Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday May 19, 2006

FRIDAY, MAY 19 -more-


Moving Pictures: ‘Afghanistan’s Fatal Flower'

By Justin De Freitas
Friday May 19, 2006

Berkeley filmmakers Cliff Orloff and Olga Shalygin return to the public airwaves this weekend with their latest documentary about Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. -more-


Moving Pictures: Bello Makes ‘The Sisters’ Worth Watching

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday May 19, 2006

The Sisters, opening today (Friday) at Shattuck Cinemas, is an adaptation of a play by Richard Alfieri, which was in turn derived from Anton Chekhov’s play The Three Sisters. Alfieri himself wrote the screenplay, and that fact may be largely responsible for the film’s undoing. -more-


Arts: Fourth Street Swings With Jazz on Sunday

By Ira Steingroot
Friday May 19, 2006

If ticket shock is the only thing stopping you from going to live jazz in clubs and concerts, you will not want to miss hearing the top-rated artists who will be performing al fresco and for free at the Jazz on 4th Street Festival this Sunday. -more-


At the Theater: ‘The Miser’ Comes to the Rep

By Ken Bullock
Friday May 19, 2006

“I’ll spare no-one ... I’ll break with the whole human race.” In the darkness before curtain at the Berkeley Rep, the audience hears these ominous words. The lights go up on the set of a ruined drawing room, the salon of some great old house “before the Revolution” in France, walls stained with neglect and the ceiling drooping down. -more-


Travel Through Time at Black Diamond Mines

By Marta Yamamoto
Friday May 19, 2006

Atop Rose Hill Cemetery, I gaze out at the undulant hillsides and narrow canyon of Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve. I share this peak with two hundred former 19th century residents—coal miners, their wives and children. Little remains as testament to their settlement, but their voices stir the trees. Sojourn at Black Diamond Mines to revisit past glories and relish present verdant splendor. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: Peralta Park Grew in the Shade of Giants

By Daniella Thompson
Friday May 19, 2006

Lying northwest of Hopkins Street between Gilman and Colusa, the Peralta Park tract straddles Berkeley and Albany across Codornices Creek. Built up in the 1920s, the neighborhood presents to the eye a sea of low stucco bungalows among which one can pick out a handful of Victorians. -more-


About the House: On The Mortality of Water Heaters and Furnaces

By Matt Cantor
Friday May 19, 2006

Everything ages and everything dies. It’s sad but it’s certainly true and no less for water heaters than for people, cats and presidential administrations. The funny thing about water heaters and electrical panels is that we don’t tend to think of them as getting old in the same way that we think about Aunt Martha. We see her getting older and increasingly forgetful, despite her being so adorable, even as she searches for her car keys (should she still be driving?) -more-


Garden Variety: Necessary Gardening Gagets: A Felco and a Hori-Hori

By Ron Sullivan
Friday May 19, 2006

Gardening is like fishing in some ways. You can do it for dinner, or just for the halibut; you can do it for purely recreational or aesthetic reasons, or both. It can give you peace and relaxation, or vein-popping frustration. It helps a lot to know the natural history of the place and of your target. You can do it for very little money, or you can go broke buying fascinating tools and gadgets. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday May 19, 2006

FRIDAY, MAY 19 -more-


Arts Calendar

Tuesday May 16, 2006

TUESDAY, MAY 16 -more-


Arts: ‘Fresh Voices’ Series Aims to Make Opera Accessible

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday May 16, 2006

“Our definition of opera is that it has music more interesting and complex than musical theater,” said Harriet March Page, artistic director of Goat Hall Productions, which will be staging Fresh Voices VI with 10 short operas—as well as bookending their NOW Festival of new compositions and a program of art songs—Thursday through Sunday for the next two weeks at Thick House on Potrero Hill in San Francisco. -more-


Bananas in Berkeley? Yes, We Have Some

By Ron Sullivan, Special to the Planet
Tuesday May 16, 2006

Lemons aren’t the only fruit trees growing in Berkeley’s streetside strips. Yes, we have some bananas. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday May 16, 2006

TUESDAY, MAY 16 -more-