Arts & Events
Moving Pictures: Existential Despair in Antonioni’s ‘The Passenger’
When I was 5 years old my kindergarten class, for whatever reason, took a field trip to the home of one of my classmates. Too young to have any notion of the local geography, I had no idea where the house was located. It was only when I stepped out the back door of the boy’s house into his backyard that I recognized the yellow playhouse and battered metal slide and realized that this was the house directly behind my own. I peeked through a hole in the fence and saw my own backyard: the lawn, the patio, the rusted swingset, the family dog sniffing about in the tall grass, the soccer ball under a tree where I had left it the day before. -more-
The Theater: ‘Manzi: The Adventures Of Young Cesar Chavez’
Manzi: The Adventures of Young Cesar Chavez will be performed by Active Arts Theare for Young Audiences at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, April 14, and 2 p.m. Sunday, as well as the following weekend, at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. -more-
The Theater: Berkeley Rep Stages ‘Blue Door’
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others ... One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. -more-
Moving Pictures: ‘Black Book’ Beyond Repair
Dutch director Paul Verhoeven made his mark in 1977 with Soldier of Orange, a film about the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. Now, after a 20-year-stint in Hollywood making films such as RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct and Showgirls, Verhoeven has returned to Holland to make another World War II epic, Black Book. But unfortunately the director took home with him every unpalatable and hackneyed trick he’d picked up in his travels. -more-
East Bay Then and Now: Villa della Rocca, a Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Citadel
Facing Albany Hill at the extreme northwestern corner of Berkeley is the Thousand Oaks neighborhood, subdivided in 1909. Noted for its scenic beauty, Thousand Oaks is also the land of a thousand rocks. These silica-rich volcanic rocks, named Northbrae rhyolite by geologist Andrew Lawson, are scattered wherever the eye may fall. Some of the largest may be found in public parks donated to the city by the Mason-McDuffie realty company, but many more are hidden from view in private gardens or under houses. -more-
Garden Variety: On the Road with Roses
It’s a little off the gardening track, but who could resist a title like Flower Confidential? Actually, anything by Amy Stewart would be hard to resist. Her previous book, The Earth Moved, was a quirky introduction to the world of earthworms, touching on the giant worm of the Willamette Valley (three feet long and lily-scented) and Charles Darwin’s late-in-life fascination with worms (his long-suffering wife Emma played the piano for them; they were unresponsive). -more-
About the House: More on the Modern House from 1942
I don’t know about you but my eyes are often bigger than my stomach. It’s a constant problem. Well my column last week suffered for this malady and left so much unaddressed that I just have to devote another page to these worthy issues. -more-
Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARVIN GAYE -more-
Ian Carey Quintet Makes East Bay Debut
When Oakland-based jazz trumpeter Ian Carey was about 14 years old, he experienced something of a revelation. While he was growing up in upstate New York, his family attended church regularly, all singing in the choir. But when they moved back to Folsom, Calif., just east of Sacramento, Carey’s father searched the area in vain for a suitable church with a strong choir. Churches were plenty but choirs were not, and when he couldn’t find one he liked the family’s church-going days were over. -more-
The Theater: Masquers Keep Chain Unbroken With ‘She Loves Me’
A chain of successes transformed a Hungarian play, Parfumerie, into an Ernst Lubitsch film, 1940’s Shop Around the Corner (with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan), then the 1949 Judy Garland vehicle, In the Good Old Summertime, before becoming a 1963 Harold Prince Broadway hit, She Loves Me, and finally You’ve Got Mail on the screen in 1998. -more-
Green Neighbors: Pollen, Cloning and Why We Need Healthy Trees
Why did I spend most of last week sneezing? Why do half the people on the street seem to be sneezing along with me? Is it a peculiarly Berkeley sort of performance art? -more-
CORRECTION
The Daily Planet misidentified the date of a march through Emeryville in support of the Woodfin Hotel Suite workers. The march will take place today (Tuesday), gathering at 5:30 p.m. at Emeryville City Hall, 1330 Park St. and marching to the hotel at 5800 Shellmound St. -more-