Aligned Creative's Mixed Media Party

Heads up indie video fans. Make sure to come on out Thursday, December 3rd to Galapagos for Aligned Creative's Mixed Media Party. The night will feature an exclusive premiere of AC's new web series, Krazdale: A Smorgasbord Of Absurdity! It's a new interactive web series that gives the viewer an opportunity to write their own episodes and incorporate themselves into the show's universe that AC will help produce. It's a very cool concept that helps foster the originality and creativity of young filmmakers, by giving them a platform to produce short form artistic content. Along with Krazdale the night will also include Aligned Creative produced music videos, a showcase of AC handpicked short films by up and coming filmmakers Cai Hall, Kieran O’Hare, Chris King, and Matt Farrell, and live performances by The Middle Eight and Emily Mure. Tickets are $10 at the door.

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Nightlife , Theaters-Performing Arts Centers • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown

Brand New Old-Timey Eats

Want to impress your foodie friends or prove to your parents that living in post-industrial Brooklyn is more than high rent and flaking plaster? Take them to Vinegar Hill House. First, check your NFT to see where the heck this non-neighborhood is, then lead them down the cobblestone path to obscure fine-dining! We passed the restaurant twice before making it into the organ-bedecked room warmed by the same wood-fired oven in which all the food is cooked. The menu is alarmingly brief with three apps, four entrees, and a special or two--soothe them with phrases like "seasonal produce" and "changes weekly." The tartlet is a highlight with a palate-popping combo of stilton and sweet-potato in gold-crisp crust. Everything else is solidly good: fish tender, sweet and sour eggplant both sweet and sour. Meat is served on cutting boards, water in old wine bottles, wine in tiny glasses (not BYO anymore, though they've jumped on the Old Fashioned train with liquor license in hand)--all by attractive flannel-clad twentysomethings. This enclave of rustic-refinement won't be your new watering hole, but VHH is a trump card to defend your Brooklyn restaurant cred.

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Restaurants • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown

Waterfalls by Olafur Eliasson

Forget Niagara, Victoria, and Foz De Iguazu... this summer, the Public Art Fund has provided NYC with an even more spectacular waterfall experience. And not a moment too soon with travel prices the way they are these days. Installation/Public art sensation, Olafur Eliasson has created not one, but four monumental waterfall structures around the gateway area of the East River. They will run seven days a week, from 7 am-10 pm, June 26th through October 13th, 2008. I asked some young urban hipsters what they thought as we all gawked along the Manhattan Bridge bike path at the Pier 35 trial run... "beautiful man, just beautiful!" Oh, and, not to brag, but NFT made the vantage point map! Use it to find the best viewing spots. Visit www.nycwaterfalls.org for more info or download a PDF version of the NFT Map.

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Landmarks • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown

Everything You Dreamed It Would Be

Ah! I love the smell of isolation so close to the projects and a highway. The Brooklyn Navy Yard is empty, dusty, and full of whirling dust devils and apparitions of cowboys in spurs. Ghosts of the woebegone battleships Iowa, North Carolina, Antietam, and the country's first ironclad ship, the USS Monitor, dance in the nation's memory as you, hysterically, dance in the shadow of the Brooklyn moon, a few Hasidic fast-walkers, and, oh, movie makers en route to the Steiner Studios which opened in 2004. Whoever thought there'd be a movie studio in a previously asbestos-covered navy yard? What would the ghosts of legions of WPA workers think about that?!

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Landmarks • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown

Three Words

And those three words are? Frozen Hot Chocolate, of course. Yes, you can get many other things at Jacques Torres, and, if your aural passages (to say nothing of your oral passages) respond better to words such as “truffle,” or, more simply, “candy bar,” you can get those here as well. The truffles are indeed brilliant (try the basic XOXO one first, then move on), the candy bars pack ten times the punch of your standard Hershey’s, and the packaging will definitely get you an extra base that night. But, for those glorious DUMBO mornings, there is the Frozen Hot Chocolate; a hot chocolate that’s been sitting in the fridge since the night before, then iced up in a blender the next morning for your choco-pleasure. Are you kidding? No, we’re not kidding. F*** YES, baby!

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Shopping • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown

Star76

Once a clothing afterthought left to ferment in gym lockers, t-shirts are daily worn by the cultural elite and the hoi polloi alike. Whichever class you belong to, you’ll love the fresh designs at Star76. This new creative collective works with local emerging artists and offers limited-edition tees via their website for spring (if spring ever gets here, that is) ensuring that you’ll look a hell of a lot better than your friends in their tired H&M rags. You’ll also be doing something for charity—the Star76 team supports emerging nonprofit organizations via the Ad Astra Initiative, a pilot program committed to building awareness of new and innovative nonprofit organizations. First up is Project Mim. Founded by Jason Moses, co-owner of the Purified Loft in Dumbo, Project Mim seeks to promote sustainable development for villages in Africa. Sustaining Africa, sustaining your wardrobe…sounds like a win-win to me. Check out: http://star76.net.

