Ah, Dekalb Avenue, ever so pleasant. Via NY Mag.

Cocktails are a magical device usually used to make your daily drinking budget evaporate before your eyes. This is troublesome as Brooklyn’s bartenders have get craftier every year, with homemade bitters and such. Lucky for you would-be mixology lovers that the Dekalb Classic is back this year, and we’ve got tickets to giveaway! The Classic is a competition running the whole month of April between bartenders at five bars on Dekalb Avenue, aka one of the best avenues in New York City, where you get to pick the winner. The $50 tix get you a cocktail at each of the five bars, which, in addition to saving you money over normal cocktail prices, helps raise money for a good cause:  helping the Pratt Area Community Council assist small business and provide affordable housing in the neighborhood. Details on how to win below. (more…)

Block Party! Via Brooklyn Knows.

This factoid came to our attention in the depths of last summer, when it was almost too late to do anything about it, but now we are here for you, dear reader, carrying the welcome mat of spring, bringing you all the information you need to seize summer 2k13 by the beautiful throat. You see, it turns out you can throw your own block party this summer for a mere $25.75. Seems like it should be more, right? But it turns out, like soda and fire hydrants, block parties are the providence of the working class, so the city makes the barrier for entry low. You need 90 days notice to set one up, which means June 10 is the earliest you could do one, and there is some paperwork involved, naturally, but not much else. So get on it! And invite us! We gladly offer up Dave Colon as your water balloon target. (more…)

Last year’s Lit Crawl stopped at the Zombie Hut. Where will it go this time? Via FB.

Last year, San Francisco’s beloved Litquake finally brought its huge, free and fairly prestigious Lit Crawl to Brooklyn, which  was long overdue seeing as Brooklyn loves books like SF loves saying “hella.” If you missed last year’s event (seeing as it was one of the busiest weekends ever), which featured Amy Sohn, Mark Haddon and many others doing readings in groovy bars, bookstores and shops, fear not, because it’s coming back on May 18! Planning is underway so we don’t know who will be there yet, but the organizers are looking for your suggestions of bars in the Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill area (arguably the most literary quadrant of the borough?) where events can be held. And there’s more! (more…)

Duane Reads! An example of how to not suck at corporate Twitter.

We’re suckers for rooting for the little guy, even if, in this case, the little guy is a ubiquitous chain David taking on an even more suffocatingly ubiquitous Goliath. Local, mostly beloved, sometimes begrudged, 40-year-old drug store Duane Reade overtook Walmart in the number of Twitter followers on Monday, 321,009 to 312,026. What does this mean!?! Probably nothing much, other than it’s a nice stick in the eye to the hyperglobalmega retailer, which still continues to be thwarted in its efforts to get a gun-peddling toe in any of the five boroughs. The company can take some pride in this, as Walmart has thousands of stores nation-wide, while Duane Reade has fewer than 300 stores in just the NYC area. But the news also gives us a lesson for companies that we can call How Not to Suck At Social Media. (more…)

Beacon’s Closet: Friendly people, but I can help myself just fine, thank you. Via WSJ.

This is going to sound like the first world-iest of first world problems, but it is a real thing that has been on my mind when doing shopping, and something that would fall under the purview of the Broke Ethicist, if we had one. I was shopping in a thrift store in Atlanta recently (in which the relatively minimal prices mark the only place where Atlanta trumps Brooklyn), minding my own business and going through the sort of slash-and-burn, try-on-and-discard method that I have fine tuned over a decade of thrift shopping mastery.

This is partly due to my desire to be left alone in my shopping bubble, because I know what I like and I like what I want, and no one else, not salesperson nor family member nor Thrillist listing, has ever been able to accurate predict it. I decided on a ringer tee from Stone Mountain, chosen not only for its dirty retro 80s summer-camp aesthetic, but also for as a souvenir from the town in which both my friend I was staying with worked and from where Kenneth Parcell came. When I got to the register, the cashier asked, “Was anyone helping you today?” The real answer was “no,” but I looked around at the cute girl who smiled at me before and pointed, “her there, with the bangs.” As such, bangs girl got some commission from the sale. But she didn’t really help me at all. Was I ethically wrong to do this? (more…)

Are the president’s naps more important than yours?

