Arts & Events
West Coast Premiere for ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’
The Trinity Lyric Opera company will perform the West Coast premiere of The Pilgrim’s Progress this weekend at the Dean Lesher Regional Arts Center in Walnut Creek. -more-
Freight & Salvage Coffee House Celebrates Its 38th Anniversary
The Bottlebrush Tree: Cheerful Aussie Ragamuffin
Bottlebrush trees are one of the bright, amusing notes on our streets, sporting those funny flowers shaped like, yes, bottlebrushes with perky little green-leaf tufts at their ends. They’re tough and not pest-prone, and easy enough to find in nurseries. Their hard little leaves and shreddy bark give them a ragamuffin air to match the spiky inflorescences. The red flowers attract birds—hummingbirds of course, but I’ve seen a stray Cape May warbler, a nectar-seeker in winter, using them too. -more-
Savion Glover, D’Rivera at SF Jazz Festival This Weekend
This weekend as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival, the Herbst Theatre will feature tap dancer extraordinaire Savion Glover on Saturday and Latin saxophone and clarinet virtuoso Paquito D’Rivera on Sunday. -more-
CalShake’s Presents ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’
In any of Shakespeare’s comedies, some of the “low” characters are usually referred to as clowns. In CalShake’s new production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, there’s a different generic term for funnymen and women: puppets. -more-
Film Details the World of Wild Butterflies
It’s a tough world for the seemingly fragile butterfly. -more-
East Bay Then and Now: Maurice Curtis Brought Brief Splendor to Berkeley
In 1881, Irish-born playwright George H. Jessop wrote a minor comedy-drama titled Sam’l of Posen, the Commercial Drummer whose lead character, a shrewd Jewish peddler with a heart of gold, attains bourgeois respectability by means of little wiles interleaved with honesty. -more-
About the House: Global Warming Begins (and Ends) at Home
Although I am generally sympathetic with the varied plights of the home buyer, I have to admit, in all my curmugeonitude that I have no tears to shed for anyone in Berkeley that has to meet the requirement of our RECO ordinance. -more-
Garden Variety: The Jewel Box Dazzle of Broadway Terrace Nursery
Broadway Terrace Nursery is a tad off my regular circuit, and it had been too long since I’d dropped in when I dashed there last Saturday. It was just before closing time—a good time to watch the staff get its collective mettle tested. I was as impressed as I’d been on the regrettably few occasions I’d visited before. -more-
Quake Tip of the Week: Will Your Home Survive?
Area governments say that 150,000 homes in the Bay Area are going to be uninhabitable after the Hayward Fault ruptures, the fault about which USGS seismologist Tom Brocher says, “It’s locked and loaded and ready to fire.” -more-