Friday, September 30, 2005

Best Canvas Photo Contest

We're closing in on the Katrina Benefit Canvas kick-off, I hereby annouce the Best Canvas Contest. Everyone: take pictures of your posters up around the neighborhood. The best one will go up on my website as well as About.com. Plus I'll make a little online album of them all. Email them to me at joeyinastoria@gmail.com.

Note: We've changed the time to 12:00 noon.

Astorian Edition - 05.09.29

It's Fall! My favorite season! Finally, you can bust out your corduroy and alpaca. Oooooh! Classics never die, so bike over to Astoria Park. Admire the newly cleaned shoreline and then pick up some pretty Fall leaves and decorate your apartment with them. Shut up. You know you want to.

You've never been to the Museum of African Art and you haven't drawn much since you got kicked out of art class for that paper mache incident (it gets *hot* in there!), so mosey over to the Museum in LIC (another short bike ride away) and Strike a Pose! AT 2PM where you'll get to do both. After the ride home warm up to *four* kinds of green tea at the new Himalayan Teahouse on 31st Av between 34th & 35th Street.

When you've had enough of sporting your Fall wardrobe cozy up to your favorite mac product (PS. If you bought the Nano watch out that that shit doesn't snap in half, dude) and tune into Astoria's homegrown podcast ThisShowAgain. They'll make you giggle.

PS. There's a hot new thrift shop in the neighb. But I'm not telling you where yet.
PPS. Check me and what's hot in the rest of QNS at queens.about.com

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Small job, big love

Calling all Astorians and LICers - as you may know, I'm helping to plan an event series to raise money for the survivors of hurricane Katrina. The first event is next (not this) weekend and We're looking for volunteers (businesses and individuals) to canvas for the event. Can you pass out some pretty flyers? Or ask a few stores on your block to put up some very wonderful posters? You better. Ahem, oops - did I say that? If you can pitch in we (and the people we're raising $ for) would really appreciate it.

Get your morning fix of flyers *and* tea. Meet up at Freeze Peach at 12:00 noon Saturday to pick up flyers, and posters, and mark on a big giant map, the area that you'll cover to offer local businesses posters to promote the event. See you there!

If you're like deathly ill and can't make it, but want posters and flyers, please respond here. Please please please!

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

oooh!


oooh!
Originally uploaded by joey in astoria.
Bike ride was fun times. Hello.

Window Flutties


Window Flutties
Originally uploaded by joey in astoria.
Ah. Fall flutties...

Friday, September 23, 2005

Get your Bike Pumps Started!

We did the before. Now we're doing the after.

Thanks to us, the Shore *is* Clean! Or cleaner anyway. Yay! We're going to bike the Queens West shoreline again. PS. The weather'll be a lot better this time around. Perfect for biking.

For the deets check the Astoria Waterfront. See you and your bike there! Voom voom!

PPS. I've been in Vermont, sorry to be so incommunicado. Joey's back in Astoria.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Shore is Clean!!!

Well, not quite. Actually, the Western Queens (that's us) shoreline is a mess! Remember that time you and your lovey were enjoying the fab view from Astoria Park... then you leaned a little further over the rail, saw the pile of junk along the shore and almost gagged on your Mr. Softie? Save the shore (and your ice cream!). Help us clean it up, (and then party like rock stars) September 17th, this Saturday!

Whooohoooooo!!!

Check the Astoria Waterfront website for the deets and go clean together with your pals.

Monday, September 12, 2005

Vote. Or Else.

I know, I know. You can't live without your morning latte, you're partying 'till 2am and you can't let your hair air dry. I don't really care. If you don't vote tomorrow or on Election Day, then we're not friends anymore. We're also probably not friends if you vote for Weiner tho that it would be funny to have a "Mayor Weiner". Heh. C'mon, I know you laughed.

Anyhoo, to find your pollsite, in Astoria, or wherever, please use the BOE's lovely new Poll site Locator.

News & Notes 05.09.12

See? The smartest, coolest girls do live in Western Queens. Check out this hip and happening 12 n' under set. LIC Lemonade Girls.

This would be an interesting piece about new LIC restaurant Tuk Tuk if it said anything about the food.

School's starting. Might as well gear up for Chess Club in style at the Imagery of Chess Revisited (scroll down). PS. If you weren't in Chess Club, I don't need to hear about it.

Watch local, think global. Silvercup's shooting some new shows in the neighb. Now if only we can get them to be nice to the Terra Cotta factory...

LIC Community Boathouse has a new website.

Scuttlebutt Section:

The Garden of George, that not-quite-gourmet grocery on Steinway appears to be closed. Steve discovered a bit after this place opened that they had a killer Mexican breakfast salad bar. I kid you not. Then a month or so ago, the food sucked. I think that's why they went under. ~

Big Apple Discount went under. A couple days after the "50% off Clearance" sign went up I went in there and bought a (crappy) garden nozzle for the community garden. I asked the cashier why they were closing and she said they weren't. "Just clearing out old stuff". Ouch.