Watching the State of the Union last night while playing your Poland Spring drinking game, you noticed the prez up the ante on minimum wage, proposing to hike it to $9 an hour, which is even more than New York’s Gov. Cuomo was seeking, which is kinda nice when you consider how many laid off professionals end up doing crap jobs for vomit pay these days. And there was talk about overall economic stability, and increasing American output by stealing Apple jobs from struggling Taiwanese workers. But where was the real talk of progressive reform that our nation’s overburdened and overloaded workers are demanding? We’re talking the third rail of office politics: Naps. Naps, not apps! What do we want? “A place to lie down for a few minutes!” When do we want it? ”Sometime around 2:30 would be great!”

We need them, now more than ever, as described in this New York Times story from last week about how relaxation increases productivity. And part of that relaxation is, of course, the simple nap, which does so very much for us, says Science: (more…)

The long-awaited 2013  Brokelyn Beer Book is on sale today, just in time for Valentine’s day. For just $30, you get this gorgeous, pocket-sized, completely portable coupon book (designed by the talented folks at The Heads of State) containing coupons for 30 free beers at 30 bars. And not just any bars: The Brokelyn elves have spent the past few months curating the best beer bars in town. But wait, there’s more! This year, we offer not one, but TWO books to choose from, each containing 30 different amazing bars! What?! It’s true! See the breakdown below, but don’t dawdle in buying your beer book today, because these puppies will be snatched up before you can say, Bartender, I’ll have another! (more…)

Wait till they find out about Regretsy.

Remember Paul Ryan? He was that child actor the Republicans hired to try to run in between Barack Obama’s legs while he was carrying pork to the socialist BBQ, only to watch him suplexed by Joe Biden and fade away. Until this week, when Obama’s inaugural speech reminded us of Ryan’s oft-repeated “takers vs. makers” catch phrase. Jon Stewart on Wednesday used that as a chance to take a swipe at the most notorious “makers” in the world: Brooklyn-based Etsy. See the clip below: (more…)

Ladies clamored for the limited dude selection at the BK Meat Up in 2009. Photo by Mark Sullivan Bernal.

Not to be a Dennis Downer, but it probably sucks to be a single lady in New York City, especially of the attractive, driven, smart type, which, last I checked, is like 85 percent of yous. You outnumber dudes, so you are forced to hit on whatever human mackerel you find swimming around at Lucky Dog or whathaveyou. Not to mention that Adam, once he went all stalkery and creepo, instantly became the most realistic character on Girls. I have seen that inky stare of desperation across too many faces, even including one that was being dragged away by the cops in practically the same situation (LEAVE MY LIFE OUT OF THIS, LENA). A lot of you make more money than us and are willing to pick up the check, yet still my lady friends can’t seem to find even a simple winter’s bone.

But the sad truth is that we, the dudes of Brooklyn, the broliteriate, if you will, are apparently not helping the situation at all. I present exhibits A through Z: Every single time there’s some sort of singles event/date-off/sexy party, the place is overflowing with ladies, and not just any ladies, but babes, cute girls with food blogs, light brown hair and quirky skirts or tall ones with stylish glasses and a hopeful smile who can’t help but bite the side of their lip out of nervousness. Take, for example, the Literary Speed Dating our friend Jo Firestone is hosting at Housing Works on the day before Valentine’s day. She’s got binders full of women, and practically no men, so much so that there is now a freaking discount for straight guys. What gives, bros?  (more…)

I don’t want to wait in vain for your train. Via Flickr’s drain.

If you’ve ever ridden San Francisco’s meager but clean and efficient version of the subway the BART, you would think those Bay-Area-ians (Bay-guls?) have some sort of sixth sense when it comes to pre-walking to where the subway doors open, as they all form an orderly line on the exact right spot. Then you realize the damn floor is marked for the doors, which is cheating. We have no such thing in New York though, where everything is chaotic and unpredictable and dangerous! Or is it? There’s an easy subway hack hidden in this New Yorker story about the Norwegian architecture firm redesigning Times Square that lets you know exactly where the doors are going to open. The secret? Gum. (more…)