Holiday Craft Fair this past weekend, here's your chance! Pick up a Playbutton, some regionally adapted seeds, a killer skateboard and much more. And of course there will be tons of delicious local food as well.

The music program will include a DJ set by LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy on Thursday, an epic rock lineup featuring Fucked Up, DOM, Big Troubles and more on Friday and a double whammy with The Hold Steady and Titus Andronicus on Saturday. Grab tickets for those shows here.

The most exciting part of this edition of the Brooklyn Night Bazaar, though, is where it'll take place. Renowned Danish architecture firm JDS have designed an incredible masterplan for the huge warehouse, drawing inspiration from Lars Von Trier's Dogville. Additionally, the folks behind Greenpoint's Bring To Light: Nuit Blanche festival will be curating an array of video installations and light projections.

Hit the jump to see renderings of JDS' Brooklyn Night Bazaar masterplan.

-- John Ruscher

ESSENTIAL EVENT // TEDxBrooklyn Comes To Brooklyn Bowl And Livestream This Friday

This Friday, December 2, the second edition of TEDxBrooklyn comes to Brooklyn Bowl, and, while the in-person event itself is sold out, you can still soak up all of the knowledge, creativity and inspiration from afar.

There will be free live screenings of the entire conference at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg, 61 Local in Cobble Hill and the Brooklyn Brainery in Carroll Gardens. If you can't make it to any of those places, you'll be able to catch all of the action from anywhere else via a live video stream.

Right now you can peruse the TEDxBrooklyn Program Guide [PDF], which features background information on all of the speakers and presenters, such as host and renowned funnyman Eugene Mirman, Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson, architect and designer Susannah Drake and Creators Project coordinators Julia Kaganskiy and Ciel Hunter.

Take a look at the full schedule after the jump and head to one of the venues mentioned above or to the live stream at TEDxBrooklyn.com on Friday, when things will kick off at 9am.

-- John Ruscher

ESSENTIAL EVENT // Top Designers Compete In The Annual World Graphic Design Foosball Championship This Friday

This friday night some of the biggest names in graphic design will go head to head in fierce competition at the Art Directors Club, vying for the title of World Champion. No, this isn't a live design tournament—it's the 8th Annual World Graphic Design Foosball Championship. (For those wondering, yes, the logo is meant to be backwards.)

Presented by leading NYC design studios karlssonwilker inc. and the Office of Paul Sahre, the double elimination tournament will feature teams representing more than 50 different professional design organizations, including creative agencies like McGarryBowen and Big Spaceship, studios like Hoefler & Frere-Jones and AHL&CO, publishing companies such as HarperCollins and Penguin, and the design departments at Fortune Magazine and the Metropolitan Opera.

As you'd expect, the championship has a cool interactive website (click on any of the background images to unlock those features, but watch out—a couple parts are semi-NSFW).

Spectators are welcome at the tournament, which kicks off at 7pm this Friday, November 18, and there will be beer from Brooklyn Brewery. The winning team will pedal away with some awesome bikes from Puma.

For a taste of what to expect, hit the jump for a clip from the 2008 championship.

-- John Ruscher

GET ON BOARD // The Rainbow Parade Happening This Friday in DUMBO Wants YOU

 

The weather may be getting gradually colder and the city's hues may be looking a bit more drab, but this Friday, November 11, you can help make the streets a lot more colorful. All you have to do is dress monochromatically in the color of your choosing, head down to the Galapagos Art Space (16 Main Street) in DUMBO at 9:45am, and take part in "a short, action-packed Rainbow Parade."

The parade is happening in conjunction with the CreativeMornings breakfast lecture earlier in the morning at Galapagos, which is hosting Brooklyn's color-loving designer Jessi Arrington. You don't have to attend the lecture to be part of the parade, though. Just show up decked out in your favorite color! (If you are interested in the lecture, you'll have to get on the waitlist.)

For some inspiration and an idea of just how much Arrington lovers colors, here are a few fun facts:

• She spent an entire year studying the color pink.
• Her favorite color is rainbow.
• She's worked with the "Godfather of Graphic Design" (and I ♥ NY creator) Milton Glazer.
• After that she founded her own studio, WORKSHOP, which is based in DUMBO.
• She's given a TED Talk about wearing nothing new.

