Arts & Events

FRIDAY, APRIL 7 -more-

All too often, films about the mentally ill descend into preciousness, romanticizing the drama and pain of madness. But The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a fascinating documentary opening today (Friday) at Shattuck Cinemas, does not fall into this trap. -more-

“This week, she’s a nun—the one who gets captured by the Japanese!” -more-

Mondays At Moe’s features an unusual pairing of poets this coming Monday at 7 p.m. when Michael Palmer and Douglas Blazek split the bill at the popular reading series on Telegraph Avenue, programmed by Owen Hill. -more-

Nature as science or nature as art? There’s no need to choose. Left and right sides of the brain combine their efforts heralding California’s native landscapes and wildlife at the Oakland Museum. The Natural Sciences shine in the comprehensive Permanent Gallery, unique art exhibits and the museum’s multi-tiered outdoor gardens. -more-

Seth Paris Babson (1826–1907) was one of the most eminent Victorian architects on the Pacific coast. A native of Maine, he set sail for San Francisco a year after the discovery of gold in California. Having rounded Cape Horn, Babson arrived in the spring of 1850. -more-

Buying houses is an expensive proposition as anyone who has ever done it can tell you and it doesn’t stop when you pay the closing costs and put your boat in the backyard (you really have a boat?) -more-

Flowerland Nursery is the corner store of local plant shops. Evidently it’s been there for generations: the friendly worker there told me that that the current owner, Bob Wilson, has had it for some 30 years and the previous owners had run it “for, oh, 30 to 40 years” before him. -more-

FRIDAY, APRIL 7 -more-

TUESDAY, APRIL 4 -more-

The Ballad Singer strikes up with the one about Mack The Knife—“Mackie Messer,” more properly—and the upside-down underworld odyssey of Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera begins. -more-

“How much do I love my child?” The question is repeated over and over like a mantra in Eric Coble’s Bright Ideas, a comedy that “combines Macbeth, pesto and murder,” now running in Shotgun Players’ production at the Ashby Stage. -more-

There sure are some funny-looking trees in this town. Some of them are the results of whimsical pruning—there’s a big cedar in my general neighborhood, a traffic accident in waiting because I can’t be the only person who reflexively eases up on the gas p edal to stare when passing it. -more-

TUESDAY, APRIL 4 -more-