Spring 2010 issue is out!

OVERFLOW's Spring issue is out in stores across South Brooklyn. Find a copy at your corner coffee shop, or check out the online edition.

Let us know what you think too: comments@overflowmagazine.com

"The Destruction of Brooklyn's Soul Day"

Yesterday Brooklyn either won or lost a battle. The Atlantic Yards Project finally broke ground with a ceremonious ribbon cutting amidst a storm of confetti and furious protestors sporting picket signs and satirical masks that might as well have been torches and pitchforks. Despite the alleged benefits of the Atlantic Yards Project, including jobs and subsidized housing, the war continues to rage over the extensive plans to build skyscrapers, apartments, and not to mention the stadium for the Nets in the middle of downtown Brooklyn. Angry Brooklynites even supposedly stooped to the military tactics of terrorism when the judge who approved the Atlantic Yards Project received an envelope of "suspicious white powder." So tell us, then, where do you stand--with the capitalist soul-crushing developers or the anthrax-wielding hearts and souls of Brooklyn?

Love Your Body & Your Wallet.

The high costs of yoga classes are no longer an excuse to wimp out on the stretches and body contortions that make your muscles cringe. This weekend Dharma Yoga Brooklyn opened, a pay-what-you-wish yoga center in Park Slope. Although it may seem like a stretch (no pun intended) to expect to run a business solely on donations, the owners Lily Cushman and her partner have high hopes. Classes start tomorrow, so this is your chance to get in touch with mind and body. You'll feel like that seven-year-old who effortlessly does the splits in every possible direction while you watch enviously, mourning the loss of your youthful muscle elasticity. Namaste, Brooklynites!

The Gowanus Canal Gets Superfund Status!

The Gowanus Canal has finally induced nausea at an international level. The EPA has declared the Gowanus Canal to be on par with the nation's most toxic waste sites, officially granting it Superfund status. Bloomberg and the canal's colonies of mutant races are bummed out, but the EPA insists that they will provide the best results. We foresee a clear and bright future for the canal, one in which children catch crawdads instead of syphilis.

The Rotterdam Film Festival in Brooklyn

Big news for you lovers of the silver screen--the Rotterdam Film Festival has decided to branch out and share the wealth with Brooklyn. This will be the debut of the festival in the United States and a chance for new audiences to have access to the competitors for the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition. The festival is from March 3-9 at BAMcinematek and includes an array of films from around the world.

E-mail Brooklyn Based with "Rotterdam @ BAM" in the subject line, you could win a pair of free tickets to the film you most want to see!

[Sh]it's Coming Down!

With another wintery-mix weekend heading our way, I could understand the need for long-johns, hot chocolate, rock salt, and a vow to not leave the house for 72 hours.

BUT you would be MISSING OUT!

Take a bundled stroll over to the Dumbo Art Center and thank Brokelyn for an affordable three day show of affordable pop-art. I think a little hair frizz matched with some galoshes is worth some possibly valuable (in a few years) but absolutely necessary art for your bare walls. Think of it as a future investment in more insulation dividing you from the cold (and at least you didn't buy it from Urban Outfitters)!

Putting the O Back in H2O

Maybe you've noticed something different about the Gowanus Canal, namely a huge pipe running between the 3rd Street Bridge and the Carroll Street Bridge. Well, they're not there to pump any gunk out, they're there to pump oxygen in. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has installed the pipes to maintain oxygen levels while the Flushing Tunnel is closed down for maintenance. At least they're not just letting it all go to shit.

Park Slop Turns Twitter Local

Once again, Park Slopers are putting Twitter to good use, implementing a new service called BusesAroundMe. Following in suit to the ParkingAroundMe service, tweeters can notify their neighbors as to when the next B67 bus will arrive, making for fewer impatient and generally pissy commuters.

This may not be as epic an application of Twitter as, say, bringing a massive earthquake to the Chinese government's attention, but there's something to said for using a globalizing means of social networking to benefit the local community. Sometimes it's the little things that count, like reading celebrity's tweets inside rather than while freezing your butt off at the bus stop.