And for a little taste of the rainbow parade experience, hit the jump to check out a video of one that followed Arrington's talk at TEDxOrlando this past weekend.

-- John Ruscher

ESSENTIAL EVENT // TEDxBrooklyn Speakers Announced, Tickets On Sale Thursday

This one's still a few weeks away, but tickets go on sale this Thursday and as avid fans of all things TED, we want to make sure you don't miss out.

On Friday, December 2nd, Brooklyn Bowl will host the second TEDxBrooklyn conference. The "x" means that it's an independently organized event granted a license by TED (short for Technology, Entertainment & Design), the world-renowned series of conferences centered around the slogan "ideas worth spreading."

The first TEDxBrooklyn took place last November at the Pratt Institute and featured speakers such as novelist and WNYC host Kurt Andersen, Fabien Cousteau (grandson of Jacques), NYC artist Swoon, and even Richard Saul Wurman, the architect and designer who founded TED back in 1984.

Organizers just announced this year's initial lineup, and we're excited to see that it's got something for everyone, from rooftop farming and aerial acrobats to some of NYC's coolest tech companies and cultural game-changers.

Check out the lineup after the jump, along with a couple video highlights from last year's conference. And remember: tickets go on sale this Thursday, November 10 at 1pm.

TEDxBrooklyn's initial 2011 lineup:

Susannah Drake :: Principal at dlandstudio pllc :: The future of landscape architecture

Blake Whitman :: VP, Creative Development at Vimeo :: Online video community builder extraordinaire

Viraj Puri :: Founder of Gotham Greens :: A rooftop farm in the heart of Brooklyn

Sean Meenan :: Founder of Habana Outpost :: Sustainable hacienda

Lisa Jamhoury and Dana Abrassart :: Independent Aerial Acrobats :: Creatively adorning Brooklyn's airspace, with original musical accompaniment by Philip Joseph Restine III

Jack Walsh :: Executive Producer at Celebrate Brooklyn! :: Legendary performance festival at the Prospect Park Bandshell, produced by BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn

Chad Dickerson :: CEO of Etsy :: The net’s most prosperous online flea market

Jonny Wilson :: Founder of Eclectic Method :: Audiovisual remix producer/DJ

Jullien Gordon :: Purpose Finder :: Innerview.me + 30 Day Do It

Jen Lyon :: Founder of Mean Red Productions :: Brooklyn’s risk-taking event production

Farai Chideya :: Author/Public Radio Host :: Award winning writer & media personality

Laurie Cumbo :: Founder and Executive Director of MoCADA :: Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art

Ruth Ozeki :: Author/Filmmaker :: Ordained Zen minister to kick off the event

Paul Steely White :: Executive Director at Transportation Alternatives :: Reclaiming NYC streets

Eugene Mirman :: Comedian :: Smartest funny man in Brooklyn

-- John Ruscher

TONIGHT + FRIDAY // 3rd Ward Instructor Phillip Stearns' Multiple Exhibitions

Entity I, from "Subliminal Machines"It's safe to say Phillip Stearns--electronics artist and our own renewable power sources teacher extraordinaire--is on something of a roll. Stearns has an exhibition opening tonight, Nov. 3rd followed by an entirely different one tomorrow. 

Tonight's installation "Subliminal Machines" opens over at Rabbithole in DUMBO. It takes a look at circuits as live organisms via an interactive light and sound installation, digital imagery created by short-circuiting a camera and audio-visual compositions.

As part of his artist statement, Stearns claims "By making electronics physical, I invert the paradigm of miniaturization which constantly seeks to embed ever powerful computational devices in increasingly smaller spaces, choosing to explode the physical attributes of the circuits to give them a bodily presence." He'll be giving a talk about the installation November 18, 7-9 p.m. The show will be up until November 28. 

One of Stearns's pieces from "Algorithmic Unconscious"

If that gets you charged up, check out Stearns' work in Friday, Nov. 4th's "Algorithmic Unconscious," a collaborative project debuting at Williamsburg's Devotion Gallery. The show studies the overlap of noise in electronic machines, random fluctuations of sound, the interactions of humans and machines and how messing with a system's algorithms can create dischord. In other words, a fine example of Glitch art. This one's also open until November 28. 

We obviously love to support our own, but Stearns' new work looks (and we're sure, we'll sound) amazing, so we hope to see you out there too.

--Layla Schlack.