The Luna Park Gazette

The man with the telephoto camera smiled at me and squeezed my shoulder. “What is it about bubbles that we love so much?” he asked as he walked by. This wasn’t a rhetorical question, as the air around us was filled with soapy spheres, courtesy of The Bubble Girls, two women who dress up in outrageously colorful outfits and make all kinds of magic happen with wands and water. They’ve been making regular appearances at the Bay Ridge Summer Stroll, a series of street fares, where long stretches of Third Avenue are closed to traffic so that local merchants, artists and others can set up shop outdoors. There’s a lot of music and dancing and food, but The Bubble Girls are my favorite attraction by far. The Bubble Girls are like glassblowers, who create massive, fragile figures that float overhead like spirits or alien life forms. They’re composers who work with bubbles instead of music. Yeah, I know. What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I obsessing over bubbles like a five-y...

You never get over being a police reporter. I covered the cop beat in the Poconos for five years and even though I turned in my scanner 30 years ago, I still get a charge whenever I hear sirens or see flashing red lights. I felt that buzz last week when I was walking from the gym and I spotted an ambulance on the other side of Third Avenue at 83rd Street. Immediately the old instincts kicked in. Was there an accident, or an assault, or did somebody keel over? I didn’t see any other activity, but there was a young woman and a cameraman dead head on the corner. At first, I thought they were shooting a film and I decided to ask them about their project. But as I got closer, I noticed the woman was holding a microphone from Channel 12, so I reckoned they were covering whatever the hell was going on across the street. “Hey, there,” I said, “do you know what’s going on?” “No,” the woman said. “Actually, we’re here for something else. I wonder if I could ask you some questions...

They used to call him “Old Cement Head.” Back in the 1970s, a man named Ross Scott was the Professional Karate Association’s Heavyweight Champion. I knew that name because, like a lot of young people back then, I was determined to become the next Bruce Lee, which, you’ll be surprised to know, didn’t happen. There was several PKA stars back then, including Bill Wallace, the middleweight champion, Jeff Smith, who held the light-heavyweight belt, and lightweight champ Benny “The Jet” Urquidez. These guys were my heroes. Ross Scott was an extremely hard puncher who knocked out many of his opponents, but he virtually nothing in the way of defense outside an almost superhuman ability to take punishment and still clobber people. Notice I said “ almost superhuman.” This was long before the UFC and these kickboxing events were rarely televised, so I got most of my information from a handful of karate magazines I wasted my time and money on every month. I still remember reading ab...

On a summer night in 1994, I went to see a showing of “Il Postino” at the Academy of Music Theater in Northampton, MA. I was on vacation at the time and staying at my aunt’s farmhouse in Cummington, which was about 30 minutes away. The film is about an Italian postman on a small island who befriends the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who is living in exile. The postman learns to love poetry through his relationship with Neruda. Then he falls in love and needs Neruda’s guidance more than ever. This turned out to be quite an evening for me. I was wearing my Brooklyn cap at the time and before the film started, a man walking to his seat saw me and asked me if I really was from Kings County. I assured him that I was, and it turned out he was a Brooklyn native living in the Berkshires. After the movie, I met up with my fellow Brooklynite, his wife and several of their friends, and we all went out for drinks and dessert. It was a complete turnaround from the night I h...

If only that innkeeper hadn’t been so nosy. I’ve always a massive fan of tortellini, the ring-shaped pasta that's packed with meat or cheese and tons of deliciousness. However, a recent incident has me reconsidering my love for these yummy little hoops. Like any beloved food, the origin of tortellini is disputed, with both the cities of Bologna and Modena claiming to be its birthplace. As far as its appearance, one legend—there are apparently several--has it that tortellini got its unique shape after Venus, the goddess of love herself, once stayed at an inn. The innkeeper, overcome by her beauty, spied on her through a keyhole and since all he could see was her bellybutton, he created a pasta in this shape. This would explain the term "ombelico di Venere", or Venus' navel, that is occasionally used to describe tortellini. I try to keep my pasta consumption down, but for the last few weeks I’ve been picking up tortellini at my local supermarket for lunc...

In 1940, The Thief of Bagdad made film history when it became the first movie to use blue screens. The technique allows filmmakers to combine two or more pieces of film into one and while this movie obviously looks primitive by today’s CGI standards, I love it with all my heart. I mean, the picture's got flying carpets, a beautiful princess, an evil wizard, a giant genie who gets crammed into a little bitty bottle and some lovely songs. But most of all, it’s got a kind of magic that makes me blissfully believe in the impossible. The film stars Sabu, Conrad Veidt--Major Strasser from Casablanca --June Duprez and John Justin. I can’t begin to guess how my times I’ve seen the movie and I have such fond memories of watching it with my mother that it’s impossible for me to watch it now without thinking of her. We were particularly fond of Sabu’s number “ I Want to be a Sailor .” “I want to be a sailor, sailing out to sea," he sings, "no plowboy, tinker, tailo...

Okay, now this one wasn’t my fault—honestly. Like many people I spend too much time on social media, particularly Facebook. I know there are other things I should be doing, but it’s fun—and much too easy--to check in with my friends and family and see what they’re up to. I’ve stayed in touch with other people who normally might have dropped out of my life—or reconnected with folks I haven’t seen in years. I met a whole crew of “cousins” from the U.K. and another one in Arizona, thanks to Facebook. On the dark side, you can get into serious disagreements with people, stir up a lot of hostility and have nothing to show for it, except wasted time and elevated blood pressure. Politics is probably the most volatile online issue, and the last presidential administration has been a factor in many of my Facebook farewells. But I’ve been trying to tone down my political activity; that’s why I didn’t mention that orange-skinned prick’s name even though I hate him with a passion. ...