McCarren Park Pool photo by Paul Ker.

1. Go jump in the pool, McCarren or any others. The chlorine’s fine.

2. New Orleans comes to Brooklyn, minus the awesome public drinking and the pirates, drunks, and whores. (Friday)

3. It’s the last weekend for you to find out with a photo dog run is. Can you go and find out for me? (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

4. Go tailgate with some Cyclones fans and find out if first-round pick and OBP machine Brandon Nimmo is worth a damn. (Saturday)

5. Dance dance dance in East Williamsburg. And to help you do that, free Bushmills! (Saturday)

6. It’s hot. Why don’t you take it easy and let people read to you? (Saturday)

7. Ever owned a teddy bear? This exhibition just might reduce you to tears. The picture alone makes me well up. (Saturday)

8. Take a hike. What? It’s a real suggestion, you might even learn something. (Sunday)

9. Enjoy a festive picnic and dance on the graves of slave owners. (Sunday)

10. I wouldn’t ordinarily recommend meth, but if you really want to catch up on the full Breaking Bad experience… (Sunday)

11. It is a sad and beautiful world. So why not dance about it, New Orleans style? (Sunday)

12. Go on a two-wheel tour of Jewish Brooklyn

13. Free beer makes just about everything more interesting, so even if you think soccer is just an encroaching socialist plot, you’ll enjoy yourself at Verde on Smith. (Sunday)

The ultra-cool Kosciusko Pool in 1974 (before the new dress code.) Photo by Danny Lyons.

I held out going to public pools like I held out on getting an AC unit, but eventually concluded that cold water immersion beat any E-coli I might contract. After I stopped obsessing over what bodily excretions might be swimming with me, I was actually pleasantly surprised at the resources Brooklyn has poured into its pools. And at the moment, they sure beat the ocean, with four local beaches closed due to elevated bacteria levels stemming from last week’s Hudson sewage spills. (more…)