Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Tuesday March 14, 2006

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 -more-


Arts: Producing ‘Miss Saigon’ On the Cheap Pays Off, By: Ken Bullock

Tuesday March 14, 2006

You can buy a toy helicopter at the Dollar Store, but Ten Red Hen Productions has beaten that price and delivered the goods in the form of The 99-cent Miss Saigon at the Willard Middle School Metalshop Theater, with much, much more (although the program c over displays a tiny ‘copter propelled by big chopsticks into a wide-open mouth as its proud logo). -more-


Arts: SFJAZZ Spring Season Boasts Many Musical Treats, By: Ira Steingroot

Tuesday March 14, 2006

This year’s SFJAZZ Spring Season 2006, which jumps the gun on spring this Friday, March 17 and continues through June 17, offers nearly 50 imaginatively conceived programs in venues all over San Francisco. The events take place at beautiful locations like the Palace of the Legion of Honor’s Florence Gould Theatre where admission to the museum is included in the ticket price, Grace Cathedral, the War Memorial Opera House, the Masonic Center, the Great American Music Hall, the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, and Herbst Theatre with its magnificent autumnal (thus Herbst) murals by Sir Frank Brangwyn. Besides straight ahead musical performances that range through mainstream, New Orleans, avant-garde, Latin, African and Bulgarian music, there are also classes, pre-concert talks, jam sessions, films and cartoons that can broaden and enhance the experience of the music. The following eight shows are just the cream of a consistently great festival: -more-


Arts: Traditional Chinese FormsLinked to Eclectic Abstraction, By: Robert McDonald

Tuesday March 14, 2006

A passion for beauty impels Changming Meng to create his ink paintings on paper, 20 of which are on view in the public areas of UC’s Institute of East Asian Studies through March 24. The overall effects of these expressive reductive works—in the artist’s 51st solo exhibition!—are twofold. They free viewers of their preconceptions, cleansing their eyes and spirits, and they nourish them with a fresh energy, not just for confronting art, but life, as well. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday March 14, 2006

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 -more-


Arts Calendar

Friday March 10, 2006

FRIDAY, MARCH 10 -more-


Moving Pictures: A Masterful Imitation of Hollywood Moviemaking By JUSTIN DeFREITAS

Friday March 10, 2006

If you thought America’s victory over Germany in World War II was only a political/militaristic one, check out Before The Fall, opening today (Friday) at Landmark’s Act 1&2 theater in downtown Berkeley. Apparenty we won the culture war, too. The film may be German, made with German actors speaking the German language, but it is a purely American film, from the opening shots down to the score’s final notes. -more-


Arts: Berkeley’s Jewish Music Festival Kicks Off By BEN FRANDZEL Special to the Planet

Friday March 10, 2006

The 21st annual Berkeley Jewish Music Festival got off to a sizzling start last Saturday with a soul-stirring concert by the New Orleans Klezmer All Stars at Oakland’s First Congregational Church. -more-


Garden Variety: Plant Amnesty Teaches Impacts of Bad Pruning By RON SULLIVAN

Friday March 10, 2006

End the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs! Yes, they mean it and no, they don’t lack a sense of humor. They’re serious, not solemn. Their website features a gallery of pruning atrocities, and some are hilarious. -more-


Jazzschool Benefit Features Prominent Stars By IRA STEINGROOT Special to the Planet

Friday March 10, 2006

If you missed the Jazzschool’s 2004 benefit concert featuring the Heath Brothers, you missed a major jazz event. The music went from great to unforgettable when 81-year-old bassist Percy Heath, who died last April 28, sat down to pluck out unaccompanied piccolo bass solos on Charlie Parker’s “Yardbird Suite,” Fats Navarro’s “Nostalgia” and the Johnny Green/Edward Heyman standard “Out of Nowhere.” It was like hearing cello virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich performing with the lyricism, grace and inspiration of an improvising jazz musician. -more-


Mount Everest Cooks Up Authentic Napalese Fare By B.J. CALURUS Special to the Planet

Friday March 10, 2006

Although the closest I’ve been to Nepal is the Himalayan Fair in Live Oak Park, I’ve come to like Nepalese food—at least as represented by Kathmandu on Solano Avenue and Little Nepal on Cortland Street in San Francisco. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday March 10, 2006

FRIDAY, MARCH 10 -more-


About the House The Dangers of Aluminum Wiring in Your Home By MATT CANTOR

Friday March 10, 2006

Once again, cheapness costs lives. This time it has to do with the skyrocketing cost of copper in the 1960s. If you’re my age, which I’m not going to reveal, you may remember when copper shot way up around 1965. Metal futures were all the rage and wire makers were freaking big time. Nobody wanted to pay twice the price for wire, but buildings had to be built, added onto or rewired. -more-