Eminent Domain Strikes Again

Brooklynites are up in arms over the Atlantic Yard's Project, Bruce Ratner's commercial and residential development project in Prospect Heights that is using eminent domain to force out community members. But this community isn't leaving without a fight. Earlier this month councilwoman Letitia James spoke at Freddy's Bar, one of the businesses facing its end at the hands of the Atlantic Yards Project, on behalf of the community.

The real tragedy is in the closing of the Pacific Dean Family Homeless Shelter, which will result in forcing homeless families to freeze in the streets.

Today, homeless advocates and anyone else who wants to join in the vigilante fun for that matter are staging a citizen's arrest of Bruce Ratner on alleged indictments of bribery. These people aren't just standing up for their community, they're standing up for those members who need the most support. Kudos to that.

Gowanus A-Go-Go

The Gowanus Canal Conservancy wants to clean shit up and they need your money to do it. Do your part and have fun doing it tonight at the Bell House for the Gowanus-A-Go-Go benefit concert. Feel good about supporting a local cause and without having to wade knee-deep in syphilis water with a pool skimmer. All proceeds will go to the man with the plan, the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental organization that actually intends to do something about this mess.

Pushy Pâté Gets a New Location

The Brooklyn Paper has discovered what they deem to be the new Brooklyn front in the Vietnam (sandwich) war. Your favorite Vietnamese sandwich place on Seventh Avenue has closed and so the battle between Hanco's and Henry's has become a bit of a moot point.

However we would like to hear more about Henry Huynh's new joint Home. The cuisine is still Vietnamese but...please, I beg The Brooklyn Paper to tell us more about the pâté! Once you get over the fact that you're basically eating what looks like un-canned dog food, there is nothing more delicious than some baguette and pâté. I shall visit soon to taste the wonders of Huynh's new (perhaps hijacked but improved) sandwiches now on Fifth Avenue.

Welcome to the Nabe, Brooklyn Homebrew.

In case you didn't take me seriously when I suggested you start to brew your own beer, you should reconsider this growing trend because Brooklyn Homebrew has officially opened in Gowanus. Danielle Cefaro and Benjamin Stutz now have a real store as opposed to their dining room in a Sunset Park apartment, and more space means more yeast, hops, and malts.

If you're still wary, remember--it's 2010, which means that you can learn to do anything on youtube, including how to brew beer in your 600-square-foot apartment. Your girlfriend may object, but she'll eventually get used to steamy windows and what smells like a Kellogg's factory for a few hours every month. So what's stopping you? Head on over to Brooklyn Homebrew and get your hops on.

If You're Too Lazy To Read Yourself...

(Actual Hipster Reading in Natural Habitat)


Have someone read to you! Vacations are a distant memory and if you're like me, the large pleasure reading list you lovingly compiled for the Winter holidays still remains almost entirely...unread, unopened...perhaps (if you were diligent), leafed-through.

Never fear! There are many Brooklyn-hip readings for all to attend in the next few days:

Tomorrow, January 20 (two thousand and ten...for those of you still having trouble acknowledging the new decade) Katharine Weber will be reading from her new novel True Confections. Hop on down to Rocky Sullivan's in Red Hook for you Brooklyners who love a sugary mixture of history with your fiction.

Personally however, I tend toward the rather obscure, poetic, and shameful in its tendency to be made pompous, pretentious, or graduate degree required within months of hitting the shelves. (Perhaps this is why I'm embarrassed to read the beloved, recently burned Jonathan Safran Foer on the L train.) If you're proud in your genuine love of the literary, Tin House magazine will present a line-up of its own authors at The Old Stone House on Thursday, January 21. This Brooklyn Reading Works sponsored event will include poets Matthea Harvey and Brenda Shaughnessy as well as essayist and fiction writer Elissa Schappell.

Now you can knowingly have a tête-à-tête and rave about the newest, New-York-Times-Book-Review-approved, post-grad fodder that's in circulation. Sit back, relax...you don't even have to strain your eyes.

Winter 2010 Issue, now in cyberspace

Golly gee, we're in the tubes!

Our Winter 2010 issue is now available online. OVERFLOW prides itself on being a free print magazine (which is why we wait about a month before we put the thing online), but we get emails from displaced or wannabe Brooklyn folks who want to get their hands on us. Well, we can't afford to mail copies across the globe, so this is the next best thing.