Tupelo went out long ago. But the building has been demolished! The million dollar question: what's going in there?

Friday, September 09, 2005

Hurricane Katrina Fundraisers in New York City

I just wanted to add this. Not in Astoria, but this is a really great list of stuff to do in the City.

Astorian Weekend Edition 05.09.09

I gotta tell ya, September got off to a bad start, folks. With such recent disaster on our minds, the anniversary of our own City's crisis is going to be all the more acute.

Friends and neighbors, this is my advice to you: get involved. Do it this weekend. Give what you can of yourselves and then step back and appreciate your own lives while you live them. I can only hope that this rhythm will bring you (and I) and peace.

Try and spend this weekend immersing yourself in the joy of living here, as well as honoring the memory of those who've passed. That's what they would want.

Saturday, support some bright, young artists. Take a stroll down to Socrates Sculpture Park around 2pm for the opening of their Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibit.

I'm a big fan of meditation and on Sunday the Chakrasambra Center will be starting its Transforming Painful Emotions series this weekend. Not a day too soon. At 2pm you can rediscover our neighborhood yet again, on walking tour with the Queens Historical Society. Then retire to St. Joseph's Church for the Astoria Symphony's Memorial Concert.

It's fun to bounce around town checking out the scene, no doubt. Even writing about it is fun. But if ever there was a weekend for it, stop and smell the flowers, too.

More about Astoria & Queens at About.com

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Restaurant Week in Astoria

I'm not really seeing the bargains here, but all the same, Restaurant Week in Queens is coming up. Check it out.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Are you a Crafty Astorian?

I'm not. My craftiness starts with scheming to get the Democrats back in the white house and ends with me fixing my stuffed animals. However, if you *are* crafty, there's lots of crafty groups in Astoria.

ACK (Astoria Crafty Knitty Group) meets every Thursday at 8pm at Freeze Peach. Now that must-see-TV is defunct, this is a most excellent replacement on Ditmars.

In the Sunswick section, a kniting Meetup meets up weekly at Cup. They also took some summer knitting outings to Socrates Sculpture Park.

A bonafide stich n' bitch happens weekly at Ten63, down in LIC. Ten63 actually changed their hours for the group!

Crocheters welcome.

PS. Where the heck do we get some decent yarn around this joint?

BTW, Mia (see comments) said that if you're interested in the LIC group you should actually check out this site. Thanks, Mia!

Monday, September 05, 2005

Freeze Peach Cafe

It took me years to finally get my butt into Freeze Peach Cafe. Most of you reading this practically live there, I bet. But if you haven't been, you really should swing by. It could, technically, be construed as an internet cafe, but - hello - it's awesome. There's a zillion kinds of clutch tea and now coffee, enormously friendly service and 1/2 hour free wif-fi with every tea purchase! They've got a bunch of laptops there, so no need to lug yours unless you want to.

The coolest part about Freeze Peach is that they host a zillion different kinds of community groups and facilitate this with thier astorians.net website. Some of the groups are encouragingly obscure. FP is totally all about community and a lot Ditmars folk seem to have made friends and roomates there.

I would've posted a pic, but you might as well just check out the webcam.

PS. Matt makes a mean cup o' joe, too.

Friday, September 02, 2005

Weekend Edition 05.09.02

Could things look any more bleak? It's Labor Day weekend. New Orleans is submerged and you're stuck here in the City to contemplate it all.

First order of business, check out Craig's online relief community and list of worthy dot orgs to find a few ways that you can make a difference. You'll feel at least a tiny bit better. And so will the people you're helping! Another good way to get some warm fuzzies is to visit the oh-so-cozy Freeze Peach Cafe. Besides, it's their one year anniversary.

My strategy from there? Distraction distraction distraction.

There's still cause in the world to celebrate. (Otherwise we let the hurricane win!) One such cause is Brazilian Independence Day. As my pal John blogged earlier this week. Get to MoMI tonight to observe properly.

Catch the last Warm Up! at P.S. 1 this Saturday starting with a live performance by Clifford Owens at 2pm.

Then on Sunday, recover from your current existential crisis with some Buddhist meditation.

Squander away your day off in hours of internet bliss mapping all your favorite Astorian haunts on our new Community Map of Astoria.

And then? Toss a few back in honor of the Big Easy. Don't feel bad. New Orleans practically invented drinking.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Do Astoria's Part

New Orlean's is under water, folks. Scary. I feel very lucky today. And I can't help remembering what living through 9/11/01 was like and how much support New York got from the rest of the world. Now it's our turn.

Bloggers across the spectrum (and world) today are joining together to plead with you to share a little of your resources with those who've lost all of theirs. Please consider donating to Catholic Charities (actually a very liberal organization) or another group to aid the survivors. It's okay if you don't have a lot of cash. Give what you can. If you have a lot, give a lot. If you have a little, give a little. Every bit counts.

Craig has (naturally) set up an environment for us all to find ways to help. Check out the big red link on the left of craiglist: new orleans. Wikipedia has has tons of useful info.