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Nightlife • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown

A Great Slice on Flatbush

For Brooklynites in search of a decent pie, Gino’s is the perfect place to stop in or order out. Just a few blocks from the bars and shops on busy 5th Avenue, Gino’s is in a prime location to indulge impromptu pizza cravings–they even deliver to the nearby watering holes that don’t offer food. A common sight to area barflies and homebodies alike, the cheerful delivery folk bring hand tossed pies with a perfect sweet-salty balance of tomato sauce and mozzarella. The best bet is to stick to simpler pies–standard cheese, pepperoni, and mushroom are the best, while fancier toping combos are less satisfying. But who needs fancy when it comes to New York Pizza? The best pizza here is always no-frills and Gino’s doesn’t disappoint.

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Restaurants • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown

M Train

With thoughts to cull or nay, the morning M 'bout outer boro—per pleasant trek fro anywhere borne 'tween Middle Village and southern berm of Brooktown Bay. Parkway, that is, imbibing rhyming 'pon only slightly graffiti'd sleigh. Trans preponderance of elevated dots chock of placid folk, mostly, space enough to 'low even a bloodshot user grace. Elbow room for standing reading, often sitting 'mid provincial waft. Primarily Post readers, the occasional sleeper. Sphere a fine time to unknow reason one presently traverses inertia. Reminding one of homeland if homeland afar the urban cess, however, here, trans. Six stops on Island High. Not the voguest route in town, though, remote to make what will. Even swill a silver can for ain't your correspoendent ever seen a cop atop it's faintly littered floor. For the abstemious commuter, this inappreciably routed M, of facile turnstiles to hurdle, especially mornings. More specifically Fresh Pond Road. And a gem apart notes of morning to the traveling know, a fine, lightly loaded purview available of High Island's skyline over River East at dusk—ten seconds to or fro Billyburg—Inter Essex Street and Marcy mezzo of M, La Linea Cocoa.

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Landmarks , Museums • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown

The Game’s Afoot: Henry’s End

Henry’s End is one of a dying breed—a true old-world New York treasure, in one of the city’s loveliest neighborhoods, Brooklyn Heights. But location and ambiance are only two of the ‘End’s four main treasures—the other two being its killer beer selection (it’s not how many beers you have, little grasshoppers, but which ones you choose to serve that is important) and its yearly Game Festival, which begins today, September 29th. You’ve got turtle soup, boar, and other options, but we simply recommend the following procedure: go in, sit down, speak the words “Elk Chops,” and life will soon begin to have new meaning for you. If it doesn’t, there’s always Scientology or the Church of the Rosy Crucifiction.

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Restaurants • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown

Garden of Delights-Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park

A pretty cool art show with a pretty stupid name. There are a bunch of strong pieces, actually (especially Julia Ousley’s Skyline II, pictured), and the setting—Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park—can’t be beat, so just go and hang out, preferably with some pastries, breads, and chocolates from Almondine Bakery and/or Jaques Torres Chocolates, both conveniently located on Water Street. Since Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park is just that—a state park—there is usually a park ranger walking around (he looks like Tom Skerritt) and the park itself is only open 8 am-dusk; for late-night or early-morning views, just go next door to Brooklyn Bridge Park. Now let’s just hope the Brooklyn Waterfront Artist’s Coalition can get someone to name their shows a bit better…

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Landmarks • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown

Water Street Bar & Restaurant

The Water Street Bar & Restaurant is a mellow and sophisticated place to pass an hour or two of down time in the gratuitously gentrified little community of Dumbo. Not ten years ago the area was nothing but warehouses. Now, however, with countless chic eateries and numerous antique and custom-made furniture stores, it conjures up images of scenic and moneyed little hamlets on the water such as Sausalito and Provincetown. So after you have a stroll around, which shouldn’t take that long, stop in for a drink and enjoy a World Cup match. Their international clientele and staff – the bartender was Italian, the jazz musicians French – and late-night hours promise plenty of coverage of the world’s most popular sporting event. But be prepared, the neighborhood supports a small group of English ex-pats. That being said, Dumbo is so low-key that I doubt you will encounter any “hooliganism.” If you go on a Sunday afternoon you can get a truly superb burger with an entrée and a cocktail of your choice for $14.95. Private rooms are available to rent for occasions.

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Nightlife • Brooklyn Heights / DUMBO / Downtown